How Much Choice Do We Have Over How We Feel?

More than you might imagine! 

It is the greatest freedom we have as humans, to choose how to feel. It is the freedom that Viktor Frankl talks about in his book 'Man's Search for Meaning' an account of what he learned from his time in a Nazi Concentration Camp.

My favourite quote from the book is:

 'A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom of so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.' 

 The salvation of man is through love and in love - that's a bold statement to make isn't it? How do you feel about that? Is it true? Can love save us all from everything?

As a Psychotherapist I have a view that love, in the end, is actually all we should be concerned with - however it HAS to include the love of self - a cliche right? No one can love you until you love yourself is just one of those overused things that we all say 'yeah I know' to in a bored sort of a way.

So what has this got to do with choice over how we feel? 

We all have a choice over whether we will choose a loving thought or a damaging thought and we can start with ourselves here in a very practical way so that we can really examine whether it works or not to always employ love as our first thought.

As an aside 'love' can feel like a very loaded word to some people and you may find that it is uncomfortable to use it - in these cases I ask my clients to use the word 'life' or 'living' as a substitute. So you can ask (for example) 'am I bringing more life to my body/mind/soul?' instead.

So if we can save ourselves (as Frankl believes) through love, from depression, stress and anxiety we need to examine what that might actually look like.

Employing loving thoughts to see you through any difficult period of your life is unbelievably powerful and effective but it doesn't start and end with muttering 'I love myself' now and again in an attempt to fool your subconscious into feeling amazing all the time.

Employing loving thoughts to work for you covers EVERY area of your life:

Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your body? 

• Do you give it food that helps it to perform at it's best? 
• Do you ensure it has enough sleep (as often as you can)? 
• Do you keep it moving and keep it challenged and keep it lean and strong?

 Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your mind? 

• Do you treat it as you would treat another with respect and kindness? 
• Do you forgive yourself when you have treated yourself badly and look to address it in the future? 
• Do you look for the best of your thoughts and concentrate on those? 

Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your soul?

• Do you give it time to rest? 
• Do you give it space to rejuvenate? 
• Do you give it time to enjoy the things that keep it nourished? 

Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your journey? 

• Do you respect the past and know that it has got you here today?
• Do you respect that your life is finite and that it must be lived whilst you have the chance?
• Do you answer the call of your life to move forward and to express itself?

Are you being loving towards your relationships, your friends and family, your work, your hobbies and activities....EVERY single area of life can be looked at in terms of self love and how often and to what level you are choosing a loving thought. 

How often do you choose how you feel by opting for a loving thought about yourself or another instead of a damaging thought? Or are you living by default, not consciously choosing your thoughts about anything but letting them run riot and then having the fall out of the upsetting feelings that result? Most of us have done this for a large portion of our lives so don't feel bad about this or judged by it, just know that there IS a choice, no matter how little evidence of that you see currently.

Is it easy to choose how to feel? Yes and No. Yes, when you get the hang of it...but no it's not always that easy because it does take quite a lot of work and effort to continuously choose our thoughts in order to affect how we feel, the easy option is just to sink into feeling rubbish about ourselves or our lives or to let a train of thought take hold and drag us down until it feels like we have no control at all.

This is the subconscious way of living your life at the moment, it can change into a new subconscious way of being but it needs to become conscious first in order for that change to occur. Much like driving a car, you have to consciously learn the skill first and then you drive automatically without thinking about it much.

We are so used to that cycle of living life at a subconscious level where our thoughts are left unchecked that sometimes that we have forgotten that we have a choice...we can stop thinking that way and choose a more helpful thought, those thoughts will gather momentum in exactly the same way as a depressing or worried or stressed thought does and eventually we gather enough momentum to dramatically affect how we feel.

So in answer to the initial question of how much choice we have over how we feel, we have TOTAL choice. That is not to say that we shouldn't ever allow sadness, grief or worry into our lives, these are signs of love too...but what it does mean is that we never have to stay in sadness for longer than we are willing to, let the sadness live its purpose, let it indicate to you how deeply you feel and then, when you are ready, know that you can choose a new thought that helps you move forward towards happiness again.

To join my Facebook Group Positive Potential and get support and advice, time to share and celebrate and to generally meet some great people please click here.

