Personal Development - SPIRAL-M empowerment music

Becoming empowered by developing gratitude

November 10, 2011Oktober 19, 2011 von spiral-m

Do you generally suffer from a lack of gratitude? If the answer is "yes" then you could benefit from this article. It is not always possible to be grateful due to turbulence in life, but gratitude is an essential quality to develop in order to achieve greater fulfilment. I am going to explain why and how you can put this into practise.

The sense of gratitude is enriching and pleasant: it puts us at ease, brings joy to our hearts and puts a smile on our faces. So wouldn't it be a desirable goal to achieve this more often?

You might be asking right now, "Why be thankful when there appears to be many reasons that suggest life is against me?" If that is the question, then congratulations – things can only get better from that starting point! There will be times in life which are wearing, painful and frustrating – where we can't envisage being thankful in the moment and need to focus on finding an external solution. However, there is a big difference between continually viewing yourself as a victim in times of trouble, and welcoming problems as a springboard for becoming a stronger and happier person. You don't have to like what is happening in order to be thankful! Let me illustrate: if you have a conflict situation with another person, it is possible to simultaneously want to change the situation AND be thankful. You could find that person's current behaviour to be selfish, counter-productive, hurtful, manipulative etc.; you can ALSO be aware of an opportunity to learn not to lose sight of your humanity at the same time – i.e. your respect towards your "opponent" who also has his or her own problems and development to go through. You don't have to agree with that person's attitude right now in order to feel thankful to them for providing you with a motor to develop compassion, for example. It is not about always being nice, rather, about cultivating the skill of seeing beyond the current unwanted situation. This may seem a lofty objective at the moment, but this is where we are heading!

If you are in a dreadful situation and really can't change the situation itself, you may need to let go of your negative feelings. That, too, can result in gratitude later. However that is a big subject I won't be dealing with here. Let's assume now, that you don't have very good reason for not being able to focus upon filling your life with more gratitude. I'll put this into context. Because we live in a materialistic world, where it is considered normal to search for happiness outside of the self, it is extremely common to complain when things don't come up to expectations. And we are full of expectations! Therefore, lack of gratitude resulting from an habitually weak view of life – rather than because of actual dire circumstances – is extremely common! The problem is not the events that we don't like, but the meaning that we give to them. The more expectations we have, the more we will be disappointed with life's blows. Whilst having wishes and goals can create a dynamic life, we shouldn't cling obsessively to them. Developing gratitude involves focusing on the many beautiful things that happen in our lives from moment to moment. Some of these are so simple that we just take them for granted. In richer countries where there is material abundance for most, it is easy to become literally spoilt for choice. We simply aren't aware how lucky we are.

I once had an English pupil who had a high-ranking position in a large company. He told me how he was amazed, while on a trip to Brazil, to see radiant smiles on the faces of poor people who'd managed to find enough food to survive on a rubbish heap in a large city. He felt himself to be a not particularly happy person, despite having the secure, large income, 3 cars, paid-up mortgage on a large house etc.. I got the impression that he hadn't practised learning gratitude. I hope that clarifies the issue!

When we are generally ungrateful, we are not particularly pleasant to be with. Not only do other people around us pick up on our bad energy, but it's also a vicious circle, like any habit which occurs without conscious observation. Our frustration often attracts patterns of events which refuel our belief. We have to be able to step outside ourselves to change this. Wouldn't it be more favourable to be in the positive energy of gratitude? How much do you desire that change? Are you prepared to take the next simple step?

The Method

Now we are going to get creative with our imagination: an incredibly powerful, yet highly underused tool for positive change.

Take some time to relax a little. Imagine the last time you felt good about something. It could be a holiday, social event, going to a concert, a funny TV programme, the smile on a child's face, a dog jumping into a pile of leaves or something you achieved in the face of difficulties. The list can be huge! Take any example that you can think of which is appealing and reflect upon it for as long as it feels good to do so. Try to relive the memory of that event. Now you can repeat this for as many themes as you like. Try to imagine that these events have been given especially to you, by life. Don't worry if this is difficult at first – it might require some practise even at this stage but I'm pretty certain that you will find yourself more capable than you had previously thought.

Next we want to turn our attention to something that is happening, or exists, around us now. There may be a possession, or a person that we like in the vicinity – perhaps a picture on the wall. If not, just look around you for the most appealing object or happening. Again, savour the moment and reflect positively for as long as possible, and then repeat with anything else that captures your affection more than any other! You may well see yourself as simply having forgotten how good something is.

