Archive for category: Blog

This week podcast was inspired by a recent research project being carried out at Southern California University. Theodore Berger is developing an extension to the brains memory. In the research, prosthetic implants were connected into the brains of the research subjects. These implants became an extension of the hippocampus. The Hippocampus is the section of the brain where memories are stored.

The implication of the research is, if a person’s memories can be all stored on a memory stick could they then be transferred to someone else’s brain and then experienced as though they were their natural memories? A bit like cut and paste.

Is a memory emotional or factual?
Ed and I got talking about what is a memory. Is a memory factual information or does a memory include emotions. So, when we remember something are we remembering factual information or an emotional interpretation of what was experienced?

The more I think about it the more I realise that memories are emotional not factual. I am reminded about a memory of my father that changed when my sister gave me extra information.

One day, as a preschool child, I opened the kitchen door to see my father backhand me eldest sister across the room. She hit the wall hard and, with her spectacles askew, slid down the wall onto her bottom. I ran and hid under my bed. For me I just experienced my father having another emotionally violent outburst and I was so scared of him I shook with terror.

Information changes memory
Many years later, when I was staying with my sister, we were talking about our father and what problems we had all had with him. I retold the above story, offering it as an example of what a shit he was. My sister laughed. She then explained that what had really happened was that she had been at the cooker and had pulled a pan of boiling water towards her that, as I opened the door, was in the process of falling off the cooker. My father had, energetically, pushed her out of the path of the falling water saving her from a serious scalding.

The effect of this information was that my emotional connection changed. Previously this had been a negative memory proving my own prejudices about my father. The new information now made me review that memory and move it from the negative file to the positive file.

We all see the world from our own point of view
Because we all view the world through our own coloured glasses, that filter holds our prejudices and beliefs; we are all subject to the changing experience as our emotions develop with our life learning.

Regret is seldom productive
Sometimes, when we review memories, we blame or beat ourselves up for things that we either did, or didn’t, do. When we do this we are acknowledging that our emotional connections to that memory have now developed or changed. It is often a case of, “if I knew then what I know now…” I would have acted differently. Yet the reality is that if we were back in the same situation with the same emotional and mental resources we would make the same decisions because that was what made sense to us at that time. The residue of the changing emotional attachments to specific memories can be experienced in the present as regret, loss, guilt and so on, even when these feelings were never there at the time.

Memory is selective
When we remember the past we are selective due to our needs in the current moment. Say, for example, if a gang of us are sat around talking about funny times then we all begin to remember or recall funny events that we can then begin to share. If on the other hand we begin to talk about sad, angry, courageous or whatever situation our memory mechanism selectively recall memories that fit with the current conversation in the present moment.

Sensory smell
Recall can be triggered by sensory input such as smell, taste, touch, vision, colour, and so on. Pieces of music, paintings, views and scenes can have the same effect. When we become aware of the way that we view these memories we begin to see that our connections between these sensory inputs and memory are really emotional.

The bias of memory
I guess that last thing that raps it up for memory and the biased way that we experience the world. If a group of people witness the same event and then afterwards are asked to describe what they have experienced then their descriptions will vary, often quite a lot.

So, if we were to transfer the factual memories held in the hippocampus from one person to another we might be able to share what was experienced by our senses but we would never be sharing the emotional feeling that are connected to those memories. The person who received our memories would, in their turn, overlay their own emotions and feelings on those memories. There fore their interpretations would be completely different to ours.

On that basis I suggest that this research project is destined to fail. What do you think?

Take care, and remember to be happy

Sean x

If you saw me the way that I see me then you would understand who I am. A good phrase but the problem is do I see myself clearly, any clearer than you do? The truth is that I am biased and deluded about who I am. My self-image or ego may not be true or accurate.

Ego = The way that I see me
Personality = The way that you see me

This is my definition of the words ‘Ego” and “personality”. The way I see me may be different to the way that you see me. On the ‘Self Discovery Programme’ I use the example of..

