Category Archives: mental health

by | August 18, 2026 · 9:23 am

How Language Shapes  Mind, Body and Soul

The other day, I came across a wonderful initiative that gives children something far more valuable than a toy: books and the opportunity to discover the power of words from an early age.

Through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, registered children receive a free, age-appropriate book every month from birth until their fifth birthday. It is a simple but powerful idea—helping children develop a love of reading while giving them access to a richer world of language, imagination, and ideas.

It also made me reflect on something we often underestimate: The words we hear, read, speak and repeat influence how we think, how we feel, how we relate to others, and, increasingly, research suggests, how our bodies respond to stress and emotion.

From the first stories we hear as children to the language that surrounds us as adults, the words we live with help shape our lives.

When leaders normalise belittling, insulting, humiliating or threatening language, they give their followers permission to do the same. We can see the consequences particularly clearly on social media, where emotionally charged discussions can deteriorate rapidly into personal attacks, contempt and hostility. A disagreement about an idea becomes an attack on the person.

This matters because language is not psychologically neutral. The words we repeatedly encounter and use influence attention, interpretation, and emotional responses. 

Stress, anger, and hostility can activate physiological systems involved in the body’s stress response, while positive emotions, social connection, and a sense of meaning can support psychological resilience.

Repetition of negative language

Repeated exposure to words and messages associated with anger, fear and hostility can reinforce particular patterns of attention and interpretation. Over time, this may contribute to a more threatening or pessimistic perception of the world.

There is an important distinction, however: words do not automatically cause disease, and the science is more nuanced than the popular claim that simply hearing a negative word raises cortisol or damages the body. What matters is the broader psychological response—particularly when threatening or hostile language becomes persistent, personally meaningful and part of a chronic environment of stress.

A landmark 2015 study published in Psychological Science analysed millions of Twitter messages from 1,347 U.S. counties. Researchers found that county-level use of language expressing anger, anxiety, negative relationships and disengagement was associated with higher rates of atherosclerotic heart-disease mortality, while positive-emotion and engagement language showed protective associations. The researchers reported that their language-based model predicted cardiovascular mortality better than a model combining ten conventional demographic, socioeconomic and health variables.

These findings were striking—but they should not be interpreted as proof that negative words themselves cause heart disease. The study was observational and conducted at the community level, and subsequent methodological criticism has questioned how robust and generalisable the associations are. What the research does support is a fascinating possibility: the emotional language circulating within a community may act as a window into its collective psychological climate.

Other research provides a more direct connection between stress and language. Experimental studies have found that people experiencing greater physiological stress—including higher cortisol and heart-rate responses—tend to produce less cognitively complex speech. More recent research is also exploring whether characteristics of speech can themselves be used as indicators of stress.

The potential of positive language

The opposite is also worth cultivating. Kindness, gratitude, appreciation, compassion and encouragement can change the quality of our interactions and strengthen social bonds. And strong social relationships are among the most important resources we have for psychological resilience and wellbeing.

Research on self-affirmation offers an interesting insight into how constructive language can work. In laboratory studies, reflecting on personally important values activated brain regions involved in self-related processing and positive valuation. In one study, these neural responses were subsequently associated with changes in sedentary behaviour.

This does not mean that repeating positive words is a magical cure. Nor does it mean that we should suppress difficult emotions or pretend that everything is wonderful. Healthy language can acknowledge suffering while still leaving room for possibility:

I am struggling—but I can seek help.

I disagree with you—but I can still respect you.

This is difficult—but it is not necessarily hopeless.

Such language does something important: it creates psychological space. Instead of narrowing our attention around threat, blame and fear, it can help us recognise choices, relationships and possibilities.

Words, mantras and prayer

This may help explain why human beings across cultures have used mantras, prayers, chants and contemplative phrases for thousands of years.

The benefit may not lie simply in the meaning of the words. Repetition slows attention, reduces distraction and can be accompanied by rhythmic breathing. Studies of contemplative practices have found associations with changes in autonomic regulation, including heart-rate variability, although the evidence varies considerably according to the practice and study design.

Research into music and prayer has also suggested that slow rhythmic structures can influence cardiovascular rhythms. Work examining musical tempo and autonomic responses has highlighted the role of slow breathing and rhythm in producing calming physiological effects.

This offers a more scientifically cautious way of understanding the experience many people report when listening to or singing something such as Ave Maria, whether in the settings of Schubert, Gounod or other classical arrangements. The combination of familiar words, melody, repetition, breath, memory and spiritual meaning can create a profound sense of calm and emotional safety.

For a person of faith, there is an additional dimension that science cannot easily measure: prayer can provide a sense of relationship, trust, meaning and transcendence. These subjective experiences may themselves be important sources of psychological resilience.

Read good words

There is another simple way of nourishing our inner vocabulary: read books.

In an age dominated by short posts, headlines, notifications and rapidly changing fragments of information, sustained reading offers something very different. A book asks you to remain with an idea, follow an argument, inhabit another person’s experience and encounter words in context.

Reading also exercises language itself. It exposes you to a richer vocabulary, more complex sentence structures, metaphors, stories and unfamiliar perspectives. This matters not only intellectually but potentially for healthy ageing.

A 14-year longitudinal study found that older adults who reported reading at least weekly were less likely to experience cognitive decline over six, ten and fourteen years than those who read less frequently. The association remained after adjustment for relevant covariates.

