Another picture of Lyme Regis

I decided to post this second picture as well of Lyme Regis. It was taken fron the same position as the first one posted but without the zoom. I love the blue of the sky.

Early Morning image of Lyme Regis, Dorset

I had to go out this morning bright and early. I stopped at Lyme Regis in Dorset just as the sun was rising over Lyme Bay. This picture was taken at around 5.30am, it looks towards the Cobb area from the Eastern end of the beach.

The colours were so wonderful I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures, this is the one I liked the best.

10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight

There was an interesting program called "10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight" on the BBC last night (Wednesday 27th May 2009) .

It looked beyond the old counting calories approach to weight loss and outlined ten different approaches to shedding the pounds. Some of the tips have been around for a long time and are very simple indeed; for example switching from a 12inch diameter plate to a 10 inch.

The program also vindicated the Atkins approach to weight loss but backed it up with science. It seems that a high protein meal tends to turn off the chemical messenger signal for hunger, longer than the same amount of calories eaten as fat or carbohydrates. In effect meat, fish, beans and eggs are a better hunger suppressant than bread, rice, potatoes or pasta.

Some ideas were surprising, the program split a team of soldiers into two teams. Each team was fed the same meal, the first team ate the meal as usual with a glass of water. The second team had the same meal but it was liquidized with a glass of water, in effect creating a soup.

The suprise was just how much longer the soup version of the meal stayed in the stomach than the regular meal. As a consequence hunger was staved off for much longer with the soup meal.

Dairy fat is often given a wide berth by dieters yet it seems that those who want to lose weight are missing a trick. It seems that eating low fat dairy products can actually increase the amount of fat that is excreted from the body. The calcium in the milk or yoghurt binds with the fat in the gut and then passes through the body rather than being absorbed.

The program had other tips but one thing that I am very familiar with is the way that people record what they eat. I have worked with many people to help them lose weight and the accurate recording of what they eat is a real challenge. An actress on the program was certain that she ate a healthy and moderate diet, she thought that a slow metabolism was to blame for her excess weight.

She was tested in a research lab and found that her metabolism was absolutely normal. So back to the food then. It turned out the lady was under recording her food intake on video camera by some 60% and even when she wrote a food diary she under recorded by over 40%. Her food intake was over 3000 calories per day instead of the 2000 required on average for a woman. No wonder she was overweight.

What this program did not cover was the emotional reasons why people tend to over eat but it is worth a watch using the BBC iPLAYER through the link above.

Visualise anxiety to see how to let it go

I work with many clients who have anxiety related problems. Each person is unique but common themes often emerge during the sessions with the client.

One technique that clients frequently find helpful is to picture what their anxiety might look like. I often start by asking the person what colour the anxiety is, then move on to finding out what shape the problem is and how big or small it seems.

Once the size, shape and colour are established we can set about destroying the unwanted object. The client will again provide the information, so whether they stamp on the 'thing', chop it up with a chainsaw (nice!) or set light to it the thing will be reduced to pieces or ash.

I'll then have the pieces that are left disposed of, again the client's own imagination provides the best method for them. Throwing the bits into a bin, throwing ashes into the wind or even blowing them up with explosives have all been used by my clients.

The last step is to replace the unwanted anxiety with a desired emotion; often this will be a feeling of confidence. The secret here is run the process in reverse; ie ask what colour the new emotion is, how big is it, what shape does it have?

Often the responses are interesting, sometimes even entertaining, at this point the therapist must use all their skills to utilise this new object in a way that the client can integrate into their life.

Sometimes this desired emotion will be seen as a light, sometimes as a comforting blanket but it could be anything that the imagination can conceive. The therapist's ability here is the key to making this process as successful as possible.

This technique is most often used in a therapy setting but you can also use it in a relaxed or self hypnotic state. It is not as easy as working with a therapist and may take more time but it can be a very useful addition to the tools you use to release anxiety.

You may also find it useful to check my Releasing Anxiety MP3 and CD recording at the web site www.gift4life.com. It provides a very effective non-hypnosis approach to releasing anxiety.

YouTube is great!

Just in this week my wife has learned how to make Mozarella cheese by watching a YouTube video. (She hasn't done it yet but I'm certain it will happen.) I have been inspired by listening to Larry Adler talking about his life and his harmonica playing (You can see it here if it interests you) also on YouTube.