To find out more about the 10 week Positive Potential programme to end Stress, Depression and Anxiety please go here.

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Love Nova xxx

10 Tips that will Quickly Move you OUT of Stressful Thinking

What is Stressful Thinking? How do we know when we are engaging in it and how can we move out of it quickly so that things don't get worse?!

Stressful thinking is basically any train of thought that is creating a feeling of unhappiness in your mind or body. Not to be confused with uncomfortable thoughts...uncomfortable thoughts are (often) those that challenge us or ask us to look at something in a different way - these are productive, useful and informative - but they can give way to stressful thinking if we get stuck in an uncomfortable thought that we don't know how to deal with.

How do we know when we are engaging with stressful thinking? 

• Do you feel worried about something that you currently cannot change?
• Are you overthinking something to the point where you are no longer able to take action because you are too caught up in the thought itself?
• Are you caught up in past thinking or predicted future thinking?
• Are you feeling anxious or upset by a thought every time it comes into your mind?

These are examples of Stressful Thinking and they are never helpful. That saying 'don't worry it might never happen' is particularly apt here! Stressful thinking triggers the fight or flight response which leaves you in a place where you are unable to make creative decisions - the type of decisions that may change things around for you if only you can relax enough to access them.

So how can you quickly move out of Stressful Thinking and into Creative Thinking?  Here are my tips to do just that!

1) As soon as you start to feel stressed about a concern, a situation, a worry or a person remind yourself that this is just a thought....at the moment it has no power over you...the thought can be changed which will change the situation...it is just a thought.

2) Give yourself a time when you will address this area of concern and put it in your diary, until that time keep telling yourself that you have this under control and do not need to engage in thinking about it until that time.

3) When you have the time sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write in the middle of the paper the thing that has resulted in you feeling stressed. Around this write down every thought that has come up for you, no matter how small, how huge, how ridiculous you may feel it is...write it down. Then go through every one of the thoughts and rate how likely it is to happen on a scale of 1-10. Take the thoughts that you have rated over a 6 and look at them in more detail - put an action next to them that you can take in the next day or so that will alleviate the stress that you associate with it. 

4) Imagine the best possible outcome for the stressful thought you have and imagine it happening in vivid detail - like a daydream, imagine how you will FEEL when this happens and hold onto this feeling so that it will eventually replace the stressful feeling when you imagine it.

5) Catch your stressful thought when it occurs and ask yourself (outloud if necessary...when you are alone!) 'What would be a slightly better thought than this?' Then think of how you can move your train of thought into a more productive and creative place. For example: if you were stressed about an upcoming house move and everytime you thought of the amount of work you have to do you came out in a sweat...catch the thought that you have prior to the feeling occurring. The thought might be something like 'oh no I've only got three days left and I have so much to do', consciously and deliberately tweak this thought to something that feels slightly better but also believable, it might change to 'three days left, I will start tonight by asking for some help', This changes it from a stressful thought to an uncomfortable thought...one is unhelpful, the other is productive and tells your mind that it can rest because you are taking action.

6) Tell someone - even the most stressful thoughts can be calmed by sharing them with someone. There is something about the act of getting thoughts out of your head and into the open that immediately changes them. You can do the same thing by journalling if you would prefer not to tell anyone (burn the paper afterwards if it is top secret - but still get the thought out of your head and into a different place). 

7) Laugh - not in a cruel or self berating way, but find something about the stressful thinking that is so over the top that you can laugh at it at relieve the stress and find a different way to look at it. 

8) Do a visualisation - when stressful thoughts come into my head I employ my imagination to create little happy people to locate the stressful thought and take it out...literally I imagine the happy people moving into my head and taking the thought (which I imagine as a slow moving, dark coloured lump of mush) and destroying it or transforming it into a lighter, less stressful colour, shape or image. As daft as it sounds it works! 

9) Be mindful - When stressful thinking starts just remind yourself that right here, right now you are fine. In this exact moment you are here and you are ok. Look at something in the room, study it, feel your feet on the floor, your body in the place that it is and notice that you are ok. Right here and right now is the only thing that actually exists...everything else has either already happened and cannot be changed or has not happened yet and therefore maybe never will or can still be changed.

