There is a growing belief among complementary therapists that our emotional state can often hold the key to the pains or illnesses we suffer from, and this is a topic I’m going to explore in this blog post.

photo credit: Lotus Carroll

Ailments and emotions
I’ve been writing about spirituality and alternative therapies for several years now, and I’ve discussed the links between physical ailments and emotions with many different practitioners.

The general thinking is that when a person experiences an emotionally traumatic event – for example a bereavement or a relationship break-up – this can bring about a blocking of the body’s normally free-flowing energy or “chi”. If this block is allowed to continue, the body becomes unbalanced, which can lead to pain and illness. By analysing and tackling the emotional cause of the energy block, the resulting ailment can often be eased.

Out of balance
Reiki practitioner Julie Mills uses a mixture of energy healing and conventional counselling when working with her clients. She told me: “Often if a person is in a state of emotional stress then this can lead to tension in the body and the muscles, which in turn leads to aches and pains and even illness, rendering the body unbalanced. I find that it can really help to address the underlying emotional situation in order to tackle the source of pain.”

photo credit: eduardo.meza

Holistic healing
Journey therapist Carolyn Brown shares this way of thinking and also uses a mixture of conventional and complementary therapies. Originally she trained as a physiotherapist but became frustrated by the fact that she was unable to fully heal her clients. She looked towards a more holistic way of thinking, and came across the practice of Journey Therapy.

“Through the Journey method I help my clients to find the emotional source of their pain,” she says. “I then use a process of guided visualisation to help them work through the issue and come to a form of resolution. I have had excellent results and found the Journey work to have helped where the physiotherapy couldn’t.”

Personal experience
Spiritual healer Emily Mayfield knows from personal experience how a person’s emotional state can affect their health. When she first started working as a healer she found herself feeling permanently exhausted and run down.

After talking to other alternative practitioners she came to the conclusion that she had taken on board her clients’ emotional problems and that the distress this caused her had led to her falling ill.

“I realised I had to distance myself from their problems and to heal myself before I could carry on healing others,” she says.

Holistic therapies
Here are some holistic therapies which tackle the emotional causes of pain and illness, and which you may find of interest.

Dru Yoga
The philosophy behind Dru Yoga is that there are five layers or “koshas” of our being. These begin with the physical body, followed by the “prana” or energy levels. Next is the emotional layer, followed by the intellectual layer and finally the blissful layer or soul force. Through practising certain postures, hand movements and breathing exercises, the individual learns how to target each layer directly to allow a healing transformation to take place.

When practising Dru Yoga, participants are often said to find that traumas and emotionally distressing thoughts come up to the surface, but are gently and slowly released through the physical body.

photo credit: Nicholas_T

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Described as an emotional form of acupuncture, EFT involves stimulating various energy meridian points on the body by tapping on them with the fingertips. During a session the practitioner will get the client to tune in to the problem they want to address, then tap the 11 acupressure points along with a series of affirmations.

The belief behind EFT is that unresolved negative emotions contribute to most of our physical ailments and that EFT can help to clear away this “emotional debris”.

Zero Balancing
This hands-on therapy is said to be particularly helpful in treating stress and the illnesses caused or exacerbated by it. Practitioners claim it encourages a feeling of quietness and centeredness within the body and mind, helping a person to cope better with changes as well as helping to resolve past trauma.

Zero balancers believe that physical damage can lead to blockages in the body’s energy flow, resulting in emotional trauma, and likewise that emotional shocks can result in physical symptoms. Therefore practitioners aim to bring about harmony between the physical body and its energy flow.

What do you think about the links between our emotions and our physical ailments? Do get in touch as I’d love to hear your views!

About the author: Liz Parry is a writer specialising in holistic health and wellbeing, personal development and spirituality.

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NLP is a personal development system based on an understanding of how the mind works – how people use thoughts, feelings, words and actions – and using this understanding to enhance our potential. Life’s everyday challenges can often produce stress, anxiety or anger if we are unable to find the right strategies to deal with them, so this is where NLP can come in handy.

photo credit: aithom2

Here are some things NLP can help with:

• Releasing negative emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt.
• Helping people who feel stuck in their careers or relationships, or those who are looking to change direction in their life.
• Boosting confidence and self belief in all areas of life.
• Demonstrating how to focus on what you want and feeling good, rather than on what you don’t want and feeling bad.
• Providing effective listening and communication skills to improve relationships with colleagues, family, partners, and most of all yourself.

Here are some techniques you might want to try out yourself:

The ‘swish’ technique
This technique is used to replace any negative thoughts surrounding a past experience with positive ones. For example, you might have been asked to give a presentation at work and it went badly, so now you’re dreading the next time you have to give one. Here’s how to dissolve those fears.

Begin by closing your eyes and imagining yourself in that uncomfortable situation, giving the presentation. Make the picture as vivid and realistic as possible. Visualise the audience and see yourself standing there, looking uncomfortable. We are going to call this your ‘anxious moment’.

Next, visualise yourself having successfully given the presentation. Like before, visualise everything in vivid detail. See the audience looking impressed and visualise yourself looking relaxed and confident. Allow yourself to feel those positive, happy, confident feelings. This is your ‘successful moment’. Then, turn the image to black and white, and shrink it until it’s just a tiny dot.

