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Barry Durdant-Hollamby is the founder of
The
Art of Change
 ,
a UK based organisation specialising in helping
individuals and corporations to effect sustainable,
holistic, positive change. He works intuitively on
a 1-1 or group basis and also conducts many talks
and seminars - all without notes or preparation!
Barry is also the author of three books the latest
of which is The
Male Agenda - a book which seeks to inspire
men to create greater life balance and happiness.
He is the father of two daughters and lives in the
South East of England. Contact welcome@artofchange.co.uk
Business, Health and
Truth
'Challenging The Monkey'
– Part 1
'Challenging The
Monkey' – Part 2
Challenging The
Monkey – Part 3 -the final part
Change and
Fatherhood
Creating Time
Meditation - Change
Tool Number 1!
Men and The
News
Selling Our Present For
An Illusory Future
What is
Success?
Men and The News
“ Where is the life we have lost in
living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in
information?” T. S. Eliot
I would like you to ask yourself some questions.
When was the last time you sat through a whole
edition of the news and came away feeling really
good or more empowered to take positive action?
When was the last time that you picked up the
newspaper and thought how pleasing those front page
stories were? When was the last time you went off
to work in the morning having digested the morning
news and thought how lucky you were to be living in
this wonderful, caring and safe world?
I used to watch the news every day. I used to
take newspapers and read daily what a terrible
place the world is, what dreadful people there are
all around us. It is only in the last couple of
years, since I have substantially reduced my intake
of news, that I have realised what a negative and
numbing effect this part of the media had been
having on me.
What is it about us men in particular that makes
the news so important? What is it that makes us
feel that the news has some vital bearing on our
everyday lives? What is it that makes us feel that
we are being irresponsible if we do not watch or
read the news? Are we afraid that we will somehow
lose touch with the ‘real’ world?
The questions I would like us to consider are
these. What is the real world? And how much of the
news that we watch, listen to or read has any
relevance to what is happening in our real
world?
I believe that continual updating from the news
makes men feel informed and important. The need to
feel informed is one thing - the need to feel
important is quite a different issue.
At work our importance is there for all to see.
But at home, we are just dad, husband, lover. It is
possible that this constant connection to important
world events gives us a feeling of power again.
Discussing wars, stock exchange crashes, deaths,
seems to lend weight to our discussions and may
help to make us feel more important. But is this
because we feel that without these important events
to discuss, we would have nothing of significance
to say to our partners or family? Is it that we do
not consider discussing such things as our feelings
or thoughts, interesting enough for anyone else to
hear? Is it that we feel empty without the stimulus
fed to us through papers and broadcasts, so empty
that we feel we have nothing of value to
contribute?
The news can also be used as a barrier. A
barrier that prevents proper sharing from taking
place. Ask some men about their fathers and you
will often hear tales of men stuck behind
broadsheets, or of faces glued to news bulletins on
the television.The news is commonly used as a way
of avoiding meaningful contact with the people we
most care about under the pretext that domestic
problems are unimportant in the bigger world
picture.
Better use of the news?
Imagine how you might feel if, for the rest of
the week, you reduced your input of news and
introduced more positive action such as reading a
good book, taking a few walks or sitting down with
the whole family to a meal. It may seem like a
scary thought to start with. But it’s also
possible that you will find yourself enjoying life
more.
You may find yourself going off to work in a
quite different frame of mind each morning. You may
find yourself talking to your partner and children
more and enjoying it, instead of cramming in
conversations between coming home, dinner or
watching television. You may find yourself taking
part in a far more rewarding sharing with those
people that are closest to you. You may find
yourself working through problems instead of
avoiding them. You may find yourself feeling
generally happier and less stressed.
And yet by doing this, by absorbing less
information, you will not suddenly have become an
uncaring man. You will not suddenly have become an
idiot with no understanding of world problems. You
will not suddenly have become a social outcast.
Neither will you find that your performance at work
is adversely affected.
You may find that changing your relationship to
the news in this way may help you to make better
use of the news that you do take in, finding ways
in which you may really want and be able to help.
You might even find it in you to effect one small
change in your own life that leads to much greater
happiness for someone close to you. Paradoxically,
this one alteration in daily life could help you to
become an even more responsible human being.
By seeking to understand fully where our
responsibilities begin and end we can fulfil our
own purposes that much better. As we spend a little
less time worrying about what is going on 5,000
miles away with people we’ve never known and
are never likely to meet, we may become more aware
of what is going on very close to us. Consequently
we gain greater awareness of the various problems
and joys that our life is bringing us. Turning our
back on our own personal problems, replacing them
with far more ‘important’ issues such as
world news, will never make them go away. It just
postpones the time until they will inevitably have
to be faced.
It is worth remembering that our own problems
and those of our family are the most important
problems that exist in our ‘real world’.
