Hey
I used to be such a negative person, and now I'm a little less so (maybe!). I used to marvel at these people who could always see the bright side of life, and always knew what they wanted and went all out to get it.
Having just been in Florida, I've seen what this attitude can really achieve, and why the American Dream at it's best is so amazing.
Us Brits on the whole have inherited much more of a moderate, cautious nature, and this recession is pushing all our buttons.
Once I realised how damaging being negative was in my life, it was tempting for me to beat myself up every time I noticed negative thoughts and stubbornly stay positive about everything.
'What's wrong with that?', I hear you say. 'Positive is best, isn't it?' Following your dream is best, isn't it? Look what Disney achieved! Think what mankind could achieve if we are all positive!
Trouble is when positivity becomes blind to potential pitfalls. When there is so much drive to achieve the dream that we get stupid at best, and uncaring and damage others at worst. When we borrow too much money and trust that we will be able to pay it back, and the banks give it to us, so it must be OK. When we convince ourselves it's fine to carry on eating junk and drinking to excess, or not planning for kids coming along, or old age, or sickness. Anyway, the government will provide, or Dad. Anyway, I'll live forever!
So, maybe it's not about changing negative to positive blindly. Isn't that what we do anyway? On one hand, keep everything under control, then have slurges and throw caution to the wind. All or nothing!
So, how do we keep balanced? How can we get what we want, or achieve our dreams without getting too blind to the pitfalls or despondant about getting there? The current new age wisdom says keep the goal in mind, but don't fret about it. If we want it too badly, we'll create such a tension that it will be such hard work, few will get there, unless we've got real stubborn drive and a lot of energy, and a strong constitution!
Some interpret the Law of Attraction to mean that all we need to do is keep the goal in mind and magically it will happen for us. Being negative after setting a goal will doom most to failure, but, equally, being blindly positive will not flag up potential problems that need to be overcome, and the dream then becomes an unachievable fantasy.
With all sorts of 'all or nothing' behaviour and thinking, there is no balance because there is tension. The more tension, the more extreme the 'all and nothing' is.
When we find ourselves doing all or nothing, we know we have tension. So let it go! Don't fret about the outcome! Be grateful for what we've got and build on that! Just relax on the spot. Do it with ZPoint, meditation, sports, diversion, EFT, slowing down our breathing, or sending thanks and love to the perpetrator, including ourselves. When we do this, we don't bury our head in the sand. We make some space in our mind for the problems to find solutions, rather than fuel the anxt.
Och, I've rambled on enough! Have a nice day:)
Check out my website www.stressalternatives.co.uk.
Sunday, 12 July 2009
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Nature doesn't need a story!
Nature is amazing!
I was walking the dog in scrub woodland a few weeks ago, and there were several large patches of ground that had been burned by our local vandals because the previous plants had dried up and died.
A few days later, walking the same route , I was amazed to see the ground was being populated by hundreds of plants. In fact, it looked like the burning of the old had left a perfect clear habitat for the seedlings to grow with vigour.
Here in Scotland, I know this very thing goes on naturally (without the vandals!) in the heather covered hills, and the new takes over the old.
What if we could all do that whenever we got 'burned' by life events?
What if we didn't add our victim story or our anger and justification of it, or our worry about the burning happening again, or our labelling ourselves as less as a result of the burning?
What if we just let all that past story go and any sign of it in the form of the debris of negativity or tension, and just start from this moment in a vigourous growth spurt? We could still take the good seeds along with us, and the expectant rich soil that is fertilised by our wisdom collected up till then, and our hopes and dreams and plans and goals.
Then we could just wait and see what comes our way in our environment!
What if we don't need to add a story?
What if we just pick ourselves up and renew ourselves at every opportunity?
www.stressalternatives.co.uk
All the Best
Liz :>)
I was walking the dog in scrub woodland a few weeks ago, and there were several large patches of ground that had been burned by our local vandals because the previous plants had dried up and died.
A few days later, walking the same route , I was amazed to see the ground was being populated by hundreds of plants. In fact, it looked like the burning of the old had left a perfect clear habitat for the seedlings to grow with vigour.
Here in Scotland, I know this very thing goes on naturally (without the vandals!) in the heather covered hills, and the new takes over the old.
