Stop Trying to Be Perfect

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Do you need to be perfect or are you perfect as you are right now?

I am walking down the road and looking at the people coming towards me. I am surprised by the amount of women who are obviously ‘Botoxed’ and have fillers creating that ‘trout pout’ look. To me they look ugly and disfigured but I realise that to them they are on a path to creating what they see as the perfect version of themselves. As I think about it this striving for the perfect body assumes that the body is imperfect to begin with, that worries me.

The problem is that we don’t celebrate imperfection – perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

When we drive towards perfection it affects all that we think, feel and do. Being a perfectionist eventually becomes a fools errand because we can never achieve it, the state of perfection. It is good to be particular about things and to get things as right as we can but, as soon as we step into perfectionism we are heading for failure and with that comes depression, frustration, anxiety, anger And even physical or mental illness.

If the perfectionist drive is towards yourself it may involve constant self criticism for not being good enough in the way you look, the way that you perform in your job, relationship, friendships and so on.

We have even started testing our children at very early ages with Sats tests that, for many will confirm just how imperfect they are.

The perfectionist mind set includes:

Black-and-white thinking
So that anything less than 100% perfection is a failure. 99% is never good enough
For many, especially males, the need to seek help from others will just show my imperfection and weakness.

The anxiety of Catastrophising
Like all forms of anxiety perfectionism can lead us to project forward to futures that my never happen and to live them in the present as though they have.
The fear of making a mistake in front of my peers the fear of upsetting others can lead to inaction to maintain our safety.

Negative scripting
Deciding before an event that you will fail. Knowing that your presentation, assignment will be terrible, believing that you actions will be criticised. This often leads to high levels of performance anxiety, generalised fear and even social phobia and isolation, avoiding making friends and going out or meeting with others.

Ought, should and must
These words, perhaps with the addition of “can’t” are often related to a preconception of perfection that either I am not up to, or even that I don’t want to do, but I feel that to do the right thing or to be the ‘perfect’ person, I have to do it.

Body perfectionism
As I mentioned at to outset the need to have nose jobs, face lifts, boob jobs, trout pout, tattooed eyebrows, or even tattoos come to that, all these things start from the point of view that my body is imperfect and that I need to do things to make it perfect. Often the need to change the body becomes addictive as it is never quite the perfection that we are seeking and more and more adjustments are required.

The response to perfectionism
When we begin to define ourselves as an imperfect person the drive towards perfectionism takes us one of two ways. Either we work ourselves into the ground through fear and anxiety in a constant bid to get it right in the eyes of others and to be seen as a good, intelligent, perfect person or we fall into the opposite camp of procrastination. Many perfectionists develop chronic procrastination as a way of giving up and stepping out of the stress and anxiety.

OvercomIng perfectionism

Rational realistic thinking
Adults with perfectionism are often very self-critical of themselves and need to replace their self-critical perfectionistic thoughts, feeling and statements with those that are more rational, realistic and helpful. This is often called ‘reframing’.

Positive affirmations – Positive self-talk
A good practise of reframing your thoughts and feelings is to repeat helpful positive self-statements regularly to yourself. Even if you do not believe what you are saying right away, if you do enough repetitions you will eventually turn your positive rational, realistic thoughts into new habits, that will help overcome all of your negative self-talk.

Some examples of positive affirmations:
“No one needs to be perfect”
“My best is good enough”
“Getting things wrong does not mean that I’m stupid or a failure”
“I am like everyone else”
“Everyone is allowed to make mistakes”
“I do not need to be pleasant all the time”
“Everyone has a bad day sometimes”
“It’s okay that some people don’t like me”
“No one is liked by everyone”
“I love and approve of myself”
(© AnxietyBC and Louise Hay)

The most important attitudes to have to both yourself and to others is compromise and tolerance

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder
We are all perfect as we are. Whatever age, size, shape, colour, ethnicity, religion, culture and so on, we are all perfect.

Take care and be happy with you as you are right now

Sean x

The value of routine

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Habits create routine and routines create habits
It is said that we are all creatures of habits. I guess that if you subtract your bad habits from your good habits you will have some idea if, over all, your habits are serving you well or ill. Habits, as we have said many times in our podcasts are built through consistent and persistent practice. This is termed routine. This is because we become whatever it is that we pay attention to. Most habits develop subliminally below our awareness simply from what we are doing most of the time. Our habit forming process is neutral. Your mind-brain system does not care if the habits you create are positive or negative. To your system they are just habits.

We can choose our habits
When we consciously decide what it is that we want to do with our every day lives we mindfully create positive habits that make us happy or that give us the best out of the situation that we are in. We have the capacity to build many good habits throughout life by actively, consciously and mindfully participating in what we are thinking, feeling and doing. If we simply work on a default setting we simply create habits without realising if it’s good or bad. Then we say, “that’s just the way that I am” and I say “no, that is the way that you have chosen to be through the habits that you have developed”.

Most routines and therefore habits, develop below our awareness
We live in a world of routines all the time. We live in minutes, hours, days, week months and years. The seasons roll around each year over and over again. We live in monthly cycles and yearly cycles that we do not question, they simply are what they are. The only time they are questioned is when they are subject to change. Changing habits is rarely easy.

