​In about three months from now it’ll be Christmas time.
We’ll either have done things we set out to do, or not done them.
Either way, the time will have passed.

Which is a good thought to have about how we can make the most of the next two or three months. We can do this without encroaching on anything else we do.

There’s a great deal of talk today about “making a difference”. However, if we want to make a difference of any kind, we need perhaps to begin with ourselves. 

These are challenging and disruptive times.
We are all learning new ways to live. Some of the changes are small, some huge. None are insignificant.

 Never more than now is the need for us to be able to adapt our bodies, our minds, and our emotions, to the demands of daily living.

Contrary to popular belief, these skills can be learnt and developed and practised with relative ease. It’s a matter of understanding the principles and the fundamentals. Then putting them into practice on a frequent basis.

At any age, at any level of accomplishment, we can enhance our lives enormously by learning how to make the most of our personal resources, our abilities, and our talents.

That is the driving principle that informs the strategies and tactics of www.commonsensewellness.ie

If you haven’t looked recently, have a look at the website again here: 
www.commonsensewellness.ie

Let this be the first day of the rest of your wonderful life.

​What do you believe to be the most important elements of being fit, healthy and well?

Is it exercise?
Food use?
Meditation?
Regularity in training?
Technique in performance? 
Use of supplements?
Anatomical knowledge?, There are many more questions along that vein.
And they're all relevant. 
But the one factor overlooked by so many, trainers and trainees alike, is rest.

Rest between exercise sessions is vital. That's when the body's repair system kicks in and lets Nature do the repair work on the body that's just been subjected to the assault of vigorous activity.

Taking the time to allow this to happen will double the effects of your efforts. It's how the body, and indeed the mind, refresh and revitalise. There are few sleeps as refreshing and restorative as those after physical exercise. Not only is the sleep usually deeper, it tends also to be continuous. 

Seven to eight hours uninterrupted sleep helps rest the mind, revitalise the brain cells, and get rid of toxins that can accumulate in the brain, and thus impair cognitive use.

This is a vital aspect for living today. Rarely has the Human Race been so subjected to Mental and Emotional speed and engagement, while lacking the inbuilt physical activity to counteract the effects of these trends.

The result is that we have to schedule exercise into our lives, we have to plan our food intake if we don't want to stuff ourselves with junk, and we need to organise our lives to allow for rest as well.

No rest, no repair. No repair leads to fatigue, strain and burnout.

Look at your life and ask yourself, "How can I make the most of my training, food use and myself to maximise my way to sound fitness, constant wellness, and optimum health.?"

And when you're writing your answer, schedule in your  time for "R &R", "Rest and Recreation".

And observe the word, "recreation". that's exactly what rest does. It allows your body, your mind, your nervous system to RE - CREATE themselves.

So, have a peaceful and a restful weekend.

With the amount of talk about the Mind/Body connection, you'd imagine that some of the mud being flung at the wall would be sticking.

Not always the case. Anything we can do in life usually takes place first in the mind. It begins as an idea. As we think about it, it begins to clarify and develop. Then perhaps we begin to regard it as a possibility. Before we know it, we’re beginning to see it as distinctly possible.

The next step is that it begins to become something we'd like  in our lives, an aim, something we would like to do, or achieve or see done.

But it starts in the mind. What’s important is that it starts as our own idea. Even if it’s a variation of what someone else is doing, it is our individual take on it that will make it ours.

This is why designers, engineers, authors, all copyright or patent their ideas. A lot of us think along similar lines, but it isn’t until someone actually does something that we begin to  take it really seriously.

The very fact that someone else has begun it reinforces our belief in it. And because we believe in it, we want to do it.

The belief influences our thinking, not what we’re thinking about, but how we are thinking about it. And those thoughts affect their feelings. And so, the desire is generated.

The desire then influences our action and we begin to take steps to implement our idea.

And all this comes about from what may originally have been a nebulous, vague, rough idea of something we would like to do. But it is the force of the thought on our feelings that generates the action.

Observe your ideas. Don’t dismiss them because someone else might. Or because of what someone else might think about them.

Whether you implement them, or finally dismiss them, let the decision be yours and not the effects of an imagined outside opinion.

Nurture your ideas. Guard them well. If after due consideration, you feel strongly about them, believe in them, and in your ability and determination to see them through, honour them.
--

Stress is largely a decision. We decide, unconsciously, to allow ourselves to be stressed, or distressed. 

Yes, I know that that isn't always the case. There are times in all our lives when we're distressed because the circumstances with which we're faced are daunting. And that can be good for us. 

How is that?

Here's how. You know the saying that a situation can make you or break you. Well, if you 're determined that it's not going to break you, you instantly open to the possibility that you're going to come through the ordeal. And when you do, you'll be wiser, better armed for future events in life, and confident in your ability to withstand pressure and deal with it. You'll have faith in your self-sufficiency.

It's what we call getting experience.

That's what living is about, isn't it? We've all experienced situations where we thought that our world was tumbling down around us. Then, after a day, or a few days, maybe one or two sleepless nights, a thin crack begins to show in the wall of impossibility and we begin to see that maybe there's a way through it.

Then as we looked for ways to widen the crack, open the wall, our minds became creative and we found a solution. Now maybe the solution wasn't perfect. But things weren't going to be as bad as we thought they were going to be, and that alone gave us the will to drive on. We've avoided disaster. We're living to fight another day.

