Archive for year: 2022

We have been asked in this episode to look at addiction with particular attention to alcohol.

We use the word ‘addiction’ to indicate an illness which is based on the behaviour of a person who is compulsively or habitually ‘addicted’ to a substance or a set of behaviours. Most behaviours that are described as addictions are seen as negative. When we hear the word addiction we tend to think of drugs or alcohol. We might even consider the workaholic. Which ever way we view it addiction is seen negative.

I will get onto alcohol in a minute but first consider this…

Perhaps we are all addicts

I would like to suggest another way of looking at it, we are all addicted, we are all addicts, it is just that we are often unaware of what we are addicted to. So my question is…

What is your addiction?

An addiction is simply a chemical state, that is in both our brain and our body.  We become addicted when we have learned to accept this chemistry as our ‘normal’ state of being. The chemistry comes from the habits that we have practiced from the moment of our both. We know that when someone exercises regularly their brain responds by releasing powerful endorphins. We also know that once this chemistry has been established  as their normal they can become addicted to this exercise. Once this habit has been established we find that if they are unable to exercise, perhaps because of an injury, they go into withdrawal just like any drug addict. All the symptoms of drug withdrawal are played out through their brain and body until either they restore the exercise and the chemistry or undergo the ‘cold turkey’ of drug withdrawal and re establish a new chemical norm.

Any behaviour from meditation to sex, from knitting to hill walking, from laughing to crying, will have a chemical effect on our mind body system. Once these are established in our mind brian they become our habit and our chemical normal. The issues of anxiety, anger, depression, love and happiness may also be our addictions.

As an ex drug addict, mainly opium and having had an interesting relationship with alcohol, I know quite a lot about alcohol and drugs as a therapist but also as a practitioner.

Let’s have a look at alcohol

Alcohol 

Alcohol is probably one of the most natural substances we can become addicted to. I have seen horses in very strange states after eating fermenting apples that had fallen from the trees in an orchard. Human beings probably slipped quite easily into using alcohol as the vegetables and fruits around them fermented and the relationship was made between the alcohol and the pleasurable feeling of being tipsy or drunk.

The way that alcohol works is that it turns off the frontal lobe of the brain which takes away our worries, concerns and feelings. Alcohol is an emotional anaesthetic. We stop feeling. Then we get the rebound of the depressant effect as the frontal lobes attempts to fire up again. When the depressant effect is on us the easiest thing to do is to have another drink, known as the ‘hair of the dog’, and anaesthetise the depression. Once the cycle is established it is the normal behaviour of addiction. However the cycle will vary. Some people can drink a lot of alcohol before their frontal lobe switches off. For others it may be half a glass of wine. The thing is that once the frontal lobe switches off resistance to more alcohol and normally unacceptable behaviours diminishes. Plus all reason and cognitive thinking is lost.

Controlled drinking/drug programmes 

My experience is that for the vast majority of people controlled programmes do not work. For most of us you are either in or out. One of the main problems with alcohol is that, outside of Muslim countries, there is an alcohol pusher on every street corner, in every super market and in television adverts. It is the wests acceptable addiction.

Therapy

Therapy is usually the only answer. That often means rehab and some supportive medication as the addictive cycle quietens down in the system. In our society in the UK I do still commonly deal with alcohol, nicotine, skunk and anger addictions. Though I experience that we are all addicted to something even if that means being addicted to having a completely clean system.

So what is your addiction?

Your chemical normal is the one that makes you feel just right. It comes from the habits that you have established throughout your life. If something happens to alter your ‘normal’ you will adopt behaviours that will return your chemistry to recreate your normal. My normal involves meditation, cooking, often running, definitely playing music, mainly guitar, certainly working with other people and always my lovely Rie and holidays away. When I am deprived of my addictions I feel withdrawal and need to act to bring my chemistry back to my normal.

Some addictions are good, as in they do not harm us or others. Bad addictions do harm us or other people. We have a choice. Once we mindfully examine our behaviours we can decide which addictions we will feed and allow to grow and which once we will starve and allow to wither.

We may decide that allowing our children to develop the habit of internet gaming is a good or a bad addiction. Current evidence would suggest this is a bad addiction.

Be happy and check your addictions.

Take care

Sean x

In modern psychology we talk a lot about living in the present, letting go of what has been and c relating the future that we want to live. The reality for us all is that you cannot get into you or present and create a new future if you are weighed down and hampered by unresolved past. In order that we are able to move on into a new future, that is not hampered by the weight of the unresolved past, we often need to do an internal audit of stock take at this time. Even that sounds easier than it is. Let’s have quick review of what we mean by past, present and future.

The Past

The past can seem solid. It is what has happened and we hold it in our memory to explain who we are and what we are like we are. You could say that we are all the sum total of what we have learned from all the things that we have experienced in our life. In this life time it would be from the moment that we drew our first breath. I guess we would need to add in some genetic and social information from the family that we have been born into. 

