Resolution and giving up
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Amidst all the celebrations, new year hopes, packed gyms and yoga classes I wanted to take a few moments to ponder on our resolve, resolutions and what we should and should not give up on. I started writing a blog about the importance of letting be, letting go, of trying to live a life of less trying. I mean, I have got through so much of my life with gritted teeth, believing that the only way I could stay afloat was by making maximum effort, and that attitude has serious costs. And yet as I sat to write I felt a deep sadness, at the state of the world, in large part triggered by Trump’s election and the rise of the far right and the lack of opposition. It is hard to remember the protests on Trump’s first term, as in the picture above from 2017? There was hope in the protest and the trying and not giving up. That for me is the paradox of how to be now. Personally, and it might be my age or experiencing multiple losses, I have become disenchanted with a culture in which not trying is akin to sin, indeed that of slothfulness. I have long envied the sloth’s slow ways. I long personally to Be more and Do less, more a human BEING than a human DOING, as John Kabat-Zin once said. |
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But when is giving up weak and irresponsible and when is it just right? How do we feel when we ‘give in’ or even ‘give up’, and can we sometimes allow it? Of course we often aim to give up things at New Year, alcohol, food and other resolutions. Resolutions and being resolute are important. But there is also a healthier take as seen in Adam Phillip’s new book fittingly called On Giving Up (thanks Doron Levene) where he makes a compelling case for a kind of giving up which is more like a letting go, a giving in, the stopping of trying when continued trying is a bad idea. I am sure I am not alone in feeling I personally also need more of that. |
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| Yet giving up also means losing hope, stopping trying out of helplessness and numbed-down given-up-ness. Is this the time to do that, given climate crisis, increased inequality, decimation of services, worsening living conditions and mental health, and so much more? I so want not to see the kind of protests we saw, for example, in the Woman’s March in 2017. |
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| And I was struck and worried by my surprise and hope at the speech and plea by the Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde for human rights, humanity and kindness, a heartfelt appeal which stood out because there was so little of this in the press. Watch here |
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| So that’s my New Year’s paradox. I want a life with less efforting, tension and stress, less tightening, less pressure, with healthy giving in and even giving up. I long to lose that nagging feeling that there is so much more I should have done than I have managed, that I am letting myself and others down. This is something Oliver Burkeman has helped think about in some depth, such as in his brilliant book 4000 weeks (yes that’s how long we have if we are lucky!) But I dont want to give up on hope, on justice, on psychological growth, on a fairer world. |
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| So have I made many resolutions? Well in a way yes. I have resolved to be brave enough to let go of some things but not to give up on what I deeply care about. In part I resolve to be less resolved, maybe more dissolved, unsolved, less urgent, less tense, more soft, more accepting, more softening, unclenching, and trusting more. But for the other part, I want to keep some fight alive, yes some Spark, some belief in what we think is just. So I am definitely not going down any overly inward path, certainly not the one I worryingly keep hearing about it, that this shift is all to do with shifting planets and the turmoil on the way to a new universal consciousness, genuinely sorry any believer friends! I have more than my fair share of woo beliefs but I cannot rely on the planets in a world of oligarchs and rising inequality and climate trashing and xenophobia. The below was one of zillions of such predictions, this from The Times of India |
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I wish i could but sadly i cannot buy it, but i can buy into the idea that we can ‘ignite our personal and collective ambitions’. For me more giving in and softening might mean less productivity, even less newsletters, or possibly less but better quality. I hope there is a balance between what we can do too much of, kicking ass, but also know there is a lot of ass that needs kicking. I want to join with my hero Bob Marley, who i saw so many times, who urged ‘dont give up the fight’ but I also want to align with Lori Chapman who says that, rather than kicking ass: ‘I like nothing more in the world than sitting on my ass doing nothing. And it’s not my fault I have this attitude, because I happen to have an amazingly comfortable ass. It may not look like much, but if you could sit on this baby for two minutes, you’d realize that getting off this ass would be a crime against nature.’ ~ Lori Chapman, shared by Jack Kornfield |
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| As I write this into my inbox came this quote via Tim Ferris ‘Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you.” — Sheng-yen
Go sloth! (slowly and softly but with some fire in your belly!) |
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| Given rising xenophobia in America and Europe, this month’s free subscriber download is a paper about the experience of racism by neighbour and occasional coffee companion Ivan Ward, former head of education at the Freud museum |
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| NEW ONLINE COURSES Perhaps too slothful but I have not succeeded in making a new online course this month, there is one about the brain in the wings, i might send out notice of it between newsletters. Do look. They are relatively cheap, even cheaper if you get a bundle, available for a year, and I’d love feedback |
