TSHP061: The Joy of Giving & Receiving

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What’s Coming This Episode?

The law of attraction would state that you need to be able to give in order to receive. When it comes right down to it all that we ever give is love. It may be in the form of charity as money, food or water aid or disaster relief. We may volunteer our time or resources. We may give gifts for birthdays, Christmas, weddings and so on. All we ever give is love, love is all there is.

Are you a giver or a taker? Enjoy your giving and remember that to receive you need to give.

It’s The Self Help Podcast! Enjoy the show 🙂

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Giving and Receiving

The law of attraction would state that you need to be able to give in order to receive. This law is identifying that to receive requires a space for things to flow into. If, for example you give money to charity, you create a space in your financial energy that allows more energy, or money, to flow into. It is suggested that the universe abhors a vacuum, whenever one occurs energy will flow into it to fill the space and balance the energy. What we experience as wind is nothing other than air moving from areas of high pressure to balance an area of low pressure, it is the low pressure that creates the wind flow. It would seem that the universe prefers a balance of energy; this is true in all systems.

Are you a giver or a taker?

It is often said that people are one or the other, givers or takers, and that is often the way that it is. In my occupational health role in organisations I see the ‘minimalists’ who will take all that they can while doing as little as possible and the ‘maximalists’ who will do all that they can to ensure that the job gets done and customer needs are met. In society it is those that are doers, givers, and are proactive who are carrying those that are the done to, the takers who are inactive.

Just like all universe energies the system only works when the energy of giving and taking are in balance and by that I am not implying that there needs to be the takers so that the givers can give, I am suggesting that we should have within us a balance of both giving and taking. That means that the givers need to learn to receive and the takers need to learn to give.

What can I do for you?

President John F Kennedy talking to the German people when they were rebuilding their country after the second world war famously said “Don’t ask what can my country do for me, ask what can I do for my country’. In this he was stating the universal principle that equates to the idea that if we all give, all of our needs will be met.

The magic of giving

When we belong to any group, workplace or family and so on, if we all give, that is, look after each others needs, then everyone’s needs are met. If, on the other hand, we all sit back and expect our needs to be met by the rest of the group then no one’s needs will ever be met. This is true on all levels, in all situations, all of the time.

When we learn to give we realise that there is enough of everything for everybody. There is enough food, enough water, enough money, enough love and so on, all we need to do is to give it to each other. This is hard for most human beings who fear deprivation and loss and lack of things. That in turn can lead to greed and hoarding, ownership and meanness.

The crazy thing is that if we all learned to give we could have heaven on earth right now!

The magic of receiving

Well if the law of vacuums and the natural balance of energies is true then it is not enough to simply be able to give we also need to be able to receive. For some receiving can be difficult. How do you cope when people buy you presents? Perhaps it is Christmas or your birthday how do you feel about getting gifts? Are you able to open them in front of the giver and feel comfortable? Being able to receive something is both a gift in itself and a skill.

Love is all there is

When it comes right down to it all that we ever give is love. It may be in the form of charity as money, food or water aid or disaster relief. We may volunteer our time or resources. We may give gifts for birthdays, Christmas, weddings and so on. All we ever give is love, love is all there is.

The opposite of love may be defined as hate, though perhaps it is better to think of the giving as love and the opposite of giving as simply taking without giving anything in return. Many people that live in privileged positions in our society are those that have been the takers and have gained their wealth by taking from others. Money like all energies flows and there is enough for everyone if we share it and do not hoard it.

Enjoy your giving and remember that to receive you need to give.

Take care,
Sean x

TSHP60: Dealing With Rejection

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What’s Coming This Episode?

When we feel devalued by rejection it is because we do not value our self enough. The feeling of rejection happens within us, it is not done to us we do it to our self.