Karmas

The word karma simply means the consequence of action. Everything that we do has an effect, we are that effect. Karma is simply the consequence it neither good nor bad.

Samskars

For those the believe in reincarnation a samskar is a karma that has been carried over from a previous life time. If this is true and we have had many life time we may be carrying unresolved issues from the past.

The Present

We talk about the present as being something solid. ‘Be in the present we say’, ‘Be here now’. Actually the present is so transitory that it hardly exists. As soon as you read the previous sentence it became the past. The present lasts a millionth of a nano second then it becomes part of the past.

Becoming

Quantum physics suggests that we should view the present as a state of becoming. That is what we are doing now is creating a consequence or karma that is our future. It is perfectly possible to live in the present and many people do but they see it as a fluid state in motion not as a fixed event.

The Future

From our point of view the future does not exist until we create it. We are also at becoming what we will be. Just as I am the result of all that I have done in the past, I will

become the sum total of all that I am doing now. I am creating my future.

The Anatomy Of The Past

Memory has three components that need to be processed for us to move beyond the ties that bind us to the past. These are thinking, doing, and feeling.

Thinking

Thought and cognition are structural concepts. When it comes to memory these are the bones that support the memory. They are factual and descriptive and very black and white. They are the description of what took place.

Doing

This the physical effect of the memory. It may appear as pain in the body or feelings of discomfort. It could be in muscle memory in a skill or set of actions. Or it could simply be a habit. When we have a habit we often say ‘that’s just the way that I am’. It is never that, it is a case of that is how I learned to be and the magic is we can relearn and change if we want to.

Feeling

This is the real issue. Both thinking and doing have no side. They are simply the descriptive and physical response to events. The glue that keeps us trapped in our past is our emotions. Emotions are the glue and the energy that keeps a karma in place. We do not realise it but we have control over our emotions. We can hold onto them or we can let them go, we can change them.

Unlike thinking and doing the key to emotion is the pictures. If I ask you to think about your last holiday what appears in your consciousness are the images, either as stills or as movies of the events that took place. With those images comes emotional connections. This is the glue that keeps us attached to the past either positive or negative. If we have unresolved emotions about a person or an event and we review them all the feeling come porting back as we review the pictures.

A picture tells a thousand words

Dissolving emotional bonds

We are all processing and dissolving negative emotional bonds all the time, we do it every day. It is the big ones that we get stuck on. There are several processes that can enhance our ability to dissolve these bonds.

Mindfulness

In practising mindfulness we focus on becoming what will happen next and not on

regurgitating unresolved past. It is alway true with the mind that…

…thoughts become things. What we think about we bring about.

Forgiveness

This is the LITP step one. It involves visualising this things that you have problems with and processing the emotions so that they gradually become desensitised. When emotions are desensitised you are able to review the memory without becoming emotionally aroused. You can never change the structural cognitive memory or the body memory but you can change how you feel about it.

Psychotherapy 

When we get stuck we sometimes need another voice or point of view. We need to see a new perspective. In good psychotherapy this is what happens. In collective therapeutic relations we find effective way to move on.

Rewinding

This is an analytical hypnotherapy technique. It is very powerful when working with trauma, deep trauma, abuse, PTSD and CPTSD.

We only carry the past with us through our own choice. Once we decide to put it down we are lighter, happier and able to move forward.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Someone said to me ‘do a blog to make me smile’. I went away and though about it. Science tells us that it takes seventeen muscles to smile and as many as forty three to frown. That means it takes a lot more effort to be miserable than it does to be happy. So, what it is that makes some people happy while others are not. So what does the science tell us.

Money. Many people consider higher per capita income is a precursor to happiness. Having sufficient resources to survive with comfort and to feel that there is no stress can certainly a part of happiness. However having more money than you need does not actually make you happy. We joke that at least with money ‘you can be miserable in comfort’ but it proves that money will never make you happy. It is said to say that I have worked with so many people who are very rich and very miserable. I guess we need enough money so that we don’t have to worry about it but so much that we do have to worry about it. For many people too much money is a burden.

Health plays an enormous part in happiness. Health creates greater life expectancy, less time off work and more time to be happy. When we exercise we have higher levels of happy hormones in our brain. We know that raising your heart rate for just twenty minutes a day can really support your mental health.

Autonomy is important. People’s freedom to make life decisions is a part of creating their individual happiness. So many people do what they do because they feel that they should or to please other people. This approach to life seldom leads to happiness. It is so important to do things that make you feel good.

Generosity in both giving and receiving raises the spirit. I can remember when I was training reading the research about how the effect of giving could create more positive endorphins in the giver than those in the receiver. It seems that giving makes us feel good. 

Belonging. We all need friends, family and social support that creates a sense of belonging and overcomes loneliness. Happiness does not need to come from big social events. Often it is the small ones, the family gatherings, Sunday lunches and so on that make us feel like we belong. 

“Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom”. Benjamin Franklin 

The Vikings left us with happiness. So what is the secret?

Genetics, in Scandinavians are shown to have a particular effect. There are three genes that, when activated, create increased levels of serotonin which is the natural precursor of wellbeing. Now, any country that, in history, was near to or invaded by the Vikings have this genetic structure, Guess what? British people have a genetic structure that is very close to that of the vikings. So why are us Brits not showing our happiness, rather than moaning about our lives? Or Are us Brits happier than we let on?

All these issues, beyond that of genetics, are considered by scientists to be too subjective, too emotional. Associate professor Wataru Sato and his team at Japan’s Kyoto University went one step further into trying to understand the basis of happiness. The researchers used scans to determine which areas of the brain are involved in people feeling happy. The results showed that volunteers who rated highly on happiness surveys had more grey matter (cells) in their brains.

MEDITATION/MINDFULNESS

Now, this is the magic part of this research. We know how we can increase the grey matter in our brains, we meditate. Brains scans have shown, for years, that mindful meditation increases the grey matter in the brain, especially around the areas that control our emotional experience in the limbic system. the bottom line is:  

It does not matter how good your life is materially, 

if you do not have enough grey  brain cells 

it will never feel good enough inside your emotions 

So, what we have learned is that if we do have a genetic predisposition to happiness we might be ahead of the game, and that the nearer we are to Scandinavia the more likely we are to have a positive genetic makeup. But that is not the end of it. We now know, from the scientific research, built around brain scans, shows that if you regularly meditate you will create more grey matter in your brain, ( it takes about two years of daily practice) and we know that more grey matter equal more positive control of our emotional self. In short it creates happiness.

The bottom line is that we all need to meditate and that we need to practise meditation persistently and consistently on a daily basis over time. If you know an experienced meditator you will be aware of their calmness and lack of stress. You may also be aware of their general efficiency is their work and their happiness in their life generally.

Devote some time to yourself, be happy and, if you can, try some meditation.

Take care

Sean x

   

Following on from the last episode I had a conversation with a group of workers who have decided to do something different. The group discussion got into the fear of staying where they are as opposed to the fear of change and owing something different. It would seem that one of the lessons gained from Covid over the last two years is that life is short and we need to get the best out of it that we can. This raised a lot of conversation about fears and inhibition. In the end of the twelve that were there about a third who decided that it was too scary to change, a third who were scared to stay as they are and a third who couldn’t decide. It was the younger ones who were more open to the idea of change and chancing a new way of life.

  What would be your dream job? 

If you could do what ever job you wanted what would it be?

Ed and I both feel like we are doing our dream jobs. We both love what we do and really enjoy the process of being alive. I always say that if you can wake up with a smile on your face and go to bed with a smile on your face then you have cracked it, you have got your life right.

The thing is that most of us do what we do because we feel that we have little and that we have no choice. At school most people are pushed to go in a certain way that the education system believes they will be good at. Or maybe it is security. When I was a kid I was told that if you worked in a bank, for the police, in health or as a teacher you will have a job for life. Well, that might be so true these days but back then people grabbed the jobs that was seen as safe and secure and hung onto them until retirement. That was true even if they hated the job, and they often did.

I have worked with so many people who not only hate their work life but don’t like their home life that much either. We can becomes trapped by those wonderful British attitudes…

‘Better the devil you know’

‘Leopard can’t change it’s spots’

‘Old dogs can’t learn new tricks’

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

‘Won’t be long it will be Friday’

‘It could be worse’

‘Why change, no one cares anyway’

‘The grass isn’t always greener’

…..this list goes ever on.

It has always been surprising to me how many people are not happy with their lives as they have been living them and yet they continue to do so year after year. Covid seems to have brought this into focus for a lot of people and the desire to change seems to be growing and turning into action. I have more people telling me that they are changing their jobs and I have teams struggling because their main experience base has left.

I believe that we can all find a way of living that works for us. And, if we are prepared to work at it we can find our dream life and our dream job.

For me it was the decision that whatever I would do with me life I would only do it if it made me happy. When I was honest with myself the two things that made me really happy was working with people and playing music and since the beginning of the 1980s that is exactly what I have done.

I couldn’t say that I have a dream job because I don’t feel like I go to work. I simply wake up with a smile on my face and get on with my life and I love it. The pleasure of working with people and watching them flower and discover who they really is a joy beyond words. That is even true of those that are the slow burners and take a very long time to change.

We all deserve to be happy and fulfilled. First, if you need to decide what would make you feel happy and fulfilled. Second, you need to gather the resources around you that you enable that change to take place. Third, you need the courage to dare yourself to be different and become what you would like. 

As they say, ‘who dares wins’.

Be happy and live your dream

Take care

Sean x