This is where we have to focus our attention if we
are to serve mankind in the best way that we can.
We cannot expect to see peace and happiness in the
world if we cannot provide it fully for ourselves
under our own roof. Our own life is our battlefield
and it is up to us to find peace here if we want
there to be any reflection of peace around us
‘out there’.
News is important. It has a vital role to play
in society. It is the spread of information. If we
can use this information effectively, by turning
our reactions to bad news into positive action
where desirable and detaching where not, then we
will all benefit. But, like success, money or the
future, we must not let news control us. We need to
remind ourselves that fulfilling our potential is
not so heavily dependent upon studying the world
news as it is dependent upon our own clarity of
mind.
Two questions to end on.
1) Do you have enough stimulus in your daily
life to replace some of your news input (if not,
what does that tell you about your life)?
2) Do you think you could achieve greater
clarity in your life if you did reduce, even by a
small amount, your intake of news. If you are in
any doubt as to the answer to this question, then
surely it’s worth trying a change anyway!
Checklist:
1) Consider limiting the amount of negative
information you absorb everyday. Try cutting down
for a few days on newspapers and news
broadcasts.
2) In the time you now have free, introduce
something into your life that makes you feel good -
perhaps a walk, sport or gardening.
3) Listen more closely to the ‘news’
that those closest to you bring every day - the
stories of their lives. Be prepared to share your
‘news’ too. Look to your immediate
environment as the ‘real world’ that most
needs your attention right now.
Selling Our Present For
An Illusory Future
“...trust no Future, howe’er
pleasant!” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How much is man encouraged today to spend his
valuable energy thinking about and saving for
future needs which may never arise? How much do we
as a society allow each other to live in the
present and enjoy all that it entails? How much do
we as a society encourage hard work and long hours
now so that we may have enough to fall back upon in
the future? How much do we encourage the pursuit of
happiness now as opposed to it being something that
we might attain at some future point?
Many of us work on the understanding that we are
‘building up a future’. And yet all
around us there are men who demonstrate how frail
that understanding may be.
Caste Study - Colin
Colin is a professional man in his fifties who
had worked tirelessly all his life in order to
provide his family with the funds necessary for
private education, upkeep of a beautiful house and
income which will enable him and his wife to start
enjoying themselves in his retirement.
At least that was the plan. A couple of years
ago, almost in sight of the winning post, Colin was
diagnosed with cancer. All his planning crumbled
around him as he absorbed the truth that he had
spent his life in a career that he had stumbled
into rather than chosen, in order to earn a reward
he may never totally receive.
One of the reasons primitive man may have paid
so much attention to the present, and so little to
the future, may have been that he understood at
some level he could not possibly anticipate what
his future needs would be. As such he worked to
achieve what was necessary, rather than what might
prove to be necessary. It is only recently in terms
of world history that so many of us have been in a
position to accumulate countless material
possessions. ‘Stuff’ which, so often,
ends up being a burden and a liability.
Of course there is a balance to strike between
the needs of the moment and our future
requirements. We must, for instance, in the
interests of future generations continue to invest
in the safeguarding of our planet when making
important global decisions. I am not suggesting
that we act only with present moment needs in mind.
We could self-destruct very quickly. But I am
suggesting that at an individual level many men
focus too much of their energy worrying about the
future and therefore sometimes miss an opportunity
in the present.
How many of us today could honestly say that we
are not increasingly governed by fears of future
deprivation and hardship?
Many of us put off doing something that would
make us happy today because we may need the money
tomorrow. We often delay saying something positive
to someone today on the basis that there may be a
better time. Many of us even suffer financial
hardships and bills in the present whilst
contributing much needed finances to a financial
scheme that may provide us with some income in
thirty years time if we are still alive.
The truth is, we have no knowledge as to what
may be our needs at any time in the future. We work
hard all our lives, putting our own real happiness
on hold until retirement, based on the knowledge
that then we will be able to relax and enjoy the
fruits of our labour. And what happens? Some of us
never even make retirement age; others are too
incapacitated physically to be able to enjoy
retirement; others find the family has long since
split up into fragmented, unhappy units; others
have put off fun for so long that real enjoyment
becomes a mystery.
What does this tell us about putting off
happiness and enjoyment until some future date? It
tells us that this perception may be misguided.
If we could encourage each other to change our
individual and collective view of success and
money, we might halt the disintegration of a
society that is so in need of change. If we could
again realise the value of the extended family and
community support network, the value of everyone
from our elders to our children, we could once more
achieve personal and collective growth and
understanding through sharing. If we could redress
the balance between our needs in the moment and our
needs in the future, maybe we would find ourselves
creating a ‘now’ that contained many more
satisfactory and rewarding experiences. A
‘now’ that could lead to an even better
future than the one we are so busy planning.
