Tag Archives: Life

Mass Hypnosis and Global Totalitarianism

Mass hypnosis – the means

Once upon a time, an ant was sitting on a giant rotating wheel thinking to itself that something felt off. The ant knew that something big was happening, something important, but for the life of it, it couldn’t tell what it was. All it knew was that whatever was happening was going to impact it in a big way. While the ant was sitting there pondering what it could be, the giant wheel finally reached the point where the ant was about to meet the ground. Suddenly, the ant knew what was happening, but it was too late. It was crushed under the giant wheel. Of late, human beings are starting to look a lot like that ant. We know that something big is happening, something important, something that will impact our lives, but we just can’t connect the dots. Everything seems to be changing but we don’t know where this is going. Some are calling it the great reset while others are calling it the new world order. It is almost as if a giant hand is manipulating events, pushing humanity in a certain direction, only we don’t know whose hand it is or which direction it is pushing us towards.

If you have been following the debate, you may have heard the term “mass formation” or “mass formation psychosis” used with regards to the covid-19 pandemic. For the sake of clarity, I will simply call it “mass hypnosis”. Hypnosis is can be defined as an altered state of mind in which the subject has reduced peripheral awareness and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestions. Mass hypnosis happens when hypnosis takes place on a large scale as in a population or on a global scale. Many have been quick to dismiss this phenomenon, but these are the people who usually dismiss whatever they do not understand. We all know that mass hypnosis is a reality – human beings can be hypnotized at mass scale – and we need look no further than Hitler’s rallies in which the crowds were rendered into a hypnotic state that made them willing to accept without question his insane ideas. We also know about mob psychology which is whereby a group of people commit crimes they would never have committed on their own. It is almost as if something takes over and causes them to act as one by taking on the psychology of the lowest among them. We also know that mass hypnosis plays a role in cults whereby people are manipulated using psychological means to do whatever the cult leader wants them to do.

For mass hypnosis to be induced, four conditions must exist in the target population:

Loneliness (lack of social bonds)
Lack of meaning in life
Generalized anxiety (anxiety with no apparent cause)
Generalized frustration and aggression

Once these conditions are met, the population is ripe for mass hypnosis. All one has to do is provide an enemy that people can direct their anxiety, frustration and aggression towards and then provide the solution that will defeat the enemy. This narrative has to be repeated over and over again until people accept it as the truth. This is something the Nazi propaganda guru Joseph Goebbels knew well:

“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” ~ Joseph Goebbels

This constant repetition eventually induces hypnosis by fixating people’s attention (narrowing down awareness to a single point of attention) and bypassing the rational, analytical mind.

Long before the covid-19 pandemic started, the world was already in a state of unrest. Everywhere you looked, people were demonstrating against their governments, demanding change and protesting against perceived injustices. Life was becoming more and more difficult following the 2008 global financial crash. Purchasing power was decreasing and people could no longer survive comfortably on their salaries. People were forced to put in more hours just to maintain the same standard of living. The climate change narrative was being aggressively pushed to explain everything from droughts to wildfires to melting ice caps to changing weather patterns. Social ties were weakening by the day as more and more people retreated online. People everywhere felt lonely and isolated. It felt like the world had reached a breaking point. Then in 2020, the covid-19 pandemic started. Suddenly, our attention was focused narrowly on the pandemic, to the exclusion of everything else. The mainstream media went into overdrive, pounding our collective consciousness 24/7 with news of the virus. Everyone had to stay home and normal social ties were abruptly broken. Nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that businesses were shutting down, economies were collapsing, people were overdosing on drugs or others were committing suicides. It didn’t matter that schools had been shut down, domestic violence was on the rise, people were lonely and scared and relatives were dying without saying goodbye to their loved ones. All that mattered was the virus and protecting ourselves from it. Then to everyone’s relief, a solution was found. Vaccines.

This constant repetition eventually induces hypnosis by fixating people’s attention (narrowing down awareness to a single point of attention) and bypassing the rational, analytical mind.

I’m sure by now you can see where I’m going with this. If you look at the description of mass hypnosis above, you will see a stunning similarity between what has been happening over the past few years and mass hypnosis. Humanity was ripe for mass hypnosis by 2020 following years of instability, unrest, anxiety, loneliness and frustration. The covid-19 narrative was the perfect problem to fixate our attention and vaccines the perfect solution to this problem. This was drummed into us by the mainstream media. Dissent was not allowed. Anything contrary to what the authorities were saying was labelled as misinformation and big tech did their part to stop its spread.