So, how about the unconscious decisions where we allow ourselves to become distressed? How do they come about? They come about because we tend to experience small annoyances regularly, and they tend to then become what we expect. 

And that's where the unconscious decisions come in. When we get used to being stressed, or even distressed, our minds and bodies get accustomed to that feeling, so that when it isn't there, it raises its own kind of discomfort.

Being calm and at ease can become such an alien feeling that we distrust it. This often leads to the situation where the only place we feel comfortable in is the one of discomfort. 

We then quickly correct that feeling by finding something about which we can stoke a bit of worry, fear, uncertainty, doubt, and voila, we're back in our familiar and comfortable  zone of anxiety.

It's called conditioning. It's a habit. Again, I acknowledge that there are times when stress at its worst is justified, but that's not the one I'm talking about. 

Over the years, I've worked with many who have not realised that they had been creating their own sense of doubt and uncertainty. There are many ways this can come about and there are ways to deal with it. 

Regular exercise, Mental Training, and some attention to food use, Meditation / Mindfulness are simple, effective, and proven steps to take. And they work. 

They won't always solve your problems, but they will help change how you think and feel about them.

And that in itself has often been the opening of the door to a solution. ​

​Not all stress is evil.

We need enough attention, energy, and urgency to achieve what we set out to do. 

Those factors create what we would call a good stress.
It gives immediacy to our action. It gets us up and doing. 
It can be a great driving force and source of mental, physical, and emotional energy.

It’s the other kind of stress that gets to us; it’s what is generally seen as distress.

Stress is really are euphemism for fear, worry, anxiety, frustration, anger, uncertainty and even doubt, isn’t it?

The first one can help us get things done. The second one can interfere with the best of efforts.

Distress has not so much to do with the circumstances were faced with, as it has to do with how we perceive those circumstances and react to them.
Armed with this information we can take very definite steps to altering the effects of distress in our lives.
We can lessen those effects.
We can change them.
We can, in time and with practice, turn them to energy.

This can give us a great advantage in potentially stressful times.
Our minds are more calm, they are more quiet.
Quieter, calmer minds think more clearly.

 They can access resources and abilities that can otherwise be lost in an emotional storm of distress.
I’ve seen thousands of people over the past 50 years make this make this change in their lives.

They’ve had the desire to achieve it, and by learning good reliable straightforward, practical techniques, have been able to reduce the discomfort of inappropriate tension and stress  in their lives. They have then been able to use talents and abilities that they’d forgotten they had, or never knew they had.

It’s no mystery. 
Sometimes it’s the very simplicity of a methods or ways to do things that causes people to ignore them.

Learning to direct the mind, remain at ease physically, and to quieten the emotions, is a skill that repays the practitioner out of all proportion to the trouble it takes to do it.

Yet, once people have done it, and then apply it on a regular basis in their lives, they often wonder how they existed without it.

Many of the ways to achieve this are often referred to as “soft skills”. In my view, that’s  an unfortunate name. It implies something that is suitable to the dreamy-minded, romantic notion of escapism in which we place our trust in the idea that “something will turn up”.
 It’s on a par with the misconception of “positive thinking“, in which a solution to a challenge or a problem can be achieved merely  by wishing for it. 

Nothing happens without action.

Whether it’s dealing with problems or dealing with distress, it’s only by taking practical steps and putting them into action with force, drive, and determination that we can experience the benefits of positive thinking or dealing with stress.

Simple. Not always easy, but simple. 

And available to anyone with the gumption and will to do it, as thousands have.
--

“The more I practice the luckier I get“ said one famous golfer.

And it’s  a sentiment with which I would entirely agree. It all started when I, and two other 13 year-olds went to see a movie called “the Glenn Miller story”. That was the biographical film at the eponymous band leader of the 1930s and the 1940s, responsible for such enduring hits as, “In the mood”, “American Patrol”, and of course, “Moonlight Serenade.” 


 In that movie there is a four-minute clip in which there is a scintillating, driving, rhythmic drum solo, performed by the inimitable Gene Krupa. 

I believe Gene Krupa was responsible for the emergence of more drummers in the world then any other person.

Spellbound, I watched and listened as Krupa performed the most musical of solos, with swinging arms, flashing teeth, waving sticks, and a rhythm that had the entire audience in the cinema tapping their feet, clicking fingers and simply wallowing in the driving swing that the man created. Gene Krupa was the man who brought drums to the fore in big band popular music. 

Not only were his solos wonderful to listen to, but he had a style to match. So rhythmic was his playing, that dancers never paused when he gave a solo. If anything, dancers were energised and invigorated by his rhythmic playing and showmanship.

My two friends, Tommy Lambert, a gifted young trombonist, and Billy Whelan, a really musical trumpet player, and I, emerged from the picture house in a daze of musical ecstasy. 

My two pals played, practised and rehearsed in the local Confraternity Brass Band. Both of them were inspired to improve their playing. Up to then I had not played an instrument.
 But I emerged from that cinema as the Boy Who Would be Drummer. 
But more than that, as I walked out into Georges Street,  still hearing the rolls, the rim shots, the steady beat of the bass drum, the cymbal crashes, I was Gene Krupa.

