Applying Buddhist teachings to help us through the difficulties of parenting and relationships.
Love is meant to be a happy thing isn’t it?
Hearts and flowers, hugs and kisses, cuddles and snuggles.
From the flush of first romance to the joy of a snuggling newborn: “love is all you need” .
The Beatles were 100% accurate with that line.
So what about the painful love songs?
‘Love hurts’
‘Tears on my pillow’
‘Nothing compares to you’
‘Heard it on the grapevine’
Why is so much pain involved in something which is meant to be so beautiful? Continue reading
Are you sure?
Let’s check if this is for you…………
Are you interested in being:
a)Happier?
b)Less anxious or stressed?
c)More relaxed?
d) Healthier?
If you answered “Yes” to any of the above questions then this article is definitely what you need. Continue reading
“This is not who I am
I have become comfortably numb”
Do you ever look at your loved ones and wonder where your warm, loving feelings have gone?
Feel isolated from those once close to you, or suddenly become overwhelmed by a resurgence of the love you once felt for someone but which seemed to have faded recently?
“Love” as we usually define it, can be a fickle thing, bewildering us by its apparently random appearance and disappearance. It is often said that “Love makes the world go round”, and it is certainly the basis on which we build our families and close relationships, so how can it prove so fickle and elusive?
Is there anybody in there”?
Why do we sometimes look at our loved ones and feel (un) comfortably numb? We often appease ourselves with thoughts such as:
“this is just the way it is in ‘real’ life”,
“after all these years……”,
“could be worse..”,
“well after all we’ve been through” ,
“The way they’ve been behaving…. ”
This indicates we are becoming numb to our potential to feel warm and loving more (if not all ) of the time. “This is not who I am”, is the truth of the matter, we are capable of much more. Continue reading
What is a toolkit?
In the ‘old days’ a toolkit was considered to be :
” A set of tools to be used for a particular purpose”, or
“A personal set of resources, abilities or skills”
In our modern world we now have the addition of:
“Software designed to perform a specific function, especially to solve a problem”
With either definition I think we can agree that a toolkit is to help us perform a task or solve a problem. The skills we have been learning throughout our life to help us survive our modern world could be considered to be a ‘toolkit’, a set of mental strategies for making our way through life dealing with any hardships or problems that may occur and hopefully having a happy time on the journey.
So just for a bit of fun, here is a teeny questionnaire:
( you wont need a pen and paper!)
1. Your partner/relative/ friend is bad-tempered 
and giving you a hard time, do you:
a) get angry and shout louder than them.
b) phone a friend and complain angrily about the situation
c) slam out of the door and stomp up the stairs.
d) decide they are having a bad day and be calm and patient with them.
2. You have had a piggy day / week and decide you need a coffee and cake treat. The cake, though it looks nice is dry, tasteless and unenjoyable. Do you:
a) buy another, then feel sick after overeating.
b) dwell on your misfortune and feel even more fed up
c) complain loudly to the waitress in no uncertain terms
d) decide you are experiencing some unfortunate Karma and accept patiently.
3. You don’t get the job position you were hoping for. Do you:
a) feel gutted, miserable, get depressed, have a few too many drinks
b) think of all the reasons why the other person shouldn’t have what you deserved
c) feel very jealous and vow to avoid the other person forever
d) try to develop some good feeling for their good fortune.
Now here’s the scoring:
Answers a) b) c)………………………. Score 0
Answer d)……………………….Score 10 points
Results:
If you scored 0: you are using the wrong toolkit to enable you to live a happy life.
If you scored 10 or above: you have started to collect the necessary mental tools in your toolkit which will lead you to a happy life.
Explanation:
During our brief lives we become familiar with certain mental traits or behaviours which we think will enable us to succeed in our society and establish the life we wish to experience, we could call this our ‘mental toolkit’. Continue reading
Once upon a time there was a little rag doll sitting on a market stall in Ormskirk.
Unknown to the little rag doll there was a family on the train from Liverpool for a day trip to Ormskirk, a mother,father,baby boy and a 6-year-old girl. On these day trips the children were usually allowed to pick a present to take home, so long as it wasn’t too costly.
The little girl fell in love with the rag doll, it had a smiley face and long shiny black plaits, the best plaits the girl had ever seen.
All day the parents asked her to pick another present as the doll was a little more than they wanted to pay, yet the girl could not imagine life without the rag doll. How could she ever be happy without the rag doll? How could she leave it there and go home alone? She felt pain at the very thought of it. She loved this doll, it was all she ever wanted or needed to be happy, forever. Nothing else could ever measure up to this doll, no other present in the whole world would be the same, make her feel so full of love and happiness. She would cuddle it, love it, and her whole life would be filled with joy.
Her parents relented, she took the doll home on the train, amazed at its beauty, its beautiful face and shining black plaits. She didn’t let it out of her sight for some time. Continue reading
“But I really need that one!”
“This is the only chance I’ll get, I have to go!”
“I can’t possibly manage without….”
Your ex-cherub has hit puberty and demands are increasing. There are things they must have and must do to have any semblance of happiness in their life, or so they would like to make us believe – as they demonstrate their wrath when the desired answer is not forthcoming.
After all, as far as they’re concerned, we brought them into this world, they didn’t ask to be born (haven’t we all heard that one?), so therefore it is our responsibility to provide everything they think they need to be happy. With a spot of emotional blackmail they even have us thinking that we can’t be happy if we’re not successful in making them happy!
But have you noticed, , all the things we provided so far to make them happy, haven’t worked too well, as now they need something else to be happy – so that didn’t last did it?
Come to think of it, we’re pretty much the same ourselves aren’t we? Even if we don’t realize it, advertising agencies know it already. They constantly try to sell us happiness in the guise of cars, phones, furniture, washing powder, fizzy drinks, hair dye, face cream, perfume…the list is endless. Continue reading
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