The eye of Klopp

Peter Krawietz had spent effectively all of his adult life working with Klopp. A native of Mainz, Krawietz began his career in football in a role as video analyst for his local club, joining the German outfit in 1996. That came after earning a degree in sports at the University of Mainz. When Krawietz joined Mainz, Klopp was still a player, and it was Krawietz’s job to analyse his performances at right-back, singling out areas to improve. Klopp promoted his then-colleague to chief scout upon assuming the manager’s role in 2001, and he then brought him with him to Dortmund and Liverpool.

The 51-year-old’s job title at Liverpool is assistant manager, but while Lijnders regularly takes training sessions and is a vocal figure on the touchline, Krawietz works more behind the scenes, focused on analysis, scouting and set-pieces. If Klopp was ‘The Heart’, Krawietz ‘The Eye’ and Lijnders ‘The Brain’. Krawietz is ‘The Eye’ due to his expertise in visual analysis; he gives Klopp the vision, Lijnders the knowledge. 

Despite his long association with Mainz, Dortmund and Liverpool, Krawietz has never managed a game of professional football, nor has he ever played professionally. Krawietz detailed the duties he fills on a daily basis: “I’m analysing, thinking about football. Pep is preparing training sessions and I’m the part who is thinking about our game constantly. So preparing the next game is the main part. We have a look at the next opponent we face – what we can expect, what we will have to do, where are our solutions. Preparing this, preparing the team and leading up to a video meeting, where we want to be precise and want to show our players exactly what will be our solutions for the next game. This is the main part.This keeps you busy, I can tell you!”

References
https://www.thisisanfield.com/2022/01/who-is-peter-krawietz-the-liverpool-coach-standing-in-for-jurgen-klopp/

https://www.liverpoolfc.com/team/first-team/staff/peter-krawietz

https://anfieldindex.com/44290/pepijn-lijnders-shares-some-insights-into-being-part-of-the-lfc-backroom-team.html

https://www.transfermarkt.com/peter-krawietz/profil/trainer/6524

Klopp's very own Pep

Pepijn Lijnders, referred to by many as ‘Pep’, joined Liverpool family as Liverpool U18 Youth Coach in Aug 2014. Later he worked under Brendan Roger as assistant Manager. Previously he has worked in PSV, and Porto FC. He returned to Liverpool after a short, unsuccessful spell at NIC Nijmegen, during which they missed out on promotion to the Eredivisie.

Lijnders is integral to the Reds’ philosophy and knows the club inside out. He is responsible for the training process. Klopp himself said that he really enjoy working together with Lijnders. Obviously the feeling is mutual as Klopp is the type of manager that "brings in really good people and then let them flourish". He said his trick is to listen to people. “It doesn’t mean that I tell them all the time ‘no, no, no – we did it like this in the past’. No, I listen. I listen because they are much closer.

Klopp sees Lijnders as a real energiser. "this man is on fire and our connection is beyond football things. I have been lucky enough to meet many, many people in football during my time in the game and I don’t think I have ever met anyone with the energy and enthusiasm he has for this game.”

Many tout as Lijnders Klopp’s potential successor. Mikel Arteta’s success at Arsenal has proven that assistants can take center stage and succeed. Whether that is possible at an elite club like Liverpool remains to be seen. Some would consider him as Merseyside hero Steven Gerrard's No.2. 

The Dutch name Pepjin is a variant of the name Pepin, which is of several origins. Pepin derived from the name Joseph and is of Frankish and Old French origin. Besides, Pepin is a diminutive of the names Wilbert or Wilbrecht. Pepjin means “he will add” and “God increases” (from Joseph) or “awe-inspiring” (from Frankish “bib” = to tremble). In Old French, Pepjin means “seed of a fruit” and “grower or gardener of fruit trees”. Besides, Pepjin has the meaning “bright will” (from Wilbert“). Which ever meaning we take it seems the name is well-selected for Klopp's very own Pep

Reference
https://www.transfermarkt.com/pepijn-lijnders/profil/trainer/23095
https://www.si.com/soccer/liverpool/opinions/can-pep-lijnders-beat-steven-gerrard-to-the-liverpool-job

https://www.thisisanfield.com/2022/04/jurgen-klopp-has-no-concerns-pepijn-lijnders-will-leave-to-take-managers-job/

https://anfieldindex.com/44290/pepijn-lijnders-shares-some-insights-into-being-part-of-the-lfc-backroom-team.html

farsightedness without any perspective

Jürgen Klopp graduated from Goethe University in Frankfurt with a degree of diploma in sports science (MSc equivalent) in 1995. In an interview Klopp said this his education: "At the time I didn't know exactly where I was going, but if you look at my current job, you can say that I had farsightedness without any perspective". He was the coach of Borussia Dortmund during that interview.

When asked about his thesis about walking (in English the title would be 'Walking – an inventory and evaluation of a sport for all") he replied "as a professional soccer player (with Mainz) and a young father (a son, Marc born 1988), I didn't really have much time for a diploma thesis. I thought I'd get it done quickly, and I told my supervisor, Professor Bös, that". Interestingly this topic was suggested by his professor. He professor said that there is a new trend sport from the USA. People walk through the malls there in the morning.” Klopp wasn't at all enthusiastic at first. But then he did a proper investigation. In the end Klopp said "I think it was the first diploma thesis in Germany on the subject of walking"

Of course back then Klopp would not have any idea that someday he would manage to clubs which share the same anthems: Borussia Dortmund (2008–2015) and Liverpool (2015-today). The fans of both team would sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on matchday. Dortmund fans knew that the song is Liverpool's anthem but yet they love it. Indeed, when Dortmund traveled to Anfield to face off against Liverpool in the Europa League quarter-final in 2016, the two sets of supporters combined to create one of the most memorable renditions of the anthemic classic.

After watching Arrigo Saachi’s (AC Milan coach of 1987-90) training drills Klopp was convinced that anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics. Klopp is a notable proponent of Gegenpressing, a tactic in which the team, after losing possession of the ball, immediately attempts to win back possession, rather than falling back to regroup. Klopp’s tactical analysis is supplemented by his man management skills and ability to galvanize his team. Klopp is also an advocate of ‘Life Kinetik’, a type of exercise program designed to enhance motor skills in athletes, allowing them to react more quickly to movement.

On Thursday 8 October 2015, Liverpool announced Klopp as Brendan Rodgers' replacement at Anfield. He led the Reds to the UEFA Europa League final in 2015/16 and the UEFA Champions League final in 2017/18, although both matches ended in defeat. Klopp was back in the Champions League final the following season, however, and this time guided his side to a 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur. It was also an impressive domestic campaign for Klopp's Reds, who finished a point behind champions Manchester City despite losing only one Premier League match in the entire 2018/19 season. Better was to come the following campaign as Klopp guided Liverpool to their first Premier League title. The Reds triumphed in style, setting a new record for the earliest title success, clinching victory with seven matches to spare, and equalling the 32 wins claimed by Man City in 2017/18 and in 2018/19. 