A separate 2024 study of older Japanese adults found an association between childhood availability of books and cognitive function later in life, particularly among participants with lower educational attainment. The researchers also identified an association involving the volume of the left superior temporal cortex, an area important for language and related cognitive functions. Because this was an observational study, it cannot establish that books themselves caused the difference—but it adds to the growing evidence that a life rich in reading and language may be beneficial for cognitive ageing.

Perhaps, then, we should think of vocabulary as a kind of mental landscape.

If your daily diet consists largely of words such as threat, enemy, stupid, hate, crisis, failure and fear, you are repeatedly exposing your attention to a narrow emotional vocabulary.

But if you also make room for words such as curiosity, courage, gratitude, wonder, forgiveness, possibility, beauty, compassion, stillness, love and hope, you give the mind more possibilities with which to interpret experience.

The goal is not to eliminate negative words. Anger can alert to injustice. Fear can protect from danger. Grief gives expression to loss. Difficult words have their rightful place.

The deeper question is:

What kind of language do you want to live with within?

And perhaps an equally important for everyone is:

What kind of emotional climate are your words creating for the people around you?

Words are small things. But repeated millions of times, they can become attitudes, attitudes can become behaviours, and behaviours can become culture.

Choose them carefully.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading one of my four books, available where all good books are sold.

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by | July 21, 2026 · 7:58 am

How We Stopped Reading and Started Believing Slogans

With each passing year, fewer people finish reading a book, with public discourse getting s a little dumber. This is not a coincidence. The two trends are moving in lockstep because they’re the same trend. Thinking in complexities comes from sustained reading. What’s replacing it is faster, louder, and easier to produce than to challenge. The decline of reading appears to be ushering in a less rational, less analytical, less sophisticated mode of thought, and it’s threatening democracy.

Reading long-form prose trains the mind to hold several ideas in tension at once, to follow an argument through its qualifications and counterpoints, to sit with ambiguity rather than resolve it prematurely. A dense paragraph forces you to track a claim across several clauses, weigh a caveat against the point it qualifies, and keep revising your understanding as new information arrives.

Take that engagement away, and the muscle in the brain doesn’t just go unused. It starts working against you. Attention spans shorten. Patience for a slow-building argument gives way to a need for the payoff up front. Ambiguity starts to register as failure rather than as a feature of anything worth understanding properly. And because nuanced thinking is effortful, its absence leaves a preference for whatever requires the least effort. It is the argument that confirms what you already believed, the explanation that fits in a headline. The mind doesn’t stay idle in the space reading used to occupy. It fills that space with something more crude.

Simplicity and emotional charge are rewarded

Algorithms accelerate the drift, rewarding simplicity, outrage, and emotional charge over complexity, nuance, and rigour. Ideas that fit folk theories of politics — all leaders are equally corrupt, immigrants steal jobs, every policy problem has an easy, commonsense fix — spread further than the findings of subject-matter experts ever will.

Joshua Meyrowitz explored this territory in No Sense of Place, predicting that the decline of print and the rise of electronic media would eventually push people toward populist leaders. “You name an enemy and you polarize the public,” he said. “You don’t allow for nuance, because nuance is just a confusion when you’re in a power struggle.”

That power struggle is where the erosion stops being an abstract concern about attention spans and becomes a question about how democracy functions. Elections depend on voters weighing trade-offs. A policy might help one group while burdening another, that a leader’s strengths come bundled with real weaknesses, and that most hard problems don’t have a clean fix.

Surrendering the mind to sloganeering

Slogans work by stripping all of that away. “Drain the swamp” or “take back control” asks nothing of the listener except agreement. A white paper on institutional reform asks for time, patience, and tolerance for uncertainty, which most people no longer have. When the electorate’s capacity for the second kind of thinking shrinks, the first kind isn’t just more appealing — it becomes the only kind that can win.

The result is a selection pressure on political leadership itself. Candidates who traffic in complexity and qualification lose ground to those who traffic in certainty and enemies, not because voters are unintelligent, but because the cognitive infrastructure of nuance has been allowed to run down. Over enough election cycles, that pressure doesn’t just change who wins. It changes what kind of person even attempts to run, and what kind of promises get made. A politics built on slogans breeds politicians who speak only in them.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading one of my four books, available where all good books are sold.

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by | July 14, 2026 · 2:51 pm

What We Lose When We Stop Reading

I recently came across a thought-provoking article in The Atlantic that stopped me in my tracks. It reported that, in 2022, fewer than half of all adults in the United States read a single book of any kind. Even more striking, the proportion of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day has fallen dramatically—from 28 per cent in 2004 to just 16 per cent in 2023.

These figures tell a story that extends far beyond changing reading habits. It invites the question: What happens to a society when it loses the habit of sustained attention, deep reflection, and the companionship of books?

The decline in reading cuts across every age group, gender, and education level. The result: basic reading skills are eroding. In an era of information overload, short text messages and textual fragments, our capacity for sustained attention — the kind longer, complex works demand — is shrinking.

The article quotes Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCLA, who argues that people aren’t forgetting how to decode words. What they’re losing are the higher-order skills of comprehension and synthesis — the ability to hold a complicated argument in mind long enough to weigh it.

