THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING YOUR OWN PERSON

If you're feeling weary, frustrated, annoyed, anxious or angry, don't worry about it. There are two quick facts you need to know about such apparent emotions:

It's not you that feels that way, it's your personality... and that's not real. You only think you feel that way (to be technical about it, all the foregoing states of mind from a process known as cognitive appraisal).

It will pass. Everything arises and passes. A few deep breaths and will pass effortlessly.

Cop yourself on, pull yourself together, marvel at the wonder of the fact that you are breathing in and out.

One week to go! We're starting a new series next week entitled Purposeful Mindfulness. What's it all about? Well, there's a hint in the title!!!

Mindfulness is something of a buzzword at the moment - and all like all buzzwords, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The practice of mindfulness stretches back over 2,500 years - it is an integral part of the Buddhist tradition. As a result, there are plenty of buzzworders (if that's a word) hopping on the bandwagon to claim that modern science is now catching up with ancient wisdom.

To a certain extent that is true - but be careful, there's a difference between being mindful - in either the Buddhist sense or, indeed, within the definition of the University of Massachusetts Medical School - and being purposefully mindful... which is both the essence of focus and the key to success.

So, that's what we'll start exploring next week... where will our exploration take you?

We talked about having your personality assessed last week. This week, our video explores the idea that you grow up the day you stop blaming your parents. Now, some people will say to me: "I've never blamed my parents" or "I've nothing to blame my parents about" or "I had a wonderful childhood" - and most of us did. It doesn't matter how wonderful your childhood was - or, indeed, how bad it was. As far as your subconscious "stored knowledge" is concerned, you're still there, the past is present. And that's the problem with your personality.

You don't need to start getting hung up over your personality either: you don't need to start trying to unravel your perceived inadequacies or, for that matter, starting to second guess your perceived strengths. They are what they are - part and parcel of each moment that has brought you to where you now are. But that is not to say that you should simply let them hamstring you for each moment from here on in.

Each moment from now on should engage you in a conscious choice which should hinge on the prerequisite of you actually turning up to your life, moment-to-moment. If you don't turn up to your life, you cannot make that conscious choice. Therefore there is a first choice that needs to be made: "I am going to discipline myself to be present". I've used the word discipline very deliberately because, although developing presence of mind is simplicity itself, it demands a discipline that appears to be beyond most of us.

The Irish excuse for thislack of discipline is "Ah sure we're not to bad" or "We're grand". But this lack of discipline is ubiquitous: the normal mind is alright with being just alright. In fact, human resilience, often trumpeted as a major success factor in our evolution, has probably held us back and, in this day and age, is actually responsilbe for people putting up with all manner of inappropriate behaviour.

Discipline yourself. Discipline your mind. If your mind is discplined so will all your actions and behaviours. A little discipline opens the gateway to a life beyond the past, one truly lived in the present... in the furtherance of what we want to achieve tomorrow.