The Art of Not Being Offended

I was hoping to bring you an extract from the first article to be published on my main site today. Unfortunately there’s been a bit of a technical hitch, so I will have to wait until next week to share this with you. Also – as of next week, I will be reducing my blog entries to two or three a week (for the time being) as I have a number of other exciting projects I need to work on, including a book, a workshop and a number of other articles for the Empathic Guidance site.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share this article with you as the content rings very true for me. I hope you enjoy it and wish you all a wonderful weekend.

The Art of Not Being Offended

by Dr Jodi Prinzivalli

There is an ancient and well-kept secret to happiness which the Great Ones have known for centuries. They rarely talk about it, but they use it all the time, and it is fundamental to good mental health. This secret is called The Fine Art of Not Being Offended. In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date. In other words, the majority of people in our world say and do what they do from their own set of fears, conclusions, defences and attempts to survive. Most of it, even when aimed directly at us, has nothing to do with us. Usually, it has more to do with all the other times, and in particular the first few times, that this person experienced a similar situation, usually when they were young.

Yes, this is psychodynamic. But let’s face it, we live in a world where psychodynamics are what make the world go around. An individual who wishes to live successfully in the world as a spiritual person really needs to understand that psychology is as spiritual as prayer. In fact, the word psychology literally means the study of the soul.

All of that said, almost nothing is personal. Even with our closest loved ones, our beloved partners, our children and our friends. We are all swimming in the projections and filters of each other’s life experiences and often we are just the stand-ins, the chess pieces of life to which our loved ones have their own built-in reactions. This is not to dehumanize life or take away the intimacy from our relationships, but mainly for us to know that almost every time we get offended, we are actually just in a misunderstanding. A true embodiment of this idea actually allows for more intimacy and less suffering throughout all of our relationships. When we know that we are just the one who happens to be standing in the right place at the right psychodynamic time for someone to say or do what they are doing—we don’t have to take life personally. If it weren’t us, it would likely be someone else.

This frees us to be a little more detached from the reactions of people around us. How often do we react to a statement of another by being offended rather than seeing that the other might actually be hurting? In fact, every time we get offended, it is actually an opportunity to extend kindness to one who may be suffering—even if they themselves do not appear that way on the surface. All anger, all acting out, all harshness, all criticism, is in truth a form of suffering. When we provide no Velcro for it to stick, something changes in the world. We do not even have to say a thing. In fact, it is usually better not to say a thing. People who are suffering on the inside, but not showing it on the outside, are usually not keen on someone pointing out to them that they are suffering. We do not have to be our loved one’s therapist. We need only understand the situation and move on. In the least, we ourselves experience less suffering and at best, we have a chance to make the world a better place.

This is also not to be confused with allowing ourselves to be hurt, neglected or taken advantage of. True compassion does not allow harm to ourselves either. But when we know that nothing is personal, a magical thing happens. Many of the seeming abusers of the world start to leave our lives. Once we are conscious, so-called abuse can only happen if we believe what the other is saying. When we know nothing is personal, we also do not end up feeling abused. We can say, “Thank you for sharing,” and move on. We are not hooked by what another does or says, since we know it is not about us. When we know that our inherent worth is not determined by what another says, does or believes, we can take the world a little less seriously. And if necessary, we can just walk away without creating more misery for ourselves or having to convince the other person that we are good and worthy people.

The great challenge of our world is to live a life of contentment, regardless of what other people do, say, think or believe. The fine art of not being offended is one of the many skills for being a practical mystic. Though it may take a lifetime of practice, it is truly one of the best kept secrets for living a happy life.

The Nine Insights

This week I’ve been looking at the phenomenon of synchronicity. Synchronicity is a key feature in the bestselling book The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. The Celestine Prophecy is essentially a spiritual guide for our times, written as an adventure novel, and I feel it puts into context the role synchronicity plays in our personal/spiritual development.

Here is a brief overview of the insights which are discovered throughout the course of the book, adapted from the article The Celestine Prophet by Alan Atkisson (New Age Journal, p. 65, August 1994). I don’t entirely agree with the literal interpretation of all these insights – for example, I prefer to view the last line of the ninth insight as a metaphor rather than a reality – but I think overall Redfield paints a fairly accurate picture. The insights certainly resonated with me on first reading, and if you’re just beginning to explore metaphysics and the ‘meaning of life’, then it’s as good a place as any to start.

The Nine Insights

1. Meaningful coincidences. Feeling restless? You’re not alone: Everybody’s starting to look for more meaning in life. Start paying closer attention to those seemingly “chance coincidences” – strange occurrences that feel like they were meant to happen. They are actually synchronistic events, and following them will start you on your path to spiritual truth.

2. Historical perspective. Observe our culture within its proper historical context. The first half of the past millennium was spent under the thumb of the church; in the second half we became preoccupied with material comfort. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, we’ve exhausted that preoccupation. We’re ready to discover life’s ultimate purpose.

3. Subtle energy. Start to get acquainted with the subtle energy that infuses all things. With practice, you can learn to see the aura around any living being and to project your own energy around it to give it strength.

4. Competition for energy. An unconscious competition for energy underlies all conflicts. By dominating or manipulating others, we get the extra energy we think we need. Sure, it feels good – but both parties are damaged in the conflict.

5. Energy abundance. The key to overcoming conflict in the world is the mystical experience, which is available to everyone. To nurture the mystical and build your energy, allow yourself to be filled with a sense of love.

6. Getting clear. Childhood traumas block our ability to fully experience the mystical. All humans, because of their upbringing, tend toward one of four control dramas:

* Intimidators steal energy from others by threat.

* Interrogators steal it by judging and questioning.

* Aloof people attract attention (and energy) to themselves by playing coy.

* Poor me’s make us feel guilty and responsible for them.

Become aware of the family dynamics that created your control drama and you can focus on your essential question, which is how to make of your life a higher- level synthesis of your parents’ lives.

7. Using intuition. Once cleared of traumas, you can build energy through contemplation and meditation, focus on you basic life question, and start riding a steady stream of intuitions, dreams, and synchronistic coincidences, all guiding you in the direction of your own evolution and transformation.