Liverpool are still chasing history in 2021-22, seeking an unprecedented quadruple of titles. The Reds have won the Carabao Cup (League Cup) and are battling on three competitive fronts this season: the English Premier League, the UEFA Champions League, the FA Cup.

Recently Klopp has agreed a two-year contract extension committing him to the club until 2026. Klopp's decision to confirm his intention to stay at Liverpool to 2026, setting up the Premier League's longest-serving manager for a decade-long tenure at Anfield, is even more of a cause for celebration because only a few weeks ago he was talking once more about fulfilling his pledge to complete his current contract until 2024 and then walk away.

Klopp is now the next manager likely to build a dynasty at a club in the manner of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal. He, self-evidently, cannot match their trophy haul or anywhere their longevity yet but Klopp's extended presence at Liverpool - to 2026 at least under the terms of his new contract - is as much of a guarantee of success as it gets.

Klopp's middle name is Norbert – It really doesn't get much better than that! Depending where you look the name can mean anything from "hero", "shining from the north", or "shines like the seas". Either way it sounds ominously good for Liverpool fans. 

Klopp said his wife Ulla was instrumental in his decision to extent the contract. "The most important contract I signed in my life was with Ulla. We sat at the kitchen table and she said: 'I can't see us leaving in 2024.' That is where it all started". Ulla Sandrock, has authored a couple of kids books. 'Tom and the Enchanted Football' is a tale about a child from Mainz who finds a ball in his attic that allows anyone to play perfect football.

We know where did she get the inspiration of the story. 

References
https://aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de/menschen/herzlichen-glueckwunsch-liebe-goethe-universitaet/

https://www.goal.com/en/news/why-do-borussia-dortmund-sing-youll-never-walk-alone/113l8335ztn8y1kez94ty61eis

https://punditarena.com/football/thepateam/liverpool-kloppology-i-want-to-believe/

https://talksport.com/football/331490/liverpool-manager-news-all-you-need-know-about-jurgen-klopp-151005169254/

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/soccer/news/liverpool-quadruple-chase-2021-22-reds-man-united-treble/pmwqorelovih6pge6xnpv3av

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/61262331

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/61264441

Heading for trouble

'Is there a time bomb ticking in my head?' one goalie asked such question related to the risk of suffering from dementia. For a long time that repeated blows to the head, such as those suffered by boxers, can make people more susceptible to degenerative neurological conditions such as dementia. What we're now seeing is clear evidence that heading footballs can also significantly increase those risk factors.

For goalkeepers the neurodegenerative disease risk was similar to general population levels. In contrast, the risk for outfield players was almost four times higher than expected and varied by player position with risk highest among defenders, at around five-fold higher than expected. Neurodegenerative disease diagnoses increased with increasing career length, ranging from an approximate doubling of risk in those with shortest careers to around a five-fold increase in those with the longest careers.

Former professional footballers had an approximately three-and-a-half-fold higher rate of death due to neurodegenerative disease than expected.

English football is also driving reform on this point. In February 2020, the FA — with the Scottish and Northern Irish associations — issued new guidelines that children up to age 11 should no longer be coached in heading and that headers should be a "low priority" for under-18 teams. Last July, the FA, Premier League and lower league associations also advised adult teams to cut back on the intensity of header training: "It is recommended that no more than 10 higher-force headers are performed in any training week." This refers to headers after long passes, crosses, corners or freekicks.

In 2022 a new dementia study has been launched to investigate ways to reduce risk of the disease in former footballers. The study will be led by Dr Willie Stewart, whose previous research showed ex-professionals are three and a half times more likely to die of dementia than the general population. The new four-year, £1.3m BrainHOPE study will build on that research.

References

https://www.dw.com/en/the-risk-of-dementia-in-football-a-ticking-time-bomb/a-60172421

https://www.headway.org.uk/news-and-campaigns/news/2021/study-reinforces-link-between-dementia-in-professional-footballers-and-heading-the-ball/

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/61220186

Lost in Synodal Way

The Catholic bishops’ conference of Germany launched its “Synodal Way” Dec. 1, 2019, nominally to provide a platform for discussion and reflection on the shocking revelations of clergy sexual abuse that roiled the nation. The Synodal Way's supreme body is the Synodal Assembly. It consists of 230 members, made up of archbishops, bishops and auxiliary bishops, as well as an equal number of lay-members from the Central Committee of German Catholics. To be noted that 60 out of the country’s 67 bishops are supportive of the Synodal Way.

The Synodal Way is further divided into four Synodal Forums that each focus on a particular topic : 
(1) Power and Separation of Powers in the Church - Joint Participation and Involvement in the Mission (2) Life in succeeding relationships - Living Love in Sexuality and Partnership
(3) Priestly Existence Today, and
(4) Women in Ministries and Offices in the Church

Back in 2019, in statements that alarmed the Vatican, the Synodal Assembly signaled its intent to challenge Church doctrine and discipline, and vowed to issue its own “binding” teaching on a range of sensitive matters. A plenary meeting of the Assembly on March 2022 in Frankfurt approved drafts in favor of same-sex union blessings; changes to the Catechism on homosexuality and the ordination of women priests; for priestly celibacy to be optional in the Latin Church; and for lay involvement in the election of new bishops.” 

Pope Francis wrote a letter to all Catholics in Germany in June 2019, objecting to the Church in Germany’s course of action. He cautioned that a failure to heed his warning could result in “multiplying and nurturing the evils it wanted to overcome.”

But, more generally, the majority of German citizens seem to care little about the country’s “Synodal Way,” including many of the country’s 22.6 million Catholics, of whom many are lapsed or poorly catechized. “Most of them only read the headlines ‘Celibacy should be abolished!’ ‘Demand for the ordination of women as priests’; ‘Blessing of all sexual orientations,’” said Father Guido Rodheudt, a parish priest in Aachen. “The result is usually a loud yawning.”

Most critics are convinced that despite discussing changes to doctrine the German church has no intention of breaking from Rome or attempting to change doctrine without Rome’s approval, even if none of their proposals are accepted. The recent movement in Germany to bless same-sex couples in defiance of the Vatican as a sign that the German church is willing to break from Rome, but the German bishops’ conference opposed the blessings. The movement revealed the tension that sometimes exists between bishops and the progressive grassroots in Germany, but the synodal path is generally a place where those groups, among others, are seeking common ground. 

Pope Francis  has not made any official comments, although many people took a comment he made in November 2020 as a reference to the synodal path. He said: At times, I feel a great sadness when I see a community that, with good will, takes a wrong path because it thinks it is making the church through gatherings, as if it were a political party: the majority, the minority, what this one thinks of this or that or the other.... “This is like a synod, a synodal path that we must take.” I ask myself: “Where is the Holy Spirit there? Where is prayer? Where is communitarian love? Where is the Eucharist?” Without these four coordinates, the church becomes a human society, a political party.

