Bev Baker's Blog, page 7

Angry Planet

Have you noticed how angry people are these days? Everyone is huffing and puffing about something or the other. People are on such short fuses. Nearly everyone is walking around in varies stages of annoyance….frustration…pissed offness…and thinly veiled rage…muttering to themselves and just waiting for someone to rub them up the wrong way. I witnessed a women verbally rip a man a new anus for daring to ‘tut’ at her screaming child who was having a ‘meltdown’ in the middle of the supermarket. Then here was a guy at the bus station who complained about the fact that the brilliant automated tracking system that told people when the bus would arrive was a few seconds off. He complained to anyone who would listen. Innocent bystander were roped into this guy’s rant about the London transport. By the time the bus arrived…precisely 2.5 minutes late…everyone was in a self-induced huff activated by Mr Grumpy. Have you noticed how angry people love to share the anger?

Back in the day….anger was cool

Back in the day when we lived in caves we needed anger a lot. We needed it to appear bigger and stronger to our foe. To get angry is a natural response to danger and is part of our fight flight response mechanism and linked to our survival. Our bodies are super-efficient to deal with good old fashioned dangers like a sabre toothed tiger or matching off to war. Our bodies were not designed for dealing with small insidious issues like people cutting us up at the traffic lights… or the neighbour who only wants to play loud music at our bedtime …or the delivery guy that shows up after we’ve left home… or people who ask dumb questions …or do stupid things. When these things happen to us over and over again …day in day out… the body loses its sense of humour. Our bodies are charged with adrenaline expecting to go to war and all it gets to deal with is… a bus that is late or someone jumping in front of us in the supermarket.

That was then….but this is now

We are bombarded with things that have the potential to make us angry. Back in the day when stuff happened we had downtime to recover. Nowadays, life is so fast we don’t have the opportunity to recover. We have even lost the ability to recover. It is as if our bodies are under siege. We reel from one anger inducing event to another. We talk about angry stuff. We read angry stuff. We watch angry stuff. We get angry on behalf of other people. We pay people like Gordon Ramsey to entertain us with his breed of anger. What has anger got to do with cooking? We reward people for getting angry. If you want to make a name for yourself all you have to do is get on a reality show and bicker, complain, moan and be an around whinge bag…and you too can be a star!

Anger gets ugly…

Anger gets very ugly when we live in a world where there is little or no empathy, compassion and tolerance. We in the West have no right to be angry at all. When you look at the state of the world and how some people live today we got the best deal. Yet we complain “Oh there’s no Wi-Fi”…”the internet is down”…”the plane is delayed” “Oh the supermarket doesn’t stock my favourite brand of cereal anymore”… “Ahhh diddums’!” Complain, moan and bicker that’s what we do. There are people in foreign lands who would wish to have our so called problems. I remember running a presentation skills training course in South Africa. It was part of Bill Gates charity program. After taking the class through a few view pointer… I asked them to deliver a 5 minute presentation on an event in their lives. Well…every one of the students had harrowing stories to tell. Like seeing their parents taken away and killed. Being abandoned as children and having to live on the streets. Walking for hours to get clean water. All of them had a right to be angry, bitter and twisted but none of them were. That experience taught me not to complain. Ever.

And even uglier…when…

-People are quick to anger at the slightest inconvenience and it is the price we pay for living in a self-obsessed narcissistic world. When we get angry what we are demonstrating is that things are not going our way and at the heart of this anger is self- centeredness and conceit. Our egos are running the show and we expect the world most flow according to us.

-We have a deep sense of entitlement… the belief that we are inherently deserving of privileges and special treatment.

-We demonstrate a lack of tolerance of other people’s rights and opinions. If someone doesn’t agree with us we get the hump.

-We become so self-centred and egotistical that if the train is late or something doesn’t happen according to our wishes we take it personally and get in a huff. We have developed an over inflated sense of importance to think that the word is doing it to us.

-We are quick to get on our high horse without taking into account the facts or the feelings of the other person.

-We are so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget that the other person may be going through a tough time and may have absentmindedly strayed into our path without realising it. We seldom give people the benefit of the doubt anymore.

-We’ve all reverted to childhood. Like the chid in the supermarket we are having thinly disguised terrible two temper tantrums all over the place.

The voice of anger

At the end of it all when we resort to angry and vent any form of anger… we are saying more about our coping skills and the sorry state of our emotional intelligence than we saying about the situation. By being angry you are saying loud and clear “I am stress up to my eyeballs…I am over reacting…I am out of control…and I have descended into a temporary madness”. It is madness when you think about it. Because at the end of the day the person you are mad at has gone their merry way leaving you with indigestion and a bad headache. Getting all huffed up and puffed out makes you sick.

Everything changes.

We have to ask ourselves if there isn’t any space for anger in our lives today. Why do we need to be angry? Why can’t we talk? Reason? Negotiate. Do we need to express anger as we did when we lived in cave and had hairy monster to fight? Perhaps it is time for us to redefine anger and bring it up to date and into the 21st century. We need to develop new tools to deal with modern life…

The mind-set necessary in an angry world is non anger. Non anger is developing the emotional intelligence necessary to deal with situation as they arise with the appropriate amount of skilfulness. Anger comes and if you are mindful it will go. Nothing that comes and goes should define you. If it does then you have become it….you have become Mr or Miss Grumpy

Transmuting anger…into…

elegance, stylishness, poise, finesse, charm; deftness, fluidity of movement,

Courteous good will.



