MindHealth by Sara Stevens
By Sara Stevens
MindHealth by Sara StevensOct 05, 2021
Down The Rabbit Hole
My blog is taking you metaphorically down the rabbit hole, opening you to a whole new world of how we think, feel and operate at the deepest levels of ourselves. This blog will help you gain more understanding of your mind and for some of us, it will help to reduce the fears we have over our minds and what we store in them.
Lasting Change
The first step in any change is to come clean with yourself and stop living with the excuses and denial. I hear so many of these on a daily basis; “I will start tomorrow, I can’t do it, just the one, I lapsed so I just gave in, I am ok, I won’t do it again”. The list is endless, but I am sure we have all at one time or another said some of these things and convinced ourselves into thinking it’s ok to carry on.
Obsessions
We can all probably admit to having the odd obsession or two, I think this is normal and won’t have a massive impact on our lives. For example, if we have to have the certain thing in our home in symmetry or we have to do things in a particular way, maybe we like the tins all in order in our pantry, or the bed made just so, or we can’t relax until the kid’s toys are packed away. This can be a never-ending task with children, as soon as it's packed away, even if they haven’t used it in ages, they seem compelled to want them out again! Maybe we all have this need for the things we haven’t got, and spend our lives craving for those things, instead of enjoying what we have got.
Ritual
The last blog on Superstition was looking at how superstitions can negatively impact our ability to be safe, secure and worry free. Today we are looking at rituals, which can develop from superstitions but can also be experienced on their own, even if you’re not superstitious. The word rituals can be seen as very religious in its meaning and also can be linked to witchcraft too, as many of our earliest rituals are imbedded in our ancient past. The word ritual means, 'a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions, performed according to a prescribed order'.
Superstition
Most us have a few superstitions, but it doesn’t have a negative impact on our lives, but if we have let these habits get out of control, it can affect our anxiety levels and also stop us from being our true selves. The key to life is balance, not too much or too little; it can be a bit of a tightrope at times, but once we find ourselves and are true to ourselves, it’s easy. Superstitious behaviour links back to our ritualistic heritage, religions, and stereotyped behaviour patterns from the people we lived around.
Control
Control is a confusing issue and for many of us we have got it in the wrong place in our head; if this is the case we can be causing ourselves lots of issues. Lots of people say to me that they don’t like being out of control - this can be situational, like being on a plane or in a meeting, it can be future based, for example, "Will I get the job?" or "Will I have enough money?", and it can be personal, "Do I have cancer or some deadly illness?", "Can I be myself in this situation, will I feel ok, can I cope?"
Serial Worrier
Do you find yourself unable to sleep, as you are worrying about what’s been happening that day, or what’s coming tomorrow? Do you worry about the smallest things? Do you blow things out of proportion? Do you feel unable to concentrate and focus on things because you're anxious? Do you feel on edge if things don’t go as planned, teary and emotional from anxiety? Or do friends and family comment on how much you worry? If this sounds like you, maybe you are a serial worrier and you have let your worry habit spiral out of control.
The Cat Lives On
This is the next part. You may understand now that the learnt habits of worrying is something we are in control of and not a big scary issue out of our control. After decades of helping people to become anxiety free, one of the key factors is knowing that we can change and we don’t need to live this way forever. With your new-found knowledge, commitment to change and of course, like anything in life, a bit of work, you will start seeing a change in how you feel.
The Cat is Back
Don't Feed The Cat
This is exactly how a habit grows. It starts with just a small thing, like feeding the cat.
I Can't See The Cat
This is another one in the series about anxiety and how we can be doing things unknowingly that could be part of your anxiety issues. Anxiety has a massive pull on our inner mind and can easily distort our perception of things. We can then start to find that we delude ourselves a little by maybe saying, "We’re not that bothered about going out or going on that trip" and we may say to ourselves "I think we will leave it. We’re far too busy, we can’t commit to the time off work, we can’t afford it, we don’t really want to go," or whatever excuse we make and then we don’t go.
