04 september awakening 2017

Illustration: Clym Evenden

protect vulnerable wildlife from extinction, while restoring balance to threatened ecosystems and communities. Their work falls into six main program areas – Wildlands Conservation, Oceans Conservation, Climate Change, Indigenous Rights, Transforming California, and Innovative Solutions.

Seeing so many well-known faces coming together for such important causes was truly inspiring. Mr. DiCaprio’s mission reminded me of all the nature we take for granted, and how we should be grateful to Mother Earth for all that she has provided us with. If we do not reflect and show gratitude, it may very well cost us dearly.

We often think of Leonardo DiCaprio as a public figure, surrounded by all the pleasures of wealth, enjoying his fame. But it was humbling to see such a prominent man bringing so many people together to change the earth for the betterment of others. He has rerouted the privilege the world has given him towards a noble purpose.

He has gratitude. While I find myself grateful and reflective often, I now know how to be grateful in a larger sense with a new perspective on how to involve myself in the big picture. His commitment to his organisation is one that I hope to mimic for my own foundation. He has shown me how open your mind needs to be, and how to find and maintain direction. Passion is necessary for reflection and gratitude – and Mr. DiCaprio has truly enlightened me.

Leonardo’s commitment motivates, impresses, and provides a driving wheel to reflect for my foundation. I strongly believe that we need more people like him to make this earth beautiful. He is not only a great actor but a real role model influencing and inspiring many. We owe a lot to Mother Nature who has nurturing powers. There are people who were in contact with nature are more willing to open their wallets and share.

As with aspirations, the higher the immersion in nature, the more likely subjects were to be generous with their winnings. We are influenced by our environment in ways that we are not aware of. The self-reflective moments after this event is concluded that the more you are aware of nature, the more you can benefit from it. The more you are committed to the cause the more you can contribute and lead. And the more you feel nature’s joy, the more you are alive.

As Waldo Emerson said, “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

Gratitude also includes being grateful not only for what we have, but who we are, the opportunities that have come our way, and the skills and health we enjoy. It includes our strengths and weaknesses, challenges and gifts. Why should we be thankful for our problems? They all provide opportunity for us to grow and become more the person we want to be. When we perform reflections of gratitude, we bring the power of our intention into focus.

Last week, I graciously accepted an invitation to a gala thrown by the Leonardo DiCaprio foundation. The event was eye-opening, bringing to light realities we often miss. In 1998, Leonardo DiCaprio established his foundation, the LDF, with the mission of protecting the world’s last wild places. It implements solutions that help restore balance to threatened ecosystems, ensuring the long-term health and wellbeing of all Earth’s inhabitants. Since that time, the LDF has worked on some of the most pressing environmental issues of our day. They support projects that

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CONTENTS 1 WORK

2 SELF

3 HEALTH

4 INSPIRE

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7 Ways SelfReflection And Introspection Will Give You A Happier Life

Looking Back Why it’s important to reflect in order to move forward Mirror Mirror The most successful people in life and in business know how to analyse themselves

Inside Out Why the food you eat is a reflection of yourself – and how to make the right choices

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Back to Nature Take your workout outside for benefits for both body and mind.

10 Questions to Ask Yourself Everyday Are you moving in the right direction?

These questions will help provide the answer

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Fight Club Dr Randi Gunther PhD on how to resolve conflict in a relationship, without resorting to arguing

The Hand of Time A poem to inspire

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A Real Reflection A tale from the Middle East

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Famous People who have Changed their Minds From Buddha to St. Paul, there are many key people in history who have changed their minds for the better

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The missing piece to the parenting puzzle: Reflection Dr Asma explains why reflection is so important for raising happy, healthy children

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Work

“Once you reject fear, you will become the perfect candidate to receive and reflect Truth.”

– Suzy Kassem

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WORK

Looking back It is important to reflect in life, but in education it is crucial to reflect in order to learn. Mark Clements writes why we must always take time out to pause

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WORK f I touch a hot stove and burn my hand, I immediately learn that touching a hot stove results in a burned hand.

My brain makes the connection almost simultaneously. There’s little need for reflection because the “hot stove = burn” connection is one that my mind makes almost immediately.

Similarly, suppose I’m driving in bad weather and going way too fast for the conditions. If my car spins out and I find myself stuck in a ditch, I’ve learned a lesson about driving in bad weather. Again, the connection is almost instantaneous. Academic learning, however, is seldom that obvious.

Let’s pretend I’m a fourth grade student, distracted by everything from cafeteria food to the playground outside my classroom window.

If I fail a math test, am I immediately able to tell you why? Most kids aren’t self-aware enough or mature enough to tell you why they failed at something (or in some cases, why they got

in trouble). The younger the student, the more difficult this is.

More than likely, since I’m not sure exactly WHY I failed a test, the only connection my brain makes is “Math = F”. Since most kids really do want to be successful, students also equate “F=Failure” and “Failure=Bad”. They don’t understand that failure is a part of the learning process, largely because we as teachers don’t allow students to re-do work and learn from mistakes. As a result, they come to hate the subject or the teacher, never really knowing why other than “I suck at Math.”

This is precisely why reflection is so important.

Although it’s a cumbersome and time-consuming practice to teach to kids, without reflection it is almost impossible for actual “learning” to occur.

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Faced with increasing demands to “cover” as much material as possible to prepare for state tests, teachers often forego teaching students to reflect on their work, electing to instead “cover” the material. We often accuse kids of having “forgotten” material they “learned” the year before, but in reality, they never really learned it at all. The teacher “covered” it, perhaps the students memorised it for the short term before being lost forever. Reflection is a key ingredient to move knowledge from short-term to longterm memory.