10) Get physical - move your body, relax your shoulders, notice how the stressful thinking has affected your body and change it - we can change both the physical and the mental and because one affects the other you can start with either to effect a different feeling. Go for a walk, stretch, dance, get a massage, make a physical change that will enable your body and then your mind to relax. 

Love Nova xxx

Join my Facebook group Positive Potential for more free support and advice

To book a FREE 30 min Positivity Kickstarter Session with me click here

What Causes Depression and is Knowing the Cause Important?

We all have basic needs as humans and if one of these is not being met it can collapse the foundations of who we are and leave us in disarray and feeling unsafe - a major cause of depression.

What are our basic human needs?

According to Maslow and the Hierarchy of Needs we all need the basics to be covered first - these are the needs of the body - to be clothed, fed, in reasonable health and functioning as we should at a Physiological level.

After this is covered we need to feel safe, then to feel loved and as though we belong, then to love ourselves and feel we are worthwhile and then to take this to the highest level of needs which is to feel that we are 'self actualised' that we are moral, creative beings who are happily creating our lives as we want them to be.

The problem comes when one of these areas is either not being fulfilled or that we are unable to view them as being fulfilled (even if others would think that we DO already possess these things).

Depression often originates at the safety level (although it can also stem from any of the levels at any time if we are not aware of our own triggers). This means that Depression is usually triggered by an event or thoughts that threatens our sense of safety - even if that is only recognised on a subconscious level and even if that sense of safety is not literally being threatened (there is no gun to your head but you still feel afraid for example).

When we have a lack of money, when our job has changed, when we have a new baby or a new relationship, when we have a relationship breakdown, when we move house, when we experience changes to our health - these are all common times at which we can perceive our safety as being threatened temporarily or (depending on how robust the others levels of our life currently are) we may even see safety as being absent completely. This is scary and it leads to scary thoughts that start off a downwards spiral that we need to catch quickly and turn around if depression is to be avoided. This is why those who think positively (either because they always do that or because they have learnt the skill and art of practising this regularly) are less likely to experience depression - they stop the downwards spiral quickly and naturally through various means and various behaviours. 

But what about if none of the above applies to you? Firstly it is important to check whether they are no longer an issue but were still the trigger for the initial emotional changes that led to depression (I cover that later on in the post) and secondly it may be that Depression has been triggered at a different level and we can look at that more now...

As previously mentioned depression can occur when any of the levels in the hierarchy are missing or any element of each level. Have a look at the common triggers for depression below and try to identify where it may have stemmed from...remember that often if depression has been there for a while there can be a whole chain of events that is triggered after the first trigger...what may have started as a sense of isolation may have led to a lack of self esteem, a lack of spontaneity, anger and blame etc, what we are looking for is the initial trigger that started the depression.

Have a look at the list but look at it from the point of view of when the depression FIRST occurred. Think back to when you felt ok and try to ask yourself what happened just before things changed for you...this is your initial trigger.

The common reasons for depression occurring are as follows:

• Loneliness and Isolation 
• Blame and Anger 
• Lack of Control 
• Criticism of self or others
• Complaining & Focusing on the negative 
• Comparison to others 
• Overexposure to negativity 
• No direction, lack of meaningful goals
• Giving in to fear
• Failure to be 'in the moment' - living in the past or the predicted future
• Lack of social support
• Recent stressful events
• Family history of depression
• Relationship problems
• Financial strain
• Childhood trauma or abuse
• Alcohol or drug abuse
• Unemployment, underemployment or changing jobs/roles
• Health problems or chronic pain
• Recently quitting smoking
• Death of a loved one
• Inability to effectively deal with stress

You can see from this list that they all refer to a human need that is not being met - in order to feel better you need to meet the need that is missing and this is why knowing the cause can be extremely helpful. You need to know what you are missing before you can fill the gap.

There are of course, some needs that cannot be met in the usual way - for example if depression is as a result of grief, sadly you cannot meet the need of having that person back. The depression will in time and with the right support, give way to a different emotion and many people in this situation divert their depression by putting all their energy into something new that in some way or another that is right for them feels better than the emotions they felt before - perhaps by fundraising, helping others, living life differently etc. I am covering this briefly here not because I don't care about this or think it is not worthy of covering in more depth but because I cannot give it justice in such a short space...if this is something you would like to explore further or get some support with please contact me or look for local support services in your area.

