Category — Thoughts

I’m in awe.

Imagine they’d told us this ten years ago: you can choose almost any song you want, press a couple of imaginary buttons – and then the music will fly through the air into your hard drive… it’s amazing what we can do. And it’s amazing what else we can do too. What will be normal in another ten years?

I’m sad that John Peters died this weekend. He was a lovely man with a big heart – an inspiration and a friend. I’ll miss you buddy.

All you need is love… love is all you need.

Happy Christmas everyone!

One of the great myths bestowed on us from the last century is that we each have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. It began with Freud and it’s become an increasingly popular belief ever since, especially with hypnosists and NLP people.

I attended a training recently where a prominent teacher explained how he’d told a metaphorical story to a female client, and “she didn’t get it, but her unconscious got it”.

Is it really useful to create an entity of someone’s thoughts and act as if that’s seperate from the person themselves?

Sometimes it is. But often these teachers fail to communicate that the conscious/unconscious distinction is a metaphor – a useful way to think about thinking. We don’t really have two minds. We aren’t really separate from our thoughts.

You can pay attention and be aware of your heart, and it continues to beat even when you’re not paying attention. That doesn’t mean you have a conscious heart and an unconscious heart. It’s just that we’re designed to focus our attention differently at different times, and we’re capable of running processes in the background too.

I’m pretty sure I only have one mind. I’m aware of (conscious of) some of my thoughts and not aware of (unconscious of) others, but it’s all the same mind.

I don’t have “an unconscious” – and nor do you.

It’s much easier to run your own brain when you drop the labels and feel into the experience instead. Conscious/unconscious is a useful metaphor sometimes, and it has major limitations too. It’s a map, not the territory. I suggest people remember that it’s a metaphor and only use it when it’s useful.

I’m so grateful to the brave Peter Oborne for standing up against the wicked Jewish lobby and telling it like it is.

His documentary on Channel Four last night – made by “Hardcash” productions, ironically – was so insightful; now I’ve seen the light.

Now I know that traitorous Zionists are secretly funding a massive campaign on behalf of a foreign government, and they’re officially “the most powerful lobby in Britain”.

Having worked in Parliament, I always thought it was the advertising lobby that had the most reach – endlessly sending me gifts while I was there (always returned); always offering nights out and tickets for whatever was on.

But it’s obvious now you think about it. It’s the nasty Zionist influence that makes our government back Israel to the hilt. That’s why we joined America, Canada, Australia and 15 other countries in firmly rejecting the Goldstone report (we didn’t), and why our Foreign Secretary didn’t speak out against Israel’s actions in Gaza (he did).

It’s why BBC News journalists have to be so pro-Israel all the time (haha), and why someone like Jeremy Bowen could never be accused of partiality against Israel (the BBC Trust found he was). It’s why Jon Snow from Channel Four News may have great ties but he’d never deny with disdain the deaths of so many Israeli civilians.

It’s why The Independent and especially The Guardian cower in fear and never conflate news and anti-Israel opinion, and of course never censor the debate (yeah right).

Of course, it’s all obvious now. Those big-noses are running the country and they’re controlling everything!

I’m so glad Peter showed us his bloody montage: dead children – Jews eating dinner – more blood – Israel flag – dead bodies – Jews eating dinner… money, Israel flag, dead bodies, Israel flag… because it showed he had no agenda, obviously. It showed that he wasn’t pandering to sick stereotypes either.

Did I dream this bizarre program or was it really on last night?

Oborne’s essential message was that since he couldn’t find any evidence of a conspiracy, that proves it is a very deep conspiracy. Because nobody could tell him about it, that proves it exists. A typical example of his special brand of logic was when he said the Honest Reporting news agency isn’t based in Britain (it is) but in Israel (it isn’t). So off he went to Jerusalem, probably with his crucifix at the ready, where he was politely told that the office isn’t there. This seemed to prove something sinister to him: it’s a virtual organisation, he told us knowingly, as if that’s odd for a website. Nudge nudge, wink wink. (I happen to know that the head of Honest Reporting, Simon Plosker, was in London the whole time this was going on… and I am pretty sure Oborne knew this too.)

The message most people will remember is that Oborne went over to Israel to track down a group of evasive Jews who remote-control our politicians and media. It’s shitty journalism. It panders to the worst kind of prejudice.

At a time when anti-semitic violence is on the rise, Oborne’s crass conspiracy theory will make money for him and Hardcash – and it will put more Jewish lives at risk.

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A quick note to the synaptically-challenged. Please don’t tell me that criticising Israel doesn’t make you anti-semitic. That straw man argument has been used over and over by people who think they’re being cleverer than they ever could be. I’ve heard it enough times now. The idea that there are two teams, two tribes, is hopeless. But more hopeless is the idea of moral equivalence: that Channel Four broadcast a Dispatches documentary about terrorist mosques so now they must also broadcast one about traitorous Jews. Stand up for what you believe, if you believe anything; don’t hide behind vagueness and idealistic views of theoretical pacifism. Of course Israel isn’t perfect. Who could be perfect in these conditions? The solution is good communication and dialog – it’s never to fuel the flames of hate, which is what Peter Oborne did last night.

The Home Secretary has sacked his advisor, Professor David Nutt, for disagreeing with him on drugs policy.

Is this what modern politics is about? Paying someone to echo what you already believe and sacking them if they deviate from “the message”.

It seems like a weird kind of prostitution to me.

Of course Nutt was right to tell the truth about the scientific evidence, even if it doesn’t support the government’s current policy.