Consider John Dewey’s famous quote “We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” Reformers like Mr. Dewey have been talking about the importance of reflection in the learning process since the 1930’s. For a more contemporary spin, consider the work of Dr. Bobb Darnell and his website

“Consider John Dewey’s famous quote: We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience” AchievementStrategies.org. Darnell describes the learning process as “Input-Process-OutputReflect” and notes that without reflection, it is very difficult to have genuine learning.

If the goal is not merely coverage but actual learning, than reflection is no longer optional – it’s an essential piece to transition a classroom from “covering material” to being “focused on learning”.

After all, if I touch a hot stove and burn my hand, but never make the connection that the hot stove is what burned my hand, I’m likely to repeat that mistake. This is an absurd example - of course it’s the stove that burned my hand - but often times in life “What went wrong?” is a question without an obvious answer. And

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unfortunately, it’s a question that the vast majority of our students never even think to ask.

And while many colleges talk about the importance of being a “reflective practitioner” in their teacher training programs, there seems to be little “reflection” taught in the classroom… probably because teachers are so bad at it themselves.

For some silly reason it’s not cool to talk about “reflecting”. It’s difficult for teachers, who as a result of their position as the “distributor of knowledge” in the mind of most students and parents, feel obligated to be “right” all the time.

This is of course, absurd. However, because of this need to be right we get very defensive and struggle to admit when we’re wrong.

There’s something about the word “reflection” that seems to make teachers uncomfortable.

Maybe because it’s too “touchy, feely” for some. Maybe it’s because it requires adults to show humility, and admit they can improve.

Regardless, if we’re not willing to practice it ourselves and model it for our students, how can we ever hope to see them reflect on their own mistakes?

Reflection is an integral part of the learning process. It allows us to learn more about ourselves and how we learn, but it also aids us in improving academic skills. Consider sports teams that watch film of the previous night’s game. They’re able to identify mistakes and correct them at practice. Looking at a failed math test can have the same result if we help students to notice “Oh! I forget to carry the one every time I borrow!” Then, we can look back on the learning process as well, and help students discern which activities worked for well for them and which ones didn’t.

Teaching students to reflect on their work by noticing and correcting their own mistakes as well as which activities and behaviours allowed them to be successful is a vital part of the learning experience that far too many classrooms leave out of the equation. As teachers, we should model this expectation by reflecting ourselves and involving students in our own reflections.

Only then can we help students understand not to touch a hot stove, as opposed to simply making them afraid of all stoves forever.

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Mirror Mirror From addressing issues to creating a positive mindset, why reflection is essential to business

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hen people find out I’m an executive coach, they often ask who my toughest clients are. Inexperienced leaders? Senior leaders who think they know everything? Leaders who bully and belittle others? Leaders who shirk responsibility? The answer is none of the above.

The hardest leaders to coach are those who won’t reflect — particularly leaders who won’t reflect on themselves.

At its simplest, reflection is about careful thought. But the kind of reflection that is really valuable to leaders is more nuanced than that.

The most useful reflection involves the conscious consideration and analysis of beliefs and actions for the purpose of learning. Reflection gives the brain an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos, untangle and sort through observations and experiences, consider multiple possible interpretations, and create meaning. This meaning becomes learning, which can then inform future mindsets and actions. For leaders, this “meaning making” is crucial to their ongoing growth and development.

Research by Giada Di Stefano, Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano, and Bradley Staats in call centers demonstrated that employees who spent 15 minutes at the end of the day reflecting about lessons learned performed 23% better after 10 days than those who did not reflect. A study of UK commuters found a similar result when those who were prompted to use their commute to think about and plan for their day were happier, more productive, and less burned out than people who didn’t.

So, if reflection is so helpful, why don’t many leaders do it? Leaders often:

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DON’T UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS Many leaders don’t know how to reflect. One executive I work with, Ken, shared recently that he had yet again not met his commitment to spend an hour on Sunday mornings reflecting.

To help him get over this barrier, I suggested he take the next 30 minutes of our two-hour session and just quietly reflect and then we’d debrief it. After five minutes of silence, he said, “I guess I don’t really know what you want me to do. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been doing it.”

DON’T LIKE THE PROCESS Reflection requires leaders to do a number of things they typically don’t like to do: slow down, adopt a mindset of not knowing and curiosity, tolerate messiness and inefficiency, and take personal responsibility. The process can lead to valuable insights and even breakthroughs — and it can also lead to feelings of discomfort, vulnerability, defensiveness, and irritation.

DON’T LIKE THE RESULTS When a leader takes time to reflect, she typically sees ways she was effective as well as things she could have done better. Most leaders quickly dismiss the noted strengths and dislike the noted weaknesses. Some become so defensive in the process that they don’t learn anything, so the results are not helpful.

HAVE A BIAS TOWARDS ACTION Like soccer goalies, many leaders have a bias toward action. A study of professional soccer goalies defending penalty kicks found that goalies who stay in the center of the goal, instead of lunging left or right, have a 33% chance of stopping the goal, and yet these goalies only stay in the center 6% of the time. The goalies just feel better when they “do something.” The same is true of many leaders. Reflection can feel like staying in the center of the goal and missing the action.

Can’t see a good ROI. From early roles, leaders are taught to invest where they can generate

WORK a positive ROI — results that indicate the contribution of time, talent or money paid off.

Sometimes it’s hard to see an immediate ROI on reflection — particularly when compared with other uses of a leader’s time.

If you have found yourself making these same excuses, you can become more reflective by practicing a few simple steps.

