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The art of projection March 30, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a comment

I have a work mate who reflects back with precision the issues I need to deal with at any one time.

For instance today she reflected my need NOT to look outside for answers. She reflected my need for patience and she reflected my pursuit of perfection – in what I contribute to the world. And she led me to think about my own thought patterns.

Now there, right there , is a no-win no brainer. We’re not meant to be perfect. The whole struggle is to cope with imperfection and change. Our thought processes change accordingly.

I’ve been depressed lately – which is a habit and a neurological reality. The co-joining of low seratonin levels, palpable fear over change were mixed in with a propensity to brace for shame. In short – a recipe for misery.

My depression manifests in tears, a great weight of grey grief and a romantic desire to end it all. So many people take that fateful step without needing to journal about it, around it or into it. They simply get on with the gig. You’ve got to admire that focus.

I’m one of those “thinkers”, “waiters” or “watchers” a procrastinator waiting for external validation or a “fix”.  Wondering if I can weather the storm without the medication. Wondering whether my triggered anxiety versus free-floating anxiety equates with a certain category of depresssion (aka not so bad, realy bad, suicidal etc etc).

Paint, they tell me. Put it all out on a canvas – objectify it, look at it, as if it’s a bug you can spit up and out. Of course if you paint, you’ll realise that all you see is not a remedy but a reminder; a permanent stain to perpetuate the misery because the painting is most likely to be badly executed. So not only miserable but also a bad painter.

Last week painters competing in the Archibald prize (a prize in OZ’s artworld for portraits) put themselves in such a situation.

Visitors get to guess the portrait the judges will pick. Walking around the gallery that night, despite sculling appropriate amounts of plonk, I felt detached with absolutely no idea of what I liked.

I picked one because it was a portrait of a star gazer, light tipped glasses, childish joy against a black canvas, peppered with colourful stars. Was it good – how would I know? It was the only one that “spoke” to me. Plus the character looked quirky. He was happy and hopeful.

When the winner was announced it wasn’t the one I’d chosen. An editorial about the judging process mentioned my choice as one the judges had considered. It also mentioned that their choices exampled how these judges could either get it “really right” or “really wrong”.

Gasp! degrees of right and wrong. Sigh was mine right or wrong? And why did I care? I’d come so far away from what I liked and wanted, I couldn’t even relax in my own choice. I was looking to a random stranger (probably a rejected portrait painter) to tell me. All the stars went out right there and then!

The feelings (whatever they are) had become so externalised and externalising I didn’t even know whether they were mine or just a random guess which, alas I got “right” or “wrong”.

In hindsight guessing is as valid as any other process. The feelings, the thoughts, the choices and the activities we are in charge of (ie our own), can and should be whatever they need to be. If, for neurological reasons they don’t feel like they’re standing on solid ground then settle for sand. Likewise accept that they will or can be right, wrong, black, white, shifting, paranoid, blue, black, depressed, resolved, resilient or blank.

What they are however is ours. Not much else to claim, might as well claim those. We’re all looking at stars, some of us are seeing them from the gutter (with apologies to Oscar).

9th house work ahead March 1, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a comment

Apparently we have a higher mind.

I don’t know whether that’s true for everyone. Sometimes I’m not sure it’s true for me and I’m damn sure it’s not true for the low-life I saw being interviewed on the pseudo news show 60 minutes on the topic of stalking children online.

Although I could have turned off the show I didn’t – maybe as witness to the children – some of whom end up dead at the hands of these sick mothers.

Now, unfortunately,  I can’t forget or shake the image of this particular man. But It’s not the individual that I loathe – it’s the common man nature of them.

They are everywhere and anyone.

We spoke about one last night at a party. A random hopeless conversation about a man some of us knew who had been arrested for this same crime. A man who reminds us with waves of sickening horror, of just how close we come to evil everyday.

We have a responsibility to make sure that our own house is in order.

To that end, I’m in the process of changing the work I do. I’ve prepared all I can, and as a break I reviewed an astrological “progress” reading I had done when I was on holidays recently. A sort of QA that my choice of paid work would ultimately inform the life I’m striving to live.

A progress report means a snapshot of where the planets are placed against the planet “baggage” we carry around in our lives from the time of our birth.

