Shift Happens.

There’s no doubt that an increasing number of people are becoming conscious of a very different kind of awareness and reality unfolding in the world these days. Some put it down to the 2012 ‘shift’ but it could be that all of the massive changes and uncertainty we are living through are enabling some of us to embrace more meaningful – even spiritual lifestyles. More people are now looking inwards and are beginning to perceive themselves as part of the solution, part of a much bigger picture. It looks almost as if we are creating a ‘Conscious Revolution’.

However, this is also highlighting a massive issue for many people. As a healer / practitioner I am talking to and working with dozens of people from what we might call the ‘conscious community’ who are feeling unhappy, trapped, and in some cases desperate.

These are people who have embarked on ‘the journey’, become empowered enough to really feel the difference, and realise that there is no turning back. Their lifestyle, worldview, authenticity, spirituality – call it whatever you want, will never go back to what it was, they may even be approaching some kind of personal transformation or enlightenment. When members of our conscious community’ come together at the ever increasing array of events, gatherings and ceremonies – even some of the group pages on social network sites, the feeling of ‘oneness’ and collective ecstasy is palpable; what an incredible energy, sense of purpose and community to be able to feel and share with a growing movement of lovely like-minded people.

But what if – back at home, your partner, husband or wife dosen’t feel that same energy? What if they are on a different journey and are not comfortable with yours? Worse still, what happens if they perceive your passion and state of ‘enlightenment’ – not to mention your new friends, as a threat to your relationship?

Believe me, this scenario is being played out right now in countless relationships around the world, and it’s causing chaos.

Of course you try to explain, enthuse and bring them round but despite your obvious love, passion and commitment to the relationship, it’s hard – very hard indeed. If you are truly conscious, then you are probably passionate about it, and if this passion is not received or respected by your partner, that just compounds the misery. Sometimes, your partner can even drain your energy and passion making it difficult or impossible to be near them.
A further irony is that your journey has made you a much better person in so many different ways, so you would think your partner would appreciate the change, but usually the reverse is the case as you ‘wern’t the person I married’.

Can you be happily married to a Muggle?

The straight and honest answer is probably not, in most cases. Why? Because your’e moving on – it’s a journey don’t forget and youv’e already got a head start on your partner. Much as you may love them, that kick inside is just too strong this time around, and we all know that we must always follow our hearts and our intuition.

Another pressure can be that you so enjoy the company of the like-spirited people in your conscious community, that after the latest spat with your partner you can find yourself dreaming what it could be like to be in a relationship with one of your soulmates – how harmonious and powerful would that be!

Maybe the answer is to stop dreaming and allow it to happen . . .

( Should I start up a dating site called ‘Conscious Companions’? )

My definition of Sustainability . . .

‘ A Sustainable future means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability is also a state of mind; it’s about the Human Spirit, our outlook on life, our neighbours, ourselves and everything we share our planet with. This means that we must ensure we are constantly feeding and nurturing the inner self otherwise that spirit will wither and die’.

Now youv’e saved them, get out and use them!

Every now and then, our politicians dream up a scheme that is doomed to failure from the very start because it has been botched and  public opinion just won’t accept it. The great Forest sell-off debacle is just the latest example. However, in this case it probably says as much for the unpopularity of our present government than for our deeply heartfelt love of forests.

We had a lucky escape this time, due largely to the efforts of the highly effective 38 Degrees for organising the massive petition against the sell-off, backed up by the National Trust and their firm but polite lobbying behind the scenes, and much of the Forestry Commission too. But where were our mainstream environmental and conservation organisations while all of this was going on? Does this latest peoples’ victory now make them irrelevant I wonder?

Anyway, for me the most important lesson for us all is this; we must now prove that our relationship with our forests, woodlands and wild places is not just skin-deep – now that spring is on the way we absolutely must get out there and use them – or we may still lose them!

I have always believed that our disconnection from nature is at the heart of our ecological crisis, and that we must re-connect by spending much more of our time outside – a principle that is now supported by a significant number of scientific studies, combined with masses of expensive research proving that being outside in nature improves our health and wellbeing.