What if we could all do that whenever we got 'burned' by life events?
What if we didn't add our victim story or our anger and justification of it, or our worry about the burning happening again, or our labelling ourselves as less as a result of the burning?
What if we just let all that past story go and any sign of it in the form of the debris of negativity or tension, and just start from this moment in a vigourous growth spurt? We could still take the good seeds along with us, and the expectant rich soil that is fertilised by our wisdom collected up till then, and our hopes and dreams and plans and goals.
Then we could just wait and see what comes our way in our environment!
What if we don't need to add a story?
What if we just pick ourselves up and renew ourselves at every opportunity?
www.stressalternatives.co.uk
All the Best
Liz :>)
Monday, 20 April 2009
How to Increase Your Emotional Pain and Keep it Alive!
The subject matter in this blog comes thanks to a fantastic mental health project in Edinburgh called Redhall Walled Garden, who asked me to give a talk. Thanks to the trainees for putting up with my awful acting, and for staying to the end! BTW they didn't ask me to increase their emotional pain as the title suggests!
Inavertantly, we do an amazing amount of things to keep our emotional pain alive. It's not our fault, like some people (including ourselves) may think. Most of us don't really have a deliberate self-destructive masochistic side to us! We just don't realise what we're doing. It's like when we have to deal with a naughty child that keeps bugging us wanting attention.
Here's some of the things we do in response to sadness, fear, anger, excessive guilt and embarrassment. The same can be applied to the naughty child!
1) Dreading it: We say things like, 'This should not be happening!'
2) Fighting it: Seems like a good idea, but it will be back! Negative attention is better than no attention. Ask a naughty child!
3) Feeling guilty about it: Using it as an excuse to beat ourselves up. Naughty children can spot this to get what they want a mile away!
4) Hiding it: Pretending that we're 'normal' by not having the pain. Actually, it's more normal to have pain.
5) Being proud of it: We relate to others who have similar pain. We get what we want by expressing it. We all need an identity. If only we could identify more with the positives in our lives.
6) Being scared of it: This one is curious! We're scared of being scared.....the double whammy! But, like the naughty child, we have to be in control of it or it takes control. We have to calm ourselves when the pain turns up to be able to deal with it.
7) Suppressing it: Shoving it away when it appears only makes it come back, or lurk about, generally making us uncomfortable.
8) Playing with it: This one gives us a buzz. It's like the fairground ride or the adventure game. That excitement we feel when we are angry or fearful.
9) Analysing it: Our pains become a subject of great fascination for not only ourselves, but for friends and particularly for our psychiatrists and therapists (me too!). Of course, the idea in analysing it is that we can understand and cope with them, but, like the naughty child, we reward the negative behaviour instead of the positive.
10) Being a victim to it: Getting depressed about it and letting it 'get' to us means that it has total control.
11) Tormenting yourself with it: This happens when it goes quiet. We can't believe that it's not there, so we poke it a bit and wake it up. We don't exactly miss it, but we're a bit lost and confused without it. Then we complain when it comes back!
12) Feeling we need it: The absolute delusion! We cling to it because we think we'll do reckless things without fear. Actually, it's the fear that makes us do the reckless things. Fight/flight reaction drains away blood from our rational mind, so we can't think clearly. 'Counting to ten' before we act isn't such a bad idea.
All of these responses only feed that pain. The problemitself isn't often the real problem. Sure, sadness, anger, fear, embarrassment and excess guilt are not nice, but we make them last longer and they become more persistant because of our response to them. The naughty child loves all that!
So, what calms the naughty child? Acknowledgement they exist, reassurance, love and clear, calm messages about what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
Could we do the same to ourselves when we experience emotional pain? Acknowledge it, reassure ourselves it won't last, stop beating ourselves up for having it and give it a clear message that it's time to let go instead of letting it get to us.
Look at my website for my free ebook and articles that will help. www.stressalternatives.co.uk.
Liz Temple
Inavertantly, we do an amazing amount of things to keep our emotional pain alive. It's not our fault, like some people (including ourselves) may think. Most of us don't really have a deliberate self-destructive masochistic side to us! We just don't realise what we're doing. It's like when we have to deal with a naughty child that keeps bugging us wanting attention.