Toxic
We’ve all been around people that can
elevate us, and then we can also have people that hinder our ability to be the
best version of ourselves, just by the toxicity of the connections we have with
them. We can often be afraid to speak up and confront those who produce toxic
vibes, and this can then keep us in toxic relationships, friendships, or even jobs,
due to this toxicity and how we can get trapped in the cycles it brings. The
more we get upset and put down by these types of relationships, the more our
inner confidence and self-esteem can be negatively affected by this. Some people
are great at holding the illusion of being lovely, kind, and all-round nice and
friendly, but on the inside, they are very different. These types of toxic
relationships can be more subtle than the Mood
Hoovers and Debbie Downers we
have looked at already but can still have a massive impact on us. It's good to
just notice how we feel about the people in our lives, and if they are
impacting us, it’s time to look at who they are and of course how we are behaving
too.
You
Often, we can get focused on everything else, but at times it is important to bring the focus back onto you. We have to always be real with ourselves and not let denial or any level of non-acknowledgement of what we are doing or not doing get in our way. We need to see things clearly and if we’re not sure, we can just stop and think of someone who isn’t suffering from our issues, and if they are not doing some of the things we find ourselves doing, then maybe we need to rethink this. We need that confidence to grow so that we can help ourselves to be the best version of ourselves and liberate ourselves from the restraints of these horrible, unwanted, bad habits and issues. We can of course get help, but the best person to help you will be yourself, committing time to change and supporting this new positive lifestyle is essential.
Flag
Life
is like a game of tug of war, in most, if not all our relationships and
interactions, we all have our own agenda and hopefully, we all strive to be
fair too. Confidence is a learned and developed habit, with this being the
case it is super important that we create the right lines in every area of our
lives, and then we can just “hold the flag” over everyone we interact with. But there is a fine line between give and
take; one we need to uphold in balance for ourselves if we are striving to be more
confident. Overgiving is just as bad for ourselves as undergiving is bad
for others, neither way is the right way. If we overgive then it's a sign of
weakness to our primeval minds and this will cause us to lack confidence. Our
minds from the caveman days have all seen the importance of survival and that
we need to protect and take care of ourselves to survive. Don’t get me wrong, giving
selflessly is a great thing to do, but if this is something we do all the time
at the expense of ourselves, then this will be too much to sustain over long
periods. If we go on too long this way, we could run out of energy completely
so then we are no help to others or ourselves, which is not a great place to
end up. The people we are helping
wouldn't want us to break ourselves in the process of helping them, so it's
about finding the balance between give and take.
Carrots
Last week we looked at when anxiety is at
its worst, how it can immobilise us, and how the freeze response takes over how
we feel and often negatively impacts our nervous system as well. We used the
analogy of the rabbit, which is one of the best creatures we know to use the freeze
response to stay alive, and how we can’t just shake the rabbit awake. At this
point, their nervous system is shut down and is far too afraid to do anything
for the fear of dying. You might think that last statement is a bit dramatic,
but this isn't the case, our nervous system is so powerful and is directly
connected to our unconscious and primeval minds. The feelings it sends to
our bodies are so strong and overwhelming that at times we can feel paralysed
by them. So, if we can’t shake the rabbit
awake, what can we use as a carrot to entice them out of this frozen state? We
know, in nature, that leaving the rabbit alone will be the only way to change
this state of immobilisation, as with time, it will sense the danger is gone
and bounce back to life. We can do this too with people frozen in fear, but for
many of us wanting to help our loved ones and ourselves, we don’t just want to
wait it out until our nervous system feels safe again.
Rabbit
Anxiety is bad enough at any age in our
lives, but when we should be living our lives to the full without the full
pressures of adult life, it is, I feel, an even harder situation to go through.
This week I had a young woman come in with her boyfriend, this young woman is
an inspiration to us all. She has been battling with her childhood issues, and
severe, demobilising, anxiety, for many years now. We have been having sessions
for a few months now and making great progress, which is fabulous, and I know
this will only continue to grow for her. When we have anxiety at any age, we can
often feel that people don’t understand what is happening inside us and that
our actions will be misunderstood. We can often feel at our worst, that we
can’t fully connect with our loved ones and the people around us and we feel
unable to let them in. Also, we can feel that people may take our actions
personally and that this is something they have done, rather than our anxiety
and how we are struggling in that moment. If someone hasn’t experienced anxiety,
how can we get them to understand how we are feeling inside? How can we explain
what is happening inside at those moments? How can we get our loved ones to
help us, when we can’t seem to even help ourselves?