For instance, my twin and I have 5 planets in the one area of the chart – the higher mind of the 9th house – which means everything we do is  to encourage consciousness, Whether it’s maintaining intellectual independence and discernment  whilst  managing relationships to ensure that integrity of purpose, meaning and direction.

It’s also about personal power.

Higher consciousness enables and requires not not giving power away. It also means not taking power off another.

We’re all potentially on a spiritual path; the path to being a better person. To be a better person we need to take responsibility for our own growth. We need to maintain our integrity and strength of life purpose.

If we become dissociated from that centre of truth – the thing that gives us meaning – we end up doing all sorts of things – like lying, stealing, hiding, bartering, bullying. Pretending the job we do is good enough. Or bluffing our way into a new job based on the money it offers or the sense of temporal status it afford us.

Separated from our centre we’ll fail to recognise the authentic choice. We’ll be stuck in the swing between stealing power from others or giving our own away.

That’s why some find themselves at the end of February 2010 trying to rescue people buried in the tossed up grounds of an earthquake and others loot supermarkets.

Poverty, crisis, child abuse, catastrophes are the stimulus, all we can actually control is our reaction.  We can’t be sure of a when an earthquake hits, or a Tsumani results. All we can be working towards is making the world better for each of us. Safe, joyous, abundant, creative and alive by the choices we make.

I would like to honour the children who are stolen before time and those in Chile who can’t be found. And wish all of us a safe year to find out what we should and could be doing right.

Two calls in one day February 11, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , 1 comment so far

I have a brother in law battling cancer – he spent the day in hospital and it was his birthday – you could put all sort of labels on that – extraordinary, sad, lonely, karmic or just shitty.

On the same day I get a call from a good friend battling a  challenging work situation – for him this day, 11 February, was an exciting reportable day – a day to ring a friend, a day to regroup, to gather forces to make sense of things. To take stock.

Each day, on an average, we take  at least 30 calls from strangers, friends, recovered pals, Indian call centres, real estate agents, car repairers, sisters, work mates and possibly random accidental calls like the people who emailed you when they should have sent their message to someone else and rang to apologise.

Or the older compatriot who picked a fight the day before and needed reassurance that their tone was not too overkill and necessitated calling up personally even though a phone call wouldn’t replace personal interaction and the chance to diagnose body language.

Or the follow up sms from i-phone emails first thing this morning  (because you seem to lose all etiquette when it comes to I-phone apps)  to confirm the weekend movie session or luncheon location. Calls that feel as familiar and real as if heard by voice over the phone. Everything merges – the boundary blurs. We are, in many instances, on automatic pilot.

Every day something’s coming in – we either want or don’t want; we either allow or restrict. Like a restructure that brings us closer to the thing we rejected ages before. Or an estimation of value on a thing we’d invested much more than money into. Or a surprising drive to work when someone else in the driving seat enables one to relax into the concept of trust, of gratefulness and of surrender. To share their just about to begin adventure into Positano and Florence. A drive to witness their lives- now that’s a treat.

These days, on the day – someone new wants to follow you on twitter, or connect on facebook or linked-in. And on these days I play my part in equal part,  inviting people to join me on linked-in or twitter; unseemingly chasing a number that equates with successful social skilling.

On this day 11 February at 20.30 in Sydney Australia all I know is that this allowing, restricting, directing, canvassing, receiving, acknowledging, mining, retrieving, researching, consolidating, reassuring, and consoling has buggered me completely.

I’m knackered – and I’ve no real reason to be so tired except that I was alive on 11 February 2010 in this fabulous city of mine on a day with no fires no rain no hail and no snow and that sort of balance sheet costs something.

I’m also happy that right now, as I write this and breath in and out, my darling brother in law does so with me and lives with the violence of love and faith and trust that binds us across time, cities and belief structures. And that right now, my friend,  all my friends, online off line, in line or out of step are rising to the challenge to breathe at the same rate as each other.

Om shanti

From America January 27, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Sunrises , 1 comment so far

I’m in California and have left it until the last minute to get a shot of a perfect sunrise. I’m capturing 16 perfect Sunrise photos to act as metaphors of my expanding into new spaces.

I can picture the colour spilling out behind the filigree branching of that skyward bold old oak tree on the corner of 15th and McDonald Street Santa Rosa.

So each morning I’m up and ready in my thermals, jeans jumper and joggers only to find that saintly rosey sky leaden with rain clouds and hiding its splendid colour.

