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The Solution

Updated: Jan 27

Are you living in ‘hell’ right now? There is a solution. Whether the problem is a personal one, an interpersonal one, or a global one, there is a solution. Eckhart Tolle wrote his landmark book 'A New Earth', which is in my 'Suggested Reading List', which mainly discusses the ego and presence. Others have discussed a manifesto for a new humanity. 12 step recovery groups worldwide put forward the twin powers of connection and the spiritual experience as the true new superpowers.


Our overactive minds draw us away from peace and joy. We are beset with drama, hate, resentment, and conflict as a species. We create our own ‘hell’: No-one else has the power to. There are no monsters out there other than the ones we invent in our own minds out of laziness and fear of facing our own souls. We can kid ourselves, but that’s a timeless Truth. It’s time to grow up emotionally and stop being afraid of the dark.


Each one of us has built up this competitive, ruthless civilisation, in which man is against man. You are the world and the world is you. We rally for peace on Earth and yet we hate ourselves and our neighbours. Billionaires are miserable, suicidal, and have no wisdom. Social media 'influencers' are fake and vengeful, hiding behind masks, and yet our children want to be like them. We try to 'cancel' whole nations with the swoop of a post.


We don't know how to win the war of overthinking in our heads or any of the wars at a global scale. Even if there was an interplanetary war at some point in the future, without a solution, both sides would lose in a cataclysmic way.


We are even intent on assassinating our own planet Earth by destroying our ecosystem, and if that doesn't work we will use uranium to fry it's surface and all of us. So, is there a solution to all this chaos, and what is it?


World peace starts and ends with you


There is a solution and it is very simple: One that solves all of these problems. It simply involves a short journey from the head to the heart. This is the same as the journey from the ego to the soul; from the wounded child in us to our Higher Self; from separation to oneness. We are all souls and souls love themselves and each other. Those who have taken this journey have a light in their eyes. They are a tiny minority amongst us. They cannot hate. They have only love: They are love. They have made the choice of how to BE in this world. It is your choice too...


The solution is the short journey from the head (ego - our wounded self) to the heart (soul - Higher Self): A journey from the middle column to the right hand column of my chart


This journey brings us to presence, guides our intuitively inspired actions, ends hatred and conflict on every scale, and is the only true way to go from chaos and ‘hell’ to a Utopian 'civilisation.' Take the journey for your children. Take it for your Self. Take it for each other. This is the only way to ensconce us as a loving, living planet full of wisdom in this Universe.


This journey takes us from being fearful, self-centred, resentful, and hateful, to being open, vulnerable, courageous, and resilient beautiful souls. It's what we all need right now. This is my manifesto at this evolutionary turning point in history. This is ‘The Shift.’


Individuals, institutions, corporations, countries, and alliances are all based on ego and fear. They have no compassion as they are all terrified in what they see as a race for their own survival. They are self-interested. They are terrified of being abandoned and of being eliminated, as we all are. But all that they are really doing is running a race for mutually assured destruction. It is madness. No one wins in the blame 'game'. No one truly wins a war. We need a new way, and this is the way of the heart. We need to stop the dis-ease of overthinking.


Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre said, “‘Hell’ is other people.” He believed that others create our suffering. But the brilliant philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wisely and insightfully disagreed with Sartre. “‘Hell’ isn’t other people. ‘Hell’ is yourself,” he observed. ‘Hell’ is not outside us. ‘Hell’ is within, he thought.


Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that 'hell' is within


Wittgenstein recommended that we look inward rather than outward to face our demons and our suffering. The psychiatrist, psychotherapist, founder of analytical psychology and all round spiritual Master, Carl Gustav Jung agreed, saying “One who looks outside, dreams. One who looks inside, awakens.”



The root of our pain is in our mind. We are responsible for our own inferno. Our internal state largely determines the quality of our life. Our relationship with ourself is the primary source of our suffering. Our minds create our spiritual bliss and also our ‘hells.’ Anger, fear, anxiety, worry, holding on to grief, resentment, envy, greed, and jealousy - these are our demons, should we choose them.


Our thoughts, worries and painful memories from our past are the sources of our ‘hell’. The stories we tell ourselves about our past, present and future experiences determine the quality of our life. When we are kind to ourselves, life is easier. When we feel life is happening against us, we are triggered by our past experiences, and so we suffer. Eckhart Tolle wrote that “Suffering has a noble purpose: The evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.” Suffering teaches us to be gentle with our souls and to have compassion.