Truth
In the last blog, we were looking at the
British stiff upper lip, and how we, as British people, have grown up with
this. Now we need to explore this line of truth we have with ourselves, and how
if we don't have this, it can cause lots of anxiety within us. A client came
into my office today and we were talking about this, and I was explaining how
this can trigger an anxious outburst from our unconscious minds. For myself, I
always look at what we do and how this impacts our unconscious mind. This being
the case, it can at times cause us to feel confused about what we should or
shouldn't be doing. This issue of our own internalised truth is very clear in
our minds and we need to have this relationship with ourselves.
Lie
The difference between a lie and the truth can be a very fine line. It is even right or wrong, black or white, a truth or a lie. It's great to be open and authentic but we all know in certain situations we can't always be this way. This is because we need to be diplomatic and considerate of others' feelings. We also have to hold back from the full truth and tell those white lies. Life is like this, and that is perfectly fine. I think for everyone we have had to approach life in these ways many times over. We know at times, that sharing the truth and our true feelings, could cause an issue for ourselves, hurt others, jeopardise our relationships, our jobs, and our friendships. In the UK we have had what's called the British stiff upper lip. The phrase is most commonly heard as part of the idiom "keep a stiff upper lip", and has traditionally been used to describe an attribute of British people in remaining resolute and unemotional when faced with adversity.
Be Me
I think it can be very hard to be our
true unique selves, as historically this has not often been possible, and we’re
maybe holding onto those old patterns and habits.
For many of us, our parents couldn't be who they wanted to be, and beyond that,
it got more and more difficult to be ourselves. We still had slavery in 1865 in
the UK, plus in many parts of our western world too, and before 1967 it was a
criminal offence to be gay in the UK. Sadly,
this is still illegal in parts of the world. A few years ago, Brunei brought
back being stoned to death as a penalty for being caught being gay. Just over
100 years ago, women got the chance to vote and before that, they were classed
as being the possession of the man. These are so close to who we are today on
certain levels, yet also a million miles away from us.
Bin It
Being safe and secure is the key to our
deep, inner, confidence, which I believe is essential in helping you feel and
live with confidence in all levels of your life. Our minds are amazing, and
they are always trying to help us find ways to automate what we are doing,
helping us to free up more mental inner space, which is fantastic for things
like walking and driving a car, but if our mind starts automating things we
don’t want, then we’re in trouble. With our inner minds working for us, it’s
important to understand how it works, as sometimes we are inadvertently doing
things which are not getting the outcome we are expecting. A massive thing
for all of us can be procrastination and putting things off, which is such a
limiter in moving forward, but you might not have been aware that it could also
be causing anxiety, making the whole situation much worse. I do think one of the
easiest things to do, is to put something off, which you might be saying is
quite normal, and yes, you're right there. But there are big issues with this; for
your inner mind, if there is a totally real and true reason to put something
off then there is no problem at all and your mind will accept this, but if you
are putting it off because you are uncomfortable or avoidant about doing this,
then your mind won’t believe your excuse.
Happy
From the stone age to the 1950’s, all over
the world we lived in fear of a neighbour or another country invading our
homes, villages, or territory. Slaughtering our friends, family, and community,
to take over and occupy our land and resources, or if they didn’t slaughter us,
they brought health epidemics which did it for them. We are also over the era
of being helpless beings in our powerful, world, out of control with the force
of nature. Of course, we do see many disasters and devastation caused by
earthquakes, tsunamis, and extreme weather conditions - being caught up in
those must be terrifying for anyone. But
over the last 100 years, we have learnt so much and we can now build houses to
withstand earthquakes and even install earthquake protection beds; google them,
they look amazing. We can now predict the weather, and send support to help
when a disaster happens, to help minimise the loss of life.
Change
I was reflecting on life the other day
while looking through some of my old photographs and some of the things I used
to do when I was younger. I must say at this point that I am making myself feel
very old now!! But I think for many of us we can see how much our world is
changing. Some things we don't even realise weren't always the way it is now.
