All posts tagged: balance

Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust – Why Every Adult Needs to see the New Pixar Animation

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Pixar’s new animation Inside Out is about an 11 year old girl named Riley and five of her emotions – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. These emotions live in headquarters in her mind influencing her actions, guarding her personality and storing memories. The story sees Riley’s family relocating from Minnesota to San Francisco after her father gets a new job, and the trials and tribulations her emotions go through as she settles into a new home and school life. From Director Peter Docter (Monsters Inc, Up) , “the idea was to portray what happens in the human mind as emotions set in, and depict it through animation.” The subtext is rich with wisdom and repeatedly expresses the rich repercussions determination and positive thinking produce. Yet it also explores the power of sadness and inevitability of growing up. Leaving your childhood self behind and embracing change to allow personal growth and renewal to happen. Inside Out is a poignant, smart and uplifting emotional roller coaster that will make you laugh and cry. An exhilarating battle between Joy and …

Poetry Friday

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Then a Woman said, speak to us of Joy and Sorrow. And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, “Joy is greater thar sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits, …

9 tips to help manage your time online

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Generation Y (also known as the millennials) are estimated to pick up their phones 150 times a day, checking emails, whatsapp, social media and logging into a million and one different user apps from Tinder, to Clue, Wunderlist to Framatic. No wonder this highly distracting online world can leave us feeling lost and overwhelmed, inadequate and insecure. For these very reasons, it’s more important than ever before to take control of our digital dependency and be more selective with the time we spend online. Streamline the beneficial stuff and start to quit the useless distractions. Here are nine easy tips to help you become more mindful and take a healthier approach to your online habits – Use a blocking tool such as Anti-Social or StayFocusd to improve your productivity by locking your computer away from social media sites for a certain amount of time, time of day or day of the week. You’ll be amazed at how much more you get done when you can focus without distraction. Get into the habit of putting your phone down at 9pm and not checking it again until …

Mindfulness Meditation

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A few years back I took a ten week course in Positive Psychology taught by Tim LeBon. This most recent branch of psychology (founded by Martin Seligman in 1998), studies the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. Over the ten weeks we covered topics such as happiness and positive emotions, flourishing, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment, strength, resilience, savouring, wisdom, mindfulness and meditation. For the first time in my life I was challenged to meditate. For a whole week I had to dedicate 15 minutes of my time to doing nothing. Thinking about nothing and focusing on nothing but my breath. For anyone with an overactive, highly obsessive and slightly neurotic mind (which is probably most of us!), this sounds a lot easier than it is. That said, I survived the challenge and noticed such an impact on my mind (outside of the meditation zone), I have since made a conscious effort to practise mindfulness mediation at least five times a week. I can honestly say it’s something I will do for the rest of my life. …

Action for Happiness

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You may have seen the latest ITV report ‘Tonight: Is Britain Happy?‘ an up-to-date exploration on the science of happiness, which showed (for those that were in any doubt) that improved wellbeing really does make a difference to our happiness levels. An organisation that have been pioneering the art of happiness since 2010 is Action for Happiness. Action for Happiness is ‘a movement of people committed to building a happier society. We want to see a fundamentally different way of life where people care less about what they can get for themselves and more about the happiness of others.’ They provide practical ideas (see their collection of posters below) to enable people to take action in different areas of their lives – at home, at work or in the community. Encouraging members to form local groups and take action together. Our genes influence around 50% of the variation in our personal happiness and our circumstances (like income and environment) about 10%. Which means as much as 40% is accounted for by our daily activities and the conscious choices we make. So our actions really do …

Talking to your Future Self

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MindBodyGreen.com is an interesting website founded by Jason Wachob, Carver Anderson and Tim Glenister. Their mission is to “Revitalise the way people eat, move and live” – providing an ongoing conversation about health, with useful tools and information to help you achieve the life you want. I discovered a great list on their site recently, a list of things my future self would want me to know. The exercise encourages a more balanced life by taking a mindful approach to how we spend our time now and what impact that will have on our future. Take a look for yourself and think about what your future self might want you to know – http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-15318/50-things-my-future-self-wants-me-to-know.html 

Go on I Dare You!

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Welcome to Technotox. A revolution to reconnect with our inner selves, to fight the digital age of smartphones, iPads, Sky TV and social media and rediscover our spirituality. By switching off to the distractions and drains of modern technology and learning to look within ourselves, we can begin to explore our inner sanctum, rediscover our intuition and nuture our own wellbeing. This makes us happier, more spiritual and satisfied individuals, better able to love and succeed in a world full of distractions. For regular ideas and inspiration, please sign up to our newsletter back on the homepage.