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Dr Thomas Szasz
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/medicine-obituaries/9551378/Dr-Thomas-Szasz.html
What a sad loss for humanity and common sense. One less voice speaking out against the tide.
The road goes ever on and on…: SOPA is back, but in disguise. Please sign.
The road goes ever on and on…: SOPA is back, but in disguise. Please sign.
at-the-sign-of-the-prancing-pony:
Details are leaking of a top-secret, global corporate power grab of breathtaking scope — attacking everything from a free Internet to health and environmental regulations, and we have just 4 days to stop it.
Big business has a new plan to fatten their pockets: a giant global pact, with an…
let it go -switch off
If you were observing the behaviour of someone in their home, and they went to their front door six times an hour – all through the day – to check if there was any mail on the mat, I think you’d be forgiven for doubting their state of mind. This would be pretty extreme behaviour, although just about excusable if you were awaiting important exam results, say. Not every day, though.
However, substitute email in-box for front door mat, and I bet many of us could be guilty of acting somewhat obsessively when it comes to checking whether anyone has contacted us.
Technology can be (note: CAN be) a wonderful thing, but it may also consume us, turning what should be well-deserved downtime into a life where we feel a need to be on call 24 hours a day, not going anywhere without a cellphone, feeling a need to log-in to email multiple times a day, and frittering away time with Facebook and Twitter.
These channels of communication all have their place, of course. I’m no Luddite, and overall I’m certain we’re better connected than unconnected.
I just think, though, that there’s much to be said for occasionally switching off. Until I made some adjustments to my iPad, for example, it was waking me up in the night with a ‘plink’ when someone else had commented on a Facebook entry to which I’d added something earlier. I mean, how ridiculous. I’d admired someone’s hat, then was actually woken up when others also thought their headgear snazzy. Sheesh.
You owe it to yourself to make opportunities to be calm during the course of the day – to relax and rest – but this is unlikely to happen when you’re on tenterhooks waiting for one gadget or another to bleep its way into your consciousness. So if you get a chance, turn it all off for a while. You may just like it. Remember: thirty years ago, that’s how everyone lived.
youthmentalhealthandwellbeing:
It’s okay to ask someone for help.
https://adamournian.com/2012/09/youthmentalhealthandwellbeing-its-okay-to-ask/
The hidden self?
Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo was going about his business creating some of art’s most enduring images: extraordinary icons, such as his statue of David, on display in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and as a full-sized plaster-cast replica in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (the latter complete with a nearby half-metre-high (ooh-er) plaster fig-leaf, used to cover up David’s nether regions when official visitors of a blushing and nervous disposition came to call).
When asked how he went about producing sculptures such as his David, Michelangelo suggested, of course, that he didn’t find it that difficult:
‘In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.’
In his mind, he wasn’t creating something new, just simply releasing what he believed already existed there inside the stone.
Maybe this is a helpful metaphor when it comes to viewing who we are now, and who we’d like to be? While some may approach this with the view that we could be literally anything we choose, perhaps it’s more helpful to be comfortable with the thought that our ideal form is already there, and simply waits to be revealed?
Be comfortable with who you are, fig leaf or not.
How to teach & How we learn
I went to a 2 day yoga workshop at the weekend. It was hard work and I was stretched in a lot of what seemed like impossible directions.
One part I remember particularly was while one teacher demonstrated an aspect of triangle pose and we attempted to copy, the other teacher moved around the class making minor adjustments.
As she approached me I tensed; I wanted to be helped and yet dreaded it at the same time. When she reached and touched me, I resisted. Then when she’d minutely moved my shoulder and a wrist and moved on I wanted to burst into tears.
It’s taken me three days to fully understand what happened. My bodily reaction and memory of teaching was of the stern, critical, you-must-take-this-in sort. The nearest thing I came to experiential learning as a child, was helplessly running around a hockey pitch trying to understand the rules and the shouted instructions.
During the weekend I recounted the story a PE teacher who promised us lesser mortals a big box of chocolates if we could walk on our hands like he could. He wasn’t really a teacher I now realise, he was just a show-off. Not once did he actually show us how to achieve what he did – obviously we would then be as good as him and that wouldn’t help his inflated ego at all.
As always it is a shock to realise how deep and fundamental these early experiences are and how they shape the rest of our lives. As always I am grateful that now I know.
The bedroom blues
‘sexual problems are rarely genuinely sexual. “If you get the emotional stuff right our bodies remember how to make love," ’
read the rest of this article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/sep/08/sex-problems-marriage
good mental health
Being aware of how much (or how little) exercise you get makes a lot of sense, particularly as your overall mental wellbeing is pretty sure to be influenced by your overall physical health.
So how about finding some ways to fit in a little more walking than normal today, if you can?
Perhaps you can walk to get somewhere, rather than going by car or public transport.
Or you could walk for part of your journey, by getting off the bus a stop earlier than normal.
Walking with a friend is good, too. Some of the best conversations happen when you’re striding side-by-side.
If there’s no friend available for a pedestrian expedition, maybe you could take a dog? A friend or neighbour could be only too pleased for you to help exercise their pet.
Alternatively, just walk for walking’s sake. Head round the block, further if you can. Breathe deeply and clear your mind.
I know you can’t always completely walk away your worries, but it never hurts to try.
A way to keep track of your moods on a daily basis is being tested at: