I was intrigued by the recent blog, by Rick Belden.

Where he referred to men not understanding their emotions? I remember the training that I received from Trefor Llyod where he talked of young men, only feeling comfortable in showing the feelings of laughter or anger. A good laugh does make you feel better, it releases tension.

But being in touch with your feelings is an interesting process.

I’m being very mindful of this as I talk to friends and family who are experiencing low mood and questioning their lives? Also by opening up the conversation we look to answers in our past as to how you are feeling?

‘Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

However, I’m also wrestling with another great quote,

‘The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new’, Dan Millman.

So I suppose the key is not to fight the past, to be continually looking for answers. However, you must understand who you are, in order to make sense of what life throws up for you.

Yesterday I met with Brian Topping a great guy, who coordinates Dementia Friendly Rossendale. We talked of memory boxes and memory work. I’ve been really interested in this for a while.  He said that when working with people with Dementia on memory work, you never know what you may unlock and you have to warn their carers, that people in their care, maybe affected by this and display challenging behaviours, that they would not know the root cause of?

Again unlocking the past, at the moment someone close to me, is I feel, still in thrall to their past. Grivevances that he expresses seem to go back to when he was a child and young man. He is venting his frustration onto others that love him,  fighting them, on the backdrop of something else.

For those on the receiving end, you are left confused. You can feel the disquiet but once again they are using that common emotion for men, anger.