Why reading matters

This isn’t just about nostalgia. Deep reading trains a particular kind of mind. Following an argument across three hundred pages — tracking its turns, holding contradictions in tension, revising your judgement as new evidence appears — is a rehearsal for democratic life itself. It’s the same muscle you need to weigh competing claims in an election, or sit with a problem that has no easy answer. Skimming a headline or a ten-second video trains the opposite reflex: snap judgement, then move on. A society that reads less doesn’t just know less. It loses practice in the patient, the uncomfortable work of changing its mind.

Reading also builds something harder to measure: the habit of inhabiting another consciousness. A good novel forces you to live inside a character’s way of thinking for hours at a stretch — to feel why they act as they do, even when you’d choose differently. That’s a rehearsal for empathy that no summary or excerpt can substitute for. Lose the habit, and you don’t just lose stories. You lose the practice in imagining anyone unlike yourself.

Are we, then, entering a post-literate society — one growing less able to grasp complex issues, and, in plain language, more susceptible to loud, brash voices peddling simple answers to complicated problems?

Is a free, democratic society itself at risk when a growing number of people become functionally illiterate, or simply hand the work of thinking in complexity over to someone else?

Photo by Nitin Arya on Pexels.com

Literacy forms the foundation of a free society

For most of human history, literacy belonged to a small educated elite that ruled over the masses. The ability to read and write opened up a whole world to millions and became the foundation of a free society. It changed consciousness. It changed the political order.

“More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness,” wrote Walter J. Ong, the historian and Jesuit priest. Neil Postman went further, arguing that reading and writing were the preconditions for philosophy, modern science, history, and academic life as we know them.

I’ve been fascinated by books since childhood. I grew up in South Africa in the early 1960s, in a country without television, where a trip to the cinema was a rare event. In that rigid, joyless world inhabited by Calvinist doctrine, I found refuge in books.

They became my escape, carrying me far beyond the streets of my hometown in rural KwaZulu-Natal. I must have read King Solomon’s Mines half a dozen times, wandering in imagination through the vast African interior.

Later, it was the classics that held me — thanks to our English teacher, Andy Towert. He had a gift for breathing life into prescribed texts and for setting essay questions that were anything but safe. His entrance into the classroom was a performance in itself: he’d toss his bag into the air, sending it into a perfect somersault before it landed square on the desk. From that moment, he had our full attention.

Towert didn’t just teach literature — he ignited it. He made us believe that books weren’t relics of the past but living voices, speaking directly into our own lives. Those hours were never mere diversions. They were seeds of a lifelong calling, planted quietly within the narrow conformities of a small-town childhood.

Some books have changed my life outright. Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgrimage sent me on my first walk to Santiago and more than a dozen pilgrimages since. Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara reshaped how I think about lived, experiential spirituality.

Early reading and teachers like Andy Towert planted the seeds of my own writing life. Having just finished the manuscript of my fifth book, I can’t imagine stopping. While writing my novel Sages, Saints and Sinners, I became so immersed in the two central characters and their love story that I fell for them myself — and was almost sorry to have to bring their story to an end.

So pick up a book. I did, once, in a small town with nothing else to offer — and it changed everything.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading one of my four books, available where all good books are sold.

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by | April 27, 2026 · 6:40 pm

The Hidden Costs of Rural Decline

I recently drove through rural South Africa on my way to a school reunion—one of those rare gatherings where time folds in on itself and five decades seem like yesterday. The landscape should have been familiar: wide horizons, scattered farmsteads, towns that once pulsed with industry. But what struck me most was not recognition—it was absence.

Roads pitted with potholes slowed the journey, but it was the towns that told the deeper story. Buildings sagged under neglect. Shopfronts stood empty or half-occupied. Once pristine and well-kept, towns seemed to have been abandoned to time. This was not just decay. It was a withdrawal. A slow draining away of people, energy, and purpose.

In my hometown of Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal alone, the closure of a sweets factory, a glass plant, and several coal mines has, over the years, stripped away thousands of jobs. At the reunion, I learned that the impact reached even further: a steelworks in the neighbouring town of Newcastle had also shut down, costing another 3,000 livelihoods.

And this is not a uniquely South African story.

Across the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany, I have witnessed similar patterns unfold. Rural communities hollow out as younger generations leave in search of education, employment, and opportunity in cities. What remains are aging populations, shrinking tax bases, and a fraying social fabric. The causes are well documented—economic centralization, mechanization of agriculture, the pull of urban opportunity—but the consequences run deeper than statistics.

Dislocation Without Language

For those who leave, the move to the city often brings material improvement: better jobs, better services, broader networks. But something less tangible is lost.

Rural life, at its best, offers continuity. It binds identity to place. You are not just an individual; you are someone’s neighbor, someone’s history, part of a shared narrative that stretches across generations. When people leave, that continuity fractures.

In cities, identity becomes more fluid—but also more fragile. Relationships are often transactional, time-bound, and contingent. Community must be constructed rather than inherited. For many, this produces a subtle but persistent sense of dislocation: a feeling of being nowhere in particular.

The question then arises: are people happier?

The answer is not straightforward. Urban environments tend to score higher on measures of economic well-being and access to services. But they also correlate with higher levels of loneliness, anxiety, and social isolation. Rural areas, despite economic hardship, often report stronger social cohesion and a greater sense of belonging—at least where communities remain intact.

So the trade-off is not simply between poverty and prosperity. It is between different forms of wealth—material and relational.

