Archive for category: Blog

Abuse is when we are made to feel ‘less than’ or that we deserve what is being done to us. Often abuse is when we have no voice, or have no choice in what is taking place. This is a state of powerlessness in which we have no option other than to tolerate, cope with or survive the situation.

Abuse is often addictive to both the victim and the perpetrator and will remain so until it is challenged. If someone has beaten us every Friday night for many years and then they suddenly stop doing it, we may well seek out another perpetrator to beat us so that we once again feel normal.

It is easy to be judgemental of a victim, ‘why don’t they just leave’? From the outside such behaviours may seem strange or even ridiculous. From within they may seem normal and just, as it should be, business as usual.

When someone is attempting to break an abuse cycle, as with all other addictions, it often takes on average five to seven attempts before they succeed. This is because as far as the brain is concerned being a victim or a perpetrator is a learned habit. Anyone working in the area of abuse, addiction or self-harm will know the process of change takes time. In each case the old habits need to be desensitised and the new habit formed and embedded in long term memory for it to take effect.

What to do if you are a perpetrator
I have never worked with a perpetrator of abuse who did not start out as a victim. As a victim they learned the behaviours that led to become a perpetrator. I am sure there are perpetrators that were never victim but I have never met them.

If you are a perpetrator you are an addict, you are damaged and you need help. This starts with being honest with yourself followed by a visit to either a physician or a psychotherapist. Referral to specialist practitioners will normally follow.

When people started out as a victim this may be the reason that they now abuse, however this is not an excuse. There are no excuses for being an abuser.

What to do if you are a victim
Just as with perpetrators, victims, as adolescence or adults, were often victims as children. Or they are children who were brought up within abusive relationships and have developed and internal working model of the family or a relationship. If a child observes their mother being physically abused by their father this may become a learned habit. The person, as an adult may now seek out a partner who will do the same thing to them. This is, normally, unconscious and can only be addressed when it is brought into conscious awareness and seen as unacceptable behaviour. There will always be those who had wonderful childhoods and only discovered abuse later in life.

Whatever the case the victim may well need to begin their journey with a physician or a psychotherapist. If the perpetrator is controlling, or the victim fears disclosure the journey may need to begin in a more hidden way. This may begin with contacting a local or national help line, or finding a service on the internet.

Just as I said for perpetrators – There is no excuse for being a victim

That may seem a tough statement. Wherever you are in the abuse cycle the chances are that your situation will only get worse, it seldom gets better. It is always easier to do something now than it will be in the future.

If you recognise abuse in your life, if you are involved in it as either victim or perpetrator do something about it.

Take care and be happy, it is your basic human right

Sean x

When I was a kid there was a lot of bible and I remember the phrase, something like, “you must become as a child to come unto me”. Now, I am not a religious person but the parables and stories from the old and New Testament, and the Koran and Tora, do make lost of psychological sense. The above phrase means to me that we need to develop the openness of a child to see, accept and understand something that is new and maybe wonderful.

Children have a magic capacity, as long as they are not abused, to greet each day and each new experience with wonder. The world in those early years is one of mystery, magic and discovery. Sure, there will be things that we experience that will hurt on some level and from these we learn as much as from those things that fill us with joy and happiness.

The key to being a child, and to being an active, growing, learning adult is openness. As soon as we stop the process of learning new things our brain goes into decline. We only produce new brain cells in response to new learning. No learning no new cells. No new cells and the brain is in decline and wearing out.

We have to remain open of heart and mind at all levels of our experience to remain young.

What new things have you learned this week?

The things that stop us growing are the limiters of experience, they are things that stop us doing things. Top of the list has to be fear and anxiety. However most of this is fed by negative expectation of the future which is a learned habit. Children have not yet formed habit like this.

The other limiters are things like prejudice when we prejudge other people or situations. Often this has an ‘us’ and ‘them’ component. We can make assumptions about people of different race, colour, religion, ethnicity, class, profession, the list is endless. As soon as we make assumptions we write a life script that limits our openness to life and what it has to teach us.

Perhaps the worst prejudice of all is to ourself. We limit ourself by our inner attitudes and feelings about who we are, what we look like, whether we see our self as clever or stupid, beautiful or ugly and so on.

If we are to live in the magic of being a child and allow our self to grow new brain cells that will keep us young and vital we need to STOP, then review who we are and ask why we believe or think and act the way that we do. We might just find that there is no basis for our beliefs and actions and that we might like to change.

