Here is the relevant references for the article written about unveiling the invisible cloak.
Meta Analysis from the American Association of Dietetics https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/
Unveiling the invisible cloak that blinded my violent behaviour for 33 years.
I was born into wearing a cloak upon my eyes I didn’t know existed, a belief structure that coloured my perception of the world and enabled me to cause harm without knowing or feeling it. As I’ve grown up I’ve seen how valuable it is for my future to identify, name and find the courage to question the underlying assumptions and norms that form the cultural guide rails for my behaviour.
Racism and sexism are old and dated cloaks that used to shroud the empathic perception of the benefiting majority. They often served as protection mechanisms at the expense of less fortunate vulnerable others. If wearing the cloak of racism enabled me to get cheap labour and more profit from slavery, it was in my best interest to deny that I or my family were wearing a cloak and that this simply is “the way that it has always been”.
Continue readingWhat I learned climbing Mt Toolbrunup for New Years day
Some of the most memorable moments in our lives are punctuated by the moments when we move into the shadows of unmarked territory and when we courageously set sail beyond what we thought was previously possible. Our minds and bodies move out of old scripts of safe predictability and we are thrust into the exhilarating present moment where all of our consciousness is brought to writing new scripts for the task at hand. It is in this harmony between uncertainty and challenge which enables fresh perspectives, deepening of friendships and new insight to cascade through our beings. So to start our year, we decided to take action to achieve beyond what we thought was possible.
Continue reading10 Days of Silence
For years I’ve been one of those people consistently busy with the next project on the horizon. Holidays and weekends were often filled with some form of “doing” and I’d just finished a massive year coordinating Bliss Festival for the 2nd year. I had 100’s of tabs open and plenty of unresolved questions looming in my head about what I really wanted for my future and it felt like the perfect time to experience the 10 days of silent Vipassana meditation. I had very little preparation for what was to come next.
Continue readingThe Amazon Fires vs. Burning Churches
You may have noticed a few viral images going around comparing how humans raised 835M to rebuild Notre-dame in a short period of time, but nobody seems to care that the Amazon is burning. I was hurt to consider how and why we might respond so differently to these two situations and want to look at a few layers behind this statement which are deeply reflective of the human experience.
1. Culturally we hold significance to the things we personally spend a long time building relationships with, things that involve us using our hands, places we’re we celebrate our love, where we morn our loss of loved ones, use our money to build and places that provide community and spiritual nourishment. If this was a specific community farm that we personally helped grow, nurture and eat from every Sunday our response to this burning would be just as profound. I understand we may receive some of our food from this area, but it’s still an abstraction. It’s not directly connected to the fabric of our lives in a way we can comprehend like we can a local community garden or church burning.
2. The identity and responsibility of a specific, well known church is easier to raise money for than multiple different organisations who each care for the large scale protection area of the Amazon. People feel less likely to raise money for multiple broad blanket funds they don’t have an existing relationship with vs. specific let’s rebuild the church from the religion that “I already trust” funds.
3. Religious status and involvement is deeply interwoven into the fabric of our society, news and identity. The rainforest is far more removed from the personal and direct involvement of the church. The forest does not have a central human voice representing it and a community of devotees who all identify as part of the same organisation like the church does. This makes “listening to the wishes of the forest” more fuzzy, even though it’s cry for help is obvious.
4. I’m pretty sure in the past we held the majesty of nature as our churches, but those days are far behind many of us. The abstraction and disconnection from our earth is mighty and enables us to not feel the need to connect to such atrocities. The majority of us are no longer farmers, we are no longer custodians of large areas not our own. All of this makes it easier to let something like this slip past us like it’s not our responsibility to care. Our personal identity as humans often doesn’t encompass the earth as a whole. It generally encompasses our cultural identity as a country, a region, a city, a family, a religion.
5. We are basic biological primates living in futuristic societies, we are intellectually unable to fully comprehend the situation we’ve got ourselves into, we tend to respond most quickly to things that we can either directly empathise with or affect our lives personally. The idea of our place of worship being destroyed is something we can all identify with, the challenge here is that our place of worship is no longer a forest region in someone else’s country, our places of worship are now often established doctrines within our own towns, perpetuated from within concrete buildings.
If you feel like supporting the rainforest there are a number of ways you can get involved. There is currently a partition with over 4 million signatures asking Brazilian politicians to put a complete ban on illegal burning of the forrest. –> https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-burning-of-the-amazon-rainforest
You can also make a certified, and not for profit checked donation here https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-help-amazon-rainforest-what-charities-to-donate-to-2019?r=AU&IR=T#2-reduce-reuse-recycle-2
New Radio Show Coming Alive!
This is the first episode of a new morning radio-show I’ve called Coming Alive. It’s a combination of my passion for sharing undiscovered music and uplifting spoken word insights that happen to flow through me when I dare to let them out.
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I’ll be honest in saying I am terrified sharing this with you as it’s new territory I haven’t fully explored before. I feel vulnerable, walking the plank of my own creative unknown. That being said, I can also sense that this is a wonderful way to share my vision for the future and ultimately one of the best ways to improve my craft. My aim is to enhance your morning experience, giving you pep in your step and a boost of clarity towards your vision in becoming a better more authentically aligned and alive human being.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section as I’m still learning and growing and would love to hear from you.
What I Learned, Sharing Massage with Strangers
Yesterday I decided to massage strangers in public with a few friends. I learned that when we respectfully touch others in this way, we are subconsciously and consciously sending a message that says “I see you, I value you and I care for you”. I discovered there is a tremendous healing power in creating tangible experiences like this.
We gathered in our Continue reading
The Spiritual Connection to Eye Contact by Michelle Passmore
Remember that we are one and fundamentally united.
Something magical happens during extended eye contact (also called eye gazing or soul gazing). This moment arises when we forget that there’s a “you” and a “me” and we become engulfed in an experience of unity. Personalities, gender, social class, beliefs etc all melt away. And we are left with this recognition of the other as purely a reflection of ourselves. A sparkle of the Continue reading
Eye contact: A challenge with real benefits by David M.G. Lewis, PhD
This is about humans, but first we’re going to talk about wolves and dogs. You’re not a wolf, and that’s a good thing. Wolves are extremely intelligent animals who are adept at navigating their own ecology, including through complex strategic cooperative hunting. But even after being reared by humans, wolves can’t see humans as social partners (Gácsi et al., 2005; Miklósi et al., 2003). Dogs, on the other hand, can – and they benefit from seeing us as individuals who can support them in times of need.
A few years ago, scientists conducted several research studies investigating the social and cognitive differences between dogs and wolves (Gácsi et al., 2005; Miklósi et al., 2003). In one study Continue reading
The Truth About the Official Eye Contact T-Shirts
Peter Sharp, Founder of the Eye Contact Experiment
I am the founder of The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment and would like to share a little more information about the Official Event T-shirts to assist your understanding of why they’re available and how they make this event possible.
FOREVER FREE
First and foremost, this global event is and will always be completely free for all of humanity to experience. This is to ensure all people from all backgrounds are able to feel a proud part of the event, we believe that if you want to inspire a movement of world peace you need to enable everyone to be a part of it. That being said, it does cost months of time and thousands of dollars to coordinate such a large and inspiring event so we had to find another way to make it work.
Inspiralight 