8. Relating to others. That evolution can’t be done alone, so begin to practice the new “Interpersonal Ethic” by uplifting those who cross your path. Talk to people who make spontaneous eye contact with you. Avoid co-dependent relationships. Be there for people. Call attention to other people’s control dramas. In groups, speak when the spirit (instead of the ego) moves you.

9. Conscious evolution. Our purpose here is to evolve beyond this plane. Fewer people (a result of reproductive abstinence) and more old-growth forests will help us to sustain our energy and accelerate our evolution. Technology will do most of our work for us. As we begin to value spiritual insight more and more, we will pay those who bring it to us, and this will eventually replace the market economy and our need for paid employment. We can connect to God’s energy in such a way that we will eventually become beings of light, and walk straight into heaven.

So what is synchronicity?

So what is this strange phenomenon ‘synchronicity’ and why does it happen?

Synchronicity is a term which was originally coined by the psychiatrist Carl Jung to describe an acausal coincidence between two unrelated events connected by meaning – a ‘meaningful coincidence’. Jung is famous for his belief that science and spirituality should be integrated, and felt that synchronicity was the perfect challenge to our cultural conditioning to only accept the rational and explicable.

The fact that despite the best efforts of the sceptics, synchronicity is a phenomenon which ultimately maintains its mystery is one of the things I find so intriguing and delightful about it. It demonstrates that there is more to our lives than that which is witnessed by our five senses or explained away by scientific research and that therefore there is perhaps a greater pattern in operation in the universe.

In her book Synchronicity: The Promise of CoincidenceDeike Begg expands on this concept:

The most interesting aspect of all truly synchronistic phenomena is that there appears to be a pre-existing knowledge of things to come, things of which we have at that moment no apparent awareness whatsoever. There seems to be an altogether ‘other’ that knows more than us, can see into the future and also has the ingenious ability to find the quickest route to return us to our destined path.

This ‘other’ which Begg speaks of is what Jung called the ‘collective unconscious’ and which I like to refer to as the ‘universal energy’. We see evidence of this ‘unconscious world’ which connects us all through synchronistic happenings, dreams, telepathy and the like – as Begg says, ‘in that moment we are aware that we are not alone, that there is a whole other world ‘out there’ of which we normally know nothing but which nevertheless reveals itself to us in order to help or warn’.

It would be easy here to get caught up in a lengthy discussion based on Jungian theory, but I feel that’s beyond the scope of this blog and something best reserved for a more in-depth article. So I’m going to cut to the chase and offer my own feelings about synchronicity and what these strange occurrences mean to me, based on contemplation, research and empirical evidence.

I think there’s a part of all of us – the ‘higher self’, if you like (the ‘unconscious’ in psychological terms) – which is tuned into the universal energy (or collective unconscious – see below for an illustration of how this works). Some people are more in touch with their higher self – and therefore the universal energy – than others. Through this higher self, the universal energy gives us ‘nudges’ through such phenomena as synchronicities to encourage us to expand our awareness and open up to the infinite possibilities which exist beyond our conscious mind and our ‘everyday’ self. The majority of people, when experiencing a truly awesome synchronicity, will take a moment to ponder whether there is perhaps more to life than the purely material, and for some, this will trigger a search for ‘something more’, beyond that which is tangible.

But this nudge into awareness is just the beginning. Once you begin to listen to the voice of your higher self – the voice which I call ‘inner guidance’ – then the synchronicities will begin to appear more and more. These syncs are like destiny’s signposts – I find that they usually occur to either reassure me I’m on the right path, or to show me the way when I’m feeling bewildered about which direction to take. The latter is also usually a nudge to remind me to let go and follow my inner guidance, as the bewilderment is usually caused by ego-generated fears. When I do surrender to the universal energy and listen to the messages coming through my higher self, then the path to follow is pretty clear.

Here’s an example: I first had the idea for my website and blog three years ago (almost to the day). Whilst giving guidance to an internet friend, I suddenly had an intuitive flash – maybe my life purpose was to be an ‘intuitive guide/healer/therapist’, combining my traditional counselling training with my intuitive/empathic nature, and using my writing skills and journalistic background to impart information and work with people online. I was concerned, however, about how feasible this idea was and my fears went into overdrive. Was this a realistic way to consider making a living? Would my family and friends shun or mock me as a ‘weirdo’? Confused and nervous, I picked up a random book from my vast collection and opened it. The book was The Lightworker’s Way by Doreen Virtue and the first page I turned to said this:

She also relayed a message that she had received for me: ‘Don’t worry so much, because everything is going to work out perfectly.’

With that sentence, I blushed. I had been worrying. So much of my world, my thoughts, my beliefs and my relationships were shifting, and I felt that my foundations were very shaky. The more I reopened my long-neglected spiritual interests, the less interested I was in traditional psychology. Yet, I feared my income depended upon my writing about and conducting ‘academically correct’ psychological work. What would I do for a living if I walked away from traditional psychological methods and beliefs?

Another one of my overriding concerns was my relationship with my fiancé, Michael. Although I deeply loved him, I wondered whether my emerging spirituality would pull us apart. I longed to talk to him about my exciting clairvoyant experiences, but I expected him to scoff at or overanalyse my words. Michael had never given me cause to draw these conclusions; I just didn’t feel comfortable discussing my fragile new world with him.

On reading this, I became very emotional (strong feelings and physical reactions – e.g. tears, shaking, goosebumps or  feeling excited and more alive – are usually a powerful indicator that something special has just occurred). What a wonderful sign! The author of those words, Doreen Virtue, is of course extremely successful in her chosen field, and she also states later in the book that her fears about her fiancé were totally unjustified. (For those of you  who read my Numbers blog, what was also significant about this page was that it was number 117 – a number which I’d been seeing everywhere, for no obvious reason, for about a week prior to this event.)

Obviously I listened to this message and followed up my original idea which is why I’m writing this today. The key to making the most of the synchronicities in your life is to pursue the path which you feel they point you towards. Sometimes it’s not always as clear cut as the above example, but the feeling that something pretty powerful has occurred and a willingness to be open to what your inner guidance has to tell you and to tentatively follow the trail which the synchronicity has left in its wake can be enough.

