Archive for year: 2022

I have an Auntie who at the age of 94 remains so amazingly positive. She has a natural habit of positivity that will not allow anything to get her down. She genuinely sees the things that happen to her as lessons for her to learn and listening to her she has certainly been tested in her life. She has a very strong faith that certainly underpins her attitudes in life. She has the positive habit.

Doubt and fear are both forms of anxiety and worry. We know that worrying is a habit as is being happy. If you are a worrier, or if you are happy, then you were not born like it, 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 them and make them our own.

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 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 it that makes sense of it. Once we have attached the thought to that feeling they are forever connected so that when we feel it we think it and when we think it we feel it.

Mindfulness allows you to observe doubt and worry and 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 thoughts and feelings together they have a symbiotic relationship that is there forever unless until 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 our thinking feeling and doing that are creating our anxiety, worry, and stress. Often these are unconscious distortions that, through mindfulness, can become conscious and then we can deal with them.

So, first step is learn to observe your distortions…

Common Distortions

ref: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/anxiety_self_help.htm (Thanks for the site guys, a great resource)

All-or-nothing thinking – black-or-white – Life or death. Where are always 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. Or we can ask other people for their perspective and gain further insight.

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. If I wake in the morning with the idea “Oh no not again”, guess what kind of day I am about to have.

Negative focus – The magic of our perception is that we finely 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 soggy 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.

We don’t have problems we have learning opportunities

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”. This is the time to 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. “I love when good things happen. It means there is more good coming my way”.

Jumping to conclusions – Even when what is happening is plainly positive we can make negative interpretations without any actual evidence and without even realising that we are doing it. We can act like a mind reader, “I can tell she/he 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? Observe the positive and repeat it to yourself as positive reinforcement.

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 and equipped us with some pretty good creative skills that enable us to solve problems. If you can make a cup of tea you are a creative genius and, if you make a cup of tea you can solve a problem. 

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 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 that you have made and questioning them rather than accepting them can lead to new levels of understanding and self development.

‘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 like 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 is good to look at why you believe these things, what is going on? Where did you learn to think that way? Could have been a parent or sibling? This is a good time to look at reframing your thoughts and feelings, update them so that they can now serve you better.

Labelling – I resist 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 this was his issue and not mine and I relabelled myself positively, “I am clever and can do things”. Labelling yourself based on mistakes and perceived shortcomings such as “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 our control. “It’s my fault my son had 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.” We can not live other people’s lives like they are our own.

Worry and Doubt

Worry and doubt 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 the Live In the Present course as set out in our 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

Well, it is cold. Winter is upon us once again. With Covid it seems to have been a long time coming. Last year the warm weather stretched out into November that got us all talking about global warming. Then, suddenly with ferocity the weather has changed and we are in the grip of floods, tsunamis and even winter forrest fires. With global warming we were promised warm dry summers and cool wet winters and that is exactly that is what we have.

Many of the people I talk with are feeling a flat fatigue. This is true of those who have had and who have not had Covid. It is as though our battery is flat and needs charging. Our energy always changes between the seasons just feel that this year covid has made it so much bigger. There is a stark contrast between the world in the warmth of the summer and that in the cold of the winter. One of the main things that we don’t realise is the effect that we feel from the ionisation of the air around us. Each atom has an electrical charge on it. When the charge is negative then we feel bright and light and energised. When the charge is positive we feel flat, oppressed and out of steam. In the winter the air is often filled with positive irons that can make us feel negative. It is those days that are grey and over cast with the damp chill that reaches into you bones the air is filled with positive ions. When you are on a side of a mountain with clear blue sky’s watching the sun glint on the snow the air is filled with negative ions. It seems back to front but…

Positive ions make you feel bad

Negative ions make you feel good  

As water meet the air ions are released. In an energetic splashing there are streams of negative ions given off. These make us feel brighter and awake. The effect happens by rivers, the sea, fountains and most commonly the shower that wakes us up in the morning. A bath, on the other hand, where the water is hot and still there are lots of positive ions given off that may make us feel relaxed but also can make us sleepy. 

The other winter effect is the lack of sun light. This leads to the inevitable drop in our level of Vitamin D. This leads to a change in our brain chemistry. A drop in our level of vitamin D leads to a drop in the level or serotonin, the happy hormone. This normally, leads to feelings of down-ness and flatness often described as SAD syndrome. Sometimes I wonder why, in evolution, we bothered to move away from the equator where levels of vitamin D are high and SAD syndrome never heard of.

When it gets cold, damp and dark we seek the comfort that through evolution has been supplied by carbohydrates. Carbs make the brain secrete serotonin. In the winter we self medicate with carbs and tend to put weight on. The best form of carbs is in cake, bread, pastas, puddings, biscuits, and so on. Carbs kick your brain into producing endorphins that make you feel good which is why they are called comfort food.