So often we hear about the tragedies of modern life (and there are many) but the ability to spread positive information, tuition and knowledge has never been more accessible or affordable (often it's free).

The old saying is that it takes more muscles in your face to frown than to smile and now perhaps we have a digital analogy of that maxim. It easier now to spread good news about life than malicious gossip and rumour. It's easier because when you're spreading good news or knowledge there is no need to hide or be furtive; it takes less energy to be nice!

What will you do today?

Unlearning: the key to learning new skills

Lifelong learning is a mantra adopted by Education Authorities in the UK. It is meant to represent the notion of continually updating one's skills throughout life so that they remain relevant to the current job market.

In this recessionary time, training tends be cut back by both companies and individuals as money becomes more difficult to obtain. However the flip side of this coin is rarely mentioned, the notion of unlearning old and outmoded skills.

The idea of unlearning has been around for some time and seems to make sense when you consider how fast society and jobs change. Some skills simply have little or no relevance to the modern work place. For example the skill needed to process camera film at home is fast becoming nothing more than an esoteric hobby. In contrast the ability to use a photo editor to remove red-eye in digital pictures is a new skill in the ascendancy.

There is nothing new in this idea. In the 19th century Blacksmiths turned their hand from crafting horse shoes to building or maintaining steam engines. In the early 20th century those steam engineers in turn moved from the power of coal and water to the new fangled petrol engine.

The idea of outmoded skills was brought home to me over the weekend as I talked with my son about his forthcoming math exams. He explained that there two math exams to sit, the calculator exam and the non-calculator test.

A calculator in an exam? They were banned (and relatively rare anyway) when I took my school exams thirty years ago. "We had to use log tables instead" I said.

My son looked at me blankly and said "I don't know what you're talking about Dad".

I found myself attempting to recall how to use Log tables to make multiplication easier. "Why don't you just use the calculator?" asked my son incredulous at my attempts to use the tables I found in an old engineering book.

I got there in the end and demonstrated how the log/anti-log tables worked.

What was clear from this exercise was that a calculator was a great deal easier to use and that this was probably the first time in thirty years that I had actually attempted the technique. I had almost completely successfully unlearned the technique.

As I thought about this afterwards I realised that it not so much that we unlearn skills but more that we no longer invest time or effort in keeping them fresh and ready for use. As we move through life and NEED to learn new things it is clear that we also need ways to actively manage those skills we already have.

Unlearning may simply be the active decision to no longer invest time or effort in a particular skill. The payback for this is that we then have the mental capacity to take on new and more relevant skills for our life today.

So perhaps now is the time to have a personal audit and decide what skills to continue investing in and which to unlearn.

Oh that's good...

One of my interests is FORTH programming. I'm not a programmer, I don't do much programming but I suppose it's a more interesting mental exercise for me than sudoku.

Leo Brodie wrote two books on FORTH programming (that I know of) and they are both lessons in how to effectively communicate what could be a very dry topic.

I was flicking through the a virtual version of his second book "Thinking Forth" and came across this quote. It's so cool I had to share it with you.

Everything takes longer than you think, including thinking.

Brilliant!

Is ignoring intuition a good thing?

About three decades ago I began my training as an Electronics Engineer. I left school at 16 and set on the path of work and college based learning that led to technical exams five years later. Like most learning in the Western world it was logical and analytical in its approach and yielded consistent results.

I like many other people learned to structure what I did, in short I adopted what many people call left brain (or more accurately left hemisphere) thinking.

Theory about the way the brain operates suggest that we each have a preferred realm of thought; some prefer left brain some prefer right brain.

Left Brain		Right Brain
Logical Sequential Rational Analytical Objective Looks at parts		Random Intuitive Holistic Synthesizing Subjective Look at complete Picture

So for years I used mostly my left brain thinking and was successful in my work. But work changed, I moved from an Engineering role to a Sales role, now things seemed to be different. Working with people was different, it required far more of my right brain processes to understand how to be successful.

Gradually my thought patterns changed, I found myself more willing to trust my hunches or intuition and those hunches often paid off. It's not that the need for analytical thought went away just that it was balanced by more intuitive thoughts as well.