So much so, that over the next two days, I gathered an array of pots, saucepans,  saucepan lids, round ashtrays, and hat boxes. Anything, anything at all, that remotely resembled a percussion instrument was put to use in the construction of my simulated drum set. I was ensconced in the room at the top of our house, out of sight, but not quite out of earshot 

So, after three weeks of musical mayhem , percussive pandemonium, and an endless stream of complaining neighbours, culminating in a visit from the Garda Sergeant, my poor, bewildered, overwhelmed mother invested for me in a rubber practice pad and a pair of drumsticks with which I could beat the unfortunate item.
Peace descended on the neighbourhood.

But it doesn’t end there. In the name of progress, I next inflicted my energetic enthusiasms on the town's well-known percussion player, Mr Jack Roche. He agreed to give me lessons. But, there were conditions. The main condition was that I agreed to practice regularly.

That was the least I could do. That was the least I intended to do. Not only did I practice, but was deemed earnest enough to merit an invitation to go and watch, and listen, at a rehearsal of the 11 piece dance band in which Mr Roche played.
For this, I was invited to the local dance hall where the band performed once or twice a week for the benefit of hundreds of their followers and eager dancing fans. 

To my amazement, all 11 players were reading and playing from written musical charts,  Including the drummer!

To me this was heresy. Treachery.

Up to that minute, I thought drummers were meant to be seated acrobats, gum chewing, elbow flailing, demonic maniacs, tyrannising the band into performance, spurring audience and dancers into a non-insurable, hysterical, limb swinging frenzy, that we called jiving.

And there he was, Mr Roche, sitting sedately behind his drums, relaxed, at  his ease,  looking for all the world as if he was enjoying himself, and driving the band with a meticulously timed, steady, swinging, metronomic beat.

As I watched and listened, to the up-tempo quicksteps, the foxtrots, the tattooed tangos, the rhythmic rhumbas, the Latin Sambas, and the wonderful waltzes, my life was transformed

The precision, the apparent ease, the resulting ensemble of months, years, and in some cases decades, of individual practice and application was to me a revelation. The eleven musicians gelled into a perfect symphony of sound, rhythm and melody. It was a sound that filled the hall, reverberated through every fibre of my existence, and lifted the human spirit to a celestial height.

That evening, new horizons opened up. The value, and the possible rewards, of diligent practice, in any undertaking, were imprinted on my young and impressionable mind.

That evening was an epiphanous event in my life. Out went Gene Krupa and the extravert showmanship. In came Jack Roche and the rhythm, and the fluency, and the easy relaxed style of precise and practised musicianship.

Jack was The Man.

And for the next 10 to 12 years my aim was to play as well as Jack. I don’t believe I ever did. But in my way, through the skiffle groups, blues bands, trad jazz band gigs, and even Ceili sessions, not to mention the hours spent on my trusty practice pad, I had a great time trying.

And of course I had the great advantage of seeing the value of practice. For the principal spilled over into other areas of my life.
Most of life‘s skills are just that, skills. And so they have fundamentals.
And those fundamentals can be learned, developed, and practised.

And so, you can help yourself get good at whatever it is you do. It goes for anything. And if you apply yourself you just might, might, become very, very good at it.

​And of course there’s always the consolation that you will, at the very least, become competent.

And there lies the power of practice.

​We've all experienced the sickening effect of some shocking event, a nasty surprise, or other unexpected turn that life can take. 

Though we can't know what's around the corner, we can help ourselves by being aware of the fact that we can learn how to respond in a way that lessens the impact.

That's what this morning's piece is about.

" He lay flat on the bank. The surrounding grass and ferns afforded cover. The road running below him was clear in his view. The butt of the rifle sat into his shoulder, snug, the barrel steady on the small tripod.

The quiet rumble of the vehicles coming into view around the bend belied the threat and the firepower they possessed. He knew that the first three were outriders, light armoured cars with shortarms, ready to attack and repel, maneouvereable and fast, easily handled and a good foil for enemy engagement.
He let the first three through, settled the sight against his eye and waited. The target was in the sixth.

He had done his homework, studied the routine, timed it, watched it, had done two dry runs. He was known for that; planning. He knew it himself. It was the reason that his work was so highly prized. And paid. 

The fourth came into view, a larger vehicle, fully closed, with a short thick barrel jutting from the turret, moving slightly as the gunner scanned the road and ditches through the sight.

He watched the vehicle run steadily past, clocking the fifth as it emerged from the bend and rumbled under his place.

Taking a long sigh, he settled. This was his reward for painstaking preparation; certitude. Resting his finger on the trigger, he sighted the long bend from which the sixth, his target, would come.

This was so simple, he thought. Get all the information, gather it and collate it in view of your aims, and then just go to work, turn up, and get the job done. So simple. He loved that feeling of confidence he had in his work. It let him rest easy, dismiss distractions and focus his abilities and training on the job in hand.

The rifle felt good. He knew the kind of recoil to expect. If he did have to use two rounds, he had allowed for the trajectory, the pace of the car, and the shift in the firing angle. 

Nothing came into view through his calibrated sight. 

He consciously relaxed, allowing the instinctive ruffle of annoyance to run from his system as he viewed the empty road.
 Any second now, and the sixth vehicle would cruise into view, exactly as he expected it would. He was thinking how these  clowns in their self-important uniforms and pageantry thought that they were efficient, just because they ticked boxes and followed the rules of engagement. They imagined that they were invulnerable. And that was their mistake, he thought; there are no rules of engagement.