Carbs = comfort

Take a holiday

I know we have all the restrictions of covid but why do we take our main holiday in the summer? Would it not make more sense to enjoy the British summer, even if it is a bit wet, and then, when it is dark and cold, jump on a plane and go somewhere hot and sunny. If we did that we would boost our Vitamin D and keep our mood raised up.

Exercise

Another way to counteract the effect of the darkness is to move more. When it is cold the idea of huddling around a coal/log fire and staying in becomes very attractive and comforting. Yet this can increase our intake of comfort food and maybe the odd drink. We can become lazy. However, if we make the effort to move our body we can raise our mood and feel better. Twenty minutes of raised heart rate will make your brain secrete happy hormones and endorphins that will make you feel happier. The drive from the health authorities is to get everyone walking for at least half an hour a day or the classic 10,000 step. If we all did this we would reduce our levels of illness, improve our mental health, loose some weight and get happier. Of course it goes without needing to say it that it would also save the health authorities a lot of money. Maybe with covid it would also lessen the demand on NHS services.

Time to get social

Don’t be a hermit, Covid permitting, get out and meet people or invite people into your home. Socialise, have parties, cook meals and enjoy the company of others. Being with others, sharing the feeling of belonging and sharing fun and laughter all increase our levels of happy hormones. We are naturally hunter gatherers who live and interact in social groups. They do not live alone in small family units in little boxes they are a natural social community.

Get social and get some exercise

As Ed would tell us we all need to get out more walking and cycling. Apart from any direct physical health benefits this might bring it also helps us recreate our communities as we can directly interact with our neighbours and community members. This is something that is impossible when we are stuck in the car.

Make love

Did you know that when we have a particularly dark and cold winter the birth rates can rise by up to 18%. The joke always was that a couple go to bed early to save candles and money and end up having more children. However, we do know that good positive love making does increase our endorphins and increases our happiness. It also helps us to keep warm on a cold night and save on the heating.

Slow down and enjoy

It is natural to slow down and sleep more in the winter. Most of nature takes a break in the winter. The birds fly south, all of the plants go to sleep and many animals go into hibernation. The one species that does not slow down that carries on in a mad dash is us, human beings. We have stopped living in the natural rhythm of nature and life. As hunter gatherers we would have gone to sleep when it got dark and woken up when it got light. We now go to work in the dark come home in the dark, work crazy shifts for excessive hours and for many day never see the sun and then we wonder why our vitamin D level is low. This maybe a good time to get a vitamin test from your GP and perhaps take a supplement if you need it. 

If we were living in the natural rhythms of nature winter would be our chance to rest and relax and restore ourselves for the hard work in the spring ahead. A time to gather around log fires and get Hyyge. A time to enjoy the joy of story telling, socialisation, and developing family relationships and friendships. A time to mend nets, repair the tools, learn to sew and knit and chat about life and sharing experiences, learn our own history and teach and learn new skills. A time to enjoy winter foods, puddings custard and cake.

The more I think about it the more I see why the Nordic countries developed their various versions of Hyyge to live enjoy and survive their short winter days.

Be happy and do what you need to ensure you enjoy your winter and make it a winter wonderland for you and those around you.

Take care

Sean x

Every January we have what is described a Blue Monday that’s is said to be the saddest day of the year. A questionable claim. But why would we get depressed at this time of year? Well we have just been through the joy of Christmas and New Year, probably have credit card debt to clear, have given up the booze for dry January and are trying to get back into work/school mode. Plus it is dark and cold and the summer holiday can feel a long way off. But hey ho this year we have even or weight on the blue shoulders because we have the ongoing Covid as well and we could throw in the BoJo nonsense for good measure. But it is not all bad. There is a good side to depression we just have to realise it.

Depression may be our brain’s way of telling us to stop, 

slow down and solve problems

There is a theory that suggests that rather than being a problem depression might be a specific behavioural strategy that we have evolved as a biological adaptation that serves a purpose. As Matthew Hutson agrees and explains in a Nautilus feature on the potential evolutionary roots of depression and suicidal behaviour , that the purpose of depressions might be to make us… 

…stop, understand, and deal with an important problem.

Figures for the USA, which are probably reflected in Europe, suggest that at any given time, about 5% of people report symptoms of moderate or severe depression. Major depressive disorder is now so common that at some point in life, one in six people  will suffer from it.

So why does such a debilitating condition strike so many people? 

The traditional understanding is that depression is just a breakdown in the normally working of the brain. This is seen as a chemical imbalance that is treated by chemical medication designed to balance chemistry, change mood and create shifts in  behaviours.

Could depression have developed to help us?

Evolutionary psychologist Paul Andrews and psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson first elaborated on this idea, called the “analytical rumination hypothesis,” in an article published in Psychological Review in 2009.

