Mental Traps. What are mental traps?
Are you currently locked in a mental trap? I will be exploring these States of Being or Modes of Thinking using Andre Kukla's "Mental Traps - The Overthinker's Guide to a happier life." The podcast to accompany this blog is available at http://smahoo.mypodcast.com/. You can also get a copy of this interesting book via www.randomhouse.ca.
Each of us deal with Mental traps as a part of our every day life experience. Some of us can find ourselves trapped in one or more of these mental states of Being or Modes of thinking for periods that can be brief or prolonged, depending on our dependence on them to cope with our life situations.
Regardless of their seeming effectiveness in helping us deal with our life issues it is a fact that in reality they are injurious to us and usually is responsible for many of the things we would like to change about our life.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
The Change we call death; Rice and Peas for the Soul - By Shirvington Hannays
Around the end of January of 2001, I walked into a bookstore in downtown Toronto, Canada and stood in front of a bookshelf of books on Death as if lead by some force outside my rational mind. If you knew me at that time, that was out of my character. I tried not to use the word death and tried as hard as I could to not think about it, certainly never using the word in the same sentence with my name.
Thanks to Elisabeth Kübler Ross, M.D., and her book “On Death and Dying” I was somewhat prepared me for May 6th later that year and certainly September 11th that same year. The book explores in plain and simple language a subject that to many is anything but plain and simple.
It skillfully highlights the author's seminal "stages of dying" or "stages of grief" model which is still widely quoted. According to the Kübler-Ross mode, there are five stages that a dying person goes through when they are told that they have a terminal illness. The five stages go in progression through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This model has been widely adopted by other authors and applied to many other situations where someone suffers a loss or change in social identity. The model is often used in bereavement work. Not all workers in the field agree with th Kübler-Ross model, and some critics feel the stages are too rigid.
Be cautioned that reading the book would not make you a superhuman or numb to the emotions or human reactions to the pains of death, as I found out four months after reading the book or on September 11th later that year. However since then I have had to deal with two more deaths of love ones. To which I can say I move from denial to acceptance very quickly. So in that that sense, yes, I can say I have truly grown to embrace death now more readily. However I am still ready to be open when it would be my time to confront my own death or that of another through the five stages, Ms. Kübler-Ross put forward. -- Shirvington Hannays (www.smahoo.com)
"Soon someone will say or do something the world will come to love and benefit from that you are too afraid to do or say NOW." - Shirvington Hannays - 05-03-2009
Around the end of January of 2001, I walked into a bookstore in downtown Toronto, Canada and stood in front of a bookshelf of books on Death as if lead by some force outside my rational mind. If you knew me at that time, that was out of my character. I tried not to use the word death and tried as hard as I could to not think about it, certainly never using the word in the same sentence with my name.
Thanks to Elisabeth Kübler Ross, M.D., and her book “On Death and Dying” I was somewhat prepared me for May 6th later that year and certainly September 11th that same year. The book explores in plain and simple language a subject that to many is anything but plain and simple.
It skillfully highlights the author's seminal "stages of dying" or "stages of grief" model which is still widely quoted. According to the Kübler-Ross mode, there are five stages that a dying person goes through when they are told that they have a terminal illness. The five stages go in progression through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This model has been widely adopted by other authors and applied to many other situations where someone suffers a loss or change in social identity. The model is often used in bereavement work. Not all workers in the field agree with th Kübler-Ross model, and some critics feel the stages are too rigid.
Be cautioned that reading the book would not make you a superhuman or numb to the emotions or human reactions to the pains of death, as I found out four months after reading the book or on September 11th later that year. However since then I have had to deal with two more deaths of love ones. To which I can say I move from denial to acceptance very quickly. So in that that sense, yes, I can say I have truly grown to embrace death now more readily. However I am still ready to be open when it would be my time to confront my own death or that of another through the five stages, Ms. Kübler-Ross put forward. -- Shirvington Hannays (www.smahoo.com)
"Soon someone will say or do something the world will come to love and benefit from that you are too afraid to do or say NOW." - Shirvington Hannays - 05-03-2009
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
You too can become a Buddha; Rice and Peas for the Soul - Shirivington Hannays (click here to listen to the audio podcast for this entry)
I have come to realize there is no final destination to arrive at when you consciously choose to embark on the road less traveled. However there is a state of mind and Being that can be realized and maintained in the constant changing Now moment.
Enlightenment is available to everyone. Therefore anyone with a desire to be in oneness with the present moment regardless of what might be appearing in the now moment as a person, situation, event or experience. Buddhism with it's practical approach to living and co-existing with everything in the Universal lends itself easily to this. But life would have to be view and embraced with a different mindset and state of Being than the average human mind set.
Buddhism speaks readily to ways to bring about the shift in your consciousness and mindset to do so. But you first need to accept and embrace the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path and undertake to live by the five precepts. I consciously explore Buddhism’s principles in my daily life because of it’s practical approach to living and its emphasis on everyone taking responsibility for their intentions, choices – conscious and unconscious, actions and reactions.
It may not always be easy to maintain and sometimes I am caught off-guard and have a little “pity party” or re-activate my membership in the “poor me club” for a few hours, days but now at most a week. However, I have come a long way because I was once a board member of the “poor me club”. - - Shirvington Hannays (www.smahoo.com)
Enlightenment is available to everyone. Therefore anyone with a desire to be in oneness with the present moment regardless of what might be appearing in the now moment as a person, situation, event or experience. Buddhism with it's practical approach to living and co-existing with everything in the Universal lends itself easily to this. But life would have to be view and embraced with a different mindset and state of Being than the average human mind set.