Next time, we may not be so lucky. We need to show how much our natural world means to us. Lets all get outside this and every weekend and enjoy our amazing natural heritage – I can guarantee we will all feel better for it.

It’s all lies . . .

It all started when I switched on my computer.

Almost immediately, a warning popped up from my anti-virus software informing me that I needed an urgent free upgrade. No problem I thought, so I clicked the buttons only to find that I would have to pay for the upgrade. What happened to free?

Anyway, the post soon arrived and I was pleased to see that the cheque had finally arrived from my county council for some work I had done weeks earlier. Like most large organisations or businesses, they routinely ignore any 30, 60 or 90 day payment terms and cough up whenever they feel like it.
Clutching my cheque, I headed for my local bank to pay it in.

The smiling cashier with a badge saying ‘Pat’ on her left breast, said that I was overdue for a review of my account, so could I make an appointment? I told her that the last time my wife and I took time off from work to attend a review, all they wanted to do was sell us their services. No, no she insisted, this is about important changes to your terms and conditions – you could see somebody now if you have the time.
This sounded serious so I thought that I had better comply.

I was ushered into a tiny office to meet the Senior Personal Banking Manager. She informed me sternly that my review was overdue, so I explained that the last time my wife and I took time off from work to attend a review, all they wanted to do was sell us services we didn’t need. She apologised about that and proceeded to try to sell me other bank services. What about the change in their terms and conditions I asked?
She looked puzzled . .

Back home in my office I turned on the radio to listen to a phone-in on the student protests or ‘riots’ that occurred in London. People were phoning in saying that the rioting students should be shot, hanged or worse as their actions were anti-democratic.
Why is it that nobody thought to mention the fact that the main reason the students were protesting was the fact that they had been comprehensively lied to by the Deputy Prime Minister?

Could it be that lies and deceit are now just a routine part of everyday life?

Can you feel it?

I’ve just written this briefly this morning in response to a few conversations I’ve had with different people recently . . .

Music is all around us – sometimes it makes us feel happy, sometimes sad and every emotion in between. Our emotions are triggered by many different cues and signals, but how is it that we consider some music to be healing or even transformational?

The reason is simple. There are two kinds of music, one we hear with our ears, and the other we feel with our hearts. Most people will understand how we can hear the music, but how does some of it reach our hearts?

It’s all to do with rhythm, frequency and vibration.

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors used drums and rattles for ceremony, communication and healing – using the right intention, the simple drum produced a heartbeat at rhythms and frequencies that could easily be absorbed into peoples’ bodies to induce healing or even altered states of consciousness. However, these rhythms and frequencies were far from random, and are received not primarily by the ears, but up through the spines into the pineal gland where the signals are processed. The default response from the pineal gland ( the ‘Seat of the Soul’ or ‘Third Eye’ ) is usually to release secretions that make us feel good like Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a naturally occurring hallucinogenic drug.

So, what we are talking about is simple cause and effect. Create the right environment and intention, and healing, wellness or even transformation can occur.

Today, Shamanic Practitioners still use the drum and rattle as their main healing tools, but the growing trend for Trance Dancing or Ecstatic Trance has the potential to take healing and transformation to a much wider audience. However, most people who deliver these events struggle to produce an experience that their audience can really feel. Of course they will dance, scream and wave their limbs about, but they will do that at their local disco on a Saturday night too!

Most DJ’s and Trance Facilitators simply don’t understand how to use technology to deliver the correct combination of rhythm and frequency that can enter the body through the spine to induce the healing and transformation they are seeking.

Without getting too technical here, they need to understand what source material to use and the formats and equipment that best deliver the required frequencies; Professor Trance is superb, but he simply won’t work if he’s in a MP3 format (designed for you mobile phone) played through a laptop, dodgy amp and speakers at an ear-splitting volume.
Don’t be confused – you may hear the vibe, but you certainly won’t feel it . . .

I feel another workshop coming on!

What if climate change is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?

It seems as if everybody’s a global warming sceptic these days – either we don’t believe, we don’t care, or maybe we’ve  been terrified into some kind of doomsday coma.