IDENTIFY SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

SELECT A REFLECTION PROCESS THAT MATCHES YOUR PREFERENCES. Many people reflect through writing in a journal. If that sounds terrible but talking with a colleague sounds better, consider that. As long as you’re reflecting and not just chatting about the latest sporting event or complaining about a colleague, your approach is up to you. You can sit, walk, bike, or stand, alone or with a partner, writing, talking, or thinking.

SCHEDULE TIME. Most leaders are driven by their calendars. So, schedule your reflection time and then commit to keep it. And if you find yourself trying to skip it or avoid it, reflect on that!

But don’t answer them yet. Here are some possibilities:

START SMALL. If an hour of reflection seems like too much, try 10 minutes. Teresa Amabile and her colleagues found that the most significant driver of positive emotions and motivation at work was making progress on the tasks at hand. Set yourself up to make progress, even if it feels small.

What are you avoiding?

How are you helping your colleagues achieve their goals?

How are you not helping or even hindering their progress?

DO IT. Go back to your list of questions and explore them. Be still. Think. Consider multiple perspectives. Look at the opposite of what you initially believe. Brainstorm. You don’t have to like or agree with all of your thoughts — just think and to examine your thinking.

How might you be contributing to your least enjoyable relationship at work?

ASK FOR HELP. For most leaders, a lack of desire, time, experience, or skill can get in the way of reflection. Consider working with a colleague, therapist, or coach to help you make the time, listen carefully, be a thought partner, and hold you accountable. Despite the challenges to reflection, the impact is clear.

As Peter Drucker said: “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection, will come even more effective action.”

Jennifer Porter is the Managing Partner of The Boda Group, a leadership and team development firm. She is a graduate of Bates College and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, an experienced operations executive, and an executive and team coach.

How could you have been more effective in a recent meeting?

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Originally featured in the Harvard Business Review

Self

“The more you know yourself, the less judgmental you become” – Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel

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7 Ways Self-Reflection

And Introspection Will Give You A Happier Life Do you want to change anything in your life?

Slowing down and taking stock is the only way to truly change negative patterns.

Throughout our daily lives, we are constantly observing and analysing. Whether it’s an important document for work or a confusing text from a friend, we have successfully trained our brains to obtain data and examine it for deeper meaning or explanation.

While it has become second nature to think critically, the ironic part is we often forget to apply this concept to ourselves.

Introspection involves examining one’s own thoughts, feelings and sensations in order to gain insight.

Being introspective is often a rare quality in young adults, and with good reason: Slowing down and taking a breather from our crazy lives isn’t always the easiest thing to do.

In a society fixated on fast-paced environments and a “go, go, go” mentality, it’s difficult to find the time to sit down and reflect. However, setting aside a small portion of your day for self examination can be a lot more helpful than you might expect.

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IT ALLOWS YOU TO NOTICE NEGATIVE PATTERNS IN OUR LIFE

IT PREVENTS YOU FROM WORRYING ABOUT THINGS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL

Maybe you keep crawling back to that toxic relationship, convincing yourself that through all of the frustration and inconsistency, the person will eventually change. Maybe you’re continuously picking up a coworker’s slack, delaying your own tasks and hurting your progress in the long run.

Whatever the case may be, introspection allows you to recognize these patterns, and how and why they have a detrimental effect on your emotions and outlook.

From there, you can consider alternate approaches to these situations and eventually, migrate away from the stressors altogether.

An infuriating traffic jam, a boss who never considers your opinions, a torrential downpour when you planned a weekend at the beach — you get the idea. No matter how many times we’ve been told not to stress about what we can’t change, we do it anyway.

It’s difficult to realize we don’t always have total control of the outcome, and sometimes, we have no choice but to adapt to unfavorable conditions.

Introspection allows us to eventually detach from these aspects over which we have no influence, and instead, direct our energy toward things we can absolutely improve on ourselves.

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IT KEEPS YOU FOCUSED ON THE BIGGER PICTURE

IT HELPS YOU FACE YOUR FEARS

So, your unpaid internship is starting to slowly but surely feel like slave labor, and by the time five o’clock rolls around, all you can think about is leaving. Of course, without any experience, you can’t get your dream job – plain and simple. When we don’t have an overall goal in mind, our daily tasks become meaningless and increasingly frustrating.

Therefore, it’s important to have a clear vision of where you want to see yourself in the future.

Write it down if you have to, and don’t forget to continuously remind yourself of what you hope to ultimately accomplish. As a result, you will have a more positive attitude toward your current obligations.

We all want to be that person who can dive into any challenge headfirst and come out successful. But, let’s face it: We’re all afraid of something.

Whether it’s rejection, failure or something else entirely, introspection allows you to admit your fears to yourself and eventually learn the best way to handle them.

This can be a trial-and-error process, but simply recognising what scares you is a great starting point.

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IT ALLOWS YOU TO CLEARLY DEFINE HAPPINESS ON YOUR OWN TERMS

When are you most happy? Who do you most enjoy spending time with? What accomplishments are you most proud of and why?

These questions may seem cliché (and sound strangely like your college admission prompts), but they hold a lot of value. By recognizing the positive events in your life, you can apply your knowledge to future goals and endeavors.

For instance, if a quick phone chat with your best friend always lifts your spirits, take the time to do so every day.

Or, if you feel most accomplished after independently completing a project, start to take more initiative and exert that same self-starter attitude in your workplace.

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YOU WILL FINALLY GET DIFFERENT RESULTS

When we continuously go through our lives the same way, we inevitably block the chance of changing things for the better.By becoming more self-aware, we are able to have a better understanding of what we truly want in life. Naturally, this involves making changes, whether they’re significant or menial.

