the history of sound movie

This film touched me deeply and I loved it so much. There is so much peace in it and it’s like a long meditation.

The songs are a collection of songs from early 1900 and they are passed down from generation to generation. The two men travel the country to collect these songs for posterity.

The story is interrupted by the first world war and then continues afterwards.

The singing is really beautiful and so emotional.

Towards the end of the film, I cried and cried.

Brilliantly acted and directed. Gavin.

Finally back to studying

I stopped attending Grow quite a while ago and was aware that at some point I will need to get back to studying for my mental health.

First, I stopped drinking (for the 600th time) over Easter and now are back to studying Eckhart Tolle and A Course in Miracles. Also, back to the healthy diet too.

I know I have to do this as there is a lot of unconsciousness still in me. Also, plenty of resistance and avoidance of the Now…

Although I love studying The Power of Now, I still have some resistance to it because I have a very strong pain body. (past trauma). So, when I listen to the book, my pain body gets triggered and I stop listening and wander off in my negative thoughts.

You are walking along a path at night, surrounded by a thick fog. But you have a powerful flashlight that cuts through the fog and creates a narrow, clear space in front of you. The fog is your life situation, which includes past and future; the flashlight is your conscious presence; the clear space is the Now.

Eckhart Tolle

ACIM is very different to Eckart in that it is non-duality teaching…specifically i.e. Buddhism.

I listen to the Course every night before I go to sleep. If I don’t do that, I feel completely wrong and can’t get to sleep.

I am not a victim of the world I see.

acim

Childhood Abandonment and Family

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about families and how helpful they can be, especially Spanish speaking families and the strong bonds of love and support they have.

‘Family is everything’ they often say.

The love is very real, and both physical and emotional support of love is very self-evident in these families.

But for me ‘Family is Nothing’. No emotional support. No love. Nothing.

I was born into a family where my father didn’t just ‘not like me’ but had constant seething contempt for me. This was permanent and was there until his death.

My Mother was obsessed with my father, so no support from my mother.

Both my sisters were supporting each other, so once again no support there.

When I turned nine my middle sister suddenly stopped liking me and also started having seething contempt for me (just like me father). This continues to this day.

When I left home my father would write me these letters asking me to come home. My mother wanted me to come home apparently, and my father kept writing letters asking me to come home. I didn’t want to come home because my father hated me.

My parents would visit me when they would come to Adelaide, but these visits were approximately 10 to 20 minutes because my father could not bear to be around me. So it was a cup of coffee and they would get up and leave.

For me family is very unpleasant and unsupportive, so at some point I stopped having contact with them.

What are the results of this experience?

Intimate relationships trigger my family abandonment issues. It usually takes a while for them to kick in but I will start getting very angry when the partner does something I don’t like. I mean really angry. The problem is I can’t control it. And it has a devastating effect on the other person. The anger is my childhood trauma coming up.

The other issue is codependency. I act like the way I think the other person wants me to be. This acting takes a lot of energy, so I cannot maintain the illusion and have to have time out and be totally by myself to recover. This pattern keeps going as long as the other person can put up with me…then they end the relationship or I will.

Even around friends, if I go on holiday with them, I will need to have to have time out so I can just be myself.

All that hatred I experienced as a child has had me feeling very unworthy. I’ve spent most of my like feeling unloved and unworthy. Knowing this stuff is very powerful because awareness is gold.

Just good to get this out there and on paper. Gavin.

Ten keys to mental healthy-ness

1. Truth telling 

This one is the most important!

Mental health is the conformity of my mind with reality. It sounds really simple, but when we are not feeling well things can go sideways.

My family are NOT truth tellers. In fact, they tell BIG lies and then defend them fiercely.

It has taken me many years to fully get this step.

2. Inventory 

The unexamined life is not worth living – Socrates.

In order to find the truth, we need to take inventory of every part of our lives including our childhood experiences. This needs to happen not once, but needs to happen constantly. Examining our motives and looking closely at our behavior helps us to be honest.

3. Healthy eating 

This one is hard if you turn to junk food when you are not travelling well.

4. Avoid drugs and alcohol

I think they have their place. Alcohol saved me from suicide when I was in an impossible situation. Generally, I don’t recommend drugs or alcohol for your mental health.

5. Hobbies and interests

If we are going to live with purpose, interest and hobbies can help us find meaning and purpose in our lives.

7. Exercise 

Even if it is just walking, exercise can help our mental health.

6. Gratitude 

This little word is just SO important to help us see the good in our lives.

8. Read books and watch stuff that give you a positive vibe

I watch a lot of true crime stuff, airplane disasters, and disturbing movies, but I do offset it with positive stuff too.

9. Groups

Groups are a powerful way to improve mental health. When we see we are not alone things seem less overwhelming.

10. Sleep

Lack of good sleep had me suicidal at one point in my life. My medication helps me to have good sleep.

Worth. A movie about compensation for the families that lost loved ones in the 9/11 disaster

In the movie 

Worth, the line “Remember that you’re not the bridge” is spoken by Charles Wolf (played by Stanley Tucci) to Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) during a pivotal moment of self-doubt. 

The phrase carries a deep metaphorical meaning regarding empathy and the burden of fixing a broken system: 

  • You Are Not the Solution Alone: Wolf uses the metaphor to remind Feinberg that he is not the structure connecting the victims to their peace or the past to the future. The “bridge” (the legal formula and the fund) is fundamentally broken—or as Wolf later says, it is “rubble“—and Feinberg cannot hold it up by sheer force of will or logic.
  • Release from Impossible Responsibility: Feinberg is struggling with the realization that his rigid formula cannot account for the unique value of every life lost. By saying “you’re not the bridge,” Wolf is telling him to stop trying to be the perfect, unbreakable link between the government and the victims. It encourages him to stop being a “numbers cruncher” and start being a human being.
  • Human Connection Over Bureaucracy: The advice signals a shift in the film’s philosophy. It suggests that while the “bridge” (the fund) may be flawed or destroyed, the people involved—the “rubble”—are still there. It’s an invitation for Feinberg to step off his professional pedestal and simply walk among the survivors, listening to them rather than trying to “fix” their grief with a calculator. 

Ultimately, the quote serves as the catalyst for Feinberg’s redemption arc, moving him from a rules-driven attorney to a compassionate humanitarian who understands that some things cannot be fully mended, only witnessed. 

I know I will be able to use this saying to help me in the future. It also reminds me of: ‘Carry the message, not the person’ which is a little bit similar. G