For instance, I intuitively feel that the Pete Duel synchronicity I shared with you on Monday relates to my work and consequently my life purpose. The story of this sync covers several decades of my life, from when I was a girl and felt a strange inexplicable connection with Pete, right up to the present day when I wrote the article stating that I felt he may have been an unaware empath. I think I recognised at some level that there was something important going on here before the actual sync occurred, which is why I discussed it with my partner and did some more research into Pete’s life. The wonderful synchronicity confirmed me to that this is a trail of some significance which is definitely worth pursuing – and who knows what exciting opportunities may arise or what discoveries I may make as I explore this path further?

If you’d like to read more about synchronicities, here are some more links which may be of interest:

teapotshappen.wordpress.com

When God Winks: How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Lifeby SQuire Rushnell

The Three Only Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, and Imaginationby Robert Moss

The Celestine Prophecyand The Celestine Vision: Living the New Spiritual Awarenessby James Redfield

Summer Solstice and Spooky Synchronicities… (part two)

My second synchronicity

On Saturday night, Lawrence and I stayed with some friends. We left early the next morning and stopped off for breakfast on the way home. The place we ate at was an establishment I used to visit with my daughter when she was a toddler, and looking at the children’s play equipment I felt quite nostalgic and surprisingly emotional about that never-to-be-revisited time in my life.

As I hadn’t slept too well the night before, I decided to have a little nap when I got home. I had a vivid dream that Lawrence, myself and my daughter were in a funhouse, the main feature being a large slide which we were all playing on. When I woke up, Lawrence suggested we drive to a small village nearby to visit the cafe and go for a walk, and as it was such a lovely day, this is what we did. After we’d enjoyed our tea and crumpets, we set off on our walk and headed in the direction of the local park. As we strolled along, Lawrence said to me “Shall we have a go on the slide?” referring to a previous visit when we’d attempted to do this (both of us were way too big for it and got stuck at the top, much to our – and my daughter’s – amusement). “Funny you should say that,” I said. “I had a dream about a slide earlier…” and proceeded to tell him all about it.

Later that evening, the TV was on and I caught the last fifteen minutes of Wife Swap. I don’t normally watch this show (reality TV is banned in my house) but my daughter had been sneakily viewing it whilst I was in the bath, so the TV happened to still be on this particular channel. What caught my attention was the cutest little girl, about the same age Phoebe was when we used to visit the aforementioned café. She really was such a lovely child that I actually started to feel quite broody, and again, a little emotional. And over those few minutes of viewing, the little girl was shown in a playbarn, giggling and gurgling happily as she whizzed down a huge slide, not once, but twice (once with the ‘wife swap’  then later with her real mum at the end of the show).

And I would probably not have thought much more about it, except this morning I woke up, looked out of the window and thought “What on earth is that in my green wheelie bin?” I’d put the bin out the night before ready for emptying, and it seemed that someone had dumped something in there which was certainly not appropriate for green bins – all I could see was a big lump of plastic, poking out from underneath the lid. So I went outside, pulled out the offending item, and was yet again totally gobsmacked when I found this:

As you can see, not only is it a child’s slide, it’s a slide which could only be used by a toddler – the same age as the girl in the show and ergo, my daughter when we visited the café. I have no idea how it ended up there – a drunken prank maybe? – but it was such a strange coincidence, I actually phoned Lawrence to ask him if he had anything to do with it, as he was the only person I’d talked to about the slide dream, the nostalgia etc. However, he was as bemused – and stunned – as I was. I still can’t quite get over it – when you think of all the possible items in the world which could have been dumped in that bin, how come it happened to be the one thing which held any significance for me over the previous 24 hours?

Tomorrow I’ll talk more about synchronicities and we’ll look in more depth at what they mean and why they occur. In the meantime, if you have any interesting synchronicity stories yourself, I’d love to hear about them. Please feel free to share in a comment on here or if you prefer, you can e-mail me at innersimplicity@empathicguidance.co.uk.

Summer Solstice and Spooky Synchronicities…(part one)

This week I’m going to explore the phenomenon of synchronicity. To illustrate this concept, over the next couple of days I’m going to describe two strange events which happened over the course of this weekend. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that these occurred a) around the time of the solstice and b) after I’d decided that I would write some blogs on synchronicity this week.

My first synchronicity

Last week I finally completed the first article for my main site, www.empathicguidance.co.uk. The article is about the difficulties which can occur in your life through being an unaware empath. One of the issues I discuss in this feature is how the empath can end up carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. Here is what I wrote:

Our empathy is not just limited to those around us – it’s also global. The empath can hardly bear to watch violence and will weep for the pain and suffering in the world. Your high level of compassion means that you probably find it impossible to comprehend the cruelty, ignorance and narrow minded attitudes of others. I remember my dad telling me as a child that Pete Duel, who I loved to watch in the 70s TV show   ‘Alias Smith and Jones’, had killed himself because ‘he took the weight of the world on his shoulders’, and as I grew up I began to realise why I had been strangely drawn to this man, as I too experienced some of the pain Pete must have felt.

Whilst writing and researching this article, I decided to find out a bit more about Pete Duel, and was intrigued to discover that he had many of the traits of the unaware empath. This prompted me to consider writing an article about Pete, outlining these traits and using his life and tragic death as an extreme example of what can happen to someone who is unaware of their high level of empathy.

When I’d finished working for the day, I talked about Pete’s life and death with my partner, Lawrence, and during the course of our conversation, we both agreed that it was a shame that “Alias Smith and Jones” hadn’t been on TV for a while, as we’d both really enjoyed it when we were kids. I suggested that we order a DVD of the show, so that’s what we did. This duly arrived last Friday and we ended up watching the pilot show that very same evening.

The same day that the DVD arrived, I also received a book I’d ordered called What a Coincidence!: Understanding Synchronicity in Everyday Life by Susan M. Watkins.  After watching the DVD, I took the book to bed with me to read, and whilst reading, I thought to myself “Wouldn’t it be funny if there was some strange coincidence relating to me and my life actually in this book?”  After reading the first 50 pages, I began to feel tired, but thought I’d press on and read just one more chapter before going to sleep. So I turned to the next page … only to find this:

“I have a very odd thing to tell you,” he says by way of greeting. Hugh was not prone to collecting “odd things” willy-nilly, so when he noticed them you could be sure they’d be interesting. I grab a nearby memo pad and pencil and say, “What is it?”