Here's some of the things we do in response to sadness, fear, anger, excessive guilt and embarrassment. The same can be applied to the naughty child!
1) Dreading it: We say things like, 'This should not be happening!'
2) Fighting it: Seems like a good idea, but it will be back! Negative attention is better than no attention. Ask a naughty child!
3) Feeling guilty about it: Using it as an excuse to beat ourselves up. Naughty children can spot this to get what they want a mile away!
4) Hiding it: Pretending that we're 'normal' by not having the pain. Actually, it's more normal to have pain.
5) Being proud of it: We relate to others who have similar pain. We get what we want by expressing it. We all need an identity. If only we could identify more with the positives in our lives.
6) Being scared of it: This one is curious! We're scared of being scared.....the double whammy! But, like the naughty child, we have to be in control of it or it takes control. We have to calm ourselves when the pain turns up to be able to deal with it.
7) Suppressing it: Shoving it away when it appears only makes it come back, or lurk about, generally making us uncomfortable.
8) Playing with it: This one gives us a buzz. It's like the fairground ride or the adventure game. That excitement we feel when we are angry or fearful.
9) Analysing it: Our pains become a subject of great fascination for not only ourselves, but for friends and particularly for our psychiatrists and therapists (me too!). Of course, the idea in analysing it is that we can understand and cope with them, but, like the naughty child, we reward the negative behaviour instead of the positive.
10) Being a victim to it: Getting depressed about it and letting it 'get' to us means that it has total control.
11) Tormenting yourself with it: This happens when it goes quiet. We can't believe that it's not there, so we poke it a bit and wake it up. We don't exactly miss it, but we're a bit lost and confused without it. Then we complain when it comes back!
12) Feeling we need it: The absolute delusion! We cling to it because we think we'll do reckless things without fear. Actually, it's the fear that makes us do the reckless things. Fight/flight reaction drains away blood from our rational mind, so we can't think clearly. 'Counting to ten' before we act isn't such a bad idea.
All of these responses only feed that pain. The problemitself isn't often the real problem. Sure, sadness, anger, fear, embarrassment and excess guilt are not nice, but we make them last longer and they become more persistant because of our response to them. The naughty child loves all that!
So, what calms the naughty child? Acknowledgement they exist, reassurance, love and clear, calm messages about what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
Could we do the same to ourselves when we experience emotional pain? Acknowledge it, reassure ourselves it won't last, stop beating ourselves up for having it and give it a clear message that it's time to let go instead of letting it get to us.
Look at my website for my free ebook and articles that will help. www.stressalternatives.co.uk.
Liz Temple
Yes to Life ZPoint Course
Hi
It's not often I shamelessly promote someone else's products, but this one has really shifted so much stuff for me personally. Inprevious blogs I've done, I have often recommended ZPoint Process. It's an amazing self help energy therapy that is so easy to learn and carry around with us and use whenever we feel distressed. It works as quickly as EFT (emotional freedom technique) and other similar modalities, but can be much more subtlely used when we are out in public, and doesn't give us the same self consciousness that some of us British folk suffer from so much!
In fact, it can be used for that very thing!! See my website www.stressalternatives.co.uk.
The beauty of this therapy is that it not only can be used for 'on the spot' distress, but can be used in the background for specific problems that repeat often in our lives, such as anger, depression and fear. The idea is to tune into the distressed feeling, like EFT does, and then to make an intention to 'clear' it. We 'tune in' by thinking about something or someone that brings up a feeling. That's how we bring the past and future into the present. Any tension that is brought up by this is then 'cleared' by intention and repeating a 'cue word' to ourselves.
Grant Connolly, the creator of this process has taken this further to address even deeper issues that all of us experience. His 21 days course covers aspects such as ourselves, our feeling of deserving, relationships, money worries, allowing 'what is', the need to be perfect, doubts and discomfort with change. His new protocol, recently devised, has been utilised in his new 'Yes to Life' course. It seems to go deeper than anything I personally have experienced in ZPoint, which is saying something because I've done some amazing alternative therapies. It covers our early years, worries, trust and self esteem. Since doing this, I feel the usual things that push my distress buttons have little or no effect. Any that do, I can easily deal with quickly.