The Social Cost

When rural areas decline, society loses more than population density. It loses balance.

Healthy societies depend on a diversity of spaces: urban centers of innovation, suburban zones of stability, and rural regions that anchor culture, tradition, and food production. When one of these weakens, the system becomes distorted.

Depopulated rural areas often enter a downward spiral. As people leave, services close—schools, clinics, shops. This, in turn, makes the area less viable for those who remain, accelerating further out-migration. Political attention shifts elsewhere. Infrastructure deteriorates. Eventually, these regions become peripheral not just geographically, but economically and politically.

This has consequences for social cohesion. When large segments of the population feel left behind, trust erodes—both in institutions and in the broader social contract. The divide between “somewhere” and “anywhere” populations widens: those rooted in place versus those who are mobile and globally connected. This divide increasingly shapes political outcomes across many countries.

The Cultural Loss: Memory Without Custodians

Rural communities are not just economic units; they are repositories of memory.

They carry dialects, customs, ways of life that cannot be easily transplanted into urban settings. When these communities empty out, cultural knowledge dissipates. Traditions survive as fragments—revived occasionally for tourism or nostalgia—but lose their lived context.

What disappears is not just heritage, but a particular way of understanding the world: slower, more cyclical, more attuned to land and season. In its place emerges a more standardized, globalized culture—efficient, connected, but often detached.

Can the Trend Be Reversed?

There are attempts—some promising, many insufficient.

Remote work has reopened the possibility of living outside cities, at least for certain professions. Targeted investment in infrastructure—digital connectivity, transport, healthcare—can make rural areas viable again. Policies that support local enterprise, sustainable agriculture, and decentralized energy systems can stabilize regional economies.

More fundamentally, the question is one of value: what do we, as societies, choose to preserve?

If rural areas are seen merely as economically inefficient, their decline will continue. If, however, they are recognized as essential to social resilience, cultural continuity, and even psychological well-being, then their renewal becomes a strategic priority rather than a sentimental one.

Returning, Briefly

At the reunion, conversations drifted—as they always do—between memory and present reality. Some had stayed. Many have scattered to all parts of the world. Each carried a different version of the same story.

Driving back, the landscape remained unchanged. But the question lingered:

What happens to a society when its margins begin to disappear?

Not all decline is reversible. But not all loss is inevitable either.

A welcome spark of hope on my return journey came with a stop in the village of Wakkerstroom. This rural gem has been thoughtfully revived: old homes and shopfronts carefully restored, now housing curios, excellent local food, and gateways to nature. It has become a magnet for artists and for those seeking a return to the sanctuary and sense of community that rural life can still offer.

Wakkerstroom
Rural KwaZulu Natal

The condition of rural places is not just a reflection of economic trends—it is a mirror. It shows us what we prioritize, what we neglect, and ultimately, what we are willing to let go.

And perhaps the more uncomfortable question is this:

In our pursuit of better opportunities, have we mistaken movement for progress—and in doing so, lost something we do not yet know how to measure?

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading: Sages, Saints and Sinners Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where all good books are sold.

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by | March 31, 2026 · 11:09 am

Finding Wisdom Through Complexity

On a recent visit to the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London, I found myself pausing at the entrance. Set into the façade is a compelling mosaic, almost easy to overlook. Created by Robert Anning Bell at the turn of the twentieth century, it feels less like decoration and more like a question posed across time. Its message lands with particular force in a world where volume substitutes for depth, where opinions harden into slogans, and identities calcify into positions that leave little room for movement.

In Humanity in the House of Circumstance, a central figure—Humanity —is gently attended by Love and Hope. Standing before it, I was struck by how quietly subversive this image is. It does not present us as self-made or self-sufficient, but as shaped—formed in relationship, in dependence, in the interplay between our inner lives and the limits that surround us.

And yet, the instinct is to simplify and to reach for fixed categories. What feels unfamiliar, unsettling, or threatening is quickly reduced, flattened into binaries: for or against, right or wrong, aligned or opposed. In doing so, something essential is lost.

Nuance in such a climate is perceived as weakness and the inability to “take a stand.” Yet, in truth, nuance is a deeper form of strength and wisdom.

To hold nuance is to allow multiple perspectives to coexist within the mind without rushing to premature judgment. It is the discipline of pausing before concluding, of listening not just to respond but to understand. Where dogmatism seeks closure, nuance remains open—curious, attentive, and alive to the subtleties of reality.

Humanity tended by Love and Hope
Humanity tended by Love and Hope

Rigid thinking serves psychological needs:

  • Certainty offers comfort. The world feels unpredictable and filled with contradictions. Dogmatic beliefs simplify this chaos into something manageable. They provide a sense of control, even when that control is illusory.
  • Identity and Ego play a powerful role. Beliefs are often tied to who you believe yourself to be, rooted in culture, community, or personal history. To question those beliefs can feel like questioning who you are. Dogmatism becomes a form of self-protection.
  • There is a social reward. Strong, uncompromising opinions are amplified on social media. Nuanced thinking, by contrast, appears hesitant or indecisive and doesn’t translate into viral soundbites.

Something essential is lost when we abandon nuance.

To think with nuance is not to drift aimlessly between opinions. It is an active, often demanding process. It requires intellectual humility and the recognition that your understanding is always a partial perspective. No matter how informed you are, there will always be an angle you have not considered.