The point is that once it is a habit, you no longer need to think about it, it is just what you do. This is automation. Once a routine is automated, positive habits increase our efficiency and happiness by enabling you to do things without thinking about it. This is equally true of negative routines which is why we need to be mindfully vigilant of what routines we are engaging in.

The good thing is that if you automatically get things done, you do not have to remind yourself, you just do it. When a habit is a habit nothing slips, everything gets done and you save all the time you would have wasted deciding what to do with your day or life.

It may take time to develop a habit but once it is a part of routine you no longer need will power or motivation you simply just do it. That is why relying on routine to accomplish a task is a lot easier than relying on willpower and motivation. Yes, when establishing a routine, you do have to will and motivate yourself to stick to the routine. But once the routine is set, it is on autopilot and the need for constant willpower and motivation is no longer necessary.

When I am teaching mindful meditation I tell the students that the practice should become like brushing your teeth. If you went out of the house in the morning without brushing your teeth you would feel odd or that there was something wrong. If you have the habit of meditation and you miss your practice, in the same way, you would feel that something was wrong.

People that develop routines get things done
There is something about creating routines and positive habits that allows us to become more efficient and effective as people. We get things done and complete tasks.

Spontaneity
To be a well organised person that lives with routines does not takeaway spontaneity. To have routines does not mean to become fixed or immoveable. The world of routines can be flexible. The powerful thing about a habit is that it is never lost. The routine practice of any activity for 90 days will encode the habit into long term memory. You never forget how to ride a bike or to swim. Once a habit is there, it is there forever and can be called upon at will. The formation of habits are the routines that we live by,

Choose you habits, ensure that they serve you well and be happy

Take care

Sean X

Intelligent Energies

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This week Ed and I invited Jeff Jefferies to join us on the podcast. Jeff is an expert in the use of intelligent energies. He uses his ability to manipulate the energy of the universe to effect healing, even over great distances, and to ease geopathic stress.

Geopathic stress is like a block or a knot in various places on the planet that negatively effects people and animals that come into its energy field. When I listen to Jeff talking about his work he sounds like an acupuncturist placing a pin into the blocks and knots in someone’s body to release their emotional tensions.

We all live within a sea of energy. Quantum physics tells us that inside all matter are atoms and inside all atoms are particles. Each particle is comprised of three sub particles known as quarks. Below quarks are what is described as ‘source energy’. It is from this source energy that quarks are formed.

Quarks gather together in groups of three and form particles. Particles gather together into atoms and atoms form molecules and molecules into elements. Elements form matter that forms planets, which gather together into planetary systems and galaxies that form the entire cosmos.

At a biological level the elements come together to form organelles, which are sub cellular components, that in turn form cells. Cells form organs and organ systems that form bodies, bodies form families, societies, cultures, nations and indeed all of humanity. In fact, all that is comes from source energy. Source energy is therefore the basis of all that we can experience.

When quantum physicist talk about source energy it sounds like descriptions of God, “it always has been, always will be, cannot be created or destroyed, it just changes its form…” and so on.

Source energy may also be described as Prana, Nard, Chi, Ki, and in some cases as bio-energy, cosmic energy, or universal intelligence that may also be described as consciousness.

When trying to make sense of this energetic world, that exists beyond, within and below matter, the word ‘intelligence’ seems to be crucial and raises the question ‘does source energy manifest itself with intelligence, is source energy consciousness?’ If the answer is ‘Yes’ then all of creation is purposeful and meaningful. If the answer is ‘No’ then all of creation is a random event that has no purpose or meaning. I am in the ‘yes’ camp. I see life as intelligent and I see the things that happen to me and to you as meaningful and purposeful. Of course, this could just be my way of making sense of life and could just be my fantasy.

Many groups of people have named source energy as their own, and only God. Each group or religion have created their own book of words to explain to their followers what source energy is and how we should interact with it. Having travelled the world and having talked with many learned and enlightened beings my conclusions is that we all experience source energy in our own way. Perhaps there are as many descriptions of source energy as there are people that experience it. In that sense all of creation is a mystery that human mind seeks to understand and all create stories to try and make sense of it.

However it is that we acknowledge or experience source energy we have to agree that it exists. If it did not exist then life itself would not exist. I think source energy is like electricity in that I can’t see it and I can’t smell it but if I touch it, it gives me a good belt. I cannot see electricity but I can see what it does to lights bulbs, powers TVs and other devices, motors, tools, and even cars. I see source energy in the same way. I can’t see it and I can’t smell it but I can see how it manifests in all of creation around me. I can feel it and experience it in my mindful meditation, in my intuition and creativity and also when I do massage and healing.

My own conclusion is that energy is neutral it is neither good nor bad positive nor negative. Electricity can power a healing scanner or a killing electric chair. Source energy is used to create both saints and sinners. After all goodness and badness are constructs that we experience from our own point of view. It is the issue of one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It is all relative. However, in the extremes of energy we have those forces that seek to bind things together that I would describe as love, be it gravity of societal cohesion and those forces that seek to push things apart and are destructive that I would describe as hate.

