Archive for category: Blog

By virtue of what I do I meet lots of people who are very emotional. This is both men and women, though in my experience women find it a lot easier than the men. In therapy men often found it easier to work with a female therapist so that they do not feel so bad if the get emotional, our cry. Somewhere along the line we decided that men should be tough and it was okay for women to be vulnerable. We can come with a lot of evolutionary reason as to why that might be, but the reality in the present is that we all need to be able to express our feelings to be emotionally healthy.

We measure cardiovascular fitness by measuring how long it takes for your system to return to normal after you heart has topped out at in maximum beat rate. Our emotional health can be seen in the same way. How long does it take for us to return to normal after our emotions have spiked? In both cases the quicker that we can return our system to normal then the healthier we are.

We also know that once human kind left the African plains and headed north that they traded emotion for logic in order to survive the harsh weather and long winters. There is no room for error when you are in the cold because you simply die and that is the end of it.

Emotion is a powerful thing that enable us to drive forward and achieve what we need and want both individually and as a species. However emotion with out logic is senseless energy and can be destructive, just look at plastic, a great idea where no one thought about the consequences. Emotions are a normal part of the human system and should be seen as important as the heart or the brain. Without emotion we would be dead, we would not exist.

Neuroscience is clear that if we hold onto emotion and fail to express it as we need to then we become ill. trapped and unexpressed negative emotion creates psychosomatic illness primarily in the heart, lungs and gut but generally through out our organs and especially in the muscular skeletal system. More working days are lost through a bad back than anything else though this tension may be confused with anxiety or depression, it is the muscular tension that is the problem.

I want to focus on tears. We have made immense strides in understanding what tears are and how important they are to us. My resource on the podcast is a link to a site that shows the microscopic images of different tears and shows quite clearly that tears are different. The constituents in tears of joy, sadness, anger, grief, laughter and so on are all different.

What is emerging is that the human brain, unlike other animals, developed to extend the abilities and organs of the higher cortex, we call this intelligence. We also seem to be the only animals on the planet that cry. Or, perhaps we should say, need to cry. Why is this?

It seems that the human brain produces hormones and endorphins that are useful when required but when over produced need to be excreted because they can become harmful. The way that we normally excrete them is in our tears when we cry. We now know that when we hold our tears in the resultant stress on the vagus nerve that runs from the mid brain lambic system down through the body negatively stimulates the heart and other organs and we have a stress or ‘fight and flight’ response. When we cry the pressure comes of the vagus nerve and the stress response dies down.

I suspect that there is a strong correlation between the longevity of both men and women and their ability to cry. I suspect that because men cry less their body systems tend to be under more self imposed hormonal stress than the bodies of women.

However you look at it neuropsychology is clear that we need to cry more and not hold our emotions in. When we do this we, let our emotions go, we create greater emotional fitness.

Take care, be happy and if you are not feel free to cry about it

Sean x

Are you loyal?

What do you mean when you use the word loyalty?

Is loyalty the same as honesty and integrity?

This week on the show we had Alison Blackler who is both a coach and a therapist and as today, May 1^st, is National Loyalty Day in the USA we decided to dive in and have a look at it.

The idea that this is described as loyalty day interests me greatly because many of us, and perhaps you included, will know May 1^st as Labour Day. This was a socialist celebration of the workers when people would celebrate and have a party and sing ‘The Red Flag’, the socialist anthem.

In the 1920’s America had a severe reaction to socialism and communism. They talked about ‘Reds in the bed’ and how the communist revolution would sweep across the world.  The USA created a capitalist reaction to socialism and they renamed the day loyalty day so that Americans could show their loyalty and allegiance to the flag, the Stars and Stripes, and to the capitalist philosophy of the ‘free world’ while at the same time denigrating socialism and the Red Flag. The same thing happened again in the 1940s…

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term refers to U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s.

McCarthyism – Wikipedia

Many famous people, actors and artists, writers and academics, had their lives ruined by the McCarthy witch hunts.

The strange thing about loyalty is that both sides believe that they are right and the participants are committed and faithful to their own point of view.

I know that in the First World War, prior to a battle, both sides would hold a religious service and offer up prayers on the basis that both had a loyal faith that God was on their side. God was either on one side or the other, or neither, who knows? The participants were all loyal to the faith.

As I type this we are coming to terms with the recent Isis bombings in Sri Lanka. I assume that the Christians in the Churches had a loyal faith to their religion. I also assume that the followers of Isis also had a loyal faith to their religion and to their belief.