The Home Secretary is being more paranoid than any stoner I’ve known. And more irresponsible too.

What will the next government advisor say, if he/she wants to stay in the job for more than five minutes? What about advisors on other issues, and in other departments?

Paying someone to give you honest and informed advice is one of the smartest things anyone can do. Listening to what they say is a good idea too.

I’m in the middle of Robert Holden’s 8-week happiness course – a series of meditations on joy and happiness.

It’s wonderful. Robert is one of the most authentically happy people I’ve ever met, as well as being a great teacher and facilitator.

I love having conversations about happiness. From children to great grandparents, I think we can learn about happiness from everyone.

One of the most interesting things is what we call paradigms of happiness. How do people think about happiness?

Most people seem to think about it as something that has to be earned or deserved. If I work hard, then I can enjoy the weekend. If my kids are happy, then I’ll be happy. (Otherwise I suck and must be miserable.)

Others think about it as something they (can) achieve. They seek bigger experiences, wilder adventures, more stuff, better stuff. If I seduce a supermodel and go on a road trip across America, then I’ll be happy. (Otherwise I suck and must be miserable.)

Some people see happiness as something they already have. It’s like a possession. The trouble with a possession is someone might take it away, so these people tend to guard their happiness and insure against its loss.

If you’ve ever been to a self-improvement event, you’ll have met people for whom happiness has become a journey or even a quest. If they could just find the right map and ignore the distractions, eventually they’d get there. But who has the right map? You can almost hear these people shouting inside their head ‘JUST TELL ME WHERE THE DAMN HAPPINESS IS AND THEN I’LL GO THERE’. Usually they’re looking for the latest sat nav gadget, in whatever form that takes – another book, another workshop… they are usually less and less happy as they learn more and more ways to become happy.

A few people think about happiness as a choice. They decide to be happy. They might take practical steps too – learning techniques to focus their mind; eating in ways that give them constant energy; avoiding people who bring them down, etc. – and if they do, by aligning their attention and intention, they will probably feel good more often than not. This pretty much works; a lot of happy people do it this way.

But the paradigm I like best is the most simple of all. It’s the genuine realisation that you are happy. It’s the knowledge that happiness is your essence; your core. And when you pay attention to your essence rather than the distractions of everyday life, happiness is always there, because you are happy.

Michael Neill has a lovely story about a bowl of cloudy water, kinda muddy water. How would you make it clear? Shake it? Boil it? Sieve it? Add chemicals? None of them really work that great. The best way we’ve found is to let the bowl settle. Let the water stand for a while. And what you’ll notice is the gunk starts to separate itself, because the natural state of water is clear. And the natural state of you is happy.

Beautiful.

It’s too easy though, right? So we go back on the journey, back to earning our happiness, back to defending it.

And yet every authentically happy person I’ve ever met has had the same message: you can’t become happy, you can only be happy.

Have a great day!

When I wrote Can NLP Be What It Has Become?, the reaction was really positive. Most people agreed that NLP has lost its way and many republished the article on their own blogs and websites. Even Bandler’s UK promoter republished it.

To the few who disagreed, and who think standards in NLP are good enough, here’s a reminder of why they’re not.

George is a practitioner approved by not just one… not just two… but at least three professional-sounding organisations in the UK, including the British Board of NLP. He’s apparently a great hypnotist and you can trust him as your therapist.

George is also a cat.

Yes, a cat.

Read the full story on the BBC website.

I like Obama. I think he’s brought a new spirit of hope into the White House and it’s resonated throughout the world.

I also feel closer to America – and Americans – since he took office. Maybe that’s an odd thing to say because, diplomatically, our countries’ relationship is now more strained than it has ever been in my lifetime. But I think British people are lightening up about the yanks again. We feel closer. When you listen through the chatter, the common mantra that Bush was dumb has been neatly replaced by an audacious hope that yes we can build a brighter future – and I think that’s a much better direction to be headed in, together.

But a Nobel Peace Prize? Come on! Did five people have a bowl of stupid for breakfast, or what?

It’s only been six months, and he’s just getting started.

I blame the racism. And by the racism I mean the patronising “ooooh, he’s black” kind of racism that media people seem to have fallen in love with lately. It’s patronising and offensive. And it’s set up this surreal situation where it looks like the very real bravery of Morgan Tsvangirai is valued less than Obama’s hope and rhetoric.

Nobody could have designed a more media-friendly way to undermine Obama today. By praising his efforts to bring peace, the Prize committee provoked millions of people to shout back: “what peace?”.

Twitter almost collapsed under the weight of everyone tweeting their snorts.

Yet Obama has done a lot, and he will do a lot more. The slogans are what it takes to get through the door these days. His presidency is a work in progress and no presidency should be judged after only six months.

We should treat him as a human being – an outstanding human being – and not as The First Black President.

We should give him time to walk his path.

This passage from John Pepper is resonating with me this week.

“What we do not know is that when we have travelled the world over in search of the Holy Grail, ransacked the texts of the saints and sages for clues as to its whereabouts, pleaded with the night to yield it to us, abased ourselves in rituals, followed the light paths of romantic love and relationship and the dark ones of drugs and disorder, and done the million and one things it appears we have to do before we finally grind to a halt in exhaustion, our happiness still tantalisingly out of reach, then we see with a snort of absurdity that there is nowhere left to reach out to; that all the words have gone. The running, brother and sister, is done. The answer is contained here in this frail being in this dark night on this lasted heath; here or nowhere. The Holy Grail is us.”