Well, Hugh says, the thing is – did I remember his description years ago about his strong feelings of connection with Peter Deuel, (sic – the original spelling of his name) the actor and co-star of “Alias Smith and Jones”, the early-seventies TV western? Right from the first show, Deuel seemed…familiar. As if Hugh recognised him from…somewhere. Not a physical somewhere, though Deuel was in fact originally from Rochester, New York, a hundred and twenty miles north of Hugh’s Elmira home. “It was something like a past-life thing,” Hugh tells me, “but not exactly that, either.” He goes on to reiterate his feeling (which he’d explained to me before) that this was further connected with Hugh’s attachment to Bluff Point, the majestic peninsula that juts out between the branches of good old Y-shaped Keuka Lake, and to Hugh’s lifelong dream of building a fly-in motel on top of this bluff. “So it was definitely more than some kind of fan worship,” Hugh adds, “but I never could quite define what. It was very peculiar and strong.”

To say I was utterly gobsmacked by this would be an understatement! My whole body was covered in goosebumps as I jolted wide awake, and I was unable to sleep for another two hours. The synchronicity of me reading this paragraph, having not only just watched “Alias Smith and Jones” again for the first time in about 30 years, but having also spent the previous  couple of days contemplating the life of this particular actor who had died almost 40 years ago, was just too overwhelming.  Pete Duel is rarely – if ever – mentioned in the public domain these days, plus I must have over a thousand other books, yet I have never seen his name in any of those. Also, there was a nine day interval between me placing the order for Susan Watkins’ book and the Smith and Jones DVD, yet both arrived on the same day. What made this experience even stranger was that this man, Hugh, was describing the exact same feeling that I had about Pete and which I wrote about that very week in my article – a strong sense of connection which he was initially hard pressed to explain.

Another odd little coincidence attached to this incident is that on the same day that these two items arrived, the Father’s Day card I’d ordered for my dad – the person who told me about Pete’s death – also turned up in the same postal delivery. This card was a spoof film publicity poster – and inside were the words ‘To a screen legend’…

Check out part two tomorrow for the story of the second synchronicity which occurred hot on the heels of this one, on the actual day of the solstice…

The Economics of Happiness

Today I’m reproducing an article from Adbusters who are, in their own words,  “a global network of culture jammers and creatives working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society”.

The basic message of this article is one which I have long subscribed to, namely that ‘money doesn’t buy you happiness’. As long as I have enough money to cover the basics – food, shelter, bills – with a bit left over to buy books and the odd cappuccino, I’m more than happy. I’ve found that inner simplicity is best achieved by living an outwardly simple life and appreciating the things which money just can’t buy – watching my daughter sleep, admiring a beautiful sunset (the picture above was taken a couple of weeks ago in my back garden), snuggling on the sofa with my partner or having a damn good laugh with my friends.  Experience has also convinced me that I’d much rather work for peanuts doing something I love than work in some soul-sapping career earning pots of money, just so that I can buy lots of  ‘stuff’.  Ultimately, I believe that the pursuit of your life purpose is holistically much healthier than the pursuit of cold hard cash. I’ll be going into this in more depth on my main site www.empathicguidance.co.uk in a future article. For now, though, enjoy the feature below and if you get chance, check out the Adbusters site for more thought-provoking pieces and interesting ideas for positive change.

The Economics of Happiness

by Tom Green

In the last few years, a growing number of economists have been discovering happiness. It’s not that they are spending more time admiring flowers, helping old folks cross the road, dancing on the street or baking pies for neighbours. In fact, these happiness economists are working long hours in soul-numbing ways, torturing data with their latest econometric techniques to force deeply buried facts to the surface.

What is different is that these economists are revisiting old assumptions and asking new questions. They’re not taking the neoclassical model of rational economic man for truth. They have been willing to learn from their colleagues in psychology. They have given up on the old assumption that the more you consume, the better off you are; instead, they are actually looking at the question empirically. Most importantly, they are bravely asking, “What factors make people happy?” It’s another sign of the coming revolution in economics.

Not everyone is welcoming this new research program. The results are terrifying Milton Friedman’s disciples. Consider this: once people have an annual income of about $10,000 per capita, further income does little to promote happiness. Worse yet, economic growth in most industrial nations, which has tripled or quadrupled our wealth since 1970, hasn’t made us noticeably happier. In some countries, despite all this vast increase in wealth and consumption, folks are less happy than they were a generation ago.

I talked to Rafael Di Tella, an Argentinean economist at the Harvard Business School who is deeply involved in happiness research. Speaking from Buenos Aires, he explained, “Some of the very basic things we assumed in economics are not consistent with the evidence. This idea that income is so important to happiness is not correct. All the evidence seems to be pointing in the direction that we are working too much. In fact, we’re happy if we work less. We are spending too much time on work and too little time with friends and family. So there’s a mistake in the economic models that suggest happiness will come from more income.”

How worried are those who believe society is but the sum of all the (selfish) individuals (with insatiable appetites) who square off in the market against powerful corporations freed of government control? Very worried. The Cato institute, a think tank based in Washington, DC, issued a 41-page brief attacking happiness research and its potential to undermine the “libertarian ideals” embodied in the US socioeconomic system. It countered with a creative interpretation of the data: “The happiness-based evidence points unambiguously to the conclusion that those of us lucky enough to live in the United States in 2007 are succeeding fairly well in the pursuit of happiness.” Perhaps Cato also interprets the stats showing the millions of Americans on anti-depressants, the number of kids who show up at school without having had a decent breakfast, or the proportion of African-American men spending their days in prison as other signs their ideals are succeeding. Unfortunately for advocates of laissez-faire, the happiness evidence keeps knocking over more and more of the most cherished economic beliefs.

Lord Richard Layard is a distinguished British economist, Member of the House of Lords and a committed advocate for reorienting public policy towards the promotion of happiness. After reading his recent book on the economics of happiness, I could not resist calling him up to learn first hand what his research would imply for Chicago-school economics.