Still no car appeared from the bend. Through the crosshairs of the sight was the high hedge on one side of the bend, the sycamore trees on the other, and the road.
 The empty road.

Then his attention was diverted by something for which he had not planned.

He consciously relaxed, quelling the instinct to turn, to look, willing himself to not react, as the hard metal touched lightly behind his ear and the calm authoritative voice said simply, 'Don't move'. "

It happens to us all, doesn't it? We make the best of plans. Then something goes awry. Our expectations get kicked into the air and we can crash into a storm of frustration, anger, disappointment, fear.

And that's when the adage we've all come to learn comes into play; 'It isn't so much about what happens to us, as it is about how we respond to what happens to us.'

That's when the training we've used can help us adapt to a sudden turn of events, when we can call on latent resources, personal qualities, the innate knowledge that these will occur in our lives.

And while that may not give us a way out at the moment, it does plant the notion that this can be dealt with, redirects the mind, instantly, in that direction, and helps prevent panic and subsequent overwhelm.

This is one of the reasons why institutions, companies, teams, individuals, in any field of endeavour, are paying attention to the skill of self-development in the realm of Mindful Awareness.
It helps harness the faculty of clearer thinking in life, in work,  especially in times of potentially stressful moments.

It's a skill that can be learned, practised and applied.

You don't have to rush off to the Himalayas, sit on mountain tops, don robes and sandals, or study Sanskrit for 20 years, to learn this technique. 

We all have the ability within us to do this. There'll be more about learning this valuable resource in coming mails...

Stay in touch.

​The afternoon stretched out before me. 

It was 1968. We’d  just finished a Sunday lunch gig in the “Green Man“ pub, Blackheath Common, South London. The instruments had been loaded into the van. Our work was done for the day.

I said my goodbyes to the boys of the band. There are times when the only way to be is solitary. A vague anxiety hovered somewhere in the back of my mind. I couldn't fix a name or a cause. It wasn't even that there was anything wrong. It just didn't feel right.

I felt without direction, unsettled, aimless.

 And that was how my mind responded, aimlessly. ​Moving from the Common,  I found myself wandering into Lewisham High Street.

In those days most shops were shut on Sundays. The street was a canyon of glass and concrete, with people meandering, strolling, up and down, window-shopping, chatting, looking, buying tea at the tea stalls, all moving slowly in the warm September sun.

Behind a tea stall at which I had stopped, was a barrow full of books, all hardbacks, with their spines turned up.  Picking up what turned out to be an old English reader, with essays by the likes of Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Dickens, a page dropped open on “The Wayfarer”, the poem by Padraic Pearse.

There, amid the roar of traffic, the walls of hot sun-reflecting glass, the chug of buses and the crowd on the sun-brightened city concrete, my eye fell on the words,

“… To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red ladybird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun, on some green hill,
Where shadows drifted by…“

And they took my breath away. 

I paid the 6p for the tea, three pennies for the book, and moved on. Turning down an alleyway which wound down to the green square in Catford where I lived, I was now surrounded by tall chestnuts and beeches, with the sun dappling through the leaves and branches in shadowed patterns on the short, manicured grass of the square. 

I was heading for a wooden bench in the sunny gap between two trees when I was brought to a standstill by a strident high and familiar voice.

From an open window on the far side of the green, Miceál O’Héihir was sounding the halftime score of the All Ireland Hurling Final.

Like filings to a magnet, I was drawn across the green. “And the Wexford men are traipsing off” intoned Miceál . 
A face appeared in the open window. “Where are you from?” Asked the face.

“Wexford” I answered.

“A Jaysus! We’re batin’ the shite out o' yiz”, he exclaimed. “Come on in! Hear in the second half!”
“Thanks”, I said “leave the window open, I’ll sit here on the wall.”

On the wall, with my back to the window, I sat looking over the small green. But I wasn’t seeing that green patch of grass in a square in South East London.

 I was seeing the green fields and the rolling hills of south county Wexford, the back roads and the winding lanes, the high hedges and the looping Hawthorne. I was hearing the rattle of the empty billycan on the handlebars of the bike on the old dusty road, the chirrup of birds in the hedgerow, that early evening birdsong, the bark of a dog as I passed a gate, the greeting, 'grand day' from a passing farmer, as I made my way to Grant’s farm to to collect the milk for the following day.

But then a Croke Park roar interrupted my reverie.
The second-half was starting. Miceál was announcing the throw -in. The cheering and the roaring filled the air.

“Nine points down!… A wide for Tipperary!“, Shouted Miceál “…pucks it out… Phil Wilson catches….bursts past Babs Keating…runs through Jimmy Doyle. …flicks it over to Jack Berry! Here come the Boys of Wexford!” Roared Miceál, voice rising, excitement mounting….”a pass back to Paul Lynch…Paul looks up, steadies and strikes…and it’s over the bar! A point for Wexford!! This looks like a different Wexford team from the first half…”. The rest of his words were lost in the voice of the entire Wexford county as it roared the team on.

“…a long puck out…a bobbing ball…Dan Quigley gathers.” 
Some of his words were getting lost in bursting roars from the crowd in Croke Park.