When you allow conflicting ideas into your awareness, you may feel tension, even discomfort. Dogmatism relieves that tension quickly by choosing a side. Nuance asks you to stay with it longer, to let the mind stretch rather than snap into certainty.

It also requires empathy. To truly weigh different perspectives, you must enter into the worldview of others. This does not mean agreement. It means understanding the logic, the fears, and the hopes that shape another position.

Nuance as a Path to Wisdom

Wisdom is not the accumulation of facts alone, but the ability to discern, to contextualize, and to integrate. Nuance is its foundation.

Consider any complex issue—whether personal, political, or spiritual. Beneath the surface, there are layers: historical context, emotional undercurrents, competing values, and unintended consequences. Dogmatic thinking tends to isolate one layer and elevate it above all others. Nuance, by contrast, seeks to see the whole.

This does not lead to paralysis. On the contrary, decisions made with nuance are often more grounded and enduring. They are less reactive, less driven by fear or tribal loyalty, and more aligned with a deeper understanding of reality.

The Courage to Resist Simplicity

It requires courage in resisting the pull of simplicity. It is easier to adopt a ready-made belief than to wrestle with complexity. Easier to echo the consensus of one’s group than to risk standing in a more ambiguous space.

In a world that grows louder and more polarized, the practice of nuance becomes not just a personal virtue, but a social necessity. It creates space for dialogue where there would otherwise be division. It invites curiosity where there might be judgment. It allows us to meet one another not as adversaries, but as participants in a shared search for understanding.

Returning to a Deeper Way of Seeing

At its heart, nuance is an act of respect for complexity, for truth, and for the dignity of perspectives that differ from your own. It requires you to slow down when the world urges you to run, to listen when you are tempted to react, and to think with care rather than certainty.

Standing before Humanity in the House of Circumstance at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, this feels less like an abstract ideal and more like an invitation. The mosaic does not resolve the tensions of life; it holds them. It is a powerful reminder that we are shaped not only by what we believe, but by how we remain open to Love, to Hope, and to the limits within which we live.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading: Sages, Saints and Sinners Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where all good books are sold.

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by | March 9, 2026 · 5:45 am

Understanding Forgiveness and Why it Matters

The Christian concept of forgiveness, especially the teaching of Jesus to “love your enemy as yourself”, is often deeply misunderstood. For many people, the idea sounds almost impossible. Is it truly possible to forgive someone who has committed a grave injustice against you? What about perpetrators of horrific crimes such as abuse or violence?

These questions strike at the heart of one of the most difficult teachings in the spiritual tradition.

The art of forgiveness, practiced in its deepest sense, may be one of the hardest challenges. Yet there is a profound truth behind it: holding onto resentment, anger, or hatred toward someone who has harmed you can gradually bind you to the very negativity you are trying to resist. When your thoughts become consumed by the wrong committed against you, you are running the real risk of becoming emotionally entangled with the same destructive energy.

Forgiveness is not primarily about the other person. It is about the soul’s inner liberation and what Jesus really meant in his Sermon of the Mount.

What Jesus Actually Meant

When Jesus spoke about loving one’s enemies, he was not advocating passive submission to injustice or asking victims to excuse evil. His teachings were aimed at something deeper: the transformation of the human heart.

Jesus challenges humanity to step out of the cycle of retaliation and hatred that defines so many conflicts. Violence and revenge create an endless chain reaction in which each generation inherits the anger of the previous one.

The teaching to “love your enemies” is essentially an invitation to break that chain.

Forgiveness does not deny that a crime or injustice occurred. Rather, it prevents the injury from defining your life or the collective life of a nation.

The Wisdom of the Mystics

Christian mystics and sages throughout history have interpreted forgiveness in this deeper psychological and spiritual sense.

Mystics understood that resentment is not only a moral issue but also a spiritual and emotional burden carried within the human psyche. When you cling to hatred, you imprison yourself in a narrative that continually reopens old wounds.

For the mystics, forgiveness was therefore a form of inner freedom.

It meant releasing the emotional poison associated with the memory of an injustice. It meant refusing to allow the actions of another person to dictate the state of your soul.

The great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart spoke often about the necessity of inner detachment as the path to spiritual freedom. In one of his teachings, he wrote:

“All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself… and let God be God in you.”

Eckhart’s insight points to something profound. As long as you cling to resentment, anger, and the stories of your injuries, you remain trapped within the narrow confines of the wounded ego. Forgiveness, in the mystical sense, is a form of letting go of that inner prison.

This does not mean denying pain or pretending that something terrible did not happen. Rather, it is the conscious decision not to let bitterness shape your identity.

The Cycle of Revenge

History offers countless examples of how easily the oppressed can become the next oppressors when resentment, hate, or retribution goes unchecked.

The Iranian revolutionaries who overthrew the Shah in 1979 executed thousands. Revolutionary movements in France, Russia, and China promised liberation, yet often unleashed new waves of brutality under figures such as Lenin and Mao Zedong. The white Afrikaners in South Africa, who once suffered under British colonial rule, became oppressors themselves during the apartheid regime.

The same pattern can occur on a deeply personal level. The abused child may grow into an abusive adult. The daughter of an alcoholic parent may later struggle with addiction herself.

These tragic cycles demonstrate how unprocessed trauma and resentment can replicate the very behavior that once caused suffering.

Breaking this cycle requires more than justice alone. It requires inner transformation.