That said, rejection is something that will haunt us all at one time or another, so let’s dive deeper and explore it this week…

It’s The Self Help Podcast! Enjoy the show 🙂

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Rejection

Human beings, like most animals, live in groups. We have developed words to describe this. A shoal of fish, a flock of birds, a pride of lions, a herd of cows, a troop of apes and so on. Groups of people are called things like race, ethnicity, nationality, society, community, and family. We will even name our groups to give them an even more precise identity black, white, gay, straight, French, British, American. Within such groups there may be tribes and clans, regions and accents. When we get down to the level of the family we become the Smiths and the Jones, Steins and Khans. And the groups get even smaller as ‘our’ branch of the family has an identity that separates it from all others, “Oh you’re one the Hereford Smiths are you?”

What all these groupings tell us is that we belong, or that we do not.

As soon as the whole of humanity is divided into groups we introduce the concepts of ‘us’ and ‘them’ of ‘in’ and ‘out’ which means that either you belong or you do not.

Any group has a set of group norms, that is, the set of values or behaviours that are needed to be recognised as a member of the group. To belong to a union, religion, society, an order etc, requires that we all believe the same things and that we act in ways according to these beliefs. When these norms, or rules, are transgressed the individual may well be expelled from the group. We have developed words that describe individuals being thrown out of the group, expelled from school, defrocked by the church, court martialed by the army, disbarred, or dismembered.

In smaller social groups we may ‘turn our back’ on disgraced members. Someone may be ‘sent to Coventry’ meaning that we do not talk to them or someone may be separated and used by the group to be responsible for all the groups ills, we call this person the ‘scapegoat’.

Individual belonging

I guess the smallest group is a couple. One person says “I love you” the other person says “I love you too” and we have become ‘an item’, we are one. Whether or not this is formalised into a marriage the bonding has happened. Often we wear rings to signify that we are now a couple, in a relationship. Even on social media we will acknowledge our relationship status. The concept of this bonding, for most people in most groups is that this is now an exclusive partnership that has its own rules of fidelity and sharing.

Having worked with many couples over the years it is clear that these rules vary enormously, are never universal, so that all couples are different and have their own rules of engagement. Included in these smaller groupings I think we should include friendship that may be with one other person or with a tight intimate groups. Often in British society these would be termed ‘your mates’.

Breaking the norms

Once established the norms of the group or relationship have been established they can be transgressed or broken. When this happens the deal is broken, the belonging ceases to be, the relationship is over. This gives rise to concepts such as infidelity, being jilted or cheated on, stabbed in the back, cuckolded, thrown over, dumped, estrangement, divorced and separation.

In rejection you no longer belong

All groups offer some form of security, some form of safety, ‘there’s safety in numbers’. As one of ‘us’ the group offers us protection from ‘them’. It will come to our aid when we are threatened. Outside of this protection we are alone, isolated and vulnerable.

Broken elastic, hurt and anger

In my book “what Colour is your Knicker Elastic’ I describe the energy that connects us in relationships and an elastic bond. This elastic has energy so that if we move apart it pulls us back together. However if it is stretched to breaking point the snapping releases a huge amount of energy. Depending on the relationship and the nature of the ending this energy will be expressed as anger, hurt, loss, bereavement and so on.

The hurt of rejection

In most cases the feeling of rejection from a group, job, relationship, or whatever, is felt in terms of value ‘we were not good enough’. The rejection feels like a devaluation of who we are or who we felt our self to be. If we are being rejected in favour of another person it can lead to a confidence crisis. I am too fat or too thin, I am not sexy enough, I am boring, pathetic, ugly. No one will ever want me, I will be alone forever, I am a waste of space, who would ever want me, I might as well be dead.

Alternatively it might be, all men/women/families are all bastards I never want anything to do with any of them ever again, you can all sod off, I am done with the lot of you.

Dealing with rejection

When we feel devalued by rejection, beyond the normal feelings of adjustment that are loss and bereavement, it is because ‘we’ do not value our self enough. The feeling of rejection happens within us, it is not done to us we do it to our self. If you reject me, if you don’t want to be my friend, use me professionally or be my partner my thoughts may go one of three ways. The first is that I descend into a pit of despair and beat myself up for being such a waste of space. The second would be that I in turn reject you as being some sort of moron who doesn’t deserve me anyway and I am better off without you. Thirdly I stop and consider what has happened here, try to understand the why, and learn and grow from the experience.