“I see me as six foot six bronzed, dark and muscular, how do you see me?”

At this point they mainly all laugh because I am about five foot six, could do with a dose in the sun and have grey to white hair. Yet, we all have an inner image of ourself that includes self-esteem, persona, our beliefs in our skills and qualities that may be at odds with how others see us.

When I was playing in bands one of the guitarists, who was the meanest man on the planet, described himself as ‘generous’ and was deeply offended by the rest of us laughing until we cried. His ego, his internal image, was different to the personality, his external image that we all saw.

Once when playing in bands, it was a while ago, a man strolled onto the dance floor. He had cuban heeled boots, a white suit with a black shirt split to the waist, and a large golden medallion around his neck with a hairy chest. By his swagger and the look on his face you could tell that he thought he was pretty cool and was completely confident in himself. He did not notice the sniggers of both the band and audience as he began to strut his stuff. Outwardly he looked a prat but inwardly he felt like a sex god.

Have you ever bounced down the road, on a sunny day, feeling really good about who you are? You are relaxed, all is right with the world and the spring in your step comes from you feeling good. Suddenly you pass a shop window and see, in the reflection, that you look a mess, your hair is all over the place, makeup has run, skirt tucked into your knickers. Then comes the realisation that all those smiles that you had interpreted as smiles of shared joy at the wonder of the world were really people amused at the crazy looking you. Suddenly the inner ego image is popped and deflates and you no longer feel good and you loose that wonderful sense that, just a few minutes ago, was flooding your being.

We all have an ego, we all have an image of who we are, that may vary from the personality that others see. It could be that you see yourself as ugly while others see your good looks, as fat when others see you as well proportioned or slim, as stupid when others see you as clever and so on.

I am biased
The way that I see me is biased. It comes from the paradigm that I have built up since the moment of my birth to explain the world and how I fit in it. You only need to talk to a few people to realise that we are all biased about ourself, and many to the point of being delusional. If you sit in a room with twenty people and ask them how they experience you their perception of you is as biased as your perception of you. However, if my perception is that I am six’s foot six bronzed and muscular and they do not experience me like that then the chances are that they are right and I am wrong.

The power of feedback
On many of my courses there are feedback sessions when participants get the opportunity to see themselves through the eyes of the other people in the group. Feedback is a gift even when it feels difficult because it is as odds with my own ego image. To truly understand myself I would need to line up the entire population of the world and get them to parade pass me one at time saying…”Sean the way I experience you is…”

The balance point
When I see me the way that you see me and when I see you the way you see you then we are in balance and have let go of the bias. True communication (Common union) only comes about with a clarity of visions and understanding. Up to that point my bias will interpret your words and action to fit my ego image of myself. If I feel that I have done something wrong I will hear your words, whatever they are, as confirming that. To hear anything else requires that I make an ego shift and realise my own bias.

The Trump Effect
In Britain the word ‘Ego’ is often confused with arrogance. When we see characters like Donald Trump, who has none of the reserve of the British but, who prefers to blow his own trumpet and tell everyone just how good he is then many of us are repelled. Such behaviour is seen as bigheadedness, arrogance and being up your own …

The Ego As A Powerful Tool
If we think of the ego as a tool that enables us to do work, we can begin to see it as a powerful thing. When an engineer puts a power rating on an engine they are describing it’s ability to do work. The ego when seen in this way is a good thing it enables and energises us to do what needs to be done.

The size of an ego
Ego’s, generally, describe how I see me but what is the extent of me? Egos include possessions that may be material, might include money, certainly include power and influence and may even include other people. This can be a good or a bad thing.

Bhakti
Bhakti means to serve others unconditionally with no personal reward or need for ego recognition. Mother Theresa of Calcutta was a nun who looked after the poor of Calcutta. Her ego was so large that it included all the poor so that she treated them as she would herself, they were her. She was Bhakti. Her ego may well have been larger that the ego of people like Trump who are not Bhakti.