OK  so I could have been more strategic and planned to photograpDSC06192h on a dry sunny morning – perhaps even a snowy tipped one whilst in Detroit. But how did I know it would be raining for 10 straight days.

I guess  I was too busy actually expanding rather than thinking about or recording it. (And yes I had chocolate when I shouldn’t have!)

My trip was and has been primarily to touch base with my twin; for me a  source of  parallel thinking, feeling and insight. The process of checking in with her always crazily, uncannily  provides a parallel insight into how we’re going. It’s sort of a life co-coaching exercise.

I had the great benefit of meeting some fabulous people whilst away. Friends of my sister who are into similar mental and work-based pursuits. I recorded some podcasts with them and will store them on my All in 10 minutes blog.

We had great talks about stories we tell ourselves and how they stack up. How we use metaphors and the power of thoughts and language to steer us toward or away from the path of individuation and wholeness. How the intrapersonal communication is informed by those internal stacked stories. And how our cells store memories of traumas, joys, grief and phobic reactions. I’ll group the talks as a podcast series called  “internally communicating”.

My dear friend James who is a professional podcaster would be horrified at the quality of some of the audio – so it won’t be good enough to store on a professional site such as his. I searched word press to find the plug-in podcast function – only to find my childhood guru “Mighty mouse” as the marketing icon. Now if that’s not a personal sign of a sunrise I don’t know what is. 

So Here I come to save my day – rain or not, with a final blog from America

Mediation – and the art of being Cate January 17, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Into the new space , add a comment

My sister is an excellent mediatior. She always has been. Her nature suits the skill.

She is a Libran like me as we are twins. We are therefore guilty of, or succumb to the same tendencies which can be, at times strengths and at other times weaknesses.

One of the strengths is the ability to read others quickly and stay centred when dealing with competing needs and drivers. Cate is brilliant at this. Ever since she was little she’s been able to pour smooth balm over troubled waters. Or is it smooth water over troubles, or trouble over water,  either way it banks up well.  She used to have to do it to live  in peace – something she craved deeply; she now does it for a living and is putting money in the bank.

In many instances what she does is to help people communicate better: about what is going wrong, what needs to happen to make it better and what steps they need to take to get there.

Recently she helped a young 14 year old woman and her mum find a way forward out of an impasse of confusion, frustration and despair. And they did so together with respect. The end result was that both of them turned their life around.

The real trick is:

What happpens is that people are then able see the problem that they face is a problem that they share. For it holds the same need, the same concern and the same inherent desire. To get resolution instead of fighting they find they’re working together to the same end. To point out what it is sitting right before someone’s eyes. People are often too close to the problem to see not only what’s going one, but also how to move forward.

I’ve been holidaying with her and her family and have had the great fortune to drop back into our twin world of shared insights, dreams, aims, ambitions, desires, fears and blindspots. As a gesture of praise to this mediating skill- I’ve painted 3 canvases that will sit on her office reception wall. The canvases are a triptych of her company logo. It is also a representation of the three phases a person may undergo in a mediation process:

I’m glad Cate likes the painting. She’s always been my greatest cheer squad, and accepts that the gesture is as valuable as the pictorial output. I am arguably her greatest cheer squad too, for I deeeply respect her clarity of thought, generosity of spirit and skill of communication.

The ROI on 2009 January 1, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , add a comment

What did I do this year? How do I assess it? And should I?

 We often end the year feeling a short fall or feeling chuffed with how we did, we invariably feel hungover.

 I figured instead of making some new random wish I’d do a bit of an audit to determine any personal growth achieved and any outstanding. If i did well on the investment I’d play it forward -if not I’d have the bones of a new game plan. An investment strategy for 2010.

 Here we go..

So all in all – a reasonable return on investment

Wiser? Nup. Richer? Yep. Fatter? Nup. Happier? I think so.

Happy new year - I get it

And right back atya – if anyone is reading

Dr A – the search for self November 25, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Into the new space , add a comment

Over the last three months I’ve met with a gentle, clever, empathetic man to address work-place anxiety and to sort out what sort of work I want to do next.

He is a psychologist and a spiritual advisor who coached me over eight sessions to uncover skills I already had and remember the ones that I would need on this next path.

