Archive for category: Blog

Do you or anyone that you know suffer or suffered from depression or anxiety? If so, do you know what the underlying symptoms are?

The use of medication, to reduce anxiety and to lift depression, has become common place to the point where many of them are in our supply of drinking water. These come from either people flushing unwanted medication down the toilet or the natural excretion of the medications in our urine.

In the UK we currently write some 46 million prescriptions a year for antidepressants. Is all this medication really needed?

With both anxiety and depression we need to take into account the ‘clinical’ aspects and the psychological aspects. To be clinically depressed or anxious means that the body chemistry is mis-functioning. Just as when the pancreas is not working properly and we would take insulin to balance the system or with the thyroid when we correct the imbalance with thyroxin. The same is also true with depression so that in the brain, at the pituitary end of things, we may need to regulate levels of serotonin chemically. When depression is not clinical it is described as ‘reactive’.

Reactive Symptoms

Having made that distinction, the levels of clinical depression are relatively low. The vast majority of depressions are reactive. This means that an experience or an event has created a chain of reactions that have led to the development of symptoms that can, if not treated by psychotherapy, become the learned habits that eventually are described as our behaviour. People say to me “it’s just the way I am” and I say “no, it is how you have learned to be”.

Reactive Anxiety

In anxiety we are projecting forward into images and ideas of a negative future that may never happen and living those idea in the present as though they are happening right now. This means that we imagine a negative scenario and our body systems act out the images as though they are happening in the present. Our body chemistry, fight and flight endorphins, are firing off into our blood stream to face a foe, or situation that does not and may never exist.

Reactive Depression

Unlike anxiety, that looks forwards, depression looks backwards, replaying past events in the present as though they are still happening now. Where as anxiety powers up our chemical system, depression, as the name implies, depresses our chemical system and we become flat and inert. In depression our energy levels drop and we do less and less. Often we find the need to withdraw from the world and we can easily become agoraphobic.

What is depression telling us?

Needless to say happiness and depression do not generally go together. And yet, it could be that, depression may just be something that we should celebrate! If we look behind the depression what is depression telling us?

In the eastern approaches to psychotherapy depression is not always seen as something to be avoided or masked with medication. Rather it is seen as a sign that something in our life is wrong or out of balance. If used creatively depression can be a time of review and re-evaluation when we are able to take stock of things and get our lives back on track.

It is ok to take medication

Accepting that clinical depression concerns chemical imbalance that can only really be treated with medication. It seems strange that we are often embarrassed by the need for taking medication to regulate our mood. According to the World Health Organization, depression affects just over 120 million people worldwide. At least one fifth of the UK population will suffer from depression at some point in their lifetime. However, as well as using medication the symptoms of clinical depression will be diminished and often controlled using psychotherapy particularly using mindfulness techniques.

Causes of reactive depression

In most cases of depression the sufferer feels a victim to circumstance and subsequently feel helpless and unable to deal with or change their situation. Depression strikes us most easily when we experience that something or someone else is writing our life script. It might be that we experience loss, divorce, redundancy, or an accident. Perhaps we have a bullying manager or partner. The economy has collapsed and maybe we are about to lose the house. Maybe we have been diagnosed with an illness or perhaps our partner has. Whatever the issue the one sure thing is that we have lost control and with it self determination.

The magic of depression

This is where the eastern approach comes into its own. The person who is able to engage in therapy and, begins to understand and resolve the issues that are underpinning their symptoms, becomes very powerful indeed. Through the therapeutic process the person learns how to write their own life script, the life that they want, rather than being a bit part player in other peoples.

When people engage with their depression, rather than burying it with medication, it can become a truly life altering event. Human beings were designed with the creativity to solve problems, any problems.

Act in the present

The warning sign is when you are waking in the mornings not wanting to get out of bed and engage in the world. When this happens for too many days together, don’t delay, get into therapy as soon as you can. If you need some medication to hold you up while you do the therapeutic work that is fine, and is how the medication was designed to be used.

Most importantly learn to pick up the pen of life and write your own script. In your life story you should be the hero/heroine. All good stories have happy endings.

Take care, be happy and live in the present,

Sean x

Procrastination is an emotional barometer. It tells you whether what you are doing is what you should be doing. It will help you discover what it is that you really want from your life.

Imagine that when you wake you are about to go and do something that makes you feel good. Would you have trouble getting out of bed? No!

