Creative little minds

Please do not mention Gina Ford to me, as she literally drove me stir crazy during my pregnancy. By means of pregnancy planning I invested in every book she wrote as follows and in no particular order:

The Contented Pregnancy

The Contented Mother's Guide

The New Contented Little Baby Book

The Contented Baby's First Year

The Contented Baby Goes to School

The list is actually endless, however dear Gina forgot to write about the “Contended Mother” as my experience was more like “Demented Mother”, upon applying the Gina Ford techniques to bringing up a baby!

After my brief brush with Gina, I decided to assume control of training from the perspective of a loving mother. It was then, I started applying some of my professional skills as a cruise ship trainer, coupled with the of teachings of my husband at Progress International www.progressinternational.info to my one and only son Alex :0).

In essence, Human Beings are 4 dimensional, meaning, there are 4 parts to our nature and this goes for kids too!

1. IQ Mental Intelligence: Mind

2. EQ: Emotional Intelligence; Heart

3. PQ: Physical Intelligence: Body

4. SQ: Spiritual Intelligence: Spirit

For simplicity, let’s focus on the first intelligence; our mind, which possesses the ability to be logical, think abstractly, count numbers, visualize, create, articulate, decode music and a million things besides. When you look at the brain from a physiological perspective, it’s clearly divided into 2 parts; which are commonly referred to as “Left Brain” and “Right Brain”.

The Left Brain acts like a serial processor within a computer; it’s logical, mathematical, procedural, functional, pattern orientated and it’s what most of us associate with the 2 letters of IQ, although this is actually a misconception. The easy way to remember the Left Brain function is “Left for Logical”. The Left Brain scans the present moment and extracts specific details and more details of those details, then organizes and categorizes the information, associates it with the past and projects it towards the future. This is sadly how we educate most of the children on planet earth today using a “Left Brain” academic style of learning, which is largely based on symbolic reasoning of letters words, numbers and other patterns or archetypes to facilitate so called “Logical thinking”. For now, let’s leave the symbols for the symbol minded!

Conversely, the Right Brain thinks abstractly, innovatively, artistically and reaches out with human expression. It joins human feeling with creativity and the easiest way to remember its function is by the phrase “the Right Brain Reaches out”. Incredibly, the Right Brain views the present moment as one big picture collage that is connected to our sensory receptors of what it looks like, sounds like, smells like, tastes like and feels like. It sees everything as one and dwells in the magic of the now.

When we as adults speak of the Right Brain and its amazing attributes, we are in a sense reminiscing of how wonderful life was in our youth or the inspiration of past creative or eureka moments! Our children start life untainted by the norms of society and expectations of culture. They see the world with a sense of oneness and wonder. They laugh, play, live life in the present moment and connect with other happy souls without prejudice, guilt or judging, until we teach them otherwise.

Yet sadly, in the words of the 1970’s song by Styx “The Logical Song” we send our children away and teach them how to be sensible, logical, responsible and practical. We show them a world to make them so dependable, Left Brain intellectual, cynical or perhaps to be a modelled after a certain size or colour of vegetable.

The interesting thing here is that when one of the world’s greatest ever minds “Einstein” ceased to exist, it was discovered that his brain was no larger in size, no heavier in weight, or greater in diameter than the average human brain. The neural pathways however between the Left and Right Brain were considerably more inter-connected than any other human brains experimented on previously. After all it was Einstein himself who once said “I never invested anything logically”.

Surely, as loving parents we can learn something from inspirational all of this this. The true essence of life requires thinking and feeling or logic and creativity to be truly happy, motivated and successful. The vast majority of our educational institutions however follow largely Left Brain curriculums and our children are taught not to reach out and question, but to copy templates, patterns and various forms of symbolic reasoning, which hardly contribute to critical thinking or living joyfully in the present moment. It’s no surprise then that most of us in the western world are suffering from some kind of stress disorder.

So as a humble mother of one creative little brain, I have learned to question more and balance his needs to counter the institutional way of thinking and to stimulate both sides of his emerging mind.


Sharon Holmes
A now contended Mother & Founder Larnaca Parents Network

Buying local… if I can find it! - Paula Manoli-Gray

It was my son's birthday last week, and he wanted a desk from his nouna. A simple enough request, but as always, I found that when I have something specific in mind, I can never find it in Cyprus!

Of course, there are many shops that sell children's desks, but sadly, the nice ones are all designer and overinflated in price. Then you have the other end of the scale – cheap MDF - which is again sold out here for far more than it is worth. Eventually, a plea on Facebook was responded to by a nice lady who lives 10 minutes away from me, and was selling her children's old desk. It fit the bill, and the task was completed!