Amid the background din came names and words that meant that the Wexford men were fighting back. The name Dan Quigley came up again,… “What a catch! Flips it over to Ned Colfer!
Colfer to Willie Murphy!
Murphy to Phil Wilson!
Phil turns and fires it up the field! It’s coming down!.
Tony Doran is in there!! So is Christy Jacob! So is Seamus Whelan!
"Up goes Tony! He catches! Holds, and swivels.!
He palms the ball!
He shortens the grip and with a mighty twist of the shoulders buries it in the back of the Tipperary net!”

“The game has changed!, ”shouted Miceál into the microphone and out to the world. “The Boys of Wexford are hurling back! This is a different team from the first half!”
A roar drowned his commentary as Tony Doran pumped another one over the bar. 

The noise from the crowd and the speed of commentary melded into a continuous stream of sound as the Wexford men hurled their way into the game…”Wexford 2 goals and six points,  Tipperary, one goal and twelve points!" shouted Miceál. "Only three points in it! Who’d have thought it at half time!?!
Wexford had been trailing by 8 points. They looked beaten, bedraggled, done! It must be the spirit of 1798,” continued Miceál,
“….the Boys of Wexford! Fighting with heart and hand!”

The game roared on. 

Down the field it came. Wexford were hurling  like men possessed. Purple and gold were bursting up the field again. Down came the ball.
Up went the hands!
The roar of the crowd filled the square in Catford.

The two teams hurled  it out in Croke Park.
And  I was hurling it out in Catford, Southeast London!

Off the wall, seeing the green of Croke park in my mind’s eye, the jerseys of the Blue and Gold of Tipperary, and my own countymen in the Purple and Gold of the Model County, my heart and mind and spirit were hurling the air, swinging the arms, screaming and shouting as I heard it on the radio and saw the spectacle in my head.

‘…another one for Wexford’ shouted Miceál. Tipperary one goal and twelve points, Wexford three goals and six points…..the teams are level!!”

Hysteria throttled up my throat and roared the Wexford men on! Out come Tony Doran again! The square was a frenzied maelstrom of Blues and Purple and the flashes of Purple and Gold as hands and heads and scything hurls flashed in the air. Then a mighty roar lifted Jimmy O'Brien's Hurley and smite it against the tiny white sphere once more to the Tipperary net !!!

Wexford four goals and six points! Tipperary one goal and twelve points.
On they hurled! The men in Croke Park, battling every ball, hunting every chance, hooking, blocking, tackling through the game! 

And there was I, in Catford, swinging, dodging, palming, so that when Jack Berry belted in Goal number five, London, in the United Kingdom, just like Tipperary, in the Republic of Ireland, was at the mercy of anything Wexford.

To seal the game, our Tony pumped over another point, just before a desperate but willing Tipperary punched the Wexford net with their second goal of the game.

On we hurled, Tony and the boys in Croke Park, Me in South London. We hurled  and we tackled and we blocked and we hooked and we pointed and we ran and we played till our legs and our lungs and our shoulders screamed for relief. 
The pitch was getting bigger and the ball was getting smaller, the lifting of the stick was  like hauling it through thick mud. Heart and Soul, I was there with them on that green patch of grass across the breadth of England and over the Irish Sea, hauling aching limbs and indomitable minds through those last few minutes of physical hell.

And then it went; that shrill, thin,  lung-long blast of the game-end whistle.

And we, Tony and the boys in Croke Park, and me, in a  distant corner of South East London, and the men and the women and the boys and the girls of the county of Wexford, had won!
We had won the All Ireland Hurling Final!

Sitting on that wall , back to the window, a kaleidoscope of visions and sights running through the hungry eyes of my turbulent mind, the relief, the elation, the welling pride, the rediscovery, the sense of place, of identity, the exquisite sadness, erupted through my system in mighty body- shocking sobs.

“What’re ye bawlin’ about?”, demanded Tipperary. He was leaning on the wall a foot or two away from me. He held a packet of Gold Flake in one hand, a lighter in the other.

“Yah”, he continued” It’s hard to be here when that’s goin’ on over there. It’ll be a lonely day for many a one of yere  county.”

To the background of speeches, declarations, supposed commiserations coming from the radio, I moved from the wall, feeling my feet firmly on the concrete of the pathway, and turning to that kindly Tipperary Man, heard my own voice uttering the words “I’m going home.”

It was a simply stated declaration. And it wasn’t talking about the small  apartment around the corner; what I had casually called my home, the place where I currently lay my head, where I slept, where I ate.

No.

It was to green fields and the high ditches, the winding lane ways and  the hidden farmhouses, the birds in a clear sky, the warm quiet greetings on the roads, and chance meetings at the  crossroads, rabbits in the fields at evenings, lit by slanting suns on green hills, where shadows drifted by…..

That was the home to which I was going.
And went.

​One thing I found really useful over the years, and so have those with whom I’ve worked, is to keep in mind the main point of your effort.

You don’t have to agonise over it, or drive yourself insane because your progress Is varied.

That’s normal. It’s also natural. None of us is perfect. So when we set on a journey, we get diversions, distractions, interruptions and all the rest of the things that can happen in the course of a lifetime.

Allow them happen and to deal with them as they arise, keeping the main point in mind all the time.

It’s a bit like using a compass. You go off track, check the compass and work your way back on course. It applies to long goals, short goals intermediate goals, every kind of goal and aspiration you can think of. 

So, be a friend to yourself. See it for what it is. Deal with the challenges

And to keep the main point in mind.