Now, imagine that you are waking to a day full of things that you don’t want to do. Will you have problems getting out of be? Sure you will. We often see procrastination as a bad thing but it might just be that our need to procrastinate is our system trying to tell us something.

The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up.
Author Unknown

In the West we tend to be driven by what is termed ‘the Protestant work ethic‘. Most people work long hours to the exclusion of family, friends and their own life and fulfilment. Yet very few people actually enjoy their work life. I’ve worked with thousands of people who wake on a Monday filled with the dread at the thought of another week at work. They would rather be doing anything else. Procrastination does not always mean to do nothing, doing something else instead is often termed ‘displacement‘.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.
Robert Benchley

Displacement activity is something that you do to avoid doing what you don’t want to do, or a way of dealing with a difficult situation. For example a rabbit that is cornered and is about to be eaten by a fox and knowing there is no escape will displace this energy of fear into the activity of washing itself.

Charlotte suggests that displacement activity might actually be productive and fun.

In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing more urgent actions with tasks less urgent, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off impending tasks to a later time.

The clue in this definition is ‘enjoyment’. The protestant work ethic goes alongside ideas like, ‘life is hard’, ‘life is earnest’ and ‘everyone has their cross to bear’.

Well I don’t buy any of that. Life should be fun and life should be fulfilling. It seems that we have no problem finding the energy to do things that we do want to do, things that make us feel good. While, those things that we don’t want to do sap our energy and take away our motivation.

My approach to life is that when I feel the need to procrastinate or displace, I look at, and enjoy the process, whilst at the same time I look at what I need to do with my life so that I feel engaged and connected and restore the balance between what I need to do and what I want to do. This is often described as ‘work life balance‘. Ed and I will be talking about this topic in one of our soon to be released audio podcasts.

Ultimately, if you are living the life that you really want the issues of procrastination and displacement do not exist because you are enjoying and fulfilling yourself in the present moment so that getting out off bed on any day (even Monday!) is never a problem.

The best way to get something done is to begin.
Author Unknown

That comes back to what do you really, really, really want to do with your life. Until you answer this question you will be forever procrastinating and displacing. Becoming aware of when and why you procrastinate will help you answer the question of what do you really want?

Take care and live in the present,
Sean x

We thought we’d give you a bit more insight into the inner workings of Live in the Present over the next few weeks. With that in mind, the three minds behind the organisation will be writing about how they ‘find their present’. First up, it’s Edward Lamb, our resident creative genius, technology geek and daydreamer.

It’s funny really. I set myself this task to really sit down and think about what it is that really makes me happy. The things that I’m already doing that, when I’m immersed in them, make all other things disappear. Below are eight ways that I’ve learned to live in the present:

1. Take a Walk Every Day

This is an important one for me. I work from home and spend most of my time staring at a screen, so fresh air and time to clear my head of thoughts is hugely valuable to me. I’ll usually down tools not long after lunch and head out for a stroll. I’ll not take any particular route, just meander for 20 minutes or so and find my way home again.

Top tip: I never take my phone with me. Makes it much easier to resist calls, emails and texts.

2. Immerse myself in my work

Sean wrote a great piece about the myth of the perfect work life balance recently. The upshot of his blog was that if you don’t see your work as part of your life then you’re in the wrong job.

Working from home means that my ‘work life balance’ is virtually none existent. My life is a constant shift between roles, people and tasks. That said, when I have a job to do, I focus on it 100%. To help with this I’ll quite often switch off my emails, put my phone in ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode and close down access to Twitter and Facebook. The people I work for deserve my full attention so that’s what I aim to give them.

3. Document the Good Things

I’m a bit of a social media addict. You’ll find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and probably a few other services. Aside from keeping abreast of news and friends/family updates I like to use these tools as a way of documenting the good things in my life. Instagram is great for this as I can snap a photo and share it quickly to Facebook and/or Twitter. Then, whenever I’m in need of a boost I can boot up my profile page and check through a huge database of happy memories.

4. Keep a Journal

Facebook and Twitter are great but pen, paper and a lack of hundreds of gazing followers are hard to beat. Every night I write down a few short lines about the positive things that have happened to me that day. I’ve been doing this for well over a year now and my journal is a treasure trove of great times had. I can’t recommend this highly enough.

5. Make Time for my Family

My family are very important to me. My wife and I work hard to support our young son and we’re very careful to make time to spend with him. Our main opportunity for this is at 5pm every day. Bethan will arrive back from work and I will have done my best to have dinner ready. Then we’ll sit down and have dinner together (William is only 16 months old so a lot of his ends up on the floor).