We have no time these days for bankers and politicians, so have we lost faith in the scientists too? Is it possible that the UEA ‘Climategate’ scientists have not just betrayed us but their whole profession? Indeed, one leading Global Warming sceptic Christopher Monckton has even declared; ‘The science is in, the truth is out, and the scare is over’.

I sincerely hope that he is right, but I’m also concerned that we expect far too much from science – it’s so easy to manipulate and often impossible to distinguish good science from bad, so it’s incredibly easy to create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion.

The irrefutable fact is that science is not, and never will be anything resembling a belief system – there will always be doubt and uncertainty, so all we can do is look objectively at the weight of the best available evidence, take a view and act accordingly. It is right and proper however that credible, independent scientists continue to constantly re-examine and question scientific projections, and that any new evidence is rigorous, readily available and accessible.

However, when it comes to environmental issues that have the scope to affect the lives of millions of our fellow species and the viability of future generations, we surely have no option but to adopt the ‘Precautionary Principle’- ‘If an action or policy has any possible risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action’. (Wikipedia)

Whichever side of the Man-Made Global Warming (MMGW) debate we may take, we do know that sadly, market-driven consumerism does not satisfy all of life’s desires. There is absolutely no doubt that if we continue to base our economy on unlimited growth, and measure progress by the speed at which we consume finite natural resources, we will certainly make our planet inhospitable. The unsustainable increase in the consumption of material and energy in our economies due to consumer demand and economic growth, contribute not only to climate change but species extinctions, loss of biodiversity, depletion of freshwater and other natural resources, ocean dead zones, topsoil degradation, desertification, deforestation, dying coral reefs and the decimation of ocean fish stocks. As much as 50% of all the Earth’s land and oceans may need to be protected from harm or development if we are to hand over a viable planet to successive generations.

‘We will lurch from crisis to existential crisis unless we address the underlying cause: Perpetual growth cannot be accommodated on a finite planet.’ (George Monbiot)

I accept that there is an unprecedented consensus of thousands of scientists and academic institutions supporting Man-made Global Warming, who just can’t be casually dismissed, but I also accept that the science is not perfect and will probably continue to blow hot and cold for some time. I fully respect the opinions of those who have genuine concerns about some of the climate science, but wholehearted MMGW denial makes sense only as part of an organised global conspiracy theory.

I firmly believe that we have absolutely no choice but to adopt the precautionary principle and push ahead quickly with sustainable mitigation and adaptation policies that support the poorest people in the world because they are already suffering from the effects of climate change, and have done little to cause it.

Controversial? Absolutely not – these are ‘No Regrets’ policies because reductions in greenhouse gases can be justified on many other grounds.  Costly? The Stern Review said: ‘With good policies the costs of action need not be prohibitive and would be much smaller than the damage averted. Managing that transition effectively and efficiently poses ethical and economic challenges, but also opportunities’.

However, we must recognise that a sustainable future is not just about changing the climate, it’s about changing the system because business as usual has clearly failed us.

As the Economist Kenneth Boulding said ‘Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist’.

Climate Change is a difficult, depressing subject, and the pace of attitude and behaviour change has not been helped by negative ‘Doomsday’ scenarios portrayed  by some government and environmental NGO campaigns. The government’s terrifying ‘Act on CO2 Bedtime Story’ TV advertisement is counter-productive and a classic example of how NOT to do it – is it any wonder that so many people are now beginning to deny the possibility of such an apocalyptic view of the future and carry on regardless?

We must engage in a new kind of environmentalism that demonstrates and communicates constructive and positive visions of a sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just society. Environment groups should be far more empowering and pro-active and show people the do’s rather than the dont’s, because if these dinosaurs don’t change, their credibility and support will melt away just like the snow in today’s thaw. There will always be those who accuse us of conspiring to create a communist world government, but none of this is about the left or right of the political spectrum – it’s simply a moral issue about rights and wrongs, and as a father and grandfather deeply concerned about the future of all life on Earth, I have no choice but to try to do the right thing.

I do hope that you’ll join me.

‘The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy. We are the universal ape, equipped with the ingenuity and aggression to bring down prey much larger than itself, break into new lands, roar its defiance of natural constraints. Now we find ourselves hedged in by the consequences of our nature, living meekly on this crowded planet for fear of provoking or damaging others. We have the hearts of lions and live the lives of clerks’.(George Monbiot)

Drumming up a happier workplace . . .

