the limping shrink

When you have finally discovered a way to solve your own problems, it's tempting to believe that everyone else only has to do the same and they will feel as sorted as you.  This is a common human fallacy,  and especially when people first get into a new model of looking at things it is pretty normal. We go around thinking that it's useful to see everything through the filter of our new psychotherapy specs, or Marxism specs, or exercise is good for you specs, and it can take a long time, sometimes a lifetime, for us to see that, after all, there are areas where this new idea works, and others where it isn't so relevant or useful (although it may well be entertaining). Things you should stop doing today  (because everyone in the world is overdoing them as much as I used to). Why you should take up yoga immediately  (Don't you just love this 'immediately')? How a gratitude journal will change your life  (I'm so grateful for this one). Why you should delete all ...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Big_Sky_Sunset_-_geograph.org.uk_-_624786.jpg The sky is so big in some places. I remember in South Africa it was immense. Bigger than I ever imagined growing up between the buildings of London. Its sheer size took the sky from the background of the picture to the embracing space around the earth. And around tiny us. There's a place two minutes walk from the place I live where the road follows the railway tracks and the sky opens up and it's so huge you can feel the quality of the light making the hairs stand up behind your ears. It takes my breath away. Some days there are beautiful cloud formations and on others a flock of birds decorates the sky with perfect curves. This sky speaks to the deep part of me that has roots in the earth. For a moment I am fully aware of my intrinsic part in it. But somebody else saw this space as a small undeveloped triangle of real estate. And the council passed the plans. Sure, there is a pressing ...

From  https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-jnkbj Have we forgotten that we are naturally beautiful too? I'm laughing at myself for the grand title. What useful thing can I say about the human condition in one blog post? It goes something like this: We are born, develop physically, blossom, wither and die like plants do. Life is short. Much too short to be going round in neurotic circles. A tree isn't neurotic.  It doesn't set it's own rules. It just is, a tree doing what trees do - growing in any way it can, drawing in water and sunlight, dropping seeds, being chopped down or dying of old age. There is life in it. But no mind, and I don't think trees have feelings. Our feelings make us comfortable or uncomfortable. And our minds tell us stories as to why. But underneath all that we are like trees in that we humans are animals who eat and sleep, have sex and children, get ill and die. It's quite simple really. Much simpler than we usually think. We think ...

    Image from https://www.cbs.com/shows/ncis/photos/1003066/gibbs-rules/70302/gibbs-rule-8-don-t-take-anything-for-granted-/ Anyone who's seen the US tv series NCIS more than once will be aware of 'The Rules'. These are the rules by which the enigmatic team-leader Gibbs trains up his subordinates to behave at work. An example would be Rule 3: Don't believe what you're told - check. These rules are down to earth pragmatic, memorably simple and essential for the task of effectively catching villains.  Rules for living a good life are going to be different of course.  I've been thinking for a while about what my 'The Rules' would be. You might even say that it's my life's purpose to work out what the rules are for a good life. Hence the career in mental health and the slightly embarrassing obsession with all things personal development. Over the years the form and content of my rules have evolved many times, but over the last few years they have po...

This is a graphical visualisation of data extracted from tweets containing the hashtag #breastcancer. It was created by Eric Clarke, Richard Arnett & Jane Burns and won the Wellcome Image Award 2017 for visual representation of complex data. The image is from the Wellcome website.http://www.wellcomeimageawards.org/2017/breast-cancer-Twitter-connections I think it's beautiful. And it reminds me that there are so many other people out there with breast cancer too. Hello!  This post is to introduce myself and to tell you a bit about why I'm writing this blog. I've got to the part of life where, as the stories have it, you sit under the olive tree and watch your grandchildren playing. I don't have great pressures on me to get stuff done any more, to make my fortune, to find 'the one', or even to make a mark in the world. But what I want to do is to use my personal library of knowledge about being human to help other people navigate the sometimes choppy w...