“Economists often fail to think of the social externalities of the policies they promote,” he noted, “Many economists suggest workers should be ready to move to where the high paying work is, since this would increase income. Workers who move a lot would destabilize the community and family life. This would tend to decrease trust and increase mental illness.

“Another example is when one person works harder to improve their income, and feels extra well-being from greater consumption. At the same time, they make their neighbours feel worse off, because the neighbours’ relative income has worsened. Not only that, but the pollution caused by the extra consumption enabled by higher income also decreases happiness for the rest of society. So most economists worry about how taxes discourage people from working, but in fact, taxes can be encouraging people to have a less feverish pace of life and to focus more on time with friends and family rather than consumption.”

It seems almost unimaginable that economists would be now thinking of ways to design the tax system so that we work less, consume less and value each other and the planet more. But Layard would not stop there. (Advertising executives be forewarned.)

“One of the keys to achieving happiness is to live appreciating what one has, rather than wanting more. It is important that we not be totally focused on wanting something that we don’t have – that makes for unhappy people. So it’s not at all healthy for children to be bombarded with stories on the box that make them feel that they have to have this particular brand of clothing or this particular toy or train or whatever it is, as if they can’t be a decent human being without it.” Layard even pointed to the value of Sweden’s law prohibiting advertising to children.

The folks at Cato and their brethren at the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute are most alarmed by how economists are now training the happiness lens to examine the gap between rich and poor. As Layard explained, “It’s a very simple fact that an extra dollar is worth more in terms of happiness to a poor person than to a rich person. We now have evidence that shows the extent of the difference, which is roughly that a dollar is worth 10 times more to a poor person than to a rich person whose income is 10 times higher. The value of an extra dollar to somebody is roughly inversely proportional to their income, such that a little more or a little less money makes so much more difference in happiness to a poor person than it does to a rich person.”

For a 21st-century economist, what an outlandish idea! By spreading the wealth around a little more equitably, society’s total happiness can go up. After all, a CEO who takes home $50 million a year could have 90 percent of it taxed away without their total number of smiles dropping by more than a couple dozen, while that same money would be enough to improve the lives of the entire population of a small city in Africa.

No wonder the folks at Cato and other neocon “think” tanks are fearful. Might we actually deal with the legions of homeless in rich countries more generously than dropping the odd coin in the soiled paper cups they hold up to us? Might we find a way to transfer some of the wealth that has flowed for so many decades from South to North in the opposite direction? Imagine a world where everyone lived on at least $4 a day, while a few people lived slightly less extravagantly. Might we increase the total happiness on this planet?

Home Education – a parent’s right to choose

I received the following e-mail yesterday from a friend and thought I would use my public forum today to give this some extra publicity. I have been following this story in the news and am appalled by this latest attempt to restrict our freedom of choice.  I have many reservations about the state education system – which I will cover in more depth in an article to be published on my website empathicguidance.co.uk - so home education was an option I seriously considered for my own child. My circumstances unfortunately meant that it was not a viable option for us at this time, but I have the utmost respect for anyone who does choose to take this route. What particularly galls me about these reforms is the attempt to smear home educators as possible child abusers and the threat to criminalise anyone who refuses to acquiesce to the conditions of these reforms. If you feel equally strongly about this, please take the time to read this letter, sign the petition and/or write to your MP.

You may or may not know that the Government has just released the Badman Report on Elective Home Education and this represents a real threat to the rights of parents in this country.

The government are proposing changes in the law that will regulate our home life, in as much as we will be required to register, submit written 12 month plans, and be subjected to compulsory home visits where council officials will have the right to see our children on their own, without either of us present.

These proposals are far in excess of the powers that a child protection social worker has.  Under the government proposals, a council official need only request to see a child on their own. Failure to acquiesce could result in the council applying for an Emergency Protection Order. Why? Because we have chosen to educate our children at home. The Government is also trying to prevent schools giving parents information about the option of Home Educating, preventing freedom of choice.

Part of the thinking behind the report is that Home Educated children are ‘hidden’ and that HE is a ‘cover for abuse’. There is NO evidence for this and recent cases in the media have involved children who were already known to the authorities and were removed from school only after abuse had occurred. Home Educated children are in no way hidden. They are probably seen by more adults than school children. Also, children under 5 don’t go to school, but the Government isn’t suggesting that these measures apply to all families of under 5′s..

I do not want our home to be subjected to state evaluation, under the threat of a child protection order or criminal proceedings. It is our responsibility to look after our children, and bring them up. Provided that we are doing so without subjecting them to harm, I do not see what business it is of New Labour, how we teach our children. If you agree with this sentiment, I request your support.

Home educators being an anarchic, disparate libertarian de-centralised lot are engaging in all kinds of campaigns to prevent these proposals becoming law.  I am doing my part by initiating a letter campaign. This is where you come in.

Below is a copy of a letter for you to copy and print out, sign and send to your MP with a copy to the Department of Children, Schools and Families. If you prefer, the letter can also be e-mailed to your MP.

If you have friends who you feel may be sympathetic and may also be willing to show support, brilliant. Apparently, if an MP receives more than 3 letters on the same subject, it wakes them up a bit.

We feel that we are being targeted as criminals – it is legal to Home Educate our children and most families do a very good job, wanting the best for our children. Our children aren’t hidden, we belong to many Home Ed Groups etc. We just want our children to be happy and content and school isn’t the place for them at the moment.

If you feel as strongly as we do, please also sign the petition  at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/EHEreview/

We need all Home Educators and their friends to stand up for this. If you do not wish to support us for whatever reason, thank you anyway for listening.

If you do wish to support this cause further, here is the letter to send to your MP:

Dear

Review of Elective Home Education

I wish to seek your support in opposing the reforms to current practice proposed by Graham Badman in his “Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England” for the following reasons:

1. The Review fails to make a case for its recommendations. The Secretary of State says it contains strong arguments, but there is, in fact, little argument supported by evidence in the review. We would have welcomed a well argued, evidence based review, as this would have enabled an engagement. Instead there is assertion, but little analysis and evidence – for instance, the review simply says ‘I believe …’ 16 times.

2. The review lacks intellectual rigour, independence or impartiality. Where evidence is presented there is an absence of critical analysis, together with highly selective use of quotations from respondents. Thus it includes without comment a lengthy, and somewhat naïve, quotation from the Education Division of the Church of England, but does include a quote from a home educator which is less than complimentary about local authority staff. The use of quotations is not ‘neutral’, they serve to highlight certain views merely by their inclusion.