In Bhakti the person has their ego behind them as a power pack pushing them forward that allows them to complete their work for the good of themselves and also for others. These people work with great energy, power and determination.

An egotist is someone who has their ego out front and in the way, creating problems and insensitively often mindlessly hurting others. Bhaktis have sensitive emotions and empathy egotists have a lack of sensitivity and empathy. Bhakti = Mindfulness, Egotism = mindlessness.

Confidence and self-esteem
To be confident is not being big headed. To love your self and have positive self esteem is not being arrogant. To assert you own point of view is not being aggressive. To accept praise, presents and to enjoy your success is the positive expression of your ego. To boast about your success, to look down on others and to treat others as less than you is the negative side of the ego.

To have a good honest and positive ego that works well for us all is a positive thing and should be nurtured and encouraged in us all. When you can look yourself in the eyes in your bathroom mirror and tell yourself that you love you, that’s not arrogance it is positive self esteem.

Be happy and enjoy who you are.
Take care

Sean x

This weeks podcast is at the request of a listener who reports ‘drowning in his partner’s anxiety’. He asked if his partner could be addicted to anxiety and if so is there a cure. The answer to the first question is ‘yes’ and to the second ‘maybe’. Like most things, anxiety is in the eye of the beholder. So you may experience my behaviour as anxious but I do not. For me it may be normal, business as usual. But yes, anxiety is sometimes seen as an addiction.

Anxiety Addiction disorder, or AAD, does not refer to the anxiety that would be caused by being addicted to a substance, such as cocaine or alcohol. In AAD anxiety is the addiction, the anxiety has become the equivalent of a drug. The sufferer of AAD has become an anxiety junkie and responds to the emotional problems in their life by turning to their addiction anxiety. In the case of AAD, the addiction is often played out as anxiety or panic. However, like all junkies the sufferer of AAD will avoid personal responsibility for their addiction by blaming others. “I only, drink, take this drugs, punch, people, or become generally offensive because these awful things happened to me when I was a child or because you did that to me, or, you looked at me the wrong way ….” and so on

I should start this by saying that generally anxiety is a good thing. It has kept us safe throughout evolution. The anxiety generated through the awareness of danger is a good thing. Anxiety disorder is a different beast. It allows us to create anxiety and panic responses to imagined, fantasised or even when we are in completely safe situations. When we become addicted to anxiety we can appear to be stupid because there is no logic or cognition to moderate the illogicality of our anxiety.

The stupidity of anxiety
I use the word stupid not in a demeaning way but to indicate the lack of cognitive thinking. Anxiety is an emotion and we know from neuropsychology that we are unable to both think and feel clearly at the same time. This means that when we are in the grip of panic or anxiety we lose all sense and logic. When in full emotion such as in anger, fear or love, we become stupid and cannot make a reasoned response. If you have ever tried to rationalise with a drunk you will be aware that you just can’t do it. The part of their brain that you could reason with has been switched off by the alcohol. The same is true of anxiety. It is impossible to have a reasoned conversation with an AAD sufferer when they are in full flow.

As with all addicts the anxiously addicted person does not see that their behaviour is illogical. They will see the rightness of becoming forever more upset and obsessed with the object of their anxiety. They will build the anxiety by ruminating on the issue that they have decided to be anxious, or panic, about. In the end it will grow to become overwhelming and may become debilitating.

The family issue
When working with the family of an addict we acknowledge that if someone in the family has an addiction such as alcohol then the whole family has an alcohol problem. The same is true whatever the addiction. So, if someone in the family has an anxiety problem then the whole family has an anxiety problem. In AA, alcoholic anonymous there is also ‘al-anon’ that fund groups dealing with the needs of the family of the alcoholic. The same is true in NA, narcotics anonymous. As yet we do not classify anxiety disorders in the same way as substance abuse disorders yet the problems in the family of someone suffering anxiety disorder may be just as great as with any other addiction.

