by Una Hearne. Ooooh, big subject for a little blog! How brave am I? :-) Onward... I believe spirituality is an aspect of being human, along with being physical, mental and emotional creatures. For me spirituality is defined by the question most of us ask at some point 'Why are we here?'. This question has never been answerable by human beings. Religions / ideologies are attempts to answer the question and they all do it with a different story or explanation of the meaning of life. There are estimated to be 4,200 religions currently ...
by Una Hearne. Will ye give over ye lunatics, you can't change other people. Stop that nonsense. I seem to be seeing a lot of people in misery at the moment because of what others have said or done. Most of their stress is because they think the other person 'should' behave or think the way they do themselves. Here's the problem with that - everyone's mind and experience are unique. Have you ever met a person who genuinely thinks exactly like you? In every situation? About every issue? Of course you haven't. Other ...
by Una Hearne. Ooooh, big subject for a little blog! How brave am I? :-) Onward... I believe spirituality is an aspect of being human, along with being physical, mental and emotional creatures. For me spirituality is defined by the question most of us ask at some point 'Why are we here?'. This question has never been answerable by human beings. Nobody knows for certain. Religions / ideologies are attempts to answer the question and they all do it with a different story or explanation of the meaning of life. There are estimated to ...
by Una Hearne. We are all mad you know. Humans. We criticise ourselves in our own heads all day long. And then we wonder why we lack confidence or self-esteem. We shame ourselves in a similar way and wonder why we are not happy yet. Insanity. I believe - just my opinion - we have the right to be confident and happy most of the time. I can't see the value in making our lives more miserable than they need to be by playing negative tapes in our minds all day. I do ...
by Una Hearne. It is a seriously bad idea to label yourself with a 'weakness' and then carry that as if it is who you really are. 'My problem is I always/ I never...' 'I am a terrible...' As if the way you think and behave is fixed in every situation and for life. The specific problem with viewing characteristics as strengths or weaknesses is this: every strength can be a weakness and every weakness can be a strength. It totally depends on the situation. For example you might be sensitive and see ...
by Una Hearne. Those of us blessed (Eh?*!?*!?) with a chronic illness are forced to develop a high level of expertise in budgeting our very limited energy. But it's not just we who need these skills is it? It's you too. Not even the highest energy people can do everything they want to nowadays. There are endless possibilities in work, home, social life, leisure, study, travel, etc. No one can fit into one lifetime everything that is available to do. Does your life feel in balance? Do you experience peace and happiness every ...
by Una Hearne. With our relative wealth and health in the developed world, we should all be happy and fulfilled, right? But no, we are increasingly stressed and anxious. Why? Why are we dealing with increasing levels of mental and physical illness? What is going on in our society that is so toxic to us? Given that different things stress different people in different ways, it is notoriously difficult to research stress and how it relates to health. Yet we all know stress can be the killer ingredient in any illness. I have much ...
by Una Hearne. May is M.E. awareness month so I'm writing this to raise awareness of what it's like to live with. Living with any chronic illness is different for each person - this is my personal story. Please note I am not looking for sympathy, I believe everyone has sh*t to deal with in life, this is just my sh*t. :-) And I'll explain the picture at the end... History I have had M.E. since a bout of Glandular Fever (Mono) age 16, I'm now 55. Historically M.E. has been dismissed as a ...
by Una Hearne. 7.8 billion and rising. That's a lot of people - and still you are unique. There never was and never will be another you. Each and every person brings unique gifts to the world. Many gifts. They might be things you do, talents you share or simply who you are as a person - the energy you bring. Whatever gifts you bring, your job in life is to be the best and wildest expression of your unique spirit. This is your work of art. You know when you are doing it ...
by Una Hearne. Covid 19 doesn't respect country borders, it uses humans to travel across the world freely. Nothing in nature recognises human borders. The air and water we depend on circulate around the entire planet. The destruction of our environment is not contained within country borders, in either cause or effect. Nature will not discriminate in its response. Our actions could be ensuring our own extinction. Chief Seattle said 'Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man does not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand ...