Forgiveness Is Not Reconciliation

One of the greatest misconceptions about forgiveness is the belief that it means excusing wrongdoing or restoring a relationship with the offender.

It does not.

Forgiveness does not require you to trust someone who has proven untrustworthy. It does not mean returning to a harmful relationship. Nor does it mean denying the need for justice or accountability.

Forgiveness simply means releasing the toxic emotional hold that the past may still have over you.

You may never see the person who harmed you again. They may even be long deceased. Yet the anger, shame, or pain connected to that experience can remain alive within you.

Forgiveness allows you to reclaim your inner space.

The Health of the Body and Mind

Modern research increasingly confirms what spiritual teachers have long suggested. Studies indicate that forgiveness can reduce chronic stress, lower blood pressure, and improve heart health.

The body and mind are deeply interconnected. Long-term resentment keeps the nervous system in a state of tension and vigilance, while forgiveness can help restore emotional balance and calm.

In this sense, forgiveness is not only a spiritual act—it is also an act of self-care.

A Journey, Not a Moment

Forgiveness is rarely a single decision made once and for all. It is often a gradual process that unfolds over time.

Sometimes you may believe you have forgiven someone, only to discover years later that a certain remark from a colleague or a supervisor unexpectedly triggers a disproportionate emotional reaction. In that moment, you realize that part of the original wound is still alive.

Such moments are not failures. They are invitations to continue the process of healing.

Forgiveness requires courage because it forces you to confront your own inner shadows—the pain, anger, and vulnerability you would often prefer to avoid.

Three Practical Steps Toward Forgiveness

Forgiveness is rarely a single moment of decision. More often, it is a gradual inner practice that unfolds over time. These three simple steps can help begin that process.

  • Acknowledge the Wound
    Forgiveness begins with honesty. Recognize the pain, anger, or betrayal you experienced without minimizing it. Suppressed emotions inevitably resurface later in unexpected ways. Naming the wound through reflection, prayer, or journaling helps bring it into the light.
  • Release the Grip of Resentment
    Forgiveness means choosing not to let the offense and grievance control your inner life. It does not excuse the wrongdoing or remove the need for justice. Rather, it is the decision to stop feeding the resentment and to free yourself from the emotional hold of the past. Meditation and breathing exercises that help focus the mind on the beauty and abundance of the present moment are useful tools.
  • Turn Pain Into Insight
    Over time, difficult experiences can deepen wisdom and compassion. Forgiveness allows the wound to become a source of understanding rather than a lifelong burden. The event remains part of your story, but it no longer defines your life or identity.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S.: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in my latest book, Sages, Saints, and Sinners. Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever good books are sold.

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by | February 9, 2026 · 9:24 am

Embracing Change: Pain and Growth

“Be willing to let go of who you are, for who you are becoming.” – Meister Eckhart (13th-Century Mystic)

There are moments in life when moving forward feels impossible. The way ahead seems blocked, not by one clear obstacle, but by a quiet accumulation of losses, disappointments, and unanswered questions. Something has ended. Something hurts in a way that cannot be easily fixed. And in those moments, it can feel as though nothing is happening at all.

Yet beneath the surface, something is quietly stirring. What looks like stillness is often a deep, unseen movement and a reordering that cannot be rushed or explained. This is not stagnation, but a subtle turning of the soul.

We are quick to judge these seasons as failures or weaknesses. We tell ourselves we should be coping better, moving faster, knowing more. But what if pain and failure are not signs that we have lost our way? What if they are threshold moments—gentle, demanding invitations into a new beginning, or into a deeper way of seeing and being?

Henry James, often regarded as a founding voice in American philosophy, spoke to this hidden depth when he wrote that life is “always more divine than it seems, and hence we can survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us.”

The Threshold Moment

A threshold is not a destination. It is not even a clear path. It is a space between: between what has been and what is becoming. It is coming out of a dark, cold winter with the seeds of spring waiting to sprout.

In threshold moments, the old story—the one that once made sense, gave structure, identity, or safety—begins to loosen its grip. It no longer fits. Yet the new story has not arrived fully formed. There are no clear instructions, and there is primarily uncertainty.

This in-between space can feel deeply uncomfortable. It often comes with grief, fatigue, confusion, or a quiet panic that whispers, “I should be further along by now.”

But thresholds are not failures of progress.
They are pauses of transformation.

When Pain Is Asking for Attention, Not Erasure

Pain has a bad reputation. There is a tendency to push it away, a rush to numb it with distractions, and explain it away. Yet pain often carries a message that can’t be accessed in any other way. It forces you to dig deep into your inner resources. It is asking you to slow down and pay attention to what is happening.

Failure, too, has a voice. It may be saying: This path has run its course. Or: This version of you has served its purpose.

Letting the Old Story End

Endings rarely announce themselves cleanly. More often, they fray at the edges. Motivation fades. Joy drains away. What once felt purposeful now feels heavy or hollow. It could be anything from a job, a location, a home, or even a long-term relationship. This should not be seen as betrayal or weakness, but something new unfolding slowly.

The courage of a threshold moment lies not in forcing clarity, but in allowing uncertainty to do its work in trusting that not knowing is sometimes the most honest spiritual posture.

You don’t need to rush to define the next chapter. You only need to be present enough to notice what is loosening—and what is quietly insisting on staying alive.

