2 + 2 = 5 Syndrome

This is a term I use to explain what we do when we make connections that end up limiting us in our lives.

Often these connections come from a stressful situation. Eg if someone harshly takes the piss out of me when I tell a joke, then I might learn that it is never safe to tell jokes.  Whereas there might be times when it isn't safe, or a good idea to tell them, it's hardly true that it is never safe.  Hence the title of this blog 2+2=5.  We over connect and come up with conclusions that aren't really true.

We would normally know that these things aren't linked.  However when we are either very young, or we encounter a situation that stresses us, we react from a different part of our brain and we can easily make these links.

We do this to protect ourselves.  It comes from the flight or fight response.  If, back in stone age times, we saw someone attacked by a wild animal, then when we see that type of animal again, we run before it gets near us.  We learn that the wild animal will harm us and that knowledge keeps us safe.

Nowadays, we don't usually encounter dangers of this type, but we've retained the mechanism for making connections.

I often treat clients who seem to think they shouldn't have made these connections, as it somehow means they weren't being very smart, but actually the opposite is true.  The more intelligent we are, the better we are at making connections, and the more likely we are to make these kind of connections when under extreme stress.

The good news is that all these connections can be taken apart at a any stage when they are no longer serving us - either with the help of a therapist, or just with good self-awareness.

An Inspirational Film

I went to see a film - The Dalai Lama Awakening - at The Wellbeing Centre yesterday evening.  I have to admit I was partially drawn to it because there would be interviews with the Dalai Lama himself and I am a massive admirer.

However, it was much more than that.  It was a documentary about a journey of transformation of 40 of the "big thinkers" of the world as they met with the Dalai Lama to try and solve some of the world's problems.

They came together, as you may expect, with a process, which they hoped would help them produce a plan.  There were many different types of people, each with their own ideas and inevitably the process broke down.  But what came out of the trip for each of them was a personal transformation - an opening of their hearts and a calming of the ego.

The message that came out of the film was "change the world by changing yourself".

This resonates with me because this is what I've been working on with myself on my journey.  "Be the change you want to see in the world" is how I remember it (originally said by Ghandi), but it all starts with ourselves.

In my sessions with clients, I talk to people about how we can't change those around us, only ourselves.  However, this will still make a difference as when we change, those around us change towards us.

The other key thing I learnt is the value and implication of compassion.  Now, I realise the value of it already, but not always the implication of practising it.  The film briefly touched on the Tibet issue and someone suggested imposing sanctions on China.  However after consideration, the Dalai Lama voiced concerns over how that would affect the people of China, most of whom are not guilty of oppressing anyone, and hence how compassionate it would be.

I will try to be more aware of the greater effect of my decisions.

I have to say it was an inspiring evening and a real pleasure to meet the director who's touring with the film at the moment.

If you get the chance to see it, I'd recommend going.

Why won't you change!!!!

I've been talking recently to people who have been having "problems" with a partner or someone close to them and I've been asked what they can do about this.  So I thought I'd address this here.

Now, firstly, we can't change another person, we can only change ourselves.  It is often very easy to see blocks in someone else or to see their potential.  However, none of us knows someone else's path in life.  Often the thing we feel ought to be changed is not the highest priority for the other person.  I believe we are all the highest authority for our own paths.

If we can become more accepting of their differences, and if we can stop trying to control them and let them be themselves, we will find a sense of freedom and peace in our relationships.  So I would suggest we work on our own development rather than trying to change the other person.

Secondly, I've found that other people usually don't respond well to being told they ought to change.  If someone (particularly a loved one) is regularly telling you to change, what does that say about how they feel about you as you actually are.  Not a lot, I'd say.  Would you change for someone who doesn't seem to be like who you are?

Instead, I'd suggest we focus on the positive in the person.  You can always find it if you look, but if you always focus on the negative, you will only see that.  Try commenting on the things you like and ignoring the things you don't.  That way, they will hear positive things from you and their general perception of your feelings for them will be much higher.  Also, you may well start to feel better towards them too.  The funny thing is, that people often change when they feel safe and accepted, so you may find they then manifest some of the changes you've wanted them too.  However that will only happen if they are the changes they wish to make.