As an individual you can start this change from
future projection to present moment awareness by
asking yourself this question: “In what way am
I every day meeting my own desires and needs?”
If enough individuals start asking the question,
society itself stands a chance of positive
change.
Checklist:
1) Start to think about all those things that
you’ve been putting off but that you’d
really like to do (whether it’s telling your
dad you forgive him, climbing Everest or clearing
the attic!).
2) If it feels comfortable, try taking small
steps towards doing one or two of these things.
Whether it’s making a phone call or taking a
holiday, if the thought of it makes you feel good,
don’t underestimate what good may come from
the event itself.
3) Look at how you can redress the balance in
your life between living in the future and living
in the present moment. Start to address your needs
of today as much as your anticipated needs of
tomorrow.
Business, Health and
Truth
OK so you want to start honouring your truth but
your truth this time seems to be telling you to
take another three days off work because
you’re going down with a chest infection and
you’re on antibiotics. Take the time off work
and your boss might think you’re a
‘sick-note’, you can’t cut it
anymore and that he should let you go. Hmm,
powerful fearful stuff.
Go to work whilst ill and on treatment and the
chances are you will not be able to perform close
to your highest potential, you could screw up
future business by making a careless error brought
about by your ill-health and your condition could
deteriorate leading to more treatment and prolonged
absence from work. Hobson’s choice? Let’s
go through what it really means.
Living your truth means first, and foremost,
listening to the messages that come through the one
vehicle that you cannot possibly do without in this
life – your body. The body passes on
information to us everyday about our real needs
– our truth. We have learnt to take things,
pills, medication etc to stamp out the messages
that the body gives us – colds, headaches,
chest pains are seen as annoyances that must be
obliterated immediately.
But what if they are messages that could help
guide us into achieving what we are really here to
achieve. What if they are little golden nuggets
sent as clues to help us take perfect action. You
may scoff at the idea, but how can you be 100%
certain that this is not, at least, a
possibility?
When someone comes to me concerned with this
question I ask them to go into truth. Ask yourself
questions such as ‘Have I been purposefully
underperforming?’, ‘Have I been
purposefully negative, difficult or
argumentative’?, ‘Have I tried to bring
my company/colleagues down?’. Then ask
yourself more positive questions such as ‘Have
I tried my best given the circumstances?’,
‘Have I contributed fairly?’. The answers
to these questions will tell you your truth. The
chances are that you will find yourself answering
that you have done OK – that you have tried to
do what you could – you may not be able to
judge yourself as having done your best but it is
unusual for people to find that they have been
working deliberately to hurt or damage their
company or colleagues.
Once you get to this place you are in a very
powerful position. You see if you have been acting
with ‘love’ or truth, the law of this
universe which suggests that whatever you give out,
more of the same will come back to you, will ensure
that your actions must attract back into your life
more truth – ie more good stuff. And the thing
is, the ‘universe’ already knows how you
have been. And when you have been acting in a
‘loving’ or positive way it recognises
this and makes it possible for you to receive the
support that you will need to continue ‘living
your truth’. In this case it may be by making
sure that you have the time off work without
getting sacked or anyone docking any brownie points
off you!
So, when you are placed into a situation where
you are doubting whether you have done enough to
retain your job, where you are not certain whether
you can really take another day off or whether you
can really ask for that well-deserved pay rise
– ask yourself those questions of truth again.
And if you get those positive answers rest assured
that the universe already knows those answers
– and you will, at some point, reap the
rewards of your actions.
'Challenging The
Monkey' – Part 1
In the next three articles you'll find out a bit
more about who I am for they contain a large part
of my own process of change over the last few
years.
I should own that these days I have a few
radical ideas. My typically English, public school,
middle-class upbringing has (despite its best
efforts) not managed to prevent me from developing
my intuition nor has it kept me away from
discovering some universal truths (or weird stuff
according to some people such as my old
schoolmates). Truths such as: Problems can also be
seen as opportunities; what you give out, you tend
to get back; what we are thinking today is creating
our tomorrow and, one of the biggest of all,
everything happens perfectly.
Eight years ago I had a health (throat) problem
which was basically my wake up call. Fortunately
for me, I chose to wake up. My life since then has
been a roller-coaster ride which has lurched from
highs of complete trust and faith to lows of
self-doubt and anger with the universe for not
always providing me with what ‘should’
have been mine.
My book, The Male Agenda, has been a case in
point. At the time of my throat condition I was
landscape gardening, following eleven years in the
music business. I had left music during the
recession in the early nineties when I foresaw that
I would have to spend too much time in studios to
make ends meet at the cost of missing out on time
with my wife Winnie and new baby daughter, Anna.