Synonyms: courtesy, courteousness, politeness, manners, good manners, civility, decorum, decency, propriety, breeding, respect, respectfulness; consideration, thought, thoughtfulness, tact, tactfulness, diplomacy, etiquette;





Synonyms: favour, approval, approbation, acceptance, commendation, esteem, regard, respect, preferment, liking, support, goodwill.

The only emotion that can dissolve anger is grace and gratefulness. When you stop to look at where you are and what you have achieved you cannot be angry at the same time. Turn it around and count your blessing and that will stop anger in its tracks. Being appreciative of all that you have around you interrupts the anger/stress roller coaster ride. When you are grateful it allows you to be gracious and tolerant. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Sometimes the trains are late. Sometimes people say and do the stupidest, craziest, inconsiderable, unthinkable things. Sometimes people make mistakes…unintentionally …it’s just that shit has a habit of happening. Learn to be patient. When you are in a potentially angry situation just pause for a second and put yourself in the other person’s shoes…just for a second. The person that you are taking your life problems out on might be in a hell hole right now. The person you are balling out is someone just like you trying to make a living and trying to get by. None of us have been here before, there is no manual so we are going to bump and grind against each other. Practice empathy and compassion.

The next time you feel like ranting…don’t…choose to be kind!





20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

Leave Blank:Do Not Change:

Your email:

 



 Do Well!!



 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.



 Mind Synergy

 Engineer In Heels



 

bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Angry Planet

Have you noticed how angry people are these days? Everyone is huffing and puffing about something or the other. People are on such short fuses. Nearly everyone is walking around in varies stages of annoyance….frustration…pissed offness…and thinly veiled rage…muttering to themselves and just waiting for someone to rub them up the wrong way. Read More…

Loneliness…The Biggest Disease of Our Time

Not so long ago I found myself alone. My husband and son were away. At first I was in heaven having the apartment to myself. I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted. Oh the joy of having the TV remote all to myself! The first day or so I slobbered around the house. […]

Loneliness…The Biggest Disease of Our Time

Not so long ago I found myself alone. My husband and son were away. At first I was in heaven having the apartment to myself. I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted. Oh the joy of having the TV remote all to myself! The first day or so I slobbered around the house. By the end of the week I was going stir crazy. The silence was deafening. One day and this is no word of a lie. I didn’t receive 1 phone call. Not even from the phone sharks who usually call to ask if I have been involved in an accident. I began to have crazy thoughts. What if I died and no one found me for weeks. Would maggots eat my body? By 3rd week I decided to shop daily, anything to get out of the house. I made a conscious effort to get up, take a shower, get dressed and go out. One day, I’m not going to lie, the only person I spoke to was the woman at the check-out at my local. If on occasion someone called and asked ‘how I was doing’ I always reported that I was ‘fine’. I’d do anything rather than admit I was lonely.

Loneliness is insidious in our society today. Did you know there are websites, groups you can join and online quizzes to test your loneliness status? I am moderately lonely apparently.

What is loneliness?

Frieda Fromm Reich is the psychologist most recognized for her research on loneliness. She herself was deaf and spoke of her own isolation and could relate to the solitude that the lonely feel.

She wrote:

“Loneliness seems to be such a frightening painful experience that people will do practically anything to avoid it. This avoidance also includes a strange reluctance by psychiatrist to seek scientific clarification on the subject. Thus it comes about that loneliness is one of the less satisfactory conceptualized psychological phenomenon not even mentioned in most psychiatry text books”. She figured that loneliness lay at the heart of nearly all mental illness and that the lonely person was just about the most terrifying spectacle in the world. She attacked her colleagues for not treating the patient who shows all the hallmarks of loneliness. She argued that we shy away from dealing with loneliness as it touches our own susceptibility. We think if we don’t address it may go away.

Many years after Fromm Reichmann’s death we find that loneliness is still as frightening as she said it was. It is now linked with many bodily ailments as well as the mental ones. Loneliness hastens death by 14%. Psycho-biologists can now show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the molecules on genes that govern behavior, and throws the systems out of whack. They have proved that long-lasting loneliness not only makes you sick; it can kill you. Emotional isolation is ranked as high a risk factor for mortality as smoking. A partial list of the physical diseases thought to be caused or exacerbated by loneliness would include Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and even cancer – tumors can metastasize faster in lonely people.

Who are the lonely…

The answer is anyone and everyone. Everyone has the potential to be lonely. The confirmed bachelor. The single mom. The divorcee. The widower. The pensioner. The student. The mentally ill. People with disabilities. The migrant and the immigrant. The mother’s whose children have flown the nest. The retiree. Children.

Loneliness knows no age barrier or age limit. It has no preferences in gender. It doesn’t care about your social class or whether you have money or not. Money only buys you a better class of loneliness. Surveys confirm that people who feel discriminated against are more likely to feel lonely. Women are lonelier than men…though unmarried men are lonelier than unmarried women. The less educated are lonelier than the better educated. The unemployed and the retired are lonelier than the employed.

