Posts by Project Self

On Living in a Troubling Time

We all feel the uncertainty; we are living within something that is unpredictable and indefinite in terms of the impact on our lives. It’s important that we take care of ourselves by acknowledging how we are affected by the culture that surrounds us. As we approach the season of drawing into the home, we are already challenged with our world perhaps feeling smaller or limited. Of life feeling flat. We are living through a period of constriction and lack of connection and isolation which has altered the felt experience of everyday life. Not just in restricted freedom of movement and…

On Being Kind to Yourself

Project Self

Our innate human quality is compassion and kindness. In our natural, relaxed state we are warm and caring. Our self is inclusive and allowing. Such qualities expand us towards consideration, generosity and understanding, trust and forgiveness. We have sympathy for suffering. We like. We are kind. We are love. When we are unhappy or upset we can become tight and sometimes ‘mean’ spirited. Our capacity towards generosity and openness diminishes. We shrink in as our heart suffers; we may close off, down and up. We contract our care as we take on negative or challenging thoughts and feelings. We may…

On Feeling Into Fear

Project Self

Fear, I believe, is our most predominant emotion as it’s driven from our survival instinct. We are navigated through life by our threat detection mechanism; our nervous system, our primeval brain, our mammalian nature; checking experience (or future experience) out as either physically and emotionally safe, not safe or potentially not safe. Our need for safety drives our personality and behaviour towards being self-protective; dominating our natural capacity to respond from an open place of calm and compassion towards others (and self). Fear is a fundamental disallowing of ourselves to be available for connection or totally open to the present moment. Fear is live…

On Blowing Things Out

Project Self

What do you when you don’t want to follow up on a plan or arrangement because you no longer feel like it? Do you feel like a flaky and non committal person? How do you feel about pre-existing commitments when you find you’re in a low energy, low mood? When you don’t feel up to, or for, the things you thought you would? When you feel contracted, collapsed, strung out, miserable or maybe triggered or upset by someone or something and so feel disinterest, resistance or resentment towards the things you were going to do? Plans you made when you…

When Things Seem To Stay The Same

Project Self

Many of us seem to aspire to an alternative life, almost without our current self, as we are, within it. We have an idea of how it could look If Only we aren’t the way we are. The life we’ll have When we’ve done all the work on ourselves. When we’ve addressed all the habits we want to change and When we’ve created new ones. When we’ve found the right thing. A different life Without sabotaging ourselves, reacting to others or getting triggered. Without criticising ourselves, thinking about what’s wrong with us or ruminating on what we should have done…

On Finding Joy

Project Self

Negative feelings may sometimes feel more pervasive to us than positive ones in our daily life, and happiness a tad evasive. Why is this? Could it be we give negative feelings more significance than positive ones; more weight? That we think there must be something wrong so ruminate, scrutinise and analyse these feelings, taking them into our thinking and so make them worse? Could it be that negative feelings feel deeper, bigger or heavier than lighter ones, so we notice them more as they are more predominant in our consciousness, more concentrated in our physiology? Essentially our brain and so our…

On Not Feeling Bad

Project Self

We often feel bad about ourselves, conflating how we can behave with who we are. We can also feel a dislike for who we are and also feel deep down, a sense that we lack worth as a human being. And so we tread heavily on the earth, comparing our weighty lack of substance to the seemingly Sorted & Successful Ariel figures around us. Welcome to the walk of shame. The walking dead. The human experience of walking around feeling like there’s a cloud, a shadow, hanging over you; a weight on your chest; a restriction in your throat or an emptiness…

On Not Knowing What You Want

Project Self

Not knowing what we want seems to be a common experience and to cause discomfort. Why is the question “What do you want?” so difficult to answer when it’s focused on you and your life? It’s an alarmingly spacious inquiry, full of invitation and possibility, a what if? whilst simultaneously requiring definition and self-knowledge. There’s a strong polarity in this seemingly simple query. It’s a challenging question. It puts you on the spot. It’s asking you for clarity. And the kind of clarity that comes from the heart. It asks you to dig deep and to name simply. The question assumes: we…

On Not Being A Better Person

Project Self

“All of us think we are a little better than we really are. All of us think we are a little worse than we really are”. Michael Yapko I’m beginning to rebel against the concept of Being a Better Person. You might think what’s wrong with wanting to be better person? Within the dictionary definition of ‘better’, I found that it does relate to increasing good qualities, but more prevalently, it describes surpassing, superiority, preferability, acceptability. Bettering oneself speaks historically of status. Being a better person suggests we need to improve. Sure, we could all be nicer, kinder people with healthier,…

On Attending To What Needs Attention

Project Self

Attention is potentially the greatest instrument we have to transform the quality of our life. I have been asked a good question as a prompt a few times: what percentage of you is actually here right now? What percentage of you is giving this article your attention? What would it be like to decide to give it your full attention? How might your experience change? What might you notice or become aware of, once you decide to be fully present; not just to this piece of writing, but to yourself in reading it? What comes up (thoughts, resistance, excuses, feelings,…

Posts by Project Self

On Living in a Troubling Time

On Being Kind to Yourself

On Feeling Into Fear

On Blowing Things Out

When Things Seem To Stay The Same

On Finding Joy

On Not Feeling Bad

On Not Knowing What You Want

On Not Being A Better Person

On Attending To What Needs Attention

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