Archive for category: Blog

As we move towards winter our diets tend to change and the level of carbs that we will be eating almost certainly will increase. We call this comfort eating.

Food and mood is a fascinating subject. In current times the drive for our diet to become plant based or vegan seems to be everywhere. Many people, that I know, consume animal flesh without making to connection between what is on their plate and what is running a round in a field. For there is the need, often verging on agitation, to not damage another living soul in any way. It leaves me wondering why we each decide to each what we do?

It has been known throughout time that food and mood go together. Foods have been used to enhance energy, intelligence, healing and for aphrodisiac properties. The thing that is never clear is, when food is associated with mood, are the moods the result of the food eaten, or if it is the mood that leads us to be attracted to certain foods in the first place!

When I was a child my parents told me that “fat people were always happy and jolly”, and I could see the truth of that, Mrs Pye, a very large lady who ,live across the road, was indeed always laughing. Then at other times I was also told that people who were always happy were stupid because, according to my parents, life was supposed to be hard, and life was supposed to be earnest. As a good Christian, of Irish decent, my mother taught me that “every one has their cross to bear”, that everyone had their difficulties to face and overcome. I grew up with believing that, in life, we were not supposed to have a good time and that it was supposed to be difficult, and that in some strange way, living with difficulty was the sign of the pure life. So, in many ways the more miserable that you were then the better person you must be. Mad or what?

This created confusion in me. In my mind it followed that if big people were happy they must also be stupid. It also followed that they had no reason to be unhappy because they were not carrying any crosses in life. On the contrary, it seemed to me that big people had every reason to be happy, while skinny people had every reason to be unhappy because of all their crosses that were weighing them down.

To top it all I was very skinny, therefore, in my mind, I was supposed to be unhappy, and I was. I accepted it as the natural order of my life. My dilemma was, if I ate too much I would be fat and stupid or else I would be thin and miserable. As I was thin I accepted that I would always be miserable, and I was.

Obviously with age and experience I now know that this was all nonsense, though at the time it seemed all very real. I say nonsense but well, it is, but not quite. We now know that food and mood do go together. When we eat carbohydrates our brain secretes serotonin, the happy hormone. Comfort foods are exactly that. Eating carbohydrates for comfort is really self medication.

In psychotherapy we now identify the ‘carbohydrate cycle’. This means that as a response to feeling depressed and down, many people will go and eat lots of carbohydrates to get the feeling of comfort. The result of this is that they put on weight. They then go to the mirror and feel bad at the weight they have put on leading them to eat more carbohydrates to make them self feel better.

The self medication with carbohydrates is only one way to increase serotonin. The most obvious route is through medication is antidepressants. However the best way to increase serotonin and feel better is through exercise or by simply having fun. If your heart beats faster for twenty minutes your brain will secrete more serotonin that will make you feel so much better. It makes me realise how much our life-style works against us feeling good. Our, hunter gatherer, ancestors would jog a few mile everyday collecting food and going about their business, and in the process maintain good levels of endorphins, happy hormones. We, on the other hand, live sedentary life styles that create very little of the hormones that we really need.

The question remains, are we the result of what we eat or are we attracted to certain foods because of who we are? There’s certainly a relationship between what we eat and how we feel. If you eat light easy to digest foods you will a light and have an easy mind, the food reflects your mood. If you eat reheated meat pie and chips you will have a mind that reflects heavy stodgy fat food.

It strikes me that in a normal situation we would naturally east what our body needed. However, many people exact with their mind not their body. They are eating what they think they should eat and not what their body is asking for. When I was young I lived in many communities that we solid vegetarian. Well, they were until a visitor would coma and start cooking bacon. Suddenly people began to appear in the kitchen attracted by the smell.

Some people are naturally in touch with their body and eat what is appropriate for them. Some are more in touch with their mind and eat what they thing they should eat. While others have to eat whatever they can get and do not have a choice. I tend toward the Mediterranean diet and I love olives, tomatoes and pasta which is a powerful carb and certainly does make me feel good. A glass of red wine with the pasta goes down a treat.

So what are you having for tea? Does it make you feel happy? If not perhaps you might need to change your diet, or go for a run. Is your diet based around what you think you should eat or what you really enjoy eating?

Take care and enjoy your food.

Sean x

Performative wellness and performative success occur when someone becomes more concerned with presenting an idealised version of themselves rather than being honest about who they really are. 

Ref: https://www.rhodescollege.ca/3-tips-helping-clients-avoid-performative-wellness-become-wellness-counsellor/ 

The concept of wellness, living well and achieving success has, in someways, become a fashion that was started by books like “The Secrete”. We only have to look at social media to see people that we know who are not having a good time presenting themselves and their lives like everything is wonderful.

Are you being the real you or a performative you?

The perceived benefits of a wellness, success or a business routine can leave people being embarrassed to simply be themselves. As in, it is not who you are but how you look that counts. It seems that being who we are is no longer good enough. The Botox, fillers and cosmetic surgery are a testament to that. If we get to the point where we no longer look like who we really are or act like who we really are how do we even know who we are? If the way we present ourself or our clothes or our house in the way that we believe other people will value us, do they ever know who are we really?

