bythemethod.com blog

Sport in school is rubbish - at least it is for my children. I want them to be fit and healthy and not grow up fat - like so many other children are these days. But how do you get them to do it? Exercise is hard work and hurts so how can I persuade my children that exercise is good fun? Over the next few months I will share with you my efforts at getting them motivated for exercise.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well of course it all depends on the context but for a moment let me assume that you are thinking about a state of mind, something that self help gurus are always going on about.

It is important, in any endeavour, to make sure you are in the right state of mind but it is even more important to understand what a state is in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

Few of us will be surprised to learn that our environment can have an effect on your soul. If you have ever taken the time to look at a mountain or been in a Cathedral or perhaps walked in a beautiful garden you will know the way they can speak to your soul. Yet where do you find such places in ordinary life?

Read the rest of this entry »

There is noise everywhere. Those who live in Cities rarely avoid it altogether and even in the countryside it can be hard to escape from some noise or another. So how do we find ways to be silent and does it really matter that we can’t?

Read the rest of this entry »

Escaping from the busy-ness of life would be great, wouldn’t it? Don’t we all want a chance to get away from it all and find that little oasis where all of our troubles are gone and we can be perfectly happy? Yet when we try so often we fail. We have holidays that take us five days to settle in to and then we have to start thinking about getting back. Or we anticipate a future where maybe this might just be possible - perhaps when we retire we can enjoy this temple of peace.

If you are looking for this temple then read on …

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I have found myself in a situation I didn’t want to be in. It’s easy for me during those times to feel very negative about things and this negativity always makes any situation worse. There is a simple technique that works for many people that allows you to get away from the negative feelings pretty easily but it does take a little practice.

Read the rest of this entry »

Holidays are a chance to get away from it all at last. After working around the clock for the whole year we now anticipate a few hours of rest. For some of us it will have been a long hard struggle to keep going until the time for the holiday has arrived.

Then again we did manage to get some short breaks in and we have developed a hobby and every now and then we have a massage to make us feel better.

But are we really getting away from it all? Is there any way we can get away from it all?

Read the rest of this entry »

How busy are you? Most of us complain about how busy we are. No time to do anything - not even enough to do what we have to. There are jobs to do at work and at home. And have you ever tried bringing up four children and then have time for anything? How can I be less busy and how can I find time for anything spiritual anyway?

Read the rest of this entry »

It is all too easy to let a negative view or state stop us from getting the success we want. Even when something bad has not happened we can still create feelings that make us believe that they have. It might be past experience that has made us that way or it might be our inner talk or other people but wherever it comes from it is destructive to us.

However there is a way to break the power that negative thinking has on us. It’s called pattern breaking.

Read the rest of this entry »

The way we see things can have a big impact on the amount of anxiety and disturbance we feel in any situation. The amount of anxiety we feel has a dramatic effect on our performance. However you can learn to take control of a situation and see things very differently. This technique is commonly known as reframing.

Read the rest of this entry »