After this we’ll kick around downstairs before taking him up and getting him ready for bed. This two hours of time together is priceless, as are weekends together.

6. Encourage Good Habits

Habits are the things that define us. They are the creators of our days. Thankfully, they can be shaped, changed and updated and I do this on a daily basis using a handy iPhone app call Lift. I have a list of 8 daily habits that I remember to ‘check in’ with. The upshot of this is that, eventually, they’ll become second nature.

7. Drive Fast, Legally

This is a fun one. I’m a huge Formula 1 fan and an opportunity recently presented itself for me and a friend to purchase a second hand kart. Needless to say, we’re having a LOT of fun (as yet without serious injury). When I’m hurtling around a circuit then there’s nothing in my mind but when to brake, when to turn and when to get back on the power. Once I’m back in the pits I’m analysing lap times and checking the kart over for ways to improve. Nothing else matters.

8. Do Nothing

As many of my friends and family will testify, I’m very good at this one. There’s a big difference between laziness and daydreaming. I’ve not yet caught the meditation bug but I still value the clarity that can come from a few moments of, well, nothing. It can often get me in trouble as I drift out of conversations with my wife, but the less said about that the better.

I could go on. I love to learn, I love photography and mountaineering, I’m a fairly keen cyclist and I’m obsessed with Fantasy Football. I’ll save those for another blog though.

We can all find a way to Live in the Present. Many of us have them already but might not realise it, and would find yet more happiness by finding more time for that particular habit in their lives.

How do you live in the present? Leave a comment and let us know.

Have you ever thought to yourself “if only I had ….. I would be happy”? The ….. could be anything. Perhaps a person, a car, a job, money, whatever. There is often that inner belief that “if I only just had that ….. I would be really happy”. Yet, all the evidence shows that the opposite is true. Last week we asked whether money could buy happiness. This week let’s see if the reverse is true – can happiness buy money???

Recent work on how our mind and brain work and our understanding of neurology, neuropsychology and quantum physics, all suggest that our experience of life is generated entirely from within. We are the author of our own story, good or bad. People that feel that their lives are happy on the outside are happy on the inside. Just as those that feel that their life is unhappy on the outside are unhappy on the inside. The phrase most commonly used to explain this is…

‘Thoughts become things’

Understanding that what you think about is what you bring about is known more commonly as The Law of Attraction. Books like The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne and The Attractor Factor, by Joe Vitalie explain in easy bite size chunks how the laws of attraction function. Our own work at Live In the Present and our book show ten clear steps to achieving exactly what you desire.

[quote style=”boxed”]We are the author of our own story, good or bad[/quote]

Success requires that you live in the present

At LITP we identify that those that live in the past create depressive syndromes while those that live in the future create anxious syndromes. The people that are really effective in life live in their present and the key to that is happiness. To be free of a depressive past and an anxious future allows us to be happy right now.

What you feel is what you live

The feelings that dominate what you are living are attachment, aversion and, craving. Living in the past is attachment to events and objects that no longer exist that you are, perhaps, in bereavement about or feeling some level of loss. Living in the future creates craving towards, or an aversion against, your imagined future. None of these emotional states allow you to live in the now and it is only in the now that you can be truly happy.

As on the inside, so on the outside

Because what we are experiencing and creating in life is generated from within, to be rich on the outside we have first to be rich on the inside. This is so important to understand. To live a life that is rich and abundant we need first to feel rich and abundant within our mind and emotions. I guess it is obvious that if we feel good and positive so that we are creating a happy life then we will have more motivation, become more inspirational and find it easier to make money than if we are miserable negative and unhappy.

The Unhappy Millionaire

Now, I know that you don’t have to be happy to make money. I have worked with many miserable, unhappy but very rich people. But I do know that happy people find it easier to make money. But the bonus is that happy people are wealthy in things other than money.

The Happy Millionaire

The trick is to be financially rich and emotionally wealthy. Many people that are financially rich are emotionally bankrupt. Those that are wealthy live with a richness of love, life and experience and that is happiness. Of course there are also those that are wealthy but financially poor

Wealthy people are happy people

So the deal is this: you do not need money to be happy and, you do not need happiness to make money but you do need happiness to be wealthy.

What is it that would make you feel wealthy?

Take care,
Sean x