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Unless you enjoy confrontation or have a psychopathic tendency chances are you do not enjoy challenging conversations. You may need to deliver difficult or unpleasant news, talk about a delicate subject, or deal with something that needs to change or has gone wrong. Sometimes even just thinking about having these conversations can create a feeling of anxiety or even panic. If you begin to ruminate about the conversation to come you can easily become distracted from the present moment and make mistakes in the present.

I love the word ‘challenging’ in this context. It is rather like when I say that I never have an argument I only have energetic conversations. You may need to be reprimand someone, creating boundaries for them that they will not want, or deliver bad news, perhaps a bereavement, redundancy, job loss and so on.

As we know anxiety comes form projecting forward and then living as though our fears were happening now in the present. Because of this it is important not to wait too long before having the conversation. Putting it off often leads to more rumination and more anxiety. The sooner you do it the sooner it is over. However, the key word is preparation. As they say ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’.

What is your desired outcome?
Decide what you want to get from the conversation. Have a clear goal in mind and consider what challenges the other person may have to what you want to say to them.

Where and when will you meet?
Choose your battle ground. Make sure it is somewhere that makes it as easy as possible for you. Where will you meet? When will you meet?

Support
You may need some back up before, during or after the interaction. This is support for you. In a work situation you might need a member of HR or a colleague for support or as a mediator/witness. In other situations you may need another person, as a witness to what is or has taken place.

It also follows that the other person may need support. They may need a family member, a colleague, a union representative or legal representation. If the issue creates high emotion they may need support from someone else such as a bereavement service or other support agency.

Preparation
What will you say? Having an idea of your script takes the pressure off you. This goes back to the idea of what is your goal, what do you want to achieve. It is ok to take notes, even a clipboard to ensure that you say all that you need to. You may also need to take some notes. Some interactions may require further action after the conversation or you may even need to confirm what has been said and agreed in writing or by email. If you do have someone with you for support they may need to take notes.

Ask a question
When it comes to difficult conversations the way that you use words is very important. If you are confrontational the situation will get worse or hotter. Asking open questions is a good way of getting your point across without creating more confrontation.

“Did you realise that when you (did, said, acted) in that way you made (me, him, her, them) feel ???? Is that what you intended? What were you hoping to get from doing it that way?” Or what was your expected outcome? What were you hoping for?

Also, make sure you understand what they are saying to you – “I am not sure what you mean”, and make sure you are understood – “do you agree/understand/ what I am saying”

Setting the scene
If you are arranging things for a difficult conversation you need to consider how you set out the room. Generally it is better that you don’t sit directly opposite each other, this is the confrontation position. Ideally you would sit in a 10 minute to 2 position– (like on a clock face). You should be on the same level and have the same eye level. To sit higher creates dominance, which in some situation you might choose to take advantage of. Never let the other person sit higher than you. If the other person stands up to dominate you, either stand up yourself, providing that it does not increase the confrontation, tell the person that they need to sit down or bring the meeting to a close.

Proximity
Getting inside someone’s personal space can feel threatening. Stay one to two arms length apart.

Engagement
Make sure you are not threatening. Be aware of your hand and face gestures. Listen to the volume of your voice, speak softly and calmly, do not shout. Allow the other person to have their say, don’t interrupt.

Stay on topic
Don’t allow yourself to be side tracked stay with the issues at hand.

If it becomes heated or you feel that you are flagging
Take breaks if needed, get a coffee

Be self aware
Take responsibility for your own feelings do not blame what you feeling on the other person.

Outcome
Look for a resolution. It may be prudent to give way, allowing the other person to have their point rather than needing to get your own way – you do not need to be right

Take care and look after one another ☺

Sean x

This week Ed and I were looking at how to cope with the behaviour of someone close to you that you do not agree with, even to the point where a close family member is doing bad things. We got an email from a listener who wanted to know how they could cope with a cousin who’s behaviour was potentially harmful to members of the family. This is interesting because in most cases that examine the law of allowing do so from a macro perspective like issues of war or terrorism. Yet, the law of allowing is operating every minute of every day sometimes in small and often insignificant things that happen all the time.

The issue raised here is how does tolerating bad behaviour fit with the Law of Allowing. Well it doesn’t. Let me explain.

The Law of Allowing is not passive
It is often a common belief that the law of allowing implies a passive acceptance of other people’s behaviour, it is not. We should always confront injustice and never allow it to dominate.

