Heathrow Terminal 5

I had to pick someone up from terminal 5 at Heathrow recently. Whilst waitinmg I was struck by just how massive the steel work of the building is.

I thought it appeared to be rather over engineered until some one reminded me that if a jumbo jet landed on it...

Prozac, psychopaths and financial collapse

This film is well worth watching. "I Am Fishead" Are Corporate Leaders Egotistical Psychopaths ?


It discusses the financial crash that started in 2008 and links the risky behaviour that caused the crash to Corporate Psychopaths (Psychopath: a person lacking empathy but who still may be very intelligent and high functioning).

The film then goes on to explore how drugs, particularly anti-depressants cause those who take them to have a reduced level of empathy; in effect pushing the person drug taker towards lower levels of empathy.

Those with lower levels of empathy take more risks and care less about potentially negative outcomes. In the UK in 2007 31 million prescriptions for Prozac were written by GPs. It has only increased since that time.

I see users of Prozac often in my hypnotherapy work and I also hear from clients about how their GP, with very little thought, offers the drug as first response to anxiety of any kind.

I urge you to take the time to watch this film. Simple clear language is used to explain the terms. It's just over 1 hour long and it'll be an hour well invested.

This is the YouTube link http://youtu.be/6MWpxH-RlFQ

Look to the phases of the moon

I am really not into the idea of horoscopes. The idea the somehow you divide the entire population into 12 and then decide based on when in the year they were born what will happen to them on any given day seems just a bit far fetched. But...

I used to work for a boss who was convinced that new product launches should happen on the correct phase of the moon. I don't recall if he said new moon or full moon but I was reminded of this when talking with a colleague a few days ago.

Yesterday (7th March 2012) was a full moon (also the Jewish festival of Purim) and yesterday Apple Corporation launched its new generation iPad.

Now it could just be a coincidence; chance, except I don't think Apple leave much to chance.So I'm nudged towards concluding that Apple at least think that if a product launch can be aligned with a full moon, well why not?

Pay attention to the phases of the moon, you may think they have little meaning but some people do and so events will tend to coincide with them.

Watch for the lunacy out there!

Standing on the edge

  Art of Cristina Rukoski  -  http://exhibit.immtcnj.com/2011/09/13/rutkowski/

Have you noticed this? It's almost as if the world is standing on the edge. The edge of what?

Good question.

The Arab spring came and went, leaving behind the carnage of the old regimes whilst not fully replacing them with stability or functioning Governments. Now Syria is being pushed/pulled into a similar melt down. I know little about the country but now it seems that a Government cannot deal with an armed uprising without arms from external countries being pushed into the hands of the people in revolt.

One wonders what would happen in the UK if people in Birmingham rose up against the Government armed with weapons from Russia? Would outside Governments support Westminster or the rebels? 

So it feels as if a plan is being worked through. It's a messy, nasty plan, but a plan none the less. it does seem as if  a blueprint has been drawn up and the resources are being put into place to make it happen..

We seem powerless to resist.

Protest seems futile.

Letter writing is impotent.

Armed rebellion will likely result in death.

In our name, rebels are armed, bombs are dropped and decisions are made about who are the right people this month to support (different to last month of course.)

So we have that feeling of being on the edge.

I get the feedback from my one to one work with the number of people suffering from panic and anxiety. The alarming number of people drugged with SSRIs like Prozac just so that they can get through the working week (or as often now the non-working week). Standing on the edge again.

Like the charged atmosphere before a thunderstorm when you know from experience that the only thing that will make the air feel real again is the strike of lightning, the crash of thunder and the cascades of cleansing rain.

What will be the metaphorical thunderstorm for the current situation? War? Civil strife? Chaos? Riots?

I can't tell, but I can feel the disquiet in the breeze, in the mutterings of shoppers complaining about the price of cheese, the despair of a business owner with his or her back to the wall. You can almost touch it.

What can you do about it? Perhaps nothing except prepare for the deluge. Have your metaphorical umbrella ready for what comes next. Perhaps like John Galt, the best thing we can do is withdraw until the storm is over and we have the opportunity to make things anew. Like the best Boy Scout or Girl Guide; Be Prepared.

Canada's shame. Father abused by 'professsional' services

There are times when people holding a public office go completely beyond the bounds of common sense or even common decency in pursuit of what they see as their obligations.

A father was arrested at school when picking up his daughter because she drew a picture of him holding a gun and shooting bad guys/monsters.

It's outrageous that so called 'professionals' feel able to abuse their power in this way and worse that the father felt he had to go along with a situation where he was effectively treated as an armed criminal rather than a law abiding citizen. Personal liberty comes a very poor second to the exercise of power here.

