TSHP307: Happy Being Sad

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What’s Coming This Episode?

We talk about change a lot on this show. We always tend to talk from the point of view that people actually want to change, but what if they don’t? Do we get stuck in unhealthy routines and habits that we quietly enjoy? Are we trapped or are we reluctant to change?

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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Let’s All Stay The Same

Why do people change? Or, perhaps, more importantly, why don’t people change? When we look at some behaviours, when we look at the suffering that others go through we often wonder, ‘why do they put up with that?’

We could say that the only thing that we can be certain of in life is that all things change, that nothing ever stays the same. The strangest thing is that everything changes all the time. Everyday we get older, everyday the world changes physically and politically. Change always has been and always will be with us. Yet, we have an immense need for things to remain the same and we will go out of our way to ensure that they do.

Better the Devil you know

However the desire to change has to come from somewhere, change is like time, our experience of it depends on the point from which we view it. We could say that one of our biggest problems is that we have to deal with the stress of change often when are forced to undergo it. We might even think that change is a fabulous stimulant and that we all need more of it, that lack of change creates boredom that paralysis the brain. Or, perhaps we might crave to maintain the status quo and the stability of a fixed system, universe or society, where we all know where we stand, where life is predictable and there are no surprises.

Change is a strange and challenging thing that most us seem to resist to the point where we will do our best to avoid it and even put up with the most horrible of situations because we do not want to face change. Our language is full of phrases designed to stop us changing…

…A leopard can’t change it’s spots

An old dog can’t learn new tricks

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

Don’t throw away dirty water until you have clean…

The list is endless. Yet change will be forever with us. Our job is to accept it and go with it but not give in to it. 

Physical change

We know that out entire body is always changing. Every seven years we renew all the cells in our body, so that, every seven years our body is completely new. Some parts of our body are changing much quicker. The receptors in our eyes that interpret what we see and send messages to the brain function through the rods and cones of the retina as the pigments and chemical respond to the light. Many times a second the receptors are activated and then reactivated as we track the moving objects around us. The body is a good indicator of change.

There is a neat trick that we call ageing. Each cell has a string on it called a telomere. As each cell reproduces the telomere becomes shorter until in the end it runs out and the reproduction ceases. This is called getting old.

Social change

This happens generation on generation as values, beliefs, ideas and even fashions change from one generation to the next. As the social compass moves we find that behaviours unacceptable a generation ago are now common place. We might change laws so that, for example, homosexuality that a generation ago was illegal is now celebrated. Sometimes it is the reverse as we look in horror at the behaviour of previous generations. Slavery and bear baiting are now illegal. 

Intellectual change

This is driven by the intellectual thinkers. Often it is this intellectual part of human consciousness that is the precursor of social change. The intellect questions the existing order and continually asks ‘Why?’ It challenges conventions, laws and rules and demands that we look anew at who we are and what we are doing.

Emotional change

Emotional change is demanding, passionate and immediate “I want it all and I want it now”. It maybe the maternal drive that seeks to protect the family or the possessive drive that becomes attached to people and things. Change at this level is often acquisition, “I want more” and the more might be possessions, power, money or even people. Overall emotional change is about adapting the world so that ‘My’ needs are met be that driven by business of dictatorship.

Conceptual change

The key to conceptual change is that often it does not want to change at all. When it does change it happens slowly, sometimes very slowly. It may be seen in eras or epochs. Here we are looking at dynasties, and systems of control that last for many years. The ruling Empires that peak and decay as the order changes. We now see the European Global Empires coming to a close as the era of European domination comes to an end. The new era will probably belong to the China, India and the Pacific Basin. In a couple of hundred years the common global language will probably have moved from English to be something like Cantonese or Mandarin.

Meaningful change

This is the sensitive realm of the intuition that drives conception or the way that we see things. A conceptual era is often driven by the understanding of spiritual philosophy. It is seen in terms of the question ‘why are we here?’ and ‘what is the meaning of life?’ These answers change and as we human beings change and, hopefully, evolve.

The Icons that change behaviour

Our leaders both spiritual and political are engaged in creating change. At any one time in any society there will be the icon figures that people look up to for inspiration and guidance. They may be dictators such as Hitler, scientists such as Einstein, spiritual leaders or social engineers.