We are not in the least affected by events.

We are affected by our response to those events

5000 years ago the Greek philospher Epicticus identied that it is us who are responsible for how we think, feel and act. Our world is full of choices. Either we have problems of opportunities.

In my world, I experience it to be full of ‘learning points’ where I have the choice to make decisions. In general one way will lead to a positive outcome and one to a negative out come. However, even a negative outcome is also a learning point and it will teach me and help me make decisions that serve me better in the future.

Confidence

As a last point, if you feel rejected and that feels bad, the chances are that you have some sort of confidence crisis. This is therapy time. Go and work it through with an experienced listener. I would say that you can only feel rejected if you, in someway, reject yourself, that you devalue, or undervalue yourself.

To the positive mind when one door closes another door opens, to have a beginning there needs to be an ending.

Give yourself value, be happy and confident.

Take care,
Sean x

TSHP059: Dealing With Traumatic Events

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What’s Coming This Episode?

At some point in our lives, like it or not, a potentially traumatic event will hit us.

Trauma is a Greek word meaning “wound”. A wound can be physical, mental, emotional, financial and so on. The concept of trauma comes from the idea that the wound, or event that is being experienced, is greater than our resources to deal with it. In that sense we have been overwhelmed. However there is a difference between experiencing trauma and being traumatised.

Mark-Pollard-300x300This week we’re joined by our good friend Mark Pollard of Vantage Law. Why do we have a solicitor on The Self Help Podcast? Well, Mark is all to often the first point of contact for people looking for help following a traumatic event (think car accident, injury at work, etc.) so he, as you’ll find, has a great deal to offer.

Don’t worry, be happy. It’s The Self Help Podcast! Enjoy the show 🙂

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Dealing With Trauma

What is a trauma?

Trauma, is a Greek word meaning “wound”. A wound can be physical, mental, emotional, financial and so on. The concept of trauma comes from the idea that the wound, or event that is being experienced, is greater than our resources to deal with it. In that sense we have been overwhelmed. However there is a difference between experiencing trauma and being traumatised.

Traumatised, or traumatisation is when the overwhelming experience/trauma creates an amount of stress that is so great that it exceeds our ability to deal with the emotions aroused. This is clearly an emotional issue. Trauma or traumatic disorders are always emotional.

Post trauma is the emotional fall out that stays with us after the experience has ended. It is our time to process the emotions and this may take days or weeks. In most cases the emotional effects of a trauma will be normalised in eight to ten weeks.

Repressed trauma can happen when an event is too difficult for us to deal with and we hide it in the recesses of the mind. When this happens we may have no direct memory of the event that caused the trauma though it may still effect who we are, how we experience the world and our behaviour.

Recovered memory may be delayed by weeks, years, or even decades. Though when it does emerge the original repressed emotions are released as though they have just happened. Therapeutically this release of emotion and memory is termed an abreaction and involves the re-experiencing of the trauma physically, emotionally and mentally.

Emotional responses Although in repression the memory is lost to the conscious mind it has a constant effect on everyday life and experience and may appear as irrational fears, anxiety, depression, phobia etc. This is described as something within us but outside of our control.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is when the emotional responses are not repressed but are also not processed. When the effects of the event remain active after six weeks it is given the PTSD diagnosis.

PTSD Symptoms will vary but will include finding it difficult to forget the incident or event that happened. There may be flashbacks, daymares or nightmares about it? Unstable and irrational emotional responses such as anger, tears, anxiety, depression, phobias, disturbed sleep/eating patterns, and so on.

Rumination is the symptom builder. We know that what we think about we bring about that thoughts become things. When we continually go over traumatic events and are unable to let them go they become more intensely embedded in our unconscious and conscious mind because we keep thinking about, and reinforcing them in our mind/brain.