3. Evidence on abuse by home educators – a key argument used to justify action (see below) – is absent from the review report. Somewhat surprisingly given the review’s terms of reference there is no analysis of the actual number of suspected and found child abuse cases involving home educators. Indeed, there are no robust figures or trends presented (even at an aggregated level), instead there is a vague reference to ‘local authority evidence and case studies’.

Thus it is impossible to tell whether the concerns about possible child abuse are based in fact or merely imagined.

The review rightly points out that the number of parents opting for elective home education is unknown. Yet it also claims that ‘the number of children known to children’s social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to their home educating population’. But given that the size of the home education population is unknown, it is impossible to calculate the proportion, unless these councils have made up a base for the calculation; in effect the statement is meaningless.

4. This lack of evidence and analysis is compounded by the absence of expertise amongst the review panel. In the absence of evidence, some degree of confidence in the review’s judgements might rest on the expertise of those involved. They could perhaps be forgiven for simply making assertions if they had expertise or relevant professional knowledge of the subject matter. Unfortunately this is not the case. No home educating parent was on the review team. This does not accord with a Government that wishes to listen to the public and empower them.

Combined with my first point, this undermines the legitimacy of the review – why should what appears to be no more that the prejudices of this group of people be imposed upon the home education community?

5. Furthermore the recommendations are not logically consistent with review’s limited evidence.

a. The review says that many LAs are not performing adequately, but then recommends they have more powers. Without an analysis of why they are failing it would seem inappropriate to give them more powers; this would simply create problems and maladministration claims for the future.

b. The review recognises the diversity of home educators, but fails to take this in to account in its ‘one size fits all’ recommendations.

6. A key statement from the review, informing its recommendations is:

“The question is simply a matter of balance and securing the right regulatory regime within a framework of legislation that protects the rights of all children, even if in transaction such regulation is only necessary to protect a minority.”

This guiding ‘principle’ is presented with no provisos or limits. It is highly risk adverse position, and assumes that all parents are capable of abuse. This leads to  recommendations that are disproportionate and even the Secretary of State is wary of the cost implications.

Indeed, it logically follows from this that parents of all pre-school children must be registered and inspected annually; even that visits are required of children attending school during vacations.

You also need to know that the review was poorly conducted – for example:

• It was announced as a consultation on the consultation website then when it was pointed out that it was not compliant with the Consultation Code of Practice it suddenly became a review;

• The review outcome was partially pre-judged in advance, Graham Badman, author of the review, publicly said as much when he asserted the status quo could not remain long before the review was completed; and

• The on-line questionnaire used to gather home educators and others’ views was badly designed involving leading and poorly constructed questions.

In addition, the review process has angered and alienated many home educators. The review report and the Secretary of State highlight the importance of there being good relationships with home educators. However, the review has undermined this objective; it has even been counterproductive. Many home educators are now opting out of any involvement with their local authorities after many years of effort to improve relationships with them.

I realise that policy on home education is probably seen as part of the ‘backwater’ of political debate in Parliament, and that at present other issues have higher media and public profile. However, the home education community is a vocal and organised, if disparate, group, and you might like to advise your colleagues to take an interest in this issue as it has the potential to generate some very adverse publicity for the party.

The review report can be found at:

http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/8318-DCSF-HomeEdReviewBMK.PDF

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

The Awakening

This is an abridged version of a popular internet article by Sonny Carroll (you can read the full version here).  I’m featuring this version here though because I actually prefer it – when I first read it some time ago, it really resonated with me as it described my own awakening experience perfectly. Still not sure about the wind chime though…

The Awakening

A time comes in your life when you finally get it… when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out…ENOUGH!

Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on.

Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to magically appear over the next horizon.

You realize that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings, and that any guarantee of  “happily ever after” must begin with you… and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are… and that’s OK.

They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself… and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you – or didn’t do for you – and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and that everything isn’t always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself… and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties… and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view.

You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you’ve outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with.

You learn that there is power and glory in creating and contributing and you stop maneuvering through life merely as a “consumer” looking for your next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don’t know everything, it’s not your job to save the world and that you can’t teach a pig to sing.

You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love.

You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be.

You learn that alone does not mean lonely.

You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes.

You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO.

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs.

You learn that your body really is your temple.

You begin to care for it and treat it with respect.

You begin to eat a balanced diet, drink more water, and take more time to exercise.

You learn that being tired fuels doubt, fear, and uncertainty and so you take more time to rest.

And, just as food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul.

So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that, for the most part, you get in life what you believe you deserve, and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different than working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance.

You also learn that no one can do it all alone, and that it’s OK to risk asking for help.

You learn the only thing you must truly fear is fear itself.

You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your own terms.

You learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn’t always fair, you don’t always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people… and you learn not to always take it personally.

You learn that nobody’s punishing you and everything isn’t always somebody’s fault.

It’s just life happening.

You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Then you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than your heart’s desire.

You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

You hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind.

Finally, with courage in your heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best you can.

The magical world of dreams

I’ve always been interested in dreams and their deeper meanings and over the last decade have spent some time studying dream analysis in more depth. Dreams are a great way of gaining insight into the workings of your unconscious and analysing them can be tremendously useful in the process of emotional healing. Some people are convinced that they never dream, but I’ve often found that following a discussion about dreamwork, the ‘non-dreamers’ will excitedly report back to me soon after that they’ve spontaneously started to recall them. Here, then, is a brief glimpse into the mysterious and magical world of dreams…

Dream Symbols

Some dream symbols are archetypal which means that they represent similar things for everyone. For example, water usually represents emotions. If you dream of being caught up in a tidal wave or a flood, you are probably feeling emotionally overwhelmed, whereas if you dream you are bathing in a tranquil lake you are probably feeling emotionally balanced. Houses represent your inner self and different floors represent different parts of your psyche. Cars, on the other hand, represent your life – what state is the car in? Is it functioning properly? And perhaps most importantly – who is in the driving seat?