The majority of the time though the causes of Depression can be worked with relatively quickly and easily if you are willing to move forward.

Knowing the cause is the first step, taking action to ensure things change is the next step.

What has been the cause of depression for you? Can you identify it? Is it helpful to you to know this initial cause? What action can you take to address the missing factors in your hierarchy? Do you need some help to identify what changed for you?

To join in the discussion at Positive Potential, the facebook group for those who both support those with depression, anxiety and stress and who explore the issues in a safe place please click on the link and ask to join.

Positive Potential is a self development programme that aims to end depression, stress and anxiety with my support and lots of helpful materials. If you would like to find out more about the different levels of support available please click here.

Love Nova xxx

Is what you are experiencing Stress or Anxiety? You May be Surprised!

Often when I am working with clients they may come feeling 'stressed' or they may explain that they are feeling 'anxious'. What has surprised me and this is why I am writing about it, it that so many times the two are mixed up - someone who is feeling anxious in their words is actually not experiencing anxiety at all but they DO have a very high stress score.

Other times when people come saying they feel stressed the stress score is normal but the depression or anxiety score is high...so why does this happen and what is the difference?

Stress is often used as a catch all term for feeling like you are not coping as well as you used to. You know that something has changed but you are not sure what but you do find yourself acting somewhat out of character or feeling 'not quite yourself'.

To find out what your Stress, Anxiety or Depression score is you can test it yourself here using my slightly adapted version of the DASS scale. The results might surprise you! 

As a quick breakdown of the difference in the symptoms see which of the following set of statements you agree with the most: 

SET 1

• I find it hard to wind down
• I've been overreacting to things I wouldn't normally overreact to recently
• I've felt a nervous type of energy in my body
• I am annoyed whenever I am interrupted from what I am doing

SET 2

• I have been aware that my heart has been racing
• I have been worried about being in new situations
• I have felt on the edge of panic at times
• My mouth has felt quite dry

SET 3

• Getting motivated has been hard recently
• I've found it hard to be positive
• I'm taking a lot of unnecessary risks lately
• I find it harder to make decisions than I used to

If you identify more with SET 1 then you are identifying more with stress symptoms
If you identify more with SET 2 then this is a sign of anxiety
SET 3 is describing signs of depression

You may have noticed that lots of the statements are quite similar to one another - for example feeling a nervous energy in your body and feeling on the edge of panic or feeling your heart racing are all so close in their descriptions that it may be hard to know which it is that you are feeling.

Why is it important to distinguish between them? 

It's not necessarily important - but it can be helpful. If a child has a learning difficulty we generally don't leave it at that, we seek to learn exactly what that difficulty is so that we can help them in the appropriate way and employ the specific tools that work for that situation.

It is the same with your wellbeing - if you know that what you have been feeling is not stress at all but actually depression, some of the ways in which you may approach the journey back to wellness will be the same but others will be different and more specific. It just helps to know exactly what is occurring.

To work with me through my 10wk programme Positive Potential to end Stress, Depression and Anxiety please email me or click through to the website to learn more.

I offer support and help through my Facebook group for free too, why not join and have a look at the amazing people there who are all willing to talk and support.

Love Nova xxx

The Beast that is Depression and how to Tame it

When I had post natal depression I could describe it no other way than to say that it was as though my world had fallen apart inside me.

My logical brain was locked in battle with my depression brain which told me a completely different story to the one that I knew I should be telling myself.

It wasn't helped by comments like 'yeah but you haven't got it as bad as some people have' or 'well you seem fine to me'...of course I SEEM fine I'm doing that for YOU, I'm being FINE so that you don't see the world of sadness that I live in and move away from me.

It's hard in some ways to recall the feelings that I had, I've never had them again with the same force as before...I get 'twinges' now and again but I recognise them now and I do something about them damn quick because what I do know is that I never want to feel that way again.

I remember the fog...the loss of meaning...the loss of hope...the grief over no longer being 'me' or the me I knew before. I remember the feeling that I wished with all my might that I would wake up the next day and feel better again and the resignation when I didn't.

