Calm Under Pressure

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It always seems amazing when a dramatic situation develops somewhere in the world and, what seems to be, the whole of humanity come together in a spirit of good will with the desire to get something right. We have just experienced this when the Wild Boars football team became trapped in a cave system alongside their coach. Luckily the coach was an ex Buddhist monk, of ten years standing, who taught the team to meditate and await a rescue that non of them knew would come.

In the ‘Intention Experiment’ quantum physicists tell us that it is now possible to measure the energy leaving one person and measure it arriving at another person. You might call this energy good will, love, prayer, absent healing and so on but I suspect that a lot of positive energy was raining down on these guys and, amazingly, they all got out. Though we do have to offer our prayers and thanks to the Thai Navy Seal, and his family, who lost his own life in helping those trapped children.

The fact that the coach was trained in Mindfulness and meditation was probably the deciding factor in their survival. That had a limited oxygen supply and they were on the edge on hypoxia when they finally got out. In calmness their respiration would have been slower and they would have used less of their vital resource of oxygen. When people are anxious they breathe shallow and fast.

Considering that all beings on planet Earth can count their breaths in an average life time at around 700 million each breath has a value that should not be wasted. This amount of breaths is as true for an elephant as for a mouse. Mice have short fast breaths and get through their allotted amount much quicker than an elephant who has deep slow breaths. Those of us who are anxious and suffer from a raised heart rate and a raised respiration will die sooner than those of us who are calmer with a slower heart and respiration rate.

Unless we learn to be mindful and observe our breath we will never be truly aware of what is going on in our system. Using mindfulness, relaxation, exercise and meditation we can slow both our heart rate and respiration and increase our chances of living a longer and happier life.

 Being in your own cave

The cave metaphor is often used to describe that inner space that we all retreat to when we are under threat. We would say that a man goes to his man cave, well so do women but in a different way to men.

Sometimes when life feels like it is too much the only place we can go is within. Our computer inboxes maybe full to bursting, our emotional inbox may be full to bursting and our mental inbox likewise. Our systems are in overload, colleagues and family are now too much, and all too often deliverables seem, well, undeliverable.

However hard we work, we don’t always meet our goals for the day or the week or the month. New urgent tasks come to us before old ones are done. Sometimes we react by behaving badly, or perhaps we agree to everything, even knowing that we cannot do it all, and the pressure builds inside us. Sometimes we blame ourselves for not being good enough, or our colleagues, family and friends, and we forget we are all in this thing called life together.

Could this be positive?

Seen another way pressure could just be a positive force; it can help us to be better at our jobs, relationships and lives. Pressure can motivate us to be a better person. It can trigger incredible creativity, and boost productivity. The trick is to mindfully manage what we are thinking, feeling and doing. We need to re-examine how we deal with it, and we can be there for each other. In mindfulness we are gathering tools that work best for each and all of us.

If we all look after each other we will all be okay

There are massive changes coming to the UK with Brexit and to the whole world with changes in economic power and global warming. There is a great deal to do, especially in the coming months. However, if we are mindful of the responsibility we have for ourselves, and if we support each other, we will, in the end, all be alright.

The basic premise of mindfulness is that being present with what is happening now, in this moment, it stops us from ruminating about the past or future, and brings about clarity and focus. This does not mean that we deliberately allow ourselves to stay focused on how overwhelmed we feel at this moment. In fact, by stopping the flow of ruminating thoughts and being mindful, we are able to change the way we experience what is going on right now, and turn the negative aspects of pressure into the positive ones.

We don’t have problems we have learning opportunities

When we feel pressured, for example, if we are working under a tight deadline at work or at home, our concern can become the belief that we won’t meet the deadline, that we will fail and because we believe we can’t, we don’t.

Thoughts become things.

Rumination and disbelief is the way that thoughts become things. However, we have a choice. Rather than reacting to a feeling of being under pressure by assuring ourselves of our failure, we can for a second or two, notice ourselves breathing in and out, and give ourselves a moment to observe what is really going on. This way we are able to change our reaction, which is mindless, into a thoughtful response, which is mindful.