References:

https://www.ncregister.com/news/the-german-synodal-path-an-explainer

https://www.ncregister.com/news/germany-s-synodal-way-divides-local-catholics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synodal_Path

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/06/24/german-synodal-path-way-explainer-240919

The distance between two clubs

The distance between Anfield, home of Liverpool FC is a mere 970 Meters from Goodison Park home of Everton F.C. Yet the distance between them in current table is much more significant. Liverpool is currently second on the table and chasing the unprecedent quadruple while Everton is risking being relegated. The irony is Liverpool was formed following a disagreement between the directors of Everton Football Club and its president, John Houlding, who owned the club's ground, Anfield. A dispute over rent resulted in Everton moving to Goodison Park, which left Houlding with an empty stadium. Thus, he founded Liverpool F.C. and the rest was history. 

Financially the distance is also huge. Liverpool is valued $4.1B while Everton is about 1/6th of it at $658M. Comparing position in EPL table since 2016 (first full season of current Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp), Liverpool lowest position is 4th, won once while Everton highest was 7th. During Klopp (full season) era Liverpool always compete in Champion league while 2017–18 UEFA Europa League was the last time of Everton compete in Europe. 

The meeting between the two is called Merseyside derby. During Klopp (full season) era only once did Everton beat Liverpool in Merseyside derby. Everton manager then Carlo Ancelotti had the honor to lead Everton to beat Liverpool at Anfield for the first time since 1999. Of all 240 derbies to date Liverpool won 97 of those (40%) to 67 of Everton (28%). 

Jurgen Klopp insisted he would miss the Merseyside derby next season if Everton fail to survive their relegation battle. Everton are one of six English clubs who have never been relegated from the Premier League since its creation in 1992. The others are Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham and Chelsea, so they are part of an elite group. The last time Everton were relegated was in the 1951 campaign while Liverpool were relegated in 1954.

One last trivia, Everton dropped the Latin motto "nil satis nisi optimum" - meaning 'Nothing but the best is good enough' - back in 2013. The club said the updated version - a 'next evolution' - formed 'a concise, modern and dynamic representation of Everton', and was produced after consulation with various stakeholders, including fans. However an online petition on the change.org website was started after its unveiling this afternoon, and it swiftly garnered more than 6,000 signatures, while the new crest drew a largely negative reaction on social media.

Looks like they should have kept the motto.

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liverpool_F.C._(1892%E2%80%931959)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everton_F.C.

https://www.forbes.com/teams/liverpool/

https://www.forbes.com/teams/everton/

https://www.premierleague.com/tables

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_F.C._in_international_football

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everton_F.C._in_international_football

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56033685

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merseyside_derby

https://talksport.com/football/1059166/everton-premier-league-relegation-record-frank-lampard-manchester-united-chelsea-arsenal-liverpool-tottenham/

https://theanalyst.com/eu/2022/04/when-were-premier-league-teams-last-relegated/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10742815/Liverpool-boss-Jurgen-Klopp-insists-miss-Merseyside-derby-Everton-relegated.html

Mercedes are waiting for Godot

Lewis Hamilton wrote off his chances of winning this year's World Championship after a dispiriting performance by his Mercedes team in the sprint race at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The seven-time champion finished 14th, losing one place from his qualifying position, while team-mate George Russell was 11th, fighting back to where he started after he, too, lost ground at the start.

The 2022 season was already looking difficult for Mercedes after the first three races in which they were nearly a second off the pace of the leading Ferrari and Red Bull cars. But Imola, as team principal Toto Wolff admitted, "marks the low" of the year so far. "We stick together," Hamilton said. "We try to motivate everyone. This is the situation we are faced with.

"We are obviously not fighting for the championship. But we are fighting to understand the car and improve and progress through the year. That's all we can hope for right now." There may still be 20 races to go, but Hamilton said he had to be "realistic" about Mercedes' position.

In a sense Mercedes and Hamilton are waiting for Godot. A situation where they are waiting for something to happen, but it probably never will. 

The concern for Mercedes right now is that while they know what is wrong with the car - too much drag, not enough grip and terrible aerodynamic bouncing on the straights - they don't know how to fix it.

"We have a direction to unlock the potential in the car to bring us much closer but at the moment we haven't got the key," Wolff said. "So we just need to grind away and rely on the science and physics before spiralling into some kind of negative momentum, which we are not."

Wolff sounded like talking about cracking a password to unlock the car's potentials. a Hacker could apply a method of brute-force attack by submitting many passwords or passphrases with the hope of eventually guessing correctly. The attacker systematically checks all possible passwords and passphrases until the correct one is found. 

Brute force method certainly would take time. Password with 10 characters long has 1,188,137,600,000 combinations. It takes 23.05 hours or 0.96 days to crack your password on computer that trys 25,769,803,776 passwords per hour.

Certainly the Mercedes team would be too smarter to just pick a brute force methodology to solve their problems. The question would be the remaining races of the season. Would they have enough time and resources to crack the puzzle? 

Mercedes have dominated the constructors' championship in the turbo hybrid era and secured an unprecedented eighth consecutive title in 2021. But this season's regulation changes have not worked in their favour, with both cars experiencing serious 'porpoising', a phenomenon caused by an increase - then a sudden decrease - of downforce.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff apologised to Hamilton on team radio at the end of the race. Wolff described their car as "undriveable". Obviously there is so much a driver could do with his car but even the seven-time world champion could not do magic.

 

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/61202423

https://tmedweb.tulane.edu/content_open/bfcalc.php?uc=0&lc=5&nu=5&sc=0&ran=0&rans=0&dict=0

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/61211221

United Lucky 8th?

Manchester United incoming new manager, Erik ten Hag, is unlikely to compete in next year Champion league competition. The interim boss Ralf Rangnick had given up hope qualifying for next season's Champions League.  Saturday's 3-1 defeat at Arsenal moved the fourth-placed Gunners six points clear of United, who are sixth. 

The last time United lifted the Champion League trophy was in 2008. They beat Chelsea in Moscow, 6-5 on penalties after 1-1 draw. The soonest for United to compete back in Champion League competition would be in 2024 which 16 years had passed by.

The brutal reality of what Ten Hag is letting himself in for can be illustrated by the fact he is inheriting a bigger, more problematic task at United than Jurgen Klopp did when he succeeded the sacked Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool in October 2015. At least Klopp inherited a unified dressing room devoid of players who thought themselves better than they were, who actually wanted to be at the club, and a base of decent characters to launch Liverpool's road to redemption. In contrast, Ten Hag will be taking on a dysfunctional dressing room inhabited by players who do not want to be there, who are not good enough to be there and a team that embarrassed the club's good name in the 4-0 defeat against Liverpool at Anfield.

In terms of valuation, United  is leading the other premier league clubs. Forbes 2021 ranked United at no. 4 (below Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich) above (Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur). Hence United has the resources to improve their performance. Of course the question would be how? (or who?)