The Christian Era that began two thousand years ago, that peaked at a point where virtually everyone in Europe attended Church services, it has now peaked and declined so that now less than 5% of the population of the UK regularly follow church services. It is thought that the values of the Christian traditions are now being superseded by Buddhist traditions with a rise in meditation and mindfulness, vegetarianism and veganism.

Personal Change

Beyond all that is you, your change. What do you need to do to get your life online so that it works well for you. Is it that you need to maintain your status quo or do you need to embrace change to stimulate you energy? The most important thing is to act with awareness. Maintain what serves you well and change what does not serve you well.

Positive change leads to positive results and negative change leads to negative outcomes.

We are in the throws of change. Brexit, climate change, the loss of the European empires, the rise of the Pacific Basin, the invention of computers and the rise of AI (artificial intelligence), the ending of the combustion engine and the rise of electro power, the ending of animal based farm production in favour of plant based diets, the diminishing dominance of male consciousness and the rise of the female… All these thing are happening or will shortly be happening. The one thing that we can be sure of is change. When change stops the universe will no longer exists. Our choice is to either go with the change and enjoy this thing called life or resist change and become more stressed and unhappy.

Be happy and become the change that you would like to see in others.

Sean x

TSHP306: How to Rebuild After Disaster Strikes

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Terrible news from Paris this week as a thing of history and beauty was damaged in a quite horrific fire. The incident was witnessed by thousands in realtime, millions more across our networks of TV and online. Tragedy and disaster can take many forms so Sean and Ed decided to have a chat about how we start to rebuild our lives.

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

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What to do when your house burns down

I watched in horror at the footage of Notre Dame in flames and the terrible scenes of hundreds of people turning out onto the streets to witness it. It made me consider the immense power that fire has to destroy and also to cleanse. I remember the news footage  of Windsor Castle with flames pouring from its roof and those terrible scenes of the planes flying into the Twin Towers. I read that when Dresden was bombed by the allies in the Second World War the air became so hot that things were spontaneously catching fire, including people and animals.

Yet fire has another side. When humans first began to understand and use fire it enabled them to keep warm and to eat foods that previously would have been indigestible. In my own house we love our log fire, it becomes the focal point of the house and the family in the cold winter months, and there is the Pizza Oven in the garden that becomes the focal point of family gatherings in the summer.

Even in farming, when the land was covered with forests humans developed the Slash and Burn method of agriculture, used when trees, vegetation and even whole forests were burned down to allow new seeds to be sown. This had two functions in that it cleared the land but also the ashes that were left behind created fertiliser to ensure the health and growth of the new crops.

Fire was also used to smelt iron and created the Iron Age and eventually the industrial revolution through the invention of steam engines and steam power. From coal mines and steel works to railways and steam engines, fire and steam have shaped our society, culture and our lives. 

These days when we turn up the thermostat to make the house a bit warmer I wonder how many of us realise that we are benefitting from the controlled gas fire that is going inside our boiler. Or that when we drive our car that we are enjoying the controlled fire of petrol, diesel or gas that is powering our engines. The same it true on planes or ships they are all powered by fire. Even if we get to the point of driving and flying electric vehicles then the vehicle itself will need to be created by a system that includes fire.

The big down side of fire and our need and desire for it and the things that it produces is the CO2 emissions. As I write this the Extinction Rebellion protesters are trying to close down London demanding that CO2 emissions are reduced or illuminated. Like all protesters, if they put their energy into creating alternatives rather than complaining about what is actually happening then things might change a bit quicker.

As I think about this I begin to see that fire is neutral. It is neither good more bad, it just is. It is what we do with it that has the value of being positive our negative.

Notre Dame will be rebuilt, probably identical to the past. In many cases the destruction of fire allows us to get rid of the old and start afresh, to start anew. The emotional fire that destroys relationships or communities often creates a new beginning. When we run the Live In the present courses and write letters of forgiveness the suggestion is that we burn them, that we commit them to the flame and so doing creating an ending that allows for a new beginning.

Fire can the a catalyst. An energy for change. If we are positive the change will be constructive. If we are negative the change will be destructive. Either way the fire is neutral.

Take care, be happy and light a candle with love, thankful that no-one was hurt.