Stop. Breathe. Respond. Observe the pressure; don’t become it

Having a positive self-perception is a key component in transforming our ability to manage pressure. This is called self-compassion. We need to like ourselves and to know we are worthy as human beings. However, we should also have compassion for others. One person should never think that they are better than another person. It is only when we can recognise the positive aspects of ourselves that we are then able to recognise them also in others.

Reflecting on the plight of the Wild Boars, it is when we find ourselves in a negative internal cave, in the darkness and unable to see the light, that we need to remain calm, relax, meditate and await our own rescue. In this case it is the rescue that comes from mindful practices and the insight that allows the light to penetrate our darkness. So often that light will be self-compassion.

Take care, be happy and be calm

Sean x

 

 

 

 

 

Lifelong Learning

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This week we were responding to a request from a listener who has decided to go back into training as part of a career change. Their comment was that going back into learning as a mature student is a bit tricky. I have to say maybe not. We can certainly get out of the habit of learning and yet all the evidence would tell us that when we keep on learning we create new brain cells and stay younger for longer. As Winston Churchill put it…

…Never, never, never give up!

At what point do people give up and stop learning? Often working and learning go together.

When I was a child we had fireworks every November 5th. On the box was written the instruction “light the blue touch paper and retire”. Later this was developed to simply “stand well back”. Now, I think stand well back is what people sometimes do when they embrace the idea of retirement, they stand well back from life and for many this is the beginning of the end.

I believe that a fulfilled life is about learning, that learning is living and that, for most of us, unless we have engaging habits, living and learning is what we call working. It is engagement. I meet people in their 30s and 40s who have stopped learning and are in the process of becoming old. I also meet people in their 80s and 90s who are still young. The realisation is that age is a number and that we can be a 10 year old adult or a 60 year old child.

Everybody, every being, on the planet is involved with their own work, their work is their life. The other day the children laughed at me when I referred to a spider as a person. The spider, female in this case, from my point of view, has rights just like you and me. Some people become spider phobic and may even want to kill it, but for me, the spider, is doing what we are all doing she is living and doing her work, living her life.

All beings work. Everyone on this planet from ants to elephants work. Working is engagement in the process of living. Essentially this means, getting up in the morning and going about the business of finding food, creating shelter and safety and raising the next generation.

Working and living should be the same thing…

Some of us, perhaps all of us, also play as well as work. Dogs obviously, primates definitely, when I go for my early runs the horses are playing chase around the field, maybe even ants have their own down time and play as well. Essentially living and working are the same thing. We need to be engaged in our life because without engagement in the work/living process we die. Food and shelter are fundamental, they are our essential work.

However, compared to all the other beings on the planet, human beings are different in two ways. The first is that we have a much longer childhood, not maturing until we are twenty five years old, which is a hugely non productive, non working time, supported by parents and society, however this does allow for much longer brain development and evolutionary advantage. We also have money.

Money has a unique effect for humans. We no longer need to work like all other species. We no longer need to be doing our essential work. We no longer need to go and catch or grow our food. We do abstract things with our time, that we call work, and collect tokens, that we call money, for doing it. We then exchange these tokens for food and shelter, services and even safety. So, for many humans, the concept of ‘work’ has become very different and over away from the concepts of living. Someone who writes or paints or produces cars, widgets or computers is no longer doing the essential work of life, other people do it for them. People then pay those that do the essential work with the tokens.

The strange thing is that those among us who do essential work become ever fewer and fewer. We have moved away from essential work and nature to the point that if the majority of us were required to become essential workers again we would not have a clue how to go about it. The plethora of TV programmes about groups of people abandoned somewhere like an island and having to survive is testament to this. Both practically and socially because many fail.

Now then, when you live the ‘normal’ life of an essential worker, which must be within the rhythms of nature and season, it is a life long task. Any species that decided they had had enough and stopped doing their essential work would die, simple. Yet socially and financially human beings have created this strange state termed retirement, when they stand back from life, cease to learn and to be productive and yet survive. I guess I should qualify that statement with reference to the industrial world and the west. There are many countries where social welfare does not exist and retirement would be impossible.