How you think about anything has a direct effect on how you're going to feel about it. 
Now we've all more or less had this idea for a long time, but it's now being strongly supported by scientific research. 
Dr. Brice Lipton, in his wonderful book, 'The Biology of Belief', goes into some detail in explaining how every cell in our bodies is affected by our thought patterns.

This is one of the examples of minds opening to the tremendous potential that we have available to us.
When we become aware of how we can affect ourselves, our thinking, our feelings, and subsequent actions, it begins to indicate how we can start to examine and develop ourselves as human beings.

The fact that we accept and believe that theory is enough to open our minds to all kinds of possibilities. It validates a statement I read a couple of years ago about the next frontier of discovery not being so much the
planets and horizons of the Universe, as the content and horizons of the mind and the imagination; a fertile and unexplored territory.
​

​Positive thinking has a great deal to be said for it.

Fearful thinking has a lot to be said for it too.

Scattered thinking has a lot to be said about it.

To think positively is to use our minds in a constructive way to achieve, to resolve, to help, to withstand, to do what we can about our lives and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

To think fearfully is to allow our minds use us to stumble, to hesitate, to become confused,  to capitulate in the face of adversity and become victims of circumstance.

But fearful thinking can also be a protector. Our minds and our perceptions are geared to make us afraid when fear is appropriate. Depending on who we are and what we do, we might face down the threat from another human, or run from it. Faced by a wild and hungry tiger, fear can be really helpful. It can propel us to find, with amazing speed, whatever means there is to safety.

Scattered thinking though, is something else. It throws us into a state of confusion and bewilderment. That can interfere with any rational or helpful thinking.
Scattered thinking is a habit.
It’s becoming more prevalent by the year. It undermines our ability to react and respond in an appropriate way to life.

Concentration spans are reducing. Twelve years ago an experiment done by Intel indicated that our attention span was somewhere in the region of twelve seconds. A recent similar experiment indicated that the span had reduced to eight seconds.

This can make her lives very difficult. It simply means that soluble problems become insoluble not because of any inherent difficulty in the problem, but because of our inability to hold focus on the objective when dealing with that problem.

The above thinking patterns indicate a new low in the use of our minds. We are allowing our minds to become trained in, conditioned to, the grasshopper mentality; where our minds flit from one idea to another, cutting short the possible resolution to a challenge when a few more seconds, or a few more minutes, would see us to a solution.

Disjointed, scattered thinking evaporates our ability to start something, get to the middle, and complete it.

That’s the power of scattered thinking. 

Years ago, exercise, vigorous activity, was part of daily life. We didn’t have to consciously train and discipline ourselves to exercise  because we got plenty of it every day. 
Then sedentary living  became a lifestyle, and in order to keep the body fit, healthy and well, we had to introduce a system of exercising to make sure that we retained the activity for which our bodies were designed.

Thinking seems to be going the same way, but in reverse. Years ago we thought of less things, but longer, on any given subject. In other words it had our attention.
But distraction being the force that it is today, we now have to retrain our minds to think of less things, but with more attention on the things about which we do think.

In other words, we need to retrain ourselves to the skill of concentration, just as we had retrain ourselves to exercise.

‘Stay focused’ is the battle cry of modern living. We have the ability. We have the resources. We certainly have the education, but what we lack is the power of concentrated, prolonged and precise focus.

Mindful awareness, meditation, are pathways to the solution of this challenge. Training the mind to hold attention, retain interest, and to see your project through to the end is the benefit of regular, frequent, deliberate practices of mindful awareness and meditation.

It’s a skill. And just like we’ve learned how to allow our thinking to become scattered, we can equally learn how to re-train it to laser-like, precise, and productive attention.

And that’s the truth.

The difference is in how it's done.

That's what makes a great book, an accomplished sportsperson, a readable writer, a successful businessperson, a likeable person, a conniving individual, a dominating figure, a submissive victim, those human, personal, individual elements that express our individuality.

A psychotherapist I know of great experience and much wisdom, told me recently that he thought that our greatest asset is to be able to decide to become who we want to be.

Now that's an interesting view because it isn't so much what we know, who we know, or what what we think that shapes our lives, but how we think, who we believe we are, and how we feel.

This is what determines how we act, behave, perform. 

Any fact facing us, good or bad, is never as important as how we think about it. How we think about it determines how we feel about it. How we feel about it, decides what we do about it.

And who we believe we are is what decides how we think, feel, and eventually behave, in any circumstance. 

The belief that we can do something is often enough to bring some distant aim or goal into the realm of possibility.
Without that belief, no matter what resources we have available to us, we'll have a hard time delivering on any endeavour.

Seeking, and recognising, who we might be, could be, can be, in our own minds, is what can lead us to the fundamental belief of trusting ourselves, believing in our own potential, and finally putting it into practice.

Which brings us back to the lifelong question; how do you think, how do you feel, about your own potential? 

​

​"One of the real advances in Sport Science is its discovery that  BREATHING is SO important that it needs SPECIFIC TRAINING."

Sir Matthew Pinsent speaking of the dedicated Breathing Regime which helped him to four Olympic Gold Medals in Rowing over 4 separate Olympic years, and ten World Rowing Championships.

And breathing isn't just for the Elite, the Gold Medallists and the World champions of that World out there.

It's for you, in YOUR World, in which your performance, day in, day out, can make the difference between a life well lived, or otherwise.

Positive thinking has a great deal to be said for it.