Next, fill your mind with your ‘anxious moment’ again. Make sure it fills the whole of your vision – then, imagine in the bottom left hand corner, a tiny black and white image of your ‘successful moment’. When you’ve got this firmly in your mind, say “SWISH” and switch the two images, so that the successful moment is filling your mind’s eye in full colour and your anxious moment is a small black and white image in the bottom left corner.

It might sound tricky, but keep practising this technique several times each day. Do it until it becomes second nature and you can easily switch the ‘anxious’ moment to the ‘successful’ one.

photo credit: eljoja

Anchoring
A technique known as ‘collapsing anchors’ can also help change negative feelings into more powerful, positive thoughts. Here’s how to do it:

Let’s say that the situation which is causing you negative feelings, and which you want to turn around in your mind, is an upcoming driving test. Start off by bringing to mind a situation in which you felt positive, happy and confident. For example you might think of your wedding day or a social occasion where you felt really good.

Relive that moment in your mind and, as you experience it, apply a stimulus, known as an ‘anchor’. One suggestion is to press your index finger down on the first knuckle of your hand. Do this several times until simply touching the knuckle creates the positive state.

Then, in your imagination bring to mind an image that triggers negative thoughts for you (for example the upcoming driving test) and anchor this once by pressing down on the next knuckle of the same hand. Then, with your index finger and middle finger, press both these anchors at the same time and feel the negative anchor dissolving into the positive.

Release the negative anchor knuckle and hold the positive anchor for a further five seconds. As a test ask yourself how you feel about your driving test now?

photo credit: pedrosimoes7

Setting intentions
For this technique, let’s say that your mother-in-law is coming over to visit and you’re absolutely dreading it as you don’t tend to get on that well. By setting in place some positive intentions you should be able to reverse your negative view of the situation into a more positive one. For example:

• Say to yourself that you are responsible for how you feel. You choose how you feel in response to your mother-in-law – you are in control of your thoughts so choose to feel confident and adequate rather than angry and insecure, for example.
• Before the visit, decide that you will notice at least one thing that you admire or are grateful about your mother-in-law by the time she leaves your house.
• Decide that you will take note of at least one positive thing that you have never before noticed in your mother-in-law.
• Then before she arrives, visualise the successful outcome of the visit. Think about what that means to you. For example everyone feeling happy, having had a good weekend, and you feeling closer to your mother-in-law.

photo credit: JoelMontes

The detached observer
This great thing about this technique is that it helps you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and gain a new perspective on a previously negative situation. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve had an argument with your partner because he or she hasn’t done the housework and you feel that they’re not pulling their weight around the home.

Instead of nagging or starting an argument, instead try writing down how you view the situation and list all your feelings surrounding it. Then go away and do something else for an hour or so to clear your mind of your thoughts.

Next, put yourself in your partner’s shoes and imagine how they might see the situation – write down all their possible thoughts and feelings. For example, they might work long hours and want to do their share around the home, but want the time to relax first.

Again, go away and do something different for a while to clear your mind. Lastly, read through both accounts as an objective observer and try to come up with some ways to resolve the situation for both sides. Try to be as objective as possible.

There are many NLP techniques around, but these are some of my favourites and ones that I use myself. I hope you find them useful too!

About the author: Liz Parry is a writer specialising in holistic health and wellbeing, personal development and spirituality.

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photo credit: Paco CT

“All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

It’s the 1940s and our man, now just a small boy, is growing up in a middle class family with a bunch of brothers and sisters. Mom stays at home while dad goes to work. He brings home a very good income. Our man, still a small boy, is smart, athletic and showing a lot of potential. Everything is going swimmingly. As he grows up he plays sports, studies hard and looks after his siblings. Around age 14 his mother gets sick. A year later she is dead. Everything begins to fall to pieces.

A new mother
Within the year his father had remarried and this woman brings along two children of her own. She hated our man (now 15) and his brothers and sisters. She wants their father all to themselves. She does whatever she can to make their lives miserable; manipulated them against each other and against their dad. The father is too busy to notice that anything was wrong, he is absorbed in his own misery, too focused on diluting the grief with work. The things she did to our man would, these days, be classified as physical and emotional abuse.

At age 16 our man sits his final school exams having been skipped ahead a year due to his exceptional mind. He heads home happy in the knowledge that he will get a place at University in any course that he wants. He has done well. He can’t wait to see how proud his father will be. His wished his mother was there to see. As he walks up the darkened street towards home, bathed in moon and street light, he can see two box-like figures on his porch. What are they? As he gets closer he realizes they are suitcases. On top of the first one is a note from his step mother, “I have packed your things. Time to move out. Don’t bother coming inside“.

Un-Coping
This stage of his life is called un-coping. In reality, it probably extends well beyond the initial grief and lasts until the day he dies. He never really gets over the loss of his mother. He wasn’t taught how. There were no goodbyes, no post-death counseling sessions and very little support from his father. It was the 1950s and 60s and no-one talked about emotions, feelings or how to deal with a loss. You just got on with it.

So that’s what he did. He got on with it. He got on with drinking alcohol and gambling. He got on with meeting lots of women. But none of them dulled the pain forever and none of the girls replaced his mother. They didn’t even come close. Our man, now in his twenties, fell into line and joined the family business despite having dreams and aspirations and the ability to do other things. He did what his father told him to do, even when it wasn’t in his best interests. He never really learned how to be his own man. He was still un-coping with his tumultuous childhood. Perhaps by joining the family business he would win the attention of his dad.