Have a look on www.zpointforpeace.com.
It's not often I shamelessly promote someone else's products, but this one has really shifted so much stuff for me personally. Inprevious blogs I've done, I have often recommended ZPoint Process. It's an amazing self help energy therapy that is so easy to learn and carry around with us and use whenever we feel distressed. It works as quickly as EFT (emotional freedom technique) and other similar modalities, but can be much more subtlely used when we are out in public, and doesn't give us the same self consciousness that some of us British folk suffer from so much!
In fact, it can be used for that very thing!! See my website www.stressalternatives.co.uk.
The beauty of this therapy is that it not only can be used for 'on the spot' distress, but can be used in the background for specific problems that repeat often in our lives, such as anger, depression and fear. The idea is to tune into the distressed feeling, like EFT does, and then to make an intention to 'clear' it. We 'tune in' by thinking about something or someone that brings up a feeling. That's how we bring the past and future into the present. Any tension that is brought up by this is then 'cleared' by intention and repeating a 'cue word' to ourselves.
Grant Connolly, the creator of this process has taken this further to address even deeper issues that all of us experience. His 21 days course covers aspects such as ourselves, our feeling of deserving, relationships, money worries, allowing 'what is', the need to be perfect, doubts and discomfort with change. His new protocol, recently devised, has been utilised in his new 'Yes to Life' course. It seems to go deeper than anything I personally have experienced in ZPoint, which is saying something because I've done some amazing alternative therapies. It covers our early years, worries, trust and self esteem. Since doing this, I feel the usual things that push my distress buttons have little or no effect. Any that do, I can easily deal with quickly.
Have a look on www.zpointforpeace.com.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Natural Instincts
I've talked about my doggy before and his natural instincts. Well here's more discussion of doggy behaviour.
The other day I had to put a stop to his barking at the men digging the road outside our garden. He likes to think he's a super scary guard dog, and, I guess it goes with the breed that he naturally wants to bark at every man that comes anywhere near his territory. He also does the same to the vaccuum cleaner and hairdryer! Both very dangerous things for dogs!
When he gets started down the barking route, I can see him getting quite excited and having an adrenalin rush from it (testosterone!) Some would say it is natural for a dog to do this, and a wild dog would use this for survival.
However, our hairy mutt lives in a nice quiet cul-de-sac in a wee village and is spoiled stupid! That natural instinct to growl and bark at all that feels threatening must not be encouraged to become a habit, no matter how great it feels to our 4 legged pup!
It might help him to release tension and get a buzz from it but it is not acceptable to scare the life out of any unfortunate male who dares to walk along our lane, anyone who rides a bike, or the poor postman who stuffs letters through the letterbox into his sacred space, not to mention the poor vax that clean up his hairs!
This behaviour has to be stopped before it becomes too much of a habit and we are labelled the neighbours from hell. (I think it's too late for the postman!)
So I just bark back at him to get his attention, then calm him down in an assertive way, as Ceaser says in 'The Dog Whisperer'.
We humans aren't much different. We get into habitual ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, often from an early age, and if the habit isn't stopped early on, it becomes like a well travelled route in our psyche. We literally make deep grooves in our brain and it feels like there's no other route we can go down when something triggers our fear reactions.
But it isn't appropriate or fair that we 'bark' at or hide away from the world, most of which isn't out to get us (unless we do too much barking!). Hiding away doesn't serve us too well either, as we end up leading half a life and get depressed because we don't fulfil our potential, and our fearful thoughts get bigger as our world gets smaller.
So, like training our hairy pup with calm assertiveness, we have to work on calming ourselves as soon as we recognise we're off down that well travelled route again. It takes a bit of discipline to keep stopping ourselves on that route and choosing another, which is literally uncharted territory for us. But we're human, and this awareness is what makes us different from animals.
It's amazing what can happen to make it easier as soon as we make the sincere decision to do it, and stick to it. Often it takes a crisis in our lives, like a relationship breakup threat or an illness to force us into looking at ourselves and our 'routes'. Once a decision to make changes is made often people, books, media items and ideas that help will start to resonate with us.
My website will help get you started, or do you want to carry on 'barking' and living a fearful life?
www.stressalternatives.co.uk.