Anxiety as an addiction is just a habit

The Mind-Brain Habit Machine
We are all the sum total of all the habits that we have developed and practised since the moment of our birth. It may seem strange to describe us as a collection of habits, but that is exactly what we are. The concept of “this is just the way that I am” is always faulty. The correct thinking is “this is the way I have learned to be”. The powerful word there is ‘learned’. Because the Mind-Brain is a ‘learning’ machine that, if I choose, I can use the same process to learn and become whatever I want to be. It is just creating a new habit.

You can become whatever you choose to be!

The clinical issues
Because the emotional responses that we make are often based in our brain chemistry, that is they are concerned with the hormones and endorphins that make up our mind/brain chemistry. The only exception to the ‘learned’ rule is when we use the word ‘Clinical’. When someone suffers clinical depression or clinical anxiety we are normally saying that their body system in incapable of, or has problems, producing the required chemistry to enable their system to run and respond normally. The most obvious case would be diabetes which occurs when the chemical, ‘insulin’ is deficient in the pancreas. Some diabetes is caused by diet and life style. This requires a change in thinking, life style and learning new habits to overcome the problem. Someone who is ‘clinically diabetic’ can not learn to be different they will need to take insulin for life. Some people who suffer ‘clinical anxiety’ will also probably need to take medication for the rest of their lives in some form or another. In both cases the issues can be moderated through lifestyle changes that may improve the condition though the underlying need for medication will never go away.

Anxiety and hormonal imbalance
At different times in life, or in the month, during menopause or menstruation there may be an imbalance of hormones that can create feelings of anxiety. This imbalance can be helped with various preparations and HRT. These hormonal imbalances are clinical and may not be resolved through learning though the practice of mindfulness will minimise the effects. Hormonal changes and imbalances are not limited to females, men also suffer life time hormonal changes.

The chemical addiction of being in a body
When we understand that we are all addicts we can begin to understand ourselves. The chemistry that is you, which is the balance of the hormones and endorphins that run your system, are unique to you. No one else has your hormones. No two people are chemically the same, not even identical twins. Life, experience and learning and, most importantly, our responses to events, create the internal chemistry that becomes our normal, for us, it is who we are.

You addiction is your chemical normal that makes you feel right

I am forever saying this:
“If when you are a child you observe your mother running around panicking about spiders you will build the structures in your brain, in your amygdala, that will then create the appropriate chemistry so that when you see a spider. You will then panic just like your mother did and in turn you may well pass this ability to panic about spiders onto your children”.

When you see someone with AAD you will often also see it in their parents and siblings. That is unless one of them has completed the psychotherapy that allows them to move beyond their disorder.

The anxiously addicted family
So back to the addiction of anxiety. Remember that if someone in the family has an anxiety disorder then the whole family has an anxiety disorder. What that means is the person’s addiction will effect all that happens in the entire family.

It will dictate what happens in the house, how things are ordered or in what sequence events take place. It will create planned behaviours, such as what happens when we leave the house and the rituals that need to be played out to ensure a safe and secure departure. It will effect everywhere we go and all that we do.

With any addict, their addiction always comes first

Like any addict the sufferer will always see their addiction as the most important thing in their life. Everyone and everyone else’s needs come second to the addiction. However, like any other addict, if for some reason they are denied their ‘hit’ of catastrophized emotional expression it will burst out later in a binge. Usually the family learn this and all the family members adapt their behaviour to cope with this. In all addictions it can be very easy for the family members to end up supporting the addiction rather than the person. It can be easier to supply an alcoholic with booze to keep them quiet and avoid the problems that come with their withdrawal. It can be easier to go with the flow of the AAD sufferer than confront the behaviour.