But for parts of our mind, we struggle with changing this quickly. This is
because a big part of our unconscious mind is primeval, and this part of our
mind won't change easily because it fears change. You might be thinking,
why would I mind being this way? Well, the reason for this is that this part of
us feels if we are still alive then why change anything? This part of your mind
bases everything on life and death, it is the most stubborn part of your mind. This
can often be the way we can struggle to make changes and accept that things
have changed too. We know that as we get older, changing can seem more
difficult as well. This is because we have had more time to hold onto those old
habits and they can then seem harder to break.
Low
Life,
I think, can have many ups and downs for everyone. This can be hard at times to
cope with. We must try and deal with things in the best possible way that we
can, by not feeding these low feelings. This is not to say that we should
avoid them either but that we should try not to catastrophise what is happening
at the moment and do our best to deal with things head-on. This might sound
sensible but for some of us, we can find it very hard to do. This is because
our minds can be very protective and defensive to how we deal with challenges
in life.
Distraction
We
have been looking at ways to help us reduce our fear levels even when life can
be a challenge to us. This is a key thing, not only in helping our fear, but
also in keeping our levels of anxiety in a stable and low place. If we
spend lots of time with those worries and what-if's, we will be creating lots
of inner fear and anxiety, if it is left unchecked it can run riot within
us. A good plan is to stop this before
it starts, if it's just at the beginning of starting to ruminate about things,
then the anxiety levels will still be at a low level, and it is much easier to
break from the pattern of worry at this point. But if we have let this get out
of hand, then it can have become something that will be much bigger and so in
turn, much harder to switch our mindsets out of. Our minds are amazing and are
constantly supporting us, but if we send these worrying messages into our minds
then our minds will listen. When our minds listen to these worries and fears
they don't just do nothing, they start the process of protecting us and the
more we worry, the bigger the protection becomes. This is the fight-flight
and freeze response, which has made us the most overpopulated species on the
planet and keeps us safe in dangerous situations. But if we are overthinking
and worrying about something then our minds won't realise that this isn't a
real-life danger and will start acting as if it is.
Stop Fear
We have been looking at the fear response,
which we are quite aware is something that can be heavily based in our
unconscious and primeval minds. This is because it is part of the fight, flight,
and freeze response, which is very important for us to have, as it helps us
deal with real-life dangers. This helps us to stay safe, by our inner minds
alerting us to any dangers in that milli second when our mind gets triggered
into this response system. We have to accept that without hard work or by
having hypnotherapy and EMDR approaches, that these triggers can be quite
stubborn in stopping them. But what we are in control of are all the things we
can do when we have fear.
Fear
According
to psychology research, fear is a primal emotion that involves a universal
biochemical response and a high individual emotional response. Fear
involves a wide range of both physical and emotional symptoms and our fear
response is different to everyone else's.
Do
I think we can enjoy life more if we do
the things we need to as quickly as we can. If we
have lots to do then it not only feels like a weight on us but it can
negatively impact our mental health and anxiety levels. You might be thinking
why is this the case? It is because our minds can get overwhelmed when too many
things need to be done. Even if they are small things, they can still trigger
anxiety for some people. I think it is important that we have strategies to
help us get things done without the stress that can come and without getting
overwhelmed. For me, I have a head like
a sieve and so I need to have a list of things that need to get done. I like to
keep things in my diary so I can have them on repeat until I have found the time
to do them. I find this works for me, when I log into the diary it can trigger
me to remember that I have these things to do. I often add them into any spaces
I have in my work diary and then I often get them done in the gaps through the
day. But this might not work for you, it is all about finding the best way
that suits you and your mindset.
Goal
Setting goals is a great way to help us
move our lives forward, also it is great for us to be the best version of
ourselves as well. I think life can really fly by, days become weeks and weeks
become months and years. This is fine as long as we don't end up with regrets
and we find we are looking back on our lives wishing we could have done more.