Replicating the disaster
This stage of his life is called replicating the disaster. We might call it “having a family”. Having met a beautiful woman he decides to propose as soon as he can. She accepts the proposal, seduced and infatuated with his charm, wit and tendency towards popularity and success. Completely unaware that his drinking and gambling were becoming an issue, they have two children, one after the other and settle down in the suburbs.

Barely a week goes by where our man doesn’t fight with his wife. Occasionally they fight in front of the children. If they manage to conceal the arguments, the kids would notice the upset mother and the absence of the father. He was at the pub putting money into machines or on horses. Everyone knows it. Soon work colleagues and family friends know it. Our man has developed a reputation around town as a drunk, a gambler and a womanizer. His wife is, of course, the last to find out.

Quite unconsciously our man pushes his loved ones away. He would ignore them when he had free time and make himself busy when he could. His arrival home from work would be characterized by the shutting of doors, children heading to their rooms to bury themselves in books and video games, finding any way to escape his foul breath and poisonous attitudes towards immigrants on the news, stories of his work mates and clients and, above all, women. At an early age his children learned that he was no role model. It was a lesson they never un-learned.

Alone again
This stage of his life is called alone again. If we are really honest, however, we might call it “still alone” because it was not like he ever really connected. But, the wife and family get tired of the gambling and the drinking and they pack up and leave. Our man, now in his 50s, moves back in with his father as the gambling had made renting a place too financially difficult, despite a $100k a year income.

Occasionally his kids stop by to see him, mostly to assuage their own guilt. These visits got less frequent however as the constant complaining and blaming of others grows too suffocating. Our man has, for all of his life, blamed others for his faults. Every weekend at the races was the fault of an inattentive wife. Every night at the pub was the fault of a slow-to-pay client. Every mistake was that of someone else.

How does it end?
And though our story ends, our man lives on. Alone. He has girlfriends, quite a few, actually. But they don’t stick around. Today’s women are too intelligent and independent for that. His children still visit him, three or four times a year. Normally they see a movie so they don’t have to talk to him. The darkness of the cinema works well for our man too, he doesn’t have to look at how grown up his children are, how much he has missed out on.

I can’t help but wonder how it will end. Will our man ever beat his demons? Is he ever going to be able to look in the mirror and recognize his faults? How long can a person hold a grudge against their mother and father? How long can he blame them? Most of all I wonder how our man can continue to engage in the very activities and habits that have caused him ruin. A life of great potential, blamed away, day by day.

That is my story, about a man.

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The Ethical Dilemma discussions that we have here at The Daily Mind are fast becoming my favorite time of the month. I love sitting back and watching your educated but passionate comments roll in. Sometimes I get a laugh out of them, sometimes I walk away really quite upset. But I always learn something.

Today I want to look at two topics that have always been interesting to me; forgiveness and loyalty. I want you to read the situation (as always) and leave the most honest comment you can. Now, when I say honest I mean as “real” as possible. Try not to answer with what you would theoretically hope you’d do, but rather what you actually think you would do. Here it is:

You and your father are out for dinner one summer evening. Part way through the meal he excuses himself and goes to the bathroom. He is gone for a long time. A very long time. After a while you get worried and head to the bathroom to investigate. The door is locked. You knock and call out to him and he opens it and pulls you in whilst making sure no one is looking. There is a man lying dead on the floor. You ask what happened and you father explains that he killed the man after he had tried to steal his wallet. He orders you not to tell anyone. The two of you walk out and leave the restaurant.

What do you do? Do you call the police? Do you forgive your father and move on? What would you do in this situation? I am particularly interested in how your loyalties pan out and whether that affects your ability to forgive/dob him in. Does it make a difference that he is your father?

NOTE – All of these situations are hypothetical. My father has never killed anyone to my knowledge.

Leave a comment.

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“A clear understanding of negative emotions dismisses them.” – Vernon Howard

Stress, depression, panic attacks and anxiety. The modern world is overflowing with emotional problems of all different kinds. And chances are you or someone you know has suffered from some form of emotionally unhealthy state. So how can we avoid these problems? Are there things we can do to prevent them coming about?

In this post I am going to present the lifetime guide to staying emotionally healthy. I hope it helps someone out there.

What is emotional health?

Before I present any ideas about emotional health I need to define it. Without a solid idea we really won’t know what were talking about and we will get lost.

Emotional health is not a single state of mind like “pleasure” or “joy” but an ongoing process. Emotional health is a conversation, a journey and above all it is work. It will change and you will go up and down. Even the most emotionally healthy person will have bad days. But those bad days are all part of the process, and they’re aware of it.

Emotional health is all about gathering new tools and methods to constantly better your mind. It is flux.

To be emotionally healthy you need to spend a lot of time being open and learning. As soon as you close your mind to new ideas or information you cut yourself off from the possibility of being healthy. This post could perhaps serve as a starting point. It is by no means the end point. Read, research, study and practice. And never give up, because emotional health is an ongoing process.

Why is emotional health so important?

photo credit: RSNY

I have always found it extremely interesting that today’s society will place a massive emphasis on physical well being but almost nothing is done about the mental state. Unless you are suffering from serious depression or some other mental illness, you don’t hear anything about “working on your mind” or “developing emotional health”. And this is quite troubling.