The question that is raised by practitioners such as Jeff is ‘can we manipulate or direct source energy? And In terms of the above paragraph can we turn bad into good or hate into love. Jeff’s work and the effects of Jeff’s work would suggest that we can.

I have direct experience of source energy both as a body worker from when I was trained in Ayurvedic massage and as hands on healer. I have also seen many healers doing amazing work with people and animals. I have seen dowsers finding water sources in arid land and experienced acupuncture and acupressure and have studied and practised pranayama, (Prana = energy, Yama = control).

The more we understand source energy in the physical world then the more we understand the truth of matter and quantum physics. The more we understand source energy in the psychotherapeutic world the more we understand about consciousness, intelligent energies and the meaning of life.

While such understanding has been known to a few, through what is termed as ‘enlightenment’, we are at the brink of a new development of human consciousness. The Aquarian Age is about individuals becoming self aware and taking personal responsibility for the world around them and the effect that they have upon it. The previous era, the Piscean Age, was dominated by gurus, avatars, doctrine and religions.

This will be an interesting 2000 years. It is said that at the beginning of an era there is chaos before the new order begins. In the chaos there are often wars and a break down of the current order of things. As I look around me and suspect that humanity is winding up for another World War I assume that the source energy is intelligent and that it’s manifestation, whatever it is, will be meaningful. However, I do know that Jeff and the other healers of the world will be there turning negative energies into good ones and my hope is that more of us will wake up enough to assist in the task of creating heaven on earth, that we could have right now if we chose to do so.

Take care and be happy

Sean X

Is the internet making us dumber?

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For me the short answer is no. However, what the internet is doing is changing our emotional and cognitive responses to ourselves and those people around us.

Aspergers and Autism
People who are on the spectrum of Aspergers and Autism differ from the rest of the population in that their emotional expression and understanding is withheld and internalised. Those on the spectrum do have feelings and emotions but the ability to understand them and share them is difficult for them. Therefore those on the spectrum may have emotional outbursts that may be loud, highly charged and even violent but they have problems with simple sensual touch and caring emotions or empathy.

Internet Based Aspergers Syndrome
One important aspect of communication is in visual expressions, responses and observations. It is estimated (Psychology Today) that body language, visual non-verbal communication, amounts to around 55% of all communication. Autistic behaviour lacks this visual context. Eye contact is avoided so all body language is lost. So immediately autistic people are missing 55% of the communicated message.

Those involved in Internet communication, using text and email, are no longer seeing or understanding the body language of those people they attempting to communicate with and will therefore act in an autistic manner.

Calacanis, the internet blogger, says that he’s come to recognise a new disorder, the underlying cause of, what he calls, Harris’ Law, Internet Asperger’s Syndrome, which affects people when their communication moves to digital, causing them to stop seeing the humanity in other people, and to behave in other ways that parallel the symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome.

However at least the Autistic person can hear what people are saying. It is estimated (Psychology Today) that 38% of communication is in the tone of voice. This is totally lost in digital communication. This means that those with Internet Based Aspergers Syndrome are even more emotionally disabled than those with regular Asperger’s syndrome.

What is left in the communication is the written word of a text, email, or posting on Twitter or FaceBook, this is only 7% of the meaning in the communication leaving a huge potential for miscommunication.

When people get locked into the Internet on social media or gaming, over time, it would appear that they lose their empathy and emotional/social contact with others. You may have thousands of friends on Facebook and not really know any of them. This suggests an ever increasing social disconnect. Looking at many internet games that can serve to normalise violent behaviours and attitudes it makes me wonder whether we are training ourselves to be harder, less caring and more isolated.

Harris’s Law
At some point, all humanity in an online community is lost, and the goal becomes to inflict as much psychological suffering as possible on another person.

The internet with all the people communicating online can easily wind up mimicking these Asperger’s behaviours because they are imposing the same disadvantages on themselves. In both cases, when the ability to see nonverbal responses and facial expressions goes away, on the internet you then need to add the tone of voice. What really goes is empathy. So in the end you are no longer communicating with a person, they have just become words on a screen. Or only 7% of who they are.

The positive side of the Internet is our ability to share and access information. The key here is in the word information. Information is not emotion.

So, for me the Internet does not make us dumber what is does is make us less empathic. It is good but not at the cost of real face to face relationships. At least with Skype and FaceTime we can see the other person and hear the tone of their voice, here we have the chance to get near to the 100% of communication. When we rely on word alone we have a mere 7% – not good!

Take care, be happy and communicate

Sean X

Affairs – Why Do We Cheat?

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This week Ed and I got a message asking if we could have a look at why do we cheat in relationships.

“Why do men cheat? Why do women cheat? Is it such a bad thing? Is cheating ever good for a relationship? How should we react when our partner cheats? Should we take it personally and let it affect us and our relationship, if it was simply just a case of ‘living in the present ( ! )’ and being in the moment, living life and following what the chemicals in your brain are telling you to do? Can you learn to be faithful? If so how do you learn to want to be faithful?

Let’s have a look one bit at a time.

Why do we cheat in relationships?
Well statistics suggest that 61% of people have affairs. This would suggest for the majority of people unfaithfulness is normal behaviour.