We do live in a fast-paced life, and this can mean we feel that there isn't
enough time to do anything extra. But sometimes there is a bit of room that can
make all the difference to you over the long term, but small enough to fit this
time into your life. I live a busy life but have decided to learn Spanish, the
second time around. I have committed to 15 minutes a day which you might think
isn't enough at all but over time it is much more than what you think, it works
out to be 1,368 hours a year now, which sounds like lots. When I think about my same daily time commitment,
I now look at it in the bigger picture and think that amount of time will make
a difference. If I don't think of the daily picture, I might start thinking, “What
is the point? It won't change anything to not do it”, and before you know it, I’m
out of the habit and my goals are left behind.
Free
Over thirty years ago I spent nearly two
years backpacking around the world, this time in my life was the freest I have
ever been. This I think was because of many factors, and it is very hard to
create the same freedom I felt in the commercialised world that the UK is. Also,
I think that having less belongings, in fact hardly anything, just a backpack,
was liberating. With having no fixed abode, the pressure of money is massively
reduced and the basic principles of just food and shelter felt easier than all
the struggles we have of money in our lives in the UK. Finally, I feel that the
lifestyle while travelling was one spent outdoors and that is such a freeing
experience not being constrained by being indoors all the time. I do feel that
if we work on taking some of these principles on in our lives, we can feel the freedom
of living our lives more simply.
Inner No
We looked in the last blog about saying no to others and making our lives more balanced by the natural tug-of-war of relationships and life. This blog wants to explore the more internal self-desires and limiters to saying no. I think we can all say yes to the fact that, at times, we do things that we really want to say no to but end up doing anyway. This could be eating that chocolate bar, having that glass of wine, succumbing to drugs, take pain killers, porn or sex addictions, smoking, vaping, buying clothes and overshopping for things. These are just a few of the things we do that we say to ourselves that we should say no to but then we end up doing. Why is this? Why do we do this to ourselves? There are probably lots of different reasons that have led us to this point but for many of us, at the root of this, is that we don't feel we are in control and can say no. As we grow up, we are learning lots of habits and beliefs in life and these can still be ways that we continue to live our lives. This is great for many of them, who would want to wake up every day and have to learn how to walk, drive the car, talk, eat, understand English, and know how to use all those things we have in our lives, which make our lives so much easier than we have ever had before in the history of our development. From the phones, washing machines, hoovers, dishwashers, heating, irons and all the other stuff in this endless list of things we have now in our homes and workplaces. This is the pleasure of our unconscious mind, that over time it learns these habits and then we can do them without much effort at all.
No
The power of saying no has a tremendous effect on our mental health, as it allows us to value ourselves more. It also helps us prioritise ourselves. This can even lead us to new opportunities that wouldn't have been achievable by saying yes. Also, it allows us to set boundaries with people and over time this becomes a much happier, healthy place for us and all the people in our lives to live in.
Self Love
I think we could all do with loving
ourselves more. In this very competitive world we live in, it is very easy to
not feel good enough. If we start feeling this way about ourselves then it will
be hard to love ourselves in the ways we should. Self-love is very important
because it motivates much of the positive behaviour we can have in our lives,
while reducing harmful behaviours and negative habits we can get into. It
empowers us to take risks to strive to be the best version of ourselves and to
say no to things that don't work for us, as we are there protecting ourselves.
It's a key component of building self-compassion; the more we learn to love
ourselves the better we can be with ourselves. Self-love can help us take care
of ourselves, lower stress, and strive for success, which are all super
important things to help us live a happy, healthy, positive life.
Broken
Anxieties, panic attacks, and severe
worrying can take time for us to fully recover, and it is important to own
this. If we don't acknowledge the process of breaking out from bad habits into
new ones, we can get pressurised by our inner thought processes. If we think
just after one day, or one week, or one month, that it will be gone forever,
then I think we are living in denial over this. Our minds are like massive
computers and reprogramming them takes time because we have to forget the
habits to fully put them behind us. What won't work is when we are saying to
ourselves it is over, we are better, it's never going to happen again. This is
not a positive affirmation; for most of us it sets us up for a fall, because we
will all get anxious from time to time, and this is ok.