All the Best
Liz
The other day I had to put a stop to his barking at the men digging the road outside our garden. He likes to think he's a super scary guard dog, and, I guess it goes with the breed that he naturally wants to bark at every man that comes anywhere near his territory. He also does the same to the vaccuum cleaner and hairdryer! Both very dangerous things for dogs!
When he gets started down the barking route, I can see him getting quite excited and having an adrenalin rush from it (testosterone!) Some would say it is natural for a dog to do this, and a wild dog would use this for survival.
However, our hairy mutt lives in a nice quiet cul-de-sac in a wee village and is spoiled stupid! That natural instinct to growl and bark at all that feels threatening must not be encouraged to become a habit, no matter how great it feels to our 4 legged pup!
It might help him to release tension and get a buzz from it but it is not acceptable to scare the life out of any unfortunate male who dares to walk along our lane, anyone who rides a bike, or the poor postman who stuffs letters through the letterbox into his sacred space, not to mention the poor vax that clean up his hairs!
This behaviour has to be stopped before it becomes too much of a habit and we are labelled the neighbours from hell. (I think it's too late for the postman!)
So I just bark back at him to get his attention, then calm him down in an assertive way, as Ceaser says in 'The Dog Whisperer'.
We humans aren't much different. We get into habitual ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, often from an early age, and if the habit isn't stopped early on, it becomes like a well travelled route in our psyche. We literally make deep grooves in our brain and it feels like there's no other route we can go down when something triggers our fear reactions.
But it isn't appropriate or fair that we 'bark' at or hide away from the world, most of which isn't out to get us (unless we do too much barking!). Hiding away doesn't serve us too well either, as we end up leading half a life and get depressed because we don't fulfil our potential, and our fearful thoughts get bigger as our world gets smaller.
So, like training our hairy pup with calm assertiveness, we have to work on calming ourselves as soon as we recognise we're off down that well travelled route again. It takes a bit of discipline to keep stopping ourselves on that route and choosing another, which is literally uncharted territory for us. But we're human, and this awareness is what makes us different from animals.
It's amazing what can happen to make it easier as soon as we make the sincere decision to do it, and stick to it. Often it takes a crisis in our lives, like a relationship breakup threat or an illness to force us into looking at ourselves and our 'routes'. Once a decision to make changes is made often people, books, media items and ideas that help will start to resonate with us.
My website will help get you started, or do you want to carry on 'barking' and living a fearful life?
www.stressalternatives.co.uk.
All the Best
Liz
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Prevaricating about the Bush!
Hey
It's been some time and I'm still plagued by thinking too much so here's some thoughts:
We don't half beat about the bush and create unnecessary suffering for ourselves!
I had someone come for help the other day (and many others like her in the past) who sincerely wanted to get better, so, after listening to her story, I started to suggest ways to quickly reduce her suffering.
'Yes, but', she said, 'What I really want is to find out why I keep feeling the way I do. I feel I won't get better till I know this.'
Now, psychotherapists and counsellers do this, and sometimes it even helps people to understand why they overeat, or self-harm in other ways, or get bad tempered or whatever. They get 'eureka' moments where it all makes sense why they feel guilty when a news item showing cruelty to animals comes on the telly, or why they become enraged by someone moving their carefully lined up tins of beans out of line. They cook up a theory with their therapist that sounds very plausable and intelligent, and they believe it because their therapist is the expert.
It's all very nice to get an explanation that satisfies our curious nature, and gives us a sense of knowing ourself a bit better, but, in the end, to stop the repeated patterns of behavior, we still have to let go and move on. Belief changing is one way to do this, which we can do with our therapist, or we can do in our daily lives.
For example, if we believe we are stupid, we find ourselves failing repeatedly at things academic, and we spend a lot of our time thinking self-deprecating thoughts. This belief creates a block to success. It might have come originally from an innocent comment from a parent or teacher. If we make a decision to let go of this belief, we can find ourselves succeeding in things we wouldn't have dreamt of succeeding in before, because we no longer get in a state when we are asked to use our brains or logic. We can think straighter!
But what if we just let go of the need to know why we feel bad, and just got on with dealing with it? What if, whenever we feel bad, we just use a technique like Z Point (www.zpointprocess.com) or letting go in other ways described on my web site www.stressalternatives.co.uk? Quite often, we get insights into the 'whys' when we use these techniques anyway.