by Una Hearne. So my latest craft supplies arrived and I decided to experiment with my new invisible thread (it's like a fine fishing line). I went to thread the needle and discovered the problem with invisible thread... :-) Playtime is not just for children. As adults we think we must give up childish things when we take on the responsibilities of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Playtime is time spent doing something you enjoy and is not work to you. Sometimes we do have it in our lives - we just don't call it play. Sports, running and walking are all ...
by Una Hearne. You'll have heard of it by now - Long Covid. It is not being called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME or CFS) yet but the similarities are alarming. Long Covid is being taken seriously by some doctors but unfortunately not all. There are even medical professionals with this illness facing the same scepticism - from their own colleagues - which people with ME/CFS have faced for decades. Centuries actually. The whole issue with ME/CFS scepticism is the historic assumption that any illness unknown to medicine at that particular time ...
by Una Hearne. Love yourself unconditionally - you are fabulous. Trust your inner wisdom. You always know what is best for you. You, as an individual, and the society you live in are equally important to your quality of life. Balance your choices accordingly. Treasure the people you love. Including yourself. Listen well and speak your truth. Be kind to everyone. Especially yourself. Forgive everyone - for everything. Especially yourself. Look for the gifts in every experience, especially bad experiences. Appreciate everything you have. You have a lot. Keep your environment ...
by Una Hearne. How much of your time and energy do you waste worrying about what other people think of you? Do you agonise over everyday decisions, trying to make the 'right' choice, so other people will approve? If somebody criticises your choice, does that ruin it? Do you need approval from other people before you can feel good about yourself? In other words are you giving other people the power to make you feel good or bad? Just let that sink in if you need to. Other people do not have power over ...
by Una Hearne. This blog was supposed to go out back in March - obviously events overtook that plan! But it's relevant now as we settle in to our second lockdown. The point of this blog is that we need to make sure we have good times. A lot of our life needs to be routine, to get the day to day stuff done without too much thinking about it. But if it's all routine, time passes in a flash. Years and decades condense into one blurred grey memory. The good memories you have from ...
by Una Hearne. We naturally compare ourselves to others as a way of monitoring how we are doing in life. It's tricky though - there is a difference between a general sanity check and beating ourselves up for not being as good, successful, thin, fit or rich as the next person. It is a terribly destructive habit to compare one aspect of your life to one aspect of another person's life. It is madness to feel you are lacking because you don't have this hair, that job or the other relationship. You can't ...
by Una Hearne. So I've been thinking about how the world has had to adapt to significant changes and losses because of Covid and how I came to terms over the past three years with changes and losses because of ME/CFS. Happy to report I am now at the point where I am at peace with ME/CFS. Not saying anyone else should be or needs to be. Just that I needed to get to this point, to stop losing energy in resentment and sadness. How I would love to report that it was a swift and peaceful process. That I gracefully accepted my new ...
by Una Hearne. So I have this friend Mary and if I listed all the challenges she has faced in life so far - well the truth is you wouldn't believe me. You would think it was a rejected soap opera script, you'd probably start a go-fund-me page for her. Her attitude, humour and fortitude are a constant inspiration. In the early days of our now 25 year friendship we fell into a common trap - of automatically comparing our problems. As if in competition to be the most understanding. We said things like: ...
by Una Hearne. Control Freakery is the attempt to make the world work and other people behave the way we think they should. As a recovering control freak - I get it. I really do. It would be so much better if everyone acted in a rational and civilised way. What drives control freakery is fear. Plain and simple. Fear of what will happen when it all goes wrong. Or more accurately (as Susan Jeffers explains in the best book ever written on fear 'Feel the fear and do it anyway'): All fear boils ...
by Una Hearne. Isn't it wonderful when you are on the very edge of your last nerve and someone tells you to 'Relax' or 'Calm down'. So helpful. So we all know the feeling of stress. Covid-19 has raised the stress level of the entire human race all at once. That's never happened before. We are past the initial high stress of shock and we are now dealing with a lower level, but ongoing stress. Stress shows up mentally/emotionally as anxiety and/or depression and/or anger. If stress continues it will show up in our ...