“The only thing you should be intolerant of is intolerance”
Plato

Your emotional litmus paper
You may remember from your chemistry classes at school that litmus paper is used to dip into a liquid to test it’s Ph, to decide if it is acid or alkaline. Our emotions are just like litmus paper and show us a similar response to any situation. Straight away, our emotions indicate to us if this is good or bad, right or wrong. Some people will call this our gut reaction. Our emotions are telling us whether or not we should proceed. In the same way we would say ‘if it feels good do it, if it feels bad don’t do it’.

What is it when we react?
When we have an emotional reaction it is usually present in our body as an intake of breath, increased heart rate and perhaps, the activation of the fight, flight, freeze reaction. But, why are we reacting?

A reaction is telling us that we have a problem. It is the difference between a response and a reaction. When we respond we mindfully observe the situation and make an ordered decision as to what we are going to do about it. When we react our cognition tends to go for a walk and our emotions take over.

How powerful is your reaction?
We all have problems. Sometimes those problems are hidden and we may not even know that they are there. It would be good if there was something there that would let us know when we have a problem that needs to be dealt with. Well there is, it is our emotions.

When we experience something we may register that it is wrong and decide to do something about it. This is a response. When we experience something that makes us angry, we have high levels of energy that might make us shout or lash out, this is a reaction.

When we react we are describing unresolved emotional issues that are within us. Let’s say that we were abused as a child, when we watch news casts of child abuse on the news our reaction may upset us or make us angry or irrationality volatile. We are reacting because we have unresolved emotional energy within us and we are re-activating these unresolved issues.

If we were abused but are able to respond to the news and not become irrationally angry, we are describing that we have dealt and processed those emotions within us. This is the difference between a reaction and a response.

The degree of the energy of our reaction within us describes how much of an unresolved problem that we have.

What is the point of all this?
When you react negatively to an event you should look within and decide how much of the problem that you are experiencing is your unresolved emotional issues and how much is related to the current situation. When you have continuing high levels of reaction I suggest that you seek psychotherapy and talk it through.

Do not be passive
I am not suggesting that if you feel anger or high emotion you should not do anything. It may be that you are right about the person or the situation that you are experiencing.

The law of allowing is not passive. When we react we are not allowing. When we respond we are allowing.

We must remember that within the law of allowing we need to look after ourselves and allow our self to be fulfilled and happy and respond mindfully and be prepared to change things when they are not.

Take care

Sean x

This weeks podcast was requested by Ed because he was feeling disturbed by an event that he had witnessed on his way to work that resulted in a man’s death. He was left with some feelings of trauma, some flashbacks and problems with concentration. His question was what is trauma and what is it that we can do about it?

Trauma is a Greek word meaning “wound”. Originally this was related physical injury. With the development of psychology a wound can now be considered to be physical, mental, emotional, financial and so on. The concept of trauma comes from the idea that the wound, or event that is being experienced, is greater than our resources to deal with it. In that sense we have been overwhelmed. However there is a difference between experiencing trauma and being traumatised.

Traumatised, or traumatisation is when the overwhelming experience/trauma creates an amount of stress that is so great that it exceeds our ability to deal with the emotions aroused. This is clearly an emotional issue. Trauma or traumatic disorders are always emotional even if they come from physical damage.

Post trauma is the emotional fall out that stays with us after the experience has ended. It is our time to process the emotions and this may take hours, days or weeks. In most cases the emotional effects of a trauma will be normalised within four weeks and sometimes extends to eight or ten weeks. The important thing is that it does subside as the emotional arousal is desensitised.

Repressed trauma can happen when an event is too difficult for us to deal with in the present and we hide it in the recesses of the mind. When this happens we may have no direct memory of the event that caused the trauma though it may still effect who we are, how we experience the world and, our behaviour. It is assumed that repression developed to protect us from that which was too difficult to contemplate. In repression the victim will often sleep after the incident. In the post incident sleeping process the R.E.M. (rapid eye movement) part of the sleep cycle, similar to dreaming, allows the memory to be hidden or repressed.

Recovered memory may be delayed by weeks, years, or even decades. Though when it does emerge the original repressed emotions are released as though they have just happened. Therapeutically this release of emotion and memory is termed an abreaction and involves the re-experiencing of the trauma physically, emotionally and mentally. This may occur many years after the original incident.

Emotional responses Although in repression the memory is lost to the conscious mind it has a constant effect on everyday life and experience and may appear as irrational fears, anxiety, depression, phobia etc. This is described and ‘something within us but outside of our control’.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is when the emotional responses are not repressed but are also not processed. When the effects of the incident remain active after six weeks it is given the PTSD diagnosis. As acknowledged above trauma may take eight to ten weeks to process. This means that definitions and diagnosis of PTSD can be difficult in the first instance. When we are looking at symptoms continuing after months or years we are definitely talking about PTSD.