Why do men cheat?
Much research suggests that unfaithfulness is often genetic up to 63% of men are expected to be genetically predisposed to spread their genes. It is assumed that the male of the species is programmed to have sex with as many women as possible. Chemically it is suggested that the majority of men who have affairs are driven by testosterone and the high of sexual orgasm.

Why do women cheat?
For women research suggests that around 40% of women are genetically predisposed to unfaithfulness but whereas men are driven by testosterone, women are more likely driven by oxytocin. This is the bonding chemical that is released by the brain in response to cuddling, fondling, kissing and sexual contact.

Is it such a bad thing?
This is in the eye of the beholder. For some open relationships are good and add spice and excitement to their relationship. There are no rules here. If you are naturally faithful and your partner is not, all you will do is create pain and heart ache for them and perhaps children and in-laws.

Can cheating be good for a relationship?
I have worked with couples where one person became so involved with work or other issues that the gradually paid less and less attention to their partner who in the desperate need to get some attention turned to another person to give them a sense of self worth.

If the result of an affair is that your partner now pays you the attention that you deserve you could decide that it was a good thing. If on the other hand it leaves you ruminating on what ‘they’ we’re doing it will become totally destructive.

How should you react when your partner cheats?
Well, either you decide that it is now all over and separation is the only option or you feel that it is worth fighting for. If it is worth it then you probably need therapy – That’s where I come from.

Should we take it personally?
Yes… Either you chose the wrong person or something happened to make them the wrong person and what they have done does affect you and how you feel about who you are?

How do you learn to be faithful?
This is the rule of…

…What you feed grows and what you starve dies

If you want your relationship to grow then feed it. If you starve it then it will die. It is a choice.

How do you learn to be faithful?
Pain or awareness. If you are not aware enough to nurture your relationship then you will experience the pain of it failing.

Perhaps I should finish this with the idea that if you want your relationship to work you need to agree your relationship contract before you begin it. Fidelity is a contractual agreement. If you are unfaithful the contract is over. Unless you have an open agreement cheating is definitely out.

Take care

Sean X

Alone or Lonely?

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Many people when they wake have such a fear of, or antipathy to silence that they need to fill the space around them with sound. On goes the radio, TV or MP3 player, the day has begun. I am not suggesting that we should not listen to things though it might benefit us to look at what we are doing and why?

I have met many people who hate the feeling of aloneness. When I dig into this it is often based in fear. In the last blog I was talking about the two different forms of anxiety either based in worry or fear. Often, when we need to fill the space around us with sound we are avoiding the anxiety of fear.

Ok, so nothing wrong with enjoying listening to things. For me it is audio books, I love a good story read by a good storyteller. I am thinking more about where there is something turned on making a noise in every room because there is a perceived feeling of unwanted emptiness if the room is in silence. The fear is often what will we hear or be aware of if we listen to the silence, if there is no noise or distraction. In psycho-speak we might consider this way of repressing unwanted memories or thoughts. If the mind is busy and filled with stuff we avoid feeling or we can’t think.

How do you feel about being in silence?
On meditation intensives you live in absolute or ‘noble silence’ for the entire course that may be seven, ten or thirty plus days. In the silence, when all outside stimulus has ceased all that can be heard are the inner machinations of your emotions and mind, your thoughts, memories and feelings. Sometimes this is difficult as the memories may be hard to deal with and may involve unresolved hurt, loss or bereavement that needs to be faced processed and let go of. I should also point out that there are also many happy and positive memories that come back to say hello as well, it is not all tough stuff.

I have a friend who, like me, experienced abuse as a child yet our experience of being alone is exactly opposite. For her there is a fear of being alone in a silent space. She always needs the door to be open and for other people to be around or for there to be sound. For me it is the reverse, when there is silence and the door is shut I am safe and secure. For me aloneness and silence are something good that I enjoy. When I go out running my favourite time is 5am in the dark dressed in black with no headphones. The world is silent, no one is around and in black I am pretty invisible. Aloneness feels great.

How do you feel about being alone?
Do you like your own company or if you are alone do you seek out the company of others? Being alone and being lonely are different. You can be lonely within a group of people.

Human beings are social animals. We are designed to live in mutually supportive groups as families, tribes, villages, societies and so on. Yet when we become too busy, or fill our time with too much stuff it is easy to forget who we are and to stop attending to our own needs.

Life is the thing that passes us by while we are busy filling our time with stuff

I see people who, at a certain point in life experience fundamental changes. The kids have grown up and left to live their own lives, sometimes they have moved to other places or countries. As the last child leaves home the house becomes quieter. Then along comes retirement and unless we have a strong social network the world becomes quieter again. When our partner passes then we have a sense of silent aloneness, often for the first time in our lives. Many people have spoken to me about their feelings of aloneness as this time in their lives.

Of course, when we lived in extended families this didn’t happen as there were many generations living together from great grandparents to great grandchildren and aloneness didn’t really happen. These days we confine older people to a retirement or residential home where they are thrown in with a bunch of strangers they may or may not be to their liking, this can be a very lonely place to be.