“Real loneliness,” or “that” loneliness as Fromm Reichmann called it, is not the solitary life that some people have made for themselves out of choice. Nor is it the location, people who live in remotes areas do not necessarily suffer from loneliness. Loneliness is not being sick in bed for a long period of time. It’s not being unhappy with your partner or current relationship status. It isn’t the loneliness people suffer when a loved one dies or leaves. The well-adjusted eventually get over that. Loneliness is the absence of intimacy. Loneliness is felt when there is no one to say good morning or goodnight. No one to witness you doing anything. To desire you. To compliment you. To see you and know you are there.

Why loneliness affects us…

Loneliness affects us because we are social animals. We crave human interaction. A hug. A smile. It actually satisfies our soul. One of the most important thing that we need to feel as humans is that we are significant to at least one other person. The fact that we are significant creates meaning for us and a reason to get out of bed in the mornings. Feeling connected to others is vital for our emotional health. The thought of existing without others caring about our existence is a painful thing to come to terms with.

Alone in a crowd…

Not everyone can walk into a room full of people and work the crowd. Many of us have been at an event or social gathering and couldn’t wait for it to end. Loneliness can be even more acute when you are actually with people that you cannot relate to or have nothing in common with or in a relationship where for all intents and purposes you don’t exist for the other person.

In the city there is a lot of activities you can do. You can sign up a class or do any weird and wonderful thing you can imagine. There are lots of people around in the city to do things with but no one to do nothing with. It is the most wonderful feeling just to be with someone, doing nothing. I think the real issue is that people are ashamed to say “I’m lonely. It is tantamount to saying that you have failed. To say that you are lonely is to admit that you got your social networking wrong. The invisible man. The invisible woman.

It seems sad but true but people are lonelier in the cities than they are in remote areas. People who live in remote areas usually have the personality type to deal with solitude.

People are under the illusion that big cities means more opportunity to meet people and make friends. Not necessarily. Big cities means more people, simply that! Everyone’s in their own world. Everyone’s in a rush. The problem with the big city is that everyone lives parallel lives. We pass people on the stairs… in our cars… in our lives. We seldom face each other anymore. Back in the day people took the time to talk to each other. My mother knew very one up and down our road. We knew each other enough didn’t feel embarrassed to ask for help. Today we live in boxes we drives in boxes to go to work in a box. The problem with that is that we don’t really know anyone. Apart from the perfunctory meet and greet we don’t make friends easier. For an adult to walk up to strangers and ask them to be your friend is a little creepy.

How to cope with loneliness…

Loneliness is one of the social diseases of living in our society. In order to combat it we need to talk about it and we need to embrace it as a by-product of the way we live today.

1. Take a cool look at your social network and ask yourself have you build reserves if circumstances change. What would happen if your partner passed away or you lost your job?

You need to start investing in your social network now. The time to act is now. Instead of spreading yourself thinly across the people that you know. Start building deep meaningful relationship. Start to develop bonds with people from all walks of life and of any age. If you are thinking that this is a little calculated. I agree and to me there is nothing wrong with this. We need to start scratching each other’s backs. We need to be able to ask for help without feeling ridiculous. People need to look out for one anther we need to face each other physically more. We need to lean in towards each other more. Talk and listen. If we don’t we may wake up one day and realise that the only friends we have are virtual and on face book.

2. If you find yourself alone and lonely then make friends with yourself. I know this sounds a bit of a cliché but it works. Treat yourself like a friend that you need to get close to. Learn all there is to know about yourself. What music do you like? What hobbies do you have? What books do you like to read? Where do you want to go on holiday?

3. One of the best cures for loneliness is volunteering. Helping people in need will feed your soul. The dividends you will reap from helping will pay off in ways that you ever dreamt of.

4. One of the thinks that loneliness does when it gets a hold of you is give you an ‘I can’t be bothered’ or ‘what’s the point’ approach to life. You need to get off you butt and make the effort. The next stop down the line from this attitude is depression.

5. Develop a routine where you have to do certain things at certain times of the day. It will help with your focus and concentration.

6. I think I have saved the best until last. Get a pet. Dogs are the best but if you cannot keep a dog, then get a cat. If you can’t keep a cat then get a guinea pig. If you can keep guinea pig then get a gold fish. Share your space with another breathing creature.

Do you think that loneliness is a disease? What strategies do you recommend to combat loneliness?





20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

Leave Blank:Do Not Change:

Your email:

 



 Do Well!!



 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.



 Mind Synergy

 Engineer In Heels



 

bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Where There Is Grief …There Is Love…

I got the call at 8.05 p.m. I knew the time because I had just settling in to watch ‘Sewing Bee’. I don’t know what it is about that program… but I love it! Anyway I got the call that told me Blue had deteriorated. The appointment was fixed for 9 p.m. at the ‘animal euthanasia clinic’. Who knew these places existed?

Blue was our dog and had been with us since my son picked him out at 9 years old. Now at 24 years old tears rolled down his face the like I hadn’t seen since he was a small child. We were ushered into a room surrounded by boxes doggie biscuits. Blue was made comfortable on the floor. We all said our goodbyes in our own ridiculous way. The vet administered the overdose. I asked how long it would take. There I was thinking that he would slip away just like in the movies. No sooner had she inserted the needle into the prepared catheter… he was gone. He looked at us…for a second…then his eyes just glazed over. I stared at him. He twitched and moved as if he was sleeping and having one of his doggy dreams. Gone…gone where? Where do dead dogs go? I was asked to switch off the light to let the vet know we had said our ‘goodbyes’. We took his collar and left. What I want to talk about here is grief. I write this…feeling ridiculous about having so many tears for a mere dog when I know that there is so much suffering in the world. It is quite cathartic though. ….and hopefully it will help someone who is grieving or will go through it one day.

