One small adjustment

What if you were just one small adjustment away from having the life you want? In the movie How do you know, George (Paul Rudd) gives Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) a can of Play Doh for her birthday, and tells her how Play Doh was invented. Joe McVicker of Kutol Chemicals invented a putty-like wallpaper cleaner […]

Misinterpretation

I have just watched a rather self-satisfied dog scare away a noisy garbage truck, as only he knows how – a volley of gruff barking and a telepathic “get off my patch or else” warning. Works like magic every Thursday morning. That’s the dog’s experience anyway. That’s how he reads the situation, I imagine, judging […]

Watch my lips

What you need to know is right in front of you, and in your dreams, if you know how to look. The tricky bit is that the reason you are seeing a problem instead of a solution, darkness instead of light, is that your vision is blocked by your expectations, especially your unconscious expectations. Your […]

How much does worry weigh?

“Never worry worry, til worry worries you,” my granny used to say. There’s a grain of truth in there, and an even better tongue twister, but the day I really got the measure of worry started as a simple coffee morning with two friends when we were all young mothers. The three of us met […]

What if?

A man dreamed he was crawling over a mosaic floor, checking for missing tiles. The job seemed endless. What if … he climbed the stairs and looked down on the mosaic floor instead of crawling over it? Would the missing tiles be easier to spot? We’ll come back to Mosaic Man and his dream later, […]

Quick, quick, slow

Here are some things I know about myself: I think at high speed, I generate ideas and solutions quickly, I talk fast, and I read slowly. Michael can read a whole book in the time it takes me to read a couple of chapters. But that’s nothing compared to Geoff, a friend, who reads books […]

Why is grass green?

“Why is grass green?” I was three or four years old, and this was probably the hundredth question I had asked my mum that day. I was a curious child in every sense, as curious as a cat with nine lives to spare, and a curious specimen of childhood, a child more interested in why […]

Episode 61 The Dream Show: The brain’s mind

What’s the connection between a flagon of gin and seeing the world upside down? Here’s a clue: it’s got nothing to do with getting drunk. Here’s another clue: it’s got everything to do with how the brain hears what it wants to hear and sees what it wants to see. In short, the brain has […]

Opportunity: can you see it?

Life is full of opportunity. Even when it doesn’t feel like it. Especially when it doesn’t feel like it. So how can you choose and make the most of the opportunities surrounding you every day, if you can’t see or feel them? Your dreams are a good place to start since they reflect the way […]

It’s a what?

He was tall and rivetingly handsome, striding towards the ocean, wearing a new, seafaring sweater and carrying something under his arm. What was it, an inflatable raft? “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the raft. Or was it a set of bagpipes? He looked bewildered, as was I by now, but an old lady behind […]