There is nowhere as lonely as a crowd
For most people aloneness has to be faced at some point in life. Those people who have practiced mindfulness and have become accustomed to the silence of their inner mind find it the least threatening or even enjoyable. Perhaps now might be a good time to get practising some mindfulness.

I am reminded of a primary school teacher who had an unruly class and needed to create someway of quieting the children when they were getting out of hand. We developed the exercise of being a tree. When she blew a whistle they all had to stop and stand with their eyes closed, legs planted in the ground and relax from the top of their heads to the tips of their toes and then spend a minute being a tree before she blew the whistle gain. One of the children asked a strange question, “What is that sound that I can here when we become trees?” It took a bit of working out but in the end we got there. The sound that she was hearing was silence it was just that she had never heard it before. She lived in one of those houses where she awoke to noise and went to sleep to noise. Silence was a new sound to her, a new experience.

If you have never experienced being alone or being in silence try it. You might enjoy it.

Take care

Sean X

How to Combat Social Anxiety

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The neuropsychology of anxiety – Worry or Fear?

There is, I feel, some confusion about anxiety and its sibling panic attacks. I’d like to try in this blog and explain a bit about how the brain works, emotion and the appropriateness of different forms of therapy.

At a scientific level our understanding of neuropsychology and therefore our understanding of the neuropsychology of anxiety has come on leaps and bounds. However at a therapeutic level sometimes we are lagging behind leading to inappropriate therapies and failed clients.

I experience this confusion about ‘what is anxiety’, is also shared by therapist who fail to see the difference between our emotional self and our cognitive self. Leading to inappropriate therapy. Cognitive therapy is great and highly effective for people suffering cognitive problems but fails totally when used for emotional issues. I will explain.

Our human brain is different to all other mammals and primates in that we have developed the higher cortex that gives rise to cognitive function, including speech, language, reasoning and self awareness. This we may term the “New Brain” and is the result of millions of years of evolution, if there is truly a difference between humans and other hominids this it. The “Old Brain” shared with many other species (that is also the result of millions of years of evolution), is dominated by the amygdala and the brain stem. The difference between these two parts of the brain is simply the difference between worry and fear.

Fear Based Anxiety is emotional
Fear is an instinctual response, often a reflex, in the amygdala of the old brain that may lead to the physical, often violent or, fight and flight, flee responses that are activated in the brain stem. This tends to be highly emotional, often below awareness and may be triggered by sounds, smells, colours and so on. When people have an old brain anxiety attack it is a fear reaction and they will appear temporarily out of control. Once they have calmed down and the cognitive new brain is back on line they may be filled with remorse, shocked and horrified by their instinctual behaviour.

The amygdala is a dual almond shaped organ, one in either hemisphere of the brain though usually termed in the singular. The difference between the two amygdala’s, has not yet been studied in the west, is in Ayurvedic neuropsychology recognised as a part of our intuitive function, that sense of knowing without knowing why we know. As such its function is both above and below our awareness. When it is functioning above our awareness we call it intuition. When it functions below our awareness we see it as the primal response of instinct. This is where we process fear, yet we may never understand why we are afraid.

Worry Based Anxiety is cognitive
The anxiety experienced in the new cognitive brain is completely different to primal amygdala responses in that it is experienced as a reasoned response based in logic. The reasoning and the logic may, in reality be faulty, but is experienced by the person as factual. People will say “it is a known fact that…” when it is nothing of the sort. Worry based anxiety comes from the person not living in the present moment. They have projected themselves forward into ideas and experiences that may never happen but they are living them in the present as though they have. The tools of worry based anxiety are obsessing, which may lead to obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD, rumination, dog with a bone syndrome where we cannot let it go and go over and over the same issue.

In Ayurveda
Worry anxiety in the cognitive cortex is seen as part of the process of the imagination. People with a poor imagination do not get worry anxiety because they have difficulty imagining negative futures to become anxious about. Cognitive anxiety is dealt with by Tantric therapy, which is not all about sex it is about dealing with and controlling the imagination. Worry in the amygdala is dealt with in the Raja therapy.

Tantric therapy is based in using visualisation to create future images that are positive and do not have the worry attached to them. Raja based therapy is mindful relaxation and meditative practice that reduces the levels of stress hormone in the body system reducing the instinctual feelings of fear.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Over the years I, and many other therapist, have a stream of people presenting with emotional anxiety who will state how they have had CBT for their anxiety and how it worked really well. My comment is what worked well and what’s changed now?

My theory is someone presents for therapy with amygdala based emotional anxiety. Because therapy is awash with CBT practitioners the patient will almost certainly see a CBT therapist who uses their learned tools for dealing with cognitive anxiety. What happens is that the therapist uses a set of cognitive exercises that suppress the patients fear based emotions. It is as though they force in a cork to trap the emotions in a bottle just like champagne. Because the emotions have not been processed or resolved then over time the emotions gradually push the cork out of the bottle and the patient ends up just where they began with emotional anxiety.

Don’t get me wrong I am not against CBT, just the way that it is misused. The bottom line is cognitive therapy for cortex based worry anxiety and emotional therapy for amygdala based fear anxiety. The trick is that you need to know the difference.

If your anxiety if based in logical reasoning seek out a cognitive therapist they will be great for you.