The cut off was bizarre – one Friday afternoon
I was mixing my last record, the following Monday I
was let loose in some young mother’s garden
with a strimmer and a mower with instructions to
‘restore it to its former beauty’! As I
knew nothing about gardening this was a not
inconsiderable challenge, but clearly my guides
were watching as I managed to avoid wrecking her
garden completely.
I shovelled **** for a couple of years, earned a
modest wage and built up a strong client base. I
was reliable and polite which people valued. As far
as paying the bills went, we scraped by. But then
my little monkey started getting restless.
I don’t know about you, but my monkey sits
on my left shoulder giving me all sorts of gyp
about life. He started complaining about my career.
“Oh my god we’ve become a gardener! A
gardener. We went to Sevenoaks School for heavens
sake, we’ve been a songwriter for Motown, a
record producer – we have ‘A’ levels
and ‘O’ levels. We should be a Captain of
Industry by now. We should be up there alongside
our contemporaries who have gone on to such great
things. We’re heading for – dare I say it
– NOWHERE’SVILLE. We have to take action
and we have to take it now.”
Well, who was I to argue.
And so I moved into landscaping. I’ve
always been creative and Winnie’s an
artist….. Seemed obvious really. Well done,
Monkey.
I got most of the jobs that I went for. Before
long I was employing people. And, as the jobs grew
so did the pressure. The funny thing was, I was
earning no more than I had been when I was just
shovelling smelly stuff. Still, Monkey was happier
because now I was becoming someone.
We had by now had our second child, Sophie, and
there was even greater pressure on Winnie who was
stuck at home with a four year old and an 18month
old. Looking back I cringe at how I could have been
dumb enough to allow her to take on the lion’s
share of such an enormous job. But I just
didn’t know then. No-one had warned us of the
tedium experienced by a mother at home alone all
day with two young children. She longed for adult
company. She longed for support. She longed for me
to share the job. And I longed to share it too but
I couldn’t see how I could keep a roof over
our heads and work any less time than I already
was.
Which is clearly why I had to manifest my throat
problem. It had been getting sore for a while, then
a lump appeared – then I noticed I was getting
hoarse by about the middle of every morning. Winnie
had been getting more and more interested in
holistic lifestyles and alternative medicines and
every description we read in books pointed somewhat
ominously to the big C. In spite of this, I
resisted going down the medical route – a
voice inside me kept saying “trust,
trust”.
During this period we learnt to meditate. For
those of you who do this simple discipline, there
is no need for me to tell you how important
meditation has been in my process of change. It has
been my rock. No, it hasn’t changed my life
and neither has it been the answer to all my
problems; but it has helped me to change my life
and it has helped me to access strength and clarity
that I never knew I had. It has been like a doorway
through to a room full of magic. I’ve had to
walk through the doorway, I’ve had to learn
and choose to use the magic. And I have. And all I
can say is that if you’re one of those people
who doesn’t meditate regularly and you’re
finding yourself struggling at all with life –
give it a try!
My throat continued to cause concern. The pain
increased to the extent that I booked a session
with a healer (a prospect that scared the living
daylights out of the monkey). A few days before
this session, Winnie and I went to the local
library and got out about a dozen books on
alternative health. One night I found her in our
bedroom swinging a crystal. Her explanation was
that she was dowsing. Not only that, but she was
apparently getting answers and that was starting to
scare her!
I had heard of dowsing through a couple of
wonderful ‘heavies’ that I used for doing
groundwork – they had showed me how to
massacre a wire coat hanger and turn it into an
extraordinary device for locating water pipes and
electricity cables. And it had worked. When I had
asked them to explain how it worked the reply came
back something like “well I dunno, yer just
think about wot yer wanna find and it shows
yer.” Although Winnie was using a different
tool, it was the same idea. And then she told me
that you could dowse for remedies and suggested
that I try it for my throat… to be continued
next month
'Challenging The
Monkey' – Part 2
Three and a half hours later I emerged from behind
the pile of library books, having found out that
one contained a list of remedies that would
apparently be useful. Over 1000 remedies (flower
essences) to be precise. To a novice dowser this
was something of a nightmare! Eventually I narrowed
it down to two remedies. One to be taken the next
day, the second “Rescue Remedy”, to be
taken two days later. I couldn’t exactly work
out the meaning of the first remedy at the time,
but the second seemed to be for shock.
A day after taking the first remedy the pain
escalated. Two days after taking it, the pain and
the lump disappeared. I was in shock. I could have
done with an IV drip for Rescue Remedy. The
hoarseness gradually improved and cleared up within
a few weeks. I returned to my landscaping
questioning whether I was meant to be doing
something with this experience.
People started coming to me for advice on their
well-being. I wasn’t advertising – this
was just through friends and family who had known
about my throat. Within 6 months Winnie and I had
helped over 90 people and I had started writing my
first book “The Truth about
Illness,Unhappiness & Stress?” I sat down
at the computer with no idea what I was about to
write and yet the words just flowed out. Winnie
would read each section and ask jokingly
“who’s writing this?” She decided
she would take on the task of editing my stream of
consciousness.