Imagine how happy we could be if we spent as much time working with our emotions as we did running on the treadmill or cooking a healthy dinner. Imagine how different the world would be if there was less anger and more compassion. I think it would be a very different place.

What I am going to show you in this post, however, is that you don’t need to necessarily sit on a cushion or take separate time out to become emotionally healthy. In fact, going to the gym and cooking a nice meal is a big part of emotional health. Stick around and see if you learn something new and, as always, leave a comment if I have forgotten anything.

The lifetime guide to staying emotionally healthy

photo credit: fairlybuoyant

Now for the main bulk of the post. Here I am going to present some ideas that you can use work with your emotions in order to become more emotionally healthy. Remember, this is a long term project that you will have to stick at for the rest of your life. You will, however, start to see results right away.

1. Understand you are in control of your emotions
The very first step you need to take on this journey is to realize that you are in control of your emotions. This fact is lost on the modern world; many of us become slaves to anger and depression and stress. But when you turn that around and start to understand that you are the boss of what goes on in your head, you are suddenly left with a very workable situation. Without this understanding, however, no progress can be made.

2. Become familiar with your mind through meditation
Once you have conviction that you are in control of your emotions, you need to become familiar with them through meditation. Now, meditation does not mean sitting on a cushion saying “OOMMM” over and over. Sure it can be that, but it is not only that. The way to meditate is to constantly bring your attention to your thoughts and just let your mind relax in that.

The Tibetan word for meditation is “gom” which means “to familiarize”. This gives us a great insight into what meditation is supposed to be. It is not about relaxing so much as it is about familiarizing ourselves with positive states of mind. Compassion, love, patience, silence. And the very interesting thing about meditation is that these states of mind arise naturally when you just start to look at your mind.

How does this work? Simple. According to Buddhism the nature of every being is compassionate. We are not inherently evil and we are not naturally sinners. Naturally we are compassionate but we have lost connection with that innate part of our being. But looking at the mind re-connects us with that state because we all of a sudden get in control of our minds. And when we get in control of our minds the first thing we feel is sadness for all those people out there who are still struggling. It is an intensely powerful moment in your life.

If you want to learn more about meditation you can check back on some of my other articles:

• Loneliness vs aloneness: lessons from a solitary mountain retreat
• A look into the psychology of meditation

One of the best things you can do for yourself if you want to become happy and proficient in controlling your mind is learn from someone who has already done it. There are so many wonderful meditation teachers in our world, I encourage you to connect with one. And that leads us to our next point.

3. Connect with good people and avoid bad company
A few weeks ago I wrote an article about avoiding bad company which ruffled up some feathers. A got a few emails that day saying that I was a disloyal friend and that you should stick by your mates even if they are bad for you. Okay, fine. I agree. You should stick by your bad mates if you are able to do so without them being a negative influence on you. But when you see yourself in a downward spiral it is time to leave them alone.

Surrounding yourself with good company is one of the most important life lessons a person can learn. Once a dear friend of mine told me that you will become the average of your five closest friends so make sure you choose wisely. I did. I chose people who were happy, successful and who worked for the betterment of others. I very rarely spend time with people who are selfish, hateful and bigoted. The Buddha once said:

“Put a rose in a sack of fish and soon the rose starts to stink too.”

Now there is no problem visiting people with the motivation of helping them or cheering them up. That is a wonderful thing to do. But if you are best friends with a drug addict racist who starts to rub off on you then you are in for problems. If you want to be emotionally healthy you need to surround yourself with people who are living a life you wish to emulate. Let them rub off on you.

4. Practice ethical behavior to avoid depression, anxiety and fear
Once you have become familiar with your mind and have made a commitment to stay emotionally healthy it is important to live an ethical life. Without a solid basis of ethical behavior there is no chance for long term happiness. So why are ethics so important? Let’s take a look.

photo credit: Daniel Greene

The first thing you will notice about an unethical or mean person is that they have very few true friends. They may have followers or people around them who latch on out of fear, but they have no trusted confidants. And that is a very lonely place to be. In fact, it is a situation that will eventually drive you crazy.

It is also important to realize that negative acts come back to you. If you spend your life stealing or cheating on your girlfriends the chances are your reputation will come back to haunt you. And I am not just talking about other people being mad at you. Soon you will begin to feel guilty. Imagine living your whole life hurting others and to be in the last stages of your life and feel intense regret. It would be an emotion so crippling that you would struggle to cope. Life your life without regrets.

5. Read the masters and scholars of the past
Will Smith is a Hollywood star that many people admire for his staunch opposition to gangster rap that denigrates women and encourages violence and his lifetime pursuit of being a “nice guy”. A few years ago I saw a video of Will Smith speaking to thousands of kids at a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards ceremony. What he said really knocked my socks off.

The human race has an amazing history full of struggles and hardships. But out of those hardships have come some amazing thinkers. There have been men and women who, instead of picking up a sword or gun, have sat thinking. Their messages have been passed down the generations long after the wars were over. And now we are left with a gold mine of knowledge and wisdom. These people left a legacy that we should feel honored to be a part of and study. Like Will said, there are no new problems. If you want to be emotionally healthy you need to take a look at what the great adepts of the past have thought and said about being emotionally healthy.

Let me give you a little introduction to a few great minds that have affected my life. A starting point for you.