I remember the guilt too because I had this amazing baby, this beautiful boy who slept well, who ate well, who was well and who continues to this day to be completely incredible...how could I, how could I feel so down when I had him in my life? It felt like a total betrayal, I was betraying him to feel that way when he was so wonderful...would he know I felt that way? Would he blame me or feel that in some way he was to blame? Why couldn't I just feel elated and happy and normal and safe?

There were several factors at play for me that pre-disposed me to PND:

• The first was that I had got pregnant (all planned and wanted) very early into a relationship with someone much older who I actually wasn't that sure about.

• I wasn't near any friends or family, I was very isolated and lonely.

• I knew in my heart of hearts that the man I was engaged to was not going to marry me and I was already feeling rejected and hurt by that.

• I had a fairly traumatic birth (my son came out back to back, his umbilical cord was tied in a knot and they had to suddenly get him out very quickly).

• I was still quite young and overwhelmed (I was 24 and I didn't know any other mothers my age).

• We moved to another country soon after my son was born and I was even more isolated.

So what helped me get better?

1) Talking every single day to someone who cared and didn't mind if I had very little to say (my mum called every day).

2) Focusing on helping other mums in the same situation I was in (I started a magazine so that other mums who were feeling lonely could connect and read articles and find out where local groups were running).

3) Forcing myself to exercise every day - a walk with the pram, doing a yoga DVD whilst my son slept, anything I could.

4) My NCT group...although I often felt just as alone when I was with them I met up with them every week and every week I would feel a little bit better.

5) Focusing on how much I loved my child, focusing on making him laugh and smile (because that made me laugh and smile), focusing on his fingers around mine, focus, focus, focus...being just in the moment.

6) Sorting out my diet - I ate less sugar, drank more green tea, took a seaweed supplement and ate less at each meal so I didn't feel too full (that gave me less energy).

7) Never acknowledging that depression had a hold...I always just looked to feeling better and placed my attention on that.

8) Wise words from a friend that I repeated like a mantra 'this too will pass' (it did).

9) Listening to music - loudly and only upbeat music!

10) Meditation - I didn't get it at first, I didn't see the point or feel I had the time. After a while I made the time - I took my son to a childminder for an hour twice a week and used that hour to meditate and feel good again...after a while the meditation turned into the most amazing experience, I still have never felt the same depth of joy as I did after one particular meditation session...It was pretty magical!

Have you ever experienced depression? What helped you? What 'brought you back'? 

If you would like to join my Facebook Group Positive Potential where we support those with Stress, Anxiety and Depression and exchange ideas on how to improve the wellbeing of humans in general, please click the link and ask to join (anyone can join by the way...it's a closed group because I wanted to ensure that anything shared there is not seen publicly, only by the group).

If you would like to find out more about how my Coaching and Psychotherapy services might be able to help you or someone you know, please visit my website Love Living

Love Nova xxx

How you Experience Me is Not Who I Am

When you come to experience someone, perhaps for the first time, perhaps the first of many times (each is the first time you have experienced them in this moment), what you experience is not who they are...

That person that you really don't like...that person you love...that person who annoys you...that waitress who flirts all the time....that bloke who can always do things just that little bit better than you (apparently)...they are all people that you are experiencing, but what you experience is not who they are...

Take you on a good day: 

You got up and your hair looked great, you were awake and fresh and feeling vibrant, you had a lovely breakfast, you popped into the local coffee shop to pick up a snack and a drink and because you feel so great you smile widely at the person behind the counter. You ask how they are, you wish them a good day, you are genuine, you are happy and you wanted them to feel good too...more than likely they will experience you as a bubbly, bright person that they enjoy seeing and left them feeling a little bit better than they did before as a result of having met you. Next time you see them they might even give you better service than normal, greet you with a smile, remember your order...

Take you on a bad day: 

The kids woke you up at some un-Godly hour, you didn't have time for a shower, you are tired, you have an appointment you need to get to and you are running late, the boiler broke this morning so you know that you can't even have a shower when you get home (unless you fancy a cold one) and the day has already gone to pot before you even started it. This time you go into the local coffee shop and snap at the person serving you because they are taking ages to notice that you are standing there (too busy chatting...what are you invisible??), they get the order wrong so they have to start again and now you are even more late, you scowl at them and pretend that you mean it when you say 'thank you' even though you think they did a sloppy job and should quite frankly get fired. More than likely the person who served you will experience you as moody, ungrateful, unaware that they were trying their best, that you think you are better than them, that you are looking tired and grubby and they would be glad if they never saw you again...

