Warning Signs

I got a new lease car two weeks ago, and I love it!

I discovered it has a feature that I've never had on any car I've previously had. When it needs diesel, a light comes on, as with other cars I've had, but this one, when it gets dangerously low in fuel, the light starts flashing on and off. I like this! I'm easily pleased!

Wouldn't it be great if we could have a wee warning system like that when it comes to nurturing our mind? If only we had a flashing light that came on when we stopped nurturing our mind.

Actually, we do have a warning system in place. They are called emotions. They let us know by causing us pain that we are thinking something that is bad for us. In a situation that triggers off these thoughts, such as being out of our comfort zone, or rising to an annoying comment, we 'hook'. This process of 'hooking', or thinking a series of thoughts cause the emotional pain.

For example, we might go down the road of thinking thoughts that we are not good enough in a social situation, which might lead to emotional pain of embarrassment and anxiety. We are so wrapped up in our thoughts, i.e. our 'hooking' that we can't be in the 'here and now', and enjoy the social interactions in an authentic way. On top of that, if we don't see the emotional pain for what it is, just the 'warning light', we can start adding more bad thoughts to the 'hook' about how painful it is to be so shy, or shaky, or blushing, or panicky, making the hook bigger and the pain bigger as a result.

But maybe if we seen the emotional pain as the warning light that we are 'hooking', we could 'unhook' or 'let go' and stop the emotional pain. My website has some good tips on how http://www.stressalternatives.co.uk/.


With the car, I might decide to be stubborn and ignore the flashing light, and carry on driving, but inevitably the car will come to a halt if I don't take decisive action and buy some fuel, no matter how new or shiny it is!

It isn't so clear cut with us humans if we ignore the warning signals. Yes, we probably come to a halt in the end, but we tend to chunter along for a while in a less than optimum way, getting ill; losing opportunities; forming addictions if we don't take decisive action to 'unhook'.

It's a new way of working, but it puts us in the driving seat!
Happy New Year
Liz

Read This Several Times!

Here's something for you to get your head round!

When looking at ourselves and making changes, many of us, examining the way we are feeling, or something we are going through or have gone through in the past, look for an explanation or the 'point' of it all before we can feel we can let go and move on. We might often think, 'What's the point?' or, 'Why has this happened?'. We may go to therapy or counselling and pay someone a lot of money for them to help us find the explanation, or we may join a religious organisation or get into the new age scene to help put our experience into a nice framework that explains it all to us.

There may be a point in coming up with a point, but it stops us making progress if we insist on finding the point before we let go! What if we just postponed our need to find the point by asking ourselves, 'What if there is no need to find the point, at least for now?'.

The point is, whether there is a point or not is immaterial! We could just let go of our pain causing thoughts at the point of pain, and move on! Do we get the point?

Actually, our human egos put the idea into our heads that we need an explanation, or a point, as a way of keeping us where we are: as a way of putting off letting go and moving on.

I think letting go of the need to know the 'point' might give us more insight into what the point is in the end! Or maybe there is no point!!

www.stressalternatives.co.uk

House and Mind Training

Happy Christmas and Love For this Next Year to All!
We have a new baby in our home! Our puppy! Yes, he's not just for Christmas but for life, but what a responsibility! It's our job to train him to act in a socially acceptable way, and that doesn't just include 'sit' and 'paw' and 'high five'! These are the easy things to teach him because he gets instant gratification in the form of a treat for doing them, and a great deal of 'aws' and 'ahs' from the humans!

Teaching him new tricks is much easier than trying to get him to unlearn old habits. For example, he insists on peeing everywhere indoors, as was his habit in kennels. As an optimist in training (I've still got loads to learn!), I have tried not to go down the route of fretting every time my carpet gets another dose of puppy excretion, but have seen it as an 'opportunity' to point out puppy's 'errors', and run promptly to the back door with him, calmly saying, 'No, outside!', as opposed to, 'Oh, bother! That's another stinking stain on my lovely floor. We'll never get the smell of pee out the carpet. Will he ever learn, the stupid mut! We'll be up to our ears in p--- and s--- soon!' Etc etc. (You get the picture?)

I must admit, it is SO tempting to go along the route of the latter way of thinking! Our problem, I think, was partly to do with him sneaking off and peeing in a different room to us, so we had no way of instantly letting him know it was wrong, so now, as much as possible, he is not allowed to roam the house, 'marking his territory' willy nilly! (Excuse the bad joke!) Someone must be in charge of him now, and be ready to stop him in mid-pee and take him outside.

And so it is with our own habits of thinking. If we become aware through our warning signals of emotional pain or undesirable behaviour, or even through how others treat us, we can stop ourselves as soon as we become aware, as I do (most of the time) when I start shrieking at the dog! I can then seize the opportunity pup has given me to teach me and him something! Two for the price of one ! A 'win-win' situation!

I still don't know how I am going to get the smell out of my carpets though!

Love Liz
http://www.stressalternatives.co.uk/

An Everyday Miracle

My mind never shuts up!
The best I can do , until i receive a cure for this is keep the negative stuff out of it as much as possible!