Another thing we very commonly do that stops us dealing with it ourselves is blame others. We often will say that we can't feel better till that other person or the rest of our world acts in a certain way. We can't be happy till everyone lines up their tins of beans with the labels at the front or till our loved one stops being angry.
We don't need to know how a car works to get into it and drive it, so why do we insist on understanding how our minds work? It's just wasting time and creating unnecessary suffering.
Ultimately, we can ask ourselves, 'Do we want to know why, or do we want to feel better now?', or 'Do we want to change the world or start with ourselves?'
Honestly, it's that simple!
Love Liz
It's been some time and I'm still plagued by thinking too much so here's some thoughts:
We don't half beat about the bush and create unnecessary suffering for ourselves!
I had someone come for help the other day (and many others like her in the past) who sincerely wanted to get better, so, after listening to her story, I started to suggest ways to quickly reduce her suffering.
'Yes, but', she said, 'What I really want is to find out why I keep feeling the way I do. I feel I won't get better till I know this.'
Now, psychotherapists and counsellers do this, and sometimes it even helps people to understand why they overeat, or self-harm in other ways, or get bad tempered or whatever. They get 'eureka' moments where it all makes sense why they feel guilty when a news item showing cruelty to animals comes on the telly, or why they become enraged by someone moving their carefully lined up tins of beans out of line. They cook up a theory with their therapist that sounds very plausable and intelligent, and they believe it because their therapist is the expert.
It's all very nice to get an explanation that satisfies our curious nature, and gives us a sense of knowing ourself a bit better, but, in the end, to stop the repeated patterns of behavior, we still have to let go and move on. Belief changing is one way to do this, which we can do with our therapist, or we can do in our daily lives.
For example, if we believe we are stupid, we find ourselves failing repeatedly at things academic, and we spend a lot of our time thinking self-deprecating thoughts. This belief creates a block to success. It might have come originally from an innocent comment from a parent or teacher. If we make a decision to let go of this belief, we can find ourselves succeeding in things we wouldn't have dreamt of succeeding in before, because we no longer get in a state when we are asked to use our brains or logic. We can think straighter!
But what if we just let go of the need to know why we feel bad, and just got on with dealing with it? What if, whenever we feel bad, we just use a technique like Z Point (www.zpointprocess.com) or letting go in other ways described on my web site www.stressalternatives.co.uk? Quite often, we get insights into the 'whys' when we use these techniques anyway.
Another thing we very commonly do that stops us dealing with it ourselves is blame others. We often will say that we can't feel better till that other person or the rest of our world acts in a certain way. We can't be happy till everyone lines up their tins of beans with the labels at the front or till our loved one stops being angry.
We don't need to know how a car works to get into it and drive it, so why do we insist on understanding how our minds work? It's just wasting time and creating unnecessary suffering.
Ultimately, we can ask ourselves, 'Do we want to know why, or do we want to feel better now?', or 'Do we want to change the world or start with ourselves?'
Honestly, it's that simple!
Love Liz
Friday, 18 April 2008
Avoidance Behaviour
Hi
Today I decided to avoid a route I normally take during my work hours, where I do a lot of driving. The reason was because of those terrible speed bumps they recently put down on so many roads around the part of Edinburgh I work in. It bugs me that I have to slow down on those roads and get my car suspension assaulted every time I go down these roads.
The trouble is , they seem to be unavoidable at present, and if you don't have a tractor, a giant petrol guzzling 4 wheel drive, or a 2cv (made for driving over ploughed fields!) , you really can't avoid eventual damage or extra wear on your car. I suppose I could leave my car at home and never go out in it, thus restricting my lifestyle.
In life we can do the same. Some of us avoid anything too difficult because of the emotional discomfort it brings. If we stick to our safe routines we will lead a restricted life, and never experience the joy of succeeding at something we find challenging. We will also find ourselves getting depressed. Then when something changes in our life, and eventually it will, no matter how much we lead a sheltered life, we are devastated because we haven't learned any coping skills.