Real Madrid could be used as the template. The club had won 13 Champion League Titles. To be fair the first title, 1955–56 European Cup was without and English club participation (interestingly there was one Scottish club among the 16 participants). The second time Madrid won (1956-57) United was one of the 21 participants. Hence we might use 12 Madrid titles to United 3 titles in this comparison.   

If money could be titles it looks like Madrid could be one of the proofs. Real Madrid CF (La Liga) Total Gross Salaries for the 2021-2022 Season is £5,296,643 per week. Manchester United FC (Premier League) Total Gross Salaries is £4,119,423 per week. Certainly there is some room to sign expensive footballer stars. Of course the question would be who? which position?   

United did spend more than Madrid in season 21/22. United net spending (Total market value of arrivals minus departures) was €170m to Madrid €90m. But Madrid has a better position in terms of local competition table. They were second in 20/21 and 1st in 21/22 (still 5 games to play with 15 points gap to Barcelona on 2nd). United were 2nd last year and now 6th with 4 more games to play. The gap to 1st place Manchester City is 26 points. 

Sir Fergusson was the manager the last time United won Champion League trophy, He retired in 2013 and since then there are seven managers/care takers: Moyes, Giggs, Van Gaal,  Mourinho,  Solskjær, Carrick and Rangnick. Would Ten Hag be the lucky 8th?

Jesus, a Dalit

Dalit is a name for people belonging to the lowest stratum castes in India, previously characterized as "untouchable". Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a fifth varna. Scheduled Castes is the official term for Dalits as per the Constitution of India. 

Christian Dalits are found in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Mass conversions of lower caste Hindus to Christianity took place in order to escape the discrimination. The converted Dalits believed that "Christianity is a true religion; a desire for protection from oppressors and, if possible, material aid; the desire for education for their children; and the knowledge that those who have become Christians had improved".

However even after conversion, in some cases Dalits were discriminated against due to the "residual leftover" practice of caste discrimination from their previous traditions. This is attributed to the predominantly Hindu society they lived in. Discrimination against Dalit Christians also remained in interactions and mannerisms between castes. Even after conversion, to some extent segregation, restriction, hierarchy, and graded ritual purity remained. 

Data shows that there is more discrimination and less class mobility among the people living in the rural areas, where incidents of caste discrimination is higher among people from all religious backgrounds. In many cases, the churches referred to the Dalits as 'New Christians'. It is alleged to be a derogatory term which classifies the Dalit Christians to be looked down upon by other Christians. During the earlier days of Christianity, in some churches in south India the Dalits had either separate seating, or had to attend the mass outside. Dalit Christians are also said to be grossly underrepresented amongst the clergy in some places.

Caste-based occupations held by Dalits also show a clear segregation which perpetuated even after becoming Christian. Occupational patterns (including manual scavenging) are prevalent among Dalit Christians in north-west India are said to be quite similar to that of Dalit Hindus. Occupational discrimination for Dalit Christians goes so far as to restrict not only employment but in some cases for clean sanitation and water.

Dalit theology is a branch of Christian theology that emerged among the Dalit caste in the Indian subcontinent in the 1980s.  This theology a self-identity the Dalits as a people undergoing Exodus. It sees hope in the "Nazareth Manifesto" of Luke 4, where Jesus speaks of preaching "good news to the poor... freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind" and of releasing "the oppressed."

A major proponent of Dalit theology was Arvind P. Nirmal (1936–95), a Dalit Christian in the Church of North India. Nirmal criticised Brahminic dominance of Christian theology in India, and believed that the application of liberation theology to India should reflect the struggle of Dalits, who make up about 70% of the Christians in India and 90% of the Christians in Pakistan. Nirmal drew on the concept of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 to identify Jesus himself as a Dalit – "a waiter, a dhobi, and bhangi."

Nirmal said that it is the 'Dalitness' which is ‘Christian’ about Dalit Theology. The ‘Christian’ for this theology is exclusively the ‘Dalit’. It is the common Dalit experience of Christian Dalits along with the other Dalits that will shape a Dalit Christian Theology.  It is therefore a people’s theology and eventually a public theology. Nirmal locates the servitude among Dalits and among the Godhead as the common denominator in drawing a Dalit God. For him, Jesus is a Dalit who relates with the outcastes, and Holy Spirit is the liberating spirit in the struggles of Dalits for justice.

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit_theology

https://www.movement.org.uk/blog/my-favourite-theologian-arvind-p-nirmal

indecent theologist

Althaus-Reid called herself as “indecent, Latina, bisexual theologian”.  She challenged the sexual oppression behind traditional Christian concepts of decency and introduces theology rooted in the context of people whose sexual freedom has been limited. To her  God must be liberated from the closet of sex-negative Christian thought and embraces God’s role in the lives of LGBTQ people. 

“Our task and our joy is to find or simply recognize God sitting amongst us, at any time, in any gay bar or in the home of a camp friend who decorates her living room as a chapel and doesn’t leave her rosary at home when going to a salsa bar.” wrote her in her book “The Queer God”

Her theology could be summed up as follows: “An embodied spirituality must also be sexual. Otherwise, salvation is not completely attainable. Marcella thus guides us towards a spirituality which does not force us to sever our sexuality. On the contrary, she leads us to honor it as a path to holiness. Her indecent theology is a truly queer theology that has opened the doors of the closets of traditions and prejudices and prophetically calls us out to walk towards liberation.”

She argued that all theology is sexual; it is just a matter if the theologian/thinker is willing to "out" or make clear the sexual nature of her or his theology -- that is to speak clearly about what underlies one's assumptions and theology -- or if, as so many Heteronormative Systematic Theologians have done, if the sexual in the theology will be cloaked in so-called decency. None of us can be free, until we are all free, including from the oppression due to sexual tendency.

Marcella Althaus-Reid (May 11, 1952 – Feb. 20, 2009) theologian, was baptized as a Roman Catholic and grew up in Buenos Aires. 

References
https://qspirit.net/marcella-althaus-reid-queer-theology/

https://www.amazon.com/Indecent-Theology-Marcella-Althaus-Reid/dp/0415236045

Congar the peritus

Congar was once silenced for his ideas, which some in Rome took to be dangerous at the time. Barred from teaching or engaging in ecumenical work with the local Anglicans, he was mainly remembered for exercising in the garden. 

Congar was an early advocate of the ecumenical movement, encouraging openness to ideas stemming from the Eastern Orthodox Church and Protestant Christianity. He promoted the concept of a "collegial" papacy and criticised the Roman Curia, ultramontanism, and the clerical pomp that he observed at the Vatican. He also promoted the role of lay people in the church. 

One of his most important books True and False Reform in the Church (1950) and all of its translations were forbidden by Rome in 1952. Congar was prevented from teaching or publishing after 1954, during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, following publication of an article in support of the "worker-priest" movement in France.

