Two Minute Stillness

We would - of course - want to get rid of this thing forever and heaven knows we will have tried. But the more time passes, the more we have to take on board a bleaker, unavoidable reality: this thing is here for the long term. How can we survive this ostensibly extremely dispiriting realisation?

We prefer people who are ‘straightforward’: who are direct and unambiguous about their desires and characters. Becoming more so involves untangling the self-deceptions we constructed when we were young.Uploaded 21-10-20Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/_HzJJBe more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/FS-EDFURTHER READINGYou can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/3dIOlkN“A basic distinction in humans is between those who are simple and straightforward to deal with – and those who are – as we tend to be reminded when we interact with them – repeatedly tricky or complicated to handle. What makes straightforward people gratifying to be around isn’t so much that their positions and intentions are always inherently unproblematic, it’s that we happen to know exactly what the issues are from the start. There is therefore no need to guess, infer, decode, untangle, unscramble or translate. There are no sudden surprises or revolutions in perspective. If these straightforward types don’t want to do something, they will, politely and in good time, explain that it’s really not for them. If they’re unhappy with our behaviour, they won’t smile sweetly while developing noxious stores of envy or hatred in the recesses of their minds; they will immediately provide a gentle but accurate statement of how we are frustrating them. If they are worried a project is going awry, they won’t pretend that all is well until a catastrophe can no longer be denied. If they are attracted to someone, they will find charming, kind and inoffensive ways of making their feelings clear. And in bed, they may want to please, but they can also be honest and unashamed about what actually excites them.”MORE SCHOOL OF LIFEWatch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLselfSOCIAL MEDIAFeel free to follow us at the links below:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITSProduced in collaboration with:Noelle Smith Designhttp://www.noellesmithdesign.com/ Title animation produced in collaboration withVale Productionshttps://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Psychotherapy offers one of the most reliable ways to understand yourself and widen your options around work and love. It can also lessen feelings of isolation, guilt, and anxiety. In this film, The School of Life founder Alain de Botton discusses therapy with The School’s head therapist, Charlotte Fox-Weber. Charlotte explains what therapy is, what happens when you go there and why it might be an idea for you one day to visit a therapist.Uploaded 06-09-17The School of Life runs a global online psychotherapy service that assists clients from over 40 countries. To find out more and book a session today, please visit our website: https://t.ly/xP3ELFURTHER READING“In almost all countries and communities around the world, there is one central (usually unvoiced) suspicion that arises whenever someone lets slip that they are ‘having therapy’: they are crazy.Getting therapeutic help should – ideally – be an ordinary and wholly unsurprising thing, like getting a haircut or going to the dentist, but it remains a very peculiar and frowned-upon recourse. Partly, that’s because the therapeutic industry currently looks deeply unimpressive. Some rather awkward people are employed in it, operating from shabby basement offices, often with dodgy credentials. A rag bag of questionable services gets labeled with this catch-all term. An industry that should be as dominant and financially significant as Audi or Nike struggles for basic recognition. There is plenty of good work being done, but it isn’t overly visible…”You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://goo.gl/BszzN6SOCIAL MEDIAFeel free to follow us at the links below:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITSProduced in collaboration with: Matthew Hamilton-Knotthttps://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/matthew-hammett-knott #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We can spend a lot of time in committed relationships wondering, maybe with a fair amount of anxiety: do they love me? Might it all suddenly end? But perhaps less time asking the more salient question: what can I do to help this valued relationship endure?

Even though we believe we’re interested in happiness, many of us go in for a particular kind of destructive behaviour: self-sabotage. Why, and what might we do to stop ourselves?