Once you get a kind of momentum going you can move up to the next level. The first steps were the easiest because you were dealing with themes that you found pleasing. It is time to focus on anything you really neither like nor dislike. This is the neutral category. It might be a traffic light. Ask yourself how it might be beneficial. You could try to reflect, for example, on how you have been able to avoid car crashes because of the positive side of a well-functioning traffic light system. Or if you are sitting on a chair right now, imagine how uncomfortable it would be if the chair didn't exist and you had to sit on the floor or stand in front of the computer for a long time! That chair has aided your comfort so you can be grateful for that. The sky is the limit regarding examples here and I am sure you will begin to be able to think up reams of them! Try to include people – those who you would otherwise find uninteresting. A shop assistant who helped you in a rather bored manner could be turned into someone who had to do a boring job but who nonetheless pointed out where the food was that you particularly wanted and couldn't find yourself. Had the supermarket had no interest in providing assistance, you would have wasted a lot of valuable time in finding things.

Many banal and mundane themes appear to have no meaning in your life at first sight but they are ALWAYS part of your experience. Don't forget this! You give them a value – good, bad or neutral.

The technique of seeing your situation relative to that of someone who is much worse off in some way is often an effective method to get gratitude quickly into perspective. The thing to avoid here is guilt, unless you can transform it into a genuine desire to alleviate poverty and help others less fortunate than yourself. Would you choose to live in Somalia? If not, then be thankful that you have been given the opportunity to live where you do, where you don't have to think about how to get enough food to eat and clean water. Take the time to consider where all your possessions come from. How many people worked for little wages in order that you could buy products at an affordable price? You may find yourself feeling extremely lucky and relieved that you have such a great lifestyle! If that brings up compassion to share around more, then you are a great asset to creating a happier, healthier world!

The final main step will very probably take much time to master, but it if you make it your vision and goal, you will start seeing enormous benefits and self-help. You have probably guessed by now that we are going to start dealing with developing a sense of gratitude for events, material things and happenings, which we definitely do not want to experience. Typical examples would be personal conflicts, hardship, illness, the decay of the body through getting old, and anything else where we might hit rock-bottom. Consider this: the bigger the problem, the greater the power of motivation to free ourselves from suffering, which means more positive change! We can literally achieve quantum leaps in conscious living and ultimately great strength, happiness and gratitude as a direct result of big problems. We are here to learn and must try to relish the opportunities presented to us so that we may grow. As a result of illness, for example, we are sometimes forced to take time off and get used to letting go, doing nothing and resting. Our bodies can also benefit from illnesses by building up resistance to disease with newly formed antibodies. You could learn through illness how to respond to your body's signals better and thus avoid much affliction in the future, e.g., by eating healthily and taking the necessary time to relax. Thank your body that it helps you to make the right choices when you listen! It is a question of understanding suffering and responding the most creative way.

One of the greatest challenges in life is having to deal with people whom we don't like. We tend to want to avoid them but that is not always an option. When we are faced with the person we perceive to be unpleasant, or to whom we react by taking their comments and actions personally, we should try 100% to create value out of the situation. What can we learn from them? Do they reflect any of our own weaknesses? Are we hypocritical? Or maybe we can finally summon up our courage to stand up against their injustices instead of giving in to fear and bowing down to their authority. You can use the same techniques I discussed previously for being thankful for uncovering opportunities in undesirable situations. If you can't do it on the spur of the moment when you are confronted by your "enemy", be determined to take the issue seriously and rise to the challenge of transforming it. Take time to reflect upon the good qualities in the other person. Consider how fear is operating here. Are you taking into account your own self-respect? Are you afraid to convey that to them? Try to visualise happiness for both of you. This last one can be very difficult at first but don't be put off. I recommend repeating this daily, if possible, until you notice the seed of happiness starting to grow within you again!

You will need to train these positive mindsets described above, as well as other creative methods in the field of personal growth, which I can hardly touch on here. With practise you will start to understand deeply how problems are actually a blessing in disguise. Gratitude will start to become the norm!

Occupy Wall Street: who’s really got us by the neck?

Februar 4, 2013Oktober 16, 2011 von spiral-m

I was at a local demo yesterday. I would be the first to see those financial squanderers and speculators who impact the lives of so many, replaced with a much more humanistic bunch. I would love to see a heavy taxation of all those destructive practices, so as to free up resources for truly worthy things like quality education designed to build character instead of puppets for the economy. I am encouraged that so many are starting to get together to approach the problem. Demonstrations can be a good first step but must be built on by finding lasting, fundamental solutions.

When people feel increasingly that their own personal freedom is being downgraded, they may eventually hit the streets and start shouting about it. More rarely, they will do it in support of their fellow humans, when they themselves have "nothing immediately to gain from it". If the latter case described the majority of the population, we probably wouldn't be in the mess we are today.

