by Kay Spare Login | Feb 13, 2024 | be well, heart, mental health, mind-body, neurology, resilience, strategy, workingwithkids
The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice. Although it was cold, he was happy in there. It was, after all, his cage.
Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with kind words and loving thoughts.
“I like this Dinosaur,” thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. “Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny. He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.”
“I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur,” thought the Dinosaur. “She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice. She is also a free spirit which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.”
“But he can be so distant and so peculiar at times,” thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. “He is also overly fond of things. Are all Dinosaurs so overly fond of things?”
“But her mind skips from here to there so quickly,” thought the Dinosaur. “She is also uncommonly keen on shopping. Are all Lovely Other Dinosaurs so uncommonly keen on shopping?”
“I will forgive his peculiarity and his concern for things,” thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur, “for they are part of what makes him a richly charactered individual.”
“I will forgive her skipping mind and her fondness for shopping,” thought the Dinosaur, “for she fills our life with beautiful thoughts and wonderful surprises. Besides, I am not unkeen on shopping either.”
Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old. Look at them. Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.
And that, my friends, is how it is with love.
Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together. For the sun is warm. And the world is a beautiful place.
by Kay Cooke | Apr 1, 2023 | be well, mental health, mind-body, neurology, next generation, NLP, parenting, parents, psychology, resilience, workingwithkids
“I’m bored.”
Means “I don’t know what to do”?
Which implies “I need to know what to do”?
And therefore “please help me to avoid this feeling of uncertainty.”
TIME is the commodity and EMOTION is the currency; when we have time, we want to fill it will good feelings. And we can.
Yet a cruel outcome of fast-fix good feelings is ‘learned helplessness (“I’m bored – fix my feelings”)’ nourished by passive feel-goods like TV, social media, sugar, alcohol …
Phew!
Anxiety is dissolved by passive feel-goods. But not for long because we never resolve the nagging feeling that we dislike ‘that boredom space’.
Such a shame!
So many people feeling miserable and trapped within the solutions of quick-fixing profiteers.
Because!
Our brains are so easily trained, wired and re-wired.
Rewired by passive learning (the less aware we are of the boredom programming, the easier the acceptance).
Rewired by active learning and creative engagement with boredom to experience new and novel handling of uncertainty:
problem solving – how will I make that old sofa more comfortable?
creation – what kind of meal can I make out of these ingredients?
imagination – what will my garden look like if I dig up the flower bed?
experimentation – which windowsill has best suited my house plant?
exploration – let’s visit that woodland walk I heard about.
discovery – which food upset my digestion?
role play – how does it feel to pretend to be like my favourite calm person?
learning – which thoughts motivate me most?
Boredom!
Provides training ground for THRIVING through adapting and adjusting to difficulties and disappointments. Thriving brains know more conscious CHOICES.
Boredom!
Also provides training ground for SURVIVING through having our attention controlled by someone else. Surviving brains revert to auto-pilot and can’t make conscious choices.
Boredom!
Is a curious description of a state of human consciousness where there is space to be trained into helplessness and survival behaviour, or it is a space to build resourcefulness and resilience for a thriving future.
Thrive!
Let your children – and your own inner child – handle boredom actively …
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