Grief is a natural response to loss. A child grieves for her hamster. A person grieves for their dog. A mother grieves for her son. The loss of someone or something hits us in different ways. It cannot be qualified or quantified. It just is. Anyone who has gone thorough bereavement counselling is familiar with Elizabeth Kubler Ross. This women devoted all of her professional life to understanding the process of grief.

The 5 stages of grief

Stage1. When we lose someone our system goes into shock, denial, or all three. When we suffer a loss it is such a blow that our system actually protect us by not allowing the enormity of the loss to get through in one go. People may even be accused of not caring or acting odd. They may function as normal, getting on with funeral arrangements going back to work. Intellectually the person may seem Ok but they are not. They are in a daze. Functioning through fog. It is as if they have stumbled into someone else’s nightmare and they can find the exit.

Stage 2. At some point… and there is no time factor on this. The person will get angry. I felt it when my mother died. I was angry with the doctors. I was angry with my mother for not taking care of herself more. I was angry at the world. Happy people made me sick. I was especially angry at God. This is not a pretty stage of grief but every necessary. The anger is the manifestation of the helplessness and powerlessness we feel. The cocktail of emotions is crazy and they come…fast and furious. There are feelings of abandonment together with a sense of relief that the person is out of pain. There is sadness, anger, loneliness, despair, bewilderment… on top of it all there may a need to put on a brave face and not make too much off a fuss… you name it.

Stage 3. The next stage is depression. After the roller coaster of stage 2. The person may feel depleted. It is very possible for depression to set in. It may be difficult to ‘get it together’. The person may experience difficulty sleeping, eating and connecting with others. Nothing has a rhyme or reason any more.

Stage 4. This stage is the bargaining stage. In this stage the person may start to have obsessive and crazy thoughts. They think that maybe they could have… should have done something to prevent the loss. My good friend committed suicide many years ago and for months after I obsessed about her death. I spend hours thinking about how I could have saved her. Why she hadn’t tell me she was suffering? I felt guilty for not being there for her. I analysed our last conversation in my head to see if there was anything I could have done.

Stage 5. When the person gets to this stage they start to accept their loss and they start to move on with their lives slowly.

I have studied and I have used Kubler Ross in grief counselling and I have used Kubler Ross in my own times of need. She took a hell of a lot of stick defending her model and she concluded when she was about to meet her maker that grief is bigger than 5 stages. Indeed it is! Yet I think the 5 stages is the only real theoretic model we have to explain the stages of grief otherwise there is not much else. It is a structural model, a crutch if you will, to let people/me/you know that …one day the horror will pass. For that alone the model is useful.

What I now know…

-Grief is grief. I think it is important for a person not to minimize their grief. Whether the loss it is a cat, a dog, or a person, a job or a relationship… people should be able to grief as much and for as long as they want. It is not for bystanders to comment. When a person grieves the brain doesn’t separate the grief into past and present….important or not important. Near or far. Human or animal. No! When the person opens the grief box….everything that is in there comes flooding out. I find myself thinking about my mother, my friends’ that I have lost, Prince, Mohammad Ali and my dog. I find that my tears are the tears of unfinished business and for anyone suffering loss.

-Everyone griefs differently. It has no sell by date. There is no cut of point. I will grief for my mother until I join her. I am not ashamed to say that I miss her every day. Grief never ends its just changes that’s all.

-Grief is the body’s way of healing and it is a necessary process. Holding on to grief or suppressing it does damage to the system.

-When we grieve it is for a reason. It is because we had love or something in our lives that we cherished. We need to be grateful for that. The grief is equal to the loss and the love. When you look at it at the heart of grief there is love and it is beautiful.

-Grief is not a linear process. The stages are zigzag. It is a 2 step forward 5 steps back. One day the person may feel better and then find it difficult to get out of bed the next. Grief comes in waves. Sometimes everything is calm and at other times the pain is overwhelming. No matter what people say time doesn’t heal it just creates distance. All time serves to do is allow people to get used to the loss.

– Sometimes we need to think about the other person and let go. Just maybe they wanted to go and we need to respect that and come to terms with the fact that wanting them to be around for ever is selfish.

-Grief is very personal thing and so people must grieve in their own personal way. The relationship we have with our nearest and dearest is unique and special. We need to do what we feel is right to honour our relationships.

When I looked into Blue’s eyes for the final time. In that moment when life and death crossed over. I hope he knew this: that he brought a lot of unity to our family. He brought fun and joy. He brought love.

…And in death Blue brought the biggest gift of all. He showed us all that death is nothing. When I saw his body finally relax. I knew he was at peace. I also realised that death is like coming home after a long time away. It is like sinking into your own bed with fresh clean sheets…closing your weary eyes and falling asleep.

RIP Blue





20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

Leave Blank:Do Not Change:

Your email:

 



 Do Well!!



 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.



 Mind Synergy

 Engineer In Heels



 

bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Happiness is… an inside job!

