Archive for category: Blog

Time to apologise?

In Step one you looked at how you feel about other people and the negative things that they did to you, but what about you? What about those people that you have let down? Do you blame them or yourself? Is it time to acknowledge those negative things that you have done? Is it time to apologise? Let go and move on.

It is so easy to blame other people for your own problems, angers and frustration. Or you can become irritated with people who do not do things the way that you want them to. You may see them as stupid, rude, incompetent, inconsiderate, and so on. But, is the problem theirs or yours?

You can never change other people
The only thing in life that you will ever be able to change is yourself. What other people do, or did, and the reasons why they did it, may only make sense to them but never to you. The outcome of their actions are their responsibility not yours. This is what we call karma, the result of their actions, is their karma.

You have karma as well
Equally, you are, and always will be, responsible for your actions, responses and, also your reactions. This is your karma. Being responsible for yourself means that you are able to let go of your expectations of others, and that you are not hanging onto the outcomes and hopes that you want or desire.

Attachments are fixed connections to past expectations
Cravings are attachments to future expectations

Being attached to, or craving for a desired outcome is a recipe for disappointment that can leave you feeling angry, offended, hurt or, disappointed. The simple truth is that in all of your interactions with others, if you had not had an expectation in the first place you would not have been disappointed.

The other side of the same coin is what did you do to others? I wonder what expectations other people had of you? Did you get it wrong, fail to get it right; were you a disappointment to yourself or to other people?

If you are honest with yourself who is it that you let down or disappointed by your behaviour. Perhaps their expectation of you were that wrong.

If you want to feel different and let go of the past then, perhaps it is time to own up and let go of your negativity.

Blaming yourself may not be that helpful
I don’t like the concepts of fault and blame; they do not really help us very much. I prefer the concept of responsibility that suggests the ability to respond -respondability. If you are responsible for the way that you think, feel, and do, without the need to blame others, you cease to be a victim. Acknowledging the part that you have played of other peoples problems and become the author of your own destiny.

In step two we seek forgiveness for all the negative things that we have done, and did, to other people. None of us are squeaky clean we have all done things that we would need to acknowledge and seek forgiveness.

Complete step two, enjoy your life in the present and be happy

Take care

Sean x

Live in the present

Well, we have done it. This is the introduction to the course “Live In the present” that I have run for many years with my lovely wife Rie, my amazing business partner Ed and some lovely helpers, David, Sharon and Dafydd. Happy times and good sessions.

The course grew out of my experience working with clients who were attempting to change their live to find the fulfilment that the they really wanted but were hitting the emotional blocks, that we all have, and stop us growing as people.

If you come on this journey with us and complete the ten steps, that will be available over the next ten weeks, you will change your life forever and you may actually achieve all that you want from your life. The thing is that we need to get on with it now! But as the warning in the book says to change you actually have to do and complete the tasks suggested. If you continue too do the same things in the same ways nothing will ever be any different.

Procrastination
For most of us change is something that is seen as happening in the future. It can seem easier to put off changing, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’, rather than actually doing it today. Even the idea that I will change in the New Year, or after my next birthday, or when we get back from our holiday, is simply another way of putting off doing something. The reality is that if I want to change I need to do so now.

The power of now
Change can only ever take place in the present. The magic of the present, of the now, is that it is all that ever really exists. And, if we are going to make changes we have to do them now, we cannot change in the past and we cannot change in the future, we can only change NOW!

We avoid living in our present by focussing on the past or the future

Depression
Many of us are stuck in the past ruminating on unresolved emotional events, reliving them in the present just as though they were still taking place. This habitual way of thinking is the basis of (non-clinical) depression. People that live in the past cannot move forward because the past holds them back like an anchor.

Anxiety
Many of us will be worrying about the future and things that may never happen, but will be feeling all the worry as though those things are happening right now. This is the basis of anxiety. People that are anxious can never move forward because they are scared of what will happen next. Those of us that have learned to worry about both the past and the future at the same time are suffering from anxious depression.

Ninety days to change
The good news is that we can all change and achieve what we want if we go about in a certain way. And, the second bit of good news is that most people, in most situations, can achieve lasting change in just ninety days, and that includes getting beyond both depression and anxiety.