Congar's reputation recovered in 1960 when Pope John XXIII invited him to serve on the preparatory theological commission of the Second Vatican Council. Although Congar had little influence on the preparatory schemas, as the council progressed his expertise was recognized and some would regard him as the single most formative influence on Vatican II. He was a member of several committees that drafted conciliar texts, an experience that he documented in great detail in his daily journal. Congar was hired as personal and expert theologian (peritus) at the council to Bishop Jean-Julien Weber of Strasbourg which allowed him to attend all the general sessions and to participate in discussions of any commission to which he was invited.

His principal allies during the council were “progressive” council fathers Cardinal Frings of Cologne and Archbishop Wojtyla of Krakow (later became Pope John Paul II), as well as fellow periti Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, Henri de Lubac,  Hans Kung, and a young German theologian named Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). Interestingly post conciliar period, John Paul would create de Lubac and Congar as Cardinals, but would preside over a critical investigation of the works of both Kung and Schillebeeckx.

The thirty last years of his life were marked by illness, though he kept working and publishing throughout this period. Due to sclerosis, he was fairly quickly wheelchair-bound, and eventually hospital-bound during his last decade. 

Yves Marie-Joseph Congar OP 13 April 1904 – 22 June 1995) was a French Dominican friar, priest, and theologian.

References
https://www.english.op.org/godzdogz/remembering-fr-yves-congar-o-p-1904-1995/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Congar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peritus

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/yves-congar-and-the-meaning-of-vatican-ii-1764

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/why-yves-congar-relevant-today

Anonymous Rahner

In an interview later in life, Rahner said he did not think people would find his life that interesting as it was basically concerned with studying and writing. Quite a humble statement considering there are over 3,500 published works written or edited by Rahner including twenty-three volumes of Theological Investigations and a 30-volume encyclopedia, Christian Faith in Modern Society.

However one of the controversial Rahnerian topics is Anonymous Christian. Rahner convinced that people who have never heard the Christian Gospel might be saved through Christ. Non-Christians could have "in [their] basic orientation and fundamental decision," Rahner wrote, "accepted the salvific grace of God, through Christ, although [they] may never have heard of the Christian revelation."

Rahner accepted the notion that without Christ it was impossible to achieve salvation, but he could not accept the notion that people who have never heard of Jesus would be condemned. "let us say, a Buddhist monk (or anyone else I might suppose) who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity". According to Rahner, a person could "intellectually profess disbelief but [be] existentially ... committed to those values which for the Christian are concretized in God."

While largely misunderstood, the notion of an "anonymous Christian" was Rahner's way of talking about how to balance Christianity's unequivocal assertion that Jesus Christ is the universal savior with the practical realities of religious pluralism or ignorance of the Christ and the Gospel by billions of humans through no fault of their own.

Over the decades, some people have taken issue with the term "anonymous Christian" because it seems to some to either insult people of other religious traditions (by dubbing them "Christians" irrespective of their beliefs or lack thereof) or, as is the case among some skeptical Christians, justify relativism.

On the first point, Rahner intended the phrase "anonymous Christian" to be something of a placeholder for use within the Christian community to account for both how Christ is the universal savior and how God's presence is not limited only to those who consciously ascent to Christian doctrine. He never intended it to be used ad extra or outside of internal Christian reflections on God's action outside of Christian doctrinal frameworks. Since the love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable (e.g., Matthew 25:31-46) and there are plenty of self-professed Christians who regularly fail to live authentic Gospel lives while there are plenty of non-Christians who excel at love of neighbor, there has to be a way to account for how God's mercy and salvation touches the lives of non-Christians.

Similarly, Rahner's whole point in coining the term "anonymous Christian" was to assert the absolute centrality of Christ who, through the paschal mystery, singularly accomplishes our salvation. Therefore, the charge of relativism is absurd. Following the church's teaching in Nostra Aetate, we recognize that Christians do not have a monopoly on God's action in the world, and Rahner sought to unpack how we might conceive of this fact within a pluralistic context.

One writer called it “Modified inclusivism” which allow that there is some undeniable truth and beauty in other religions. However, these truths do not add anything new to the essentials of salvation spoken of in the Bible. It is not that people can be saved through other religions, so much as they, by God’s grace, may have access to Christ’s saving action from their own sincerely held faith position. 

Rahner's concept of Anonymous Christian was one of the most influential theological ideals to affect the Second Vatican Council however in an interview (2016) Pope Benedict said that Rahner’s “Anonymous Christians” argument is inadequate. “If faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, faith itself becomes unmotivated". Missionaries stopped trying to convince people to become Christians, while ordinary believers saw the obligation of faith and morals as uncertain and problematic.

If even atheists are redeemed by Christ, why have I been going to Mass every Sunday? Rahner would answered such question as follows: "You go to Mass to thank him for being such a great God that he wants you to spend eternity with him. That’s why you go to Mass. You don’t go to win heaven, because you can’t earn it — it’s a gift. He wants to give it to all of us.”

Karl Rahner was a Jesuit priest. Born 5 March 1904. Active in his last years until illness and exhaustion took their toll. He died peacefully on March 30, 1984, in the University Medical Clinic of Innsbruck.

References
https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-voices/20th-century-ignatian-voices/karl-rahner-sj/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_Christian

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/faith-seeking-understanding/anonymous-christianity-ted-lasso

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/in-depth/things-im-asked-will-only-christians-get-to-heaven/

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/5334/benedict-rejects-theology-of-anonymous-christians-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/analysis-pope-francis-outreach-to-atheists-not-as-controversial-as-it-seems/2013/09/12/5ba14340-1bd9-11e3-80ac-96205cacb45a_story.html

three times Schillebeeeckx

At least least three times Schillebeeeckx raised the eyebrows of authorities in Vatican. He was summoned to Rome in December 1979 to exthre plain himself to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office that had run the Inquisition. He likened the experience to being a naughty schoolboy sent to the headteacher's study, but still went. Küng, under scrutiny at the same time, refused a similar summons, saying that he would not submit to a medieval trial. As a result, while Küng had his church licence to teach theology in Catholic universities removed by the Vatican, Schillebeeckx survived to continue as professor of dogmatic and historical theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.

In July 1984, he was again called to Rome over his comments that, in extreme circumstances, lay people could take on the place usually reserved for the priest in consecrating the eucharist. His inquisitor was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI. On condition that he drop the reference to lay ministry from any subsequent publications, Schillebeeckx again avoided official censure. Küng jokingly claimed that Schillebeeckx was spared only because nobody on Ratzinger's team could read his texts in the original Dutch.

His final, very public, act of rebellion came in 1989 when he joined other leading Catholic theologians in signing the Cologne Declaration which signed by 163 theologians from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands (eventually 130 theologians from France, 23 from Spain, 52 from Belgium and 63 from Italy, including some from Rome itself, signed the statement). Complaining that the collegiality called for by Vatican II was “being smothered by a new Roman centralism,” the declaration predicted: “If the pope undertakes things that are not part of his role, then he cannot demand obedience in the name of Catholicism. He must expect dissent”. 