Live
“Life is for living”, is a saying I am sure most of you have heard before. I agree that this is the case and that we have to embrace life and work to make the most of every day. I think it is great to look at life from this positive viewpoint and work to make the best of every moment. Living in the moment means trying not to worry about the past, which you can't change anyway, and not worrying about things that might happen in the future as we don’t know what’s coming, and we are not fortune tellers so we don’t know how tomorrow will be. It is about focusing on today and enjoying the present. Paying attention to the smaller things in life is a great start to being more present and living in the moment.
More Joy
The last blog was looking at ways to help your mind to be in a place that allows more joy into your life. If we don't have a firm foundation to build things on, then whatever we try and build on top of this could just crumble away without that solid foundational support to hold it up. This is just the same when we choose to form new habits and ways of living in our lives, we have to create a safe and solid place for us to develop and hold these new habits on. Many people rush off to make changes and neglect to look at how they can maintain these in their lives and also what things are not right. This will just sabotage your ability to make these new and lasting changes in your life. The last blog helped you look at the fundamental things we all need, to live a more joyful life, and now with that firm foundation in place, we can look at ways to enhance joy in your life.
Joy
I think it is important to have joy in our lives and find ways to live in these more positive mindsets. If we have more joy and happiness then this can help to boost our inner positive hormones. When we feel joy in our bodies it is because of the release of dopamine and serotonin, two types of neurotransmitters in the brain. Both of these chemicals are heavily associated with happiness. It has been proven that people with clinical depression often have lower levels of serotonin and this is why GPs can prescribe people anti-depressants to help boost serotonin levels.
Laugh
I must say I am one of those people who likes to laugh; if you have been a client of mine, you might have noticed this. If you are a family or friend, you will know this about me. I often like to make a joke or just make fun of myself or the situation I might be in, as I think laughter is one of the most precious gifts we are given in life.
CBT
CBT is another approach that I often use parts of in my sessions, as it can help you work through your issues and find those solutions you have been searching for. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug use problems, marital problems, eating disorders, and severe mental illness. Numerous research studies suggest that CBT leads to significant improvement in functioning and quality of life. In many studies, CBT has been demonstrated to be as effective as, or more effective than, other forms of psychological therapy or medications.
Life Coaching
I think at times we all have those thoughts about what direction we should take in situations, and we can feel overwhelmed by those more challenging situations, struggling to find a way through things. Life coaching can help you pick things apart and help you properly identify which way forward to go and give you more focus on how to make those life changes that you have wanted to make.
Reiki
Only about a year or so ago I had a Reiki session, and I thought this is a great thing to do alongside what I do already. I have been able to blend it into my sessions and help my clients have additional healing support in the sessions. Some of you might already have tried Reiki, but for some of you, it might be something you have never heard of. So firstly, let's just have a look at what it is. Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation, that also promotes healing. It is administered in two ways; it can be used as I do, remotely, or it can be done with the laying of hands. It is based on the idea that an unseen life force energy flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. This is the same basis for many eastern-based complementary therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure, kinesiology, and shiatsu, to name just a few of them. If your life force energy is low or out of balance then you are more likely to get sick or feel stressed. If we have a balanced life force, with a high level of energy, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.
EMDR
After I had trained fully to be a Clinical Hypnotherapist, I then continued in my professional development and started doing regular masterclasses to explore different approaches that worked with or alongside hypnotherapy. When I did a course in EMDR it was one of those amazing moments when you just know this is one of the most incredible approaches and just how it can help so many people.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma, PTSD symptoms, negative thoughts, phobias, and anxieties. Ongoing research by Maxfield 2019 supports positive clinical outcomes showing EMDR therapy as a helpful treatment for disorders such as anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, addictions, and other distressing life experiences. EMDR can also neutralize negative thoughts and feelings, and strengthen positive ones. EMDR can calm flashbacks and other disruptive physiological mind and body reactivity. It can help you to break free from old patterns, to enable you to enhance your quality of life by unblocking negativity from the past, distorting your present and future.