The problems of confrontation
In most cases it does not matter what you say, you will always be wrong. Your helpful words my be seen as patronising and your actions as inappropriate. Your attempts to get it right maybe seen as interfering and unless you agree with the AAD sufferer you will be experienced as not listening or as insensitive. In many cases the option is to keep your mouth shut, for most people, is difficult. Confrontation should really be communication. Often confrontation has the reverse effect (Coue’s Law of Revered Effort) and can make the addict dip further into their addiction, the alcoholic drinks more, the cocaine addict snorts more and the anxiety suffer becomes more anxious and so on.

The problem is that communication requires that two people can both hear each other and inevitably the addicted person is so embedded in the importance and validity of their own behaviour, which they now see their behaviour as normal The confronter is then seen as insensitive and horrible for not tolerating their addictive behaviour. In the warped perception of addiction the person with anxiety sees anything other than compliance with their needs as insensitive. Generally they have ceased to see any one else’s point of view other than their own.

Overcoming AAD in the family
In a world where an estimated 60% of people visiting the family doctor have anxiety as a primary or major cause of their symptoms we have an epidemic anxiety and a plethora of emotional medications on offer. I am not sure if this means that 60% of families have an anxiety disorder. Sadly, medication is seen as the number one defence against anxiety. The alternative to medication is mindfulness and/or psychotherapy. However, all addicts will only address their addiction when ‘they’ see it as a problem. In a world where anxiety is seen as an acceptable norm, that can just be tolerated by the family, or controlled with a little medication, we are probably committing future generations to ever higher levels of anxiety.

Like any addiction anxiety will only go away when the underlying causes of the habit are understood and dealt with. Like any other addiction habit it needs to be replaced with non addicted habits that serve us well. Or maybe we just need to get addicted to habits that are benign.

If you have anxiety that gets out of hand you need to first understand if it is clinical, reactive or a habit. Then you need to decide whether it is your choice to maintain it or overcome it.

Take care and be happy – it is the key to life.

Sean x

Welcome to this weeks blog. A listener simply asked the question, ‘why do we accept the love we think we deserve?’ When we talked around the subject Ed said ‘why do we fall for the wrong person?’ My response is that we don’t, the person that we fall for has something for us that may be positive or negative, they are there to teach us something, that may seem odd, let me explain.

John Bowlby developed ‘Attachment theory’ from the work that he did with newly born babies making the primary and secondary emotional attachments with their caregiver, normally their parents. As the child grows they are developing their understanding of the world by observing the people and the behaviours around them. We describe this as a paradigm. Your paradigm is the sum total of all that you have experienced since you were born. Within your paradigm are all your beliefs and ideas, it is the way that you see the world.

John Bowlby described this as your ‘Internal working models’. Below your awareness within your unconscious self you have a model for what a mother is, what a father is, what a partner is, and how you should act in a relationship. Then, below your awareness, you go out and match your internal working models to the people that you meet in the world.

If as a daughter you observed your father being aggressive or abusive to your mother you are likely to build an internal working model that tells you that this is what a partner should be like. The result of this is that you are likely to replicate what you observed when you were a child even if this is negative or damaging to you.

The strange things is that your Mind-brain is neutral. It is simply a habit forming mechanism that has no interest in whether the habits that you develop and play out are good or bad, positive or negative, whether they serve you well or badly.

We are what we learn. And the more that we repeat the habits that we have learned the more embedded they become until we say, ‘this is simply the way that I am’. This is never true. You are what you have learned to be and if you want to change you habits, beliefs, thoughts or feeling you can simply learn new ones. Our behaviour will either reinforce our negative self or our positive self. What we do is always feeding the paradigm.

Perception and learning go together. We can only perceive what we learn. New perception comes from new learning. We can only change through new learning. This new learning is reprogramming our paradigm.

The bottom line is if you do not like what you think, feel or do, or like the people around you or the life that you have created for yourself, then you can change it. That is what all our work at Live In The Present is all about and that is what the Ten Steps course is all about.