The watch list

There are things to watch out for:

Limiting words are things like “ought, should, must, can’t, no…” These words should be avoided but when we hear ourself using them we should stop and question the underlying beliefs that created them and perhaps repeat what we just said but in positive terms.

Limiting behaviours: Stop doing everything the same way. If you create too many behavioural habit you simply become institutionalised into those behaviours. Walk to the shops a different way, change the day or time that you go to the gym, if you always have fish and chips on a Wednesday try having it on a Monday instead.

Listen to your mouth

The things that you say will limit your ability to change because when you hear yourself speaking you reinforce any negative thought patterns. Avoid phrases like “we always do it this way”, “we alway go there on a friday”, ‘It’s a known fact”.

Listen to your mind

Even when we don’t speak we can limit ourselves by what we think. The worst things to think are: “I am right and you are wrong”, “I know best”, “look here sonny when I was your age…” and so on.

Enjoy some newness

Do something new: Every week, or at least every month, do something new and different. Go to new places for your holiday, take up a new hobby, join a night class, learn a new language. Set yourself a challenge, run a marathon, jump out of a plane, learn to meditate, learn to swim.

Life long learning

This is what children teach us. If we keep learning we stay young. If we feel the joy and wonder of new experience we stay young. If we rid ourselves of prejudice and all preconceptions we stay young. If we are open hearted and trusting we stay young.

I’m up for life long learning and I hope that you are

Take care, stay young and be happy,

Sean x

This week Ed and I decided to dedicate the podcast to the sad loss of Robin who, apparently suffered depression, the onset of Parkinson’s Disease and had financial worries. Whatever it was that took him to the edge I guess there came a point where he could no longer see or feel the desire to carry on. I was both saddened and ashamed by my fellow human beings who felt the need to put him down via Tweets and Facebook. The idea that suicide is cowardice is held by those with little understanding or empathy and they can be forgiven for their ignorance, actually killing yourself is quite difficult and, in most cases requires determination and indeed courage.

What value do you give your life?

Have you ever considered ending it? I know from my work as a psychotherapist that people do seriously consider it. If you are reading this then you didn’t follow through with the idea, what happened? The decision to stay alive means that you had a reason, what was it, or is it?

Whatever the reason you have it represents the value that you give to your life. It is the meaning that you give to living and I guess it would follow that it is the value that you might give to the lives of others. So, as you read this perhaps you might consider that if life does have a value what are we/you doing to help other people value their’s? There is enough food on the planet to feed everyone yet everyday people die of hunger. There is enough food, enough water, enough love, enough ideas, there is an abundance of everything if we have the will to share it. We could have heaven on earth right now.

There is so much that we can do to help and support each other everyday in every way, it is in us choosing not to that we have suffering in the world. I do not know the individual circumstances of. Robin but I do know that their are many people around us right now that would benefit from a kind act, word or deed that may keep them from falling into the black pit of suicide.

I have stood on the edge of the black pit in life and each time I have made the choice to move back into the light. In doing the podcast with Ed and considering why this was I came to the conclusion that I am too nosey to kill myself. Imagine going to a library or a bookshop and buying a book only to find that someone had ripped out the last few pages so that you will never know how the story ends? For me life is like that. It has, sometimes, been tough, and sometimes very hard to keep going, but it has also been amazing, it has been a blast and the one thing that it has taught me is that by staying positive, being grateful for all that I have and, by being consistent and persistent in all my endeavours and my attempt to ‘get it right’ my life and my happiness grows. I want to know how my story ends.

I guess the other good lesson is this. If you really don’t like the story line of your life, if it is boring, depressing, anxiety provoking, meaningless or just not what you want, then, pick up your pen and write a story line that does meet your needs. And, if you have trouble finding your pen or thinking up a story line go and see someone like me. Talk it through play with ideas and then with persistence and consistence live a life you can love.

For me a successful life is simply waking with a smile on your face feeling good about the day you are about to live and, at the end of the day having a smile on your face feeling good about the day you have just lived. At that point your life has a value way beyond money and yet you will be the richest person alive.

Keep smiling be happy and enjoy the gift of life.