Hypnosis
Over 30 years ago I tried hypnotherapy and was blown away by how it made me feel. I had suffered from anxiety for so many years and had a lot of issues I needed help with. I had tried counselling and psychotherapy without much success and was feeling deflated and as if I would never be able to get over these issues. Hypnotherapy back then was quite out there and there was not much research or true information to help me fully understand what it was all about. But I was lucky to have found a great therapist; my first session really helped me feel that I could feel different. This was just what I needed to realise if I could feel this way now, how about me learning to feel this way every day. This was one of the many reasons that led me to train in hypnotherapy and then change my career and start practicing, to be honest I haven’t looked back since then and I am very lucky to love my work.
Start
For many of us we have many chapters in our lives and finding our way to move through these will help us make the most of our lives and give us more time in the now. It is often very hard to work things through, come to terms with things and take those first steps into a new chapter in our lives. This time of year is the perfect time to give us the boost we need to help us move into that next chapter. The history of new beginnings in January is so great for our minds as it can give us historical motivational support for our minds. Also, it can give us a stronger belief that we can take those steps into the next chapter, and it can give us extra motivation to help us with these changes.
Letting go and moving on, can be one of the hardest things for us to achieve. We can get stuck in our emotions and then they just go around on repeat within us. These emotions can be wide-ranging and include sadness, fear, loss, jealousy, anger, guilt, and terror, plus all levels of trauma can hold us back. If we just get stuck in the emotional state then over time we can form habits of thinking, feeling and behaving in this way. This can then make it harder for us to let go as our unconscious mind is pushing us to continue in these patterns of behaviour. Not because we have to stay this way, but more because we have now moved into a bad habit of behaving in this way. So why not take this once-a-year opportunity to help you let go and move on to a new chapter in your life?
Denial Pt.2
Over the last few blogs, we have been looking at ways to help become a calmer person by not letting underlying habits trigger internalised anxiety responses. Our minds are black and white and even if we are pretending to ourselves that we feel ok, our inner minds won't believe what isn't true. I am sure we are all at times living in denial about things that are happening in our lives. We pretend to ourselves that it isn't an issue and that we are not bothered about something, when we are bothered, scared, living in denial, and pretending this is not an issue.
We might say to ourselves we don't want to go out to the work’s Christmas party because we have too many other things to do or it's just too complex to get it to work for us. We say this to ourselves and on certain levels, we believe this. But what is happening is that on another level we are scared to go, there will be too many people, we don't like going to places we haven't been to before, we only like going out with our partners, or whatever our own personal fears are. You might be thinking why would this be an issue for us? Why would this make deeper issues for us? If we don't want to go then it is fine. On a level, yes these are all ok, but the deeper issue for your mind is that you are in denial over this. That denial is seen by your unconscious mind as a massive thing and will push your mind into developing more fears about similar situations to this.
Avoid
Anxiety can be increased within us in many different ways and the last few blogs have been looking at this. Avoidance can be a massive instigator of increased anxiety within you. Your mind is amazing, but it is always looking to protect you. If you are avoiding things then your mind will automatically think that this is something that is super scary and will react in these ways. A few thousand years ago we used our fight, flight, and freeze (FFF) response many times, every day, to protect ourselves from things that could cause us harm. If we saw a grizzly bear then we would, of course, avoid it, and if anything came up that could be similar, our minds would be reminded of the fact it could be a sign of a grizzly bear. This might be broken branches from trees, big footprints in the earth, or the place we last saw a grizzly bear, these are just a few of the things that could trigger your mind into a FFF response. Which of course was amazing and made us the most overpopulated species on the planet.
Reassure
The last couple of blogs were about worries and anxiety, and how many different habits you might have developed that maybe negatively impact these levels. Moving away from anxiety will not only mean letting go of worries, but it will also lead you to live life in several different ways. One of these things is reassurance, whether it be we are searching for it from others, or we are giving it to ourselves. Our mind is very clear in how it holds all the information that comes to us, and we have to understand that this is such a vast amount. Everything we do is held and stored in our unconscious minds and if this storage aspect of ourselves was not set up in this clear way, then we would struggle to live our lives in the way that we do. If we think about some of the things we do in life, like walking, driving, talking, etc, these are all formed by the build-up of memories. These memories are all stored in the same place, and as we learn a new skill the mind expands this part of its storage to hold all these experiences. Over time it creates a solid learned and developed habit and many of these we now do with hardly any conscious effort. If we think about walking, when was the last time you thought about picking your foot up or putting it down? We have this great ability to just walk naturally because your unconscious mind has stored all those memories in a way that allows your mind to automate those habits.