• Buddha
• Milarepa
• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Descartes
• Kant
• Hume

The Buddha was a revolutionary, possibly the first of his kind. He sat under a tree and developed theories that have served as the basis for most philosophical thinking. Start with the Buddha’s teachings and work your way forward through history. Study the European philosophers and the masters of meditation from India, China and Japan. Do this and you will be well on your way to emotional health.

6. Avoid man made food, eat naturally
For most of my youth I failed to recognize the link between food and depression. I, like most teenagers, ate a lot of fast food and drank a lot of sugary sodas. And I felt crap, all the time. If you want long term emotional health you need to be very careful about what you put in your body.

To prove this point to yourself I want you to go out and buy the most unhealthy lunch you can. McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC or some other deep fried animal should do the trick. Now watch your mind for the next two hours. Are you more irritable? Are you more depressed and tired? Are you quicker to anger? I bet you are. Now for dinner I want you to have a meal that contains nothing man made. That means no pasta, baked goods or anything produced in a factory. Make something full of colorful vegetables and natural products. Avoid meat if you can. Now watch your mind for the next two hours. How much more energetic, happy and alive do you feel?

The thing about food is that it can change your life. If you eat poorly you are more likely to get cancer, heart disease and diabetes. If you eat well you can live longer, avoid illness and look super sexy. So why do we always opt for the bad choice? Laziness? I’m not sure. Eating well is a big part of being emotionally healthy.

7. Enjoy the middle
Quite often the reason we get unhealthy emotionally is because we do things in excess. Instead of partying once a week we do it four times a week. Instead of eating junk food on the weekends we eat it on the weekdays. Instead of having one coffee per day we have seven. A key to being emotionally healthy is doing things in moderation. Quite often it isn’t that something is inherently bad for us, it is just that we do it too often.

8. Develop strength in your own personal set of values
Emotional health is not just avoid depression and learning to cope with stress. That is just a tiny fraction of what we are talking about. Emotional health is also become a less angry person, considering other human beings in a different way and improving yourself on a variety of levels. One of the ways you can improve your emotional health is to develop a set of values and stick to them.

photo credit: margolove

When I was in high school I remember hearing that “the measure of a man is by how quickly he gets angry“. I found this statement to be extremely inspiring and decided then and there that I was going to avoid anger at all costs. The more I looked into the statement the more I realized how much other people respected calm, strong and un-angry people. This was something I was going to follow through.

Over time life has thrown me many more of these lessons. Compassion, love, patience. All of these ideas I have tried to adopt into my own persona and stick to them no matter what. And it has been an amazing source of strength. Whenever I feel my emotional state slipping I remind myself of who I want to be and whip myself back on track.

Conclusion

Emotional health is all about working with your mind and your body to achieve some sort of personal mastery. It is a long process and along the way you will inevitably stagger, fault and make mistakes. But these mistakes all serve to make you stronger. If you want to stay emotionally healthy for your entire life you need to explore your mind, read philosophy, take care of your body and avoid extremes. If you can do even a few of these you will be far better equipped than the majority of the population.

So how emotionally healthy are you? Do you do most of these things already or do you have work to do? Most important, what have I missed?

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Edward Cullen. The name causes hearts all over the world to skip a beat. Chivalrous, dangerous, protective. His love for Bella, 90-odd years his junior, has captivated the hearts and minds of girls and women everywhere. They leave cinemas green with envy; wishing that that had a love like that.

In this post I want to look at this vampire love and explore some of the thoughts I had about Edward and Bella as I sat there in the New Moon screening. Is this love realistic? Is it harmful to the girls who long for it? Why is it so attractive?

BE INTERACTIVE: Leave a comment after the post and share your views. We have some extremely smart comment leavers here.

Why is Twilight so attractive to girls and women?

Let’s start this post by looking at why Twilight is so incredibly captivating to girls and women around the world. This will serve as a base for discovering whether or not it is a positive thing.

1. Edward is dangerous
Anyone who went to high school will know that some girls love the bad boy. They are attracted to the danger and the thrill of being associated with someone so loose. Edward takes this danger to a whole new level because he wants to eat Bella! Her smell intoxicates him. Add to the mix that a tiny cut on Bella’s finger can turn Edward’s relatives into a pack of blood-thirsty killers and you have yourself a dangerous man.

2. Chivalry is alive
Edward Cullen is extremely old fashioned. Having been turned into a vampire sometime in the early 1900′s he has a set of values that many women today long for. He is romantic and extremely chivalrous. Mix that in with the element of danger and you have a very attractive male figure.

Later in this post I will touch on why I am extremely happy to see this back in popular culture.

3. A mind reading protector
Some women love a protector. The love of being protected is something that, I have read, occurs naturally in many women due to the relationship with the father and the history of having a male go out and hunt for food and fend off dangers in ancient times. Nowadays women are completely independent of course and no longer need the protections of a male. But many of my female friends remarked that the way Edward fights for Bella is one of the most attractive things of all.

Why this vampire style love is a good thing

photo credit: Sparkle in the sun

Before I get into the reasons why Twilight could be harmful to some relationships, I want to start with the positive and talk about why I am extremely happy that many young girls and boys are seeing these movies.
And it goes back to one word – chivalry.

A generation of teenagers valuing respect for women
I’m a male. And I have male friends. And when you go out with males you inevitable get onto the subject of women. Sex. And the conversations that take place are often enough to make your stomach crawl (my stomach anyway). Call me old fashioned, but I really struggle to participate in conversations where women are just games, sexual objects and described in vocabulary that you would never call your mother.

