A toddler takes off across a park/snatches a toy off a fellow playgroup attendee/refuses her favourite dinner.
From a young age, we’re taught that this, the tiniest of expressions of non-conformity is a negative thing. Something that shuts things down, creates havoc, ruins plans.
No is just not welcome.
But I turned 40 a couple of years ago and in a wonderful revelation, discovered a new side to these naughty little digits.
10 ways no opens up new possibilities:
Rejecting an idea creates space for new perspectives and new ways of thinking.
Rejecting a way of doing something can stimulate the acquisition of new skills, exploring the way other people do things and can bring about better procedures.
Unpicking the things that people hold on to as ‘common sense’, gives an opportunity to hold core values up to scrutiny. Are they really sensible? Are they common?
It stimulates conversation – rather than shutting it down: a collaboration to find new ideas and new common ground.
It brings about ‘what if’ – exploring scenarios and creating new combinations of ideas.
Things can’t always go to plan – but this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Alternative solutions are often better ones in hindsight.
No one is perfect – rejecting a behaviour or pattern of behaviours creates an opportunity for growth, for everyone.
Healthy relationships rely on well-communicated boundaries. It’s a constant negotiation, of course but it needs to be balanced on both sides. Telling someone when they’ve strayed off-side is an important part of this.
Deciding to change direction is often upsetting: we’re creatures of habit. When one path is blocked by an obstruction, working around it is an invaluable learning opportunity and it inevitably opens up new paths, new experiences and new ways of thinking.
The experience of parting company with someone you’ve worked with/lived with/spent time with sits somewhere on a sliding scale from elation to utter devastation. But it also opens up the chance to meet new people. The person who’ll be a major player in your life in ten years, you may not have even met yet.
It’s not easy – I struggle with boundaries on a daily basis but what I have learned is that I own this word. It’s mine. I can use it when I see fit – it’s just a matter of having the belief that I can deal with the consequences.
And there are times when, no matter how empowered I feel, I’m just not brave enough. But I know that if I stay true to my core principles, in whatever way I can, things will work out for the best in the end.
Please let me know how you get on with your own ‘no’ projects. I’d be delighted to hear all about them.
Because sometimes saying no is answering in the positive
Not a day goes by when I don’t see something that makes me think. Articles in the papers, snippets on newsfeeds, posts on Facebook. Some things get my goat, make me angry but at the weekend, I saw something that really made me sit up and think.
A Tibetan proverb that someone posted on line:
For a long, healthy life you must –
Eat half Walk double Laugh triple Love without measure
Now, I know it doesn’t sound like much but I know this works, I’ve seen it. I live in a town that is home to a large Nepalese community. Not Tibetan, I know, but by the way they live I can see there is a similarity in philosophy. The elderly walk, laugh and browse the market with a real joy and interest on a Thursday morning – you could almost believe they hadn’t seen carrots and onions before. And I was saying goodbye to my Mum as she left in the car with her boyfriend yesterday morning, when two ladies wandered past – brightly coloured, well-shod. Both easily north of 70, they jumped and laughed when we offered a Namaste. I later saw them perusing the root veg in Morrison’s – their need to walk, explore, laugh, interact is strong, inbuilt, vital.
And then this morning, someone posted something on one of the pages I follow on Facebook to remind me about a fabulous plus-size yoga teacher by the name of Dana Falsetti. I’ve known about her for years but her approach to whole body and mind connectedness served to crystalize in my mind the key reason why diets and exercise programmes don’t work for some of us. We’ve concentrated on the first two principles of the proverb for so long, we’ve forgotten the second two. And in terms of quantity, it would seem they hold more weight, as it were.
I can offer some suggestions why this might have happened. Food intake and activity are easily measured, not to mention even easier to make a charge for. But how can you eat half and walk double if you don’t laugh triple and love without measure? It’s so clear to me now, I have no idea how I’ve not seen this before.
So what does it mean? Well, what if it was more than just OK to kick back and have a giggle with your friends and family, what if this was essential to living a healthy, happy life? What if laughing and loving were treated not merely as additional elements but critical components of a health regime? What if we dumped self-hatred and body-loathing in favour of acceptance, confidence and joy?