A Gentle Practice for the Threshold

Rather than trying to solve or transcend this moment, you might sit with it. Breathe with it. Let it speak. Found more moments of solitude so that the voice within can be perceived.

Ask yourself, without urgency or judgment:

  • What am I being asked to release?
    A role? An expectation? A belief or particular self-sabotaging talk?
  • What feels unfinished, yet still alive?
    A longing? A truth you haven’t yet honored? A call that has been whispering rather than shouting?

Staying with the Becoming

Thresholds are sacred precisely because they are uncomfortable. They strip away certainty and invite you into a deeper honesty. They teach you that meaning is not only found in arrival, but in the courage to stay present while becoming. They force you to look more closely in the darkness.

If you find yourself here—tired, unsure, grieving something you can’t quite name—know this:
You are not broken. You are not behind. You are standing at a doorway.

And sometimes, the most honest thing you can do is wait with open hands until the new story is ready to unfold.

If you find yourself standing in such a threshold—sensing that something has ended, but not yet knowing what comes next—you don’t have to walk this terrain alone. A Pilgrimage to New Beginnings is a gentle online journey created by me for moments just like this: a spacious, reflective path for those navigating endings, listening for what wants to be born, and learning to trust the wisdom of the in-between. If this speaks to where you are, you are warmly invited to join us on March 4th and take the next few steps—slowly, honestly, and in your own time.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

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by | January 12, 2026 · 3:52 am

A world in transition: The in-between season

Times of transition, like those we are living through now, are often marked by chaos, uncertainty, and the unraveling of certainties that no longer hold. These in-between seasons can be deeply unsettling, yet they are also profoundly formative. More than ever, such times call for clarity of purpose and a conscious alignment with our core values and guiding principles.

During such seasons, the new has not yet taken shape. The ancient Chinese I Ching, or the Book of Change, offers timeless guidance for such moments. It does not promise quick solutions or firm ground. Instead, it teaches us how to live wisely while the ground is moving beneath our feet.

The new struggling to be born

At the heart of the I Ching is a simple truth: change is not an interruption of life. Chaos is not a mistake. It is often the sign that something new is struggling to be born.

In times of transition, the I Ching counsels restraint rather than force. The outer world feels increasingly unstable, with the individual feeling helpless amid external circumstances that cannot be controlled. Yet the I Ching invites us to turn toward inner alignment. Before you act, you are asked to listen. Before you decide, you are asked to become still enough to discern what truly matters.

Waiting is not passive resignation

These in-between seasons call for patience. The I Ching reminds us that timing is sacred. Action taken too soon can distort what is forming; action taken too late can miss the moment entirely. As the book puts it:

“Waiting. If you are sincere,
You have light and success.”
— I Ching, Hexagram 5

This waiting is not passive resignation. It is an active, attentive presence—a way of staying faithful to the process even when the outcome is not yet visible.

Discovering what genuinely sustains you

Integrity becomes the anchor in such times. When familiar supports fall away, you discover what genuinely sustains you. The I Ching repeatedly emphasizes that inner truth—not certainty, control, or speed—is what carries us through periods of upheaval. To remain faithful to what is essential within you is, in itself, a spiritual practice.

The book also teaches adaptability without self-betrayal. Like water, we are encouraged to yield without losing our depth, to respond without hardening, to move with change rather than against it. True transformation, it suggests, begins quietly, often invisibly, long before it takes form in the outer world.

Perhaps most importantly, the I Ching directs our attention away from grand solutions and back toward the small and the near:

  • The words we choose to speak
  • Listening with mindfulness
  • Caring for one another
  • Paying attention to the inner life and consciousness.

In times of uncertainty, it is these humble acts that carry the future.

The in-between is not a void. It is a threshold.

When we stop trying to escape it, fix it, or rush through it, we begin to sense its hidden gift. Something is loosening. Something is aligning. Something is quietly taking shape.

And the invitation is simple, though not easy: to become still enough to hear what this season of change is asking of you.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S. For those who feel drawn to explore this in-between season more intentionally, I am offering a six-week online course, Pilgrimage into New Beginnings. It is a quiet, reflective journey for times of transition, starting February 4th.

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by | December 8, 2025 · 10:51 am

Redefining Masculinity: Traits Young Men Need Today

It has become a common story: a mother quietly confesses that her 30-something son is still living at home, unemployed, spending most of his days in the basement playing PC games—while his sister is thriving on every level and living the life of her dreams.

Figures from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union reflect a rising trend: an estimated one in five men over 30 still lives in the parental home. Meanwhile, 63 per cent of men aged 18–29 are single, while women are surpassing their male counterparts in both education and income.

My recent Blog post on “Young Men: Angry, Isolated and Armed” touched a nerve because it captured something unfolding quietly but urgently: amid a growing mental-health crisis, young men are withdrawing into isolation or channelling their shame and frustration into outdated, hyper-aggressive role models, many of them fueled by right-wing extremist groups.

Technological and cultural shifts have opened unprecedented opportunities for young women—changes that their mothers and grandmothers could only dream of. Equal opportunity and equal pay were long overdue. But the traditional image of masculinity as the stoic provider, unflinching warrior, emotional brick wall, no longer fits into a modern world in which connection, communication, and adaptability matter more than ever.

So what are young women seeking in a partner today? And how do we define healthy masculinity in this new landscape?