A new report published today highlights that more than 13m working days a year are lost because of work-related stress, anxiety and depression, and The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) estimates the cost of work-related mental illness to be £28bn – a quarter of the UK’s total sick bill.

NICE suggests that for the average firm of 1,000 staff, £250,000 a year could be saved if stress reduction measures were introduced.

Group Empowerment Drumming through Drum Circles have demonstrated a host of key benefits from stress reduction and improvement of mood states, to burnout and attrition reduction, and are a highly effective, affordable and sustainable strategy for unlocking innate potential through verbal and non-verbal expression.
Drum circles are used in business and professional settings as a developmental tool to demonstrate the principles and advantages of teamwork, the value of diverse abilities, and the benefits of developing camaraderie among employees.

Drum4Good provide Corporate drumming events for team days, conferences, promotional events, communication skills, stress management and as an event ice-breaker, energiser or closer. Suitable for all management levels of multinational companies, small local businesses and public sector staff groups.

From the classroom to the boardroom, Drum4Good are leading providers of Group Empowerment Drumming in the UK.

www.drum4good.com

The Prince’s Rainforest Project

Mother Earth, Father Profit and politics for the common good.

Sustainable Development, Social Wellbeing and a politics of moral, spiritual and civic renewal – who we are, what we value and what kind of world we want to live in.

As we bump along the road of increased economic, social and environmental uncertainty, the consequences of our obsession with growth economically and ecologically have become clear: a financial system completely disconnected from the real-world economy, unsustainable levels of debt and the unbearable strain placed on ecosystems by our high consuming, three-planet lifestyles.

Clearly our monetary crisis represents much more than just a deep and temporary recession. The myth of free-market growth has indeed failed us, and our whole economic model of extracting maximum value from finite natural resources has proved, inevitably, to be completely unsustainable. In the last 25 years, the global economy has doubled,while natural resource consumption has degraded an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems, leaving massive gaps between the world’s rich and poor.

But will the Banks and Corporations just mop their brows and settle back into their old ways? People in the City coffee bars this morning scanning their copies of City A.M. are again talking about bonuses and how they are going to spend them – do these people have any morals or principles? And while we are talking authenticity, what about our battered politicians?

We clearly need to develop a new business model, a moral and spiritual project, not just a market-driven one. Organisations like The New Economics Foundation for example are breaking new ground with some of their projects and models like the useful Happy Planet Index, while many of the traditional environment NGO’s still appear to be lost in the wilderness and often out of touch when it comes to economics. We will be discussing this during the morning, and taking a hard look at the balance between regulation and innovation, and the moral limits of markets.

Brief synopsis of lecture given at Westminster University on 7.07.09. by Graham Game.

Does your workplace or business reflect your personal values?

I’m sure that many people would agree that success is a journey and not just a destination, and is seems that an increasing number of people are looking for more meaning and purpose in their lives these days. Money as the single bottom line is increasingly seen as a thing of the past, with the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit becoming a highly successful business model for the future.

More and more people are feeling that their workplace or business should reflect their personal values of honesty, integrity, and quality, while others would go even further and choose to work for a more ethical, environmentally sustainable and socially responsible company.

Maybe these heart-based qualities reflect a kind of ‘spirituality’ as they emphasise how values and principles can be applied and embodied; spiritual values in a business or, dare I say it a political context could, include integrity, honesty, accountability, quality, co-operation, intuition, trustworthiness, respect and service.

The bottom line is that a growing body of research shows that bringing ethics and spiritual values into the workplace can lead to increased productivity and profitability as well as employee retention, customer loyalty and brand reputation. Many companies like Apple Computers for example go even further and encourage staff ( or is it the other way round? ) to take the time to explore mindfulness through meditation and even prayer. Other businesses encourage a wide range of activities including centering exercises such as deep breathing to reduce stress, visioning exercises, active listening and using intuition and inner guidance in decision-making.

This is all music to my ears, so if you, your business or organisation are interested in exploring Spiritual Motivation, your intuition should tell you to contact me now because I know all about this stuff . . .