But the question is why? Why would anyone go to all this trouble to hypnotise us? What do they stand to gain? This is unfortunately a naïve question that arises from a lack of understanding of the world we live in. We live in a world where a group of elites who consider themselves better than ordinary human beings are constantly trying to take control of the planet. Remember the cartoons we watched as kids where a supervillain would try to take over the world? Yeah, that’s real. We live in a world where a group of psychopaths driven by greed and the desire for control are willing to do whatever it takes to rule over humanity. These beings have one desire and one desire only – to become our masters while we serve them and do their bidding. As far as they are concerned, heaven on earth will happen when they have total control of every aspect of our lives. This is their dream and the reason why the world is being aggressively hijacked. Their goal is global totalitarianism with them as the rulers of humanity.

Global totalitarianism – the end

Totalitarianism is a form of government and political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control and regulation over public and private life. It is regarded as the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism. Hannah Arendt in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism gives fascinating insights into totalitarianism using the example of Hitler and Stalin. Anyone interested in knowing more about totalitarianism should read her book. The important thing to understand about totalitarianism is that it seeks the complete domination of humanity, but the logical conclusion of this extreme domination is the destruction of life. The people behind totalitarianism are against God, against human beings and against life itself. The ultimate expression of this intense hatred is the destruction of life. Totalitarianism is the anti-Christ we have all been taught to believe is coming. It is a force that wants to destroy life because the extreme hatred that is behind it will not be satisfied with anything less.

The important thing to understand about totalitarianism is that it seeks the complete domination of humanity, but the logical conclusion of this extreme domination is the destruction of life. The people behind totalitarianism are against God, against human beings and against life itself.

According to Hannah Arendt,

“Totalitarian movements are mass organisations of atomized, isolated individuals. Compared with all other parties and movements, their most conspicuous characteristic is their demand for total, unrestricted, unconditional and unalterable loyalty of the individual member. This demand is made by the leaders of totalitarian movements even before they seize power. It usually precedes the total organization of the country under their actual rule and it follows from the claim of their ideologies that their organisation will encompass, in due course, the entire human race.”

From this description, we can observe a few things.

Totalitarian movements are made up of atomized, isolated individuals. If we connect this to the current situation on the planet, we see that human beings were already becoming more and more isolated before the covid-19 pandemic, but this was made worse and brutally enforced during the pandemic. This lays the groundwork for a totalitarian movement to be instituted.
Totalitarian movements demand the total, unrestricted, unconditional and unalterable loyalty of the individual member. For this to happen, the individual has to be in a state in which they feel helpless and look up to an authority for protection and direction. Any voice of dissent is ruthlessly shut down as we are seeing today. Only the authorities can know the truth; anything else is misinformation and must be kept from the people.
The ideology of the totalitarian movement is that their organisation will encompass, in due course, the entire human race. What we see today is an attempt to bring the entire human race into a totalitarian movement. There is a deliberate attempt to bring the entire planet under totalitarian rule. This is why we see mass hypnosis being carried out on a global scale under the pretext of covid-19.

Totalitarianism has several features that all work together to take the masses closer and closer into the desired state of complete loyalty to the leaders and their ideologies (these ideologies are merely a pretext for gaining power. Once in power, these ideologies are promptly forgotten as the true nature of totalitarianism makes itself known). One feature of totalitarianism is the use of terror to create a “mass man”. A mass man is an individual who is completely isolated from others – friends, family, acquittances – and has no social ties. This mass man is completely loyal to the movement to the point of losing his sense of self. One feature of the mass man is that he is no longer concerned with self-preservation. He is willing to lose his very life for the sake of the party. This state is similar to that of someone in a cult who completely loses their identity to the point of being willing to die. In totalitarianism, the creation of the mass man is done by terrorizing people into submission. In Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia, this was done through mass murder. Today, the mass man is being created through psychological warfare – the relentless bombardment of human beings with one fearful event after the other – climate change, covid-19 and now the threat of nuclear war. The result is that people become fearful, isolated and lose any sense of self-preservation. Once in this state, it is possible to get people to do whatever the leaders want. Their internal defences are destroyed.