Our system is unjust. It is based upon greed, separatism, competition, dominance and fear. But these values pervade all levels of society, not just big business, banks and politics. Their weaknesses may be far more publicly visible but that is only a symptom of all that has gone wrong with the Western notion of “progress". A lot of people would love to be in the shoes of a fat cat bank- or corporation executive; it's just that some individuals are better at getting there than others. When they empty their excrement on us, it's easy to forget our own greed.

If we were to ask the displaced farmers in Brazil, various indigenous populations in many parts of the world or Iraqi children suffering from cancer due to depleted uranium poisoning, “Who do you think has got you by the balls?", They might well point the finger at us, i.e. anyone who lives in one of the enormously privileged, rich, industrialised nations which exercise their military might and economic stranglehold of poor nations whenever it suits, to keep the consumer society up and running. That's us: consumers. Every day we make choices that have an impact on others, very often unconsciously. Relatively and generally speaking, we are the “still haves" whilst they are very much the “have nots". For them it is a daily fight for survival because evermore of their land is stolen or rights abused in order to provide us with luxuries for consumer satisfaction: iPhones, cheap petrol, cheap meat, cheap holidays abroad etc etc.

These casualties of consumerism have been around for decades now but few have got onto the streets to support them!

It still amazes me when I go to our local organic shop in Munich, that I am amongst a tiny minority of people who take their own reused bags – and in some cases – plastic containers to be filled up again. You would think that would be the majority of cases within circles of people gone “organic". Aren't the alarm bells ringing loudly enough? Cause and effect? Rising oil prices, waste, critical situation?

This is one of the many scenarios that show how our apathy has got us in a vice. At the same time it demonstrates the capacity that we do have to change things. If we are paralysed by bad habits ourselves, how can we point fingers at the banks and politicians? The answer to my question is that our own blindness has got us by the balls, but only if we let it. Who really wants war, to have to do a meaningless job, increasing toxification of the environment, an ever widening gap between rich and poor? Deep down, nobody, but we have some fundamental adjustments to do in our belief system. We need to develop a compassionate, peaceful, fighting spirit, and act with resolve. Yes, let's boot out the black sheep in power, but more importantly – let's transform the philosophy of greed that allowed such insanity to take hold in the first place!

Every single tiny action counts these days – if all the people who waited for others to change committed even a small deed one day to prove to themselves that they might not actually be victims – that would make a fundamental difference. We can inspire one another with our actions. It might not visibly change the world overnight but the world will have changed nonetheless: we will have taken a step to nourish all that there is that can ultimately save us: the awareness of our own humanity.

Losing weight: why good fresh vegetables work

November 10, 2011Oktober 14, 2011 von spiral-m

There are a great many methods proposed as to how to achieve weight loss. Unfortunately, many people fail to keep their weight down to a healthy or aesthetically satisfactory level (in their opinion) because of a lack of understanding of the interactions between bodyweight, blood sugar, appetite levels and food types.

A lot of the suggested programmes concentrate more on separation techniques and a general reduction of food intake, than on the glycaemic index, and the quality and healthiness of foodstuffs as a whole. The glycaemic index refers to the amount of quickly soluble carbohydrates in a food item. The higher the index, the more sugar enters the blood (glucose) in an immediate fashion. Foods with a high index would be anything with a lot of sugar in it, including fruit! This is the reason why fruit is not supposed to be consumed by diabetics. Added to the list are white flour-products and very starchy vegetables, like potato. Basically, if you are used to eating a lot of food such as this and have a weight problem, you should know that the insulin levels in your blood will spike as a reaction to the sudden rise in blood sugar. This then leads to a later withdrawal of glucose from the blood, and this is stored as fat in the body which believes the high intake of soluble carbohydrate in the fist instance was due to an emergency situation. It thinks you were trying to store as much food as possible because of oncoming scarcity!

The resulting low blood sugar levels give rise to symptoms like exhaustion, irritability or even aggression, dizziness, headaches and cravings for more food. If you are dieting you need to recognise this. During cravings, it is important to eat food with a low glycaemic index: fresh-, non-starchy vegetables being the best. The great thing is – you can eat as much as you want because the carbohydrates here are released slowly into the blood, thus sending a signal of normality to the body. That means that the sugars are much more likely to be converted directly into energy, than stored as fat. This is why people often can't hold out against energy drops and cravings – why they resort to old habits and put on too much weight again.

Fresh vegetables have many added health benefits. They help the body regulate itself better, dispose of toxins and significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Eating huge amounts, or even average amounts of animal proteins and animal fats is also not the answer to achieve weight loss for the reasons I have pointed out in Why I became vegan. You can't go wrong with a diet of varied, good quality vegetables. With this diet you can get full without worrying! Make sure you take Vitamin B12 supplements every month or so.