Both are different experiences of you, they are not who you are. You are not bubbly and bright, nor are you grumpy and annoyed - they are expressions of you at a certain point of time that reflect what was going on for you at that moment, they lead to an experience of you in another's eyes but they are not YOU. 

When you come across someone who holds a view of you because of a moment in time when they experienced you, try to remember that their impressions are formed in that moment and can last a lifetime unless they regularly experience you in another way after that (and even then it can be hard to shift first impressions).

By the same token, when you experience someone and you note that in that moment they are a reflection of tiredness, grumpiness, hostility or anything else you experience as negative that this is not who they are - this is just how you came to experience them in that one moment.

How will someone experience you today? How will you experience others? Will you see through your experience to something deeper in them? 

It is also important to note that how YOU are will affect how you experience another. If you are full of self-doubt and meet another who you find to be unkind towards you (or not, depending on your own personality) because your experience is coloured by your own emotions and your self doubt will muddy the waters of your perception in that moment.

Here is a quick checklist for showing up as your best self:

1. Remember that the first impression you give can end up being the ONLY impression someone ever holds of you - make it a great one!

2. Others appear to you as a reflection of their own current experience - leave room for your first impressions to be wrong when you meet someone.

3. Your own state of mind will affect how you see another - before you decide what you think of them, check in with yourself and see what might be going on that could have biased your view.

When have you experienced someone in a way that has coloured your judgement of them? When have you felt misunderstood for who you really are? What do you do to show up as your best self? 

Why life demands Miracle, Mystery and Authority

D.H Lawrence asks the question 'Will mankind always demand miracle, mystery and authority?'

Is that true? Even in today's society? Do we really still have a need for these things or is that just a past thought that is no longer true for us today in a world of science and logic?

Is it true that we really demand Miracles?

A quick search on the UK's Amazon website reveals that there are 39,367 books listed with the word 'miracle' in the title...something tells me we are still searching for a miracle, that we are still innately attracted to the idea that miracles exist.

A miracle is defined in the good old Oxford Dictionary as:

'An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and therefore attributed to a divine agency'

or

'A remarkable event or development that brings very welcome consequences'

or

'An exceptional product or achievement, or an outstanding example of something'

It is perhaps no surprise then that the most watched TV shows ever in the world are the Superbowl championships in America, that the most watched TV broadcast EVER in the UK was the 1966 England World Cup win or that the most popular shows on TV now include all the reality shows that look for singing talent (you know the ones I mean I'm sure!) - we are constantly still drawn, like moths to a flame to any 'remarkable event or development that brings very welcome consequences'...they are miracles that give us hope and we can inhale that hope into our own lives as we watch the miracle unfold, as we wait with baited breath to see how things will turn out, as we cross our fingers, wiggle around on the edge of our seats in anticipation and feel more and more alive as that miracle feeds every soul who is watching/reading or experiencing in some way the amazing events that we see. It gives us hope that good things can happen, it gives us proof that good exists.

We LOVE to hope. Perhaps that is the meaning behind our need for miracles - we demand hope and miracles are proof that hope is worthwhile. It is worth holding out for more, for better, for the outside chance...because miracles do happen. If we believe in miracles, that belief can be the driving force that keeps us trying again and again to achieve something we want, to get well even if we are really poorly, to get up and dust ourselves down even when the going gets tough because we have hope, we have a belief in the fact that a miracle may just happen to us.

I'm sure it is no coincidence that the most popular self help book of all time is 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' a collection of stories that bring hope and explore the best examples of humanity - a collection of mini miracles for us to draw from, learn from and feel good about.

We need hope, we need miracles...it is our Chicken Soup for the Soul.

However, these are 'everyday' miracles, the David and Goliath moments that bring us together and bring us to life...what of the miracles that are described in the initial description in the dictionary?

Are we just as comfortable with the idea that a miracle is:


'An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and therefore attributed to a divine agency'


The number of books sold on the subjects which explore this idea would suggest that whilst we may look to understand the mystery through science, logic, common sense and our own experiences we are still hugely enthralled by there being a 'higher power'. I recently read Jon Ronson's book 'The Men who Stare at Goats' and it seems that even within the realms of the CIA we are still looking for a power beyond ourselves to show that we can harness the power of miracles and hope that they may really exist - or that that higher power exists.