And for all intensive purposes one could say that this view of women is getting worse. Pornography is now more wide spread than ever. I recently read a statistic that the number of women appearing in pornographic material online doubles each year. Doubles. So when you mix the two facts that men are watching more pornography and more women are appearing in pornography you start to create a culture that has little respect for women other than as sexual beings.

But Twilight paints the relationship between boy and girl in a different light. Sure there is sexual tension and sure there is romance, but it is of a very respectful nature. Edward values Bella more than anything else on Earth and because of that value he behaves in very a chivalrous way. And this is a very important thing for young men to see women enjoying.

Why Twilight is NOT helpful for relationships

photo credit: splityarn

Now I would like to get into my usual critical self and talk about why I think the love portrayed in Twilight is potentially harmful.

They cannot live without each other
The most amazing thing about Twilight is also the most concerning. We all love to see how desperate Bella and Edward are for each other. When Edward leaves Bella in New Moon she sits by her window for months on end. She is depressed. She begins to seek out dangerous hobbies in order to feel close to him again. She cannot live without him.

Now let’s be honest, teenagers do not really need any encouragement in this area! We all remember what it was like with our first love. It had to go on forever because we simply could not live without them. The pain and the angst was crippling. And we all got hurt. And while the great love of Edward and Bella has created an incredible love story, it also paints relationships in an unrealistic light.

You can live without your partner. If they leave you it is not the end of the world. Your identity is completely separate from them and you will move on. If you know this then you can sit back and enjoy the eternal romance without any issues. But if you base your idea of a relationship on that of Edward and Bella’s then you are bound to have some problems.

Love does not last forever
Here is the part of the post where I say something that gets me into trouble. Especially if my gorgeous lady reads it. But I do not think it is true to think that love is eternal. I think it is a view that causes more problems than solutions and I think it is based on fear. Here’s why.

I love Mrs. Daily Minder with all my heart. I have loved her since high school and there has never been a day where I have stopped loving her. Captivated by her intelligence, her compassion and her companionship I imagine I will go on loving her til the day I die. But at death there is a separation. And it is a separation I want to be aware of. I do not want to ignore it.

As brutal as it may sound, I think the idea that love goes on forever and that you will meet in the afterlife is something people say to hide the painful truth that one day you need to part. We are not vampires that can live forever in some timeless romance. We are humans with bodies that get sick and die. And at that moment of death the attachment to your loved one will cause you immense suffering – you will struggle to let go.

Why the impermanence of love is a good thing
Understanding that you are going to have to leave your love is a good understanding to have. It is a very positive and workable situation. It is not a cause for depression.

Why?

Because all of a sudden you are pushed into a realistic world where you know that your time with this person is finite. Much like a person who has survived a serious illness, you now look at life and love in a new light and you do everything you can to make the most of the opportunity.

Imagine a marriage where you spend 50 years together knowing that you have to part and making the most of each day together.

What do you think?

Here is the interesting part. What do you think about Twilight? Do you think the ideas about love and chivalry portrayed in the movies are helpful or harmful? Why do you think it has captivated so many young women? Do you think I am wrong about love not lasting forever.

Please leave a comment and let us know.

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The last four ethical dilemmas have been really popular and some amazing discussions and insights have resulted. I really like asking these questions because I learn a lot about my readers as well as the topic we are discussing.

Today’s ethical dilemma stems from some thoughts I have thinking about the absolute nature of ethics. Many people who practice and study ethics seem to think that there is no room for movement when it comes to practicing morality. But I’m not so sure. Read this dilemma, have a think and leave a comment with your thoughts. I will be really interested to hear your ideas.

You are out for a walk one night and you see a man running towards you. He looks terrified, stressed and panicked. He comes up to you with tears in his eyes and says, “I am going to hide right here. I can’t run anymore. I didn’t do anything wrong. Please, promise me you won’t tell them where I am!” So you promise the man, he hides behind a bush and you keep walking.

Ten seconds later four men turn the corner where the panicked man had come from and head towards you. As they get closer you see that they are, indeed, police officers. They walk up to you and ask if you have seen the man they were chasing. What do you do? Do you lie? Why?

I have been thinking about this one a little bit today and I will share my thoughts once all of the regular readers have weighed in. I will be really interested to see what people come up with to justify their actions. Go for it!

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I’m 24 years old. I’m in the North Indian Himalayas. I’m sitting down for a private audience with one of Tibet’s most revered Buddhist teachers. After telling him how attached I am to my mother he looks at me straight in the eyes, smiles and gently says, “Well, you have to grow up now“. No seven words have ever hit me so hard.

This post is dedicated to all you people out there who are struggling with bitter sweet agony of growing up. I hope it gives you something to think about.

John Mayer and the train that can never stop

If you follow me on Twitter you will probably know that I am a fan of John Mayer. John is one of those rare artists that has an innate ability to put certain life situations into words. In fact, before I started listening to Mayer I would have argued that many of these emotions, desperate mental dramas and secret inner quandaries were unable to be described in ordinary language. They are simply too experiential to be categorized.

But John manages to. John reconnects me to those mental places with his lyrics. He does it time and time again. And although I am desperately trying to avoid these emotions (because they hurt), I find myself listening to Mayer again and again because it reminds me I am not unique. These emotions are, for the most part, universal to all humans. I have to thank John for that.