Schillebeeckx bore in silence the pain of witnessing many of the reforms he had supported and promoted being undone. Yet his reputation throughout the Christian churches and beyond as a prophetic thinker could not be dented by papal disapproval. He greeted plaudits – including the Erasmus prize (1982) for his contribution to European culture, the first theologian so honoured – and admirers with humility and an old-fashioned courtesy.

He may just have allowed himself a wry smile when he looked back on a 1968 declaration, published in Concilium, the still flourishing progressive theological journal that he helped to set up, which insisted that the Pope "cannot and must not supersede, hamper and impede the teaching task of theologians as scholars". His own name was there among the signatories, as was that of the then Father Ratzinger.

Edward Cornelius Florentius Alfonsus Schillebeeckx, Dominican priest and theologian, born 12 November 1914; died 23 December 2009.

References

http://www.natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/1999a/011599/011599s.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/24/edward-schillebeeckx-obituary

Reading 

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/edward-schillebeeckx-herald-god-among-us

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/world/europe/17schillebeeckx.html

https://www.movement.org.uk/blog/my-favourite-theologian-edward-schillebeeckx-op

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/edward-schillebeeckx

the priest that could be Pope

In 1989,  Hans Küng was asked in what language he would speak at a conference. He replied that German would be easiest for him and English would be easiest for his audience. Or he could speak in Latin, “so they could understand every word in Rome.” Küng was understandably cynical to the authoritative figures of Catholic church. In 1979 under the theologically conservative Pope John Paul II, Rome withdrew Küng’s license to teach theology at a Catholic university.

Küng emerged as a champion of reform in the 1960s at the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, where he was an official theologian (he was the youngest one there). Pope John XXIII had called the meeting to “let some fresh air into the church.” Küng saw the conference as only a beginning. He continued to press for more revisions in church dogma, including ending the ban on birth control and vows of celibacy by priests. Other scholars have been re-evaluating the papacy much more quietly — and have said far more radical things than Küng.

It was Küng’s tightly reasoned rejection of the doctrine of papal infallibility in his book “Infallible? An Inquiry” (1970) that led to his dismissal as an official church theologian. He maintained that the doctrine, which was adopted in 1870 and applies only to those extraordinary moments when the pope speaks officially as the vicar of Christ, was not supported by scripture. He gave copious examples of papal mistakes.

In 1965 Küng recruited Ratzinger to be a professor at the University of Tübingen. In 1968, at the height of the Europe-wide student protests, Küng and Ratzinger parted company, with the latter so unsettled by the unrest that he retreated to a more conservative university. The two met again in 2005 of course by then Ratzinger was the new Pope Benedict XVI. John Paul II had refused more than a dozen times to see Küng, but Ratzinger was keen to signal that the church under his leadership could be a bigger tent than before. It was not, however, big enough to accommodate Küng, whose interests had grown considerably wider since his licence had been removed. 

After Ratzinger resigned the papacy in 2013, Dr. Küng suggested that the pope had been out of step with “modernity” and that the church was in need of more progressive leadership. “In this dramatic situation the church needs a pope who’s not living intellectually in the Middle Ages, who doesn’t champion any kind of medieval theology, liturgy or church constitution,” he wrote, “a pope who stands up for the freedom of the church in the world not just by giving sermons but by fighting with words and deeds for freedom and human rights within the church, for theologians, for women, for all Catholics who want to speak the truth openly. ”

Despite the impression that this self-confident, clever and ever so slightly vain priest may have given, Küng was not one of nature’s rebels. His chosen approach would have been to work from within, but the Catholic church in his heyday was intolerant of such dissenting voices among its priests. If the choice was silence or uneasy internal exile, he was not going to bite his tongue.

When challenged about his maverick role in the history of modern Catholicism, he remained fond to the end of quoting one of his heroes, Pope Gregory the Great: “If scandal is taken as the truth, then it is better to allow scandal to arise than to abandon the truth.”

Hans Küng, priest, theologian and author, born 19 March 1928; died 6 April 2021

Unorthodox Church

Father Pluzhnik belonged to the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church which takes its direction from its religious leadership in Moscow. Recently he applied to join the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Many fellow priests who followed Patriarch Kirill in Moscow are doing the same because of the Church leader's stance on the war. Not only in Ukraine,  Russian Orthodox church in Amsterdam also has announced split with Moscow. 

The head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, a trusted ally of Vladimir Putin, has declined to condemn the Kremlin’s decision to invade its neighbor, referring to Russia’s opponents in Ukraine as “evil forces”. In a Sunday sermon last week he also said gay pride parades organized in the west were part of the reason for the war in Ukraine.

Such negative reaction to the Russian Orthodox Church is shared by more than 280 Russian Orthodox priests and church officials from around the world signed an open letter expressing their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It said “eternal torment” awaited those who gave “murderous orders”.

For Russian Orthodox nationalists -however- Putin is fulfilling the prophecy of a twentieth-century saint from Chernihiv, now one of Ukraine’s beleaguered cities. “Just as the One Lord God is the indivisible Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” this monk foretold, “so Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus together are Holy Rus’ and cannot be separated.”

It looks like Patriarch Kirill to pay  a colossal price for loyalty to Putin. A third of his parishes and monasteries are located in Ukraine. Orthodox abroad have condemned the war—including Kirill’s own bishops in Estonia and Lithuania—along with Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Instead of a Russian World, the Moscow Patriarch may soon find his authority stopping at the borders of the Russian Federation.

Small Daily Improvements

 “Small daily improvements over time create stunning results.”— Robin S. Sharma

Life has no rewind or fast-forward. It is continuously playing and you need to make each second count. That is the key to success. Because in the end, everything will add up and it will show the efforts you have put into it.

James Clear’s book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones explores an interesting subject, on the compounding nature of the long game. Clear writes:

Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.

Our brains have a hard time intuitively understanding time, compounding, and uncertainty. All of those things conspire to work against us when it comes to habits and mental disciplines. 

A few quick steps we can take right now to start focusing on continuous improvement

Step 1: Do more of what already works. Progress often hides behind boring solutions and underused insights. You don’t need more information. You don’t need a better strategy. You just need to do more of what already works.

Step 2: Avoid tiny losses. In many cases, improvement is not about doing more things right, but about doing fewer things wrong. This is a concept called improvement by subtraction, which is focused on doing less of what doesn't work: eliminating mistakes, reducing complexity, and stripping away the inessential.

Step 3: Measure backward. Measuring backward means you make decisions based on what has already happened, not on what you want to happen. For example weight loss: Measure your calorie intake. Did you eat 3,500 calories per day last week? Focus on averaging 3,400 per day this week.

Like the saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, long-lasting changes to your body are not going to occur in a week! It takes more than a 21-day crash diet to build the body you desire. And despite what you may hear some “fitness gurus” say, you don’t have to kill yourself for hours every single day running on a treadmill to see staggering results. The key to great long-term fitness success is in incremental change.