We soon decided to throw caution to the wind. I
chucked in the landscaping, we sold up our house
and threw ourselves into, well, just being together
as a family. We would help anyone who came to us
(but we would never advertise). Oh, and just to
challenge the monkey beyond all reason, we were
also guided not to charge anyone for one-to-one
work.
That was, for me, the hardest one to get my head
round.
I mean, there we were living in the expensive
South East, with two young children and with only
about £15,000 in the world to live on (about
12 months living expenses). What our respective
families and close friends thought of us we could
not imagine. But in a way it didn’t matter
– we knew we had to go for it. Every time I
read anything about “creating your own
reality” I felt like I knew it already to be
my truth. And yet we couldn’t really find
anyone outside of communities such as Findhorn
actually doing it.
And that’s how we began. People, mainly
women, started to see me regularly. I was plunged
very quickly into the world of serious illness by
various wonderful ‘teachers’; cancer
sufferers who came to me to looking for guidance.
In a very short space of time I found myself
sharing ideas and stories which seemed to help
inspire these women to achieve greater peace and
happiness.
What had started as a little bit of healing and
remedy work soon turned totally into a process of
listening and guiding through my intuition. From
cancer I found myself working with relationship,
financial, emotional and all manner of health
issues. And soon the partners and friends of these
women started to come. And as my work with men
increased, so I found myself hearing the same story
time and again from men torn apart by the demands
of the work-place and family.
I soon found myself writing about men. I wrote
about time, success, meditation, sex, work,
addiction, the news and even death. I wanted to get
any men who would listen and who were not entirely
happy with life into challenging their own
inherited belief systems. I wanted to share stories
that would help them to realise that they were not
alone in their struggle. After a couple of years I
found myself with a manuscript. Now what?
Old record company monkey wanted me to get it
‘out there’ immediately. My inner wise
old man rejected this proposal out of hand.
“Wait. Trust. Be patient. Help will
come”.
Well I was getting fed up with waiting. Trouble
was I also knew that this guidance was worth
trusting. We had been operating for 4 years by this
time without charging and although donations had
been minimal, somehow the money had come in to
support us without ever leaving us wanting.
So I waited. One day a member of my men’s
group told me about a workshop in London to be
given by an Australian called Steve Biddulph. He
was a successful author and leader in the worldwide
men’s movement. Although I had never gone to a
workshop in my life or read any of his books, I
felt drawn to attending. And so I booked a
place…
The workshop was crammed with about 70 men and
women. At the morning interval Steve came over to
our group and asked where we were from. When we
answered “Forest Row” he told us he was
coming over to England with his family for a year
in the near future to write a book with his wife
and he was going to be living in…… Forest
Row.
But it got better than that. During the
afternoon break I asked Steve where exactly he was
going to be moving to. The answer? Next door but
one to my house. One of the leaders in the
worldwide men’s movement was moving halfway
across the world to land on my doorstep. There are
times when you know you are right in the
zone…
Challenging The
Monkey – Part 3 -the final part
Our family really hit it off with Steve
Biddulph’s family – our girls formed
really good friendships with Steve and
Shaaron’s children and within a couple of
weeks Steve had read the manuscript of The Male
Agenda and offered to help me make it into a much
better book.
He taught me how to bring life into it and I
shall be forever grateful to his literary expertise
and care. We agreed to differ on a few things
– he felt too much of the book applied to
women as well – but the truth in my consulting
room year after year was showing me that much of
what applies to men does apply to women as well.
Men are not from Mars! My feeling is that this
whole Venus/Mars concept can be hugely
disempowering as individuals can use it as a
‘get-out’ clause when challenged to make
changes. “Oh but I can’t do anything
about how I am – you see I’m a bloke and
us blokes come from a different planet to
women”.
The resulting manuscript was ready. I sent it
off to the only literary agent I knew and Steve
said it was OK to mention his name. With this sort
of help flying into my world I had no doubt that
the agent would ring me immediately with an offer
to sign me for loads of dosh. It was all so meant
to be.
But it didn’t quite work out like that.
What came back was the most stinging, personal
rejection letter that even my time in the music
business had not entirely prepared me for. The
agent raged at me. How could I dare write about
such subjects in this way.
I was shocked. I showed Steve the letter later
that day. His reaction? “You’ve probably
got the equivalent of a hit record there Barry!
You’ve touched his buttons”. Hmmm. I
hadn’t quite seen it like that.
Reassuring though Steve was, I felt I needed
time away from my baby. I put him to sleep for the
winter, save one or two manuscripts that had gone
out to friends. Even though we thought we needed
the money that a publishing deal might bring, I
resisted the monkey’s desire to take more
action.