Is that then why religion still exists? Is that where our need for Authority comes in? Is our ultimate goal to discover that over and above any human authority figure we may look to, that there is a higher authority than that? A divine authority even?

Before we get into that...lets look at whether we demand mystery...

If mystery is defined by the fact that we need the unknown, that we need something to ponder on, something unsolved to put our minds to exploring and coming up with answers for then I would say that we can almost definitely answer that yes, we demand mystery. We LOVE a good mystery!

Do ghosts exist? Why are we here? How did life begin and why? Does he love me? Why do we die? What happens after we die? What is love? 

Every time we ask a question related to something we don't understand we are attempting to solve a mystery...even if it is only a mystery to ourselves...what is MY purpose, why do I keep procrastinating? Why is this rash on my face? Etc.

So there is mystery for as long as there are still questions...but do we need it?

To answer that we need to look at what would happen if there was no mystery. Imagine you wake up one morning and everything you ever wanted to know had been answered for you...imagine you could go to your computer and have a programme where you typed in any question you could possibly ever have and get an answer....

hmmm...sound like something we already have? Yup...we have this already, we have the answers to every question at our fingertips, it's called Google...so why do we feel like we haven't? Is it because we don't have one definitive answer to our questions? Is it because we have in fact got MANY answers? If we have a myriad of possibilities in terms of what answer we might find is it true therefore we have no real answers, only partial answers, only options for answers? Even the most seemingly definite of answers can be subjective if we want them to be - think of the person who has been told that they have incurable cancer only to find that actually it was curable because they no longer have it. Think of the person who was born a boy only to find that actually they were a girl in a boy's body...is there anything definitive at all in life and do we like it that way?

The moment we think we have the answers, more questions pop up. We thought we had it all sorted with the Big Bang theory....nope, that is still evolving as an answer too!

Perhaps the reason we will always have mystery (and want it) and will never have all the answers is because our truth is subjective and that's what we love about it - it means things can always change, it means there is always room for a miracle!

My truth on what is right and wrong is not the same truth for another. Mystery is there because we do not all experience life in the same way or through the same eyes or the same experiences.

I think a bit of mystery makes us feel more alive, it gives us a game to play, a childlike excitement that the answers are out there if we go looking for them, like a giant treasure hunt.

It's a bit like a relationship that has gone stale because there is no more mystery...life gets stale and boring when there is nothing new to bring to it...mystery is newness...we love something brand new or at least the possibility of it.

Do we demand Authority? 

As humans we strive to create answers to the miracles of life and expose the truths behind its mystery and we need someone in authority to deliver those answers before we will believe them.

There are so many aspects to Authority and the psychology connected to it that I cannot explore them all here...so for the purposes of keeping this as short as possible I have presented just one idea - that of Authority being our way of diminishing responsibility.

We demand that there is someone or something higher up the chain that we can blame if things go wrong:

'he told me to do it', 'life didn't give me any other option', 'God told me it was the right path'.

I think generally we demand authority because we don't want to feel responsible.

We even assign God this way out...'humanity is the way it is because I told them not to eat the apple and they did...NOT MY FAULT', really? Even God gets to blame someone else? What kind of an example is that to set? 

We want someone to tell us what to do, what the boundaries are, where is safe to explore - partly because if it goes wrong it is not our fault but also because we want to minimize other risks (not just the risk of having to be responsible), the risk of taking the wrong career path, the wrong turning on our way to somewhere new, marrying the wrong person etc.

Authority is in demand because it takes the pressure off us to make choices and also ensures that those choices, should they turn out not to be as great as we thought they would be, are not our fault.

Why does life demand Miracles, Mystery and Authority?

Because life without miracles is life without hope, life without mystery is life without new experiences, life without authority is life without boundaries or a safety net.

Whilst this is by no means the fullest exploration of this subject - so many other things came up when I was writing it, like our need for control and how this contrasts with our need for mystery, our need for solid explanation and how this contrasts with our need for inexplicable miracles, it is however a starting point for further discussion...

What are your thoughts? Do you demand these things in your life? Why? What is the deeper need behind it for you? If you don't demand them why not?