Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Monday, 16 April 2012
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Relationships
“Whatever relationships you have attracted in your life at this moment, are precisely the ones you need in your life at this moment. There is a hidden meaning behind all events, and this hidden meaning is serving your own evolution.” --- Deepak Chopra
Monday, 27 September 2010
Meaning
It's an old clip from a great thinker and I needed inspiration. You see when we let the world around us begin to control our thoughts and influence our feelings we get sick. I got sick. I let the hurt and anger around me change my focus. When we do that we lose our sense of meaning and our bodies break down. I am resting now and am inspired by the wise sage Frankl. I hope you are as well. Peace. TJS
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Happiness
A client and I were talking about how she was struggling to find meaning in her life. She had worked diligently to find a good job, purchase a nice home and find a charming husband. She had succeeded in all three but was still feeling 'alone.' I asked her to take time each day (10 min.) to breathe slowly in and out to the count of seven and to imagine caring for herself; as if she were holding a child. I then asked her what she saw in the child. She said, 'her soul, her spirit, her perfection.' All that found within! It is a place we neglect. It is a place we should all go. TJS.
In North America "we are taught that the way to achieve happiness is to change our external environment to fit our wishes. But this strategy doesn't work. In every life, pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame keep showing up, no matter how hard we struggle to have only pleasure, gain and praise. Buddhist psychology offers a different approach to happiness, teaching that states of consciousness are far more crucial than outer circumstances." ---Kornfield
In North America "we are taught that the way to achieve happiness is to change our external environment to fit our wishes. But this strategy doesn't work. In every life, pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame keep showing up, no matter how hard we struggle to have only pleasure, gain and praise. Buddhist psychology offers a different approach to happiness, teaching that states of consciousness are far more crucial than outer circumstances." ---Kornfield
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
There is so much more to understanding...
There is so much more to psychology than science. If we are open to it, knowledge is everywhere, even in the darkest moments. TJS
"For the last ten years of his life, Tim's father had Alzheimer's disease. Despite the devoted care of Tim's mother, he had slowly deteriorated until he had become a sort of walking vegetable. He was unable to speak and was fed, clothed, and cared for as if he were a very young child.....One Sunday, while Tim's mother was out doing the shopping, Tim and his brother, then fifteen and seventeen, watched football as their father sat nearby in a chair. Suddenly, he slumped forward and fell to the floor. Both sons realized immediately that something was terribly wrong. His color was gray and his breath uneven and rasping. Frightened, Tim's older brother told him to call 911. Before he could respond, a voice he had not heard in ten years, a voice he could barely remember, interrupted. 'Don't call 911, son. Tell your mother that I love her. Tell her that I am all right.' And Tim's father died.
Tim, now a cardiologist, goes on: "Because he died unexpectedly at home, the law required that we have an autopsy. My father's brain was almost entirely destroyed by his disease. For many year's I have asked myself, 'Who spoke? Who are we really?' I have never found a slightest help from any medical knowledge. Much of life cannot be explained, it can only be witnessed."
"For the last ten years of his life, Tim's father had Alzheimer's disease. Despite the devoted care of Tim's mother, he had slowly deteriorated until he had become a sort of walking vegetable. He was unable to speak and was fed, clothed, and cared for as if he were a very young child.....One Sunday, while Tim's mother was out doing the shopping, Tim and his brother, then fifteen and seventeen, watched football as their father sat nearby in a chair. Suddenly, he slumped forward and fell to the floor. Both sons realized immediately that something was terribly wrong. His color was gray and his breath uneven and rasping. Frightened, Tim's older brother told him to call 911. Before he could respond, a voice he had not heard in ten years, a voice he could barely remember, interrupted. 'Don't call 911, son. Tell your mother that I love her. Tell her that I am all right.' And Tim's father died.
Tim, now a cardiologist, goes on: "Because he died unexpectedly at home, the law required that we have an autopsy. My father's brain was almost entirely destroyed by his disease. For many year's I have asked myself, 'Who spoke? Who are we really?' I have never found a slightest help from any medical knowledge. Much of life cannot be explained, it can only be witnessed."
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
If I Can Stop
IF I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Monday, 8 February 2010
Compassion
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Meaning
Dr. Viktor Frankl was a professor of both psychiatry and philosophy at the University of Vienna, Austria,
He was the founder of logotherapy. His logotherapy looks at our lives in a different way than most other psychotherapeutic theories. It looks to the healthy spiritual core of people for resources of healing, instead of analyzing pathology ad infinitum. Each of us has healing potential.
The definition of the term logotherapy is finding meaning through therapy.
The Greek term logos will be familiar to students of theology. It is usually translated as the "Word" or "Will" of God in religious circles. In a broader sense, it can be viewed as "that which gives reason for being." Frankl prefers the simple translation of logos as "meaning."
Basic assumptions of logotherapy:
1. Life has meaning under all circumstances.
2. People have a will to meaning.
3. People have freedom under all circumstances to activate the will to meaning and to find meaning.
Therapy, counselling and healing are full of hope and engagement.
"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Viktor E. Frankl
He was the founder of logotherapy. His logotherapy looks at our lives in a different way than most other psychotherapeutic theories. It looks to the healthy spiritual core of people for resources of healing, instead of analyzing pathology ad infinitum. Each of us has healing potential.
The definition of the term logotherapy is finding meaning through therapy.
The Greek term logos will be familiar to students of theology. It is usually translated as the "Word" or "Will" of God in religious circles. In a broader sense, it can be viewed as "that which gives reason for being." Frankl prefers the simple translation of logos as "meaning."
Basic assumptions of logotherapy:
1. Life has meaning under all circumstances.
2. People have a will to meaning.
3. People have freedom under all circumstances to activate the will to meaning and to find meaning.
Therapy, counselling and healing are full of hope and engagement.
"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Viktor E. Frankl
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Who is in control of your life?
Often clients tell me that what they experience has changed who they are. This is not true. Rather it is how we interpret our experiences that informs who we become. Life is meant to be enjoyed and can be if we claim our experience and choose what it means. TJS
"Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations."
Alfred Adler
"Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations."
Alfred Adler
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Connections
It happens in the obvious places like buying a snowboard or visiting the chocolate shop. You interact with the people around you. Store clerks and people on the street. These chance meetings are connections of great importance. They build the unifying energy of the world. Goodness evokes connection, engagement evokes depth. It happens in the obvious places where we look least. Connections that make the world a better place. TJS
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
The Mind
What is the nature of mind like? Imagine a sky, empty, spacious, and pure from the beginning; its essence is like this. Imagine a sun, luminous, clear, unobstructed, and spontaneously present; its nature is like this. Imagine that sun shining out impartially on us and all things, penetrating all directions; its energy, which is the manifestation of compassion, is like this: Nothing can obstruct it, and it pervades everywhere.
---Rigpa Quote of the Day
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