The thirty day rule
We know from research that everything that we think, feel and do is encoded in our brain as circuits in the neurone and dendrite cells. When we learn a new habit a new circuit is created. This might be from learning to tie a shoe lace, to learning how to moan all the time, or learning to be happy.

Persistence and consistence
We now know that the new circuit will only become established when we practise the new habit consistently and persistently for thirty days. This is crucial. It is like snakes and ladders. If during these first thirty days we missed a day we can slide right back down the snake to step one and need to begin all over again. Most people seeking to change will fail because people will give up on their intent within the thirty day rule and the new habit will never become established in their brain cells and, inevitably they will revert back to their previous habits and behaviours.

The ninety day rule
Research also shows us that if we can remain consistent and persistent about in our new habit it will become embedded in the higher cortex of the brain as long term memory.

If you learned to ride a bike when you were a child, maybe thirty years ago but have not ridden since, once you get on a bike now, you may wobble down the road and then the magic happens as it all comes back to you and off you go.

A learned habit lasts forever

If you complete the ten steps of live in the present and if you apply the ninety day rule change is inevitable and that includes overcoming (non-clinical) depression and anxiety.

In this work that I do with my good friend Ed and my wonderful wife Rie, we have created Live in The Present as a focal point for those seeking to create and maintain real change in their lives. We are putting the course up online together with free access to the book, ‘Live In The Present’, as a manual for those attempting to create lasting change.

Make sure you have signed up for regular updates and together we can make this the year that you changed.

Take care

Sean x

Depression

People tell me about being stressed when they are not, they are busy. People tell about having the flu when they haven’t, they have a cold. People tell me that they are depressed when they are not, they are a little bit down. The natural flow of human emotion is to be high and to be low. This flow is normal and may happen minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month. It may flow throughout the year so that people feel high in the summer and low in the winter. To feel a bit down from time to time is normal.

What is depression?
Try and visualise a flat line that starts in the present moment and goes on into eternity. The line represent the normal, normal feeling and normal actions, you might see the line as flatness neither happy nor sad, positive nor negative. Anything above the line is positive, happiness, joy and as it get higher euphoria, ecstasy and mania. Below the line is dullness, lack of motivation, inertia, unhappiness, misery, sadness, and depression.

Those described as manic depressive have fluctuating emotions between the highs of mania, through normality of the middle line to the lows of depression. There are many types of manic depression. Some are mainly high with a little bit of low, some mainly low with a little high and all other combinations between these two. Then there are is the issues of are these changes rapid cycling or slow cycling.

Depression describes an emotional state that exists below the normal line. As we all have up days and down days we all feel high and lows. Both mania and depression are the extremes of these normal emotional states.

The mind brain
The mind is the emotional and conceptual part of the system or the software of the system. The brain is the meat, or hardware of the system. Feelings are in the software and, the chemistry or endorphins of the brain, are in the hardware. Both effect each other. If we change the way that we think or feel we will change our brain chemistry. On the other hand if we change our brain chemistry we change the way that we think and feel.

Medication
Anti-Depressants change the brain chemistry that in turn changes the way that we think and feel.

Psychotherapy
This changes the way that we think and feel that in tern changes the brain chemistry.

Both medication and psychotherapy are relevant and will effect depression. In most cases of deep depression they will only work effectively when used together.

Clinical depression
This is when depression is the sole result of deficient brain chemistry. This requires medication, which may need to be used forever, just as if you have an insulin deficiency because you are diabetic you will need medication for life.

Reactive depression
This is when an event or experience effects our thinking and feeling and subsequently effects our brain chemistry. Included in reactive depression are bereavement, loss, hurt, separation and so on. Also there may be trauma and post traumatic stress. Both medication and talking therapies will be useful for reactive depression.

Repressed anger
This is not accepted by all authorities, though I often find it in my consulting room. Perhaps a manager or partner acts in way that creates anger within you that you are unable to respond to. The situation requires that you keep quiet and repress your feelings. Over time, as the anger accumulates, the negative feelings, that are unexpressed, eventually turn against you and are eventually excreted as depression. Therapy is an absolute must in this case. Also running, jumping, screaming and shouting to let go of all negative energy will be really useful.

Generally there are many issues of feeling down in life. Post natal depression, the baby blues, midlife crisis, bereavement, loss, being let down, and so on. In most cases when the situation remains unaddressed it will eventually become depression.