During that winter, encouragement, gratitude and
support came back from the men and women that were
reading those initial manuscripts. The following
spring I unwrapped my baby again and took a whole
new look at him. He was beautiful. Yes there were
things that I could change to soften him a bit, but
basically my book was saying something that I knew
needed to be said.
There was still no clarity as to how this book
would get out there. Then, one morning I woke at
about 5.30am. I looked across at my youngest
daughter who was still sharing a bedroom with us.
She looked so beautiful, so innocent, so at peace.
And that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t
written anything on the subject that was probably
closest to my heart. Being a father.
I crept out of the bedroom and into my office. I
knew what I wanted to write. It was quite simple.
The one thing I really wanted to get through to
readers was the thing that had been most
significant in my own life in recent years. That it
is who you are 365 days a year that most profoundly
influences our children. I knew my girls were
benefitting enormously from now having a mum and
dad that were more relaxed, that were having fun
(how important is that to a kid?) and were
supporting each other far more equally. And I knew
that if our girls saw us enjoying adult life then
they would be far more likely to embrace
approaching adulthood with joy and anticipation. I
finished the chapter in a matter of days.
The next morning I received a phone call from a
relative who previously had experienced major
financial deprivation. She had just received an
inheritance and wanted to help me to get the book
printed! A more unlikely financial source I could
never have predicted! It was at that point that I
knew the book really was complete.
Since then, this incredibly organic process has
continued. Support has continued to come from the
most amazing sources. A series of
‘coincidences’(?!) led to Robert Holden,
founder of the Happiness Project and author of
several successful self-help books, enthusing about
the finished manuscript. Dr William Bloom, trustee
of Findhorn for many years and successful author,
also lent the book his full support. When finished
copies eventually rolled off the presses last
summer, the next stage of my baby’s life had
already begun – it was learning to walk and
speak for itself!
We did no advertising. We sent out press
releases to major papers and magazines but received
no interest. Well let’s face it, to these
people we were nothing. Copies just went through
word of mouth. This time, unlike my music business
days, there would be no hype. If this book had a
journey to travel, I wanted it to do it of its own
accord. My monkey? Don’t ask what my monkey
wanted.
And here I am over a year later and the momentum
is clearly building. This gentle process has taken
my little baby across Europe, America, Australia
and the Far East. This summer he was selected for
distribution to all of the UK prison libraries. We
now have information distributing to all national
libraries (please feel free to go and ask your
local library to order a copy!) and are hopeful
that they will also follow suit. And, in spite of
us not being a big publisher, three magazines all
expressed interest at much the same time this
autumn, one of which of course was The Mother
Magazine. And one of the surprising things has been
that it has been women who have been particularly
active in spreading the word about the book –
something I had not anticipated when writing
it!
When I started writing this article I thought I
would tell you all about the book and its contents
– you know try to sell it a bit to you. But
this came out instead.
My monkey’s not at all happy with
me…
Change and
Fatherhood
Our children come from us but they are not ours to
control, they have their own lives to lead, their
own mistakes to learn from and their own challenges
to overcome. We can guide them but we cannot change
them and the examples we set are one of the most
powerful ways of guiding them.
Childhood is a time when children are learning
and acquiring the tools that will shape their adult
lives. If we are really concerned as to how good a
job we are doing with our children – then I
believe we should ask ourselves how good is the
example we are setting? Are they thinking wow! I
cannot wait to be grown-up, grown ups have a great
time?’.
For instance how many of us are demonstrating to
our children that time is something over which
adults have no control? That when you grow up you
always have to be rushing everywhere, grabbing five
minutes with your children in between everything
else? Each time a child witnesses this it
reinforces in them the belief that they too will
struggle for time when they grow up. More
importantly, perhaps, they measure their own sense
of self-worth against our attitudes to them. If we
have so little time available for them, what
conclusions will they reach about their own value
in the world?
And what about love? If you are in a
relationship, are you able to demonstrate to your
children that you respect your partner, that you
share openly and listen attentively? What messages
are you giving the children in your life about the
nature of adult relationships? That they are
valuable and joyful parts of life that have to be
worked at - or that they are problematical things
which warrant little time or discussion, and which
certainly feature lower down the list of priorities
than work and money?
Fun is another commodity in children’s
lives that adults all too often forget about. Do
the children around you see you as someone who
takes their fun seriously and creates regular
spaces for it in life? What effect will it have on
them if they start to believe that being a grownup
seems to imply having little or no fun?
Our children are also learning about the power
of money from us. What do they observe in you?
Someone who is comfortable with and open about the
subject of money - however much or little you may
have?
And what of work? Do your children see a father
going off to work who loves what he does (without
being addicted to it) and who is able to return in
the evening being not only able to share what has
happened to him but also being able to listen to
what his children and partner have done?