Of course, nobody likes change. It’s uncomfortable and scary, and we seek comfort in what we know.However, this is why it is critical to ask ourselves, is it worth it take as little as five minutes out of our day for introspection in exchange for an increased chance of happiness? Most of the time, it’s safe to say you already know the answer.

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IT ALLOWS YOU TO MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON YOUR CONSCIENCE

When it comes to making significant life decisions, the important people in your life will naturally have opinions. However, introspection helps you make decisions based on fully understanding what is right or wrong for you.

Make choices based on what you truly believe, without letting other people’s input sway you. While it’s okay to ask for others’ advice and feedback, ultimately, trust your gut — it won’t fail you.

Plus, by following your conscience, you’ll, in turn, feel better about the path you chose.

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Questions to Ask Yourself Everyday

How do we know we are going in the right direction?

Dr. Abialbon explores the questions we should be asking ourselves.

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Am I a little better than yesterday?

You know you are progressing if you are a little better today that who you were yesterday.

Instead of comparing yourself with others and falling prey to envy, jealousy and despair, try to become a little better every day.

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Have I built my character?

Your character is what defines you. Build your character upon the principles of truthfulness, humility, meekness and honesty.

Character is not built in a day.

It is built by daily investments you put in as you go on with your day’s activities. Do your work with integrity.

Treat everyone with equality.

Keep your words soft, sweet and comforting. Do not do anything, even if it seems petty, that can erode your

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.”

– Billy Graham

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Did I give my best at work?

Did you feel excited about going to work today? Did you put all your heart and enthusiasm into work? If no, find out what is hindering you from doing so and resolve it.

A satisfying day at work will elevate you mood.

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What did I learn new today?

Learn something new every day. Your mind and your health are the most precious resources that have been bestowed upon you. It is important to keep your mind sharp and supple. Read a book. Learn a new language.

Build your vocabulary. Learn something new that you find interesting or useful to you.

You cease to grow once you stop learning. Learning is never a waste of time. It will sure fetch huge dividends.

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Have I made healthier choices?

Your health is your responsibility. Jog, run, or hit the gym; anything your schedule will allow you to. Sparing as little as 15 minutes a day is better than being dead 24 hours a day! Avoiding unhealthy food habits is a healthier choice as well. Reduce the consumption of junk food.

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Have I expressed my love for my family and friends?

Note the word “express”. It is not enough to think lovingly or merely talk. Express your love and affection both in words as well as in action. Do a little work of love every day.

A small investment everyday will reap big dividends.

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Am I content with my life?

Be content with what you have.

Make happiness your ambition.

Mind you, that doesn’t mean you have to be complacent. You need to have goals and strive for the best. But be content with what you have been blessed with.

Count your many blessings and life live cheerfully.

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Have I spent quality time with my spouse?

Spend quality time with your spouse. You don’t have to go out on a date every day. Take time to share your day, your experiences and your feelings with your spouse. And listen to your spouse as well.

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Do I bear any grudges against anyone?

Before you go to sleep, rewind your day and check if you’d had a bad experience with anyone that day. No matter whose fault it was, try to resolve it before midnight.

Call and say sorry. Speak it out and resolve the matter.

Brooding grudges and malice isn’t healthy for your heart.

The anger destroys you slowly. Forgive and let go, make peace.

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Fight club How to resolve your relationships without conflict

by Randi Gunther PhD

The most consistently painful interactions I observe in my work with couples are two people unabashedly yelling at each other in noisy and blatant enmity. Their faces are contorted, their eyes are narrowed, and their voices are raised as they spew negative phrases at each other. Neither partner shows any evidence of hearing the other’s need or point of view or looking for any kind compromise. What once might have been an offer of understanding or an attempted solution, has now been replaced with two human steam rollers intent on flattening each other.

Arguments that have gotten out of hand are

never productive. They have no helpful purpose in an intimate relationships and cause cumulative and often irreparable damage. Once they get going, they only end when one or both partners give up. A painful separation often follows until the partner who most hurts from isolation tries to reconnect. The underlying injuries may be buried, but will continue their damage, hidden and unseen. Even more distressing, successive similar battles further weaken the love that both partners depend upon.

Couples who sincerely want to stop these adversarial patterns must not only be able to see them coming, but be able to stop them

“Arguments that are out of hand are never productive”

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before they give way to runaway negative emotions. That requires them to have practiced and mastered an alternative set of substitute behaviours they can choose to do instead.

There are many options. Partners can agree to separate for a while until each feels calmer and more ready to listen. They can also agree to listen without interrupting until each has been able to express his or her point of view. Some couples agree to limit their negative interactions to email where they can take the time to more carefully phrase what they want to say.

In my four decades of working with couples, I have found that the transformational exercise below is another option and often the most effective way to help them find meaningful, long-term resolutions. When they master these easy steps and put them into action when they feel a dangerous disagreement brewing, they are able to keep the damage low and a successful resolution more likely.

As soon as a couple becomes aware that their disagreement is beginning to heat up, they separate from each other and write the answer to five crucial questions. When they have both have completed that part of the assignment, they share their answers with each other.

The act of going to a quiet place alone defuses some of the growing emotional surge, and also gives them time to settle before exchanging their thoughts and feelings.

separate out and write down your answers.

When you’ve finished sharing, you may find yourselves more able to understand each other’s core issues and points of view even though you have staged it this time. The awareness, alone, may offer up options that you did not see before.

When your partner shares his or her thoughts and feelings, do not argue or question. Each of your reality is sacred, even though you may not see things the same way.

With your new information about each other’s distresses and needs, you still may not be able to give what each of you may desire in that moment. Information is necessary for change, but is not always enough to make those changes happen. Still, when you do actually fight, you will have a better chance of coming out ahead.