If your anxiety is fear based find a therapist skilled in emotional work they maybe psychodynamic, cognitive analytical (CAT), Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness based therapies and you will get what you need.

Most importantly none of us need to suffer anxiety, if you do then please do something about it.

Take care and be happy

Sean X

Free Will vs Determinism

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Are the things that happen to you your choice or are they already determined? Do you have a future you can create or a destiny that you cannot? Is your life and the things that will and have happened to you a written script that has already been written or do you have free will? Is the day and time of your birth and the day and time of your death already set?

This week on the podcast Steph asked Ed and I to discuss this, a very interesting topic.

If we have no free will then there is little point, as far as I can see it, doing anything as the things that happen in life are set so we have little choice other than to make the best of whatever life deals us. On the other hand if freewill does exist then we are the masters of our universe and we can create and do the things that we want.

No freewill = a life where we have problems to endure. Freewill = a life where we have challenges to resolve and overcome.

At Live In The Present we run courses and therapy for people that wish to change some aspect of their life. For some this is easier than for others. For many they can find it the hardest thing in the world. We work from the basis that we all have freewill and that life is not deterministic, but is it?

The way that I see it is that we all have freewill but our free will is limited. This is the same as the nature versus nurture debate. Our genes may limit us and therefore our freewill. If I only have one leg yet desire to run a mile or, I might be short and desire to be tall, I may have curly hair but I want it to be straight. We are all limited or challenged by our genes.

With free will someone with one leg, a “unidexter”, can run or hop a mile, it may just take them longer than someone with two legs, a “biped” but not necessarily. A short person could have their bones lengthened, a painful though successful process. And someone with curly hair can use shampoos and straighteners to get their hair how they want it to look.

People overcome blindness, dyslexia, and cognitive impairment and so on to achieve university degrees and write books. Think about Stephen Hawkins and all that he has achieved despite his disability.

So our ability to act freely may be limited by our genes, circumstances or accidents. It could also be limited by family expectations, education, socialisation, culture, religion, and ethnicity. However we do have the freedom, the freewill, to overcome such limitations.

Concepts precede percepts
However, the biggest limiter of freewill is having, or not having, the concept of freewill in the first place. If as a child I am taught that that I do not have freewill and I believe it then, I will be limited by whatever system I believe to be true. If on the other hand my learning is that I do have freewill, that I am self-determining and that I can achieve whatever it is that I put my mind to the only limit would be the extent of my imagination.

When looking at freewill we must also be aware of religious belief. Concepts of heaven and hell, reward and punishment that will and do shape behaviour. If our belief is that to act violently to the non-believers of our faith will get me a better deal in paradise, valhalla or heaven then warlike behaviour becomes more understandable.

I would say that for all of us to be able to enact freewill what we need is will power, but what is will power?

Well, ‘Power’, as an engineer would define it, is ‘the ability to do work’. Engines and motors are all rated by their ability to complete the task required, they have a power rating, normally described at it’s horse power. Power, when associated to us is our ability to complete the task before us, to do what we need to do. For some the task will be a problem and for others a challenge. Willpower is our ability to enact our freewill, it is freewill power.

When we enact freewill power the tasks that we set ourself can be seen as challenges to be faced and overcome. Challenges can then be related to plans and strategies that take us to the solution or goal.

When we feel that life is deterministic and predetermined it is easy to see the tasks that we have not as challenges but as a problems. It can so easily all become so much more difficult to deal with. At this point people commonly become stuck, demotivated, lose direction and, often give up. This is where the need for freewill power comes in.

A quick Google of ‘Will’ results in…

1. the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.”she has an iron will”
2. synonyms: determination, firmness of purpose, fixity of purpose, will power, strength of character, resolution, resolve, resoluteness, purposefulness, single-mindedness, drive, commitment, dedication, doggedness, tenacity, tenaciousness, staying power, backbone, spine.

I see ‘Will’ as persistence and consistence action towards a defined goal.

The goal might be physical, social, intellectual, emotional, financial, business etc,etc, absolutely anything, there are no limits. Here are some tips that might help you get your head around freewill power,

1: Set a goal
To achieve anything you need to be clear about what it is that you want or where you are going. The lack of clarity at the outset will often lead to failure. The clearer the goal the easier the result. If your answer to the question “what do you want?” is “I want to be happy” this will not work for you, it is too vague. To be clear you have to know what it looks like, feels like, smells like, what colour it is, what shape it is.
Tip: Write your goal as a sentence or descriptive paragraph. If you can explain it clearly to another person then you will know what it is.

2: Resources
What do you need? Resources may include ideas and images, plans and organisation, money and other practical resources, market testing to make sure that it works, and the physical manifestation of the idea in the physical world. It is important to realise that other people are also resources.
Tip: Write it all down and share it with someone else. Perhaps a mentor and get their feedback.

3: Plan
A plan is like creating a route that describes the journey you will take to your destination. But plans are never set in stone. A good plan is flexible and can adapt to changes and unforeseen challenges.
Tip: To move a project from idea to goal requires a plan. By using mind maps , spider diagrams are a good way of setting out your ideas on a flat piece of paper that can then be moved into a plan with a timeline.