Fearful thinking has a lot to be said for it too.

Scattered thinking has a lot to be said about it.

To think positively is to use our minds in a constructive way to achieve, to resolve, to help, to withstand, to do what we can about our lives and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

To think fearfully is to allow our minds use us to stumble, to hesitate, to become confused,  to capitulate in the face of adversity and become victims of circumstance.

But fearful thinking can also be a protector. Our minds and our perceptions are geared to make us afraid when fear is appropriate. Depending on who we are and what we do, we might face down the threat from another human. But, faced in the countryside by a wild and hungry tiger, fear can be helpful. It can propel us to find, with amazing speed, whatever means there is to safety.

Scattered thinking though, is something else. It throws us into a state of confusion and bewilderment. That can interfere with any rational or helpful thinking. Scattered thinking is a habit. It’s becoming more prevalent by the year. It undermines our ability to react and respond in an appropriate way to life.

Concentration spans are reducing. Twelve years ago an experiment done by Intel indicated that our attention span was somewhere in the region of twelve seconds. A recent similar experiment indicated that the span had reduced to eight seconds.

This can make her lives very difficult. It simply means that soluble problems become insoluble not because of any inherent difficulty in the problem, but because of our inability to hold focus on the objective when dealing with that problem.

The above thinking patterns indicate a new low in the use of our minds. We are allowing our minds to become trained in, conditioned to, the grasshopper mentality; where our minds flit from one idea to another, cutting short the possible resolution to a challenge when a few more seconds, or a few more minutes, would see us to a solution.

Disjointed, scattered thinking evaporates our ability to start something, get to the middle, and complete it.

That’s the power of scattered thinking. 

Years ago, exercise, vigorous activity, was part of daily life. We didn’t have to consciously train and discipline ourselves to exercise  because we got plenty of it every day. 
Then sedentary living  became a lifestyle, and in order to keep the body fit, healthy and well, we had to introduce a system of exercising to make sure that we retained the activity for which our bodies were designed.

Thinking seems to be going the same way, but in reverse. Years ago we thought of less things, but longer, on any given subject. In other words it had our attention.
But distraction being the force that it is today, we now have to retrain our minds to think of less things, but with more attention on the things about which we do think.

In other words, we need to retrain ourselves to the skill of concentration, just as we had retrain ourselves to exercise.

‘Stay focused’ is the battle cry of modern living. We have the ability, we have the resources, we certainly have the education, but what we lack is the power of concentrated, prolonged and precise focus.

Mindful awareness, meditation, are pathways to the solution of this challenge. Training the mind to hold attention, retain interest, and to see your project through to the end Is the benefit of regular, frequent, deliberate practices of mindful awareness and meditation.

It’s a skill. And just like we’ve learned how to allow our thinking to become scattered, we can equally learn how to re-train it to laser-like, precise, and productive attention.

And that’s the truth.
​

Not many people know how to stop.

Geared as we are to succeed, to achieve, to become accomplished, our minds have been conditioned to think that unless we are attempting, doing, being, actively engaged in our pursuits, that we are not doing ourselves justice.

Diligent practice is vital. 

However, no matter what we do, how much we love it, or even how good we are at it, we need a mental physical and emotional break from the involvement. Otherwise we burn out.

We all know the value of persistence. But that can be a double-edged sword, and can undo the benefits of what we’re trying to achieve.

How is this?

In the last hundred years, the advent of electricity, artificial light, technology, rapid communications, while being hailed as timesavers, have encroached on our time and our personal lives in a way we never could have imagined.

We have forgotten how to stop.

We have allowed ourselves to stumble headlong into lives of speed, urgency, and frenzy. The urgency and the speed take a mighty toll on our nervous systems. They distract and disjoint our minds and our thought patterns. Our nervous systems have become confused and agitated. We have become subject to the imperative to do, do, do, to get, get, get, to achieve, achieve, achieve! The pace is relentless.

Like the car that runs down without servicing, the athlete who stumbles and staggers from overtraining, or the artist who comes to a halt because there’s no more left in the well, we become tired, fatigued, drained.

We end up running on empty.

We need to learn how to stop
We need to learn how to still the mind.
We need to learn how to calm and quiet our emotions.
We need, we really do need, to learn how to stop.

Learning how to stop, rest and recuperate, is what prevents us from quitting.

Read that again. And then start thinking about this simple but neglected fact of life that can transform you, and your life, for the better. Just do that for now...

More on this later...

 ​

Playing for your county is a wonderful privilege. It’s also a huge test of skill, stamina, determination.

And nerve.

Waiting on the side-line for your first game in the county jersey, replacing one of the household names, with your team being one  point behind, could do one of two things; immobilise you with fear, or inspire you to heights you never imagined.

A now retired county hurler recalled recently to me how this had been his exact experience.

As he stood waiting to be called on to the field, he remembered what his dad had told him, “This is what you’re here for.” He kept repeating the statement to himself, first mentally, then out loud.
 By the time he was whistled onto the pitch and was running out to meet his marker, he had  realised the thought, the aim, and his feelings, to an emotional Inferno.

His marker, a seasoned campaigner, found  himself confronted by a tornado of energy, skill,  speed and determination that threw him off his game and resulted in a dream debut for my acquaintance, and the first choice for his position in every county game for many following seasons.

