3 Thought Thursday

By Monique Rhodes

Here is your weekly dose of three things that have impressed me during the week or that I am contemplating. 

The change I have made this week - 

As I am now living in the USA I felt it was essential to stay in touch with the news. On a worldwide scale there is a lot of turmoil and upheaval and it felt vital for me to be informed.

This week I removed all news apps from my phone. I realised I was getting sucked, in wanting to see what was going on - a lot. As I looked at this more closely and really investigated what was happening, I knew that this desire to read the news several times a day was out a feeling of fear. I wanted to be all over what was going on so that I could protect myself, if necessary.


This is not how I live my life. I don't live in fear. 


The news sites are loving the current chaos. They have sucked us all in to this endless drama and it's great for their business. I want to keep in touch with what is happening but I don't need to read it several times a day, like I have started having a tendency to do when it's on my phone. 

And 3 days in, all I can say is that I feel so much better. These small changes can make such a huge difference. 


My favourite quote of the week - 

“I don’t know if I’ve learned anything yet! I did learn how to have a happy home, but I consider myself fortunate in that regard because I could’ve rolled right by it. Everybody has a superficial side and a deep side, but this culture doesn’t place much value on depth — we don’t have shamans or soothsayers, and depth isn’t encouraged or understood. Surrounded by this shallow, glossy society we develop a shallow side, too, and we become attracted to fluff. That’s reflected in the fact that this culture sets up an addiction to romance based on insecurity — the uncertainty of whether or not you’re truly united with the object of your obsession is the rush people get hooked on. I’ve seen this pattern so much in myself and my friends and some people never get off that line.


But along with developing my superficial side, I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing. I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.


You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.”  Joni Mitchell

My favourite video of the week - 

One of my students sent me this fascinating video about self awareness. I had to watch this twice as I found it so interesting.