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Equality

We think we have full control of ours lives, our thoughts and our actions. But in reality...do we? Think for a moment, remember the last thing your really wanted to do but could not... What stopped you? What were the limiting factors? Chances are it was not physical,financial or even emotional limits which prevented you from action. Our everyday lives become so routine and systematic that we have difficulty actually seeing what is happening around us. Every day new laws are passed, new regulations and acts passed by lawmakers, restrictions developed by politicians. These are all limiting how we think,how we act and how we feel. Equality no longer means everyone is treated equal. The new meaning of equality is "as long as you fit our ideal you can be equal". Take for example the recent push for gay marriage. Straight away all Christians are up in arms and vocal proclaiming what they think God wants. Lecturing and giving sermons on their "ideal of equality" and in reality that is all it is...an opinion. What gives a group the right to tell others how they should behave and think? Simply...FEAR...HELL AND DAMNATION. We are in the 21st century...we are supposedly intelligent and progressive thinking. But are we? Think for a moment...what would it really matter to YOU if anyone could marry anyone... How would it affect your relationships... Quite simply ..IT WOULD NOT. Many aspects of our every day lives are censored.We can only go to certain places at certain times, we can't do this here or that there. We are already suppressed...have we really lost the full meaning of equality to which every human has a right?

MIND GAMES

MIND GAMES
© 2008 J Picken
Our minds are delicate things. Balance and clarity are not always predominant rulers. In fact, our minds are apt at playing games, games which convince us that we are totally alone, that futility is a foregone conclusion ,that people do not care, that we are a burden. These are then compounded by the overwhelming feeling of complete helplessness and the total depletion of our indomitable fighting spirit. Yes, the mind convinces us that we should give up because no one will care nor notice if we just disappear.

The mind is so very convincing in this quest to manipulate and break our tenuous grasp on the essence that keeps us all plodding on regardless…hope.
We do not always seek help, the mind plays it’s role so very well and dissuades us from seeking assistance, in fact the mind promotes isolation because then it can then win at it’s own game.

 

 

There is no purpose for attempting to do anything, much less, activities that are enjoyable, the mind ensures we have nothing to enjoy. Bottom line is ,it really does not want anything to intrude on it’s chances of winning this game of it’s own creation…this game has a name…the name is Depression.

The World Health Organisation defines clinical depression as:

• Two weeks of an abnormal depressed mood
• loss of interest or pleasure in activities that used to be enjoyable
• Reduced energy, or feeling tired

• Loss of confidence and self-esteem
• Feeling guilty and unworthy
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide, or any suicidal/self-harming behaviour
• Reduced ability to think or concentrate
• Agitated or slow movements
• Disturbed sleep (not enough/too much/poor quality)
• Change in appetite (increase or decrease) with weight change
• Decreased libido
• Unexplained physical symptoms

Minor depression includes 2 of the first three
symptoms and at least 2 others.
Moderate depression includes 2 of the first three
symptoms and at least 4 others.
Severe depression includes all 3 of the first three
symptoms and at least 5 others.

Furthermore, depression exhibits the following symptoms:

• lowered mood - feeling sad or unhappy most of the day, and nearly every day.
• generalised negativity and pessimism, so that everything seems black or pointless.
• loss of interest or pleasure in your normal activities, or being unable to enjoy things as before
• tiredness, chronic fatigue (often not relieved by sleep).
• loss of interest in social contact, such as avoiding friends and phone calls.
• being less talkative than usual.
• reduced concentration, memory or ability to think clearly.
• reduced productivity or ability to cope.
• tearfulness or crying.
• impaired sleep, appetite or sex drive.
• reduced self confidence, feelings of worthlessness.
• anxiety and irritability.
• thoughts of life being pointless, especially when losing hope of recovering.

Beating the mind at it’s own game needs to become the ultimate goal. Of course, the first step is to acknowledge that the game is in progress…saying “Yes I have a problem with Depression” is difficult. The mind really does not want it’s games exposed for all the world to see.

How do we win this game? We develop better coping strategies, we learn new ways of handling things that cause us stress and worry, we recognise the signs and signals that the mind games are beginning. Most of all we need to seek help. In other words, we fortify our defences and out number the enemy in a show of force.

 

 

This is a link for those who may wish to learn
more about depression, the types of depression,
the signs and symptoms and what
can be done to keep well.
Access Here

For those of us who are sufferers, I provide the following link hoping to a site which contains a free cognitive behaviour therapy program for sufferers of depression which can be completed online.
Access Here

SPIN

Spin
©2008 J Picken

The world is a mess. We as a race have failed. We have failed to respect, cherish, value and love not only each other, but the world we live in. Politics, media and money rule our world, no lets say dominate, because we are dominated. Millions of people world wide die, several thousand per minute, yes per minute. The simple and sad fact is we as a collective really don’t care about how the rest of the world exists.

We don’t care that people cannot access health care, let alone adequate health care. We don’t care that people are starving. Yes starving, and yes we are in the 21st century not the 12th century. Poverty should not exist; neither should death through starvation or preventable illness.
We go to war at the drop of a hat, life has no value, death prowls the innocent. We condone racism, we segregate for nominal factors, we hate too easily for trivial reasons.