by Una Hearne. And so the world went quiet. We heard the birds again. We noticed nature again. The air was clean. The people came out for walks. There was an explosion of creativity and kindness. People pulled together. Suddenly we had time to think. We discovered how little shopping we actually need to do. Irish people discovered that life continues even when every pub is shut. Who knew? And who knew a frantic pace of life isn't necessary? (I am acutely aware that this does not include the people on the frontline, busier ...
by Una Hearne. Welcome to the world of self-isolation everyone! Most of us with chronic illnesses have lived for years in partial or total self-isolation, so I thought I'd share some random tips and thoughts to help you in this new adventure. First, for your mental health, accept this new situation totally as it is right now. Decide to learn to become comfortable with uncertainty. These are daily practices and not one-off decisions. The sooner you get these down, the less energy you will waste in resistance and worry, neither of which help ...
by Una Hearne. Ok, Ok, I do advocate and practice positive thinking. But - and it's a big butt - there is an extreme end of this positive thinking lark that really gets my goat. It's explicit in the book 'The Secret' and appears in many other books and courses. It's this idea that if you banish all negative thoughts from your mind - never allow one in even for a second - then you can manifest anything you want including perfect health. For example a quote: "When a person has manifested a disease ...
by Una Hearne Too late? You did? How's that working for you? You probably know by now they don't usually work. And then they make you feel bad about yourself. What a terrible way to start a new year. Here's a better idea. Get yourself a cuppa, a notebook and snuggle up in your favourite chair. Now: Write down all the brilliant things you did and that happened to you last year. Ok I know, you immediately think of all the bad things that happened and failures. Don't worry this is normal. You can't not ...
by Una Hearne. One Christmas, many years ago when a friend of mine was a boy, let's call him Freddy (since that's his name). Freddy lived in Ballyfermot with his family. They were poor, properly poor, and the St Vincent de Paul sometimes helped them out. That particular Christmas there was no money for presents and the kids knew it. Freddy, being the oldest, felt bad for all of them. On the day, the VdeP arrived at the door with a present for each child. Freddy was amazed. He thought about somebody ...
by Una Hearne. I love the idea of 'Tribe'. It's as relevant today as it was when there was only a few thousand of us on the planet. Tribe matters. We need to belong to other people. It's built into our DNA and it protects us. Tribe used to be relatively simple - it was the extended family you were born into and only changed if maybe you left and joined another tribe. It's a little more complex in the modern world. For a start, we are packed into cities and towns, rarely isolated ...
by Una Hearne. So many people indulge in self-beating. It breaks my heart. We do it naturally because we have a conscience (the purpose of which is to help us avoid harming others and to live peacefully together!?). However we are not meant to beat ourselves up all day every day. It not only hurts us and undermines our self-worth, it also depletes us and means we have less to offer the world. Over the years I have noticed various levels of self-beating and I'm setting out the qualification structure here so ...
by Una Hearne. So, if there are no good or bad events, just life events and the labels we give them, am I at the point where I can honestly say I'm grateful for having ME/CFS? Hmmmmmm. Obviously the fact that it has taken my ability to do the work I want, my social life, hobbies, holidays... OK that's all a bit crap. It would be understandable to wallow in misery, but that's not a life I want either. Since I believe our super power is our ability to choose our thoughts, it ...
by Una Hearne. You know that situation where someone close to you is dealing with something big? Bereavement, divorce, job loss, illness... You want to help, you really want to say the right thing. But either you have no idea what to say, or anything you say seems to be wrong and makes things worse! There is no magic answer. Sorry! Everyone is different, needs different things and you are not psychic. And that's OK. Some of us want to talk, some don't. Some want to melt down and sob, some want to ...
by Una Hearne. We all want balance in our lives, it's the modern holy grail. Today I want to talk about the balance between positive and negative thinking, and what we all think we do - 'realistic' thinking. When we say we are being realistic we are usually being pessimistic. Whenever I did talks about positive thinking I asked my audience if it was 'realistic' to say it would rain tomorrow (statistically more likely to rain). Everyone's hand would go up, after all, it's always raining in Ireland! However this is not true on ...
