Mind & Emotions

New Year Everyone! I hope you all had a perfectly wonderful festive season. Christmas preparations seem to go on for weeks and suddenly we find another Christmas is over and we are all preparing for the New Year and what it may bring.

Getting into a small routine again is a simple plan. Make sure that you include some things you really used to enjoy that have been overlooked or deliberately not done because it reminds you of your loss.

"By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property." Voltaire

"Anyone who knows all the answers most likely misunderstood the questions"

Let me begin with a quote from a well-known Swami of Laughter. "The Human Jestive System: We have been given the human jestive system to turn the material of life into healing laughter." Swami Beyondananda.

Feelings of melancholy and sad reflection may overtake you and you may feel like isolating yourself and avoiding contact. This is an important part of the grieving process and one that well meaning people may try to talk you out of or jolly you around.

Anger can be a frustrating emotion to work out. Sometimes it is obvious who you are angry with and other times the identification of the source of it can be elusive.

In the last two weeks we have seen on our television screens many people succeed at the London Olympics and we have a better appreciation of how they have achieved their successes, medal winners or not.

After the initial shock starts wearing off and the numb feeling that protects us after a trauma starts to melt away, we are left with the second stage of grief - Pain and Guilt.

Recently I have been thinking about the theory of projection, developed by Freud. I liken it to a movie projector. As the projectionist you are sitting in a little box at the back of the cinema. The film is projected from here some metres away on to other