Thirdly, we sometimes grow apart from people.  If one person changes and the other one chooses not to, those two people may find they don't have enough in common any more to spend lots of time together.  It's one of the most difficult things, as feelings for the person may well be strong, but frustrations with the differences have arisen.

If you do feel that you need to move away, try and be honest enough to talk to them and explain how your feeling.  It might not be easy if they are a partner or someone close, but it may be that they're feeling this too.  If you agree to part, let each other go with love.  Partings don't have to be hateful.  Those that are respectful and amicable and much more pleasant.

So before you aim your frustration at another person, try these three steps first.

Don't Fear Perceived Failure

I was thinking the other day about the pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect.  It was triggered by 2 friends who are taking on new voluntary roles.  The first was apologising in advance for possibly messing up. I don't think anyone who knows him thinks he'll mess up, but that was quite a big concern of his.  I then was thinking, in contrast, of another friend who reminds us that she is still learning her role and will not be perfect yet.  And then she does the best that she can.

I used to be a perfectionist.  I hold my hands up to this.  I'd be proud of the quality of my work.  I'd love to hear compliments about it.  However, the flip-side was that I'd take ages to get anything finished and I'd often procrastinate if I wasn't sure it would be perfect enough, so sometimes the task wouldn't get done at all. And I'd carry around this ever growing list of things to do, which put extra stress on me.

Now I'm not advocating that we don't do our best, but our best will vary according to not only our ability, but also our current level of experience, how we're feeling that day, and what other pressures we have going on in our lives.

There are times when perfection is relevant - if you are a surgeon or operating dangerous machinery, for example.  However how I design my business cards really isn't one of them; it's more like a journey, each version can be a little bit different as I evolve my ideas and experience.

It's also good to think of where we'd be if, as babies, we didn't risk failure in learning to walk and talk.  How would it be if we looked at the baby next to us who was more developed in these skills and decided it wasn't worth us bothering as we couldn't do it right now.  It seems a ridiculous notion, but many people do exactly this as adults.

So, don't let the fear of perceived failure, put extra pressure on you, or stop you doing something.  Be honest with people as to your experience and do the best you can.

Are you feeling down?

A couple of days ago, I met up with a friend, who was not feeling her normal positive self.  She had a couple of nerve-racking events coming up, but she seemed very flustered generally.  She said she felt heavy and seemed to lack her normal confidence.

So I thought I'd write a little article about why this happens and how we can get ourselves out of it.

Firstly, I'd like to say that this is a pretty normal reaction to the stresses and strains of every day life.  From time to time we're bound to slip off the positivity plateau that I'm sure all my readers frequent on a regular basis.  Oh, you don't?  Well read on...

There's a big difference between falling off this plateau and staying down.  The second state is one which hopefully you can avoid.

Our emotional state is one which will always fluctuate.  The word emotion can be broken down into e-motion.  The "e" stands for energy, so emotions are energy in motion.  Hence they are designed to move, ie fluctuate.  There is no problem with feeling anything in life.  The problems come when you get stuck there, as anything which is stuck can't move.

The other point to recognise is that this movement is in a vibratory pattern.  How fast or slow these emotions vibrate depends on how positive or negative they are to us.  In simple terms, the closer they are to love or fear - love being the most positive and fear being the most negative.  Try it out for yourself: what order would you put the following: contentment, anger, frustration, bliss?

The next thing is what to do about it.  Well there are a few options.   The easiest and quickest is to use your self-talk to boost your emotional vibration.  Your what, I hear you cry?  Your self-talk - the little voice inside your head which, if you're feeling negative, is probably saying ridiculously untrue things like "I'll never do it", "I'm not good enough" and often gets worse and worse as we spiral downwards.

For some reason us humans find this state quite sticky.  We can very easily get immersed in such a state, but we do ourselves great harm with negative self-talk.

So the obvious solution is to monitor what we're thinking and change it for the opposite.  So if we find ourselves saying "I'll never do it", immediately change this to "I'll easily do it".  You may not believe it straight away, but if you keep replacing the negative statements with positive ones, then you'll soon start to. You only believe the negative ones because you've repeated them so much.