One John Mayer song that is not particularly critically acclaimed or even well liked amongst his fans is called Stop This Train. It is a song that, whenever I hear it, sends me back to that terrifying place of knowing that, really, we are alone growing up in this world. But, at the same time, it connects you with a feeling of hope because you aren’t the only one in that situation.

I ask everyone reading this post to watch an incredible solo performance of John singing this song here while taking a look at the lyrics here. Take five minutes out of your day to experience this song and everything it means to you because it gives this article a lot of context.

Crying, driving away in the dark

photo credit: englishsnow

There comes a point in everyone’s life when they realize there is no turning back. In the song Mayer uses the metaphor of driving away from his parents house, crying, in the dark. We have all had that moment. It might have been when you moved out or when you realized that you could beat your dad at table tennis. For a lot of people it manifests as an extremely empty and hollow realization.

The interesting thing is that some people are more equipped for this moment than others. Some people shut down and start to compensate for this lost youth in negative ways. Others embrace it and look forward to the future. Some people do both. But this moment is pivotal because it is the start of your adulthood. How you deal with this moment has a lot to do with whether you ever really grow up at all – and a lot of people don’t.

How to move forward and grow up

photo credit: afsilva

I am not professing to have all the answers. I still struggle all the time with the idea that I am no longer at home with my mum eating her cooking and asking her for $10 to buy lunch with. I still struggle with the fact that she is going to die one day.

But since my conversation with that Buddhist Lama I have made some headway. I am stepping out on my own more and I am starting to enjoy it. Here are some tips on how to grow up well. Tips on how to drive away in the dark knowing that you are going to make it.

1. Accept it as soon as you can
Something you are going to need to do eventually is accept that there is no going back. You will have to accept this to grow up well. You can put it off or you can stand up tall and do it now. There is never any going back to the old days. The old days are like a dead person and you cannot revive a dead person no matter how much you long for them.

I encourage everyone who is struggling to grow up to accept fact that the past is gone and it is never coming back. Move forward. Its all you have.

2. Give up the memory reliving
If you are a healthy adult who has dealt with the growing up process well then there is nothing wrong with a little nostalgic reminiscing. But if you are buying sports cars, having affairs, trying to relive your youth or struggling with the depression of getting old then these memories can drive you mad. You need to give them up.

One of my worst traits is that I think to much. This inability to quiet my mind was one of the main reasons I was struggling to grow up. I would constantly play out the old days in my head, wishing, praying that I could go back to high school when things were simpler. But after I was gently told to “grow up” by my teacher I decided that it was time to leave these things behind and move on. And I have never been so happy.

The best way you can do this is by starting to become a little better at mediation. You don’t have to sit on a cushion and close your eyes but you do have to start becoming friends with your mind. Learn to watch your thoughts. Learn how they arise and subside without leaving any trace at all. When you do this they cease to control you.

3. Find out the cause
Often the pain associated with growing up can be linked to something else. Why are you feeling like this? Why are you missing the old days? If you can find another cause you might be able to get on top of those feelings.

For example, if you are really stressed because you think your wife is cheating on you then, undoubtedly, you are going to be longing for the old days where life was more simple. In this situation it isn’t the growing up that is causing the problem, it is some ancillary factor. Find out what is bringing these thoughts up and deal with it as soon as possible.

4. Don’t recreate
Trying to recreate the old days by going out with your mates all the time, skirting your responsibilities to your family, etc. is not going to solve the issue. A lot of people (men in particular) deal with the issue by not dealing with it. It is tempting here to grab you by your shirt collar and shake you while yelling, “Grow the F up man!” But of course that wouldn’t help.

We need to have a sense of honor in these situations by accepting the fact that we aren’t dealing with the problem very well. Trying to recreate the good ole days is not useful, nor will it make you feel better. As soon as you get in the cab to go home you will be back to that empty space. Recreating is living in the past and the past is a dead person. Remember?

5. Find good company
You are shaped in a big way by the people around you. If you are surrounded by 30 year old men who still wear their school jackets and go out drinking every night then you are going to go down with them. If, however, you hang out with people who are making progress, living and really trying to better themselves then you too will begin to move forward.

Finding good company is a massive part of growing up. It is a stark and bitter day when you realize that most of your buddies from high school are assholes and that you need new mates. You feel extremely alone. You have to find new people. But you will. And when you do you will be so much better off. Of course not everyone’s buddies from school are assholes. But a lot of the time they will hold you back because, as a group, you can just stay alive in the past.

6. Understand that things change
When the 16th Karmapa was on his death bed his students asked him to sum up his life’s experience and wisdom into one small teaching. After a brief pause he turned to them and simple said, “Things change”.

These two words are the quintessence of growing up. These two simple words summarize everything that you need to know about life. Things change and when you fail to grasp that truth you suffer. Nothing lasts and nothing stays the same. Embrace that chaos and find some peace by letting go.

Conslusion

So you have two options. You can fight to stop the train or you can go with it. As corny and cliche as it sounds, you really have to learn how to cope because there is no going back. Your youth is gone and all you have is now and, if you are lucky, the future. Have you grown up yet?

If you have any advice to give anyone or if you yourself have struggled with growing up please leave a comment and share your experience. It might really help someone.