My resource of the week is any book by John Bowlby.

Attachment theory gives us great insight into our relationships, how and why we make them and what it is that we need to do to change them.

As a last thought, look at those people around, at your relationships. They may be intimate, familial, friendships or business. Whatever they are consider what these relationship mean to you, Ask yourself what do you get from each relationship. Consider what lesson each one of these relationships have come to teach you?
As my teacher said to me, “when you meet someone for the first time ask yourself the question, ‘what has this person come to teach me’?” With this awareness you will learn, grow and develop as much as you possibly can. You might consider what it is that your partner has come to teach you?

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Thanks to a listener who wanted some advice about getting on with siblings Ed and I found ourselves talking about our own brothers and sisters. It made me realise the stark contrast between my own upbringing and that experienced by both Ed and Rie. My own young life I described as being ‘thrown in a snake pit that needed to be survived’ while Ed and Rie had a good modicum of love and support that nurtured their early years. Even now they have good relationships with their siblings. I on the other hand have not seen my siblings for many years. The rivalries in my childhood were that I was the scapegoat and the kicking post. Rivalry was strong.

We do not choose our relations
Some spiritualist tell us that we do choose our family. I have this sneaky feeling that if I had to choose it would not have been what I got. The issue that we all have to face is, are we prepared to maintain this relationship even if they are people that we do not like. Maybe we do not really want anything to do with then. Then duty, tradition and expectation step in and we learn to put up with and tolerate the worst of relationships. I see people tolerate the most awful situation because it is ‘family’.

Do we have to make them work?
Is blood thicker than water? Well, I would say not. Family relationships are no different to any other relationship that we choose. In non-family relationships we choose who we spend time with and there is no rule that says it should be any different.

Place in the family
Each child that enters the family, at the point of birth, has a place in the family hierarchy that can potentially create rivalry. In psycho speak we talk about ‘oldest child syndrome’, ‘middle child syndrome’ youngest child syndrome’.

Oldest child
The oldest child is the first born. For them there is a disadvantage of their parents learning their skills. This child is a learning experiment that suffers all of their parent’s mistakes. There is also an advantage in that the first child will always be special as the first child and the first grand child. They may also be the first nephew or niece.

Middle child
The middle child has all the advantages of not having to face the same mistakes and lessons that the parents learned from the eldest child. In the beginning they have it easy and may be in a privileged position, that is until the next child comes along. At this point the middle child does not have the special status of the first born or the novel status of the youngest. Many middle children feel abandoned and less important than their siblings.

Youngest child
The youngest child is special. They have the equivalent of many parents as their elder siblings look after them as well as their parents, grandparents and other relatives.

The eldest child may develop the need to look after other people and take responsibility. The middle child may develop a withdrawn stance and perhaps lacking the confidence of their elder and younger siblings. The younger sibling may develop an expectation that others will always look after them and some never learn to take responsibility for themselves.

Like attracts like
Often you will find that adults are attracted to other adults who had the same familial status as themselves. That is older childen create relationships with other older children, middle with middle and younger with younger.
It seems that our position in the family affects the rest of our life. However, we know that we can change any habit that we learn as children. Some deeply embedded habits are more difficult than others to change.

Habit or choice
Over all family relationships may be seen as either habit or choice. The important thing to realise is that we do always have a choice.

Button box
We use this tool when working with clients, of any age, to understand their family relationship. I have a box within a collection of items, mainly buttons, of all different sizes and colours. We ask the client to pick an object to represent each person. They then place them on a white sheet of paper. The insight gained from understanding why each person is a certain size and colour and, most importantly why they are placed where on the paper. The story begins to emerge of the nature of the relationships in the family. The way that they are grouped and who is left out is the story, the rivalries in the family between both the siblings and the parents.

So, are you an older, middle or young sibling and how has it effected your adult life and your relationships?

Take care

Sean x