Sadness is something many of us try to avoid feeling. However, as with all the pure emotions, we believe it plays an important role in life. The purpose of sadness is to help us release the pain of our loss so that we are free to find new connections and to risk love again. After identifying our loss and allowing our grief to flow we are free to find a joyful or more meaningful way of remembering, and with time to move forward in our life to form fresh connections.
The shadow
What causes sadness?
One way of understanding sadness is to see it as our response when we experience loss. This may be the loss of someone we love, or loss of connection to someone or something important to us, or even the loss of a part of ourself or a particular identity we have held. Continue Reading
Leading and following – listening and speaking.
In our last blog we wrote about the importance of finding sufficient support if you are in a leadership role – whether that be the leading of others, or leading yourself forward in your life. We need to take in as much as we give out if we are to lead effectively and sustainably. In the same way that it is necessary to have vision and passion to be a good leader, receiving support is utterly essential. They are two sides of the same coin.
Leadership
In this blog we speak about leadership – both of ourselves and of others. As we move past January 31st, the start of the Chinese New Year we move in to the ‘Year of the Green Horse’. For the Chinese the Green Horse represents Leadership. The horse is green to speak of Plant energy, which in Chinese Medicine represents growth, strength, movement and power, along with cooperation, flexibility and humour. 
The Horse too represents power, freedom and passion and is linked closely with Leadership.
Managing Repressed or Overwhelming Anger
As we said in our last blog, we believe anger is always motivated by love. Love of ourselves or others and a desire to protect ourselves or others, or to enable ourselves or others to move forward and live a rich fulfilling life with integrity and honesty. Think for the last time you were angry — what were you wanting to protect yourself from? Or what rights were you wanting to stand up for? Or what was being blocked that you wanted to move towards?
Anger and Love
We believe anger is always motivated by love. Love of ourselves (or another) and a desire to protect ourselves (or another), or to enable ourselves (or others) to move forward and live a rich fulfilling life with integrity and honesty. Think of the last time you were angry –‐ who were you wanting to protect?
Celebrating Anger
In our culture anger tends to get a pretty bad press. Indeed, repressed or out of control anger can cause harm both physically and emotionally and can permanently damage relationships. There are obvious and important reasons for these types of anger to be feared, we must not overlook these or take them lightly. However, we want to start this blog by celebrating healthy anger. We believe pure anger, like any other emotion, is a force for good, and has deep wisdom behind it. Continue Reading