Buddhism speaks readily to ways to bring about the shift in your consciousness and mindset to do so. But you first need to accept and embrace the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path and undertake to live by the five precepts. I consciously explore Buddhism’s principles in my daily life because of it’s practical approach to living and its emphasis on everyone taking responsibility for their intentions, choices – conscious and unconscious, actions and reactions.
It may not always be easy to maintain and sometimes I am caught off-guard and have a little “pity party” or re-activate my membership in the “poor me club” for a few hours, days but now at most a week. However, I have come a long way because I was once a board member of the “poor me club”. - - Shirvington Hannays (www.smahoo.com)
Friday, March 27, 2009
Saturday, February 07, 2009
I will say NO until....
My YES can be empowered and the intention for saying yes is not attached to a hidden motive that is self serving, intended to "people please" manipulate or control another in any way. - Shirvington Hannays.
Most prayers SEEM to go unanswered when there is attached to a specific outcome missing the possibilities of the NOW moment. - Shirvington Hannays - 21-12-2008
My YES can be empowered and the intention for saying yes is not attached to a hidden motive that is self serving, intended to "people please" manipulate or control another in any way. - Shirvington Hannays.
Most prayers SEEM to go unanswered when there is attached to a specific outcome missing the possibilities of the NOW moment. - Shirvington Hannays - 21-12-2008
Friday, January 09, 2009
The Poor Me Mentality.
Playing the victim may feel right but it is an excuse that prevents self growth and inner strength realization. - Shirvington Hannays - 01-09-2009
Playing the victim may feel right but it is an excuse that prevents self growth and inner strength realization. - Shirvington Hannays - 01-09-2009
Friday, November 28, 2008
Before you pray - Become - Shirvington Hannays
I have discovered and come to realize that effective prayer requires a State of Mind and Being filled with the PEACE that passeth Human understanding.
My quest for a better understanding of what life was all about started when as I child, I felt that my entire family and I, were all going to hell because God didn’t like us. This conclusion at that time was arrived at because it was clear he didn’t answer any of our many prayers we offered to him daily on our knees, eyes closed and face upward to heaven.
Praying and the need to pray was drilled into my head daily to be done before I went to sleep at night, when I woke in the morning, before I ate anything, before leaving the house and yes even at school before classes started for the day. More than twenty years later, I can safely say after more than ten years of conscious and consistent exploration, I have extended my concept of prayers and praying or acts of worship.
I now no longer pray for anything with words but continuously try to maintain a state of Mind and Being of gratitude for every experience or event I experience. This is in no way always easy or the ready response in every situation as I go about my daily practical living or when my ego and intellect demand a excess dose of attention.
This way of living and state of Being is becoming easier because of the conscious awareness and alertness that continuously fill me with renew gratitude. Which results in longer periods of complete acceptance of whatever maybe happening in my life. This also makes me more at peace with the concept now than when it was first introduced to me some twelve years ago.
I am now totally at peace with the notion that there is never ANYTHING to pray for hence I do not offer up any prayer to something or someone outside my Being. I may say THANKS or THANK YOU from time to time when the sense and feeling of gratitude is so intense that I may automatically verbalise my gratitude as a reminder to my self to consciously look around and observe more of the present moment. This continues to strengthen me to be more consistent in my willingness to be open and receptive to give up any previously held concept in place of new response in any given moment. Which then usually fosters harmony with whatever IS in the NOW moment.
This is what I now understand and know to be "be still and know...." and it is truly “the Peace that passeth Human understanding...” - Shirvington Hannays (http://www.smahoo.com/)
I have discovered and come to realize that effective prayer requires a State of Mind and Being filled with the PEACE that passeth Human understanding.
My quest for a better understanding of what life was all about started when as I child, I felt that my entire family and I, were all going to hell because God didn’t like us. This conclusion at that time was arrived at because it was clear he didn’t answer any of our many prayers we offered to him daily on our knees, eyes closed and face upward to heaven.
Praying and the need to pray was drilled into my head daily to be done before I went to sleep at night, when I woke in the morning, before I ate anything, before leaving the house and yes even at school before classes started for the day. More than twenty years later, I can safely say after more than ten years of conscious and consistent exploration, I have extended my concept of prayers and praying or acts of worship.
I now no longer pray for anything with words but continuously try to maintain a state of Mind and Being of gratitude for every experience or event I experience. This is in no way always easy or the ready response in every situation as I go about my daily practical living or when my ego and intellect demand a excess dose of attention.
This way of living and state of Being is becoming easier because of the conscious awareness and alertness that continuously fill me with renew gratitude. Which results in longer periods of complete acceptance of whatever maybe happening in my life. This also makes me more at peace with the concept now than when it was first introduced to me some twelve years ago.
I am now totally at peace with the notion that there is never ANYTHING to pray for hence I do not offer up any prayer to something or someone outside my Being. I may say THANKS or THANK YOU from time to time when the sense and feeling of gratitude is so intense that I may automatically verbalise my gratitude as a reminder to my self to consciously look around and observe more of the present moment. This continues to strengthen me to be more consistent in my willingness to be open and receptive to give up any previously held concept in place of new response in any given moment. Which then usually fosters harmony with whatever IS in the NOW moment.
This is what I now understand and know to be "be still and know...." and it is truly “the Peace that passeth Human understanding...” - Shirvington Hannays (http://www.smahoo.com/)
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
As we embrace Podcast and Vodcast.
Monthly audio podcasts are now available at http://smahoo.mypodcast.com to be followed shortly with the launch of an on-demand online motivational WebTV via www.smahotv.com.
Regards to you in your continued exploration of your INNER Self for a more wholesome understanding of yourself in relation to everything else in the physical and invisible realms of the Universe.
"If you can dare yourself to dream big, infact VERY big and not be afraid to be seen as different, the seemingly impossible becomes possible." – Shirvington Hannays (11-05-2008)
CHOICE for CHANGE
The
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