4: Mentorship
There is no need to reinvent the wheel. On the basis that you can do things the easy way or the hard way, learning from other people’s mistakes can make it much easier. If you talk to other people, use a mentor or a coach you can save your self so much time, avoid making mistakes and allow someone else to feed and energise your freewill.
Tip: You will be amazed at the people who will be prepared to help you. All you have to do is ask. Many people will help you for free some, such as coaches, will charge a fee. You may have someone in mind already, you may need to talk to people and ask around you maybe even family members.

5: Stay focussed
The ability to remain on task will normally mean the ability to live in the present. That requires that you let go of the past and stop worrying about the future. In short, this is the contents of the Live in the Present book. On a daily basis we recommend that you use Mindfulness to enhance your ability to stay focused, this means some ‘zoning’ time every day. The ‘Mindfulness Toolkit’ from the LITP site will be of use to you especially the ‘morning focus’ and the ‘evening review’.
Tip: Take time out every day to clear and focus your mind. We also recommend Headspace, Meditationoasis and One moment meditation.

6: Stay Motivated
Everyone on every project will find times when their energy has gone or is very low so that it is really hard to get going or keep going. So, build this into your time line and your plan so that you have extra time to take it easy when you need to. Look after yourself, take time out and make sure you have some fun. ‘Down time’, (R&R) rest and recuperation, is a good time to review and audit where you are up to and to decide if things need to be changed or adapted.
Tip: Expect to need some ‘down time’, allow for the fact that you will need to take breaks and have fun.

7: Get Networking
Every week groups of people meet to network. These are often business groups but there are other interest groups like writers groups or self help groups. These are really useful to keep you motivated, focused and on track.
Tip: Google your area and find groups of people that you can network with.

8: Get The Freewill Power Habit
Freewill power, like every other behaviour that we have, is a habit. A habit is something that we do without thinking about it, we just do it. If your habit is to keep going, despite the challenges then that it is simply what you do.
Tip: We know that to develop a habit takes an initial 30 days of consistent and persistent activity. This creates new brain cells, that is the neural circuit, that is the new habit. However, to get this habit into longterm memory so that it is there forever takes a further 60 days. To create the will power habit takes 90 days of persistent, consistent behaviour.

Once we get rid of the limits of deterministic thinking we become open to using freewill power. We may think that freewill power is a magical ability that only a few have. The reality is that we all have freewill power once we decide to tap into it. Anyone can contact their freewill power as an everyday habit by working persistently and consistently towards a given goal.

Take care and be free to become all that you desire

Sean x

How assertive are you?

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A listener messaged to ask about being self assertive. For me the issues of self assertion and confidence run together. Confident people find it easier to assert themselves and people who are self assertive will tend to be more confident. A bit of a chicken and egg situation. I guess our starting point is what is self assertion?

In Britain we tend to confuse assertiveness with arrogance yet they are very different. The Cambridge English dictionary defines arrogance as ‘unpleasantly proud and behaving as if you are more important than, or know more than other people’.

It defines assertiveness as ‘someone who behaves confidently and is not frightened to say what they want or believe.’ I would add onto to those two definitions that I often see those who are arrogant as lacking empathy with a tendency to railroad their demands whereas assertive people have empathy and are able to communicate their needs and desires while taking other people’s views, and needs, into account.

So for me it is assertion = good and arrogance = bad.

Arrogant behaviour can also include aggression to enforce it’s demands. Assertive people have the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive.

In social history we have examples of people who have been able to be assertive, on the global stage, in the face of arrogant and aggressive behaviour. For them this is peace versus violence. In recent history Nelson Mandela opted for an assertive approach in facing racial apartheid in South Africa and he adopted an assertive, but cooperative, approach with the truth and reconciliation committee once his goals had been achieved. Martin Luther King used peaceful self assertion in the face of segregation and discrimination in the USA and although the forces of arrogance and violence did eventually kill him his goal was reached. Though the struggle for freedom and the equality of all peoples continues. Mahatma Gandhi, leader of India, used peaceful assertiveness to end British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent. Sadly he was unable to overcome all of the aggressive arrogance of his fellow Indians that led to the splitting of the subcontinent into what we now know as Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

There are also many examples in social history of those who used aggressive arrogance to get their own way. The big hitters are the Roman Empire, Attila the Hun, the various European empires, and now the modern larger more powerful countries, the USA, Russia and now potentially China, there continue to be the ravages of various religious groups not least of all Christianity and the individual personalities from Hitler, through the various despots in African and European countries right through to our own Tony Blair and Americas George Bush.

One good thing that history shows us is these negative behaviours do not last forever and good, or so it would appear, wins through in the end.
If you review your life you will be able to remember people who were assertive and those that were aggressive. The strange thing is that in most cases both approaches can have the same effect as the person does get what they want. However, aggressive arrogance is ultimately destructive while peaceful assertion is constructive. Individually we have a choice.

Assertiveness like both behaviours is a skill or habit that is first learned then practiced. If you want to be assertive here are some ideas that may help you.

1: Know what you want
It can be hard to assert an opinion or idea if you are unclear of what you are thinking, meeting or needing. In any interaction in which you need to assert your desires or point of view be very clear about what you want, what is the end game for you?