PTSD Symptoms will vary but will include finding it difficult to forget the incident or event that happened. There may be flashbacks, daymares or nightmares about the incident. Unstable and irrational emotional responses such as anger, tears, anxiety, depression, phobias, disturbed sleep/eating patterns, and so on.

Rumination is the symptom builder. We know that, what we think about we bring about and that thoughts become things. When we continually go over the traumatic incident we are unable to let them go. The more we ruminate on them the more they become intensely embedded in our unconscious and conscious mind because we keep thinking about, and reinforcing them in our mind/brain.

The MindBrain This is where the software of the psychological mind and the hardware of the brain interface. The main aspect of the brain that effects our emotional self is the limbic system in the centre of the brain. Within the limbic system is a little organ called the amygdala. In this organ are templates of cells that relate to our emotional responses.

Lets say that when I am young I watch my mother reacting phobic-ally to spiders, I then build a template of cells in my amygdala so that when I see a spider the template cells release chemistry and so I also react to the spiders as a phobia. Over time my spider template will become hotter and more embedded the more I visit it.

All emotional responses are like this, even the positive ones. So, that if I see the object of my love the love template of cells become hot and releases the chemistry that make me feel loving.

It normally takes about five repetitions of emotional experience to set up a template in the amygdala unless it is punched traumatically and then it is created immediately. Once a traumatic template has been established it will remain hot and active and become more embedded over time unless, or until, it is treated.

Treatment for trauma is a variable feast and will depend on where you live and the therapy that is fashionable at the time. Cognitive therapies such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) are not that good at dealing with trauma in the long term. They do have a short term effectiveness by putting in place cognitive tools that often repress the emotion that creates a feeling of relief and the expectation of cure. However, when this happens the emotions are not processed but held in check leaving them to reappear at a later date.

EMDR or Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing is a therapy that mimics the rapid eye movements that happen during the dream cycle in the sleep pattern. As the emotional trauma is encoded into the MindBrain using the same part of the system EMDR is surprisingly effective in the majority of cases.

Rewinding is by far my best option. This technique uses the very same process to desensitise a template in the amygdala, that was used to put it there in the first place. When we revisit a trauma it is through the senses of sight, smell, tastes and touch, none of which are cognitive. During rewind therapy the emotional memories are address directly and desensitised.

Mindful meditation is becoming main stream psychology. Mindfulness is the best prevention for all forms of stress and provides the resources needed at the point of trauma. The process of mindfulness is awareness, contemplation, concentration and meditation a process that is in itself therapeutic. Consistent meditators become their own therapists and counsellors and are able to overcome many things that overwhelm others.

Medication has to be the last on my list. I am not against medication on this basis, if I have a headache I will do all that I can to get rid of it, and as a last resort I will take an aspirin. There are medications that can help with anxiety, depression, panic, high blood pressure and so on. There are also natural alternatives that may be gentler on the system both psychologically and physiologically. If you do suffer trauma never suffer alone psychotherapy is a good and powerful thing.

Take care and be happy
Sean x

This week Ed and I were looking at the issues that are affecting us all at this time, those of the terrorist incidents in Manchester and London. We thought that it is time to revisit the Law of Allowing. This is week six of the Live In The Present course. In this Law we begin to understand that if we focus on the negative we only make things worse. However if we can allow the mad people to be mad without joining them we can, in time make things better. For most of us allowing is the choice between love and hate. In the end love wins through.

Step six: The Law of Allowing

In this step on the course Ed and I have been talking about the law of Allowing. This is one of the hardest steps in the Live in the Present course.

“The only thing you should be intolerant of is intolerance“
Plato

If you feel angry or disgruntled when someone with beliefs opposed to yours gets their way, if you become upset because you can’t have your way, then you are not living within the law of allowing.
When we can allow the mad people to be mad, the drug takers to be drug takers and so on we stand a better chance of changing their behaviour. When we oppose peoples behaviour we will normally make it worse and get more of what we don’t want.

According to Emile Coue when you feel or express anger at the behaviour of others you will create more of what you would seek to eliminate.

Emile Coue’s law of reversed effort –
The more we try to consciously struggle with a dominant idea the more powerful its effects become.

“When an idea imposes itself on the mind to such an extent as to give rise to a suggestion, all the conscious efforts which the subject makes in order to counteract this suggestion are not merely without the desired effect, but they actually run counter to the subject’s conscious wishes and tend to intensify the suggestion.”

(Baudouin, 1920: 116).

