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Browse every published article connected to Warren Redman, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Browse every published article connected to Warren Redman, or search within this exact expert archive.
Last week I met with Gandhi. He was standing, wearing his familiar white cotton robe, his bare feet on the old cobbled pavement of a market square. People were going about their business, occasionally greeting him politely but otherwise taking little notice of the great man in their presence. I ...
This was a favourite quote of my mentor, teacher and friend John Heimler. He had some experience with pain, both physical and emotional, as a survivor of Auschwitz and other concentration camps; pain that is unimaginable to most of us. We all have our own pain to bear at different times during ...
I constantly hear people talk about how they would love to let go of their attachments, not so much to things, but to their expectations. “If only I didn’t worry so much about how things will turn out, I’d feel a lot less anxious,” is a common cry. Letting go is easier said than done, ...
Sometimes, like today, it seems that there is not enough time to do the things I want to do, or rather, that I have set myself to do. That, of course, is an illusion. There is always time. There is always all the time in the world. We humans, after all, invented time, or at least subdivided the ...
It seems odd to me that most people go through life imagining that they know exactly what will happen and get shocked or surprised if things don’t go the way they expect. It is even stranger to me that those same people appear to believe that they are immortal. Today I had a conversation with ...
Little causes more heated debate and potentially hurt feelings than the topic of religion between people of differing opinions and faiths. While religious values and tradition have been of great comfort to millions of people, it has also caused enmity between neighbours, civil strife and even ...
Doesn’t seem much does it? But delve deeper and we will discover that when we experience life to its fullest, we find a treasure trove of immense wealth. When we experience the depth of our emotions, the richness of our senses and the extent of our wisdom, we become aware of the meaning and ...
Quote from The 9 Steps to Emotional Fitness by Warren Redman There comes time when we will each be confronted by a life-changing event or decision. Perhaps you have already faced one or two of those in your life. You will understand what I mean if you have. Frequently, the people who ask for ...
My daughter came from England to visit a little while back. It was the first time I'd seen her for nearly four years, and this had felt far, far too long. I had missed the closeness of her. Phone calls and e-mails are fine, but never the same as being there. Lin is 34 and still my little girl ...
We all have some frustrations in life; the things that bring us our pain or our problems, our feelings of pressure or powerlessness. They can drag us down and submerge us. And they will, until we recognize them as the source of our inner strength, our creativity and our potential to make ...
Any expression of emotion is good for the soul if we allow it. Withholding our laughter can be as damaging as suppressing our tears. There was a time in my life when I held back both. At a level just below my consciousness I knew that they were there. It felt as though I was punishing myself and ...
How much more at ease might we be with ourselves once we discard the need to have more information, knowledge and understanding? Whatever we may know, it can never be more than an infinitesimal fraction of what there is to know. Let us relax into ourselves, knowing how little we really know and ...
Money isn’t everything, as the saying goes, but it sure helps. Sadly, the amount of energy put into attaining money does make it look as though it is everything to most people. The very fact that wealthy people always seem to seek more money reinforces that image. I have worked with some ...
Mostly, we have no idea of the effect we have on other people’s lives. How a kind or an unkind word to a stranger can improve or damage their day; how an angry glance can upset a child, or a nod of encouragement help that same child to strive for something great. Mostly, we are conce ed only ...
There are experts all around us. Professionals who can, and will, tell us how to handle our finances, our health, our children, our garden, our golf – even our sex lives and our funeral arrangements. Psychologists and job interviewers will hand us personality assessment tests and tell us where ...
The strangest stories are usually the true life ones. Take Marnie (not her real name), who recollected as a child ingrade 3 how she would roll a large piece of art paper around herself and stand in a corner. Her teacher would try to get her to come out; the other children would make fun of ...
Change is, as the saying goes, the only constant. It is also the thing that most of us resist, even when the change appears positive, and certainly when the change seems out of our control. And yet every change, large or small, is another opportunity for growth, for learning and for a new ...
A few months ago I traveled from Canada to a school reunion in England. As events go, maybe this does not rank as amazing. But amazing it was and taught me more about how we develop as adults than reading a ton of books on the subject. Here was a group of fifty or more men and women, most of ...
The story of Creation in the Old Testament tells us that God created heaven and earth and all that’s in it in the space of six days, and rested on the seventh. Whatever you believe, just imagine for a moment that God had used an extra day. For a start, we would have eight day weeks now and ...
Quote from The 9 Steps to Emotional Fitness a book by Warren Redman This is, perhaps, another way of saying “wherever you go, there you are”. Since you were born, you have been in your own place, and always a place of your own making. Like it or not, it’s yours; and here’s the point, you can ...
Quote from The 9 Steps to Emotional Fitness also by Warren Redman Last week I was in the UK spending time with family members – something that doesn’t happen often for me these days. It was the occasion of my father’s 90th birthday. He was surrounded by his children and most of his ...
Some months ago I listened to a woman (let’s call her Kate) calling me long-distance. “I should have taken that opportunity when it came up,” she told me. “Now I feel it’s passed me by.” A few minutes later she wondered out loud if she should leave her current comfortable but far from ...
I remember my grandmother saying to me, in her jovial and gentle way, that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. She’d say that when she caught herself chatting to herself as she mixed yet another floury concoction into a bowl with her oversized wooden spoon. At seven, while I knew ...
We all live inner lives. Thoughts and feelings that sometimes we are hardly aware of exist almost independently of our outward existence. Occasionally, when we become more conscious of what is going on within us, we might express the idea, the thought, the feeling. Often we will suppress it, ...
In the universal human search for meaning, there are almost as many answers as there are people. This is often organized into our religions, cultures, nations and communities. Victor Frankl, wrote much of his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” while encarcerated in the Nazi concentration camp of ...