I am a bit addicted to figuring out how our minds work, and this week in particular, why we hold on to things that give us emotional pain.I've been working on my chapter on 'letting go of fear' lately, and I've changed it so much! Anyway, I was pondering to myself this the other day in the car with my daughter sitting quietly by my side, when suddenly, out of the blue she said, 'You know, you can't really get burned by a hot radiator because you automatically take your hand away as soon as you feel it. The only way you get burned is if you deliberately hold on to it'.

This was the answer to my problem I had been thinking about for days. the only way we can feel bad emotional pain is if we hold on. Once you get into the habit of letting go as soon you feel sadness, anger, fear etc, it becomes a much rarer occasion to get 'burnt' by our 'hot' damaging thoughts. To me, it's more than coincidence that my 9 year old should come out randomly with this statement.
Wow!
www.stressalternatives.co.uk

Having a Bad Day

Happy Halloween
I was feeilng really negative and critical and dissatisfied yesterday, for no particular reason. The gloom just came from nowhere that I can think of, and made me feel like I wanted to hide away and blame the world for this awful struggle I was feeling.

I racked my brain trying to put it down to various things that had happened the previous few days, or the changing of the clocks to winter, or bad news about one of my family member's health, but nothing quite explained it to my satisfaction. Then I blamed the full moon, and my menstrual cycle, then I found a horoscope that predicted 'emotional turmoil' for the early part of the day due to 'moon-jupiter' something or other, so that got the blame (I quite liked that explanation!). One of the times I felt like this before, I had taken myself to the gym to try and shake it off, and when I looked at the TV screens there, it was the Pope's funeral, so I reckoned I was just picking up on the mood of the millions who were grieving his loss.

The truth is though, we can analyse our emotional pain as much as we like, but we really don't ever know why it's there. Having an explanation like, 'My father critisised me when I was young', or 'The full moon affects water balance, and we are 70% water' might appeal to us, but the former can be used as an excuse to continue underachieving and feeling sorry for ourself, and the latter can have us dreading every full moon!

However, if we use these explanations to say, 'That's OK. Maybe I'm just going through a normal low, but it's a bit more than normal because I'm tired, or life's a bit demanding at the moment', we can watch ourself having this feeling and know that no feelings can last forever. In other words, we 'let go' of the need to be anything else but where we are just now. When we do that, it doesn't affect us so badly, and we come out of it quicker too.

I read a brilliant quote the other day that goes like this, 'When you are going through hell, keep going'. I'd like to add, 'Don't stop to figure out why' and 'Try not to act like the devil while you're there!'.

I'm feeling much better now. I just have a couple of apologies to make to the victims of my grumpy mood!!

Funny how I don't feel the need to find an explanation for my 'normal' state!

Look me up on http://www.stressalternatives.co.uk/.

The Real World?

Welcome to my second blog of the day! It's only because I haven't had the computer for a week! Not because I have been working hard or anything!

I'm not one for films, as I don't like the idea of sitting down for too long doing 'nothing', but I do admit to liking 'Coronation Street' and 'Desperate Housewives'. There's something compelling about seeing other people's stories and getting angry, upset, proud, sad, surprised, scared, joyful etc on their behalf.

I guess it's the same when you make connections with real people, or when you do anything in life that pushes your emotional buttons. Even just waking up in the morning or looking in the mirror, or hearing a love song on the radio, or waiting in a queue for a bus.

For most of us, while we're watching the film or TV, we are able to tell ourselves, 'It's only a story', if our emotions get the better of us, and we can let go and get on with our lives after the programme is over, or even during it if necessary.

A bit closer to us, when we get emotional about the 'drama' played around us in the 'real world', it usually keeps the drama going and makes it worse if it is a 'bad' drama.

An example for me would be getting angry about my children fighting with each other, and joining in, so we all end up shreiking, and doors being slammed, and me feeling guilty because I'm a bad mother who can't control her kids, or her own temper! We haven't exactly got the Waltons now, but I am learning to let go (sometimes!) of my own internal drama a little, so that I can be in a better position to deal objectively with teenagers who wind each other up at the mere sight of each other! Mealtimes are fun in our house!

I do this by trying to be aware as much as possible when my buttons are pressed, and using these emotions as signals to let go.

Our ego is our personality or 'human' part that consists of thoughts, emotions, desires and behaviour, that interacts with the world all the time we are awake. This is the bit of us that has the 'buttons'.

So what if our ego that we've built up in this life is just a drama as well? What if our 'human' part or personality is our own story that we play the leading role in? If so, when it gets too painful or scary, we could just sit and watch it, as if we were watching someone else's story or a TV soap drama. We have a witnessing part of us that could do this, that we rarely use. If we did this when the going gets tough, our ego has to quieten down as a result. It only stays active as long as we give it attention, and attach our whole self to it, like we would to a TV drama. Our ego is always wanting attention. We don't always have to give it what it wants. It needs taking down a peg or two if it is being too negative or destructive. If you are feeling deep emotional pain, like grief and despair, or panic, or rage, sometimes you get the feeling you are watching yourself doing it. That's because you are watching your ego. You are more than your ego.