Happiness is… the pursuit of just about everyone. We believe if a person can achieve happiness in their life then that is a life well lived. We want it. We deserve it. We dream of it. If I ask you “do want to be happy?” I expect you to answer a resounding “yes”. Who doesn’t want happiness? But what is this thing that you say you want. Have you defined it for yourself…or is it someone else’s notion of happiness that you have signed up to without realising…or have you bought into the idea that happiness is an illusion….fleeting…for others but not for you? Do you harbour a blind faith that if you play the game of life then happiness will be gifted upon you?

General assumptions about happiness

-That happiness is….a smile…a summer’s day…the birth of a baby…a sunset. Some define happiness as experiences. The problem with this definition is that you have to wait for these occasions in life and sometimes they can take a while to happen. What a shame to only have happy moments once or twice a year. Happiness associated to events is very spasmodic.

-That happiness will be … when…I have a beautiful home …car…job…and a wonderful partner. For some the whole idea of happiness is conditional and somewhere out there in the future. Everything has to be just perfect for the arrival of the happiness god. These people slave all their lives only to find that all the material things they accumulated doesn’t bring the happiness they anticipated. More than that they cannot refer to happy times because they were too busy… getting…hoarding …acquiring stuff. Happiness attached to things leads to disappointment in the end.

-That happiness is because I am a good person…I deserve to be happy. This is the cause and effect approach to happiness. If you think you should be happy because you deserve it…you are in for a nasty shock. The shock is called life. You see life is neutral. It isn’t fair…who said it would be? It isn’t easy… but who said it would be. All the evidence tell us that life is hard…that life is suffering yet we think we can override this by being good. If we take this approach to happiness then we open a can of worms for ourselves. What happens when we are good but still not happy…then what? Does this mean that there is something wrong with us? We are not enough. Happiness measured on how deserving you are will eat up your self-esteem.

-That happiness is an emotion. Happiness is not an emotion…never has been… never will be. It is however, very closely linked to the emotions…when you are happy you feel great. When you feel great you release a strong cocktail of drugs such as endorphin, serotonin dopamine oxytocin and these drugs give you a natural high. We call this natural high ‘happy’ and we are addicted to it. The fundamental function of our emotions is to play a vital role in our survival. Your emotions are too busy making sure that you don’t kill yourselves…keeping you out of danger…helping you make decisions…motivating you to do stuff…helping you understand yourselves and the environment… to be bothered about whether you are happy or not. That’s your job!

Somehow emotions have been labelled ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. The ones that make us sad are bad and the ones that make us happy are good. There is no such thing as a good emotion or a bad emotion. Every emotion does its job. The opposite of happiness is not sadness. Sadness is an emotion which is necessary to express grief. It is the systems way of healing and finally coming to terms with loss. It is our system’s way of missing someone who was dear to us. The sadness we feel is in direct proportion to the love we had for them. If we have loved and lost…or loved and miss someone who has passed… sadness is the price we pay to have loved…it is a necessary price.

The issue with emotions is that they are designed to come and go. They react to the environment. If our system senses danger no matter what it will react. If you attach your happiness to your emotions then you are in for a bumpy ride. All you need to do is miss the train and that’s it…your whole day is messed up.

The nature of happiness

Happiness is a state of mind. If you have been running around trying to find happiness in external stuff look no more.

What’s more happiness is your state of mind when it is natural. It is unnatural to believe that happiness can be anything other than you. Everything about you is designed for happiness. Defining happiness is like asking a fish to describe wet. It is difficult to describe because happiness within you is as natural as a fish in water.

Happiness cannot be taught, bought or sold. You choose it. You decide to wear the happy coat not the grumpy coat. You either live in a garden full of flowers or you live in the garden full of creepy crawlies. In the natural state of mind, happiness runs from being contented with what you have in this world… to out and out bliss. The natural state can only be broken if you do not maintain it. A happy state of mind is not mamby pamby. Happy people do not go around singing “cum by ya” all day long. Happy people are dedicated to being happy. They guard their happiness with a keen eye. They know that life has ups and downs and they decide to ride the waves with a positive mental attitude. They do not take life and its antics personally.

The opposite of happiness is misery and happy people chose not to live their live in misery.
Be happy

Everything that we experience in life we have capacity for. We have capacity to feel hunger. We do not say I need to find my hunger. Or I deserve to eat. Nobody argues with this basic human need. You may look at a cake and desire it. But where do you feel the hunger pangs? In your gut. Right! There too lies your happiness. Hunger is a basic physiological need happiness is a need of the soul. It is essential.

If you say “I’m happy” then you are happy. In my favourite film Beetlejuice. In order to conjure up the ghost Beetlejuice they had to say his name 3 times. Beetlejuice… Beetlejuice… Beetlejuice! Well you don’t have to say I’m happy 3 time you only have to say it once. If you say it once then you are it. You are happy. If you put up conditions then they will serve as barriers and it will not come. If you put a timer on happiness it will not show up. If you say that a job or a person or a place or a food or a shampoo can make you happy… it will only come for a while. The happiness state of mind can be turned on my self-recognition. So to spell it out: In order to be happy you have to recognise that you are happy. How you recognise you are happy is by counting your blessings and showing gratitude. How you show gratitude is by being kind and generous to others. When you are kind to others it will make them happy. And this is confirmation of your own happiness. Because you cannot give something to others that you do not already have!