This works very well for sudden emotion drops, when they are a temporary state.  For more long term states of low emotion, we often need to do a bit more.  It's still worth replacing your self-talk, but often we find it harder, or the results come more slowly, which can discourage us.  It might be worth interrogating the emotions (gently) to find out where they came from.  We might recognise them as the voice of a parent or teacher from when we were younger and that might be enough for us to disown them and replace them with a new positive voice of our own.

If we're still not getting the results we want, chatting to a friend can help.  Remember, it's great to talk to someone who can empathise with the fact you're having a hard time, but not someone who's going to agree with you that life sucks, unless you really want to remain stuck in a low vibration.

And if none of this is helping, it might be worth getting some professional help.  I can help you find the root cause of the negative emotions and help you transform them in to positive ones.  There's no need to stay down.

The Process of Process

Process is a word that comes up a lot in healing circles.  People talk about being in process or processing stuff, but what does it actually mean and how does it work?

When something changes in our life - circumstances, or our feelings about something - we go through a period of transformation.  Sometimes that's quite smooth and quick, but at other times it can be quite challenging.

Take, for example, moving house.  When moved from my last house to my present one, both of which I liked, there was a period where I felt uncomfortable in the new house.  I hadn't yet got to the point where I felt at home there, but I'd already left the last place, so I couldn't return there either.  Eventually I made the new place home and things became more comfortable, but the period of adjustment is what we know as the process.

One thing that can come up during a process is uncertainty.  That may be one of the reasons I found it hard to adjust my new home - it was all new and unfamiliar.

However process happens with other types of change too.  It might be that an organisation or group you're involved in wants to change something.  The tendency is often to resist the change or take it as a personal criticism, but it might be that the change will result in something even better.  We might want to resolve everything very quickly so we know where we stand, but we will probably have to go through a period of process.  If a large number of people are involved then they will need to have their views heard and they may change their views during the process.  The uncertainty can feel uncomfortable until a new equilibrium is found.

In the same way, when we go through therapeutic healing, whether we do this by ourselves or with a professional therapist, we are also going through a change. We're changing from the person we were to the person we are becoming.  Although this will be a positive change, the unknown element can make it feel a bit strange for a while.  As unresolved issues come to the surface, we can feel uncomfortable.  As we let go of the old, we can feel a bit empty.  As we take a new step into the unknown, we can feel vulnerable.

The key to all this is patience and trust.  An awareness of what process is can make it easier for us. Rather than panicking that we're somehow going mad or that a decision feels wrong, we can ride it out calmly.  It is also important to let others go through their own process.  By recognising this, we can give them space and respect until they have found their new balance.

So I wish you the best for your next process.  Enjoy.

Taking Some Time Out

For the last few weeks, I feel I've had no time for working on my business; a thing that I've found most frustrating when my energy has been very present and willing.  However the cause of this lack of time was that I've been organising the costumes for a local amateur theatre production.

I've loved it, and I feel that my life benefits from interests outside of my holistic work, but I was very concerned with how much time it was taking and this was after I'd delegated some of the work to my wonderful team of helpers.

I've been feeling torn.  I basically abandoned my work for the duration apart from seeing scheduled clients, but I haven't been that happy with this.

So I've been looking at what I can learn from the experience.  Firstly, I've learnt that I can manage a project and achieve a result within a fixed time frame.  Secondly I've learnt that I can manage people and they've seemed to be quite happy with how I've done it.  Thirdly, I've learnt that I'm not good at focusing on more than one thing at a time, when the things require creative energy.  And fourthly, I've learnt that I can work quite hard and long without getting stressed - something that didn't used to be the case.

I joked to one of my helpers that my goal was to complete the costumes without having a nervous breakdown, but I surpassed this by keeping calm right up to the end and it made the whole process a lot more enjoyable and easier to achieve.  We waste a lot of energy being agitated about things we can't change and although we often feel totally entitled to be stressed, it doesn't help us achieve our goals.

So now, the show is over, I've refocused back on my work and the very day I got a new client booking. A sure sign that when one door closes and other one opens.

