A Depressive With a Megaphone

I've just arrived on my teaching course. I'm feeling slightly anxious. But I'm OK with that. Sitting in the car waiting to go in. I have been behind with my homework which meant I had to find a place to print out the worksheets before the class! I managed to find a voluntary organisation at 8.45 in the morning to do this. 5p a sheet! Such a kind lady! :) I managed to get almost all my homework done. Reflection: getting behind on urgent tasks creates stress. Stop procrastinating haha :)

I have been eating more healthily recently and I feel much clearer headed tonight. I don't drink alcohol so that's not an issue for me, however I find sugar does make me feel pretty rotten. I tend to get a 'sugar high' at the time, then followed by a 'sugar low'. I have been eating more fruit and vegetables and I've had fruit smoothies (freshly made) in the mornings. My exercise is pretty non-existent at the moment so that's probably the next thing to work on. Anyway goodnight!

Sometimes We Can't Be Authentic? I had a friend say to me that she wanted to be fully authentic, however sometimes she felt that society wouldn't let her. The example she cited was in regards to the electoral roll (in the UK it is a legal requirement to sign up to it, or so it seems). She didn't want to vote so she didn't see why she had to fill it in, fair enough. Her point was that she felt authentic to not fill it in, but the government would fine her a lot of money if she didn't so she felt like she couldn't be authentic now. However the reality is, that no matter what happens, we can always be authentic. In the above case, she would simply need to be authentic in relation to learning about the fine. This is just new information that is added in to the mix. She would now just be authentic with how she reacts with all the available information. So we can always be authentic. Being authentic doesn't mean that things always go as we want. It's...

I over-slept which means that I have missed a session of one of my courses. I have a vague recollection of the alarm clock going off. I awoke a bit dazed and confused. I suddenly realised that I had awoken without an alarm, which could mean only one thing... I had over-slept. I grabbed my phone from the side of my bed and low and behold it was 9.45am or so. This mean that the next train would be about 10.30am which would mean getting in to the course for the last half hour of a two hour course! I initially phoned and said I could make it for half-time, as I was sleepy when I first called. I later realised I couldn't make it in time. Surprisingly I didn't feel that annoyed at missing it. I have done all I can do, which was to get a message to the tutor before the course started in order that she and the other students know. Hopefully I won't miss a practical today. Apologies for a boring post! I'm still sleepy!

My friend had a dream last night where it was her birthday party and everyone was invited. Everyone was there. Her partner, her best friend, other friends, parents etc. She put on a huge effort for everyone. Cooked food. Set everything up. It was an amazing party and everyone was having a great time... except her! No-one had remembered to give her a single birthday card. She was deeply hurt in the dream, but in the dream she tried to justify it (i.e. her friend is stressed at the moment, and another person is forgetful, another friend doesn't 'do' birthdays etc). But she still remained hurt. She told me about the dream and I actually felt guilt (authentic guilt of course!). I worked out that I hadn't been there for her the past few months as my depression had got really bad and I was too much in a mess to be a good friend! She s the sort of person who gives SO much to others. Her kindness and compassion is unparalleled compared with anyone I've ever met. She has...

I believe that non-duality is the same as being totally authentic. When I had person-centred counselling several years ago, one topic the therapist kept talking about was the topic of learning to lose the false-self in order to find the true-self (i.e. to learn to be authentic). The parallel to this in the spiritual world (mainly in the non-duality or Zen world) is to just 'be'. When I first heard this I thought "Well I AM my true-self already. How can I NOT be me!? I am just 'being' already". However deep down I sensed there still might be some truth in these ideas. When someone suggests that we need to be authentic it can appear insulting. Being inauthentic is certainly an intended jibe that is heard occasionally in relation to someone being fake. However the state of being fake I am talking about in this article is when we are fake to ourselves. Some people in the non-duality / spiritual world believe that there is no way to reach the state of onene...

I got speaking to someone recently. Someone I knew well from my past. His condition of worth (or self-label) is one of 'politeness'. He is always ridiculously over-polite. This is an irritating behaviour. It is suffocating. As you are probably aware extremes of any behaviour (the word 'extremes' gives this away) are often unbalanced and harmful in some way, either to the giver or recipient of said behaviour. Due to being over-polite he tends to not be assertive with his needs. He then feels like his needs aren't being met, and his inner-self feels neglected, and a bit irritated at being ignored at the expense of another (again). What I noticed with his behaviour is that he has cycles of apparent peacefulness and thoughtfulness followed by passive-aggressive behaviours (sometimes just very angry and resentful). It should be obvious what is happening here. Due to trying to be polite all the time, he suppresses his needs and in turn bottles up more and more anger...