20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

Leave Blank:Do Not Change:

Your email:

 



 Do Well!!



 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.



 Mind Synergy

 Engineer In Heels



 

bev@bevbakerseminars.com

The Failure Game

How many quotes about failure can you recite? ‘Failure is not an option’. ‘He who dares wins’. ‘You only fail when you stop trying’. The list goes on… These quotes are motivating for about as long as it takes to read them. If we are honest they do little to dispel our fear of failure.

We have been designed and raised on a system of winning and losing. From the cradle to the grave it is all about survival of the fittest.

The rules of engagement are ever changing and schizophrenic in nature. We set ourselves targets that we have to be the best… have the best and only be seen with the best. The best is defined by whatever is trending. Someone decides that ‘orange is the new black’ and just when we’ve become accustomed to that… they change it and tell us that ‘blue is the new black’. My friend’s hairdresser told her that ‘fake is the new real’. How ridiculous… but we buy into it hook, line and sinker.

From the moment we can conceptualise and internalise the misery of what it means to fail… the whistle blows and we are off. Trying to get noticed….trying to get somewhere… trying to be someone. We are not sure what success means…we are not even sure if success is all it’s cracked up to be…all we are know is we must not fail. So instead of playing to win we play…so as not to fail.

Failure is the other dirty f word. To fail is an admission that you are not fit for purpose. You are a figure to be pitied. To fail is to lose your footing…your status… in the rat race… in the scramble to the top. If we fail we feel ashamed. We may get ridiculed. It’s not a bundle of fun this failure malarkey.

Part of the game set up is to indoctrinate us with ideas that if we do not succeed in the world in the way that success is defined then we are nothing. The ideas of winning and losing are reinforced through competition. We are raised on competition. We are taught to be competitive. We learn through a system of praise. If we do well we are rewarded with lots of goodies and accolades. We get approval by winning. If we lose we are labelled and laughed at. Gentle nudges of encouragement in nursey school give way to stronger messages in high school turn into out and out tactics and dirty tricks as the stakes get higher in the boardrooms across the land. We are informed that there isn’t a lot of room at the top. Only a chosen few make it to the top and if you want to make it you need to go out and get it…whatever it takes! You have to work hard and follow the rules. There some of the rules: 1) Keep your cards very close to your chest so that people do not steal your ideas or game plan. 2) Do not talk about your plans or others will sabotage them. 3) Pretend that you do not care about succeeding so competitors stay away from the scent. 4) Compare yourself on a regular basis to others to see how you measure up…who’s got the better job…nicer house…more expensive car…fitter body…best good looking partner…smarter children.

Changing the game

The problem with the failure game is that it is stress inducing. Anything which is not in our nature will create tension in the body. Because we have this warped relationship with failure we interpret the stress we feel as the symptoms of failing. You feel bad because you’ve failed. No! You feel bad because you do not understand failure. To fail is normal and natural. It is part of living. Somethings grow and prosper…somethings don’t. People live and people die. It’s all part of the nature of things.

Failure is part of success not the opposite of success.

Failure is a process. There is a wonderful line given by Thomas Edison after he had failed and failed to deliver the light bulb. He just said. “I have not failed I have just found 1000 ways that won’t work” What a refreshing way to look at failure. This is failure in its truest form. It is about self-discovery and about play. Continuous improvement. It never competitive. Edison was as excited about the journey as he was about the result.

Failure is feedback. The feedback is the information we should be taking on board and not the opinions of others. The feedback tells us: What we need to adjust. If our timing is right. Whether we need to acquire more skills. What we can learn from the mistakes. What to do next? Henry Ford put it like this: “Failure is just an opportunity to start again but more intelligently”.

Failure is learning.Make failing fun… fail often.

Failure is necessary. Without failing we would seldom have the opportunity to be grateful and show appreciation. Only after adjusting tweaking, hard work, going back to the drawing board and then finally succeeding do we get that “Wow… I did it” moment. Being grateful makes you happier… increases your self-esteem…strengthens your emotions…makes you positive…and a cool person to be around.

Failure is accepting ourselves. It is your job to define what success means to you. Failure is a part of success it is not the opposite of it. Failure is part of the process…so there is nothing to be afraid of. Success comes in many formats and one size doesn’t necessarily fit all. You can be successful at work. In the community. At home…in your relationship…with your children. It’s up to you! Once you accept yourselves then whatever you do will be acceptable to you.

So mix it up. When they say ‘orange is the new black’…wear black. Black is black. When they tell you to eat this… drink that. Listen to your body. The fact that you are breathing today…that you can see the sky and hopefully can go to sleep with a happy belly is a success story in itself.

Your life is a gift and you have already won!





20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

Leave Blank:Do Not Change:

Your email:

 



 Do Well!!



 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.



 Mind Synergy

 Engineer In Heels



 

bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Procrastination…The Happiness Thief!

Do you suffer from ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ syndrome?