Take care,
Sean x

Having just come back from a long weekend in the Yorkshire Dales I can directly feel the benefits of ‘getting away’. From where we live it is a two hour drive, and an easy drive at that. For most people ‘getting away’ involves planes, airports, delays and a good deal of stress. I hear people say that they don’t know why they bother, coming back more flustered than when they went. Surely travel should be a joyful experience, if not why do it? It seems that it is all to do with the speed that we now need to do everything, time to slow down I think.

The human body was designed to move at a walking pace or, at a pinch, a jogging pace. Humans moved out of Africa, and the Garden of Eden, to populate the world but they did so at a walking pace, there were no boats, planes or cars. At a walking pace there is time to acclimatise to the new land and the flora and the fauna as our system adjusts. We don’t get Delhi Belly and can leave the Imodium at home.

But we do all seem to need to get away and, we need to get away now. We can’t stop doing it; we call it “going on holiday?” So, why? What does travel do for us?

There are lots of types of travel from the package all inclusive that can ensure that we get all the comforts of home abroad, the same food, same drink, same music and TV programmes, the only difference is that it is in the sunshine, through to cruises, holiday camps and activity holidays, to those where we go native and become a local. What do you do?

At a psychological level several things are taking place. The first is that when we travel we are learning and that may be social, cultural, cuisine and wine and so on, and that is stimulating. The second is that it is different. There are different smells, colours, tastes and sounds that expand the way that we see the world. The third, and perhaps the most important, is that travel is therapeutic.

We hear a lot about stress hormones, first on the list are normally adrenalin, epinephrine and cortisol. While stress hormones are associated with stress related illness they are also the fuel that keep us going in life. When we are working it is these chemicals that help to get us out of bed, give us drive and maintain our motivation levels. They are the high octane fuel that powers our daily life. When we are over worked and stressed the levels of these chemical become to high and we feel their effects as hypertension, raised blood pressure and stress related diseases.

When we take a break, when we travel, or go on holiday the levels of these chemicals begin to drop, though it takes a few days. If we leave on Friday we only feel that we have arrived on the Tuesday, when these chemical levels have dropped. At the other end of the holiday when we go home, the levels are low. We arrive at work on the first day back and we just can’t seem to get going. Over the next couple of weeks the chemical levels rise again to their normal levels and we say ‘I feel like I have never been away’.

The holiday gives our stressed system a rest. More importantly is that it reminds us of what life is like without the stress. This is what we should be aiming for.

As you will know I am a meditation junkie. When you meditate on a daily basis you have a daily holiday when your stress hormones drop to holiday levels. Over all you become calmer, more relaxed and more effective. When we become truly relaxed in life everyday is a holiday, yet at the same time we become more productive than ever before.

I love holidays, I enjoy going away and we try to do so several times each year. I also love the daily holiday in my meditation.

Where could you go today?

Take care and enjoy the trip

Sean x

Time is the progression from what was, through what is, to what will be or, how we cope with past, present and future. However, time is a concept that does not really exist, or more accurately time is in the eye of the beholder. Our experience of time is relative. It depends on where we view it from.

The watched pot never boils

For most children time is a huge thing that lasts forever. It might be that feeling in school when we are waiting for the ‘home bell’ to sound the end of a seemingly endless day or the seemingly endless days of the summer vacation that were hot and sunny and went on forever. When we are children there seems to be so much to do and plenty of time to do it in. At this point the concepts of age and growing old are fantasies that belong to a future that we believe will never happen to us.

As we get into adolescence time pressures begin to occur. Perhaps we are warm in bed, having ‘wasted our time’ the night before, gone to bed late, and now we should be up and getting ready for school. Our mother is shouting up the stairs that we are late, will be late, miss the bus, no time for breakfast, and that we should have gone to bed earlier.

There does come a point when it feels that there are never enough hours in the day. The feeling is that the design is wrong; that twenty-four hours is never enough and thirty-six would have been a much better idea. Ask any busy mum trying to get the kids to school, the husband to work, do the washing, ironing, clean the house, all before the kids are back from school and then due at clubs and friends. The father juggling the needs of family, work, friends and so on. It appears that the day begins to shrink.

As we get older time flashes by faster and faster as “weeks turn into years, how quick the fly” (Bert Bacharach). It is always Monday and another week at work.

“Is it August already? It can’t be we’ve only just had `Christmas”

Every New Year is followed by another Christmas Eve and the years become decades as we transit from 20s to 30s to 40s. It is the ones with noughts on that now mark the passage of time. Sometimes the noughts are followed by depression as the experience of time passing becomes a fear that time will run out and it will be the end and a feeling of loss.