I am changing paths. The old methods of navigating don’t work as well as they used to.  I felt frustrated with efforts to simply plug into a job description, defined by someone else. I’d outgrown the seek.com approach to happiness. It felt like a betrayal to a stronger signal, but that signal was unclear.

My approach to career and life management and its links to self-concept and self-efficacy have been heavily influenced by my late husband,  a psychologist  who specialised in the area.

I have a favourite book, “Dibs in Search of Self” by Virginia Axline. Miss A as Dibbs called his play therapist, is my ideal life coach. My expectations of a psychologist were akin to Dibbs’ – I expect clarity, empathy, intelligence, generosity, kindness, interest and respect.

“Dr A” had all of that – and gave me significant insights into my own process.

In the 1st session I learnt about metaphors. I love to talk, and A had an uncanny ability to listen, pace, raise the pitch and punctuate the conversation – not with a summary of what was said as much as an echo of intent – thereby keeping me dogged on message. He continually clarified the conversation so that I was able to drop ever deeper into the intuitive insightful part of my brain. This is psychology at its best.

In the 2nd session I learnt about the space between making decisions. When the first decision is made, and the 2nd not yet formed, there is often a no-space of waiting. That’s life.

In the 3rd session I learnt about gentleness – to myself and how change happens. I learnt about defiance.

In the 4th session I learnt about father – my own and my reproduced father roles that keep appearing. Joseph Campbell believes the search for father is the search for character and destiny – too true.

In the 5th session I learnt about vantage points. Why use language as if I was just beginning my life, when in fact I was half-way through a splendid well-lived life. It was a lesson in humility and humour.

In the 6th session I learnt about intuition towards wholeness and where play and joy comes in; I learnt I had to trust myself more and I learnt about prayer.

In the 7th session I learnt that anxiety had served me well to protect my heart and that it was ungrateful to judge it harshly now. I just need to adjust the hold it has on me.

In the last and 8th session – I learnt to view my own reflective drama and dance, and acknowledge my ability to engage and reflect the humanity of others again and again.

What a splendid teacher I had – thank you “Doctor A”, Have a great year next year and enjoy your own blessed pilgrimage.

Turquoise and the Seer November 9, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Into the new space , add a comment

Talking of brick walls and hitting my head against them; I went to see a card reader to find out my future. Yes  indeed, “come in spinner”, once again.

I went to the Mind-Body- Spirit Festival in Sydney last weekend and sought out a reader to reassure myself that this latest  idea I have of taking a sabatical overseas for a year isn’t crazy.  Of course it’s crazy but I’m addicted to finding the perfect  psychic.

I do this – simply to validate what is already in my head. I do this on the understanding that if someone “out there”  can see what I’m seeing then it just might  be an event in the future which I’ve somehow tapped into.

Of course, it’s just as likely that those images in my head are somehow able to be “read” by a sensitive individual, who can  tap into another’s conscious thoughts.   I don’t know how it happens, nor do Iwant to find out.  But I do remember reading that psychotics have this ability as well. Sort of a 6th, 7th or ? sense.

My search for the perfect psychic is a compulsive disorder. It holds a strange appeal, like  a circus or carnival does; or fantasing that my lotto numbers will come in.  The process makes makes me feel there’s a script already written on my life which a select few can scan and download.

I’ve not gone to this particular festival for some time, simply because I’d outgrown it. There are way too many auric cleansings and sprit guides – who all magically appear in pastel crayon on colour paper  -  for my liking.  And of course whilst you fork out $80 to have some woman draw up an exotic (never ugly) handmaiden with wings and swirls, and stars and tiny golden budda  statues, anyone would wonder why it doesn’t look like yourself, or your next door neighbour or the guy at the local club? Why is it  invariably a Red Indian spirit guide with a big drum and a medicine stick? Or some cute oriental lass with a candle. Can someone tell me?

So along with other hopefuls, I queued outside the card reading stall – prepared to fork out 40 bucks for 30 minutes of diving insight from a complete stranger. Chosen because she had a nice face and she was free in time for me to make Yum cha with my friends. Sure I can fit in the future  before lunch. Might whet the appetitie.

 A delightful woman greeted me as I sat down in Row D number 7,  she  a nice warm face, an appropriate collection of crystals, decks of cards, a few angel statues – you know the drill.