The story is here:
http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/676150--man-shocked-by-arrest-after-daughter-draws-picture-of-gun-at-school

The Wile E Coyote moment

You know the one.

Wile E Coyote is chasing Roadrunner (again). Roadrunner runs to the edge of the cliff, with Wile E Coyote in full chase. The Roadrunner stops in a stride before the edge of the cliff but the Coyote's momentum carries him forward and for a moment it seems that he can run on nothing more than fresh air.

Then gravity takes over and down he falls.

This for me seems to sum up how things are at present. Financial markets, the Euro, even the EU are running like Wile E Coyote with nothing more than fresh air holding them up. While the Coyotes of the UK Government, the EU Commission and others are behaving as if gravity will never take hold; but it will.

All the while shops are closing, jobless numbers are rising, buildings are burning (in Greece, but look out here in the summer) as it becomes clear that something has gone horribly wrong.

There are too many people talking about what has gone wrong and too few putting things right. The truth is that instead of wonderful self actualized people, empowered by their own skill and abilities to create wealth and personal worth, we have raised a generation, maybe two generations of people who in some parts of society believe that they deserve what ever they want as a right.

Governments of all stripes have encouraged this as they sought power for their own ends by bribing certain sections of society with their own money or worse with money from other sections of society. Divide and rule conquered common sense and any notion of the common good.

Whether at local council, County Government, National Government or at EU level the song is the same, take more taxes and spend it where we will rather than letting people decide for themselves.

This will end, it is likely to be messy. Vested interests rarely cede power voluntarily so bloodshed and violence is always a possibility.

In my view it's time for more self reliance, less sucking at the teat of Government who have no money in any case. We have to return to making things, creating value, growing food and all making a contribution. No I am not advocating some communist ideal, simply working together with enlightened self interest. We can't all be self sufficient but we can trade our skills and our goods fairly without needing this lumbering oversight of a bloated state that takes ever higher proportions of the wealth that we do create.

How do we get from here to there? One person at a time I suspect. Doing a John Galt (Atlas Shrugged) or similar until at last we get back to decent core values, where life experience is more important than Nike trainers made in China and creating a good life for oneself is of higher value than material goods made in a factory where the staff work more hours than you do.

It's time for change and it starts with us. One person, one action at a time. Start now.

Simple living

I'm on a personal quest to simplify my life and deliver a better quality of life for my family.

It turns out that this is much harder than you might think.

One thing I would like to do, (like many other people), is live in my own home on my own land without a mortgage.

Without some radical thinking this is a pipe dream for most people. We have 25 years of paying a mortgage during which time we will have typically paid for that home 2 or 3 times over because of the interest. In my case there is still more than 14 years to go.

But, recently my attention has been drawn to the idea of tiny homes that can be self built, either on a plot of land or even on a trailer. These range in size from 100 square feet to perhaps 500 square feet and when you see how they are built and what can be done your own life model may be up for review. I know I am now thinking about things very differently.

Take a look at some of the videos and sites below, if nothing else they may convince you to make better use of the space you already have. Why is this important in a blog dedicated to realising ones potential? Because the more time you spend working to earn money, the less time you have to do the things you really want to do or love to do. This approach breaks that limitation.

Check these:
www.tinyhousedesign.com
www.shelterpub.com
www.lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com

Start from these and watch the videos, I'm now hooked!

On Prozac for 10 years

I had a conversation with someone recently who has been on Prozac (on and off) for 10 years.

10 years? Really?

Why?

This person had had a traumatic childhood and some adult problems too but a drug strategy for 10 years?

Why not really work to resolve the underlying issue? It might take a year (or it might just take a few months) but the standard medical interventions seem big on buzz words/buzz phrases and drugs whilst being woefully short on resolutions.

Hypnosis, EFT, life coaching any or all of these would would surely be preferable to masking the symptoms. Or is there no money/appetite for this style of intervention?

The main reasons people phone a hypnotherapist

Why do people call a hypnotherapist?
Loss of self confidence
Loss of self esteem
Want to lose weight
Want to quit smoking
Undefined anxiety (sometimes described as free floating anxiety)
Specific fear or phobia (driving, frogs, spiders etc)
Desire to learn a new skill, play musical instrument etc.

So now you know!

A Trillion pounds

A Trillion pounds that's the public debt of the UK now.

It's the equivalent of £16000 each for every man, woman and child in the UK. If you add in the back rescue money as well, that's another £16,000 per person.

So as well as our personal debts, now each of us is saddled with £32000 extra for the management of the country's debt.

The median wage in the UK is around £26,000 so our government debt dwarves an average worker's take home pay.

This can't continue, the interest on the debt will cripple us.

And people are surprised that consumer spending is lower?

Never mind the negative effects on mental health. It's going to be an interesting year of the Dragon (chinese New Year)