Another feature of totalitarianism is the complete indifference to mass interest. In the case of Stalin, the illogical destruction of agricultural systems in the name of collectivisation led to mass starvation and deaths. Today, we see this same lack of mass interest in the response to covid-19. Lockdowns led to mass job losses, closure of businesses, destruction of economies and mental health problems. The authorities did not care – protecting humanity from the virus was more important than whatever destruction ensued. This complete lack of empathy reveals the true nature of the covid-19 response. It was not motivated by compassion but was meant to bring humanity one step closer to global totalitarianism.

Another feature of totalitarianism is the gradual loss of freedom. One big disadvantage human beings have that works against them is their ability to adapt. As long as something happens very very slowly, as far as we are concerned, nothing is happening. In reality, what is happening is that without realizing it we continually adapt to new ways of being. Eventually, we even forget that we ever existed in any other way. This weakness has been used against us by those who are aware of this tendency of human beings to continually adapt. It has been used to take away our freedoms without us realizing what is happening. Over a very long time, human beings have given up their freedom of movement by accepting the concept of borders which in reality are prison walls that are far away enough that we don’t realize that we are in prison. Our freedom of movement was further curtailed during the covid-19 pandemic through the lockdowns, the closing down of borders and vaccine passports. These very aggressive measures were used to see just how far the elites could go. We already agreed to be imprisoned in our countries, but could they go further and lock us in our houses? Our freedom of speech is similarly being eroded through censorship and algorithms. Our right to refuse medical treatments is being eroded by the forced vaccines. This is totalitarianism in action, only they are no longer using guns to take away our freedom but psychological warfare.

Today, we are seeing the global elites transition from covid-19 to a new form of psychological warfare – the threat of nuclear war. Will this threat turn into reality? We don’t know. If it does, it will just be another step forward in the madness that is totalitarianism. Our only hope is that enough of us wake up from our slumber and resist this march towards destruction. But if we continue watching from a distance hoping that they will stop themselves, we will be shocked at just how far they are willing to go. The problem with totalitarianism is that it does not know when to stop – it just keeps going until it enters a self-sustaining downward spiral that cannot be stopped. In the end, when the totalitarian leaders take over, their true intentions will be revealed – the destruction of life.

Hatred of the Mother

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When my eldest daughter was around four years old, I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She replied that she wanted to be a mother…of a hundred children. At such a tender age, she was able to observe the mother flame or energy in action and knew it was something she wanted to become one day. Most women know from a very young age that they want to become mothers one day. It is almost an inborn thing. No one needs to tell you that motherhood is something you should want. It’s a desire we are born with. All that love, energy and attention we have within us need somewhere to be channelled to. All the wisdom we acquire and life lessons we learn need someone to whom we can pass them on. Motherhood is a beautiful, wondrous thing and despite how difficult it can get, it is the fulfilment of a deep longing within us. The planet itself would not exist without that loving, nurturing, birthing mother energy that ensures the survival of the species. It is something that should be honoured, celebrated and embraced by all.

Sadly, the mother energy is one of the most hated energies on this planet, second only perhaps to the feminine energy. It beats all logic why this energy should be so despised given the fact that we would not survive as a species without it. As soon as one gives birth, they suddenly come face to face with this intense hatred directed at motherhood that one would never have imagined existed before they had children. The problem is that we have co-existed with it for so long that we almost don’t see it at all. But it is all around us and it hits one like a ton of bricks as soon as the initial joy of giving birth starts subsiding. Those who don’t have children may wonder what I am talking about while those who do have children may not be aware of just how intense this hatred is because we have lived with it for so long that it became the only way we know how to exist. But I can assure you that whether you sense it or not, there is intense hatred of the mother energy on this planet and it is something we need to become aware of if we are to rise above it.

… I can assure you that whether you sense it or not, there is intense hatred of the mother energy on this planet and it is something we need to become aware of if we are to rise above it.