If I could get just one point across to men
about fathering/mentoring children it would be
this. It is who you are, your daily example, that
affects children more than anything else you can
ever teach them. It is not who you are for the two
weeks holiday once every fifty two weeks that makes
the difference.
If you want to help raise happy, balanced
children, seek to become a happier, more balanced
person. All the books, all the theories - and even
all your material success - they mean nothing to
children. What means everything to them is who you
are, how you are and what you can do with
them.”
Try the Following:-
1) Try to see the world through a child’s
eyes. Children aren’t always after results,
they are often just hungry for time and attention.
Drop your personal needs to meet goals and value
the time you have to give as much as the
‘success’ of any activity you may be
involved in with a child.
2) Check what you may be projecting onto the
children in your life. Are you doing things with
them that meet their needs or yours?
3) Children have their own lives to lead. Let
them live them – don’t be tempted into
trying to make everything alright for them.
Meditation - Change
Tool Number 1!
I’m going to focus on a tool that has helped
me to change my life. It hasn’t changed my
life itself, but it has given me the clarity and
strength to turn stuck life patterns on their
heads. It’s something that many men reject
without even trying just because it’s still
not considered macho. It is the tool of
meditation.
Meditation is very misunderstood still in the
West. It’s not complicated, it doesn’t
have to involve saris or incense sticks (although
it can if that’s what turns you on!) and it is
not difficult to do (contrary to popular opinion).
You can’t do it badly, but you can not do
it.
Everyone, from 5 yr olds to 90 yr olds, from the
terminally ill to stressed executives, can benefit
from this simple discipline. For many people who
find themselves suffering in any way from physical
or mental imbalances, meditation can become a
source of peace and inspiration . It doesn’t
replace conventional treatment but it can enhance
the effectiveness of all treatments. For people
wanting to achieve closer to their highest
potential and really experience change, it is I
believe the single most important tool you can
use.
Why? What is that meditation helps us to achieve
and how does it do it?
Imagine life is like a lake (sorry guys –
bear with this one a minute). All day, every day we
are doing things – answering the phone,
watching t.v., conducting meetings, paying bills,
rushing from one appointment to the next etc. All
the time we are in ‘doing’ mode the water
in our lake is getting choppier and choppier and it
is impossible to see anything under the surface.
Just think, how often do you spend any time during
your alert, wakeful state just being?
Periods of time spent in silence taken during
the day allow the water in our lake to still. They
allow us to build up an inner communication with
ourselves which we never normally have. They allow
us to find answers inside ourselves that we always
believed were outside of us, not inside. This they
do because during these restful, alert periods of
silence we are listening to the greatest guide we
will ever have in life – our Self.
Once we start to take regular periods of time
out of our hectic schedules, the water in our lake
starts to still. We can see under the surface and
locate the treasure that hides beneath – the
treasure that in life relates to our ability to
find the solutions to problems that we previously
believed ourselves powerless to deal with.
We spend so much time doing that we have
forgotten how to be and we have drifted further
away from our intuition. And yet the results that
can be achieved from getting back in touch with our
inner guidance can be phenomenal. If we can learn
to build a bridge between our busy and powerful
intellects and our intuition we could become rich
indeed.
So experiment with it – be bold and take
the plunge. Meditation may not in itself provide
the answer to all your life’s problems –
but I have no doubt it will help you to find and
create solutions that you might previously have
missed.
What is Success?
It is a man’s instinct, passed down through
generations, to gain the trophies and prey that
society considers of value. Our male ancestors
would come back from their outings with the very
things that they and their dependents needed at
that time. This may have been food or wood or
animal skins for clothing. They were guided by the
their needs of the moment and not derailed by
thoughts of what they might need at some distant
point in the future. Their success was measured in
the moment.
Today, success and recognition are usually
measured in financial terms. Of course there are
plenty of people who are successful who do not have
large sums of money, but for most men in our
consumer-orientated society, acquiring material
wealth is a guaranteed way of being viewed as
successful, of achieving recognition. Money has
therefore become a completely acceptable and worthy
prey to hunt. For many of us it is the only worthy
prey today.
It is no surprise then that we have found
ourselves going out on a daily basis, hunting
something that we can never entirely capture, that
could escape from us at any time in the future
without warning, and which by itself offers no form
of sustenance or physical gratification.
Man’s success today is often seen in the
size of his mortgage, the cars he can run, the
private schools in which he can educate his
children, the clothes he can buy, the golf club he
belongs to. The material list is endless.
Wouldn’t it be good if his success were viewed
in terms of his own feelings of happiness and
fulfilment in addition to these material gains?
There is nothing wrong with wealth and power.
Great things can be achieved with them; great
enjoyment can be had as a result of having them.