There is a strong case for not retiring.

Reason not to retire

1: We know that it is in the process of engagement and life long learning that new brains cells are created and that people remain younger for longer.

2: When people become physically less active and more sedentary they develop more diseases both physical and emotional.

3: Those that maintain a working function maintain and develop social relationships and maintain a sense of belonging and engagement.

4: Productive people have a stronger sense of self and self esteem.

I could go on, and on. I guess the big one that has hit the western industrial world is that supporting retired people costs much more money than anyone ever expected and we can’t afford it. This is where the money token idea begins to breakdown and why capitalism is destined to fail.

I know from my own clients that the people who continue to work, and I see many people still at work in the seventies, even If that work is voluntary, yet regular and committed to everyday attendance, have higher levels of self esteem and enjoyment, have a stronger sense of purpose and value. They have stronger immune systems stay younger for longer.

At what point do we stand back from life, do we retire? For some people this begins at thirty, forty or fifty and for others it never happens. My definition of success and happiness is waking with a smile on your face feeling that you have something that you truly want to get out of bed for. That you have something to go and do that is both meaningful and fulfilling. For many this is called work, though many do not realise it until they retire. And, if it is not organised official work it can be a voluntary contribution to life or a lot of engaging habits.

Whether you trade you life energy for money, or the love of it, don’t stand back, remain involved and engaged in the process of life and living. I promise you that you will be happier and that you will stay younger for longer. It is all about mindful choices and never giving up.

Take care be happy and keep on doing and learning!

Sean x

 

Intolerance

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It is said that the only thing that we should be intolerant of is intolerance. This is a paradox as to be tolerant of intolerance means that we are supporting the very opposite of what we are seeking to promote. To be tolerant of intolerance can also create the most destructive of emotions and actions.

If a ‘Hitler’ were to emerge again today, someone who inspired other people to go and kill another six million people in cold blood, would it be ok to tolerate this behaviour or should we go to war to challenge this? For me the answer is an undoubted ‘yes’ we go to war. I don’t want to go to war and I think that killing, in all forms is wrong, and yet yes, I would go and fight to protect the freedom of us all.

What is your intolerance?
There is a sense in which we all need to understand and accept that we are each intolerant of different things. The Mindful approach is to be aware enough to be able to see our own intolerance and to do our best to not let this affect or infect other people’s worlds or experiences.

One problem!
How do I know that I am right?

One of the principles of Mindfulness is in understanding that the mind will present our thoughts and beliefs as though they are facts. At best our opinion is biased and at worst it is prejudice. We assume that we know things, perhaps we do not?

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter

In all cases of tolerance and intolerance there is the issue of which side are you on? If both sides believe that they are right and that they are fighting for a just cause. At the outset, if both believe that God is on their side then technically they cannot both be right. So, how do we know what is the right thing to do, what should we be tolerant of?

The feeling behind intolerance
For me, most cases of tolerance and intolerance are not cognitive they are emotional. It probably comes down to what do you feel rather than what do you think. When we attend to our own intuition we can often get a gut feeling about something. It is a bit like a piece of Litmus paper that will tell us instantly if a substance is acid or alkaline. You intuition works in the same way. When you listen to your inner voice, to your intuition, it will tell you instantly how things are. Our intuition is probably as close as we can get to making sense of what is right and wrong and what is tolerable.

My inner voice tells me that all behaviours that harm other beings in any way are intolerable. This includes all forms of bullying, abuse, deprivation, manipulation, exploitation, and so on. In my world this means that the behaviour of many professionals from politicians, lawyers, estate agents, car salesmen and, most managers are unacceptable and intolerable. As a vegetarian I would include the killing of animals and the eating of meat, but this is just my own point of view.

Tolerance always has a bias. Perhaps it is working for the best results for the majority that is as good as we can get. When it works well we call this democracy. Perhaps at an individual level, our responsibility is to question what we feel, what we do, why we think what we think? If we listen to our inner voice we might just get it right for our self and hopefully for other people as well.