Let’s start with what a woman is faced with once she becomes a mother. In our African context, once you become a mother you are considered damaged goods. In other words, it becomes very hard for someone to want you as a wife if you already have children. It’s almost as if the children soil you in some way. What a shameful attitude. How is it possible that going through the most beautiful, life-giving experience somehow makes you damaged goods? And yet this is an attitude that is prevalent in Africa and other parts of the world. We have grown so accustomed to this attitude that we don’t even question it. The more children you have, the less valuable you become. A lot of men here say that they could maybe accept a woman with one child but not more than that. And they consider themselves heroes for the fact that they can accept a woman with one child. This is something you hear stated all the time, but do we ever stop to ask ourselves where this attitude, this intense hatred of the mother energy comes from? Why do we accept it as if it was the most normal attitude for a person to have? How comes we don’t have the same attitude towards fathers? Men who have children do not have a corresponding hatred directed towards them. Why would we hate the very energy that nurtures us and brings forth life on the planet? It beats all logic. The message this sends to women is that motherhood makes them less desirable, less valuable and less attractive. You can imagine the cognitive dissonance this causes women. On the one hand, you look forward to becoming a mother but on the other hand, you know that once you become a mother you are quite literally “damaged”.

There are many other ways mothers are devalued and we have become so accustomed to it that we don’t even stop to question it. Bringing up a child is no joke; it is hard work especially in the early days. But mothers have to do this alone unless they happen to have a supportive husband which is rare. This is why some women end up getting postpartum depression and society just acts as if there is something wrong with them for getting depressed after giving birth. But the miracle I think is that not all women end up depressed after giving birth. It’s worse in the modern age because the extended family structure has been broken. This is especially true in the west where people are brainwashed into thinking that it is a sin to live with your extended family. We are supposed to be “independent”. Everyone is supposed to move out of their parents’ houses as quickly as possible and any delay in doing so is judged harshly by society. Older parents are quickly sent to expensive care homes, which makes no sense because the extended family structure is the very one that would offer support, especially to mothers. Why is it that we work so hard to arrange society in the most inconvenient way possible? It just beats all logic.

We need to question some of these beliefs we hold so dearly and ask ourselves where they came from. Who benefits when society is broken up and support structures dismantled? Think about it. Without support structures, people need to work non-stop looking for food, rent, clothing and other basic needs. We literally have to work to live, all so that we can work some more. We do not have the luxury to stop running the treadmill. Who benefits the most from this? Well, just follow the money as they say. The ones who make money off of everyone remaining on the treadmill are the ones who benefit the most from the break up of the extended family structure. Plain and simple, it’s the elites. The industrialists, the factory owners, the business owners. They’re the ones who brainwashed us into believing that we need to be independent, we need to be on our own. This ensures we get trapped in the nine to five routine that benefits them while hurting us. Have you ever wondered why babies have to be trained from birth to be independent by leaving them alone in their rooms to cry it out? It’s because independence is a very unnatural thing that goes counter to how we are created as human beings. We are created to be close to each other and live in oneness with each other. The only way this instinct can be broken is by brutally training a child from birth to learn that there is no one coming, they are on their own and they have to learn to survive on their own.

Another way we see this hatred of the mother energy is in the way women are treated at the workplace once they have children. I remember when I interviewed for my first job, one of the questions I was asked was whether I intended to get children. Naturally, I said yes and although this didn’t stop me from getting the job, it just exposed the negative attitude employers have towards motherhood. It is an inconvenience, an unwelcome interruption for the organisation. When I was expecting my third child, my boss called me aside for a pep-talk. Had I considered a more effective form of birth control? Could my husband maybe consider getting the snip? I wish I was making this up but I’m not. This was an actual conversation I had with my boss. As you can imagine, motherhood was anything but celebrated at my workplace even though they made a few token efforts to show their support of motherhood such as introducing a creche for new mothers. But the underlying attitude was one of irritation at having to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate a pregnant worker. I don’t blame my former employer because this attitude is merely representative of the attitude in the wider community. The negative attitude towards mothers needs to be changed at the wider community level. No amount of superficial “benefits” by employers can disguise the underlying hatred of the mother energy that is present in society.

What about the hit mothers take to their careers once they start getting children? If we lived in a society that supported motherhood this would not be the case. Employers would willingly make the adjustments necessary to support motherhood, from flexitime to working from home to part-time work to job sharing without punishing mothers by withholding promotions or making them feel like they are not fully committed to the job because they have other responsibilities to attend to. This expectation employers have that people should be one hundred per cent committed to their jobs is simply ridiculous and it’s unclear why we tolerate it. Employers do not expect employees to even hint at having other things in life apart from their jobs. You do whatever is expected of you, you come in early and leave late and work over weekends if you have to. It is almost as if we were put on this earth solely to be employees and nothing else matters. It is considered a sin to even look like you have other priorities in life apart from your employer. It is completely unreasonable what employers expect of their employees. Even taking a sick child to the hospital is considered a waste of precious employer time. HOW DID WE GET HERE?!