We’ve all been there. There’s this thing you have to do. You’ve been putting it off for months. You get into a panic…but you still don’t do it. Now you don’t have much time…but you still don’t start it. Finally you can’t put it off any longer. You sit down to do it and suddenly you are hungry. You need to look inside the fridge that you just looked inside 15 minutes ago. Now you need to check your emails. Two hours later…you’ve watched a couple of TED talks, caught up with all your online shopping… contacted friends you haven’t spoken to in 5 years on Facebook. You put on music to make the task seem easier…suddenly you’re dancing…Why are you dancing? Now you’re ready to tackle the task but it’s too late in the day…you’re not in the mood….oh well! Tomorrows another day! Sounds familiar?

All of us suffer from the condition called procrastination from time to time. You know… putting things off…starting things and never finishing them…simply never getting round to doing anything.

Me too! I absolutely hate filling in forms…hate it! Hate it! It is not until the bills piled up and I almost embarrassed myself that I took a look at why I procrastinate. This is what I found.

Procrastination is a coping strategy you discovered, develop and refined in childhood to relieve the tension and anxiety you felt at being made to do stuff you didn’t want to do…not feeling important in the family…not being consulted about what you wanted…being made to feel guilty about doing the stuff you wanted to do. It is childish behaviour because it comes from the crazy belief that if you put things off long enough they will simply disappear. Poof!

The power and control procrastinator

If you fall under this type…as a child you probably had no control over what happened in your household. Do your homework…eat everything on your plate…come inside its late…stop watching that film and go and help your brother. Go outside and play…put this on or you will be cold…don’t talk back. Seldom were you consulted. So you discovered procrastination which is the decision which states “I will do things in my own sweet way… when I am good and ready and not before”. By taking your time everyone had to wait for you. By dragging your heels everyone had to pay attention to you. By being stubborn and obstinate you asserted your power and control.

The perfectionist procrastinator

This type of procrastination develops if you were raised in a family where everything had to be just so. The standards were incredible high and if you didn’t achieve those standards, you were criticised. The way of dealing with all the demands imposed on you as a child was to give up. If you never start anything then you could never be accused of ‘messing things’ up… or if you never started anything then you would never have to deal with the issue of never being good enough.

The instant gratification procrastinator

This type of procrastination develops when as a child you figure out the difference between pleasure and pain. All the things the grown-ups wanted you do were boring and painful. All the things that you wanted to do were pleasurable. Why couldn’t you have things your own way? Life wasn’t fair. The grown-ups were always stealing your pleasure and so the only thing to do was extend your pleasure and dig your heels in.

So what’s the harm in a little procrastination?

Procrastination worked up to a point in childhood but most of us ended up having to do our homework, tidy our room and clean out the kitty litter anyway. We probably figured out that doing the chores was preferable to being kicked out of the house and sleeping rough out on the streets.

Procrastinating in adult life is childish. We used procrastination in childhood to relieve tension… now the act of procrastination builds tension. When we put things off we feel stressed. When we start things and don’t finish them this eats away at our self-esteem. When we find ourselves surrounded by all our incomplete tasks they remind us what a failure we are. How lazy we are. How lacking in will power we are. Everyday spent procrastinating is another day spent worrying about the thing that we are trying not to do! It’s a double bind situation.

If you have ever achieved anything in your life…no matter how small… then you will know what I’m talking about when I describe the sweet afterglow of accomplishment. Ticking something off a to-do list is so satisfying. You were designed for success. Because achieving your goals and dreams is the key to living a fulfilled life.

Ultimately procrastination does 3 things. It waste your time….it steals your chance of success and happiness…when you put something off …you are actually putting your own life off. .

Stop procrastinating….NOW

It is time to make a new decision. A fresh and healthy one. 1) You have to tell yourself that procrastination has reached its sell by date and is no longer useful. 2) You do not need to assert power and control in your life because it is your life and you already have the power and control. 3) When you were a child you did childish things…it goes with the territory and now you are an adult you choose to do adult things. 4) You plan and prioritise your life. 5) You realise that pleasure comes after you have completed something and not before. 6) You come to realise that the pain of doing something you don’t particularly relish is temporary but putting stuff off can go on forever. 7) You train your mind to develop the will power needed to see things through to the end. Will power is a muscle and the more you use it the stronger it becomes. 8) As you do the things that you normally put of you will come to find that the magic is in the detail and there is something deeply rewarding in doing the most mundane of tasks.

As you start to clean out the kitchen cupboards or put up that shelf that has been lopsided for 2 years…this will happen… you will feel a sense of resistance….this is your childish decision coming to tell you that you should be doing ‘fun’ stuff… It will manifest itself in negative self-talk…sulking… moaning…continue…as you progress the resentment feeling will give way to…. “this is not as bad as I thought it was going to be”…continue…do not stop…dig deep….when you have finished sit back and reflect on what you have achieved…and feel pleased. Now raise the glass of wine…have a piece of cake…dance around the room and wave childish procrastination goodbye!





20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

Leave Blank:Do Not Change:

Your email:

 



 Do Well!!



 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.



 Mind Synergy

 Engineer In Heels



 

bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Procrastination…The Happiness Thief!

Do you suffer from ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ syndrome? We’ve all been there. There’s this thing you have to do. You’ve been putting it off for months. You get into a panic…but you still don’t do it. Now you don’t have much time…but you still don’t start it. Finally you can’t put it off any […]

Dear men…

The saddest things you do not know about inequality

The other day I was talking about women’s inequality to my son and he said “I hate all feminists”. Whoa! Where had I gone wrong? Didn’t my son know that he had been raised by a feminist…and a pretty bold one at that! This is what I said to my son….and this is what I want to say to all men.