Start making small, daily improvements toward your goal. Choose bottled water over soda. Choose the stairs over the escalator. Choose that “bad” parking spot far from the front doors. Do that for two weeks and look back at the “easy” changes you have made. Let the small daily habits and changes add up and watch your long-term success come to life!

The Grasshopper and the Ants, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret

The pain of regret is the worst pain you can think of, this is especially because most times, there is no remedy.

The Grasshopper and the Ants, is one of Aesop's Fables. The fable describes a grasshopper that has spent the summer singing and dancing while the ants worked to store up food for winter. When winter arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger and begs the ants for food. However, the ants rebuke its idleness and tells it to dance the winter away now.

Success Leader, Jim Rohn, often said, “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” The pain of regret is the “what if’s…” when you look back on your life. The Pain of Regret Is Worse Than the Pain of Discipline. And regret always comes last. These regrets are monumentally heavy. When you regret something because you were not disciplined, there is nothing you can do but accept the past. You can only suffer until you let go.

In the fable the ants did not spend any time enjoying the summer in order to survive the winter. Obviously we could balance our life i.e. to have a good habit of a discipline and still have fun too. Basically the pain of discipline is what we pay to establish a good habit.  

When you refuse to discipline yourself, living life without having self laws, spending as you earn without course to save and invest for the future, allowing yourself to be distracted when you should be working, you are definitely going to live a life of regret. If while your body is strong, you are working and not setting aside anything for future investments, when you get older and weaker, who and what will you fall to?

What you need to start getting more productive is momentum. To have momentum, you just need to act. You don’t need a complete a goal or set milestones just yet. Start from the small things. Sometimes your mind just needs a little nudge, so take some time to think. What are the things that you need to do? How urgent are they? How long would it take to finish them all? Once you have your to-do list, start doing the easiest and most minor things first. Remember, you are not trying to break world records. Your main goal today is to build momentum.

When you have the momentum going, there comes the inner bitch. It’s the voice inside your head that wants you to stop moving forward. The only way to beat your inner bitch is to be consistent, focus on your goal, and do the opposite of what the inner bitch wants you to. 

Your goals will play an essential role in your growth and productivity. They guide you to the right path. When you are lost and tired, look at your goals. Look at how far you’ve come, how close you are to achieve them. Use your goals as a reminder.

Managing emotion

Managing emotional reactions means choosing how and when to express the emotions we feel.  It's healthy to express their feelings — but that it matters how (and when) they express them.  Reacting to situations in productive ways means choosing the way to react instead of letting emotions influence what to do or say things regretted later.

The skills we use to manage our emotions and react well are part of a bigger group of emotional skills called emotional intelligence (EQ). Developing all the skills that make up emotional intelligence takes time and practice.  These are skills anyone can practice (a) emotional awareness : being able to notice and identify the emotions we feel at any given moment and (b) understanding and accepting emotions:  knowing why we feel the way we do.

It's OK to feel whatever way we feel without blaming others or judging ourselves for how we feel.  Acknowledge your feelings without letting them run away with you. We always have a choice about how to react to situations. Once we realize that, it's easier to make choices that work out well. Learning to react well takes practice. But we all can get better at taking emotional situations in stride and expressing emotions in healthy ways. And that's something to feel good about!

There are a number of actions that you can take that will help you to manage your emotions. Many of them are very general: exercise, be open and accept what is going on around you, distract yourself, don’t give in to negative thinking, spend time outside, be grateful, doing things that you enjoy and good for you, and notice the good things in your life. Basically things that help reduce the stress levels.

Reason is infinitely more powerful than emotion if we make proper and conscious use of it. It allows us to regulate the emotional response. It leads us to balance the conflict. It gives us the ability to feel our emotions properly and modulate them in response to a stressful stimulus. 

We can change how we feel. The key is to be aware of our emotional response, and understand what might be behind it. That way, we can apply some reason to the situation. For example, you might ask yourself some questions about possible courses of action, like:
How do I feel about this situation?

What do I think I should do about it?
What effect would that have for me and for other people?
Does this action fit with my values?
If not, what else could I do that might fit better?
Is there anyone else that I could ask about this who might help me?
This helps you to apply reason to an emotional response before reacting.

mind-body interventions

Note: I caught this term while listening to a podcast about health this morning. Here is my short google search summary  

Mind-body interventions (MBI) are activities that purposefully affect mental and physical fitness. The list of activities consist of among others: yoga, tai chi, Pilates, guided imagery, guided meditation and forms of meditative praxis, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, and prayer, as well as art therapy, music therapy, and dance therapy. 

The concept that the mind is important in the treatment of illness is integral to the healing approaches of traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, dating back more than 2,000 years. While this integrated approach was maintained in traditional healing systems in the East, developments in the Western world by the 16th and 17th centuries led to a separation of human spiritual or emotional dimensions from the physical body. This separation began with the redirection of science, during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, to the purpose of enhancing humankind's control over nature. 

Technological advances (e.g., microscopy, the stethoscope, the blood pressure cuff, and refined surgical techniques) demonstrated a cellular world that seemed far apart from the world of belief and emotion. The discovery of bacteria and, later, antibiotics further dispelled the notion of belief influencing health. Fixing or curing an illness became a matter of science (i.e., technology) and took precedence over, not a place beside, healing of the soul. As medicine separated the mind and the body, scientists of the mind (neurologists) formulated concepts, such as the unconscious, emotional impulses, and cognitive delusions, that solidified the perception that diseases of the mind were not "real," that is, not based in physiology and biochemistry.

During World War II, the importance of belief reentered the web of health care. On the beaches of Anzio, morphine for the wounded soldiers was in short supply, and Henry Beecher, M.D., discovered that much of the pain could be controlled by saline injections. He coined the term "placebo effect," and his subsequent research showed that up to 35 percent of a therapeutic response to any medical treatment could be the result of belief.4 Investigation into the placebo effect and debate about it are ongoing.

Most studies of MBI and related techniques are small and have low scientific validity. Some of the individual studies do show positive results, but this may be due to chance or placebo effects and the significance may diminish when groups are randomized. 

However, there are documented benefits of several mind-body interventions derived from scientific research: treatment a range of conditions including headaches, coronary artery disease and chronic pain; ameliorating disease and the symptoms of chemotherapy-induced nausea, vomiting, and localized physical pain in patients with cancer and the enhancement of immune function outcomes, including defense against and recovery from infection and disease.

Meditation, one of the MBI techniques could help to get the body and mind to relax, and to reduce the levels of stress hormones in the body, so that your immune system is better able to fight off illness. One type of mediation that could be used is the mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) which involves present moment awareness and interception. Typical practice of MBSR consists of sitting meditation, a sensing practice called body scan to reestablish the connection of mind to body and breath, and walking meditation to apply these practices in moving form. Clinical trials show that MBSR helps to manage many physical and mental symptoms in women with hot flashes and patients with AIDS. In patients with cancer, MBSR reduces distress and improves cancer-related mental impairment, mood, sleep, and well-being. 