Think about your intolerance and how it effects other people. Also check out your tolerance and how it effects other people. You may be surprised at what you find. If some things seem unresolvable you may need to check your attitudes out with a therapist to enable you to understand where you are up to, how you got there and where you are going.

One thing that I can assure you of is that tolerance is a lot less stressful than intolerance.

Take care be happy and be as tolerant as you can be

Sean x

How to be a Mindful Mother

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Childhood is probably the most important time of our lives. It is the time when we lay the foundations of all that will follow in our life and effects our expectations, relationships and our entire wellbeing. It follows from that, that being a parent has to be the most important job in the world.

This week on the podcast Ed and I were joined by Tanya Leary. Tanya has written the most amazing book ‘Time for Bed, Baby’ Illustrated by Lisa Williams. The book is multilayered, aimed at both the child and the mother.

It is hard to get it wrong

When you come out of the delivery room with your first new born baby there is no manual and there are no instructions printed on the babies back, this is all new and down to you. Chances are that the only information that you will have is that which you observed in your own childhood. Unless you have read or studied a lot, or have had some extra input, then what happened to you as a child will be the sum total of your experience, knowledge and expectations. We are normally simply playing pass the parcel as we pass what was taught to us onto the next generation.

It can work the other was and it could be that what happened to you as a child created a reverse effect in the sense that you decided that you would not treat your children the way that you were treated. This is still a response to what you observed and experienced as a child. In that sense we are all the product of not just our experience but of how we responded to that experience. That means that we can, when we treat it positively turn a bad situation into a good one.

As long as we approach life Mindfully, and in this case we are talking about motherhood, fatherhood and parenting, we will, in the end, get it right. I had a difficult childhood, left home at the age of fifteen and did not have a good internal working model of what a parent should be. The result of this is that I got it wrong for my eldest children. Not intentionally but I was learning on the job and having to back fill the deficits in my own observed experience from my own childhood. I think that I did get it right later on or at least got better at it. It just took time to learn.

Training in psychology, especially Bowlby’s attachment theory, made me realise just how important early attachment is to both the primary carer, usually the mother, and the secondary carer, usually the father. In my case it was the lack of positive attachment to the secondary career that created the problem. When it came to me becoming a father I didn’t understand how to do, I had never been shown. The only working models of fatherhood that were in my experience were all negative.

Talking with Tanya, who has had her own difficulties to deal with, it seems clear that when we are open to our true feelings and we are responsive rather than reactive then we have a chance of getting it right.

Self Compassion

Women, in the main, put other people first and them self and their needs last. I spend a lot of time encouraging female clients to develop enough self compassion to at least make their own needs equal first with everyone else. These ideas Tanya has included in her book. She suggests some down time for mums and some exercises that may help mums in letting go of negativity and doubts, stress and worry and develop more confidence in being a mum.

When I suggest that if we were all to look after each other then everyone’s needs would be met, I should also include the idea that we need to include ourself in the list of those that need to be looked after.

The punch line of her book, and I would say the punch line of life is that if we can teach our children the skills of being Mindful and we do this by allowing them to observe us being mindful then in just one generation we could change the human psyche to be more inclusive and more positive.

This may sound like a tall order but it is do-able it just needs some persistent and consistent action and the willpower to see it through.

As in all things change starts here and change starts now – but only if we want it too…

Take care and be happy

Sean x

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imposter Syndrome

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This podcast was requested by a listener who feels that she has lost her self confidence to the point where she feels like an imposter or a fraudster when she is doing her job. This has led her to becom over alert, vigilant and anxious to the point where she is now beginning to make mistakes. The feeling of being a fraudster or an imposter is much more common than we maybe realise and I often deal with. I see GPs, consultants and surgeons, directors, chief execs, actors and performers feeling that they cannot do whatever it is that they do or have done for years. It is as though logically they know they are okay but emotionally they feel that they just can’t do it.