Doing the Exercise First pick a recent or familiar disagreement that both of you agree would be a good option to practice. Make sure that you are in a good place when you do the exercise, so that you are not asking yourselves to learn while you are upset. After you and your partner have each role played your typical parts in that example argument,

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THE FIVE QUESTIONS To help you avoid conflict in your relationship

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WHAT AM I FEELING RIGHT NOW AND WHAT DO I NEED?

WHAT DO I THINK MY PARTNER NEEDS FROM ME NOW AND HOW IS THAT LIKELY TO MAKE HIM OR HER HEAR ME?

Most people react unconsciously to what their partners are throwing at them without stopping to examine what they are feeling, what they need, and what they can give in the moment.

They may be tired, out of sorts, pre-occupied, looking for something from their partners, or just focused in some other direction. Their partners may not have any idea what they are thinking or feeling, or what their current resources are to respond from.

Perhaps you’ve just come home from work and are looking forward to some much needed quiet, but your partner needs to talk about something urgent to him or her. Because you are focused on your own need, you may react with irritation and impatience. Your partner may misunderstand and think you are arguing about the problem he or she is presenting.

You may then find yourself in the middle of a disagreement that could be easily resolved when you were more rested. (Or, the underlying problem could be that you are often too tired to listen and your partner is getting worked up over that.)

Maybe it is you that wants some close connection and your partner is the one who is preoccupied. You feel rejected and alone, and start to challenge him or her about generic choices and priorities that have nothing to do with what you need at that moment. Your partner begins to defend and the interaction becomes a heated discussion about distribution of resources and who deserves what and when.

This step is the most crucial for successful conflict resolution. It is not easy to actually identify with what your partner may be thinking if you are too preoccupied in setting up your own approach.

When you have been with someone for any length of time, you can temporarily let go of your own world-view and sincerely try to enter the mind and heart of the one you love. What do you think they need at this moment? What do you believe their internal resources are in this moment? How much energy do you believe they have to give or to help solve the problem?

Looking at the situation through the eyes of your partner does not have to erase your own desire. It just makes it clearer that there is more than one of you in the room and that any solution or distribution of resources has both short and long term goals. Do his or her desires seem more legitimate than yours in this moment? Perhaps one of you feels more distress and the other is in a better place. Maybe you have been given much of what you’ve wanted for a long time and now have a chance to reciprocate.

Before you speak, you should at least have a working idea of how your partner might respond. You can show how much love you feel just by anticipating his or her inner even if you aren’t exactly on target. Just caring that much is often enough.

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IF MY PARTNER AND I WERE TO INTERACT RIGHT NOW IN OUR OLD WAY, WHAT WOULD AN IMPARTIAL OBSERVER THINK ABOUT HOW WE FELT ABOUT EACH OTHER?

Try imagining that a video camera is recording your conflict interaction while it is happening, and that you are planning to show it to someone else later. Think of that person as an impartial and fair observer, someone you both know and respect, and who will give you objective information about what he or she sees.

I often ask couples how they would feel if someone important to them were to witness their most distressing interactions.

How might those intimate partners change the way they interacted? Would they be more careful to sound more caring, listen more deeply, or give the other partner more respect?

Most intimate partners know inside what they should be doing even when they are not able to control themselves in the moment. Keeping an imaginary impartial observation going on in their minds can help them to better stay on track.

Were you able to let some part of you stay outside your interaction, it may give you the ability to hold on to the way you’d like to be despite the intensity of your emotions. That part of your consciousness will keep you voting for what is right even when the rest of you may be caught up in trying to get your way.

IF I TELL MY PARTNER EXACTLY HOW I’M FEELING RIGHT NOW AND WHAT I WANT, HOW WILL HE OR SHE RESPOND?

In established relationships, both partners can have a pretty good idea how the other will respond to a request if they just take the time to remember past interactions. Perhaps they don’t want to remember those patterns because they are tired or feel the problem isn’t resolvable given their current patterns. Sometimes partners don’t want to acknowledge any memories of past disappointments, hoping this time the outcome will be different. Maybe they just want what they want and thinking about the likelihood that they won’t get it makes them unable to do what might work better.

If committed partners choose to think carefully about previous relationship interactions and heed the lessons they’ve learned, they often can see more options that were hidden before. Perhaps they realize that the timing is off for them to get what they need, or they might do better if they modify what they were going to say. By thinking about the answer before they speak to their partner, they can check out whether their anticipations were correct.

5 KNOWING AS MUCH AS WE CAN ABOUT SUCCESSFUL COMMITTED RELATIONSHIPS, WHAT WOULD BE THE MOST IDEAL WAY YOU COULD BEHAVE IN A DISAGREEMENT?

Most people in committed relationships has within his or her mind and heart an ideal way that people should treat each other, especially when things are not going right. Whether spiritual, mental, emotional, sexual, or physical, most people know which behaviors are wonderful and which make most intimate partners hurt or angry.

They may not know how to get there easily or to remain there once they’ve attained it, but they still know it.

To help you get in touch with who you would most want to be in conflict situations, answer the following questions. They are not meant to imply a one-size-fits-all self-respect, but only to help you find your own.

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SELF -1How would you behave differently if were you standing in front of a person you highly respect? Would you treat your partner the same were you arguing in front of someone from whom you want respect, support, and acceptance?

-2Would you change your behavior if you wanted people important to you to feel supportive of your point of view, or in the way you were expressing what you wanted from your partner?

-3Who have been the people in your life that you have admired? How might they behave in the same situation?

Would it be different from the way you are acting?

-4How would you wish to be different with your partner the next time you disagree? What would you need to change to make that happen?

-5Can you recall a time when you interacted in a conflict with your partner and felt good about yourself and the outcome?