But I question whether they can benefit us fully if
we have sacrificed our happiness, health or peace
of mind to get them. We need to look for balance
between material wealth and mental and physical
well-being – they do not need to be mutually
exclusive.
We strive for success, but why? What are we
going to do with it if we ever feel we’ve got
it? Ask yourself that question before you set off
on the next rung of the career ladder? What are you
doing? Something you really want to, or something
that you feel you have to or should? Why are you
doing it? Because it brings you great satisfaction
at both a mental/emotional and physical/material
level, or purely because it pays the bills? Who are
you doing it all for? You or everybody else? And if
you really want to help everybody else, is it not
possible that you might do this best by becoming
clearer yourself in what your definition of success
really is?
Creating Time
Ask most men what they would like more of and if
the answer isn’t sex or money - it will be
time. None of us seems to have enough. And it also
seems that no-one is responsible for this. It is
just how the world is. It is just how things are.
It is just how things must be.
“Sorry darling, I’ve got to be here
for a meeting”, “I must dash, Mum,
doctor’s appointment”, “Sorry kids
no time to play, got to check my e-mail”.
Where will it end? As it is we deprive ourselves of
all sorts of vital daily things because of our need
to hurry. Love, food, sleep, conversation - all
things that we curtail or postpone or cancel
because of our need to meet deadlines. And yet who
are we meeting these deadlines for? The answers
come back thick and fast. My boss, my colleagues,
my partner. When are we going to start meeting
deadlines that we set?
Are we really listening to our own needs often
enough? Do we really need to live life at this
breakneck speed all the time, or is it purely
habit? How many of us for instance find that we
work and work and work leading up to our holiday,
only to find that when we finally switch off and
slow down we have developed flu, if not something
worse? How many of us find that when we ask the
children to do something for us, we expect them to
do it for us right this minute, even though they
may be involved in some other game or activity?
So manic have we become that our whole life
tends to revolve around schedules. Schedules that
very often we are merely playing a part in rather
than taking hold of and saying “Hey, hang on a
second, this is my life, I want to have a say in
what happens and when”. We may have come so
far down this path, that most of us no longer
realise that we have any say in how our time is
filled.
I would suggest that nothing could be further
from the truth.
Our time is our own. Our life is our own. Only
we ourselves can make our decisions. Believe it or
not, we have chosen our schedules as they exist at
the moment and only we can choose to change
them.
If you are the sort of man who is frequently
hurrying and never seems to have enough time for
anything, then now is the time to consider change.
Change your approach to yourself, start taking your
own needs and desires more seriously and you may
find that you begin to abandon activities which no
longer fit in with who you now wish to be. You may
well find yourself with more time on your hands.
The more time you spend listening to your own
requirements, the more time you will have to fulfil
them. Carry on hurrying from place to place, from
meeting to meeting, from TV programme to TV
programme and you will find you will never have
enough time to do all the things that you really
want.
There is a saying in the financial world that
you have to ‘speculate to accumulate’.
The same is true of time. If you spend more time
listening to your own needs, you are likely to
accumulate more time to do these things. There is
no reason to be proud of the fact that we are
always busy. We could all fill our time
permanently. Part of the reward that we may receive
from this hectic activity is that it makes us feel
important, it makes us feel wanted. Having to be
somewhere all the time not only gives us a feeling
of importance and value in society, but it also
gives us ‘valid’ reasons as to why we
cannot attend to this family matter or that
relationship problem. Time spent at work becomes in
particular a fact of life which apparently
can’t be controlled. We have become pawns in a
game that, judging by the state of some men today,
we are not sure we even enjoy playing that
much.
The key question is not how much of my time do I
fill every day, but how much of my time do I fill
doing what I love?
Here we are often complaining of not having
enough time, only to find that we spend much of our
time doing things that we don’t really enjoy.
People talk about quality time as if time itself
were the problem. It is not. And it never can be.
The conditioning that tells us to fill every
available minute is the problem and that can only
change if we choose to change it. No amount of
complaining about the lack of time will make one
bit of difference. We have to change our
understanding of our relationship to time if we are
to start making the best use of the time that we
have.
Changing our view of time can have extraordinary
effects upon our lives. If we can start to change
from feeling we have to get things done as quickly
as possible to wanting to do something that is as
good as we could do, we will find that our end
result is that much better and consequently our
self-esteem that much higher. For instance,
explaining to a client that we think their deadline
is going to jeopardise the end result can only make
us feel better about ourselves, even if we end up
losing that job. This generally doesn’t
happen. Worthwhile businesses would far rather
employ conscientious people with high
standards.
It is the feeling that we have somehow achieved
something good that is so important in our
development as men. Getting things done quickly is
unlikely to engender the same positive feeling. It
is perhaps through this greater understanding of
our relationship to time that we could begin to
contribute so much more to improving the
environment that we live in.
©2008 Barry Durdant-Hollamby
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