We all need to be aware of our emotional health. The self help tip here has to be that if you begin to feel bad, down or depressed do something about it. The more aware you become of your self the more you will be able to attend to your own needs and not get lost in the depth of depression.

Those that practice mindful meditation are least likely to experience depression and those that are depressed and begin to practice mindfulness will not only solve their problems quicker but will also reduce the levels of medication required to solve their issues.

Be happy and be mindful

Take care

Sean x

Buddhist texts are often so directly applicable to our experience of the modern world that it is sometimes easy to forget that many of them were written hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years ago.

One such text is known as ‘Advice from Atisha’s Heart’. Atisha was a very famous teacher and scholar who came to Tibet from Northern India at the request of the Tibetan King.

There he gave many excellent teachings and resolved the confusion which existed at that time about what was ‘true’ Buddhism. He taught a very practical presentation of Buddhadharma which allowed the Tibetans to practice all the stages of the path to enlightenment in a logical and understandable way.

This presentation is known as Kadampa Buddhism, and it is still practised today by millions of Buddhists around the world. When the time came to return to India, Atisha gave this teaching which has become known as ‘Advice from Atisha’s Heart’.

Since there is never a time when worldly activities come to an end, limit your activities.

This advice reminds us that if we want to make spiritual progress we need to make time for our practice. Although this advice is all given in a spiritual context, it is good general advice if we want to achieve our life goals whatever they may be.

We fill our lives with distractions and before we know it, we are at the end of our life and we have not made the spiritual progress we know we could have. People die with a full diary. We think that we will die when our work here is done, but it does not happen like that. We die when we have things to do tomorrow and the next week and so on. This advice is to remind us that since our worldly activities are unending, we need to consciously limit them.

Friends, the things you desire give no more satisfaction than drinking sea water, therefore practice contentment.

Very important advice because our desires are the main cause of us living unfulfilled lives. When we are thirsty it is tempting to drink sea water, but the result of doing so is that our thirst will increase. In the same way we can understand that when our desires lead us to obtain objects such as cars, watches, partners etc. our desires – far from being satisfied – only increase.

When we see something attractive we naturally generate a desire for it – to possess it or experience it. We work hard to obtain it, but when we actually do obtain it, we do not experience the satisfaction we expect, or if we do, it is very short lived. In fact all we have done is reinforce our habit of trying to obtain satisfaction from external objects. If we practice contentment, recognising that we have enough, we can experience peace of mind and create space and time for spiritual practice.

Words of praise and fame serve only to beguile us, therefore blow them away as you would blow your nose.

This advice tells us that although we may become beguiled with our own self importance when we are praised, these things are not real sources of happiness, only suffering. If we pin our happiness on being praised, then our happiness depends on others, and this makes our happiness very unstable.

Have no hatred for enemies, no attachment for friends.

This advice reminds us that we should not allow friends or enemies to throw our mind off balance. If we have an enemy, what makes them an enemy? It is our view of them that makes them an enemy. We focus on something (real or imagined) that we find unpalatable or unacceptable, and then exaggerate this until it is all we perceive when we think about the person. There comes a point when this perception is so intolerable that we feel the need to harm the person. This is anger. Normally we believe that the person themselves is horrible, but if we think clearly, we can see that the horrible person only exists in our mind, not ‘out there’.

Similarly, attachment in this sense means that we believe that the other person is an independent source of happiness. This other person ‘has’ happiness and we can get some happiness if we are with them/marry them/have a relationship with them. This is not the reality. What is really happening is that we have found something we like about the person and we have focuesed on it. We have exaggerated this quality until it is all we can perceive. Then when we think about the person we naturally develop desire, and engage in negative actions to acquire some happiness.

Atisha advises that we have no anger and no attachment. What is implied is that we have a warm friendly feeling for everyone. A healthy balanced view which allows us to react reasonably and not get carried away with misapprehensions.

Do not look for faults in others, but look for faults in yourself and purge them like bad blood.

We normally ignore our own faults and focus on the faults of others, but here Atisha advises the opposite.

This advice tells us that it is pointless to look for and dwell on the faults of others. If we look hard enough, everyone appears to have faults. This is a very negative occupation but if we are not careful we can spend long hours dwelling on the faults of others, steadily becoming increasingly negative towards them and deepening our bad habit of viewing others in a bad light.