But this is something that frustrates me no-end about living in Cyprus. I can never find what I want, so I most often end up buying it online. This upsets me to some degree as I do really, really want to support local businesses, but when a) you cannot find the item, or b) it is double or triple the price you can get it for online, then supporting my town goes out of the window in favour of getting what I want at a reasonable price – and I feel bad about that. But my pocket is not unlimited and even if it were, why should I pay more just because we have an issue of chronic overcharging out here? I always tell people 'vote with your feet', and that is what I do; I give my custom to those who provide goods or services to a good standard and at a reasonable price, which is why you do not see me sitting at trendy cafes drinking beverages that cost more than they do in London!

Granted, it is so much better than it used to be… I remember the days when a trip to Nicosia was the only way to get most things as Larnaca was lagging so far behind – especially in franchises. At that time, there was little choice even in the capital, so it was either the limited number of things at overinflated prices, or not at all! And those who have lived here a long time can surely relate to the era where anything that came from Greece or Italy – however cheap in its respective country – would be marked up ten-fold and lapped up by consumers just because it was 'made in Greece' (or Italy!). Those were the days when consumers too shared the blame as there was an air of snobbery and a desire to pay more to be able to boast that what you had was expensive or designer, and businesses were happy to oblige. Oh how the mighty have fallen since then.

Thankfully, things have changed. Larnaca has caught up and - with the exception of a handful of franchises and restaurants - we have just as much as Nicosia and Limassol have, even if we do not have a mall. And variety has also entered our market; variety in goods and the welcome addition of variety in prices. There are reasonable shops, there are budget stores and cut-price outlets, and there are much better sales than there previously were. Add to this the big surge in second-hand goods being sold in bricks-and-mortar shops and on Facebook groups for both Larnaca and the island as a whole, and theoretically, you should be able to pretty much find everything. But still, I struggle to find 'the right thing' a lot of the time. I don't know if it is just me and I have very specific/fussy tastes, or if we tend to have a lot of variety and an over-saturated market for some things and a lack of certain others.

But there are still businesses – who despite the crisis and a drop in customers – that will not get off their high (pricing) horse. And this is one of the reasons that I think I will probably be buying online for a while yet.

First appeared in 'The Cyprus Weekly', 13/03/15

Playday with the hungry Caterpillar - Angels with Special Needs

No need to call back - Paula Manoli-Gray

We seem to be living in a paradoxical time when it comes to communication – or at least it feels that way on the island.

Whilst most people have the latest smart phone, tablet or computer and spend more time with their heads down trying to impress faux friends on social media than talking to their real ones, they seem totally incapable of answering business emails or returning calls.

Not having lived in the UK for many years, I do not know if this is a global phenomenon or one of our 'quaint' Cyprus-isms, but it is certainly wide-spread here and extremely frustrating.

I have personally found that even some of the most 'professional' or esteemed business people – and/or their assistants – can be totally incapable of sending off a polite reply to at least acknowledge an email. And this also extends to civil servants and public services where there should – at the very least – be an automatic reply to say that your email has been received.

And when it comes to returning calls, forget it. I know of a friend who had an appointment with a respected specialist doctor in Limassol but had to cancel and has now spent the last two months trying to reschedule another, only to be told (literally) several times a day that 'someone will call her back'. No one ever does – and they know that it is in regards to a fairly urgent medical issue.

But this lack of communication also occurs when you are trying to give something or help someone and there is no actual benefit to you for getting in touch, so it is not a one-way street of being ignored only when you require assistance or information - it is just a system of being ignored all the time!

As a journalist, I am always left baffled as to why my emails and phone calls go unanswered when it comes to my approaching someone to write an article on them – a positive thing and a source of free publicity. You would be amazed how many people completely ignore me, or tell me they will be back in touch with some information and are never heard from again. It costs very little time, effort and financial outlay to fire off a reply to someone or return that call in the name of manners and professionalism, and I have to admit, I often judge someone on the basis of how efficient and considerate they are in answering their communications.

So, why does this occur so much in Cyprus? Is it because people are so busy and overstretched, or because they believe that their time or lives are more important than the rest of the island's? Or is it one of those laid-back attitudes that we have (and that was the polite way of saying it)? Whatever the reason, it creates a culture of frustration and distrust in people, services and businesses. We stop asking questions, we stop complaining, we stop getting involved, we stop offering our time or assistance… simply because 'no one will respond to us anyway'.

And the saddest indictment of our times? That you are far more likely to get a response from someone if you go via their social media account than any other form of communication, along with the pleasure of seeing photos of them partying, cuddling their cat, or showing off the remnants of their dinner!

First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 06/03/15

Bright Sparks - Fun SUNday