From early on in our education we are taught that food is one of the factors affecting the evolution of animals, determining who in the food chain is strong enough to survive and who becomes extinct.

As a human race we believe we have reached the peak of the evolution pyramid – we walk up straight, we speak (some of us several languages), we are intelligent enough to innovate in technology, medicine, science, history etc.

But does evolution really have a peak? AND… Continue reading “Are We Evolving OR Indulging?” →

Equality is a word that is being bandied about in the corporate world, but what does it mean? And what does it mean for us socially, in our local communities, and for us as individuals?

In the business world, equal pay for women is a recurring theme, and many organisations ensure that pay levels are the same for particular jobs, regardless of whether the employee is a man or a woman. However, it is also a well known fact that there are more men in higher levels of work, so logically their average pay will be higher across the board.

Continue reading “Equality – What Does it Mean?” →

Losing both my parents recently has given me the opportunity to really feel very deeply where I sit with death, losing loved ones, and with grief.

I’ve always known absolutely that death is not the end. The fact that we live on in another dimension is without question for me. This ‘knowing’ doesn’t come from a need to ‘believe’ that there is more after this life or a desperate needing to make sense of life, but from an absolute knowing in my body that we all experience cycles of life in the form of reincarnation, and that I have been on this merry-go-round many times before, as have we all. Continue reading “Grief and the Healing it Offers” →

Real Entertainment?

It will be the weekend here soon in England and many of the population will be watching Saturday night entertainment. This often comes in the form of what is called reality TV, where judges are adjudicating someone’s ability to dance/sing/cook etc. in front of an enthusiastic audience.

These kinds of shows have become very popular; in fact, the viewing numbers reach millions each week as people switch on to watch the programs and where, usually, drama unfolds.

But what exactly are these types of programs telling us? Continue reading “Entertainment Gone Wrong?” →

I was recently invited to write an article on ‘service to others’ for my yoga organisation’s magazine. This led me to ponder on what ‘service’ means. For me, and I suspect for many, the idea of ‘service’ is tied in with charities – either doing voluntary work for charities, or giving them money.

When I looked around me at the main charities in New Zealand and the public events they run/sponsor, or are run in their name to raise money, such as the ‘Ride to Conquer Cancer’ (a two day cycle ride to benefit the Cancer Society), ‘Fit for Life’ (a boxing event between celebrity non-boxers, to raise money for nominated charities) and raffles (Heart Foundation), I began to wonder what ‘service’ they were actually offering to the world and started to ask myself the following questions:

• Is it “true service” to sponsor an event that asks participants to cycle for two whole days, camping on the ground overnight?
• Is it “true service” to ask people to box who are not professional boxers, even setting aside the known dangers of boxing?
• Is it “true service” to encourage people to gamble?

It appeared to me that many of the events run by our charities could be putting people’s bodies and minds at risk!

Continue reading “Our Charities: How Charitable Are They?” →

by Victoria Lister, Brisbane, Australia

Sadly, my experience of many of the workplaces I’ve encountered – as employee, board member and consultant – is that they are often demanding, difficult environments in which deadlines, a lack of resources and the quest for greater efficiencies and more outputs, outcomes and profits are ever-present. Often too they are unhappy places, characterised by high stress, poor health, bullying and grievances, and high rates of absenteeism or ‘unplanned leave’ – and staff turnover.  Continue reading “High Stress, Poor Health: Can we Change the Way we Work?” →

by Victoria Lister, Brisbane, Australia

Of late, I’ve been pondering the choices I’ve made throughout my working life a lot. I’ve also been exploring the reasons why I’d taken on roles that weren’t natural to me as an individual or as a woman, and how I’d aligned with the energy of driven-ness that permeates so much of the working world, depleting myself in the process. It also started me thinking about women and high-profile jobs, and why there are (relatively speaking) so few of us in them.

Indeed, in this country right now there’s consternation in parts of the corporate world (echoed in the media from time to time) around the lack of women in high-calibre board roles. The ‘suggestion de jour’ is that the issue be resolved by legislating for a fixed percentage of female directors – as happened in Norway earlier this year, where a 40% quota is now mandatory. Continue reading “Women & High-Profile Roles: Why do they say No?” →

by Zofia, London

There was a major feature-length BBC4 documentary broadcast in December 2012 ­– “The Trouble With Aid”, and in it were longstanding senior members/General Director of leading charities from Medecins Sans Frontiers, Oxfam and others, who were exposing the rot and corruption that existed with (millions of) monies donated by ordinary people like us to such charities – money designed to help countries suffering from poignant natural disasters/famines etc.

The program told the stories of those who had gone out to the conflict zones to help humanity, and actually what really happened behind the scenes with such humanitarian disasters over the last 50 years, including – the Biafran War, Ethiopian famine, military intervention in Somalia, and also Afghanistan today. Continue reading “Aid, Corruption, Abuse and War – closer to you than you might think?” →