Tuesday 29 December 2009

Thinking time...in the pub

A meal out of the house today was just the thing to allow some fresh thoughts to come to mind for 2010. Thank you the Quicksilver Mail pub in Yeovil for your £5 special.

Very nice beef casserole and lots of veg; lovely.

Monday 28 December 2009

Time to relax and think

I'm taking some time out to think about the year ahead.

Now is the time to reassess your goals, set new ones and let go of some that no longer fit your situation.

I will be spending the next few days to clear my mind and allow new ideas to bubble through the layers of conscious and unconscious thoughts.

Why not take the opportunity to do something similar?

Thursday 24 December 2009

Bloomin ice...

I use pre-recorded CDs to reinforce the hypnosis and personal change work that I do. Just occasionally I don't have the correct disc to hand during a session and so send it out later by post.

This happened recently but since I was travelling past the person's house I thought I would drop the CD in to them.

On my way to the house, I found the black ice on the path and came crashing to the ground without winning any points for style. It hurt!

I am lucky, I don't have brittle bones, but I can quite see how a fall like that for an elderly person would fracture their hip.

Be nice to your neighbours and visitors this year; if it's icy, grit or salt your paths.

Tuesday 22 December 2009

Sometimes a YouTube video can really move you

There are times when we can despair of the world ever becoming a better place. A world where a person can be free to pursue their goals and interests.

This video might just show that it is still possible to hope for a better life for all.




No more comment needed from me.

Saturday 19 December 2009

Another Somerset picture



















Sunset at Kingsbury Episcopi. I was on my way back from Burrow Hill Cider and spotted the new crescent moon, I pulled in opposite these ponies and so they star in the image.

Yeovil at dawn



















I'm having a bit of a picture theme at the moment. This one was taken at 7.35am on Saturday 19th December. It is the view from Yeovil Post sorting office looking towards Tesco. (103 Huish. Yeovil, Somerset, BA20 1AA to see it on a map).

The temperature was -3.5 degrees C at the time. Global warming? According to Gordon Brown I'll be with the anti-science, flat-earth brigade.

Local climate change is driven by local changes, urban areas create heat islands. Cutting down trees in Africa changes precipitation patterns. Glaciers melt and reform all the time. Sunspot activity drives weather patterns and we make only the tiniest amount of difference except for the kind of examples I already mentioned.

As ever, if you follow the money trail you begin to see the real motivations of the big names behind carbon trading and carbon reduction strategies. Some will already know this but it's worth saying again, Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant. We breath it out and plants transpire the CO2 to produce oxygen. Commercial greenhouse growers increase the amount of CO2 in their glasshouse to increase the plant growth and yields!

Now the Copenhagen summit has closed and the agenda did not seem to be about how much of the world could be saved, it seemed to be about how much money the developing nations would get from the 'developed' world. It's easy to believe in Man Made Global Climate Change when you might be getting a share of £100 Billion per year.

Some of the comments made by a minister from Sudan that liken the agreement to the Jewish Holocaust are particularly sickening given that nation's record on human rights abuse.

The Global Climate Change circus is and remains, a nasty sordid money grubbing affair that seems to have little to do the growth of mankind or care for the environment.


Wednesday 16 December 2009

Ninesprings in Yeovil






















I normally work from Ninesprings Natural Health Centre in Yeovil. If you are not local to the area, you might assume this is just a pretty name but there really is a local woodland area called Ninesprings which has flowing springs feeding a stream and then a small lake.

This is a winter picture of that lake; as you can see there is still plenty of colour around.

Ninesprings is sometimes spelt as one word and sometimes as two, I have no idea of which is considered 'correct'.

Friday 11 December 2009

Clifton Suspension Bridge



















It still looks amazing even though it was completed in 1864. It was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's first project but ironically he never saw it completed as he died in 1859.

I had to drive underneath it recently and took this snap.