“It was the self talk”, he said. “I had talked myself into a whirlwind before I’d even set foot in the pitch.”
“And saying it out loud”, he continued “was what instilled the belief, and brought it into reality.”

“I did it ever after, for every game I played, for club and for county, and for every event which I faced thereafter in my business.“

This man’s interesting and candid story reflected the importance of real belief, not just an intellectually understood proposition , but a real, heartfelt, soulful, emotional, belief.

What was worth noting too was that the principle was not confined to hurling, but to business, and to his life.

That’s the kind of belief that lengthens your stride, adds an inch to your reach, and draws on unimagined strength. It resurrects courage in the business world.
It gets you through those dark and lonely moments in the early hours, when problems can magnify out of proportion to their real significance.
It cements resolve in the face of doubt.
It holds fast when ties can otherwise weaken.

As Rudyard Kipling put it;
"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew,
To serve you one more turn, long after they are gone,
And so, hold on, when there is nothing in you,
Except the will, that says to them, 'Hold on!"

The interesting fact about this little story is that when it was first mentioned to him to speak to himself in measured, selected, forceful, and precise language, he had dismissed it as nonsense.

Nonsense.

But he had faith in the person who suggested it to him. Because of that, he said he would give it a shot.

He says he still doesn’t understand how it works.
Even now it seems that bit nonsensical to him.
But he sees the effects of it are undeniable.

So he holds his counsel on it, and fondly refers to it as his little bit of “magical nonsense.”

With one All-star, two club medals, an Interprovincial medal, and an All-Ireland medal, his sideboard is a colourful testimony to the power of that little bit of magical nonsense.

How do YOU talk to yourself?
Or do you think you don't?

Think again.
You may not go through a verbalised articulated sentence. But the notions, the ideas, the thoughts, thoughts that can sink you or save you, flit through your mind whenever you face a task of any substance.

Watch for them.
Some may try to lodge as they pass through.

Be selective. 
Take the ones that are useful, that could, or might, be of use.

Keep your mind open.

Some may appear 'nonsensical' at first sight, but that may just because you've never considered them before.

Keep the mind receptive.
Examine the thoughts, the ideas, and if they seem good, helpful, then articulate them into sentences.
Sound them out in your mind and out loud, and if you're experiencing a positive response, go with them. ​

On the last mail, I suggested a simple exercise for the morning time.
It’s a simple enough routine. 

But have you done it?

The effect is in the doing; not the talking, the thinking or even the knowing, but the doing.
That goes for everything.

In case you missed it go back to Monday’s email. 

Read the mail and put it into practice for 28 days. Make notes over those 28 days about how you apply it in your life.

Have a nice weekend, drive safely, wear the mask, keep your distance, wash your hands, and be aware.

PS
If you're keen on the idea of Mindful Awareness, being at one with yourself, then the coming Half Hour Friday will have something you'd like.
We'll be doing a very quick recap on previous steps in the process, followed by a once-off exercise in Meditative Focus to still the mind and quieten the emotions.
This system tends to have a carry-over effect into daily life and it'll be a useful way to opening into a calm, relaxed and peaceful weekend. 

IF you haven't already registered, you can do it now by returning the letters "RSVP" to this mail. I'll register your email and you'll be on the guest list.

In the meantime, stay well and keep breathing...which reminds me, I'll tell you shortly about some fascinating scientific research and conclusions about the skill and the art of Breathing. ​

​You can decide to start each day as you mean to continue.

That is your decision.

A simple breathing technique that ventilates the system for the coming day will do you more good than any amount of thinking about it.

After you’ve been up and about for a few minutes, pause in your routine, and give your mind, and your body, a chance to start the day well.


Stand easy, relaxed, loose.

Breathe in slowly through your nose. Let the air drift in, smoothly,  steadily.
Then let it release.
Breathe out gently, fully. 
Use your nose or your mouth, which ever is more comfortable for you.
Breathe in again smoothly, evenly.
Exhale again steadily, till all the air is gone.

Repeat for a steady two minutes.

As you do so, decide which of your qualities you will apply to your life today.

And then do it.

Do that every morning for 28 days.

The beginning of the week is a great place to start your own week.

If you have a project, and idea, a goal that you’ve been thinking about, considering, ruminating on, planning, start doing something about it today.

Do something to get it moving.
Anything at all.
It doesn’t have to be a giant stride.
A tiny step will do.
And that's your first step taken.

Then take the second one, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, maybe next week, but plan it and decide it. 
And then take it.

If anything is doable, it starts with the first step.
Until you start, nothing, absolutely nothing, gets done.

A lady I know started to make changes in her eating habits last February. She said should like to lose a "couple of pounds" for summer.
That was six months ago.

She has shaved off 20 pounds of fat, toned her muscles, lost 5 inches off your waist, and is down more than two sizes, nearly three sizes, in her dresswear, now.
And she has the energy of a Space Rocket, a delightfully quiet self - assurance, and is looking forward immensely to the rest of her very promising and inviting life

The other day, she told me that in February she would’ve been happy to get 10 lbs down and maybe a full dress size. But because she made a start, found she could live comfortably with the changes, she kept on doing what she was doing, kept on getting a good result, which then translated into an even better result.

Her result was way beyond what she had expected.

All because she made a start.

There it is again, isn't it?
 Take a Decision, start Acting on it, Repeat the action, and then Evaluate your progress.

Decide to take the first step. Make that start.

​