Another way we avoid the pain is to try and regulate our environment, by trying to control what others do, either by bullying or manipulation, or by getting addicted to food, alcohol, work, people, spending, activity, attention, or all of these! In this scenario, we have learned coping mechanisms, but they don't give us any lasting peace or real power because they rely on the world outside of ourselves. When we eventually come up against something we can't change, or do something external about, we also are devastated.
This is when we just have to accept that pain is a part of life. This is not to say that we can't do anything once we have recognised the pain and felt it. What we do, though, is remove it internally by making an intention to let it go and accept what is. It's not giving in. It's being pragmatic. I like that!
In reality, life allows us to do both avoiding and letting go. The more full our life, the more opportunities we have to eventually learn we can't control everything on the 'outside', and we let go without realising that's what we are doing. This makes us more resilient.
This is different from suppressing our emotions. We don't let go and we don't accept what is in this case. We just don't express them, and bottle them up, till the next time a similar situation comes along. I had the opportunity of doing this with the speed bumps today, when I came across more on the road I did go along. I could have got frustrated that I couldn't avoid them in the end, but I decided to have a smile to myself, and accept they are there to stay.
But once we know consciously that we can do this in every situation that we feel tension and subsequent emotion, we can tune into that emotion, and change it to a state of relaxation intentionally. To make it easier, we can use an energy therapy such as Z point process or emotional freedom technique. Both have great web sites to learn the process for self help use.
Some emotions and tension are so habitual that they are bound to come back later, but, like any new skill, eventually they will leave us if we persist in letting go.
The first thing is to start looking for pain as our opportunity instead of something to be avoided. Then it isn't such a bad thing after all!
Liz
www.stressalternatives.co.uk
Today I decided to avoid a route I normally take during my work hours, where I do a lot of driving. The reason was because of those terrible speed bumps they recently put down on so many roads around the part of Edinburgh I work in. It bugs me that I have to slow down on those roads and get my car suspension assaulted every time I go down these roads.
The trouble is , they seem to be unavoidable at present, and if you don't have a tractor, a giant petrol guzzling 4 wheel drive, or a 2cv (made for driving over ploughed fields!) , you really can't avoid eventual damage or extra wear on your car. I suppose I could leave my car at home and never go out in it, thus restricting my lifestyle.
In life we can do the same. Some of us avoid anything too difficult because of the emotional discomfort it brings. If we stick to our safe routines we will lead a restricted life, and never experience the joy of succeeding at something we find challenging. We will also find ourselves getting depressed. Then when something changes in our life, and eventually it will, no matter how much we lead a sheltered life, we are devastated because we haven't learned any coping skills.
Another way we avoid the pain is to try and regulate our environment, by trying to control what others do, either by bullying or manipulation, or by getting addicted to food, alcohol, work, people, spending, activity, attention, or all of these! In this scenario, we have learned coping mechanisms, but they don't give us any lasting peace or real power because they rely on the world outside of ourselves. When we eventually come up against something we can't change, or do something external about, we also are devastated.
This is when we just have to accept that pain is a part of life. This is not to say that we can't do anything once we have recognised the pain and felt it. What we do, though, is remove it internally by making an intention to let it go and accept what is. It's not giving in. It's being pragmatic. I like that!
In reality, life allows us to do both avoiding and letting go. The more full our life, the more opportunities we have to eventually learn we can't control everything on the 'outside', and we let go without realising that's what we are doing. This makes us more resilient.
This is different from suppressing our emotions. We don't let go and we don't accept what is in this case. We just don't express them, and bottle them up, till the next time a similar situation comes along. I had the opportunity of doing this with the speed bumps today, when I came across more on the road I did go along. I could have got frustrated that I couldn't avoid them in the end, but I decided to have a smile to myself, and accept they are there to stay.
But once we know consciously that we can do this in every situation that we feel tension and subsequent emotion, we can tune into that emotion, and change it to a state of relaxation intentionally. To make it easier, we can use an energy therapy such as Z point process or emotional freedom technique. Both have great web sites to learn the process for self help use.
Some emotions and tension are so habitual that they are bound to come back later, but, like any new skill, eventually they will leave us if we persist in letting go.
The first thing is to start looking for pain as our opportunity instead of something to be avoided. Then it isn't such a bad thing after all!
Liz
www.stressalternatives.co.uk
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