Thursday 10 December 2009

Stress makes you fat

As if being in a stressful job was not enough of a problem, it is also now being recognised as a contributor to weight issues.

In today's Daily Mail newspaper they carry a short article about how the combination of emotional eating and stress can make you put on weight.

The stress tends to increase the amount of Cortisol they body produces and this in turn leads to more fat being laid down in the body. It's likely to an evolutionary defence mechanism that allowed humans to survive stressful situations. By laying down a good fat reserve we could survive even if food supplies were short.

What's the answer?

Learn techniques to de-stress, remember to eat only when hungry (not because you feel lonley/sad/depressed etc.) drink enough fluid so that you do not confuse the sensation of being thirsty with being hungry.

Exercise is a good way to relieve stress, as is yoga, walking, self hynosis or relaxation tapes/cds/mp3s. I should add I have a nice range of my own MP3s available at www.gift4life.com.

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Jim Rohn passes away

I learnt from Frank Kern's blog that Personal Development mentor Jim Rohn has passed away.

I only recently discovered the work of Jim Rohn, it seems he's been a guiding light in the world of personal development since the mid 1960s when he began giving talks to business clubs in his local area.

The simple ideas that he put forward help to set you on a path of personal success. Through CD copies of his talks I have also become aware of other speakers like Dr. Dennis Waitley and Brian Tracy.

He always attributed his sucess to the simple but effective ideas of his mentor Earl Shoaff, but that was deny the skills he had in presenting an idea so well that couldn't not understand.



If you have never heard Jim speak then give him a try. Simple truths that will set you thinking about your own path in life. Jim used lots of stories from the Bible to illustrate his points but even if you are not a Christian you'll find so much value in what he says.

Monday 7 December 2009

How many on Anti-depressants?

This article about anti-depressant drug use was originally post in June this year (follow the link above).

According to the article, there are now some 36 Million prescriptions issued each year for anti-depressants in the UK. That number is up 2.1 million since the last numbers were released in 2007.

Clearly something is very wrong here. 36 million is basically one prescription per adult in the UK population. Either there are a huge number of very depressed people in the UK (always a possibility) or the drugs are being used a universal panacea for the ills of modern life.

I wonder if some of the those people simply have unrealistic expectations about what they may achieve and the clash of the actual and desired outcomes prompts a rush to the GP. (I'm not trying to limit life expectations, merely recognising that not everyone will do what is required to get the glitzy lifestyle.) Contrast the glitz, gloss and glamour of TV lifestyles with your own life and the difference may be too much to bear.

GPs are used to dealing with drugs and relatively speaking, drugs are cheap. Three months of Prozac will be less than 3 months of talking therapy, not really more effective, but cheaper.

The only people gaining with this approach are the shareholders of the drug companies; the people (I hesitate to call them patients) may get some relief but their situation is unchanged, the Doctor may know that the issue is a bad marriage or poor life choices but be left with few alternatives and the we as the shareholders of the NHS pay the bill.

What a waste; a waste of potential, a waste of money, a waste of lives.

Surely it's time to change. Surely we should hold back on the pills and start prescriptions for seeing a therapist or a life coach. How about a prescription to eat a diet that is actually healthy and contains the natural minerals, vitamins and oils that we need to function effectively.

I have no idea where this should start but perhaps one small change might be to promote the idea of non-drug based treatments to Doctors whilst they are still in training. It would be a long task to changing the current situation but it could start one Doctor at a time.

It's also possible that perhaps Doctors should not be expected to have the answers to life problems. We need a new way to deal with life problems for those who choose not to pray or have a religion. A Humanist approach to living a positive life?

Who knows? What is certain is that the status quo will result in all of us being on the drugs and that just can't be right.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

Lyme Regis Christmas

I was out nice and early this morning; at Lyme Regis I saw their tree and for the first time this season I felt a bit Christmassy......




















Lovely tree on a cold and frosty morning.