What if we took the brave step of connecting and thinking?
Eat half, walk double are key to the commonly held notion of calories in vs. calories out, granted (and there’s enough research out there to support the health benefits of fasting). But this principle is meaningless without the second half – the balance is way too out of kilter, too many grand efforts are bound to fail, too many people lost to empty diets and self depreciation.
So, today I ate a modest breakfast and climbed a hill in the North Downs to catch some early sun. I laughed with my Mum on the phone this morning and now I’m sharing this with you.
Have a great day x
Time to breathe and think
Walk double – I suppose climbing the 115 steps and running down the sloped route would count?
The pumpkin season is upon us – they’ve been in the shops for weeks and these plump orange friends, along with the ghoulish outfits and chocolate eyeballs also on the market shelves, herald the fact that the commercially busy time of Halloween is not far away.
Whether you intend to hunker behind tightly closed curtains to escape the trick or treaters, or you’re likely to embrace the evening with a glass of something warm and alcoholic around the barbeque after taking the kids around the neighbourhood, I think it’s way too easy to miss the real value of the season.
Let me explain.
I’ve always disliked autumn.
Or rather I’ve tried to dislike autumn but despite myself, I’ve always found too much to enjoy: iridescent red/brown trees; leaves falling like snowflakes; hidden fungi and bright shiny conkers like gifts in the grass – all pleasures I have reluctantly and even guiltily fallen in love with.
Little shiny gifts in the grass
Now, I really do love summer and I am very open and up front about this. Where do I start? Is it the rosé left to lose its chill on a patio table, or warm sand in between your toes while catching the drips coming down a cornet or the disorientating but quietly pleasing first afternoon of the school holidays? For me, the pleasures of summer are deep seated and long awaited.
And then the year turns and autumn slips in while you’re not looking. New shoes are polished, shirts buttoned and hair pig-tailed for the new term, the warm sunshine always seeming to last a little longer than expected. The green lawn you battled with over the summer has become brown with leaves, the blades of grass stumpy as their growth slows.
Before you know it, October happens, leaves drop in the strengthening winds and one morning you wake to suspect that someone might have tampered with your alarm because suddenly your feet are hitting the floor while it’s pitch black outside.
For me, this is where the wait starts. With every leaf that falls is the latent desire, almost an impatience, for the buds of spring.
That is, until now.
For now I feel I understand a little more of what it’s about and it all started with a conversation about the festival of Samhain.
I will explain at this point that I am not a witch or a Wiccan. I’m pretty happy for most people to go about whatever route to spiritual satisfaction they wish but I’m not one for being persuaded to any particular faith: I’m more of a spiritual tourist, you might say.
A friend of mine mentioned she was having a fire feast for Samhain – which, through many permutations has become what most know as Halloween. I’m no expert, so I’ll offer no comprehensive definitions here (although it is well worth a look up on the web) but what I did glean from our conversation was the notion of fallow: the fire feast being the last of the harvest festivals, the start of a new year and the beginning of a season of rest.
The fire would have served to not only dispose of the by-products of harvest but also to light, celebrate and appease – an opportunity to clear out and hang out after a long period of intense activity and hard work.
This led me to think that we have no sensible concept of rest in our modern 24/7 365 world. Even our sleep has to be discussed, prodded, analysed. Are we getting enough? Is our bed suitable? An article I read the other day asked ‘Have you scheduled down time?’ (Scheduling ‘down time’? Surely a more obvious oxymoron has never existed.)
But fallow season? This denotes a stoppage. The trees will drop their leaves until their branches are bare. The bracken will die back to the earth. Some mammals retreat to their burrows and sleep until spring.
It’s shut down time: the earth has pressed the restart button.
I have decided this is what has always bothered me the most about autumn: the return indoors until spring. During the summer, as long as it is light, I am outside washing the car, the windows or pottering in the garden. I pop out for some shopping or hang washing at four o’clock in the afternoon, safe in the knowledge that it will be dry by ten. I run by the river, ride my bike over to the park with my daughter for a go on the swings before bed or laugh with my friends over wine, while the bees work the flowers in the pub garden.