Over lock down I have been really surprised at how many people, when using Zoom etc, use filters to improve their complexion rather than just being who they are. People tell me that it is the problem of continually looking at their own face on a screen that makes them feel as though they are not good enough. In everyday face to face conversations we are focussed on the other persons face not on our own.

I have also be surprised at how many people now use video back grounds to make their home setting look better than it is. They tell me the same thing that after looking at their old furniture or worn out kitchen they want to present a better looking home when on video. So with the filters and the backgrounds people are not really being themselves. It come as a real shock when we finally meet people face to face. In Psycho-speak these performative issues often come down to what is described as ‘performance anxiety’. This is often simply concerned with the fear of ‘am I good enough?’ 

Social media has a lot to answer for in this regard. It can take a toll on anyone’s resolve.  Many people have used social media for support and connection. Over the pandemic people’s reliance of social media has increased. Sadly at the same time so have levels of anxiety as people try to look and act like everything is wonderful and okay. 

Perhaps, for many, this would be a good time to take a break from social media.

I was thinking a lot about how we compare ourselves to others. As a people watcher I am fascinated by people’s need to mimic and copy others behaviours. Even as a yoga teacher I have watched many students doing their postures with one eye on the person next to them to check if they were doing it as well as them or if they could stretch further. I have even had to say to some classes that yoga is not a competition, there are no winners, this is about you, your body, mind and soul.

As you get dressed in the morning, do your make up or your hair ask yourself ‘who am I doing this for?’ Is this you being you or are you doing it to effect they way that people see you? Everything in life can be a performance from walking and dancing to making love, to ordering and eating a meal to the way that we drink our wine. 

When you stop performing you start being. 

In mindfulness we learn the ‘be’ in the moment and to ‘be’ in the moment with ourself. 

Be here now, be you and be happy.

Take care

Sean x

Frustration is a debilitating emotion. In the last few blogs we have looked at the emotions of anxiety, anger and depression. All three of these can either be the result of or the cause of frustration. This may be frustration with your self, other people, the situation in general or the ongoing saga of covid. Working with people in various states of frustration I was reminded of the cow.

One day, many years ago, as a young man, I was frustrated and angry. My teacher, whose patience was wearing thin, told me ‘It is time to be with the cow’. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about but with some food and water I was left in a field of cows and told to talk to them and that he would be back later. At the time I had taken a vow of obedience and did what was asked of me.

It was a long and a hot day that increased my feelings of frustration. I looked at the cows, they looked at me. What I supposed to do? I started having many one sided conversations with the cows. I spoke in animated ways with one cow who gazed at me with lovely doe eyes and simply chewed the cud with the resigned patience of someone who has been given charge of a mad human to look after. 

The cow and I sort of clicked. It was as though she knew what was going on in me and in her eyes was a stillness that also stilled my frustrated mind. You will think that I am really mad now but it was as though we were talking together at a deeper intuitive level. She was saying to me, ‘what’s the problem’. She was saying that life would go on day after day. She would come here chew cud and produce milk. ‘What was all the fuss?’ My teacher had told me that to the open mind everything and every being was a guru. When your mind is open you can learn so much everyday all the time.

The bottom line was that when my teacher returned he required me to explain what the cow had taught me. My learning from the day was that while I was rushing around the field in my frustration attempting to understanding something, anything, the cow, on the other hand, was happy to simply just ‘be’. To simply be a cow. The cow had a contentment in the moment and was not expecting or demanding anything else. My teacher simply nodded.

Later as I studied and practised meditation it occurred to me more and more that the cow had it right. To be content in the moment in the now with no concern what had been or what would be was now one of my own goals in my  meditation. Learning to be, rather than needing to do, is now my guiding principle. My daily meditation is now my oasis of simply just being in the busy world of my doing. I have to thank the cow for her wisdom.

In my life and my work I am privileged to enter other people’s inner worlds, discover who they are and, where possible help them find who it is that they would really like to be and, where possible, change their lives. I love all that I do, though there is one downside. It can be easy, however skilled therapists become at avoiding it, to load up with other peoples stuff, their stories, feelings and pictures. In short, if I spend the day working with people that have been abused I can feel like I am back in the grips of abuse. The same is true when working with depressions or anxiety, OCD or bereavement.

In the confused sea of other people’s emotions the sane place to go is the still place deep within, and for me that means meditation. This is at least once a day through often it is more. This is a time when I do not need to rush around worrying about who I am. Then I have become the cow. I have learned to sit and become the observer of my own thoughts and feelings and not get carried away by frustration, worries or concerns. I can enjoy the time when no body wants anything and when I have nothing what so ever to do but spend sometime simply relax and being.

Then I empty my internal cupboard and do what I love best, work with other people.

How do you clear your emotional cupboard when it is full?

Take care

Sean x 

Do you or does anyone that you know ever suffer from depression or anxiety? If you so do you know what it is that is underlying the symptoms?

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 comes from either people flushing unwanted medication down the toilet or the natural excretion of the medications in our urine.