However, some dream symbols differ from person to person, which is why many of those dream dictionaries can be fairly useless. I love cats, so if I dream of one, then this is probably a positive symbol for me. For someone who thinks that cats are the work of the devil, however, it would probably represent something entirely different. You may also find that characters from your waking life represent different aspects of your psyche in your dream world. For instance, I often have dreams which star my daughter, my mother and myself, representing the child, parent and adult aspects of my inner self.

If you’re interested in learning more about dream symbolism, then the following books are worth a look: Giant Book of Dreams by Pierre Daco, Dictionary for Dreamers (Language of the Unconscious, Vol 1) by Tom Chetwynd and Dream Dictionary: An A to Z Guide to Understanding Your Unconscious Mind by Tony Crisp.

Animus/anima Dreams

Jung developed a theory that each of us has both masculine and feminine components of the psyche. For the male, the feminine component is the anima, while for the female, the masculine component. In waking life, the anima/animus can be projected on to someone who represents the aspects of our opposite self which we unconsciously feel are lacking within us. For example, a very masculine man may be attracted to a very feminine woman, simply because she psychologically represents those parts of him which he refuses to acknowledge within himself.

We can learn more about our animus/anima – how healthy this aspect of ourselves is, which in turn affects how we relate to the opposite sex – through the recurring male/female characters which appear in our dreams. The way you relate to these animus/anima representatives in your dream world will tell you a lot about how much you have assimilated these aspects of yourself into your waking life. I have a number of different positive animus representatives starring in my night time reveries. One is a former classmate of mine who I always admired for his authenticity and originality – had I been born a boy, he is the type of boy I would have liked to have been. Another is Jack White (of the White Stripes) who started turning up in my dreams a few years ago when I rediscovered my creativity. I admire him for his dedication to his craft, his discipline and his ability to vividly and accurately portray his emotions through his work, all qualities which I myself aspire to in my own creative expression. .

(This is an extremely brief and basic summary of this theory, for the purpose of this particular blog. I will go into this in more depth in a future blog, as knowledge of how the animus/anima work can be a useful tool in improving our most intimate relationships.)

Lucid Dreams

These are dreams where you are aware you are dreaming and are therefore able to manipulate the events occurring in the dream. This can be a useful way of dealing with difficult situations in your waking life which may have been having an emotional impact on you. For example, a close friend has had some issues recently which have been beyond his control and very frustrating for him. I know that it will ultimately work out okay for him but I also understand why he feels so overwhelmed by his circumstances. My desire to reassure him of this is evident in this particular dream:

The two of us were travelling in his car up a very steep and winding road. Suddenly the road became so steep it actually began to bend back on itself (similar to a corkscrew rollercoaster). My friend began to panic as he realised he couldn’t hold the car on the road any more but just as we both thought that it probably wasn’t going to end well, I turned to him and said ‘No, it’s fine, this isn’t real, it’s just a dream’ – and quick as a flash, we were no longer in the car, but instead were sitting outside a coffee shop, relaxing in the sun with a cappuccino, with me smiling at him saying ‘See? I told you it was just a dream.’

Lucid dreams can also help you deal with recurring dreams. Recurring dreams usually represent a longstanding emotional issue which you have been unable to resolve in your conscious mind. By taking control of the dream, you can change the outcome and consequently heal the emotional wound. I had a recurring dream for many years about being back at school – a time I associate with great unhappiness – but these eventually stopped after I was able to take charge of the dream one night and place myself in the role of willing and able teacher instead of  confused and discontented pupil.

Prophetic Dreams

As you become more in tune with your inner guidance, you may find yourself having dreams which predict future events or give you some insight into what’s occurring in the lives of people around you. Prophetic dreams are real favourites of mine – it’s always a little spooky but very exciting when I have one. Here are some examples:

My friend Tom was bemoaning his lack of funds to me on the phone one evening. I jokingly said that I would manifest him some cash. That night I dreamed that I was given two cheques – one for £500 and one for £125. I told him about my dream – and a few days later he sent me a text saying that his grandparents had unexpectedly sent him a cheque for £500. And the £125? Within a week of the dream, I received a rebate cheque for exactly that amount…

Another friend of mine is in an on-off relationship with a man I have very bad vibes about. On more than one occasion when this relationship has been ‘off’ for a while – and she’s sworn that she’ll never get back with him – I’ve dreamed that she’s taken him back on the very day it has actually happened. Once I text her to tell her about the dream, only to have her text back to me ‘OMG, here’s sitting here next to me right now!’ It was the first time she’d seen him in two months.

The most recent prophetic dream was about another friend, who I’ll call Louise. Louise had been offered a place at a public school, similar to a local all-girls school, except there were boys there too. I went with her to look around and was very impressed but she seemed too scared to stay there on her own. However, I felt that it would be beneficial for her to stay so I tried to sneak away when she wasn’t looking. The dream ended with me driving away with Louise chasing after me, screaming for me to come back. This was a very vivid dream and struck me as a tad bizarre, so I mentioned it to Louise in one of our e-mails. The next time I saw her, she told me that it wasn’t as strange as I thought as she actually was ‘going back to school’ – she’s applied for a place at college – and the only thing making her feel somewhat reticent was the thought of having to go there on her own…

Prophetic dreams are not always just about the people closest to you. It’s also possible to tune into the collective unconscious, or ‘universal energy’. I dreamed one night that my partner and I were being attacked by two young boys with bricks and knives – the next day the story broke about two boys aged 10 and 11, who had been charged with attempted murder after attacking two other boys with bricks and knives. And on a lighter note, I had a rather disturbing dream about Jeremy Clarkson  dancing around in a yellow lycra bodysuit(!), singing ‘Can’t take my eyes off you’ – later that day, it was revealed that in his inimitable fashion, he’d called Gordon Brown a ‘one-eyed Scottish idiot’.

I hope this brief look at dreams has inspired you to consider your own dreamscapes and symbols. If you’re interested in exploring them some more but find that the details elude you the following day, try keeping a notebook and pen by your bed and jotting them down as soon as you wake. You can also contact me via my website at www.empathicguidance.co.uk for a one-to-one session to analyse any significant dreams you may have. (Details of the kind of sessions available can be found in the ‘Services’ section.)

Sweet dreams!

