Cast not thy Pearls before Swine...

I've been reminded of this saying a few times over the past couple of weeks, and boy is it ever true! It's one that my own dear Daddy has reminded me of many times in my life, and is all too easily forgotten.

For those of you unfamiliar with this expression, here is the passage from the Bible, Matthew 7:6

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

Whilst I'm not a religious person, (I prefer to call myself 'spiritual') there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from these simple words. 

Giving your time, efforts or objects to people who won't appreciate them is a big waste of energy. 

I see so many people doing this, and then even worse, giving their power away, by allowing those other people's judgements to dictate whether they have done well or deserve any praise. 

Other people should not be given control over your self esteem. Your life is not an episode of X-Factor!

~

A friend lamented to me recently about a failed relationship in which he gave his all, and went far beyond the call of duty, all to no avail. It seems that much like the proverbial pigs, the woman in question just wasn't able to appreciate his efforts, no matter what he did, and he was left feeling well and truly trampled on.

I reminded him of this expression, and pointed out that sometimes, it's not you. It's them.

I sagely repeated the words told to me by the very wise Jeanette at the end of my own, equally horrible, last relationship:

"You are lovely and she is just an a**hole. End of story." 

(Yes, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes the Myth Buster does swear.)

I was reminded of this saying again last week, whilst working online, on Oranum.com.  I'm one of the resident psychics and I offer my services, giving live readings to members of the public.

When I'm online, part of my job includes doing "Demo Readings" which means that I occasionally have to do a free, public reading for a member of the site, on webcam, with lots of people watching. In theory, it's great for demonstrating how I work, and answers a lot of questions people have about my style of reading etc.

This demo however, was not was I was expecting. Normally, I can pick the site member I want to do a reading for, but this time, something went a bit wrong (darn you Mercury Retrograde!) and I ended up with a rather nasty man who made it his mission to try and torture me for the whole 30 minutes.

An unpleasant game of "test the psychic" ensued.

He spent his time merrily telling me that I was getting everything wrong, only to have to take it back later in the conversation, when I pointed out some truths about him that he couldn't deny. At one point he even became rude and abusive. It took all my award-winning customer service skill not to tell him where to go! 

I know that despite his disparaging remarks, I did a great job, both with the reading and in managing an extremely difficult customer.

~

So please remember, just because somebody else doesn't appreciate you or your efforts, it doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. In fact you may have surpassed all your expectations and achieved a personal best.

Just don't make the mistake of allowing others to be the judge of that.

You are the boss of your life, and if you think you did well, then gosh darned it, you did. And congratulations from me to boot.

You are so much better, kinder, wiser and stronger than most people will give you credit for in this lifetime.

You Rock! And I want you to remember that.

Sunshine on a Rainy Day

I woke up this morning feeling inexplicably sunny.

Now that's nothing unusual for me, because I am usually a happy person, and I like to spread joy to people around me, but why so sunny today in particular?

I decided not to get caught up too much in the whys and just enjoy it instead.

It was tipping down with rain when I woke up, and quite a miserable November day here on the South coast of England, but my inner sun was shining brightly in spite of this, and I've had a big grin on my face all day!

As I wrote this, the sun came out and shone through my window. I'd like to think that I had something to do with that...

Recently, I've been trying a new gratitude technique I came across on the wonderful Leah Shapiro's blog called the Daily Yum. Sounds fun doesn't it?

Well basically, it's a gratitude exercise with a difference; a daily ritual to start the day in the best way possibly and use the law of attraction to make the day as yummy as possible. I've been doing it for about a week now and I love it! I'm definitely feeling less like baked beans and more like ice cream! 

(Soya ice cream for me of course.)

The more I learn about the laws of attraction and about true joy and happiness, the more it all makes sense, and interlinks perfectly.

The root cause of all unhappiness lies in the mind. Your thoughts are ultimately the things that can make you happy or sad, not your external circumstances.  It's how you think about them that counts.

I believe that we are all incredible spiritual beings having a human experience. What I mean by that is that we unlimited souls living in very limited human bodies, living on our little plant called Earth. Most of us don't remember that we are omnipotent spiritual creatures, and that's part of the game. We are here to learn things afresh, to experience new things. It's not supposed to be easy, but it can be wonderful.

Now, surely being happy is something we all know how to do isn't it? Or is it really?

Something I've discovered that most of us aren't very happy at all, because we've forgotten how.

Children are born with this inner happiness, but sadly our narcissistic culture trains it out of us, and the lack of focus on inner peace and joy means that we forget how to be happy in ourselves, and actually unlearn it at some point.

 The capitalist-driven influences in our modern society encourage us to look outside of ourselves for happiness and validation, to acquire possessions, cars, houses, jewellery, trophy partners and other status symbols of "happiness" and "having it all" but, ultimately we all know deep down that none of those things will make us truly happy.

I've said this before but it's worth repeating:

Nothing and no one can "make" you happy - only you can do that.

I've spent many years working on this. I've overcome depression and various difficulties in my own life, all because I was so determined to learn how to be happy again. There are plenty of resources out there to help with this, and I'll be talking about this subject in more detail, in some coming articles.