Mind-body approaches have potential benefits and advantages. In particular, the physical and emotional risks of using these interventions are minimal. Moreover, once tested and standardized, most mind-body interventions can be taught easily. Finally, future research focusing on basic mind-body mechanisms and individual differences in responses is likely to yield new insights that may enhance the effectiveness and individual tailoring of mind-body interventions. In the meantime, there is considerable evidence that mind-body interventions, even as they are being studied today, have positive effects on psychological functioning and quality of life, and may be particularly helpful for patients coping with chronic illness and in need of palliative care.

unapologetically yourself

While searching for ideas for today's entry I stumbled to an article in BBC.com titled "Bend it Like Beckham: Five reasons the film is still iconic 20 years on". Firstly I could not believe that twenty years have passed since the release of this entertaining movie. I recall watching it for the first time and how I enjoy it every time I re-watch it. The last sentence in the article really caught my thinking : "But, most importantly, allow her to be unapologetically herself". 

I understand that we all have tendency to please others. It’s our innate human desire to want to be accepted, understood, seen, heard and to feel like we belong. In the early days it was vital to our survival to belong and be a part of the tribe. If you were left outside of your tribe you were vulnerable to many external threats and you faced the risk of starving to death from the lack of food, freezing to death due to lack of shelter, or being eaten up by a predator. This is why still today we feel like we will die if we don’t get accepted by other people. We are so caught up in being the version of ourselves who we think we should be according to everyone else, constantly trying to fit it and seek outside validation and acceptance, so much so that we oftentimes can get lost. 

Getting accepted by others is a human trait but apparently there is another version of it called people pleaser. It’s part of the human condition, we are social creatures. We want to be liked by everyone. No-one likes the feeling of being disliked, being rejected doesn’t feel well. People-pleasing is associated with a personality trait known as "sociotropy," or feeling overly concerned with pleasing others and earning their approval as a way to maintain relationships.

Some possible causes for being a people pleaser are: 

Poor self-esteem: Lack of self-confidence, people-pleasers have a need for external validation, and they may feel that doing things for others will lead to approval and acceptance.

Insecurity: Worry that other people won't like them if they don't go above and beyond to make them happy. 

Perfectionism: Sometimes people want everything to be "just so," including how other people think and feel. 

Past experiences: Painful, difficult, or traumatic experiences may also play a role. People who have experienced abuse, for example, may try to please others and be as agreeable as possible in order to avoid triggering abusive behavior in others.

Altruism: A person might genuinely want to make sure that other people have the help that they need. The need to feel validated or liked: by making sure that people are happy, they feel as if they are useful and valued.

People-pleasing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Being a concerned and caring person is an important part of maintaining healthy relationships with loved ones. It becomes a problem, however, if you are trying to win approval in order to shore up weak self-esteem or if you are pursuing the happiness of others at the expense of your own emotional well-being.

Efforts to keep other people happy can stretch people pleasers own physical and mental resources too thin. Trying to manage it all can leave ones plagued with stress and anxiety, which can have detrimental effects on ones health. Helping other people can actually have a number of mental health benefits. But not leaving time for yourself means you might end up experiencing the negative health consequences of excess stress.

Being a people-pleaser would making it difficult to pursue our own happiness, it's important to find ways to set boundaries and take back our time. We can’t please everyone. That is a simple fact. We do not like everyone so it is impossible to be liked by everyone

Becoming unapologetically you is an incredible worthwhile journey that allows you to live more freely and fully. When you release the weight of people and their opinions off your shoulders, you begin to live your life differently and it feels liberating. Being unapologetically yourself is the short cut to more happiness, peace and fulfillment in life. 

 

The first step to becoming unapologetically you is to become conscious of all your conditioning. You need to start stripping back the layers of your past conditioning and address your trauma, old wounds, fears, and worries - because all of these hold you back from expressing your true authentic self.

The second step to becoming unapologetically you is to get to know yourself at a core level. Who are you truly, behind the mask that you’re wearing? 

The third step is to take off your mask and to fully embrace who you are and to embrace your imperfections and perceived flaws - because these are what make you unique. Rather than trying to please other people and trying to fit in, it’s time to give yourself permission to show all of you. It’s time to shine your light.

staying optimistic

Lewis Hamilton of  Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team said he "prefers to stay optimistic" but added: "It will not be easy. The gap is really big but there is a long way to go.". He is chasing for the elusive 8th championship title this year unfortunately his car is nowhere near the top two teams : Ferrari and Red Bulls. 

Positive thinking doesn't mean that you ignore life's less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst.

It’s crucial to be clear that optimism isn’t, and shouldn’t be confused with, toxic positivity—or pretending everything is perfect even though there’s information to prove otherwise. What optimism really is involves an attitude of hopefulness about the future and that's the key—if you believe there's a real possibility that things will get better, then you're willing to put the work in that's needed to make things better.

Being optimistic doesn’t mean pushing down the negative emotions—because that borders on toxic positivity, which is unhealthy.  As hard as it seems to pull ourselves out of the negativity we have to do so whenever possible because the anxious negative simulations about the future really affect our bodies in a big way.

You can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking. The process is simple, but it does take time and practice — you're creating a new habit, after all. 

Identify areas to change. If you want to become more optimistic and engage in more positive thinking, first identify areas of your life that you usually think negatively about, whether it's work, your daily commute, life changes or a relationship. You can start small by focusing on one area to approach in a more positive way. Think of a positive thought to manage your stress instead of a negative one.

Check yourself. Periodically during the day, stop and evaluate what you're thinking. If you find that your thoughts are mainly negative, try to find a way to put a positive spin on them.

Be open to humor. Give yourself permission to smile or laugh, especially during difficult times. Seek humor in everyday happenings. When you can laugh at life, you feel less stressed.

Follow a healthy lifestyle. Aim to exercise for about 30 minutes on most days of the week. You can also break it up into 5- or 10-minute chunks of time during the day. Exercise can positively affect mood and reduce stress. Follow a healthy diet to fuel your mind and body. Get enough sleep. And learn techniques to manage stress.

Surround yourself with positive people. Make sure those in your life are positive, supportive people you can depend on to give helpful advice and feedback. Negative people may increase your stress level and make you doubt your ability to manage stress in healthy ways.

Practice positive self-talk. Start by following one simple rule: Don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to anyone else. Be gentle and encouraging with yourself. If a negative thought enters your mind, evaluate it rationally and respond with affirmations of what is good about you. Think about things you're thankful for in your life.

Back to Hamilton, there are more than 20 races to go for the rest of the year.  Based on historical performance Mercedes for sure would come up with some solutions one way or the other. Of course the question is if it would be too late as both the competitors would do the update themselves. Of course the season is still young and there is no reason to succumb to negativity