This expectation employers have that people should be one hundred per cent committed to their jobs is simply ridiculous and it’s unclear why we tolerate it.

Another form of hatred of the mother energy is the hatred that is directed towards our mother earth. If you consider that the planet is our mother because it nurtures us and provides for our needs, then you’ll realize that many among us have an intense hatred towards the earth. There are people whose attitude towards the earth is one of wanting to loot and plunder and mine and extract until everything is finished and the land is laid bare. They have no love for the earth, no desire to preserve or protect and no remorse for their destructive activities. Left to their own devices, these people would continue mindlessly robbing the planet of all that is good until we have no planet left to live in. These people cut down forests and release toxic gases into the air which mess up the environment and cause the climate change we are all panicking about. They release waste products into the oceans with no concern for the damage they cause. They mindlessly pursue profit over everything and will continue doing so unless they are stopped by those who care for the planet. They produce more and more nuclear weapons with no regard for how this endangers us all. They have no conscience and will not stop until everything on the planet is destroyed. What is this attitude if not hatred of the mother energy? How do you destroy that which nurtures you and is the only home we have?

We need to wake up and become conscious of the intense mother hatred that is present on this planet and refuse to continue existing in such a toxic, self-defeating environment. We need to protect mothers, honour them, support them and surround them with love as they undertake this very important role of bringing forth life. We need to reject all forms of mother hatred including hatred of the planet because without it we will not have a home.

The Agony of Being a Mother in a Hostile Planet

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As soon as I started writing this article, something interesting happened. When I wrote down the word mother in the heading, the auto-correct function immediately kicked in and underlined the word. When I checked to see what the error was, I was surprised to find that auto-correct didn’t want me to capitalize the word mother. Apparently, it’s supposed to be in small letters, even in the heading. The same rule doesn’t apply to the word father, I was surprised to note. So, it’s okay to capitalize the word father but not the word mother. That alone tells me exactly how mothers are regarded on this planet. They are less. They don’t even deserve the honour of being capitalized in an article in which they are the main topic. Need I say more, or should I just rest my case on this bleak note?

The coronavirus pandemic brought into sharp focus the agony of being a mother on this planet. Suddenly, what has always been known but denied or simply ignored was pushed into the public consciousness in a way that was impossible to ignore. We’ve always known what a raw deal it is to be a mother on this planet but it’s almost as if the universe had had enough of this state of affairs and was trying to tell us look, people! There’s a serious problem here! Sort it out!

How mothers have been surviving going to work, taking care of their children, taking care of husbands, taking care of extended family, running their homes and remaining sane is a complete mystery. When the pandemic started, mothers were expected to quietly take on additional roles while still working full-time from home or at the workplace for those who couldn’t work from home. We were expected to become teachers to our children while gladly taking on the extra duties, not to mention the expense, that comes with having the family home all day. All this while being shamed for wanting schools to reopen faster. You don’t love your kids! You’re spoilt! You don’t want to take care of your children; you’d rather ship them off to school for someone else to care of. It’s about time you experienced what it’s like to take care of your kids. That was the narrative at the time. If you wanted schools to reopen, it was because you couldn’t stand to be with your kids.

How mothers have been surviving going to work, taking care of their children, taking care of husbands, taking care of extended family, running their homes and remaining sane is a complete mystery.

Well, we all know how that turned out. After a few months out of school, girls started getting pregnant, some of them after being defiled by relatives. Some were married off as they were no longer in the protective environment provided by the school. Children who used to get a meal in school were no longer getting that much-needed meal, which was a problem in both the developed and developing world, from America to India to Africa. In some parts of the world, girls were circumcised, a practice that being in school protects them from. Education systems that had been steadily progressing over decades were set back to levels last seen ages ago. Will this decline be reversed? What about the lives that were ruined, the children who will never go back to school once the pandemic is over, who cares about them? What about what is happening in countries like Uganda where the education system came to a standstill, who cares about that? But when mothers were crying for their children to go back to school, we were mocked and made to feel that we were being spoilt. What a cruel, uncaring world we live in.