In the UK in we currently write over 46 million prescription a year for antidepressants and in Covid these figures have greatly increased.

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 depressions 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. In this case depression. We actually learn both anxiety and depressions as a habit, a habitual way of thinking or feeling. People say to me “that is just the way I am” and I say “no, that 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.  That 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 presents 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 and even stay in bed as a safe place to be.

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 are able to take stock of things 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. Yet at least one in four of us will. However, as well as using medication the symptoms of clinical depression can 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 feels 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 have experience loss, divorce, redundancy, or an accident. Perhaps we have a bullying manager or partner. The economy has collapsed and 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 our self determination, we have become a victim.

The magic of depression

This is where the eastern approach comes into it 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 rewrite their own life script so that it can become the life that they really want. They can stop living the scripts that other people written for then so that they are no longer a bit part player in other peoples stories and become the star in the script of their own life.

When people engage with their depression, rather than burying it with medication, it becomes a truly life altering event. Human beings were designed with the creativity to solve problems, any problems. Collectively, sometimes in therapy, we can learn to see the wood and not the just the trees.

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

We often see anger as a negative force. Though it can be a very creative and useful force. When our anger is stuck out the front of us it is in the way. It becomes a battering ram that bashes into other people and becomes destructive. When it is behind us it can be used as a power pack that positively can be a dynamic force that drives us forward and gets things done.

Preparing this podcast I was thinking a lot about how anger can effect each of us. Anger is really just another emotion, it is an energy. However anger is either a productive energy or a destructive energy. Anger can be described with other words such a passion, determination, assertion, drive, irritation, exasperation, vexation, indignation, displeasure, chagrin, aggravation and so on. Though in the extreme anger can sometimes it can tip over into aggression or even violence. 

When we have an anger response to a situation or event we are usually just reacting. Generally reactions are mindless. When we respond rather than react we think about what we are doing before we do it. 

Reactions are mindless where as responses are mindful. 

When we are mindful we realise that it is not what happens to us but it is how we deal with it that makes the difference. It will make it either good or bad. Simply it is the way that we see it. As Epicticus put it…

…we are not in the least effected by events, 

we are effected by our response to those events…

Each day throughout life we are surrounded by difficult news and experiences. As I write this there are huge flood and deaths across Europe. For many people there will be a reaction to these events that will be anger. The same is true for Covid and it’s effects. The world can sometimes seem to be a troubled place. I guess that we could say that the world is always a troubled place but somehow it can seem to be getting a bit worse. Anger and angry reactions seem to be all around us.

For me the reality of Brexit is coming to pass and I don’t like that and it could get more difficult yet. We have destabilisation across the globe and I don’t like that. Then we have North Korea off again producing missiles and winding up the anger of the USA, I don’t like that. I could go on. It seems like there might be quite a lot to let go of over in the coming months and years

Difficult events in the world can bring back a lot of really big negative reactions with many people. Thinking about this took me back to the Manchester bombing in 2017. At that time I had two families that were caught up in the incident. Luckily none of them were physically hurt though they had all seen people who were killed and they were showing high levels of post traumatic stress disorder PTSD. That scar of these events will remain with many people for such a long time. Yet after this event, amongst all the potential for hatred and retribution there came the love and forgiveness of a collective acceptance and forgiveness in concert of those refusing to be cowed by the terrorism. In a deeply emotional experience Oasis sang…

…don’t look back in anger…  

There are no words more appropriate to this event and to our lives.  

We all look back on life, we have a choice of looking at it positively or negatively. We have a mindful choice, do we ruminate and feed the negative events of life with our anger and allow the negativities to grow in our mind and our emotions? There is another option in life that is to feed the positive events of life with our love, ruminate on those and allow them to grow positively in our mind and our emotions.

Just after I started doing this podcast and blog there has been the shooting of a journalist in the Netherlands. On top of that is the apparent growing knife crime here in the UK with several people being killed each week. Every news broadcast tells us things to be angry about. If we are to move on from our anger about any events whatever they are we need to let them go. In general this is termed forgiveness and that idea makes many people feel angry. “Why should I forgive those people after what the did?”

Forgiveness and letting go

We need to let go of whatever is holding us back, of those things that keep us stuck in the past. These negative emotional attachments to unresolved events limit our ability to move forward, they stunt our creativity and weigh us down. To let go, to forgo, to forgive allows us to move forward unencumbered into the rest of our lives. 

Just as in the Step One, from the Live In The Present course and book, we need to let go of all our negative attachments right back to the moment of our birth. Holding onto negative past is a choice, though we may not realise it. In mindfulness we can choose to be different, to let go and enjoy this wonderful thing called life. If you haven’t already done so then visit step one on the website and complete the exercise focussing on any negativity that you are holding and let it go. That mindful journey begins right here, right now. the option is to let go of your negative emotions and attachments and embrace your positive future.

Whatever your faith, religion, ethnicity, nationality, orientation, or beliefs enjoy this moment. As we move into this strange post Brexit, post Covid world we all need to be as positive as we can possibly be with each other. We will be tested and we will need to let go of negative anger and look after each other.

Take care and have a fabulous life and look after each other.

Sean X