That change in my thought processes was amplified further when I began to study hypnosis and other development methods.

Trusting your hunch or intuition can feel like a very strange thing to do when all of your education is geared toward analytical thinking, but it can be a rewarding experience too.




In his book 'Blink', Malcolm Gladwell discusses the pro and cons of our ability to size up a situation in literally the blink of an eye. However I think intuition goes deeper than this, you may come to intuitively realise something but you can then test that with rational left brain thought patterns. Your subconscious may deliver an idea to you fully formed and ready to go but there'e no harm in testing the rope before jumping out the window!

Next time you have a slightly offbeat idea or notion, try going with it for a while and see where it leads you. It's just possible that it will be a rewarding and worthwhile experience. If it goes nowhere then at least you had an interesting detour down a new pathway. Ignoring your intuition is a way to ensure that you have fewer enlightening life experiences; surely you would be poorer if that were to happen.

A straw poll

A trip back from the local garage this morning resulted in me being in a car with three other gents of "a certain age".

What was the topic of conversation? Swine flu? No. Local elections? No. You guessed it MPs and their expense claims.

In this admittedly small survey, 100% of the people polled thought that MPs had behaved disgracefully. (That wasn't the word used but we'll keep things polite.)

All of those polled thought that the Government had effectively lost control of the situation and did not have an ounce of moral fibre left in them.

Then we went to work; because in the end we all look after ourself and our family first. Hopefully we do that without taking from others what is not ours to take.

That of course is just what the MPs have done, looked after themselves first. They just forgot that it is the great mass of the population that pays their wages and somehow came to believe that they were worth far more than the £65,000 salary they get paid each year.

MPs salary = £65,000 Moral Compass = Priceless

How is your moral compass?

In the week that has seen the exposure of the vast and very questionable expense claims made by MPs of all parties, I have been left wondering, where they each left their moral compass?

What I mean by moral compass is that innate sense of what is right and proper for oneself. The rules that you run your life by because you feel that that is the right thing to do, not because someone is watching over your shoulder.

That moral compass in the case of MPs has been shown this week to be badly out of alignment with the majority of the UK poulation; or has it?

It appears that the MP expense system (designed by MPs, run by MPs with rules set by MPs) was constructed in such a way as to encourage the topping up of the pay packet by claiming expenses that no other employer would allow.

As a consequence, many of the people who spend their time telling us what we should be doing, framing new laws that define what is acceptable, have themselves been broken the trust that they were once invested with.

But what would you do? When faced with a system that positively encourages you to go and buy a new TV and charge it to the Tax Payer, would your compass stay true?

Are each of us capable of staying withing our moral code without some notion of external scrutininy or the threat of it?

The answer seems clear, even if the majority of people have a clear sense of what is right and wrong, exposure to the light of day helps to ensure that we remain true to commonly agreed ideals.

Does that mean we can't have a secret part of our lives? No of course not; we are all entitled to have a secret if we want to...but please don't ask someone else to fund it!

Oh dear I don't think he wanted that to happen

I have a great belief in personal liberty and freedom. I think that without these values none of us can thrive and prosper in greatest sense of the word.

No one can thrive if they are constrained by limiting beliefs and outmoded ideas. Because of my personal views I am fundamentally opposed to the notion of Identity Cards.

It's as if someone else (in this case a collection of structures known as the Government) will only allow you to be a person with their say-so.

As you can imagine this fills me with a sense of horror. It seems remarkable therefore that yesterday the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, decided that a photo opportunity was an ideal way to bolster his ratings in the polls. The same day that Manchester was announced as being the first city in the UK where you could 'volunteer' for an idea card.

So what did that photo opportunity look like?


Oh dear, Gordon Brown in front of a Nazi Swastika. How appropriate for a Government that seems to have lost all the ideals that it came into power with in 1997.

What would the original leaders of the Labour Movement have said about the way things are run today?

You have a perfect right to exist, grow and prosper without someone else defining what your personal limits and freedoms may be. Of course there must be laws, rape, theft and murder are wrong. But the right of free expression, freedom of speech and association are yours (and mine) naturally and are not to be constrained by an unelected, unrepresentative so called 'Prime Minister'.