If you would like to see some pictures of my lovely costumes, click here. You may need a Facebook account to view.

Our Defining Issue

How do we see ourselves?  Do we see ourselves the same way that others see us?  And more importantly, do we define ourselves by what we see?

When working with clients, I often hear "I am ...." or "I do...." as a way of explaining who they are.  It's usually followed by "I've been doing this as long as I can remember".  However, they are usually seeing me in order to change this very thing, and I'm hearing them affirming the old version of themselves over and over again.

So my challenge to them and to everyone else out there who wants to change is:

Are you prepared to re-define yourself?

It's a tricky one, because on the one hand, we want rid of all the negative behaviour traits and negative emotions associated with the old "us".  But on the other hand, the old version feels safe and there are probably parts of it we like.

I used to be a perfectionist.  I prided myself on getting things right, doing things well and getting good feedback from others.  However there were things I wouldn't do, in case they weren't perfect, and things that took far longer than they needed to, because they had to be perfect.  And, there was all the verbal "beating up" of myself when I failed to reach perfection.  Then there were all the things - the whoops moments - I could say I'd never done.  And those were the things I defined myself by.

Now I'm "good enough".  Wow, what a liberating phrase!  And I have lots of whoops moments.  Whoops - I set myself a schedule this week and I haven't kept to it 100%.  But it is good enough for now.

When I was younger, I got drunk and I smoked.  I saw it as a cool thing to do, and a way of being part of a social group.  I felt it was some kind of rebellion against the sensible behaviour I'd been brought up with, and this made it exciting.  I've now given up both and had to go through a huge redefinition to do that. I've had to change the focus in my life from fitting in with an existing social group to prioritising my health.  I've had to learn how to be social without a drink and a cigarette in my hand, and what that new version of me is like.

With the drinking, the redefinition happened because of the change, but with the smoking, the redefinition had to happen first in order to make the change.

So, enough about me.  What changes in your life are you preventing by how you define yourself?  An easy way to check out your self-definition is to listen to your self-talk.  What things do you say to yourself over and over again?  What do you say to yourself when you are in a challenging situation?  What do you say to yourself when you think of making that change you keep saying you want?

Then think about the pay-offs associated with this definition. There are always some.  Do you feel it fits you into a social group?  Do you feel it'll help you be accepted and approved of?  Do you feel it gives you a get-out clause when things get too much to bear?  It's important to acknowledge these as they give you the awareness which helps you change.

Then decide which version you'd like to be.  You might find that you come to a new decision.

Self Awareness

Self awareness is a subject I've been pursuing for a while now.  I still remember how it felt back in my past when my self-awareness was much lower, and indeed, I can look back at my journals in amazement at my rather strange perspective on the world.  But in spite of this, I have to acknowledge that I used to look at the world from a very different place from where I am now.  I used to take things personally, I used to feel the world had some problem with me and I used to feel quite hard done by. I used to jump to conclusions about situations and this often made me feel either very angry or very upset.

Having gone down my road and enriched my self-awareness, I now realise that these conclusions I reached, were often projections of my own fears or judgements onto those around me.  So, for example, if a friend had changed plans to meet up, I may have assumed they didn't care and they took me for granted, whereas, this was a projection of my fear that I wasn't deserving of friends who cared.

This can lead to a rather self-absorbed state, which can often happen when we struggle in life. Our perspective narrows and, when we feel something, we project it onto the first thing that irritates us, rather then looking into our feelings for what they are - just feelings.  There's a big difference between "She's abandoned me because she doesn't care" and "I feel abandoned".  The first one is blame and projection and the  second one is a simple acknowledgement of a feeling.  Our feeling of abandonment may well have been triggered by an experience from our past which has gone unresolved.  Understanding this is where self-awareness comes in.

By looking into our feelings and asking ourselves where they come from enough times, we start to understand our patterns and where our past hurts haven't been resolved.  If we can release them then they will no longer trigger extremes of emotion.  But even if we can't, we can remember that our emotional reactions are based on something deeper and bigger than the current experience.  This can lead to a broader perspective and is what self-awareness is all about.

If you would like help with doing this in a safe, non-judgemental environment, please contact me for an appointment.