Forgiveness – what does it mean and how to forgive

The ability to forgive is a vital skill for your wellbeing. The greatest benefit of forgiveness accrues to the person doing the forgiving. This process of forgiveness is for you. When we are unable to forgive, we constantly relive (rather than simply remember) the wrong that was done to us. Each time this happens the body goes into survival mode. In other words we suffer an acute stress reaction. The cumulative effect of this reaction can be very dangerous.  Studies carried out in Northern Ireland showed that those people who could not forgive and move on, were much more likely to suffer addiction, depression, anxiety and suicide, and were less…

Your Path

Man has a yearning for meaning:  Why am I here? What is my purpose? Is there more than just this one life? Religion and spiritual searching are manifestations of this yearning.  The blessing and curse of the rational mind is that we are intelligent enough to frame the question but perhaps not intelligent enough to find the answer.  Tolstoy took a fairly despairing view on it all: “The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is pointless.”   The meaning and the purpose of your life is the meaning and purpose that you choose to give it, even if you ascribe the choice to some outside/divine force. At…

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Eyes wide-shut

At school we were taught that in AD 64 the emperor Nero played the violin or something similar as Rome burned. As a child I saw this story as the epitome of evil and depravity. As I grew older it became clear that the story also spoke of the human condition: “To occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis”.  Also “Heedless and irresponsible behaviour in the midst of a crisis”. You don’t have to be a Claudian emperor to behave like Nero. Our genetic mission is to survive and pro-create. For this we need a sense of what we must protect and pass on. This is…