What did you like about how you and your partner handled yourselves?

You won’t always be able to reach those

ideals. Forgive yourself if you’re just feeling down and can’t always do the right thing. As long as you learn from your experiences and keep your values in sight, you’ll always have another chance to practice doing it better.

Also, forgive your partner if he or she can’t always give you what you need. There is not one person who hasn’t behaved in a way that felt embarrassing or too hard on his or her partner. But knowing who you would like to become and keeping that ideal in mind, even when you can’t fully embrace it, will bring it closer each time you remember.

Every time you prevent a destructive conflict,

you will have less damage control when you resolve things in a productive way. All couples have disagreements that beg for resolution. Every destructive conflict erodes a couple’s confidence that they can find a greater closeness, and each successful resolution can form the foundation for the next.

When you learn to disagree in a loving and caring way, you can spend more time building the sweetness of your relationship instead of needing to repair it. Mastering this exercise will help you to create the internal integrity and preparedness you need.

Randi Gunther PhD is a clinical psychologist and marriage counsellor.

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Health

“Everyone and everything that show in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us” – Alan Cohen

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HEALTH

Inside out Why the food you eat is a reflection of yourself

by Cynthia Belmer

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HEALTH

e live our everyday life completely immersed in our daily tasks, routines and endless “to do’s.” We get used to doing the same thing day after day, keeping our minds busy with what’s going to happen next. We become numb and start living a robotic life without taking a moment to examine our lifestyle, our life purpose or even questioning if what we are doing is truly meaningful. The value of our relationships with others are often judged based on our personal gain, our relationship with our fellow creatures is completely taken for granted and most importantly our relationship with ourselves is out of control. So how can we lead a balanced, loving and truthful lifestyle?

It all starts from within. We start by first examining our relationship with ourselves. How do we treat our bodies? How do we react to our emotions? And how do we connect to our deepest essence?

Our bodies are temples; they are sacred and blessed. The way we use them and what we

feed them is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves and others. For example: we know that eating meat every day could cause a lot of diseases including heart and colon cancer, but we continue eating it because we enjoy the taste.

We also know that wanting to be in a relationship where love is not mutual is very hurtful, yet we keep trying to make the relationship work because drama is exciting and the ego does not like the idea of losing and not being wanted. Unhealthy diet is as hurtful as being in an unhealthy relationship and both cases neglect self-love and a healthy balance. Dr Tamara Sattler, Therapist and PHD in EastWest Psychology said: “We can find our life balance when we are 100% true to our deepest self and if our outside matches our inside.”

The same concept can also applied to every task we do, for our daily jobs and routines.

Focusing so much on one thing is an indication of attachment towards this object whether it is

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HEALTH spiritual, physical or emotional and will only lead to suffering and an unbalanced lifestyle.

Just like the breath for example in yoga: if our inhale is often longer than the exhale, we tend to be constantly energetic and if the exhale is longer than the inhale then our energy is often low. As much as they are both useful and needed based on each individual case, our goal is really to have the inhale and exhale be equal.

“I turn my attention to my heart and ask myself: is what I am focused on in this moment.�

What I found to be a great tool to maintain a balanced life is to find a common ground in what I am really doing. First I turn my attention to my heart and ask myself: is what I am focused on in the moment (spiritually, emotionally, and physically), what is meaningful to me? Why am I focused on it?

And finally I constantly remind myself to ask the question: How is what I am doing serving me and/or serving others? We may hear many internal voices pulling us in many directions and sometimes we may need to flow with these voices and flow with life until we connect on a deeper level with our heart and these voices become one. This is where we can find our middle ground and be truly awakened.

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HEALTH

Back to nature Forget pounding the treadmill, the benefits of exercise on the mind can increase greatly when you take things outside

by Personal Trainer Gady Buissereth

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There are different levels of reflection when talking about sport. But today I chose to talk about the practice of sport in a natural environment. By natural, I mean an environment that can be physically existent without man. It is an environment and habitat in which animal and plant species can flourish without human intervention.

I say “may” ... without human intervention” and not “must” This means that the natural environment can exist with human intervention but this intervention is not indispensable to its existence, contrary to an urban environment that exists only through and thanks to intervention and human presence.

I decided to take up this subject because I myself started to play sports very young.

Whether it is in the forest where I practiced Tree climbing which develops the upper body and the Core training or in parks for my running out. I very soon realized that the motivations can be diverse according to the individuals, their origins, their way of life, their centers of interests, etc ...

Since the dawn of time, men have been training in a natural environment. The best example is that of pre-historic men who, before they even knew how to walk, had to hunt and develop their physical abilities in order to survive.

This can be, as at the origin of the times gathering (use and consumption of existing plant and animal species without human intervention), discovery, observation, change of scenery in relation to an urban environment totally manufactured by man, A return to its

origins, clean air, relaxation, escape, the feeling of freedom and freedom from constraints, etc ....

In the days of the Spartans, for example, there was Crypty, which consisted in releasing young people of about 18 years in the wild for about 1 year, they had to fly to survive and train regularly with the elements that surrounded them. It was a conditioning as much on the physical as mental since they could not relax and had to be always attentive to the external elements which were very often hostile. At the end of this year, the young men had to kill a hilote as a trophy and were then admitted among the elite hoplites of Sparta.

After such training, which begins with conditioning from birth and ends with an event that is doubtless the most difficult in the whole history, they became men and adapted very easily to the different environments where they were led to make the war. This made them formidable warriors.

Nowadays, sport in the natural environment is for some people a way to become aware of who they are ... People lacking confidence in it for example.

“Since the dawn of time, men have been training in a natural environment.”