Thinking of yourself acting the drama of your own life can help enormously at times of emotional pain. You can decide to stop playing the tragedy and change the plot. You not only are the main actor in your life but you write the script as well. When something you experience is painful, you can take your attention off the pain and take a tea break. If you choose the tragedy, that's what you'll get. Choosing the good things in life isn't always easy. We need to clear the old habits our ego has taken on. My web site has lots of ideas to help with this: http://www.stressalternatives.co.uk/.

When my ego gets too negative and destructive it gives the game away by causing me emotional pain in the form of anger, sadness, guilt, embarrassment, or I think negatively, or I am tempted to behave in an undesirable way. I am learning to take note of these and realise I'm acting out the tragedy instead of the 'feelgood' story, and I let go more and more.

One of my favourite songs by John Mayer has a line in it that goes like this: 'There's no such thing as the real world: Just a lie you've got to rise above'.

Sending you love!!

Comfort Zones

Good Morning Reader ( I'm sure I must have one!)

I don’t know how long the expression ‘comfort zone’ has been around, but it seems it’s part of many people’s vocabulary now. It’s years since I read ‘Feel the Fear and do it Anyway’ by Susan Jeffers, but it’s where I first heard the expression, and it’s definitely a book worth reading on anyone’s self development journey. It says, if I remember it rightly, that whenever you get out of your comfort zone you feel fear, but that only lasts a short time, then your comfort zone has become bigger, and you learn that fear is normal and nothing to be scared of.
This is also the basis for many behavioural techniques used by the psychiatric profession, and many parents in bringing up their children (though they may not know it).

There are many people who find this hard to do. In most cases, fear is a way of life for them. Most have grown up believing that the world is a dangerous place.
The most obvious example of this is the kind of person who never fulfils their potential or anywhere near it because they avoid fear, and their comfort zone is tiny. When ill they might go to the extreme of being agarophobic, or socially phobic.These are the kind of people who are prone to depressive, negative thoughts; that talk themselves out of living life; who procrastinate or live life in a very limited way. Anxiety and panic are a feature for them in any new situation, so they avoid them at all costs. They have few relationships as they are not out there meeting people, and they are more likely to be dominated by others. They don’t trust people. They are prone to depression also because of underachievement.

The much less obvious example is the person who ‘feels the fear and does it anyway’. They are very brave people who also have a belief that the world is a dangerous place, but they push themselves thrrough the ‘pain barrier’, which produces an adrenalin rush that they can become addicted to. They are constantly on ‘red alert’, but the adrenalin rush along with the success of increasing their comfort zone gives them a feeling of elation. This is fine, but they get that they can’t ‘switch off’, and when they get sick, they get insomnia, hyperactivity and restlessness, high anxiety states and panics, and are tempted to get into behaviour that is designed to calm, like obsessive-compulsive problems or addictions or excessive exercise. They do ‘life’ to extremes, and can be very successful as a result, but seldom are they content or calm. Relationships with others are difficult because they like to dominate and stay in control because they also lack trust in others, or they get bored easily and have to constantly be looking for change. They are more likely to come across situations that are ‘dangerous’ because they are ‘out there’ living life to the full, therefore it’s tempting to have their belief that the world is a dangerous place reinforced, because they really are doing more ‘risky’ things than others.

In practice, both extremes can go on in the same person in different situations and times, but in common is the belief that living in the world is dangerous and a struggle. In reality, both extremes have the same issues: fear of rejection; fear of poverty and lack of security; fear of losing power and control; fear of ridicule; fear of doing the wrong thing; fear of critisism etc.
Psychiatric advice given to the ‘avoiders’ is to ‘do more’’ and for the ‘doers’ is often to ‘do less’, but it is so much more effective to get to the root; the reason why one either has to avoid or do instead of just ‘be’.

It might take years of psychotherapy to figure out the reasons, but there’s a part of us that already knows: our subconscious or intuitive part. This part just needs to be given some space to reach our conscious parts or our awareness. We rarely give it any space because we are too busy using our conscious mind to think and do. It never stops! If we were to stay still long enough to ‘just be’, the inspiration and ideas to survive, make money, be loved and love unconditionally and have control comes without effort.

To ‘just be’ is quite a mammoth task for most of us. It doesn’t come naturally for most of us to be quiet. I’d go as far as to say we weren’t put on this earth to be quiet! But what we can do is turn the volume down on our fears. These are destructive parts of us that hold us back or pollute our minds, and through our behaviour to ‘avoid’ or ‘do’we pollute the rest of the world too. Turning the volume down on them will lead to more peace, love, inspiration, creativity and joy. If we have more of that stuff in our mind, we wouldn’t have to push our comfort zone. Our behaviour wouldn’t be about ‘feeling the fear’. It would be about giving and receiving and connecting with people and the world with honesty and authenticity, instead of ‘acting as if’ we had no fear. There would be no ‘fake it till you make it’: just trust!

Becoming aware of our mind pollution and reducing the volume as we go along with a few strategies I talk about on my website www.stressalternatives.co.uk will get you doing stuff outside your comfort zone that will astound you. You will probably do something without thinking then realise later that you didn’t get your usual anxiety about it. Have a look!