But for now, please let me reassure you. No matter how unhappy or stuck or just plain dissatisfied you might feel in yourself and your life right now, you can be happy again.  Permanently.

You have an amazing light inside of you, and once you reconnect with your inner sunshine, nothing and no one will be able to keep you down, ever again.

So shine my friends, learn to be a light to yourself and others - lets bring back the joy!

It's going to take more than a little rain to take my sunshine away!

The Amphitheatres of the 21st Century?

Gladiators, blood, and guts, chariots, lions, screaming, clashing swords, Russell Crowe looking hot (OK, maybe that last one is just me) - these are a few things that come to mind when you think of Roman Amphitheatres and Gladiatorial battles.

In today's society it shocks us when we think about what passed for entertainment a few hundred years ago.  We've all seen the images in epic films of terrified gladiators being mauled by lions or decapitated by their opponent as the crowd goes wild.

How barbaric, we say! Causing horrific suffering to another human being for your own pleasure! Why would you do that?

But have we really moved on as far as we would like to think?

I was recently discussing the incredibly popular TV show "I'm a Celebrity...Get me out of here!" with a  friend, and I realised that perhaps we haven't moved on that much at all.

Granted, nobody is actually killed in these programs, but the audience takes great pleasure in watching minor celebrities being tortured - made to eat disgusting foods, deprived of rations, sleep, and made to carry out impossible tasks in humiliating and dirty conditions.

OK, so nowadays it's desperate Z-list celebrities looking for publicity and making a last ditch attempt to re-animate their dying careers rather than enslaved gladiators fighting for their lives and freedom, and the amphitheatres have been replaced with television studios and sets. 

Admittedly the circumstances are a little different, and we have better technology, but the motivation of these participants is still the same. Survival. 

It all feels rather voyeuristic and somewhat sadistic - why would you want to watch somebody suffer? Are we really any better than the huge crowds that used to pack into the amphitheatres of ancient Rome?

Why is there still such a lust in our society to watch others being made to suffer for our entertainment?!

Another example is the notorious Big Brother which by the show's own admission, becomes more evil & manipulative as the series go by; intentionally putting clashing personalities together in ever more challenging and claustrophobic conditions, and setting up awkward situations to watch the sparks fly.

I have heard that these shows are a favourite of psychology students, and I'm sure they are very interesting from a purely psychological point of view, but in reality the participants are little more than  gladiators or perhaps laboratory rats, being put in difficult and unkind situations to see how they cope and react, all for our amusement.

Nobody seems to stop and think why the public in general enjoys this so much - why does this kind of cruel show still draw such huge crowds in our supposedly highly-civilised society?

Why do so many people take such pleasure in watching others suffer?

I don't have the answer to that, and I'm not a psychologist, but as a rational human being, it occurs to me that if people were truly happy in themselves, they wouldn't need to watch others suffering in order to be "entertained."

Why do so many of us need to distract ourselves from our everyday lives, and take out our frustrations on people in TV shows? Goading and cheering, voting by phone and text to decide who will be made to suffer next. Are we little more than a modern version of the angry, starving people of Rome towards the end of the fall of the empire, baying for blood to distract us from our unhappy lives instead of doing something about it?

Next time you feel inclined to watch one of these shows, I challenge you to stop and think for a moment - why do you really want to watch this?

Maybe it's time to ditch the distractions, and take a long, hard look at ourselves instead. Maybe it's time to see what changes we can make in our lives to be happier people, to be more at peace with ourselves, so that we no longer need to watch others suffer for our "entertainment." 

Who knows -  the world might even become a nicer place to live in...

Never Fight Your Feelings

"You should never fight your feelings ... " so the song by Embrace goes. And that's absolutely right.

It never ceases to amaze me the wisdom that comes out of seemingly vacuous pop songs.

We've all had a time in our lives where we have feelings we wish we didn't have, anger, resentment, even love for somebody who has betrayed or let us down. We wish we could just switch them off and we fight them, trying to beat them into submission, and beat ourselves up by the same measure.

Stop!

Feelings are there to be felt - your emotions are what you feel and there's nothing you can do about it.

Feelings aren't bad, they just tell you things about yourself. They remind us that we're alive, that we are loving, caring people, or that we believe in something.

The best way to help unwanted feelings to go is firstly to accept that you have them, then to allow yourself to feel them fully, without judgement. Recognise them, let them come in, feel them fully - no matter how painful, and I promise they will pass leaving you with a feeling of peace.

I had to carry out this very exercise this morning. I was feeling sorry for myself, and decided to let myself feel it instead of berating myself for being a "weakling."

I had a good cry, let it all out, and the feelings subsided leaving me more peaceful and able to enjoy the rest of my day.

I've touched on this in the past in my previous article Feeling Down? but I felt this needed repeating again, because I'm seeing a lot of people going through difficult times right now, and a little extra TLC is needed.

Mercury turned retrograde on 6th November which always brings up challenging emotions and is a time of introspection and looking at the past. That's never easy, and can be turbulent for anyone.

So please, if you're having a hard time, don't make it worse for yourself by trying to repress your feelings. You can't fight them so don't try. Honour them for what they are, let them out and let them go. They will pass eventually.

Feelings need to be felt. 

Just remember one thing - you don't have to act on them!