Self-doubt may be a good thing

I believe that a healthy level of self-doubt is not only a common thing but, I would maintain, is a positive thing. It is powerful to question what we do, to review and improve. It is that mindful magic of being able to observe ourselves positively, with kindness and compassion, not critically, and respond and change as is appropriate to better who we are.

Arrogance is not confidence

When we feel that we are always right people can then see us as confident. Those that need to be always right usually lack the confidence to be questioned or to question themselves. It can be short journey of confidence to arrogance. Once we feel that we know it all we have no where to go and nothing to learn. At that point we become emotionally and mentally stunted and tend to disconnect from those around us. If I know everything then you have nothing to tell me or show me, therefore whatever you say is really meaningless.

Of course there are people who are genuinely confident and people who do genuinely know a lot of things. The truly confident person is secure enough to question themselves and to allow others to question them without feeling insecure.

Are you confident?

Where does your confidence come from? Or where does you lack of confidence come from? For me, I think it is all down to the parents and that early time in life when we establish the foundation of who we are. Unless something happens to make us review and reprogram then we just carry on the same story line for the rest of our life.

Reactive anxiety

We may lose confidence in who we are or what we do at any time in life. This is often a reaction to an event. It could simply be that after a car accident we now question our ability to drive, or for a surgeon following a patient death, an actor who gets bad reviews, a sales person who fails to hit their target, a mother who can’t stop her baby crying. The stimulus will vary but it happens when what we thought we could always do, or when the things that we did without even thinking are called into question.

This sense of failure happens to most of us at sometime and then we question our own ability and we can then feel like an imposter. Everybody else sees us and the situation as business as usual and they do not see what is going on inside us. If we dare to share with others what we are actually feeling we often get a ‘pull yourself together’ or ‘don’t be so stupid’ message.

Emotion and mind

A developing sense of imposter syndrome can develop from a conflict between thinking and feeling. The thinking self knows that we are qualified, experienced and capable but the emotional self adds in that little pinch of doubt. It is now that we can begin to feel like a fraud.

Mindfulness

I am in danger of sounding like ‘mindfulness fixes all’ though it is usually true. When we have imposter syndrome it is an anxiety and anxieties are learned behaviours which if left alone become our habits. We may begin to learn the concept that we are a failure or that we got it wrong through direct experience or from other people that are influential in our life such as parents, partners, bosses and so on. When we engage in mindfulness we can observe what we are thinking, feeling or doing and we can decide whether or not we want to feed this idea with our attention or starve it by letting it go. ‘What you feed grows and what you starve dies’.

The observer self can also observe what other people are saying to us and how we react to it. We then have choice and we can choose to respond rather than react and decide whether or not we want to own the feedback other people are giving to us. When we have choice we have the potential to change.

In the extreme when we can’t shift the negative feelings that make us feel like a failure or an imposter we may need to see a therapist or do a mindfulness course. Most importantly we do not have to put up with it we can change it.

Take care, be happy and be yourself.

Sean x

 

Dealing with Disappointment

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Being disappointed in life goes along with the theme of

‘do we have a problem or a learning opportunity?’.

Disappointment assumes that we have some sort of failure which is often based in unrealistic expectation. Because these assumptions of an expected outcome involve projecting into the future, it usually means that the feelings of disappointment are usually on the anxiety spectrum. We have an expectation of what will happen, what will be the outcome, in the future. We then live that expectation in the present and then feel the disappointment when it does not come to pass as we expected it to. These expectations may be within or below our awareness. But when it does not happen or fails we then register disappointment, we didn’t get what we wanted or what we expected.

Because of the relationship between expectation and disappointment it is always true that…

You can’t be disappointed without your permission.

We have to buy into the concept. So often we simply set ourselves up to be disappointed. You first have to buy into the concept of wining and losing, of gain and loss, achievement and failure. These concepts involve the separation of ‘us’ and ‘them’ or ‘you’ and ‘me’. For ‘me’ to win or succeed ‘you’ have to lose or fail’. If ‘we’ win ‘they’ lose. Though the disappointment is if ‘they’ win then ‘we’ lose

In the personal sense for ‘me’ to succeed at the interview and get the job ‘you’ will be disappointed. On the other hand ‘you’ get the job then ‘I’ will be disappointed. Unless we begin to see this process of winning and losing in a different way. Perhaps these things that I identify as disappointments are actually good things.