We are the gods and goddesses of our own inner state: Creators and destroyers. Reality is defined from within. Your ‘heaven’ or your ‘hell’ starts from what you perceive to be the only Truth. The good news about Wittgenstein’s brilliant wisdom is that it means we have control. But facing the unconscious is painful. It reveals shadows. The unconscious self is a dark, often terrifying place. It hides our deepest fears, hidden desires, and unacknowledged traumas. So, people would rather blame others for their pain: This is the well known concept of psychological projection. Avoiding our shadows means choosing ‘hell.’ It is to live in a perpetual state of blame. If you are unwilling to descend into yourself and integrate your unconscious self because it’s too painful, you will remain in your self-created ‘hell’ and blame others. If you are unwilling to know what and who you are, life can easily be a form of self-deceit.


Wittgenstein wrote “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” Descend into yourself to reconcile your Truth or decline into ‘hell.’ Personal Truth is the secret to freedom. When I feel trapped or stuck, I look inward. Blaming others is easy, cowardly, and hateful. We project our suffering onto others. We blame external factors for our unhappiness. Others can be our triggers, but it is our own reaction to them, not others per se, that creates the inferno. Blame is a shield. It protects your ego from the Truth; so you create your very own monsters, demons, and ‘hell.’ Others become scapegoats for your inner turmoil. It’s a false sense of security. It’s a comfortable hell. To truly live, we must choose the other side of the ego. We must break down our false defence mechanism. John Milton, the English poet and scholar, wrote “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”


We are separated from ourselves: And separated from ourselves, we are insane. As Mahatma Gandhi said “The problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind.”


Carl Jung said "Modern people are ignorant of what they really are. We have simply forgotten what a human being really is, so we have men like Nietzsche and Freud and Adler, who tell us what we are, quite mercilessly. We have to discover our shadow. Otherwise we are driven into a world war in order to see what beasts we are."


J. Krishnamurti, the Indian philosopher, wrote “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” We live in a Dystopian, dysfunctional world.


The lyrics to the iconic and enduring song 'America' by Razorlight remind me of the how lost so many people are:


“What a drag it is

The shape i'm in

Well I go out somewhere

Then I come home again


I light a cigarette

‘Cause I can't get no sleep

Theres nothing on the TV nothing on the radio

That means that much to me


All my life

Watching America

All my life

There's panic in America

Oh Oh Oh, Oh

There's trouble in America

Oh Oh Oh, Oh


Yesterday was easy

Happiness came and went

I got the movie script

But I don't know what it meant…”


We got the movie script to our life, but we didn’t know how to live. We have no lasting happiness. We all think that we are drowning. Competition is really just a desperate effort not to drown in our own self-constructed fear. J. Krishnamurti wrote “Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.” He continued “Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments (which want to control and survive, as they are the cause of the problem) – and to organised religions as well. That is why governments and religious organisations seek to control education.”


Only by living a heart-led life can we find stillness. It is only in stillness of the mind that we will find the answers on how to live. J. Krishnamurti wrote “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still... You know, if we understand one question rightly, all questions are answered. But we don't know how to ask the right question. To ask the right question demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. Here is a question, a fundamental question: Is life a torture? It is, as it is; and man has lived in this torture centuries upon centuries, from ancient history to the present day, in agony, in despair, in sorrow; and he doesn't find a way out of it. Therefore he invents gods, churches, all the rituals, and all that nonsense, or he escapes in different ways (from addiction to oblivion). What we are trying to do, during all these discussions and talks here, is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind, not accept things as they are, nor revolt against them. Revolt doesn't answer a thing. You must understand it, go into it, examine it, give your heart... With everything that you have, to find out a way of living differently. That depends on you, and not on someone else, because in this there is no teacher, no pupil; there is no leader; there is no guru; there is no Master, no Saviour. You yourself are the teacher and the pupil; you are the Master; you are the guru; you are the leader; you are everything. And to understand is to transform what is." You only need to work on you. That is all any of us need to do.


Krishnamurti continued “When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love. Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action which produces further confusion, further misery. We fill our hearts with blueprints for world reform and do not look to that one resolving factor which is love... To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others to transform themselves or to bring about a modified change through revolution, either of the left or of the right. It is important to understand that this is our responsibility, yours and mine... We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. And only when we realise, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognise that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed - only then will we act.”