Assertiveness – your basic rights

As promised in part 4 of the de-cluttering blogs (and slightly later than planned), here is the more in-depth look at the bill of rights as listed in Anne Dickson’s book, A Woman in Your Own Right: Assertiveness and You.

Although the book is aimed at women (and this piece reflects that gender bias somewhat), these are all basic human rights which apply equally to men and to children.

* I have the right to state my own needs and set my own priorities as a person independent of any role that I may assume in my life.

This does not imply that you no longer have to honour the responsibilities within the roles you assume, e.g. spouse, parent, employee etc, but is simply a reminder that your own needs are as important  as the needs of those you care for. Women in particular find that they lose themselves in their roles – since having my daughter, I seem to have transmuted socially into ‘Phoebe’s mum’ rather than a person in my own right. When the world sees you as your role rather than for yourself, it’s easy for a woman to feel that maybe this role – and the people she cares for when in this role – is more important. Even if you find that your needs conflict with these roles – and it can be hard to carve out time for yourself in between fulfilling your obligations – it is still vital that you do your best to meet those needs in whatever way you can.

* I have the right to be treated with respect as an intelligent, capable and equal human being.

Though we may all pay lip service to this right, often we do not even treat ourselves with respect and some women unfortunately have a tendency to play down their intelligence to fulfil their expected role in our patriarchal society (remember that character in the Fast Show who was a strong assertive career woman around other women, but a simpering girl around the men?). You may also struggle when you’re in a situation where you feel out of your depth through lack of expertise – for example, when dealing with a doctor, a mechanic or anyone who has some kind of know-how which you simply don’t possess. Remember this important right and don’t allow yourself to be intimidated.

* I have the right to express my feelings.

It is important – though not always easy – to identify and accept what you feel and give yourself permission to express these feelings. Emotional expression has been seen as a weakness in our society, which has resulted in many people losing touch with how they genuinely feel. It is therefore important to become aware of how you feel at the time (rather than agonise over it for days, weeks or months before you realise), accept the way you feel and adequately express it. However, remember to express your feelings in an appropriate manner, always being aware that assertiveness is not the same as aggression. Blaming, name-calling etc is never acceptable in any circumstance.

* I have the right to express my opinions and values.

Even if the majority disagree with you, you have the right to your own opinions and values. You also have the right to stand up for these opinions, if you choose to, as well as the right to not be bullied into justifying them.

* I have the right to say yes or no for myself.

This sounds straightforward but is actually connected to the first right about roles and responsibilities. Often your other roles can be an obstacle to making choices for yourself. However, if your family or friends want to know why you want to do a certain thing, whether it’s changing your job, leaving a relationship, going to college or even just getting a new hairstyle, you have no need to justify yourself. Because you want to is enough.

* I have the right to make mistakes.

Many of us believe that making a mistake is unacceptable and demonstrates a failing on our part. However you can make a mistake without it implying that in essence you are lacking in someway. You can behave incorrectly, make a wrong move or do a bad job without it indicating some intrinsic flaw in your character. This right can permit us to acknowledge the mistaken piece of behaviour without losing that central core of self-belief.

* I have the right to change my mind.

In the early stages of learning to make assertive choices, this right can be invaluable. Often decisions are made for the wrong reasons. You may believe it’s what is expected of you or that it’s what the other person wants. However these decisions are usually the ones we grow to regret. Learning to assertively change your mind prevents you having to proceed with a commitment you are unhappy about.

* I have the right to say I don’t understand.

As with making mistakes, we often feel an undue amount of shame as adults in acknowledging lack of comprehension or ignorance. However we can hardly expect to know everything any more than we can expect to be perfect. With this right in mind we can learn to acknowledge confusion or a lack of knowledge without feeling stupid or ashamed.

* I have the right to ask for what I want.

Most people would agree that this is reasonable and that everyone has the right to ask for what they want – until your request conflicts with their wishes or expectations. Many people, especially women, spend their lives going along with what others want or what other people tell them they want, and end up settling for something which is unfulfilling for them because they do not feel they have the right to persist and upset others. We’ve all been on the receiving end of the somewhat irritating ‘passive-aggressive’ approach where someone drops hints rather than makes a direct request: “Oh, don’t worry about me – *sigh* –  I can manage fine on my own… if only my back didn’t hurt so much…” . Asking for what you want outright – ‘I’d like some help, please’ will gain you a lot more respect, from yourself as well as others.

* I have the right to decline responsibility for other people’s problems.

It is especially important to remember this right when in a caring or helping role. The problem arises here not in choosing to take care of or help people in need or those we love, but in compulsively taking care of everyone else all the time so that there is no time or consideration for our own personal needs. This right involves setting our own limits about who to care for and whose needs to put before our own, and refusing to give in to demands made using emotional blackmail. It’s not selfish or uncaring to take care of you – it’s healthy. And don’t let those perpetual victims tell you otherwise.

* I have the right to deal with others without being dependent on them for approval.

This right underlies all the above. The need for approval is the single most important factor which creates unassertive behaviour. An early association is formed in childhood between behaving in a way which is approved of and earning a loving response. Therefore many of us still fear disapproval as it threatens our basic self-esteem. It is important to remember that most of the time, although we project this disapproval onto others, it is actually our own inner critic which is creating the ‘disapproval’. The more effectively you can silence, or at least reduce, your own inner critic to realistic proportions, the more successfully you can assess your own behaviour and unhook yourself from dependence on the opinions of others. As your concern about ‘what others think’ lessens, you soon come to realise that even if someone does disapprove of you, it’s not the end of the world. This last right demonstrates the point made at the start of this blog entry which is that self-esteem and assertiveness go hand in hand. The more you are aware of your basic rights, the easier it will be to behave assertively.

Finally, this quote from Anne Dickson sums up why I think assertiveness is an important quality for us all:

Assertiveness offers hope. Because it is based on self-esteem, it offers a new way of relating to other people. The power that is released when individuals stop hating themselves is a potentially remarkable force for change. We are less afraid to make contact with others whose lives and values are very different because we can move from a centred sense of self. As we free ourselves from the tyranny of self-hatred we can contribute to that process of liberation in others and acquire the necessary humility and wisdom to recognise both our individuality and interdependence as people in this world.