My own assumption is that the universe is not out to get me and that the things that I am presented with are for my own growth and development. I am not a fatalist I believe in free will but I do get and understand the law of attraction and see that the things that happen to me do so because they are meaningful to me and my level of development. I see the same things as true for you also. When you can see it this way nothing is ever bad. It is my response to what happens that labels it good or bad.

What if I didn’t get the job because, in the greater scheme of things, it would have been damaging to me or the wrong direction for me, held me back and not allowed me to develop to even greater things? If this were the case the fact that I didn’t get the job should be a focus of celebration and thanks not of disappointment and loss.

To be disappointed assumes…

1: Expectation. This is craving, my demand for the outcome that my ego seeks. When we project forward in expectation of outcomes, be they good or bad, we are firing up our anxiety circuits. When we learn to see the things that happen in life not as problems but as learning opportunities anxiety dissolves. If you consider that the human race has survived because we each have this amazing problem solving ability that, should we need it, will come to our aid and solve whatever the issue is that we are faced with.

We don’t have problems we have learning opportunities.

2: Loss. This is attachment, my inability to let go of my feelings of possession for things, people, events or the belief of what I saw as ‘mine’ creates disappointment. It could be that I saw the job as ‘mine’ before I went to the interview. This attachment to the past creates depression. When we feel the loss or bereavement for what was, or for what might have been we often ruminate. When this happens the rumination keeps the disappointment alive, so that even many years after an event it may still feel like it is live action as though it has just happened.

When we learn to let go we overcome depression and stop projecting into the future we can live in the present and not be disappointed about our experience. In the present, in the now there can never be any disappointment because there is no attachment to the past and there is no carving for the future. The trick to living in the present is gratitude. The following is attributed to Buddha.

Let us rise up and be thankful,

for if we didn’t learn a lot today,

at least we learned a little,

and if we didn’t learn a little,

at least we didn’t get sick,

and if we got sick,

at least we didn’t die;

so, let us rise up and be thankful.

At the end of each line of the above is the option to be disappointed or grateful. It is a choice. A choice not of what happens it is the way that we see it.

We are not effected by events but by our response to those events.

In a very real sense being disappointed is a choice. What do you choose?

Take care

Sean X

Gaming Addiction

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Did you catch the news this week? The world health organisation, ‘WHO’, has now classified internet game addiction as a recognised disease. Is it right? What is an addiction?

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. We think of drugs or alcohol. We might even consider the workaholic. Which ever way we view it addiction is seen as a negative.

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 habit that we practice. 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 they either can restore the exercise and the chemistry or undergo the ‘cold turkey’ of drug withdrawal.

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, brain they become our habit and our chemical normal. The issues of anxiety, anger, depression, love and happiness may also be our addictions.

So what is your addiction?

Your chemical normal is the one that makes you feel just right. It comes from you 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 which ones 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

 

Mindfulness and Mental Health

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In most cases the press around mindfulness is all good and positive. We know that the use of mindfulness practises, such as meditation and learning to live in the present, reduce stress and can alleviate both depression and anxiety. However, there are a few people who, by using mindfulness techniques, disturb deep held emotions they can be disturbing or distressing.

This week I was reading around some negative attitudes and ideas around the practice of mindfulness. There have been several cases when people have reported having negative experience as a result of practising mediation. So, what is this?

When you attend a mindfulness course, such as MBSR or a meditation course such as the Vipassana ten day retreat, there will be some form of vetting, some sort of assessment, to limit any participant who may have a negative experience as a result of practising mindfulness meditation. I should say that people in this situation represent a minute percentage of the population. Although this is something that we should be aware of.

The key often is the person running the course. Some people will set them selves up as a teacher without being appropriately trained and experienced? Any intervention into another persons headspace should only be undertaken responsibly and indeed mindfully. The MBSR register lists suitable qualified teachers who have undergone considerable and in-depth training, have experience in mindful practice, adhere to a code of ethics and so on.