What the human seeks can not be predefined and is difficult to inventorise. Everything depends on his culture, his experience, his feelings, his personal emotions at a moment “T”.

No one can think of his place. It is up to each one to define and define it. There is no pattern and this is where human intervention on the natural environment can have consequences.

Practicing in the open air allows you to train differently and to leave the traditional paths of the sports halls and to improve many other points.

Thus, the body will provide more oxygen to the muscles as the body descends to a normal altitude.

Here are the few elements of reflection that will of course remain to be completed... The subject remains vast. But I think that nature still has a lot of things to teach us and that it has not finished surprising us…

IMPROVEMENTS OF OUTDOOR EXERCISE If you run among the crowd, you can improve your sense of anticipation because you will have to avoid passers-by and learn to have or rather to see beyond the ‘first curtain’ If you run on different surfaces during the same training, you will improve your support considerably because the body will adapt automatically to different degrees of adhesion of the ground.

If you run at high altitudes like the Kenyans, the decrease in the oxygen content of the air creates a lack of oxygen (hypoxia) which will induce the secretion of a hormone (erythropoietin or EPO) that will stimulate the production of more red blood cells by the bone marrow to compensate for the lack of oxygen to the tissues.

Inspire

“Your personal truth is your gift to the world�

- Jennifer Elisabeth

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INSPIRE

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THE HANDS OF TIME Laugh, I tell you And you will turn back The hands of time Smile, I tell you And you will reflect The face of the divine Sing, I tell you And all the angels will sing with you!

Cry, I tell you And the reflections found in your pool of tears Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterday To guide you through the fears of tomorrow.

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INSPIRE

A Real Reflection - A story from the Middle East

T

here is a story about a father and his young son who were walking through the mountains. Suddenly, the son fell, hurting his leg on a rock. He screamed, ‘AAhhhh!’ To his surprise, he heard a voice repeating, ‘AAhhhh!’ This made him even more curious. So, he yelled, ‘Who are you?’ Back came the same answer, ‘Who are you?’ Feeling a bit perturbed by this response, he yelled out, ‘Coward!’ Back came the same reply, ‘Coward!’

He looked at his father and asked: ‘What’s going on?’ His father smiled and said: ‘Son, pay attention.’ Looking across the valley, his father yelled to the mountain, ‘I admire you!’ The voice answered: ‘I admire you!’ Again the man cried out: ‘You are a champion!’ The voice replied, ‘You are a champion!’ The boy was amazed, but he was very confused. So, his father explained...

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‘You are only hearing an echo, the sound of our voices bouncing back from the mountains.

However, this really is how life works. It returns to you what you think, say and do!

Our lives are a reflection of our thoughts and actions. If you want more love in your world, create more love in your heart. If you want to be treated with kindness, treat others with kindness. If you want more competence on your team, become more competent.

This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life. Life will give to you, everything you give to it, only it will give you even more in return. Your life is never a coincidence. Each moment is a reflection of you!’

The son listened and grew in understanding, and through the following years, he witnessed the truth of these words in his life.

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INSPIRE

Famous people who changed their minds This is a list of famous people who have considerably changed their views, beliefs and preconceptions during their lifetime. It is interesting for seeing how people can change their mind in a positive way.

GEORGE ORWELL

MARTIN NIEMÖLLER

(1903 – 1950)

(1892 – 1984)

Orwell was educated at Eton and entered the Imperial British civil service in Burma. However, Orwell came to oppose the British Empire. He also reacted against the class privileges he was entitled to. He embraced periods of poverty to experience life amongst the poorest workers. He also volunteered to fight on the side of the Republicans in the Spanish civil war.

During the First World War, Niemöller was a successful German U-boat captain. He was also a staunch conservative nationalist, who welcomed Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933. However, in 1937, he was imprisoned for criticising Hitler’s religious policies. After the war, he admitted guilt over the holocaust and became a prominent pacifist and member of the Peace Movement.

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LEO TOLSTOY (1828 – 1910) Tolstoy was born in a privileged aristocratic family. He served as an army officer and incurred large gambling debts.

He came to reject his privileged lifestyle, freeing his own serfs and embracing pacifism and Christian-anarchism.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803 – 1882) Ordained a Pastor in a Unitarian church, Emerson left to pursue his own independent ideas and philosophy. He became one of America’s foremost philosophers, writing essays on mysticism and individualism. Emerson could never be confined in a neat ideology, expressing a great freedom of the mind.

BUDDHA

F. W. DE KLERK

(563 BC – 485 BC)

F.W. De Klerk served as the last President of Apartheid South Africa. Initially, he was a strong supporter of apartheid, but as President he evolved his views and came to accept apartheid had to go. He released Nelson Mandela and oversaw the transition to multi- racial elections.

Siddhartha was a great prince of an Indian zkingdom. But, he gave up all his worldly comforts to be an ascetic and seeker of enlightenment. As an ascetic he tried starving the body, but when this didn’t work, he forsook extremes and followed the ‘middle path’ which enabled him to gain the experience of Nirvana.

(1936 – )

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

ST PAUL

(1931 – )

( 5 – 67AD) In his early life, Saul of Tsarus was a Roman citizen who participated in the persecution of Christians, but after a vision on the road to Damascus, he embraced the religion he used to persecute. St Paul became a passionate evangelist and spread Christianity to all corners of the Roman Empire.

Gorbachev was a committed member of the Soviet Union Communist party. But, despite believing in the ideals of Communism, he saw many things were not working and so was willing to introduce the radical reform policies of Perestroika and Glasnost – which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism in the East.