2: Broken record
When you are clear about your required outcome but the other person will not listen or talks over you try using the broken record technique. This is to simply repeat your point of view, same words in the same way every time you are opposed or expected to do something that you do not want to do. This works particularly well when someone will not take no for and answer. It is version of ‘which part of no do you not understand’ but less controversial, as repeating the same words does not directly challenge the other person.

3: Fogging or Hazing
This is when you avoid direct confrontation by creating fog. If you agree with the antagonist but then state your point of view. In your agreement you validate the person and what they are saying this can defuse them enough for you to state your own point of view…

“ I get what you mean, however….”
“ That is a really good point, perhaps we could also…”
“ An amazing idea but…”
” Yeah, I thought of doing it that way but then I realised…”
” I agree with you that, this and that. However we need to treat this that and the other in a different way …”

4: Owning
‘I’ statements can be used to voice one’s feelings and wishes from a personal position without expressing a judgment about the other person. When I own the statement, feeling or argument I am not blaming the other person for my feelings. Using owning techniques can encourage the person to be more open to supporting us.

” It may just be me but I get the feeling that…”
” I have real problems with that…”
” When you say that it makes me feel… Is that what you wanted?”
” Please can you help with this one, I don’t get why you are saying/thinking/ feeling/doing…?”

The rightness of being able to assert your point of view if beyond doubt. The problems come from your belief that it is true. You are worth the skin that you stand up in and you do have an indisputable right to your point of view. Learning to be assertive is just another habit that, if you practice, you will become good at.

A word of warning. If the antagonist is in a real position of authority it may be that no matter what you do to assert yourself you will not be heard and you may need to, or be required to, move on. This is not a failure, its facing the reality of who you are and who or what your are involved in.

The second thing is being aware of psychopathy. It is said that when you confront a bully they will back down. Well, this is true unless they are a psychopath. A psychopath is someone who lacks empathic insight and therefore lacks emotional awareness, empathy, conscience or care. In dealing with a psychopath the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut and move, as quickly as possible away from them.

Take care and assert your right to be you.

Sean X

You are what you eat… …or so the say.

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Carnivores, pescatarians, vegetarians, fruitarians, vegans, all have good reasons for following their own dietary paths. For some food is just fuel while for others it is a culinary delight. Some fear food and the effects that it will have on their bodies and they become anorexic. While others become bulimic and throw up all that they eat. Thousands and thousands of people follow diets and detox plans and there are those who do or don’t eat certain foods for religious reasons. Food is certainly an emotive issue that effects us all everyday even if we only see food as fuel and a chore that must be done.

What do you eat and why?

This week on the podcast Ed and I were joined by Marissa, who is the director of the Vegan Lifestyle Association – Tea Lover -and Public Health, Nutrition and Psychology researcher. We were discussing food, what we eat and why we eat it. We each came from differing eating habits Ed as a carnivore, me as a veggie with some leanings towards pescatarianism and Marissa as a vegan.

Why not eat meat?
My own feelings about not eating meat are not to do with health but with the ethical issue of killing animals to eat. I had a farm for a while and faced the issue of meat eating head on. I think if we all had to kill our own meat then many of us would become vegetarian. When you have raised an animal and know it well, they become more than animals they are people, personalities and understandably they do not want to die, they will fight you for their life.

There is another issue beyond the health and ethical issues of a meat eating diet is that of sustainability and our ability as humans to continue living on planet Earth. It takes so much more land to produce meat than plant protein that in end they we will eventually run out of space. This may also be true even if we all went veggie tomorrow.

David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel -From the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment

Abstract
Worldwide, an estimated 2 billion people live primarily on a meat-based diet, while an estimated 4 billion live primarily on a plant-based diet. The US food production system uses about 50% of the total US land area, 80% of the fresh water, and 17% of the fossil energy used in the country. The heavy dependence on fossil energy suggests that the US food system, whether meat-based or plant-based, is not sustainable. The use of land and energy resources devoted to an average meat-based diet compared with a lactoovovegetarian (plant-based) [including eggs and milk] diet is analysed in this report. In both diets, the daily quantity of calories consumed are kept constant at about 3533 kcal per person. The meat-based food system requires more energy, land, and water resources than the lactoovovegetarian diet. In this limited sense, the lactoovovegetarian diet is more sustainable than the average American meat-based diet.

Diary and growth hormones
It is hard to find anything good to say about dairy products. Basically, dairy is designed to raise a calf to become an adult cow or bull. This means that it is full of growth hormone, a fatal disaster for tumours and really not helpful for Prostate glands.

Ethics Vs Health
If you choose to eat for health you have to decide where what you are eating comes from and whether the issues of chemicals and treatment are acceptable to your health regime. If your eating regime is ethical you will need to research theocracies of what you are eating. If food for you is simply fuel then enjoy it.

The future of food
It seems that if we maintain or increase the worlds population there will come a time when we will not be able to feed ourselves using standard farming techniques. To survive we will need to get into factory farming in a big way. This may raise both ethical and health issues.

However you eat, do it mindfully and be happy

Take care

Sean X