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| So far 4 courses (see below or click here) based on Nurturing Natures The Incredible New born Play Prenatal Life The importance of Culture I hope to add one every month or so. Each course is full of information and videos etc Newsletter subscriber discount code of 20% off, use this code |
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This month, all too aware of loss, I offer a poem I have been reading about grief and the hope of growth: (podcast with the poet linked below also, with Tara Brach, spiritual teacher) Mycelial: |
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| This is probably best for adult, adolescent or couple work. 5 of us currently work here, looking for anyone (nice!) wanting from half to multiple days (pictures above ) |
Some upcoming events |
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| A few events of mine and a few others of interest below: February 1, 2025
Womb Life: Why we need to know about prenatal lifeEvent Link Respark. Working with dampened down states (Adoption Plus)Days training for those working with children Linking neuroscience and clinical practice: ResparkOrganiser: Canadian Association of Psychoanalytic Child Therapists (CAPCT) Location: online Link here Resparking: Working With the Challenge of Energyless PatientsOrganiser: Adelphi University New York Trauma Recovery Global. Conference on Neglect with Betsy de Thierry.Event Link Womb Life: A Relational Spaces PluralogueOrganiser: relational SpacesLocation: Langdale House, 11 Marshalsea Road, SE1 1EN Understanding and Working with Primary Aged Children (Adoption Plus)Days training Shut down in Defence: CCMH Conference Working with Margot Sunderland, Dan Hughes, Margot SunderlandGraduation ceremnony Containing, Tolerating Not-Knowing, Working Through: ATR Together event details here Understanding the Impact of Relational and Developmental Trauma and Disrupted Attachment on Children’s Brains, Bodies, Emotions, Relationships, and Behaviours details hereThe wonderful Jo Stubley, Tavistock Trauma Service Lecture: 6/2/25 details here |
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A few interesting podcasts |
| Adam Phillips talking about his book On Giving Up on LRB podcast here (thanks to my friend Doron Levene for recommending ) Oliver Burkeman; How to embrace imperfection. As Burkeman often does, this makes really important points and helps us take pressure off ourselves listen here Amazing optimism and resilience by Chris Hoy, Olympic cyclist who has a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, could have been depressing but in fact its inspirational, on the How to Fail podcast here Tara Brach interviews poet Rosemary Wahtola Tremmer, much wisdom here |
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| In the spirit of doing less and being more, I read a good few novels in the holidays. Here are some of my favourites, as well as a few non-fiction ones |
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| Another shortlisted for the Booker and I thought it was brilliant. A take on Mark Twain, Huck Finn from the flipped perspective of the slave, it was riveting, and now I am hooked into Percival Everett who I am ashamed I had never previously read. details here |
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| Yet another Booker nomination, I have always loved the big works of Richard Powers and this did not disappoint. It was wonderful on so many levels, a brilliant story of hope, of climate crisis, opening up the oceans, of play and love and being true to oneself, again highly recommended details |
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| This was one of the cherished books of my late great friend Paul Gordon and I loved re-reading this. Doctorow was a unique big thinker and I had not read this for many decades and it repays re-reading details |
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| Another classic, but more therapy related, a somewhat autobiographical book based on a young woman in a psychoanalytic psychiatric in-patient unit, and I gather the therapist in the book is based on no other than Frieda Fromm-Reichman, the unit being the famous Chestnut Lodge where the truly great Harold Searles honed his craft with schizophrenic patients. First published in 1964, this remains a really good read I thought details |
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| And for some possibly too woo, but pushing back the frontiers of our understanding of consciousness and life in and out of bodies, the longstanding researcher on near-death experiences (NDEs), Sam Parnia, Professor of medicine and expert in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, dares to use his research and findings to try to challenge classic materialist science details |
Shorter readings and blogs |
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Can entangled particles communicate faster than light? read hereScientists observe ‘negative time’ in quantum experiments read hereYour Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe read hereScientists Are Pretty Sure They Found a Portal to the Fifth Dimension read hereThis is a challenging one perhaps, can conscious enter alternative dimensions while we’re dreaming? Some science suggests yes! read here |
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| And finally … Its time for this month’s corny joke. I’m running out so please send me new ones! Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? No, but it makes my mouth water. What did the psychologist say to the patient who thought he was a church bell? If the feeling continues, ring me. and this cartoon made me chuckle, thanks Mike Miller |
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Phew, that’s it! |
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