The MindBrain This is where the software of the psychological mind and the hardware of the brain interface. The main aspect of the brain that affects our emotional self is the limbic system in the centre of the brain. Within the limbic system is a little organ called the amygdala. In this organ are templates of cells that relate to out emotional responses. Lets say that when I am young I watch my mother reacting phobic-ally to spiders, I then build a template of cells in my amygdala so that when I see spider the cells release chemistry and so I also react to the spiders as a phobia. Over time my spider template will become hotter and more embedded the more I visit it.

All emotional responses are like this, even the positive ones. So, that if I see the object of my love the love template of cells become hot and releases the chemistry that make me feel loving.
It normally takes about five repetitions of emotional experience to set up a template unless it is punched traumatically and then it is created immediately. Once a traumatic template has been established it will remain hot and active and become more embedded over time unless, or until, it is treated.

Treatment for trauma is a variable feast and will depend on where you live and the therapy that is fashionable at the time. Cognitive therapies such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) can be helpful however research shows is not that good at dealing with trauma in the long-term. It is an effective therapy for putting in place cognitive tools to begin to lift the repressed the emotion and start processing it.

EMDR or Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing is a therapy that mimics the rapid eye movements that happen during the dream cycle in the sleep pattern. The emotional trauma is encoded into the MindBrain using the same part of the system. EMDR is surprisingly effective in the majority of cases.

Rewinding is by far my best option as it uses the very same process to desensitise a template in the amygdala as was used to put it there in the first place, this is visualisation. When we revisit a trauma it is through the senses of sight, smell, tastes and touch, non of which are cognitive. During rewind therapy the emotional memories are address directly and desensitised.

Mindful meditation is becoming mainstream psychology. Mindfulness is the best prevention for all forms of stress and provides the resources needed at the point of trauma. The process of mindfulness is relaxation, contemplation, concentration and meditation, a process that is in itself therapeutic. Consistent meditators become their own therapists and counsellors and are able to overcome many things that overwhelm others.

Medication has to be the last on my list. I am not against medication on this basis, if I have a headache I will do all that I can to get rid of it, as a last resort I will take an aspirin. There are medications that can help with anxiety, depression, panic, high blood pressure and so on. There are also natural alternatives that maybe gentler on the system both psychologically and physiologically.

If you do suffer trauma never suffer alone psychotherapy is a good and powerful thing.

Take care and be happy.

Sean x

TSHP058: Why Worry?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Worrying is a habit, being happy is a habit. If you are a worrier, or if you are happy, where did you learn it?

When you are a worrier it is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD. Rumination on anything will make it bigger and bigger. It follows that rumination on positive things will lead to positive feelings and happiness. So…

Don’t worry, be happy. It’s The Self Help Podcast! Enjoy the show 🙂

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Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Worrying is a habit, being happy is a habit. If you are a worrier, or if you are happy, where did you learn it? These, like all habits, are the results of consistent persistent practice over time. Most habits are learned at an early age through observation. We observe behaviours, usually from our parents or siblings and then we practice.

What you feed grows and what you starve dies

Habits can be either cognitive or affective (emotional); they are what we think or what we feel. Some psychology suggests that we learn the thinking part first and that leads to the negative feelings of worry. Others would suggest that the feelings lead to the negative thoughts. For me, it can be either, though it is usually a mixture of both.

Often we just feel lousy, anxious or concerned but we don’t know what about. Carl Jung described this as ‘something within us yet outside of our control’. When we just feel bad we can search for a reason and attach a negative thought process to make sense of it. Once we have attached the thought to the feeling, to that feeling, they are forever connected so that when we feel it we think it and when we think it we feel it.

Odd as it may seem we can make these associations with the strangest of things it may be a banana or the colour blue, a sound, smell or the tone of someone’s voice. Once we have linked thought and feeling together they have a symbiotic relationship that is there forever until we wake up to what we are doing and uncouple them.