Across many studies, three traits consistently appear as the most desired qualities in a long-term partner: kindness, intelligence, and confidence. They are foundational to stable relationships, but they are also widely misunderstood.

Kindness is not passivity or people-pleasing. It is emotional steadiness, especially in times of struggle or pain. It shows up in how a man treats others, especially family members, friends, and strangers. Men high in kindness respond to stress with calm problem-solving rather than withdrawal or aggression. Kindness begins with self-respect; young men must learn to accept and care for themselves before that inner stability can radiate outward.

Intelligence is not about high IQ scores or academic pedigree. It is the ability to navigate life with self-awareness, adaptability, and emotional understanding. Intelligent partners can manage their emotions, communicate clearly, listen actively, and reflect honestly on their own behaviour. They do not hide behind logic to avoid vulnerability or connection.

Confidence is perhaps the most misinterpreted trait of all. True confidence is quiet, grounded self-assurance—not the loud, performative “alpha” posturing that dominates so much online discourse. Confident men know who they are and do not need to brag, dominate, or seek constant validation. They can have difficult conversations without collapsing into defensiveness. They avoid unnecessary conflict—not from fear, but from maturity. This is where healthy masculine strength shows its true form: protective, steady, and principled.

These three traits aren’t random. Together, they form the bedrock of a healthy long-term relationship: a partner who is emotionally safe, self-aware, capable of repair, and stable during conflict.

To make this more tangible, here are some widely recognised men in entertainment who are publicly perceived as embodying kindness, intelligence, or confidence, while acknowledging we cannot know their private lives:

Keanu Reeves is often cited as the gold standard of humble, grounded kindness, giving generously without seeking credit. Tom Hanks represents steadiness and emotional warmth and is seen as approachable and gracious.

Ethan Hawke, symbolises intelligence as a deeply reflective and thoughtful artist. He writes books, directs films and speaks creatively with nuance. John Krasinski balances his humour with intelligent storytelling.

Men who symbolize grounded confidence are Idris Elba with a calm, steady presence and Mahershala Ali (Green Book) who embodies a quiet power and self-assurance.

The crisis facing young men today is not simply about a lack of economic opportunity; it is a crisis of identity. As society rapidly evolves, many young men are left without a clear model of what it means to be strong, successful, and valued in today’s world. But the path forward is not found in nostalgia for outdated roles or in reactionary anger. It lies in cultivating traits that make relationships—and communities—thrive: kindness, intelligence, and confidence grounded in self-awareness rather than ego.

If young men can embrace these qualities, they won’t just meet the expectations of a fast-changing world—they will exceed them. And in doing so, they will rediscover a masculinity that is not lost, but evolving: resilient, emotionally present, relationally strong, and profoundly needed.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S.: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in my latest book, Sages, Saints, and Sinners. Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever good books are sold.

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by | November 17, 2025 · 3:19 pm

Your Superpower in a Loud Society

„Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”— Aristotle

Standing guard at the doorway of your mind has become essential to maintaining spiritual and mental health in an age where our minds are drowning in information but thirsting for wisdom.

What you feed your mind, you ultimately become. A few careless minutes scrolling on your smartphone can trigger a cascade of emotions that can shape your entire day.

If you are reading this, you are likely one of the few who is actively reflecting on what is happening to us collectively.

Conflict and social disruption will always be part of the human condition—we are imperfect beings, after all. But we also carry within us the profound power of choice.

When the fringe becomes the megaphone

My impression is that the darker impulses of humanity are being amplified through the very technology meant to connect us. Fanatical fringe groups and those consumed by malice spend countless hours attacking others with hate-filled messages. Social media companies do little to halt this simply because emotionally charged content fuels engagement—and engagement fuels profit.

We may believe we are in control of what enters our minds, but for most people this is not true. Social media and search engine algorithms quietly track our behavior and serve up the content we are most likely to consume. In doing so, they shape not only our preferences, but our thinking.

Echo chambers of belief

Beliefs and opinions are constantly being reaffirmed within separate realities—information bubbles where each group hears only the echoes of its own worldview. Families, friendships, communities, and even congregations are fracturing along these invisible but powerful dividing lines.

What we need is a collective pushback from the quiet majority: the rational, thoughtful, grounded people who do not fall for emotional manipulation. That resistance begins by asking simple but profound questions:

Is this information expanding my energy or diminishing it?

Is it helping me grow, evolve, and reach my full potential?

A common misconception is that knowledge, information, and education alone equal wisdom. Yet many highly intelligent people refuse to learn from their mistakes, cling to fixed mindsets, and resist deeper reflection—never realizing they have been backing the wrong horse all along.

The power of who and what you surround yourself with

True wisdom is innate knowledge shaped through experience. It is the quiet confidence of intuition and higher consciousness. When you choose to surround yourself with wise friends, nourish your mind with spiritual teachings, and seek guidance from grounded mentors, you naturally grow in wisdom.

Equally essential is practicing self-care by setting firm boundaries with people, media, and environments that deplete your mind, body, and soul. Self-care is not indulgence—it is alignment. It is taking time for silence, contemplation, and reconnection with your inner life.

Choosing this path gradually fills your life with greater happiness and contentment because you begin building a bridge to your soul. Your actions shift from serving the ego to serving the greater whole.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S.: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in my latest book, Sages, Saints, and Sinners. Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever good books are sold.

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