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The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What on Earth Am I Feeling?

What on Earth Am I Feeling? “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal Disconnecting the autopilot is the practise of noticing when you’re distracted and then actively bringing your attention back to the present.  But there’s a problem. It’s called turbulence. (Namely, your emotions.) This is what happens when a pilot takes the autopilot … Continue reading The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What on Earth Am I Feeling?

couple having sex and using smartphone

The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What on Earth Am I Doing?

The Three Areas of Self-Awareness According to Tasah Eurich – author of Insight: The Surprising Truth about How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think – there are 3 major blindspots to self-awareness. Those are: Behaviour blindness is being oblivious to your own actions. Not noticing when you are getting distracted or why.  Emotional blindness is … Continue reading The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What on Earth Am I Doing?

art travel statue face

The Ladder of Enlightenment

I came across something called the Map of Consciousness in a book I’ve been reading recently – Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins. In it he talks about the different emotional levels we operate on.  He presents them in a way I’ve never seen before – as a kind of ladder that we can climb. Starting with depression at the bottom … Continue reading The Ladder of Enlightenment

boy standing beside seashore waves

The Joy of Running Around Naked

So my kids have started doing this thing. Every evening before bath time – after we take their clothes off before they get into the tub – they run around the apartment like crazed feral wild cats. Screaming and laughing. Pure unadulterated joy. It got me thinking about the clothes we wear, metaphorically speaking. A kid doesn’t question why we walk around with clothes on … Continue reading The Joy of Running Around Naked

a falling woman wearing a sheer dress

Regaining Lift: A Stall Recovery Guide for Life

“Time doesn’t heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart During my adolescence, I was bullied relentlessly for over two years. It was one of the most challenging periods of my life. I was at boarding school at the time. Halfway across the world from my parents. I felt isolated and alone. So, … Continue reading Regaining Lift: A Stall Recovery Guide for Life

air craft during day time

Stalling: Why Letting Go Is the Key to Regaining Lift

“The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and results come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity.”  – Aldous Huxley Drown-Proofing  When it comes to our psychology what’s happened is this. Our hands and arms have been bound together, and we’ve been thrown … Continue reading Stalling: Why Letting Go Is the Key to Regaining Lift

silhouette photo of man throw paper plane

Stalling: The Aerodynamics of Life

The Four Forces of Flight There’s an analogy I want to imprint on your mind today. It’s one I intend to come back to repeatedly as I go about writing my high-flying book. It concerns something known in aviation as the four forces of flight. To give you a quick lesson in aerodynamics, those are thrust, lift, weight and drag. Thrust counteracts drag, whereas lift … Continue reading Stalling: The Aerodynamics of Life

Why It’s Not Such A Bad Thing To Be “Powerless”

Please note this is a partnered post and may contain affiliate links. Pixabay – CC0 Licence In a world where big things seem to happen more or less everyday, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. We’ve all grown up with messages around us telling us that we can do anything, we can change the world and that we are the future. Then we see the inequality, … Continue reading Why It’s Not Such A Bad Thing To Be “Powerless”

light sun cloud japan

Stuck in the Clouds: An Aviator’s Guide to Pointless Overthinking

I have a love-hate relationship with thinking. Sometimes, I get in these kinds of flow states where I follow my train of thought – connecting the dots along the way. When I follow my thoughts in this way, I find it euphoric. I often derive my best writing doing so.   This is all well and good when my thought train takes me on a pleasant … Continue reading Stuck in the Clouds: An Aviator’s Guide to Pointless Overthinking

The Perils of Perfectionism and the Joy of Being Ordinary

Scrolling down our various social media profiles may give us the impression that everyone that we know is having the time of their lives 24/7. Glowing smiles of newly formed relationships, exotic foods, sculpted flawless bodies all exemplify the perfection that they have achieved. One puts down their phone and is immediately filled with a sense of unease, envy and a punctured self-esteem. All this … Continue reading The Perils of Perfectionism and the Joy of Being Ordinary

Escaping the Emotional Rabbit Hole

The Parable of the Second Arrow According to the Buddha, any time we suffer misfortune, two arrows fly our way. The first arrow is the bad event itself, which certainly can (and often does) cause pain. The second arrow is our reaction to the bad event, the suffering we attach to our pain. This secondary pain, he tells us, is always self-inflicted.  What you might not have been told, however, … Continue reading Escaping the Emotional Rabbit Hole

Finding Life Balance Using the Four Forces of Flight

Do you feel like the weight of responsibility is keeping you grounded? Or the sheer drag of life is forcing on the brakes?  Do you find it hard to muster the requisite lift and thrust to overcome these forces in life? Of course, we’ve all been there. We’ve all had those days where everything has felt like one big drag, where the simple act of … Continue reading Finding Life Balance Using the Four Forces of Flight

Why You Shouldn’t Hope for the Best

“Misfortune weighs most heavily on those who expect nothing but good fortune.” – Seneca Have you ever noticed how we’re taught that our wants and desires have everything to do with our suffering, yet we’re also taught to “live in hope”? Have you ever stopped to consider how these messages might muddy the waters? You see it all over the blogosphere, of course. “Don’t give … Continue reading Why You Shouldn’t Hope for the Best