The problem, as I see it is that loyalty is always in the eye of the beholder and because of that we all mean different things when we declare our loyalty. the most common declared loyalty is in relationships and marriage, we call it love. However, we all mean different things when we use the word. If I say that I love and you reply that you love me too, how do we know that we both mean the same thing?

Loyalty, in general use, is a devotion and faithfulness to a nation, cause, philosophy, country, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another human being can be the object of loyalty.

(Wikipedia)

The more I think about it the more I feel that loyalty, for most people, is concerned with self interest. By that I do not mean self loyalty, which is sadly lacking and is much needed. I am talking about the associations and attachments that we make that are only as strong as what we need them to be at that moment. I have seen too many people change sides, leave causes and relationships after they decided that their loyalties will be better served elsewhere.

In the end the realisation is that we can only rely on other people for as along as we meet their needs so that loyalty is, in most cases, only skin deep.

Take care and be loyal to yourself

Sean x

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

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

We often see anger as a negative force. Though it can be a very creative and useful force. When our anger is stuck out the front of us it is in the way. It becomes a battering ram that bashes into other people and becomes destructive. When it is behind us it can be used as a power pack that can positively be a dynamic force, that drives us forward and gets things done.

This week after Ed and I did an anger podcast. Afterwards I was thinking a lot about how anger can effect each of us. Anger is really just another emotion, it is an energy. However anger is either a productive energy or a destructive energy. Anger can be described with other words such a passion, determination, assertion, drive, irritation, exasperation, vexation, indignation, displeasure, chagrin, aggravation and so on. Though in the extreme anger can sometimes tip over into aggression or even violence. 

When we have an anger response to a situation or event we are usually just reacting. Generally reactions are mindless. When we respond rather than react we think about what we are doing before we do it. Reactions are mindless where as responses are mindful. 

When we are mindful we realise that it is not what happens to us but it is how we deal with it that makes the difference. It will make it either good or bad. Simply, it is the way that we see it. As Epicticus put it…

…we are not in the least effected by events, 

we are effected by our response to those events…

Each day through out life we are surrounded by difficult news and experiences. As I write this there has been a terrible shooting in a mosque in New Zealand. For many people there will be a reaction to these events that will be anger. The world can seem to be a troubled place. I guess that we could say that the world is always a troubled place but somehow it can seem to be getting a bit worse. Anger and angry reactions seem to be all around us.

For me the reality of Brexit is coming to pass and I don’t like that. We have Trump spreading his wings and spreading his own brand of destabilisation across the globe and I don’t like that. Then we have North Korea off again producing missiles and winding up the anger of the USA, I don’t like that. I could go on. It seems like there might be quite a lot to let go of over the coming months

The New Zealand bombing brought back a lot of really big negative reactions with many of my clients. This was about different issues but mainly about the Manchester bombing in 2017. At that time I had two families that were caught up in the bombings. Luckily none of them were physically hurt though they had both seen people who were killed and they were showing high levels of post traumatic stress disorder. That scar of these events will remain with many people for such a long time. Yet after this event, amongst all the potential for hatred and retribution there came the love and forgiveness of a collective acceptance and forgiveness in a concert of those refusing to be cowed by the terrorism. In a deeply emotional experience Oasis sang…

…don’t look back in anger…  

There are no words more appropriate to this event and to our lives.  We all look back on life, we have a choice of looking at it positively or negatively. We have a mindful choice, do we feed the negative events of life with our anger and allow the negativities to grow in our mind and our emotions. The other option is to feed the positive events of life with our love and allow them to grow positively in our mind and our emotions.

Just after I started doing this podcast and blog there has been another terrorist shooting in the Netherlands. On top of that is the apparent growing knife crime here in the UK with several people being killed each week. If we are to move on from our anger about any events whatever they are we need to let them go. In general this is termed forgiveness and that idea makes many people feel angry. “Why should I forgive those people after what they did?”

Forgiveness and letting go

We need to let go of whatever is holding us back, of those things that keep us stuck in the past. These negative emotional attachments to unresolved events limit our ability to move forward, they stunt our creativity and weigh us down. To let go, to forgo, to forgive allows us to move forward unencumbered into the rest of our lives. 

Just as in Step One, from the Live In The Present course and book, we need to let go of all our negative attachments right back to the moment of our birth. Holding onto negative past is a choice, though we may not realise it. In mindfulness we can choose to be different, to let go and enjoy this wonderful thing called life. That mindful journey begins right here, right now. the option is to let go of your negative emotions and attachments and embrace your positive future.

Whatever your faith, religion, ethnicity, nationality, orientation, or beliefs enjoy this moment. As we move into this strange post Brexit world we all need to be as positive as we can possibly be with each other. We will be tested and we will need to let go and look after each other.

Take care 

Sean X