Their idea is that what we think of as a disorder is actually a way for our brains to analyse and dwell on a problem in the hopes of coming up with a way to deal with it. The researchers suggest it’s possible that a difficult or complex problem triggers a “depressive” reaction in some people that sends them into a sort of analytical mode. 

This intrigues me greatly because in the Ayurvedic model, my original training, depression was seen as a gift, as a way of our system telling us that something was wrong and giving us the chance to sort it out. This would explain the increased rumination that arising in depressive episodes. Along side this in and increase in dream sleep. The two phases of sleep are deep sleep (NREM) and dream sleep (REM). It is assumed that deep sleep is the resting phase concerned with repair of the body and dream sleep is an active phase concerned with processing experience and emotion. In depression the dream sleep eats into the deep sleep so that despite sleeping for long periods of time the person does not experience rest and may become progressively more tired.

The concept that depression might be and evolutionary adaptation rather than a mental disorder is not the main consensus of the mental health community. in reality it cannot be true for all depression. It would be true for those suffered get reactive depression in response to a trauma or traumatic stimulus. Even so this could still account for around 80% of depressive episodes.

The problem is that in most cases depression is not the cause it is the symptomatic response to the cause. In western medicine we tend to treat the symptom and pay little ot no attention to the cause. 

It could be that if we accepted depression asa gift and took the opportunity to undertake a self audit to enable us to get our lives back on track. Instead we treat depression negatively as a problem and medicate the symptoms and fail to deal with the cause. It would make sense that if alongside medication we engaged in mindful therapy we could speed up treatment and help to dissolve depressive episodes.

MBCT

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is designed to deal with and overcome issue of reactive or repetitive depression. MBCT, is recommended by the United Kingdom’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) for the prevention of recurrent and reactive depression and has also been shown to be effective in treating the symptoms of anxiety.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

The question is are therapist born or are they trained? Well, reality is that some people are naturally caring, empathic but also objective enough to be n atrial therapists. Therapy, support has been around throughout evolution it did not begin just because someone create a training course. Many people train as therapist though the value of the training will vary greatly. This maybe to do with the quality of the training program itself or the quality of the people delivering it.

Personal therapy, especially since Covid, has to the the growth industry of the next fifty years. That is both good and bad. Yes we need more therapist just as we need a more caring nurturing attitude to each other in life. However, many therapist that are trained become booked learned theorists who understand the cognitive bit but do not have the empathic, sensitivity needed to be a good therapist. Actually sensitivity can be learned. The problem is that the courses do not do that. Their interest is in the academic process. 

I have completed four degrees and a plethora of diplomas and certificates. In doing so I have met so many therapists and trainee therapists. Sadly some lacked the necessary sensitivity and empathy to enable them to be, in my terms, ‘a good’ therapist. This is often true of cognitive behavioural therapists, not all but many, that are trained in a logical technical method of attempting to get people to understand themselves. However, CBT is often only truly effective for cognitive issues but has little lasting longterm effect on emotional issues.

The point I am getting to is that just because some has a degree or a diploma in therapy it does not mean that they are any good. There are many lay therapists out there helping people. They may have no qualifications at all and yet they are doing phenomenal and truly life changing work. The thing that is really is the true training needed to create a good therapist is not taught on a course. the real training comes from living that thing called ‘life’. Those people that have worked through their own difficulties and issues, have faced and overcome their own problems have a natural empathy for others that are in emotional pain. Unless someone has an exceptional imagination the only way to true understanding is through life experience. 

So why train?

They way I see it is that a good training programme will make a natural therapist even better. It will explain mental, emotional and psychological processes in a coherent way that will enhance the naturally ability and understanding of the practitioner. If we are to practise professionally we all need a coherent theoretical model to relate back to. We need to understand developmental processes, defence mechanisms and so on. So, yes all therapist need to be trained. Though we have to realise that a training program will enhance the abilities of the natural therapist allowing them to put what they already know in a system and of course they will learn new things and skills. Training will only make a purely cognitive mind and full living manual of theoretical knowledge to be shared as therapy. I am not saying that you can’t learn from courses or that you have to experience everything in human experience yourself before you can help other people with it. I am saying that when you have, or are developing, insight and empathy you can empathise with another person’s emotional experience and be a useful therapist. 

Yes get trained.

Finding a therapist

When it come to finding a therapist the best way is by word of mouth, recommendation. Good therapists rarely advertise as they have little need to as they normally have a full diary and may even have a waiting list.

Becoming a therapist 

If your are considering becoming a therapist, as I suggested you may be doing it anyway, a good thing to try are the ten week introduction courses that are run by colleges that also run certificate and diploma courses. This will give you a good insight in both the counselling process and the techniques required. You will them be able to make a choice as to what direction you would take from there.

If you would like to ask anything or chat anything through drop me a message and I will get back to you.

Take care and be happy

Sean x