The first step in developing mindfulness to overcome worrying is to become the observer of yourself, so that ‘I’ can observe ‘me’ thinking, feeling or doing. When we observe, we can begin to see the distortions of thinking feeling and doing that create anxiety, worry and stress. Often these are unconscious distortions, that through mindfulness become conscious and then we can deal with them.

So, the first step is learn to observe your distortions…

Common Distortions

Read all about it!

All-or-nothing thinking – black-or-white – Life or death

Where are the shades of grey? Life is never black and white, there will always be a compromise, a third point of view, another way of doing it. It is only by standing back and observing our thinking and feeling that we can move beyond this fixation.

Over generalisation

“It will always be like this…I’ll never be able to…it always happens to me…” I call this scripting. The habit of thinking this way leads to repeated behaviours. Life becomes a done deal. As soon as I make these statements I am ensuring that they will come true and that my life will be forever blighted.

Negative focus

The magic of perception is that we tune it so that we only see what we expect to see. This can be the glass half full or half empty. A clean car, with a patch of dirt, can be seen as filthy, a good person who make a simple mistake can be seen as bad and so on. When you tread in a cow pat do you see that as a good opportunity to grow or do you get angry and beat yourself up? When we focus positively all and every experience teaches us about our self and life. When life is faced positively there is no negative focus.

Discount the positive

This is magical because when we discount the positive we ensure that nothing will ever be any good. We either come up with reasons why positive events don’t count. “I did well, but that was just dumb luck.” or ” I hate it when good things happen because that means that something negative is just around the corner”. Stand back, reframe your thoughts and feeling, create a new script for the situation and say it out loud so that your ears can hear it.

Jumping to conclusions

Even when what is happening is plainly positive we can make negative interpretations without any actual evidence. We can act like a mind reader, “I can tell she secretly hates me.” Or like a fortune teller, “I just know something terrible is going to happen.” “I just know we are going to miss the plane.” Ask yourself the question why? Why should these bad things happen to you and not other people? Most importantly what evidence do you have of things working well?

Catastrophizing

It is easy to make a drama out of a crisis. Expecting the worst-case scenario to happen. “The pilot said we’re in for some turbulence. The plane’s going to crash!” A classic is a medical diagnosis when we convince ourselve of the worst outcome. In life difficult things will always happen. However, evolution has equipped us with some pretty good creative skills that enable us to solve problems.

Emotional reasoning

This is when the feeling clearly comes before the thought and we seek to make a connection and association between the feeling and the thought. Just like believing that the way we feel reflects reality. “I feel frightened right now. That must mean I’m in real physical danger.” It might even be “he just told me I am a bad person therefore it must be true.” Just because you feel something or someone says something it does not mean that it is true. Being able to observe your feelings and thought associations and questioning them rather than accepting them can lead to new levels of understanding.

‘Should’s and should-nots’

In my consulting room there are certain words that are banned. These are ‘ought, should, must and can’t, together with ought not, should not, must not’. Holding yourself to a strict list of what you should and shouldn’t do is beating yourself up. Often these things are related to what other people want or need and may have little to do with meeting our own needs. It good to look at why you believe these things, what is going on? This is a good time to look at reframing your thoughts and feelings, update them so that they serve you better.

Labelling

I hate giving people a diagnoses. A diagnosis is a label and once we become labelled we become limited by that label, both in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. My father labelled me as an ‘idiot’ and for many years I believed him. Later, in therapy, I realised that is was his issue and not mine and I relabelled myself to positive ones. Labelling yourself based on mistakes and perceived shortcomings. “I’m a failure; an idiot; a loser,” just creates negative scripts that you will play out in everyday life.

Personalisation

This may also be described as taking other people’s stuff on board so that it becomes ‘my’ issue when it is not. It is when we assume responsibility for things that are outside your control. “It’s my fault my son got in an accident. I should have warned him to drive carefully in the rain.” “It’s my fault he got lung cancer I should have stopped him smoking.”