Everyone seems hell bent on waiting for 2012 and the supposed great ascension to
solve not only their own issues, but to cure the diseased world we live in, the world we
have created. That’s typical of human nature, wait for everything to fall into our laps. Overall we really don’t like working for anything let alone for ourselves. What everyone seems to overlook is the fact that change, any type of change begins with you. Ascension will not help you if you don’t begin by eliciting the change you wish to see within yourself first.

If enough people in our miserable world changed perceptive, changed attitudes and changed judgments we would have the impetuous to alter the direction we are heading. As it is we are on a path of self destruction, no aliens are coming to rescue us, there’s no superman waiting in the wings nor batman to fight for us. Who would want to when we are on this path of annihilation? Any half smart alien race would wipe us off and start again.

So will we stay in the spin we’re in? Live in our comfy little houses, watch our TV’s, believe everything we’re told, ignore what we don’t wish to hear? I guess so…nobody cares in this day and age…

Where Are The Critical Thinkers ?

Where Are The Critical Thinkers ?

© 2008 J Picken

Today’s society seems full of people living in a self imposed box. There tends to be a lack of ability to think outside the square or apply a varying range of views to individual concepts. Firstly, let us define critical thinking.

“Critical thinking consists of mental processes of discernment, analysis and evaluation. It includes possible processes of reflecting upon a tangible or intangible item in order to form a solid judgment that reconciles scientific evidence with common sense.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
Somewhere along the track, we as a collective have lost the common sense component, sure we compile the scientific evidence, in fact we tend to rely too heavily on the proven instead of looking beyond that for answers. Science does not have answers for every aspect of our universe, let alone our existence on Earth. Science cannot cure many health afflictions despite the many decades of their continuation.
So that now brings us to discernment. Our judgement has been harshly affected by the society we live in, the influences we are subjected to, either knowingly or unknowingly. We are influenced by the climate of politics and media, often finding our own opinions are based on less then objective materials to begin with. Therefore, how are we able to provide clear and unbiased discernment without the distortion of the most basic information we require. Are we truly able to view anything objectively and make a sound judgement to contribute to the critical thinking process?
Analysis or correlating. If we cannot secure unbiased information to explore, our completed analysis will be misleading. Analysis needs to be based on solid facts, whether scientific in nature or not. Discernment actually encroaches into the department of analysis, after all both have similarities throughout their process and isn’t analysis a type of discernment?
Evaluation should be drawn from our discernment and analysis. It should weigh the pros and cons. It should form an answer for what we seek. The answers should lie within the finalisation of an evaluation and should therefore provide the final direction and final step of the critical thinking process.
Everyone’s heard of the saying “look outside the square”, well this describes the complete critical thinking practice because by completing each step, we are indeed on a grand search to find answers from every quarter. We should not dismiss any answers forthcoming from such a process, but carefully study the likelihood and success of application. Since we have already established that not all answers will be tangible, especially in the eyes of science, it would be folly to overlook all possibilities.
There is a distinct lack of ability to fully apply the critical thinking process and to be honest; this is reflective of our thinking abilities being suppressed by extrinsic factors, of which we remain totally naive. We are much too used to being told how to think, sadly most of the time we do not even recognise this fact. Our society is slowly becoming sheep like in nature perhaps that is the grand plan ~ mass creation of stupidity.
Break free of the box you live in.
Where are the critical thinkers?

Gotta Love Karma...

Gotta love spirituality, gotta love those that spew forth all the love and light bigamy. That's not without saying that there are those in the minority who are genuine, but hell they are few and far between. You know, sometimes the biggest hypocrites are those that preach too much, those that have way too much to say full stop. Amazing how spirituality is used as a justification or excuse, and here's me believing spirituality to be a foundation of belief, a guide for ethical and moral behaviour and an opportunity to the best person I can be. 

Karma

I guess hypocrites abound in every walk of life, we meet them in the streets, in our jobs even in our family. The daunting thing about using something like spirituality as a shield for such behaviour is the fact that:

1. People have the expectation that "spiritual minded" people walk the talk. Live by their own decrees, not do as I say not as I do.
2. The potential for abuse and manipulation of not just one person but of groups and communities is infinite. Well I would think we've all heard of cults and the horror stories.
3. Spirituality should be a place of peace, a place where you can be in touch with your creator, your inner self,your God. You should be free with your own beliefs and apply the spiritual knowledge to the ethics and morals of everyday living.

So you maybe wondering what my issue is well its like this...
My good friend had a beautiful site, one she and I had worked very hard on, spent long hours posting and editing,promoting and gaining members. Had being the operative word. You see it only takes one rogue member, one vindictive spiritualist ( I say that tongue in cheek because quite obviously the person in question wasn't) to cause total devastation. Yes we had the harassing and threatening email saga, my friend was even subjected to stalking. As if that wasn't enough well our vindictive spiritualist actually procured information to delete my friends site. Oh and as if that wasn't enough, lets just cause more havoc by hacking into other accounts and other sites. What a gem of a spiritualist..unconditional love at the maximum.

 

Karma-1

So now I comfort my friend, try to help her pick up the pieces, try to instil the incentive to begin again...

Bottom line is TRUST NO ONE ...divulge nothing...be suspicious of those whose actions belie their words especially those who use spirituality as a justification.
Yeah...and I hope the culprit reads this and yeah I know about those hate sites...little wonder...guess you aren't so well liked huh?? Well you know what they say...what comes round goes round, I'd hate to have YOUR karma debt.

 

Karma2

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