Of course she told me everything I’d heard only 2 months prior from my regular psychic. The poor darling guessing along with the best of them, tapping into some all knowing RSS Feed of my future happiness. Mind you she was on the same feed as the previous psychic, so al lI had to do was validate with a rapid-fire  “yes, I know that…..next…”. That of course is the down-side of going to psychics multiple times. If they’re good – you just hear the same stuff again. 

When she ran out of news to tell me threw in…” so what’s with the little white fluffy dog”?  Normally I’d have said – who knows, dog shmog? The problem was  that I had seen the dog myself that morning in meditation. My response, quite appropriately was, ”Well don’t ask me – “that’s why I’m paying you!!”.

Now as I’m thinking of heading off to Europe for time out – painting and volunteering  or  working for board and food on some organic farm in France or Italy, I didn’t want questions – I wanted clear reassurance.   15 minutes in, she threw open to  questions. Of course I asked her if she could see anything relating to the immediate future.

Quick as a flash she asks”Do you travel for your work? I see lots of colour, painting and Italy” “Are you buying a new car”  Not a bad scan of my current secret fantasy, and the 2 hours I had spent that morning reasearching whether to buy or lease a vehicle overseas.

So for $40 I got a fabulous future. All planned the way I wanted.  And of course I got the obligatory old Indian guide with a big drum and a winning smile. I also got a relationship thrown in. The only lead I had was that it would be  someone with lovely hands who creates things, in Canada and who wears a turquoise ring and  probably comes from a different race. So  my future is with a Mexican or Indian carpenter or builder. OK I can work with that.

What is it that we need to go outside of ourselves to get the validation for some serious thinking and work only we can do for ourselves inside! Sigh.

By all accounts I’ll be some new age old witch with an Indian lover living in Canada chanting about the rising moon…

God only knows why I continue to ask..bring it on I say :)

All changed, changed utterly April 24, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Yellow , add a comment

Venus disappears now and then.

Astrologically speaking, she’s retrograde – going nowhere fast!

Normally I’d “pah!” or “humbug” such news, but I’m starting to think there might be something in it. My life’s going nowhere fast, and as a Libran – ruled by Venus –  I could well have fallen under her invisible, directionless sway.

To add “pish” to that “humbug” I’m wondering if disappearing or withdrawing isn’t totally appropriate right now, that is  for someone who had a ‘fall’ and who needed to regroup and recover. 

The only problem is that sooner or later you have to re-emerge or re-appear and the environment more often than not – has changed in the meantime.

I’m in the process of re-entering my atmosphere – parts of which have significantly changed whilst I was away. The most notable change is the nature and extent of my social network, and to a lesser degree my own preference for maintaining such a network.

This last fortnight, I wanted to fill a table at a charity ball. Everyone I asked was either too busy, or away or just unwilling. I felt a social failure and took it personally. My sister reminded me, rightly, that one can’t expect “to pick a bunch of flowers if you haven’t been tending the garden”.

One of the greatest losses in my garden though, was a dear friend who is just unattainable to me. Not just for the ball – but on a regular basis. She’s always too busy or moving too fast for me. She has nowhere to put me and those talks that I want to have with her. And as I don’t want to move at that frantic pace she undertakes, I think the friendship – as we know it- is doomed to fail. I hope she will always be in my life, as we have shared many stories, but I’ve changed as much as she, as our flight plans and preferences are different.

So thrown back on my own resources and lack of social network – I did what I normally do, smallbutterflyI painted.  I completed a painting that has been a focus for several weeks. The painting is of a Monarch butterfly emerging from a cocoon as a metaphor for my own process. The Monarch the only butterfly to make the Transatlantic crossing and resides in USA and Australia.  It sits on my bedroom wall and I keep one eye on it as I fall asleep into my flights of fancy, and dreamscapes. The other eye I keep firmly fixed on Venus – awaiting her return each morning.

Like the painting and the loss of friends, things appear to happen from the outside-in, rather than from inside-out. The butterfly reminds me to take responsibility for my own changes – to friendships, directions, and choices.

I’m out of the cocoon now and I can’t return to it, no matter how much I wish I could, or how cold it gets out there on my own. I have to decide whether I’ll make a transatlantic crossing of my own – into the future or back to the memories from my  past. Either way, I’ve got to fly – and life has to be lived. 