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The last ethical dilemma was a really good one. We had lots of fantastic responses; some more insightful than others. In the end, only one person picked out that the person might not have even been an Arab. You can check it out here (towards the end of the comments).

Today’s ethical dilemma is a situation that some of you might have been in although not in the same circumstances. Please leave a comment and let us know how you would react.

You are at work. You sit next to a man named John. John just lost his wife, custody of his kids and has been kicked out of his home. He is on anti-depressants. He is constantly stressed, panicked, etc. But he is a nice guy. His wife left him for another man.

One day your manager comes around to John’s desk in a rage stating that he was supposed to hand up a report two days ago. The manager is screaming at John to explain why he shouldn’t just fire him on the spot. You know you could take the blame and save John. Do you take the heat and say it is your fault? Why? Why not?

I am really interested in the reasons behind your actions here. Do people still throw themselves on the “grenade” for their team mates? Or is that attitude a thing of the past? Let us know.

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We all dream. Some more than others. Some people will go off on fantasy journeys to far of lands where the imagination creates a smorgasbord of sensual pleasures. Other people will toss and turn the night over as they struggle to wake up from a nightmare that seems all too real. But what are your dreams teaching you? Are they teaching you anything at all? The answer lies within this post.

Can dreams predict your future?

We have all heard stories about people dreaming something that then comes true the next day. The television show Medium has made a lot of money telling the story of Allison Duboix, the psychic District Attorney’s assistant, who sees the killer in her dreams. And that is based on a true story. And for the record, I have no doubt in my mind that some people can actually predict future events based on their dreams. I am sure there are meditation masters out there who do it all the time.

But that is not what this post is about. In fact, the idea of looking at your dreams to try and extract some direct meaning is contrary to what I am talking about. I am talking about the symbolic nature of dreams. I am talking about the fact that your dreams are a microcosm for your whole life and, if you choose to, you can learn a lot about being awake from what happens when you are asleep.

What your dreams can teach you about being awake

photo credit: Alicakes*

So what can your dreams teach you about being awake and living in the real world? What lessons can we take from our pillow out into our daily life? Quite a few actually. Here are a few ideas I picked up from my Buddhist teachers as well as a lifetime of being a “creative” dreamer.

1. Dreaming teaches you about impermanence
The first thing you can learn quite directly (and sometimes painfully) from dreams is that everything is impermanent. I remember being a young man in high school and dreaming of beautiful women that I was madly in love with only to wake up with the stark realization that these women were gone. We were lovers in the dream state but as soon as I woke up they were no longer there. The impermanence hit me hard.

The same is true of life. Nothing lasts. Trees, boats, clouds, life, love, hatred… everything is impermanent. Nothing composite can stay together. Nothing that goes up can resist from coming down. Dreams give you a very tangible insight into impermanence.

So what’s the point? Why learn this lesson? Well, if you can remember that feeling of impermanence you will become less attached to things which you know cannot last. And that gives you an amazing sense of freedom. When you can enjoy someones company without worrying about holding on to them you are much more open to the whole experience. The fear is gone. You know it is going to end and as such you enjoy it for what it is.

2. Dreaming teaches you to open your mind
The most powerful thing you can learn from dreaming is how to open your mind. When you live your life with an open mind you are more relaxed and happy and you are less likely to be affected by things that are, always, impermanent. Let me explain.

Let’s say you are dreaming about being in love with a beautiful woman. You can smell her hair and feel her soft skin. You talk to her about wondrous things and you go on sensual adventures together that seem to last a long time. It is so real. And then you wake up. All of a sudden you realize how unreal the experience was but still you are upset that you have lost her.

It is EXACTLY the same as real life.

In real life we fall in love and grasp and cling to beautiful women, good food, our homes and family and our points of view. But this clinging is silly because we are clinging to things that don’t last. It is just like the dream state only longer. How silly is the person who clings to something that happens in a dream? Why? It seems real at the time. It seemed like it would last forever at the time. But it doesn’t. And it doesn’t in the waking world either.

Similarly, when you are asleep and dreaming even the most crazy ideas seem real. You could be best friends with a four eyed dancing bear that had an ear for a mouth. It is ridiculous to the awake person but real to the dreaming person. So perhaps our waking perceptions are not that realistic either. If we can dream up nonsense in our sleep then perhaps our waking thoughts are not all that on target either? Open your mind up to the world because your perception is not always correct.

3. Dreams teach you to let go of your worries
Are you one of those people who dwells all day on the dream you had last night? Do you sit and try to relive the experience and try to ascertain every meaning from every little thing that happened? I used to be like that. Not anymore.

In a dream you could have a problem that seems so terrible and real. Or, you could be dreaming something that, upon waking, has something to do with an important area of your life. And it worries you. You worry about the dream coming true or whether it is a prophecy of things to come. But you know what? You won’t be able to figure it out until it happens. So drop it.

The same is true of waking thoughts.

All day long we play mind games. We carry out scenarios in our head trying to figure out the best course of action to take. But ultimately this mental chatter just makes us stressed. It doesn’t get us any closer to a solution. So drop it. Your dreams are just dreams and your thoughts are just thoughts. Worry about it when it happens.

Conclusion

Dreams really do give us an excellent insight into the human mind. They show us that our perceptions are not as solid and real as we think they are and that all thing are impermanent. If you take these lessons to heart your awake life will be more spacious, open and free. Don’t cling to dreams – not when you are asleep and not when you are awake.

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