Instead we should look within ourselves for our own faults and overcome them. We should not beat ourselves up over our faults, and we should never forget our good qualities, but it is important to have a realistic view of ourselves.

We should understand faults such as anger and attachment, and if we have these faults, we should understand how to overcome them, and then put these methods into practice.

More information about Atisha’s Advice and Kadampa Buddhism can be found here.

It follows that anyone who lives in states of anxiety cannot be living with happiness, the two do not go together. The chances are that anyone who is experiencing levels of anxiety is not living in their own present. To be truly happy you need to be living in your now. Holding onto past happiness is nostalgia and hoping for future happiness is anticipation. Holding onto past unhappiness is depression and anticipating future unhappiness is anxiety.

Anxiety is a state of being when your conscious mind travels forward to an imagined and often fearful future event that, may never, and probably, will never take place. In anxiety the experiences of those images are in the present, as though they are happening right now. Those who do not, or have not experienced anxiety will often have problems understanding this. Platitudes such as ‘pull yourself together”, “stop being stupid” and “look at how good your life is” don’t really help.

Learning to stop looking negatively into the future is a part of the solution to anxiety. After all in most situations there is really little or nothing for any of us to worry about. It may seem completely obvious to tell the sufferer to live in the present, to “be here now!” Yet this can be experienced as the impossible task because the sufferer is living ‘their’ present. It is just that their present happens to be dislocated into an imagined future.

In my work, whether they are individuals, couples or referrals through an occupational health department, at least 60% of what I deal with would be termed anxiety or the symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety is the product of the emotional mind and no amount of talking therapy will resolve feelings. We need to look elsewhere for a lasting solution.

Anxiety itself is not a bad thing. It is an emotional response that has kept us all safe throughout evolution. To have an awareness of, and raised alertness to, dangers around us, is a good thing. However, to have continual anxiety about the future that we live in the present is termed Generalise Anxiety Disorder (GAD), the key is in the word ‘disorder’. It is this disorder that people mean when they say they have anxiety.

Anxiety comes in several forms…
Ordinary anxiety is normal and useful, even helpful and keeps us safe.
Reactive anxiety is responsive to an event such as an accident, assault, or bereavement.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is when anxiety can seem to be all around us.

Ordinary anxiety is completely normal, transitory and keeps us safe. Reactive anxiety will normally require some therapeutic intervention and may take a while to resolve, though it will resolve eventually. GAD has completely different issues and will normally require medication and some therapy, though often with GAD talking therapies such as short term CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) will have a limited effect. The trick with anxiety is not what you think it is but what you feel and more importantly what you see in your imagination.

Anxiety disorder is itself completely irrational though it is completely visual. To be fearful of a future involves being able to visualise it. It is the imagination that is the problem. People with anxiety disorder have good imaginations. Those with poor imagination cannot visualise a future to be fearful of. The key to resolving anxiety is in positive visualisation.

For example if you fear flying when you think about your coming holiday what you are really doing is visualising getting to airport, getting on the plane, imagining the take off, the turbulence and the landing. Most of all you may imagine the plane crashing. You can feel the fact that you will be several miles up in the air and that there is nothing beneath you, As you rehearse these images your limbic system releases chemistry that creates the physical symptoms of anxiety in your body. It is important to realise that no cognitive process has taken place. None of this is about thinking it is all about feeling and feelings related to the images that are in your mind.

When the anxious person learns to use their imagination to visualise a future that serves them well, one that they might actually look forward to, they reduce their symptoms of anxiety eventually eliminating anxiety all together.

I say this to as a person who has suffered anxiety disorder. Who attended talking therapies and failed to overcome anxiety disorder. Who eventually discovered visualising therapies, overcame anxiety disorder and has subsequently helped thousands of people to do the same.

When you realise that to have anxiety disorder requires that you have a good imagination to be able to visualise those things that trigger your symptoms it follows that the solution to your problems is to change the images. Visualisation works well because it is playing to their strengths. What was the problem now has become the solution.

Visualisation therapy can be found through a therapist who understands the emotional mind and the part that the imagination plays in anxiety. You may find the solution through psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, deep-guided relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness. Visual therapies are a positive and effective alternative to straight talking therapy and medication.

Take care, be happy and not anxious

Live happily in your present

Sean x