In Esoteric writings, Venus is also the name given to Lucifer Morningstar – the brightest most beautiful, most loved angel before “the fall”. Now the name is associated with darkness, shadows, fear and the devil– which is “lived” spelt backwards. A sort of retrograde all its own.

The point of these ruminations is that each life has a myriad of splendid, brilliant moments and colours – from our past and surely into our future. With each breath we’ll unfurl just a little bit more of the colour, brilliance and splendour of our nature. With each retrograde we take stock and try to  see things back-to- front for that new perspective.

For all of this – some of those moments, insights, gardens, and landscapes  have to be left behind and to be let go of.  We can leave them wrapped up in the cocoon of our history of what led us here. They’ve served us well. It is enough.

And in doing so – we accept that we’ve changed, as Yeats wrote so succinctly,“ changed utterly – a terrible beauty is born.”

Growing up in the Market Place March 23, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a comment

I don’t like the murky boundaries between personal and organisational life.

I don’t mean the often discussed “work-life balance”. I mean the situation when the behaviours that are appropriate in the personal sphere are mindlessly and expectantly transported into the work arena where they just don’t fit.

We make friends at work because we spend the greatest amount of time there, but we often can’t maintain friendships through a work environment because of different “agendas” and motivations.

We also can’t expect to have friends with people at work unless the organisational status is in the same stratosphere. Someone gets ahead in the company because they are more skilled, more ambitious or perhaps because they knew how to source the support they needed.

Likewise that support team, often sourced from their “friends” complied with their choices for progress – many times because the supporter got to “piggy-back” on that relationship. This translates to a favour here and there – a chance for promotion or an opportunity that may or may not have been given to another. For the supporter – it’s an investment strategy, for the progressive one – it’s payment- in-kind.

The thing we can’t maintain, however, in this finely tuned exchange of energy, is the illusion of friendship. Personal comments and opinions are affected, the level of consistency and care varies, the quid-pro-quo invariably gets short of quo.

All of a sudden there’s an “ask” but no “reply”. There’s a “demand” but no “supply”, the relationship has changed. And someone feels hurt. It’s at this point that it gets messy.

Because we don’t grow at the same rate, and we don’t want the same things, the demander gets out of cycle with the supplier. He or she still moves on their projectile to their goal. The problem is, the supplier has changed their destination and they’re not on the same route. Because their job isn’t as all-consuming or singular, they’ve diversified. They’ve got more time for personal activities and pursuits and they’re not available, on-tap to supply the demander anymore.

This might come in the form of an overt disagreement or objection, or a failure to support the new direction. When they are now held to account for their objectionable response – the supplier is resentful, “If you didn’t want the answer, they intone, why did you ask the question?”

On the other hand, the demander who has often fed off the supplier for ideas, for support, for motivation, for encouragement is now also resentful. Instead of sourcing that support internally from a base of self-efficacy – they out-sourced it – making a quicker, more economical perhaps less mind-ful choice. But when that source dries up, the demander is at a loss, and resorts to the time-worn script and illusion of “friendship”. And things get “personal”.

“Personal” for a demander, however, comes with all the organisational sway at their command. Opportunities, requests, outcomes – the ball has always been in their court because they call the organisational shots. So what’s the answer?

Grow up.

We only have control over our choices and our relationships. We need to be clear on every choice we make and every relationship we invest in. If our investment strategy changes – we should be clear on that. And if we don’t seek favours or opportunities unless we’ve rightfully earned them, then we can rest easy.

We choose, for ourselves, what we want to personally achieve. At some stage, every supplier and every demander will get a wake-up call. Perhaps they’ve not been  mind-ful  Perhaps mistaking organisational behaviour for personal friendship they’ve misinterpreted relationships and been hurt or frustrated that the old modus operandi doesn’t fit. Perhaps a new player in the relationship has tilted the balance.

If we’re grown-ups we will behave in each sphere with appropriate behaviour with no need for manipulation or guilt or carrot and stick, or disguised favours. And then, perhaps we can all be honest with ourselves. And if we are honest there’ll be no need for tedious, predictable office politics that permeates every level of every organisation like some B grade Hollywood series.

If we can be honest – and support each other in a proper and equal way – each to their own, for their own, on their own – we might all get to grow up through our working life – as we expect to do in our personal one.