But up until now I have not understood that the fallow season a necessary rest, not just a reluctant temporary stoppage. That this is not a death: only a sleep and a vital one at that.
It is not a time of inactivity, just a different form of activity.
It is a time to regroup, to learn new skills, to deepen and develop relationships.
Just as, below the ground, the trees will store their nutrients, ready for leaves and fruit the following year, we as human beings need to do the same. I feel like we have lost our concept of rest – light bulbs and televisions illuminating the spaces we used to sleep in during the winter. And as air freight has made it possible to purchase strawberries long beyond autumn, I believe we have lost the concept of harvest and how grateful those who have gone before have been for it.
I’m not suggesting that we go back to the dark ages before electricity and ample food but what I am suggesting is that some of the anxieties we have today (mine being the waste of time retreating indoors presents) arise from our lack of connection with the turning seasons, the cycles of life and the inevitability of death.
We need to remember that we are merely earthly observers and although we have learned to tinker (quite effectively, in some cases) with the outcomes of these turnings, there has to be more than a going with the flow – when it comes to the inevitable changes the year (and indeed life) throws at us, there has to be an active engagement.
So, in a break from what has gone before, I’m going to enjoy the fallow season this year. I’m going to dust off the board games, find my crochet needles scattered around the house and browse awhile my collection of dog-eared food magazines for well-loved recipes.
We’ll pull on walking boots and sweaters to catch the odd, brief, bright day and enjoy the sun’s ingress through the leafless branches.
We’ll laugh as we wipe marmalade muffin crumbs off our hibernation blankets on a Sunday afternoon.
And we’ll talk, reconnect, read, learn and enjoy the fallow season, all rested and ready to re-emerge in spring, ready for a new year.
I know what I like to eat. I like fresh, light flavours like coriander, lime and juicy tomatoes in the summer; warm, rich cinnamon and cumin to enrich the bounty of autumn and deep, indulgent, sustaining textures in winter. That’s what I like. Variety.
I spend much of my time buying and cooking food. I choose combinations to sometimes test, sometimes tease and sometimes simply satisfy the palate – but there’s always variety.
What has all this to do with spirituality?
I thrive on variety, choice and exploration. It’s about using my knowledge, experience and skill to find and prepare interesting dishes and then share them with my family and friends. Please don’t mistake my love of pick and mix for insincerity or lack of commitment – I just can’t imagine what it would be like to have the same meal whizzed up and spoon fed to me every day with the expression of choice or complaint not just frowned upon but punished.
This is the kind of theocratic tyranny that I grew up with and why I left prescribed religion behind me a long time ago.
These days, my spiritual exploration is much like a visit to an art gallery. And I’m not talking here about browsing the halls on the way to the coffee shop, I’m talking about really looking, thinking, leaving, reading, perhaps coming back, thinking some more. It’s about my response to what I’m seeing, how it relates to what I already know and what I’d like to experience more of.
Let me explain. I’m not a Buddhist but I’ve read several books written by the Dalai Lama (The Art of Happiness, is well worth a read if you haven’t already) and so when I caught wind that he was coming to Aldershot to open the new Buddhist community centre, I felt compelled to go see if I could catch a glimpse of him.
HH the Dalai Lama blessing the new Buddhist community centre after which he spoke about Buddhism in the 21st century and called for an end to religious division saying “killing in the name of religion is totally wrong”.
I was very nearly disappointed.
I arrived in town on my very easy-to-park bike and after having been asked directions by a very wealthy looking family in a particularly flash car I found myself in what felt like another world. Next to the football stadium, the once rather drab looking social club was painted and beribboned, with red, yellow and blue flags flying high above the road. Fresh from Glastonbury, HH was due to open the centre, lead prayers for the Nepalese lost in the earthquakes and then teach at the stadium.