Worries
We all get worried from time to time and that is quite normal. But if we are allowing this to take over and become a habit then this will negatively impact how we feel. The thing about worrying is that the more we worry, the more worried we can feel. Also, worries can be impacted by how we react to ourselves and the world around us. If, say, we are worrying about going somewhere and we keep telling ourselves, “It's ok, we will be fine”, this you might think is no big thing, but to our unconscious mind, it is a massive thing, as your mind automatically looks at everything. If you were ok, then you wouldn't need to tell yourself that you are ok. So, you are not actually telling your mind that you are ok, each time you say to yourself that you will be fine, you are telling yourself on a deeper level that you are the opposite. You might be thinking really?! But the fact is your mind is so black and white in how it places things and without any grey area to put things, it has no choice. The thing is, you do know that you're not feeling ok so you can't think on any level that you can trick your mind to think otherwise. This is the same if you ask other people to reassure you, if we are always asking people if we are ok or will be ok, this is not helping us to stop the worrying, it will only be adding to our worries.
Forget
We discussed in the last blog ‘Worries’, about these pesky worry habits, plus the way you are living your life which could be increasing your internal worry and anxiety levels. This blog will look at how to fill the spaces, that worry, reassurance, denial, and avoidance, may have left within you. Worrying about things can take up lots of time and if we are choosing to break from these habits then it is important to make the most of that time in ways which won’t inadvertently allow our inner mind to continue to worry. The key to not worrying is to distract yourself, if you are fully distracted you won't be worrying. But it has to be a full distraction or it won't have the results that you are hoping for. Being distracted is not about just being busy doing something, we can all easily be busy but still be worrying at the same time. Being distracted is when our mind is so involved in the moment that we just don't have room for worries. This is one of the most important things in helping us to become worry-free. These are the key things to understand; if we can take the time to understand how our minds work and if we are fully distracted, then we can’t worry. Getting our minds on our side is the key to helping us in every area of our lives, as our minds are the most powerful force we have in our lives.
Paths
Let’s have a look at the things that can be limiting you moving forward, being positive, happy, grateful and being the best version of yourself. You might not have looked at life in this way, but many of us, if not all of us, are following the path of least resistance. This means that you choose to do what holds the least fear for you, you might be saying now, “I don't feel fear” or “I am fearless”, which may be the case. But beneath the surface is the more complex and primitive parts of our mind that operate on a different level to our conscious mind and sometimes we just haven’t stopped to see it this way.
The path of least resistance is a concept which is often used to describe why something, or someone takes a given path, it is also used to describe certain human behaviours and habits. In these cases, resistance is often used as a metaphor for personal effort or confrontation; a person taking the path of least resistance avoids these. Here is an example, the water always flows downhill, regardless of whether it is briefly flowing uphill in the process to gain a lower final altitude of the downhill flow. For many of us, we are all doing the same, following the easiest path in life, which may be fine for us, or it might be limiting our lives, or worst still it could be triggering anxiety and panic within us.
Unique
Life is now so competitive, about who we are, what we have, how we look and the lifestyle we lead, if we don’t fit in, we can easily feel inadequate. For teenagers and young adults, life is super competitive and social media is the king who tells us how we should look and be. With all the social media, we have a window into people’s lives, or do we? Or is it just all the amazing bits and lots of great camera angles and airbrushing? Nearly every week there’s a new story on some celebrity who has altered their images and has been caught out, but we still can’t help getting pulled into the images. It's not just social media, it's everywhere in our lives, it's the mums waiting at the school gates, kids in school, the office, and the workplace, all of these can have the same pressures to conform and fit in. But what happens if we don’t? We can be left feeling inadequate, isolated, weird, not good enough and not feeling able to fit in. This can lead to anxiety, fears, and depression, as we find ourselves retreating into our minds and as we’re already feeling not great this can compound the negative feelings.