It’s ironic if you think about it, the pressure women experience to become mothers, almost as if it’s the most wonderful thing one could ever experience. Before you become a mother, motherhood is packaged as something desirable, something to look forward to, a role you have been preparing for since you were born. Any delays in starting to bear children once you reach marriageable and childbearing age is regarded with disapproval and outright hostility. Why aren’t you having children yet, the world snarls at you? Is there something wrong with you? What are you still waiting for? Your biological clock is ticking, get on with it. And we comply, most of us do. We joyfully and eagerly become mothers, little suspecting what awaits us on the other side. Once we have children, the same world that passive-aggressively urged us to do so suddenly changes tact and starts sending subtle, unspoken messages about who we are now that we are mothers. We are no longer desirable. We are no longer attractive. We are no longer marketable. We are no longer competent. We are no longer people but unpeople who should exist behind the scenes, seen but not heard. We no longer deserve to take care of ourselves, dress well or spend money on ourselves but all our energy, attention and resources should now go to our children, our families. We should fade into the background, disappear, accept that we no longer play a meaningful role in society as we have fulfilled our primary reason for existing which is to bear children. We have done our duty and we are now dismissed.

Anyone who is a mother knows what I’m talking about. You know how you lose your identity and become mama so and so. You know how you become unseen. You know very well that feeling you get when you have to ask for permission at work for the hundredth time because your child is sick, your child is having a function at school, or the nanny just walked out on you and you can’t leave the children alone. Why don’t you just get your act together? Do you know what your priorities are? Do you want to work or are you just playing around with your job? Did you really take your child to the hospital or did you just want to give yourself a day off? Did you need to spend the whole day with your sick child or could you have come to work after taking them to the hospital? Oh, you want to be leaving work early to pick your kids from school? Are you serious? Oh, you want flexi-time that will allow you to come to work late so that you spend more time with your children? Why don’t you just go ahead and say what you really want? You don’t want to work, do you? You want to be a stay-at-home mum, doing nothing all day, you lazy thing. Oh, and you want a promotion! You want more money! Is that some sick joke?

You know very well that feeling you get when you have to ask for permission at work for the hundredth time because your child is sick, your child is having a function at school, or the nanny just walked out on you and you can’t leave the children alone.

The thing we need to ask ourselves is why the role of mothers isn’t acknowledged or appreciated. What if in future no one wants to be a mother because our consciousness is raised to the point that we begin to ask ourselves, what I’m I doing this for? Why do I need to give up my body as a conduit for the survival of the species only to be despised once I do so? Why do I need this? One day, women are just going to stop and ask themselves, who said I have to be a mother? I don’t need this. There is no support for me from the state, from society or anyone else for that matter. And when no one wants to have babies anymore, maybe we will wake up to the important role mothers play and start treating them better. Look at what’s happening in many European countries. Nobody wants to give birth. And why should they? Look at China. They spent decades making it a crime to be a mother, punishable by forced abortion. Now suddenly they realize that their population won’t sustain itself and they turn around and want women to give birth. They are still under the illusion that motherhood is a switch you can turn on and off at will, but it is proving to be much more complicated than they imagined. How long before this becomes a planet-wide problem where nobody wants to give birth? How short-sighted, to despise the very people upon which the survival of the species depends.

When you become a mother, you quickly realize that you’re on your own. The state doesn’t care about you. There is no help for you. Woe unto you if you are poor and struggle to feed your children. It’s your fault. There is no acknowledgement that what you have just accomplished is an essential service to the country, to the planet. How many women are abandoned by their partners to raise children on their own? In the developed world, at least you have laws that force someone to support their child even if they are not married to the mother, but what about here in the undeveloped world? How many fathers abandon their children with impunity especially when the mothers are too poor or uneducated to know what to do about it? And beyond that, when are we ever as a species going to get to a point where raising children is the responsibility of the state and not the parents? I believe this is the next step we need to take where motherhood is recognized as the essential service it is and thus something the state needs to be responsible for. By this, I mean in terms of providing free education, free child care and a stipend for feeding, clothing and housing the children. This is not an impossible or unreasonable dream. Some of course will scream that this is an impossibility, but it is only because they are not able to see motherhood as a service to the planet that no one should have to be punished for.