Worrying

Worrying comes in many shapes and sizes. Importantly all of the versions described above are all habitual behaviours and like all habits they can be changed. If you follow these blogs or the podcast you will realise that to change a habit permanently normally involves a ninety day programme. All habits can be changed.

When you are a worrier it is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD. Rumination on anything will make it bigger and bigger. It follows that rumination on positive things will lead to positive feelings and happiness. So…

Don’t worry, be happy.

Take care,
Sean x

TSHP057: Finding Spirituality in Everyday Life

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What’s Coming This Episode?

It’s special guest time. This week we’re joined by Chris, a 47 year old ‘bloke from Liverpool’ who has been a Kadampa Buddhist* for 15 years, who goes under the pseudonym of Vide Kadampa. Chris explains to us how he came to be a Buddhist, how it has effected his life and how it has shaped his understanding of the world.

Take away points from this week’s sin depth chat? Compassion, meditation, spirituality, mental health and finding and doing worthwhile work are all discussed. The 5 commitments Chris highlights are jam packed full of amazing advice for living, whatever your religious/spiritual persuasion.

Huge thanks for Chris for taking time out of his busy schedule to join us this week. Links below to follow him online which we highly recommend you take a look at.

It’s The Self Help Podcast! Enjoy the show 🙂

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

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Finding Spirituality In Everyday Life

Are you spiritual or religious?

I hear people talking about religion and I hear people talking about spirituality. I am not comfortable with religion as it can often be sectarian and dogmatic. I like the idea of spirituality, but what is it? Well, I am not what you call religious though I did have a religious upbringing. As a child I began to realise that of the hundreds of people who attended ‘The Holy Trinity Church’ each Sunday many were religious though only a few were spiritual. I could feel it but it took me a while to understand it.

I began to experience the spiritual people as those who lived the religious dogma in their everyday lives rather than just reciting it each Sunday in Church. Rather like ‘walking the walk and not just talking the talk’. The spiritual people I saw as the good ones. They had compassion and empathy, they were genuinely concerned and where doing their best to get it right with and for other people.

As I travelled and met people from different faiths I discovered that the concept of living the right way, being righteous, doing the right thing, and what I have come to understand as Dharma, is the act of living spiritually in everyday life. The spiritual people are those that are seeking to make the world a better place. We each have the ability to do this every minute of everyday by simply thinking, feeling and acting positively.

I have met people who are practitioners, teachers, gurus and so on who are self obsessed and are doing what they are doing for their own personal aggrandisement and enjoyment of power. They see themselves as more important than their message and are seeking glory, status and position.

I have learned to define spirituality as the attempt to get ‘it’ right through compassion, empathy, forethought and sensitivity, through giving rather than taking, loving rather than hating and doing rather than watching. Spiritual people do it rather than talk about it.

So, for me if you attempt to live by doing the right thing without hurting others, if your interactions with people leave them better than when you arrived, if you do what you can to help others get it right, if you act with compassion, love and empathy to all the beings that you meet, including yourself, and if you do all this without personal gain and without expecting anything in return you are living spiritually in everyday life. In my Ayurvedic training this was known as Bhakti.

To be Bhakti and live spiritually you do not need to be poor, you do not need to be chaste, and you do not need to be abstemious. All it requires is that you live with awareness, and take into account the results of your actions and do your best to be the best version of you that you could possibly be.

My definition of a good person, be it teacher, doctor, shop worker, labourer, actor. Whatever, is simply someone who is getting better at it. If we are always getting better at who we are, even it is only a little bit at a time we will, in the end, be pretty good at it. So I would put it both ways, those that are living spiritually in their everyday live are those who are getting better at being who they are, and those who are getting better at who the are, are living spiritually in their everyday lives.

The point being that if we did all look after each other with compassion and empathy, we could have heaven on Earth right now, end wars, famine and strife with the blink of an eye.

Todays task might just be to get up from wherever you are right now and live your day with compassion and empathy and see how you feel at the end of the day, I suspect you might feel pretty good.

Take care and be happy,

Sean x