Dear man…

I know there has been a flurry of diversity initiatives lately and there’ll probably be a lot more as Hilary makes her way to the White House … she just need to see off the Game Show Host with the dodgy weave first.

I noticed in all the diversity initiatives that men are not exactly excluded but not actively included. Have you been told in any meaningful way what diversity means? Have you ever wanted to find out? Have you never had a discussion about inequality were both sides didn’t get heated and defensive.

In the diversity events that I ran there are always a smattering of curious men. They are most surprised to find that we are not planning to take over the world… neither are we running a hate campaign on men. All we want is the same opportunity to shine just like you.

It may have escaped your notice but women have advanced just a little over the past 100 years or so. We have gone from the pinafore to the podium. The saddest thing is that you do not seem to be in the slightest bit interested. You spend hours at work talking about visions, takeover bids, strategies and planning…don’t you want to hear how we did it? Women just didn’t take over a company or a country we took over destiny. We took history by the testicles and changed it! I think that the women’s movement is one of the biggest success stories ever told.

You know the saddest thing about all this inequality malarkey is that men are the losers.

Women get all of you. Because you get every opportunity to realise your potential. We witness your story. You do not know our story and it is for that reason you will never know your mothers, lovers, sisters or daughters. You will never know what it is like to see us really succeed without fear, hesitation or guilt. Oh the guilt! You will never get to see how far your womenfolk can actually go. To me this is a great shame. I know you love and admire us but you love flowers at half bloom. You are always looking for the next best version in everything but have no interest in seeing the best version of women. You are missing out on so much! I can hardly find the words to tell you…

I know that in our quest for liberation we have made some wrong moves. I cringe when men talk about women ‘burning their bras’ as if that is the only thing we have ever done. It was a strategy in a battle. The strategy and the battle is not the war. I know some women were a little aggressive about it. We needed to get your attention. You guys didn’t help matters because you became even more aggressive and closed ranks on us. But that was then and this is now. The war was and still is to have equal treatment… equal access… and equal share. We don’t want to be the same as you we just want the same opportunities as you. We don’t want to take your place… want our own place.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why women want equality in these things? Have you ever stopped to think what we’d do if we had equal pay and the like. We would contribute to the world. That what! We would create balance in the world. We would take the heat of you guys and release you of the burden of having to be the breadwinner. Do you know that there are countless men who work hard for a family that they don’t even know? Their children are strangers. The saddest thing is that you are cutting yourself off from your own life.

I am not going to bore you with the statistics of how many women across the globe get hassled every day. Well if you really want to know….its 1 in 3 and its getting worst. That means that a women very close to you is being abused in some form or fashion…at work…in the streets…in the train… And you turn a blind eye and pretend that inequality has nothing to do with you…that diversity is a female issue. No! It is a male issue. You are the ones with the problem. Women want to work. We want to show you what we can do… we want to succeed for humanity. What is so wrong with that? What is so threatening about us? You know what so sad… it is that women get abused by nice guys. The nice guy at work and down the pub. The nice guy… your mate is the same guy who leers at women…calls out to them on the streets… dismisses their contributions in the office…undermines their professionalism and rubs himself up against them on his way home from the office. I am a business woman but I still have to phone my husband to come and get me if I am late home from a meeting… it is too dangerous for us to walk on the streets. You seem to think that the rapist is some degenerate or some psycho. He is not…he is the nice guy. The saddest thing about it is that one day you will be offering your daughters up to a nice guy.

You seem to think that because you do nothing to harm women…that you love your partner and your mother and get them gifts on the appropriate day that you are one of the good guys and that lets you off the hook. No! By doing nothing to challenge the status quo you are actually doing something. You are allowing the cowardly little weasels who prey on women as a way of feeling good about themselves to slip by. He thinks that your silence is consent. He thinks that your silence is agreement. You have to speak up for your women folk because the abuse is getting worst.

China is now feeling the brunt of its ‘no girl child’ policy. For years China encouraged couples to have 1 child and they favoured boys. Now there is such a shortage of women that men have to go to Vietnam to buy women. Women have become scarce and hot property. Can you imagine a world where there are no women? When I walk into a place where there are only men it smells odd. It is the smell of stagnation. The saddest thing here is that there are men all over the world who don’t know how to be men around women.

China a country of men

We women bring great gifts. The gifts of a mother for a start….the one that rocked you on her knee. And made you the man you are today. For better or for worst. Your mother comes from good stock. You have seen her strength, courage, resilience and resourcefulness at first hand. It has reared and shaped you. Nearly all of you were raised by women. Your fathers were either on the side-lines, working, unapproachable, incommunicative or absent. Your mother was mother, father, nurse, HR specialist, consultant, cook, financial advisor, educator, designated driver, party planner, listener, storyteller… when did it happen that she and her kind are not good enough for business or the workplace when everything you are… you owe to her. I know we are crazy and you don’t understand our ways sometimes. But we raised you… and the saddest thing is that you will not let us be ourselves so we can love you as real women.





20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

Leave Blank:Do Not Change:

Your email:

 



 Do Well!!



 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.



 Mind Synergy

 Engineer In Heels



 

bev@bevbakerseminars.com