Many of us are starting to crack, so heavy has the burden of motherhood become. We can’t do it anymore. We can’t pretend to be superwomen anymore. Many of us are leaving our jobs, not because we don’t need the income but because we can’t hack it anymore. The weight that has been placed on us by an uncaring planet has become too much to bear and we are finally throwing up our hands and giving ourselves up to the universe to do with us as she wants. Let the mothers now be mothered by someone else.

Harry and Meghan: An Opportunity to Choose Love

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I have been following the unfolding story of Harry and Meghan from afar with a lot of interest. I really shouldn’t care so much what happens to these two people – I’m a Kenyan after all and it has absolutely nothing to do with me. And yet, I find myself fascinated. I keep asking myself, why is there so much hatred directed at this young couple? From all appearances, they seem to be a loving, attractive and well-meaning couple. They seem to genuinely want to do good not just for Britain but for the world at large. By all measures, Britain should be proud of this couple given the goodwill they bring to the country, not to mention the billions of dollars in revenue that flows into the British economy from the world’s fascination with the royal family in general and Harry and Meghan in particular. But inexplicably, Harry and Meghan seem to be getting attacked and vilified from every direction pretty much from day one, while the rest of the country watches in silence. Apart from a few voices of support here and there, most notably from the women MPs who wrote an open letter to Meghan, no one else seems to care about what is happening. It just doesn’t make sense to an outsider. And worse still, apparently they are expected to just take whatever abuse is hurled at them in silence, simply because they are public officers paid from public coffers. In essence, what they are being told is that in exchange for the priviledge of living in a castle, they should expect and accept all kinds of abuse from pretty much anyone who chooses to do so.

It’s not Harry and Meghan they are fighting per se. It is this dangerous idea this couple represents that must be fought at all costs. It is the idea that all human beings are the same, that there is no difference between white, black, yellow, brown, red, etc.

Now, again, I really shouldn’t care how the British people choose to treat their fellow citizens, but for some reason, I feel pain for Harry and Meghan. Maybe it’s because I’ve followed their story ever since they first appeared in public together. Like millions of other people all over the world, I watched their fairy tale wedding and I just couldn’t get over their beauty as a couple, and what they represent.

And herein I think lies the problem. It’s what they represent, this idea that they embody that seems to be so offensive, so repugnant to some people, that they feel the need to come guns blazing, bulging eyes red with fury and hatred. It’s not Harry and Meghan they are fighting per se. It is this dangerous idea this couple represents that must be fought at all costs. It is the idea that all human beings are the same, that there is no difference between white, black, yellow, brown, red, etc. We are all the same. This is the idea Harry and Meghan represent, which must be resisted at all costs. There are people, forces as Harry called them, that cannot stand this idea. Harry and Meghan seem to be telling the world that race and colour mean nothing. Any two people can fall in love and marry and live happily ever after and it doesn’t matter who they are or where they are from. These same forces fought Princess Diana because she represented something else they hate. She was different. Different is dangerous. Different means change and change is threatening to those who want to maintain the status quo. They cannot stand the idea that the world is changing, that people’s consciousness is raising, that we are beginning to see our common humanity, our oneness as human beings. And this is the opportunity Harry and Meghan give to Britain and to the world. Through their love, they are showing us the direction we need to be moving in. Without love for each other, without seeing and acknowledging our common humanity, how do we hope to solve the problems the world is faced with at the moment? The world is in chaos right now, because of our inability to see that there is no difference between us, that when we hurt each other, we hurt ourselves. When you drop a bomb at your neighbour’s doorstep, guess what? You may not see it, but you are hurting yourself. We have to live in this world. We mess it up, we live in the mess. We have an opportunity to say NO to hatred and YES to love. Let’s not just sit back and remain silent and allow the forces of hatred to win. Let’s choose LOVE.

How to Keep Fit in Your Forties – Keep it Simple

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I am turning forty-five this year. What an achievement! You know the way you never actually see yourself growing old when you’re younger? And then suddenly you turn forty and you realize, I’m old! Okay, forty is not exactly old, I can see that now that I’m in my mid-forties, but when I turned forty, I felt old. Over time I’ve managed to change the way I look at aging and now I have a much more positive outlook towards it. Getting older is one of those things you never thought would happen to you but hey, you are now doing it with the best of them! You are aging like a pro! That’s exactly how I look at it now, so I can’t wait to turn forty-five. In fact, I can’t wait to hit my fifties and get that exciting gift that awaits all ladies when they reach this important milestone. No more periods!!