Time and again when I am coaching someone, or during one of our Emotional Fitness training sessions, I hear the same pattern coming up; the same theme song of that particular individual. And, as the coaching or training continues, that person will say “enough; I have had enough of doing the same ...
Over the past few weeks I have been surrounded by people who have colds, coughs and flu-like symptoms. Fortunately for me, I have not succumbed to the germs and viruses that have been spread around, partly secure in my belief that being emotionally fit is what protects me. I am not immune from ...
Quote from The 9 Steps to Emotional Fitness also by Warren Redman Taking things for granted is the way most of us live our lives; right up until we see or experience something that brings us up sharply. Flicking on a light switch or turning on the tap for a kettle of water may be an automatic ...
It’s a new year and I have an announcement to make. But first, let me wish you all fulfillment, health and serenity in 2007. It has been a delight to hear from you and work with many of you during the past year and I look forward to the road ahead. It has been eleven years (January 1st 1996) ...
It still amazes me. No matter how many times I hear it, when someone tells me that nobody ever listened to them before, or that being listened to was the most powerful experience that they had, I feel a surge of emotion. It’s a mixture of sadness and anger tinged with elation and determination. ...
Problems seldom feel good when you are in the midst of them. Most inspirational speakers and books, and many bosses, encourage us to see problems as opportunities, which is fine if at that moment you don’t feel weighed down by them. The interesting thing is that looking back at what seemed ...
One of the joys and privileges of being an Emotional Fitness Coach and teaching Emotional Fitness courses is that I get to hear the inner thoughts and experiences of others. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I want to spy on other people’s lives; it’s that as I hear their stories two things ...
So much of life seems to be a competition. We need to have more or be better than everyone else, or at least those in our immediate circle, and if we’re not there is that feeling of dissatisfaction and insufficiency. So when we are able to see the wonder of who we are and the completeness and ...
Ever felt that life dealt you so much that it was too complicated to handle? There’s the new project at work that you just got handed to add to the myriad of others things that you have to handle. Your spouse wants you to help plan that vacation you’ve been putting off talking about. The kids ...
The collection of skills that adds up to Emotional Fitness is not easy to quantify or even define. In the corporate world they are often obliquely called “the soft skills” for that reason. This distinguished them, I suppose, from the “hard skills” that are more ...
We all have a creative spark. Some of us allow that spark to light a flame that burns brightly. Others let it fizzle and splutter. A few weeks ago Nicole and I stood gazing up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, that marvel of artistic endeavour created by Michelangelo, wondering at the ...
Truth, the saying goes, is stranger than fiction, and I am witness to that in my own life and from the thousands of stories that I have heard from people over the last thirty years that I have practiced as a counsellor, a coach and an Emotional Fitness trainer. If you believe that your life is ...
Occasionally, very occasionally, it may be prudent to take precautions and put up some kind of defensive wall against potential marauders. But our society and communities today appear to have moved to extremes in reaction to the fear that is sweeping into many corners of our lives. Do the ...
Last week I received in the mail a copy of the latest newsletter from my old school, a place I last attended over fifty years ago. It was filled with reminiscences from past students and obituaries of contemporaries. I was struck with the seemingly mundane existence of some of them, although the ...
Here’s one of the quotes that I didn’t think up – it’s an old one that I recall from my childhood and one that has become more pertinent the more I hear people talk without the evidence of any action. One of the key elements that constitute the 9 Steps to Emotional Fitness is that each one of ...
There is no coincidence. When we see the same thing a few times, or meet the same people, or bump into someone we have just been talking about, we tend to call it a coincidence. It happened to me today. I had just left a message for someone at an organization I am working with and left my ...
As conscious as we may wish to be in life, the difficult awareness to have is that of the unknown power that lies within us. Whenever we take some action, there is always a consequence. Most of the time, we plan it that way and generally hope that the consequence will be the one that we ...
As you read this I will be miles away from home, enjoying a reunion with my daughter and family and friends in England, after which Nicole and I will be flying to Rome and spending twelve days cruising in the Mediterranean. This is not meant to make you envious. The trip is my retirement. After ...
It is perhaps one of the greatest challenges. How do we find it within ourselves to love our enemies? Why would we even want to? These days, I can think of nobody I know who I can see as my enemy. That wasn’t always true. Many years ago I had a boss who was in complete control of his emotions. ...
BE A GREAT DAD – building your legacy is the title of a new CD produced by Warren Redman in conjunction with Families Matter, a Calgary-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to the healthy development and well-being of families. The CD is a series of interviews with dads, kids and moms ...
Being is not only thinking. For us, much of our existence is experienced though our feelings. Odd then, that so much of what we talk about, read about and see going on in the world is dealt with through the realm of thinking and logic. What a huge piece of the human condition we miss when we ...
My guess is that our souls are transforming all the time, even though, like our bodies, they still remain identifiably us. There are occasions when we may consciously recognize a shift in our very being, that is to say, in the soul. Those occasions are usually traumatic or highly significant ...
We love to have the answers. Today’s society seems focused on problem-solving and coming up with the “best” way to do things. Look in the bookstores. They are filled with self-help books by self-styled gurus who tell us how to live our lives, as though they have the answers for us. And millions ...
It’s not a race. We are, but it isn’t. Oddly we do often appear to act as though we are not from the same species and that, indeed, the race is on to be better than the other guy or to have more and show more success in whatever way we deem it. The fact is that there are comparatively few ...
Here’s a question with a lot of mystery to it, because the answer seems so obvious at first. Of course I want to be me; or I am me already, whaddya mean who do I want to be? I have to admit that for years, as a young boy, a teenager, a young and then a middle-aged man I yearned to be like ...