We all have memory. Some of those memories will be good and some bad. In our cognitive mind we store this information and we use the mechanism of recall to access it. However some memories may be too difficult for the consciousness mind to deal with. When this happens the mind has a mechanism to lock those unwanted memories away in boxes in the attic of our mind. This is called repression or sometimes lost memories. There are a variety of mechanisms that can pull these memories out. The first is trauma when an event with a similar feeing releases a lost memory. The second is association that might be a smell, a sound, a colour and so on that resonates with memory and brings it back to the surface. Techniques such as hypnotherapy will release memory and so can meditation.

For most of us our meditation releases memory in bite sized chunks that we process and resolve and then move on. For those with psychiatric or cognitive disorders the chunks may be too big or our ability to process them diminished. It is this last case that leads people to question the effects of mindful meditation.

So, the things to look out for are first does your teacher have the experience and the knowledge to assist you as you memories release? Second, and perhaps most importantly, if you are meditating independently and you have deep, distressing or meaningful memory release that you cannot, or find it difficult to, process do something about it. See a psychotherapist, a counsellor, refer to your meditation teacher. Do whatever you need to do to process and not ruminate on unresolved past emotional memory. This is the seat of depression that can in turn lead to anxiety.

It is not enough to practice mindfulness we must also process the results of our practice mindfully.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Regret

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This topic has come up several times and each time we have approached it in a different way. We were steered in this direction by an article that was looking at the conflict between what we might see as our ideal self set against how we actually see what we have achieved. Are we good enough? Did we achieve what we set out to? Or, did we achieve what other’s expected of us?

I have often spoken on the podcast about the problems that many of us have at the point of change. This might include deaths, redundancy, divorce, retirement and so on. I guess that the issues of regret, in most cases, do begin with the idea that “I got it’ wrong” and that can so often takes us right back to “am I good enough”.

Why isn’t my life perfect?
Pity the poor perfectionist who can never find happiness and lives in a world of ‘if only’ and nagging regret. If, as a perfectionist, you expect to get a first class honours degree and only get a second then you have failed. The none perfectionist will be happy with a second or even a two-two and after all a third is a still a pass. The perfectionist can descend into the regret of not having studied more. Over all the perfectionist will always live in a world of never having been good enough because, guess what, perfection does not exist.

If only I had!
In my work this is the most common form of regret. It often comes from us not living in the moment and life being the thing that passes us by while we are worrying about other things. Then suddenly we are old, retiring or even dying and we realise that we have run out of time, money, energy, whatever it is, that would enable us to now do what we wanted. It is now too late. The only route out of this one will often be self-forgiveness.

If only I hadn’t!
When we regret the things that we did do we might still be able to do something about it. Seeking forgiveness or forgiving others often takes us through this sort of regret. The extreme of this type of regret could be that our actions killed or damaged other people. It could be that we put our self in a position where we were damaged in some way. Over all we now wish that we had not done ‘it’. This is ‘Step One’ material from the live in the present book, it is now time to let go of what was and live in the present.

The beautiful you!
I know that you are beautiful because you are alive and have a body and life and bodies are beautiful. I have seen too many people damaging their body with cosmetic procedures or surgery only to regret their actions and decisions later. Perhaps when the breast implant burst or leaks or the over tightened skin begins to bag and hang. Or when someone ends up looking quite ugly having lost their natural beauty.

Distressing the body
I guess that when people punch holes in their bodies and have studs, rings and so on fitted that can be removed if we regret doing it. The one that is the most difficult is when the earlobe has become distended from having a large object piercing it. The one that does create regret and has led to a massive laser industry is the tattoo. The inks are very hard to remove and the chances of scaring are great. I have seen so many people who had the name of their lover tattooed on their body only for that relationship to come to an end. It is hard to date Gloria when you have ‘I love you Nellie’ tattooed on your forearm.

Mistakes are normal and it can be easy to face them with the emotions of fault and blame that may lead to regret. It is only when we can see the things that happen in life not as mistakes, problems, or issues of blame and begin to see them as the learning opportunities that give us the chance to grow, develop and become better people.