ASHOKA

EMPEROR CONSTANTINE

(304–232 BCE)

(272 – 337) The First Roman Emperor to embrace Christianity. In 313 he issued the edict of Milan which allowed Christians to profess their faith without interference. It ended the Roman Empire’s persecution of Christianity.

An Indian Emperor who ruled over a huge Indian Empire.

He conquered Kalinga in a bitterly destructive war, in which thousands were slain. After seeing the slaughter he had caused, Ashoka embraced Buddhism and preached a new doctrine of non-violence, toleration and peace.

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INSPIRE

The missing piece to the parenting puzzle: Reflection

by Dr Asma Naheed, Educational Psychologist, Special Needs Consultant and Public Speaker

ur children are mirrors, reflecting images of what happens around them. In addition to sharing genetic similarities with parents, they reflect the gestures, language, and the interests of the adults in their lives.

You’ll notice your child holding a pencil just like dad holds his pen, or using a phrase mummy says often. The behavior and habits children are exposed to at an early age can become behaviors and habits they carry into adulthood.

The human brain does 80 percent of its growing in the first three years of life. Genetics guide the growth of a brain in the skull, but do not completely design the brain. Instead, genes prepare the brain to be adaptable, hardwiring itself according to the experiences and environment in which your child grows up. Because experiences have a direct impact

on brain development, your child is especially vulnerable to negative experiences in these first, vital years.

It’s natural for parents to worry, but so many parents have cornered the market on anxiety — often unrealistically. The worry list is long: abduction and abuse, their child’s friendships and school performance, online threats like internet bullying and pornography, instilling proper diet and exercise habits… and the list goes on. In many cases anxiety paralyses both parent and child, making children fearful and stifling their curiosity and development. Parental stress can damage the child development and emotional health.

Learning from direct experience is much more effective if coupled with reflection, say Harvard researchers Di Stefano and colleagues (2014). Their study also found that when people

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1 Plan

re

f le ctio n

Motivation effort and self - efficancy

3 Evaluate

2 Self Monitor

STRENGTHS-BASED RELFELCTIVE PRACTICE

MAIN FOCUS

THE INDIVIDUAL

THE TEAM

THE ORGANISATION

What’s successful right now?(appreciate)

What do you feel you do really well and why?

What are your team’s talents/achievements

What’s your organisations success stories?

What do we need to change to make a better future? (Imagine)

What are some of your possibilities for improvement?

How can you play to your strengths more within the team?

What options do you have to increase performance and and productivity?

How do we do this?

(Design)

What are your core values? Why do you hold these?

What are your team’s values? Why do you hold these?

What are your organistaions values?

How far have you been able to put your values into action?

How can you create more opportunities to do what you do best everyday?

Who takes action and with what consequences? (Act?

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How far have you been able to put your values into action?

INSPIRE take time to reflect, it builds their confidence in the ability to achieve a goal. Reflection may do more than help parents identify what they’d like to do differently—it may also give them the confidence and momentum to do it.

When parents reflect, it helps them reinforce desired behaviors, clear unwanted ones, and bring in even more compassion. It also helps them understand their own flaws, generation gaps, their own shortcomings and wrong parental strategies. Reflection in parenting is a great tool.

Numerous researchers have studied how

-1-

reflective functioning works in the parent-child relationships. They have learned that a mother with high reflective functioning has the ability to see her child as a separate, autonomous individual with “a mind of his own.” As a result, she attributes thoughts, feelings, intentionality and desires to her child, and can recognise her own thoughts, feelings, intentions and desires.

This research has demonstrated that when a parent has this capacity, it strengthens the parent-child relationship, teaches the child how to understand and regulate his behavior, and supports cognitive development.

Xx

What is Reflection?

Chartred society of Physiotherapy (2014)

Reflective practice is a process by which you stop and think about your practice, conciously analyse you decsision making and draw on theory and relate it to what you do in practice.

Kidman (2001)

Reflection is ‘particulary significant’ part of empowerment whereby coaches themselves take part in ownership of their learning and decision-making.

Gilbert & Trudal (2001)

Those within sports coaching have tended to understand reflection as a process of looking back at pratice, making sense of what happened, and learning in order to improvce practice in future.

‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom’ – Aristotle

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INSPIRE

Driscoll 2000 Reflective Model What?

Describe what has happened?

What is the incident that your are reflecting upon?

Tell the facts of the situation

So What?

Say why it is an important issue to reflect upon What does reserach/current thinking say?

Compare what best practice/research says against What actually happened?

What Now? In the future how might you practice be different?

What you learnt to put into practice?

What would you do differnetly?

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Al-Haseeb Meaning:

The Reckoning One, The Accounter

Explanation:

The Reckoner, The One who gives the satisfaction

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INSPIRE

This month I am.. .…

Trying to solve..

Reading..

Listening to..

Love Letters of Great Men edited by Ursula Doyle In an age of e-mail and Twitter, this beautiful book is heartwarming. It collects together some of history’s most romantic letters, from the private papers of Beethoven, Mark Twain, Mozart, and Lord Byron. For some of these great men, love is “a delicious poison” (William Congreve); for others, “a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music” (Charles Darwin). Love can scorch like the heat of the sun (Henry VIII), or penetrate the depths of one’s heart like a cooling rain (Flaubert). Every shade of love is here, from the exquisite eloquence of Oscar Wilde and the simple devotion of Robert Browning.

Taken together, these letters show the depth of the human soul and it’s capacity to love.

Ted Talk: John Francis walks the Earth In terms of reflection, it is hard to beat John Francis who took a 17-year vow of silence, travelling the world in order to raise environmental consciousness and promoting Earth stewardship. A funny, enlightening and truly powerful watch.

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“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress and grows brave by reflection�

- Thomas Paine

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“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” – Søren Kierkegaard