Life Via a Line

Love is an incredibly strange and beautiful thing. From a young age, I believed I knew how to love. I mean, I told my teddy bear that I loved him because he kept me safe at night. At Primary school, it dawned on me, that I seemed to only love the people and things that would give me something in return and that would allow life to go on the way that  I  wanted it to. I never truly felt love, a love that was unconditional and all encompassing until I was an adult. There is never a day or two that goes by where I do not tell those close to me that “I love you” at some point during the day.   Unconditional love does not come easy and it is something learned and practiced.  I know that it is through the toughest times, the happiest times and every single obstacle of my life that I have discovered new ways of loving. My parents, my grandparents and my wife have taught me that to love unconditionally is to love with absolutely no bounda...

For me, the expression “you are your own worst enemy” holds a lot of truth. It’s a painful reality that much of what limits me in my life is my own feelings of unworthiness and self-hatred. “I hate myself” is a fairly common thought. Where do these feelings come from? How do they influence me? How can I push past them to live a life free of the harsh attitudes of my inner critic? I see myself as different, not in some positive or special way, but in a negative sense.  I believe people who seem well-adjusted and well-liked in their social circles also like me,  have deep-seated feelings of being an outcast. I have a “real self,” the part of me that is self-accepting, goal-directed and life-affirming as well as an “anti-self,” a side of me that is self-hating, self-denying, paranoid and suspicious. The anti-self is expressed as my critical inner voice.  My critical inner voice is like my internal coach negatively commentating on my life, influencing how I...

Listening.  Listening is a very powerful tool and a skill that unfortunately is not very well utilized in today's society.  I have recently listening to a TED talk by Julian Treasure discussing 5 ways to listen better.   Listening is a skill that is actually highly valued in the workplace.  It's classed as a soft skill.  Listening within a work context is the process by which you can gain understanding of the needs, demands and preferences through interaction. All of us need to learn to listen.  Being better at listening helps improve every aspect of our lives including productivity as well as being able to persuade, influence and negotiate.  How well we listen has a major impact on various aspects of life especially job effectiveness and has a major impact on the quality of relationships with other people.   We listen to obtain Information We listen to Understand We listen for enjoyment  We listen to learn...

Why are we here? What is my purpose? What am I here on earth to achieve? So many questions but I do not have the answers.  The questions burn deep inside of me.  The majority of my life’s journey so far has been about helping others.  As I have grown to know myself, I have discovered that I have a heart that wants the best for myself and for others. It hasn't always been easy for me. I have spent a great deal of my life questioning why I am here and what my life is all about. I had been through loss and I unfortunately am in a lot of pain.  Enough is enough and I know I need to be different.  Little did I know that being different meant discovering myself and not simply changing my circumstances. At school both primary and secondary, I was always helpful, but it was more about seeking validation back then and not for the difference I could make to any of my peers.   Towards the end of secondary school, I started to learn who I ...

My wife and I got our first dog together when we lived in Spain, Jasper was a fantastic character and very loving, he lived to the ripe old age of 11 when he lost his battle with diabetes after being blind for 10mths, we made the most difficult decision that ever needs to be made by a dog owner and knew we had to say goodbye at that point.  The decision to let Jasper go wasn’t easy but it was uncomplicated as we knew he was suffering now and no matter what we tried we just could not stabilise his blood sugar and we felt a sense of clarity throughout the process of saying goodbye to him.   We got Maca, our chocolate Labrador when Jasper was 6.  Maca loved swimming, loved eating and just loved life.  Unfortunately after Jasper passed away Maca was never the same as she had grown up with him.  We lost Maca very unexpectedly when she was 6yrs old with some complications before a hip operation.  This broke me into a...

Given the chance, I would much rather bear pain on my own, mainly because it is incredibly difficult for me to be vulnerable and ask for help.  I even struggle to share how I feel with my wife and my family.   I am like this because of my upbringing, self-sufficiency was valued with the nuns.  Knowing that I have often praised individuals who have done extraordinary things and I have seen it as a sign of strength that they accomplished all of it on their own. Long chats with my team at Kings and even a top neuropsychologist who just so happened to retire after seeing me... means that I can understand that I am not an island and I am connected to my wife and even my little Lindo, how I am even affects her and I also have a connection to my family especially my sister and what I go through even though I spare them the details, does affect them eventually.  I have someone external that I can talk too, he is my twin, I can be brutally honest and ope...

It is not possible to grasp the infinite from a position that is finite.  This seems like a very good place to start. Dual thinking is the idea that something is either/or, that it's either good or bad, right or wrong.  The concept of up and down seems to make sense from a gravitational perspective, but if, for example, you happened to be in outer space, it makes no sense at all as there is no up or down. Every polar opposites is laced with judgement and the need for resolution.  I make judgements or assumptions everyday.   Dual thinking has become integrated in how I process things, and it is rooted in fear, fear of what I don’t know, fear of what I don’t understand, and fear of what I cannot control.  Being right seems to temporarily quieten the screaming monkeys.   For me to be right, someone is wrong.  When I think in black and white, I miss out on all the different shades in-between.  Sometimes, I hav...