We all need to stop being the cause of war. It is our violence, hidden and denied as our shadow that leads to drama, conflict and war. The violence of the world is on each of us. J. Krishnamurti wrote “Inside you is the cause of every war. It is your violence, hidden and denied, that leads to wars of every kind, whether it is war inside your home, against others in society, or between nations.” Anger is only one letter away from danger.


I am not here to enumerate the 100 million souls that were stolen in the atrocities of the 20th century, nor the millions more lost in the early 21st century. I am not here to remind you of the stark reality of the 700 million people still living in extreme poverty. I am not here to warn you that climate change might claim a dozen million more lives by 2050, push another 100 million into extreme poverty, and jeopardise the quality of life of roughly 3.5 billion human beings across the globe. A new world awaits. I am here to share a different message, one that unfortunately rarely makes the front page of newspapers or goes viral on social media. No matter how dark our past, how painful our present, or how worrying our future is, we hold the power to carve out a different path, rewrite the next pages of our collective story, and alter the course of Humankind. We hold that power! All of us do! It’s the gentle embrace that heals the broken, the unwavering kindness that lifts the fallen, the comforting voice that soothes the troubled. It’s the power that you feel when you smile at a stranger, when you hug a loved one, when you lend your hand across the divide. It’s that power that you wield to bring happiness, joy, and hope all around you. It’s a magical power. What’s even more magical is that we have all been granted this power. I envision a world where we use this healing power without limitations, without fear, without expecting anything in return.

It’s a world founded on love, peace and hope. It’s a world founded on our Humanity.


This Humanity has always been within all of us, since the birth of our species. It acts as a guiding light through the ages. This light is precisely who we truly are, our purest truth, our noblest identity. This is what makes humans human. Yet, somehow, in the confusion & overwhelm of modern life, this light has faded. But it’s still within us, beneath the noise.

Once again, we hold the power to rekindle this light. Every act of kindness, every word of love, every thought of generosity doesn’t go unnoticed: it makes sparks fly. Rekindle your light, and rekindle others’. This power lies in the way we treat one another regardless of where we come from, what we believe in, and the story we carry. Our Humanity is a universal language. It transcends race, gender, and beliefs.


By choosing kindness over indifference, collaboration over competition, and understanding over judgement, we contribute to the revival of our Humanity, and therefore to the survival and unprecedented flourishing of Humankind. This is our power. It is also our duty.


As we recognise that our souls are interconnected, that our fates are intertwined, and that our hearts beat as one, everything we do contributes to a larger narrative. We can choose this narrative to be one of love, peace, and hope.


All great things start on a small scale, all great movements begin with individuals; and if we wait for collective action, such action, if it takes place at all, is destructive and conducive to further misery. So revolution must begin with you and me. And we must start today.


Krishnamurti says that war is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday living. War is a symptom of the society we have created, of our divided natures, communities, nations, ideologies. We are all responsible for our society, and as its creators, we are inseparable from its reality. Once we recognise that we are society, we wonder: What aspects of our behaviour and psychology could be perpetuating conflict? Violence is part of this equation and part of our lives, but how subtle can violence be? Judging oneself and others, jealousy, not caring for or about others, comparing oneself to others – are these oblique ways of generating violence? We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. You want to root out the causes of war, of barbarity in others, while you yourself indulge in them.


Mahatma Gandhi said that “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” Yet the Enlightened ones are like a magic dye: A few drops and the ocean turns even more azure.


No matter how dark our past, how painful our present, or how worrying our future is, we hold the power to carve out a different path, rewrite the next pages of our collective story, and alter the course of Humankind. Let us create this world! Let us build the greatest masterpiece ever made in the History of Humankind, a masterpiece made by all of us - you and I, and each of the 8.1 billion souls on this planet! Let us do this together!


I see you, I hear you, I value you. I see your soul. It's time to look inside and see it for your Self. Take that journey from the head to the heart. That's all that you can do. That's all that you need to do. Through knowing and living from your own soul, the resting place of unconditional love, you will inevitably invite others to do the same. It’s a domino effect. It’s ripples in a pond. It’s the butterfly effect. This is the solution. You are the cause of all conflict and war: You are also the saviour. It really is your choice. You simply have to do the inner work. Are you ready and willing to make the choice?.. Please do pass it on…


Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you: Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.


George Bernard Shaw wrote that “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Are you ready to change your mind?


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.




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