As exciting a period of time as this is, the reality is that with aging comes a few minor inconveniences, such as the weakening of muscles, the buildup of fat in unwanted areas and the depletion of certain hormones that are essential in keeping us looking ‘womanly’. I’m not a doctor so I won’t get into the nitty gritty of what happens inside your body as you age. What I believe is that with a little self-care, we can all have healthy and beautiful bodies that continue serving us optimally well into our golden years.

Exercise

Towards the end of last year, I started a small fitness routine that I’m happily still engaged in up to now. Every once in a while, I get these bursts of vigor and vitality from I don’t even know where and I find myself going to the gym for as many as four continuous months, after which I completely burn out and stay away from the gym for the next two years. I know, this is obviously not the recommended way to exercise, but this is what I am able to do with my busy schedule working full time and caring for my kids. The good news is that those few months of intense physical activity that I engage in are not totally wasted. The next time I get the energy to restart the cycle, I find that it’s much easier to build up my muscles as whatever had been there before is usually not too far underneath the surface. I have come to conclude that this is my natural cycle and so I try to work with it rather than fighting it. When I have the energy, I engage in exercising. When the energy runs out, I stop knowing that sooner or later it will come back.

As a woman in my forties, what I am currently focusing on is strengthening the muscles on my legs, my stomach, my core and my bust. If you like, you could focus on other areas such as your back, your arms, your shoulders, etc.

My routine is very simple. I work out three times a week and do two sets of 15 repetitions each of the following exercises:

As a woman in my forties, what I am currently focusing on is strengthening the muscles on my legs, my stomach, my core and my bust.

Squats
Lunges
Planks
Leg raises
Upright push-ups

Squats and lunges are useful in keeping thighs and butts firm but in my case, I’ve noticed an additional benefit in that I have a tendency to get knee pains every once in a while, and doing squats and lunges seems to work in alleviating the pain and keeping it at bay for long periods of time. A common complaint many people have as they grow older is that the muscles around the knee area start atrophying, leaving the knee looking as if it’s jutting out (this is common in both women and men as they get older). I had started noticing this particular problem myself, but I’m happy to report that after a few weeks of squats and lunges, this is starting to improve.

Planks and leg raises are wonderful for keeping the stomach area toned. I’ve always had this little ‘pouch’ on my lower stomach which I know a lot of women have (and this is made worse by childbirth); by doing planks and leg raises, this has reduced considerably. Planks are also good at strengthening your core, which is important for good posture and balance – very important as we start to age.

The upright push-ups are good for keeping the bust toned, which is obviously a concern for women as they age. If you want more attention on this area, bench presses would be a good idea but you would need to go to a gym for proper equipment. I am currently working out from home and so I prefer the upright push-ups as they are easy to perform and don’t require any equipment.

You can modify this routine to whatever works best for you. You could reduce or increase the number of times per week you work out, you could increase the sets or reduce the reps especially in the beginning when it might be a bit harder to manage. I find though that 15 reps are the best for getting quick results.

Diet

What I find most effective in keeping my weight stable is to eat three meals a day without snacking in between while keeping the last meal of the day as light as possible. I’m not an advocate of dieting because diets are hard to maintain over the long term simply because you are working against your body’s natural desires. You have to keep fighting to avoid eating this or that thing that your body really desires. And we all know that the more you tell your body no, the more it wants that very thing you are trying to deny it. Keeping fit in your forties needs you to have very simple practices that you can maintain over the long term without stressing yourself. I don’t cut out anything from my diet, I just eat in sensible portions, enough to make me feel full and no more. I also tend to eat only when I’m hungry. In other words, I don’t eat lunch just because it’s 1pm. I wait until I feel hungry then eat, whether that’s at 2 or 3 pm. That way, whatever I eat is quickly used up as energy by the body. If you’re able to, eat your last meal of the day early i.e. around 6-7p.m.. Don’t eat late at night as the body burns calories much slower when you’re asleep, meaning whatever you eat late at night will likely end up being stored as fat in the places you don’t want it to be stored. Last but not least, reduce or cut out your alcohol intake and stop smoking if you do. These two are major culprits in making us age much faster than we need to.

I would love to hear what things you do to keep fit in your forties, especially those things that are simple yet work well and would benefit other people as well. Feel free to write back and let me know!