“What on earth have I done with my life?”

Actually it is not always true that time gets forever faster, there is a stop point. Many older people return to the experience of their childhood, not just in their memories but they begin to feel that everyday is lasting a life time. As a child this was an exciting experience that was full of things to learn and do, it was a world of discovery. In older life, for many, this expanse of time, rather than being a joy, becomes something to fear. Now it can feel that ‘it all’, time and life that is, now drag on forever. The elderly residential home can become like a waiting room full of people waiting wearily for their end.

It does not have to be this way

Here at Live In The Present we are forever banging on about things like ‘life time learning’. We live with the realisation that we will each only produce new brain cells in response to new learning and, at the point when we stop learning our system will fall into decline. The difference is that when we are learning we are occupied and when the mind is actively engaged time does not begin to drag or weigh on us, each moment is a joy of newness.

“Time is an illusion designed to explain the passages of history
History is an illusion designed to explain the passage of time”
Douglas Adams

Forget Einstein, the relativity of time is all in your head. Time is only ever the way that I experience it and your experience may/will be different to mine. Let’s say we go to a play at the theatre that you really, really want to see but I don’t. For you each minute of the performance will keep you engaged and the time will fly. For me, I don’t want to be here, I am hating every moment and the time drags painfully by. It can be the same on holidays and outings, Christmas and Easter, all these events are a joy or a curse depending on how we view them.

Living outside time

The present, the current moment, the now, is really all that there ever is. By the time you get to the end of this sentence the first word you read will be in the past, the full stop will be your present and, the next sentence will be the future. Your current breath is now, your last breath the past and the next breath your future. You current heart beat is the now, the last one your past and the next one your future.

Time is really a continual set of experiences of ‘now’ that when put together become our experience of past, present and future. There are many quantum scientists who would suggest that neither past nor future actually exist and that ‘Now’ is all that there is. It can all become a bit mind boggling.

Past and future

Those of us that do not live in the present moment are emotionally out of step with ourself. Those living in the negative past will be diagnosed with depression while those living in the negative future will be diagnosed with anxiety. Here come the happy pills.

Those able to live in the present will not be hampered by what was or be fearing what will be. Living in the present requires that we are in the ‘zone’. For some the zone will be something like meditation while for others it will be something more active like running. However, any task, even work, that we are fully engaged in, when we are truly present in the moment will, mean we are at our best, most efficient and potentially most happy and fulfilled.

Transcending time

When we transcend time we step out of time and space, this is known as a trance. We fall into a trance state when we are highly concentrated in the moment. Have you ever been reading a book and suddenly realised that time has passed by without you even realising it? Have you experienced your child watching TV who does not hear you when you shout out that their tea is ready? These are trance states. When we are highly concentrated in the moment, in the task, so that past and future are not impinging in the now, we are living in the present. In high states of concentration time, or the passage of time ceases to exist as we have moved into continuum of present.

This high concentration can be there when we are at work, at play, with our friends, family, making love, whatever, we are present to ourself in the moment, in the now.

Mindful meditation

To be the most effective and an efficient person you need to live in the present. Mindful meditation is the way I use to maintain my ability to be in my ‘now’. I use a ‘Vipassana’ style approach, which is also known as breath focus or body focus meditation taught under other names. Meditation is a process that allows you to let go of what was, also of what will be, and enter your present.

This involves:

Relaxation: a comfortable position in which you can relax your body without falling asleep
Contemplation: begin to focus your mind into breath/body awareness
Concentration: being able to hold single thought, focus or feeling without your mind wandering
Meditation: becoming so highly concentrated in the present that past and future no longer exist and in doing so all sense of yourself as a distinct individual ceases so that in this trance state you step out of time and space. This is also known as ‘self annihilation’.

Becoming a time lord

Dr Who was described as a time lord because he could travel through time. A real time lord is someone who is in control of their time world. When we are able to hold our concentration mindfully we are no longer controlled by time, we control it. As a time lord there is always enough time and time is never a burden and never drags.

The trick of being a time lord is to stay engaged in life, maintain life long learning, stay fit and healthy, have a positive attitude of gratitude and, live in the present.

Becoming a time lord is a choice. What will you choose to do with your 1440 minutes today?

Take care, be happy and, live you the present.

Sean x