He elaborates by describing the law of reversed effect as exemplified by the self-antagonistic attitude of mind that says, “I would like to… but I cannot.” This notion might be seen as similar to the modern technique of “reverse psychology”, a persuasion technique which aims, paradoxically, to persuade someone to accept an idea by suggesting the opposite to them

Is it ok to be completely tolerant of any behaviours?

Karl Popper
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed,and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

Of all the universal laws, the law of allowing is often the most difficult one to get our heads around. The truth is, there is freedom in allowing circumstances to be what they are and people to be who they are, whether you agree with them or not. Really. Even when it comes to poverty or war or disease.

Mother Theresa famously said that she would not attend an anti war rally, but she would attend a pro peace rally. She understood the law of allowing and the law of reversed effort. She realised that the effect of an anti war rally would simply focus attention on ‘War’. A pro peace rally will focus attention on ‘Peace’.

This is also an internal process. When we have an internal dialogue that is self punishing when we get something wrong all we do is create more of what we don’t want.

Example – If I am using hypnosis to stop someone smoking and use the phrase “you must stop this filthy, disgusting habit right now!” the person will smoke even more. However, if I use the phrase “you will get a lot of pride and pleasure from no longer needing to smoke”, the person will stop.

To change yourself and change others you need to evoke the law of allowing.

Take care of yourself and treat yourself with love

Sean x

In this weeks podcast Ed and I have revisited the topic of splitting up. We had an email which effectively was saying ‘how do you get over it and move on when someone you love has left you, but you are still in love with them. Relationship counselling is an active part of the therapeutic world and not everyone survives the splitting intact. Generally breaking up is hard to do but it doesn’t have to be that way if we realise the addictive nature of our love because love is a drug.

While it may be true that all psychological and emotional change starts from the same place, this is forgiveness or letting go, it just might a bit too raw at the outset to consider this.

Love addiction
Imagine that you are addicted to nicotine, maybe you have smoked twenty a day for many years. What you have done is taught you body and mind/brain system to tolerate and become dependent on the nicotine that is now included in the system. When you stop putting nicotine into your body system it then demands it and gets angry if it is not satiated. The ‘what you feed grows’ part of the problem is that if you focus on “i am going to have a cigarette” you are feeding the problem. However, it is also true that if you focus on the opposite “I will not have a cigarette, I will not have a cigarette” then you are still feeding the problem. The weirdest thing of all is that even if your mind tells you that it is wrong to smoke, if your emotions tell you that it smells and tastes horrible, you mind/body sustenance will still demand a cigarette. Your system is addicted and wants more nicotine.

When you meet someone and you fall in love your mind/brain creates the chemistry that makes you feel wonderful, you are in the grip of the love drug dopamine. Just as with nicotine you teach your system to tolerate and then become dependent on love, just as the smoker is dependent on nicotine. If the object of your love is withdrawn you will feel it’s loss as a craving. You are a love junkie.

If you are attempting to overcome nicotine addiction you have to go through the process of teaching your body that it does not need nicotine to feel ok, you have to take the nicotine out of the body/mind system so that it has a new normal and the addiction/craving abates.

If you are attempting to overcome love addiction you have to go through the process of teaching your body that or does not need the love to feel ok, you have to take the love/dopamine out of the body/mind system so that it has a new normal and the addiction/craving abates.

Removing temptation
When you come off a drug you need to avoid people that are using the drug because it will easily tempt you back. This often means changing your social circle and avoiding places where people will be using.

When you come off love you need to avoid the source of the addiction and anywhere that it might be. This often means changing your social circle and avoiding places where the source might be to tempt you back.

When ridding ourselves of love we will often need to come off social media, maybe block people or restrict our access. We may need to delete numbers and addresses to get as clean as we can.

We the need to go through the process or reformation as we establish this new strong sense of being who we are without the drug. Then we are clean.

Reintegration
Once the addiction has been removed and we are truly clean we may be able to be in the presence of the source of the addiction and not be tempted to use again.

Have you ever had the experience of going through the heartbreak of a split up and then, many years later, you meet that person again and something odd has happened, we now think, “oh my God whatever was I doing with that person?” Once the addiction has gone so has the craving we no longer need it in our lives.

Getting clean is a process
People talk about time and often we refer to the two year cycle which is common to many people. However it is easier to think in terms of process rather than time. The quicker we process the less time it takes.

After all is said and done we create our own dependence through our own addictions. We do not have to be addicted once we mindfully see what we are doing.

The only thing that I can see is a useful addiction is unconditional self regard. Self love is not arrogance it is the foundation bedrock of who we are. Strong foundation = strong person.

Be happy

Sean x