My resource for the podcast was that you get a piece of paper and make a list of all the things that you would like to achieve before you die and then get as many of them done as soon as you can. If you do this you will not find yourself in the misery of regret later in life.

Take care be happy and fulfill your dreams

Sean x

How to break up and stay friends

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We have visited this topic on several occasions for a variety of reasons. Usually this is in response to a request from a listener after the Christmas and New Year festivities that mark the beginning of the divorce season. That period just after New Year happens again at the end of the summer holiday in September. It seems that when things are a bit rocky the pressure of being forced together in, what is supposed to be, family happiness exposes the cracks leading to the decision to part. Most partings are acrimonious and how ever good the intention usually turn into negative thoughts, feelings and actions.

When I arrived to record this weeks podcast Ed greeted me with the news that he had split up! It was not from his wife Bethan, I am glad to say, but from his business partner. He seems quite calm about it all and not phased, though he was the one that initiated the split, I am not sure what his, now, ex-partner is/was feeling.

We began talking about the whole issues of breaking up and if it is possible to do so amicably. Well the answer has to be, ‘yes it is’, however in my experience, working with couples, it would seem to be pretty rare. We often talk about the emotion of hate being the pole opposite of love. It is as though the energy just becomes reversed and often the more that a couple had love energy between them when they we together the more they have hate energy between them once they are apart.

Many Brits have a problem with the concept of hate and hatred as the national characteristic of emotional reserve precludes the use of such a strong emotion leading to alternative concepts of ‘strong dislike’ or statements of disapproval and so on.

I have often seen couples who after valiant efforts to repair a failing relationship finally decide that it is time to call it a day and move on. At that point many couples will share their desire to make this a clean break but to do it in civilised and friendly way. They will talk about the importance of getting this right for the children and minimising any potential damage. They acclaim their desire to become and maintain a friendship that would be open, and in some cases more open than their existing relationship.

A few, and I mean very few, are able to do this. We do not realise what a valiant effort it is to put to one side the short comings that led to the split in the first place. With most couples and in most cases in a short time when it comes to the splitting of resources, houses, shares, pensions and so on, the cracks begin to form. And, sadly, in most cases it ends up becoming nasty, often vicious and all the good will goes out of the window as the gloves come off and the fight begins.

However it should be sad that when couple do manage to maintain a friendship or the appearance of a friendship the affects can be profound and ripple out to children, friends, family, in-laws and so on.

When couples split, for whatever reason, often the fiends follow suit and go with one of the couple, dumping the other one in the process. All these things effect any relationship ending. As you can see from Ed’s story we are not simply talking about personal relationships when we talk about breaking up. Certainly business endings can be messy as can redundancy, retirement and or job loss through ill health. I see the same problems being played out at the ending of all types of relationships be they business, retirement, redundancy in fact any separation right up to our experience of death.

What we often see as the process of grief and mourning is the same for most endings. First there is a disbelief that this has actually happened and the problems in accepting that things will never be the same again. Then come the emotions. Often the glue that holds relationships together is emotion, even business relationships. When the relationship becomes unstuck the emotion is released. I see it like the energy that holds an atom together. We have no idea how strong that it is until it is split and then we have all the energy of an atomic explosion.

The third phase is anger. Anger happens when the mushroom cloud of free emotion becomes coherent and focused and can be aimed. This is the point of destruction. This is when it becomes nasty.

It is possible to have a positive separation. However, it takes mindfulness, good will, being prepared to be honest, polite, to listen and not to argue, keeping your emotions under control, being amicable with no revenge, without any expectation. In all a tall order for anyone.

One Christmas I was invited to a big family meal. At the table was a woman, next to her was her child and on the other side of her sat her ex-husband. Next to him was his new wife. All four of them were talking and laughing and the best of friends. While it was good to watch it also felt very odd and in some way not right. Of course it was right, it was social expectations that made it odd.

Hey ho, take care, and if you do split try and make it a positive ending

Sean x