I don’t know what I was expecting to see but the cacophony was something I’d not experienced before. On the lower side of the road, a large protest against the Dalai Lama by Shugden tradition Buddhists was in full swing. The usually quite pedestrian barriers running along the footpath were festooned with banners declaring their message. Behind this, monks of all nationalities used loud hailers and voices to make as much noise as possible.
I saw one monk amongst the crowd, settled on the pavement in front of a sign for tyres and exhausts, deep in meditation. Behind were the coaches they’d arrived on – I couldn’t help wondering what 50 monks wandering around Heston services would look like.
A contingent of Shugden Buddhists protesting – one later chose to sit and meditate outside Mr Clutch. I like that.So much dancing and singing on both sides of the road: both sides of the Shugden debate
The pro-Dalai Lama camp on the stadium side of the road were also in full swing. There were drums, wide flags flying above. People danced in all colours: emeralds, ochres, saffron, azure blues – from the elderly shuffling to the music to the little babies wide eyed at the spectacle.
I locked my bike to a railing and set off to find out whether I could make sense of what was going on.
According to my watch and the timetable I’d read online, the man I’d come to see would be leaving the community centre sometime soon in order to teach at the ticketed event in the stadium next door.
My phone rang.
My friend, the jammiest of all my friends, had secured a space away from the crowds at the back of the community centre. I smiled.
And so, I found myself with a rack of press, my friend and three Nepalese ladies around the rear of the building where the Dalai Lama was praying inside. A pathway carpeted with ornate rugs ran from a small side door to a huge, black waiting car – the kind you might find carting a celebrity to a premiere. Under the bright colours and intricate paintings of the gateway were a swarm of butch looking security in black suits and high vis jackets. A photographer was making a last minute bargain with one of them to get beyond the wire fence barrier we were stood behind. He won and was allowed in, happily taking up a crouching position beside all the other lenses.
Excitement built as thumbs up were sent out between the security suits, and few people piled out of the side door followed finally by two monks blowing horns.
The moment was arriving. I felt like it was all too much. How disappointed would I be if I didn’t catch glimpse of him? What if the men there to protect him denied me of my once in a lifetime chance? The chants from the road were distant but ever present. The line of attendees for the stadium event filed past the bottom of the steps some way away, unaware of me, my friend and the three Nepalese ladies waiting with baited breath. The drums and the singing rang in my ears.
I felt faint.
And then out he came: small, smiley and utterly untouched by the cacophony around him. I’d had my cameraphone poised for the past five minutes but I calmly put it in my back pocket: I felt compelled to see this one event with my own eyes rather than mediated through a lens.
Did he see me? Probably not. Did he hear my quietly offered Namaste? I hope so. He was ushered into the car and whisked away in a moment.
As we turned from the fence and went to walk down the steps back down to the roadway, my friend commented that I looked like I’d been hit in the eye. It would seem my mascara had gone a little astray.
What did I take from the day?
That even though the spiritual so often has to sit within a secular environment for functional or security reasons it doesn’t mean that all is lost. From what I’ve read of his writings, the Dalai Lama himself is a largely down to earth man. His teachings are as applicable, in principle, to an atheist or a Catholic as they are to a practicing Buddhist.
But I couldn’t help wondering whether he would rather be wandering in the public park up the road where the elderly Nepalese residents of our town like to gather and talk. Or how he felt about all the security around him and whether he felt it was interfering with his work. He talks so much about how powerful an opponent to kindness and real understanding fear is.
My friend and I then did what any good tourist would and went to a coffee shop to ruminate on what we’d seen and heard. The Dalai Lama had radiated a smile that I wore all day.
I think I’m still wearing it now.
And so my tour continues – maybe I’ll find somewhere to call home at some point, maybe I won’t – but it’s not the arrival that’s important to me, it’s the journey.
A colourful welcome from the Buddhist Community Centre UK in Aldershot
Just days after visiting Aldershot, His Holiness the Dalai Lama reacts joyfully to a cake presented by President and Mrs. Bush in honor of his upcoming 80th birthday during a luncheon at the Bush Center in Dallas, Texas, USA on July 1, 2015. Photo/Bush Center