Sean x

TSHP305: How to practice patience

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Patience is a virtue but does anyone really have it? Sean does apparently. Ed? Not so much. Let’s take a look at the subject and see if we can understand it…

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

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Impatience, the road to anxiety

Impatience is all about not being able to relax into the present moment, not being able to live in the now. Impatience is about wanting the future in the present. It could be that we are in a queue and feel ourself getting angry with those people that we see as holding the queue up. We want to do it now and just can’t wait for the process, whatever it is, to complete. Impatience also becomes the mother of intolerance as we develop a short fuse in our frustration.

The one thing that we know from mindfulness is that when we become focussed on the future and cease to be in the present we develop anxiety. Whereas some people may be looking to the future with fear. Maybe they do not like flying and a holiday is coming ever closer and the closer it gets the more anxious they become. It could be that someone is due to have an operation or have a serious illness and they fear what will happen next. When we become impatient we are using exactly the same part of our system. It all comes down to wanting or needing the future in the present. And, guess what? You can’t have it. It does not matter how much you jump up and down, shout, scream or have a hissy fit, the future will only get to you when it is ready. The queue will not magically disappear.

We also know that when we begin to focus on time it goes very slowly. We say that…

…a watched pot never boils.

The more that we want it now, the more that we demand it now, the longer it seems to take. The massive explosion of fast feed diners and delivery services is because we have lost the patience to wait for our food to be cooked, we want it now.

People get fed up when a website will not open immediately and they shout at the computer, failing to realise how much faster their current computer is compared to their previous one. The whole computer process that delivers everything at the touch of a button can make us lazy. Why spend the time to look something up in a dictionary when you can use google. Why bother waste your time pressing the buttons to access Google when Alexa or Siri will find it for you without you moving nothing more than your tongue.

As a society it would seem that we are becoming more demanding, less tolerant, more critical and less patient year on year. This is ultimately to out detriment.

We are hunter gathers. Each day, throughout evolution, we had to learn new skills to grow and evolve. We know that people that stop using their. brains and stop learning lose brain cells and that new brain cells only come about in response to new learning. 

As we move towards driverless cars, automated farming and food production, and endless free time we find that the human brain is becoming more and more Autistic. As we hunker down in our flats and houses allowing the machine to do everything for us we become diminished. There must come a point, that when we no longer do things for ourselves, that the meaning of our very existence has to be called into question? I think that negative, critical, selfish, intolerant, impatience will lead to our downfall.

I vote for getting off our backsides and re-engaging in the world and with other people. Coming out of our silos and keeping automation at a point where it is helpful and not destructive. 

If we could just become a little more mindful, less intolerant and more patient the world would be a much happier place to live in.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

TSHP304: Living with fear

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Fear can come from many places. Often it’s not the spider or the mouse in our homes that scare us – it’s the anxiety from the mounds of debt, the illness that could take us sooner than we expect or the person that we know could snap at any moment. Let’s talk about fear…

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

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Living in Fear

Doubt and fear are both forms of anxiety and worry. 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 practise.

What you feed grows and what you starve dies

Habits can be either cognitive or affective, 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. 

Sometimes 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 they are forever connected, so that when we feel it, we think it and when we think it, we feel it.

Mindfulness allows us to observe doubt and worry not take it on board 

Odd as it may seem we can make anxious 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, unless we wake up to what we are doing and uncouple them. 

Mindful practise helps us disconnect our negative links

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, first step is learn to observe your distortions…

Common Distortions

ref:  (Thanks for the site guys, a great resource)

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.

Overgeneralisation – “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 makes 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 ourself 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 ourself 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 “she 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’s 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 owns 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 onboard so that it becomes ‘my’ issue when it is not. It is when we assume responsibility for things that are outside of your control. “It’s my fault my son got in an accident. I should have warned him to drive carefully in the rain.” “its my fault he got lung cancer i should have stopped him smoking.” 

Worry and Doubt

Worry and doubt come 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 the Live In the Present course as set out in our book, blogs and podcasts you will soon realise that to change a habit permanently, normally involves a ninety day programme of consistent and persistent determination. All habits can be changed.

When you suffer from worry or doubt 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, don’t doubt, be positive and be happy

Take care

Sean x