Tag Archives: personal development

WHO DO YOU TELL YOURSELF YOU ARE?

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I remember being told when I was at school that first impressions count, and I needed to be aware that people would make an instant judgement about me when they met me. (I was told this because I was not behaving ‘properly enough’ for a Queen’s School girl, as far as the headmistress was concerned, and would let the school’s reputation down!)

We all know we do that instant judgement: how someone is dressed, their manner towards us, the way they speak – these things all do give us an instant impression of the person, and we tend to react to them on the basis of this information.

As the object of such assessment on an everyday basis, what message are you giving about yourself? We can choose how we present ourselves to the world, although if we try to be something that doesn’t fit us, it is hard work for us and unconvincing for others.

However there is one person whom you are telling about who you are all the time, and that’s you! You are most influenced by how you choose to present yourself, and this is a gift, because it gives us an opportunity to easily help ourselves to be who we really want to be, in a way that fits us.

Every day you tell yourself who you are by what you choose to wear, what possessions you have in your home, how you treat yourself, how you treat others, what you give your attention to.

None of us are really a set personality, despite what those personality tests tell us! We are a mixture of characteristics, some obvious, some latent, and none of it is set in stone. I know – I was one of the shyest girls in my class at school, until the headmistress insisted that I read in assembly, because I was good at reading out loud. I got used to doing this, and found that big audiences didn’t hold any fear for me any more, and also that others in my school were so grateful that I did this job that they became more friendly towards me – it was the beginning of becoming the bold extrovert I am now!! (And clearly that headmistress did me some favours, as well as telling me off frequently for not being ‘proper’ enough!)

We can develop that mixture of who we are however we want to. And an easy way to break out of the spell of how we’ve been brought up to be is to represent a ‘hidden’ part of ourselves in how we dress, or what we decide to buy for our living room, or through an activity we experiment with.

Do you wish you could be more light-hearted? Buy a quirky tie to go with that grey suit, or an outrageous pair of earrings to wear for work! Do you wish you could be more outgoing? Smile at everyone you pass in the street for a day – actually catch their eye when possible and smile. Do you wish you could be more at peace? Find colours, music, objects, that help you to calm down, and fill your living room with such things.

Every time we put something on, do something, look at something in our immediate surroundings that we have put there, we are telling ourselves who we are. If we want to grow into our full beautiful selves, we can help the process by surrounding ourselves with the richest possible expression of who we are.

Don’t limit who you think you are to the version you thought you ought to be or were told you were. You are a wonderful rich tapestry of characteristics – be who you really are in all its glory!

THE RIGHT TIME

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We all know that time doesn’t exactly work like its supposed to. Our chronological description of time, carefully measured in seconds, minutes, hours, doesn’t match with our actual experience of it. Sometimes a minute seems like ages, and sometimes an hour flies by and we wonder where the time went. This makes our lives more complex because we have to balance our experience of time with the expectation that we will work to the clock, so we can coincide with others in meetings, mealtimes, train timetables etc.

And there is another version of time as well, that most of us ignore, because there’s enough to handle already! Yet it is related to our real experience of time and can be very useful to us, should we choose to rediscover it.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time. There was ‘chronos’, the measurement of time passing – where we get chronological from. And there was also ‘kairos’, which means the right time – we have no real equivalent in modern language.

This version of time is the one that astrology is related to. It is where everything is aligned to give us the opportunity to do something easily, effortlessly, in the right way.

When we happen to hit the right time, we generally see it as a coincidence or happy accident. For example, we decide to call someone who is never available and they answer the phone with time to talk, or we put our house up for sale and it is snapped up straight away.

Yet we do not have to hope for the happy accident – we have an innate sense of kairos. We can learn to listen to ourselves and follow our feelings to help us to use kairos to make our lives easier. Our sense of kairos doesn’t come from our reasoning heads. They tend to work to chronos, and give themselves away by saying things like: ‘I should do xxx this morning’ or ‘I need to tackle that issue with the kids this evening’. If there’s a should, ought, got to, must, need to in there, it’s not likely to be kairos – those words refer to the logical version of time, not the perfect opportunity.

The sense of kairos comes from our guts, and bypasses our reasoning, our logic. Science has now proved that we have what they call the enteric brain: neurotransmitters in our guts that are exactly like those in our brains. And it seems that we receive initial information about the world around us here first – gut instinct is alive and well, and a proven fact!

This awareness of the perfect opportunity for something is, I believe, an amalgam of information that we don’t realise consciously that we receive, a wisdom that we often don’t recognise in ourselves. It is an instantaneous assessment of both our state and information from the world around us that gives us an accurate conclusion – either this is the right time or it isn’t.

So next time you feel that gut response that says to avoid the motorway route, follow it. Next time you suddenly think of an old friend, give them a call. Get in the habit of listening to your gut responses and follow them whenever you can, and you will find that kairos is available to you, and can make your life easier.

WHAT IS ‘NORMAL?’

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Recently someone described me as abnormal – and I decided that it was a compliment! It got me to thinking about what normal is. The word means: ‘according to the customs and habits of the time or place.’ It is the accepted way of being and behaving within a specific context. We also call this being conformist.

Now, at some level, we all need to conform or fit in. There are laws to hold us in check: if I don’t pay for my utilities, or injure someone deliberately, I will be called to account.

There are also some universal ‘laws’: being kind and courteous, doing no harm, which most of us live by, because they are fundamental human values, and we are basically decent human beings.

However, most of the rules we live by without even thinking about it are not in these two categories. They are just the way we do things in our culture. To take a simple example, most people take a shower every day. Yet when I was young, we just had a bath every week – there weren’t showers in most homes. And it was not that long ago that even baths were a special occasion, indulged in once a year!

Again, having a mobile phone is now considered the norm – in fact, it has to be a smartphone, because then you can respond to emails as well, and be available 24/7 by one means or another. Yet I remember when lots of people didn’t even have a landline, and the phone-box at the end of the street was used if there were an emergency. Otherwise you wrote letters.

These examples just illustrate how ‘normal’ changes over time and is an ephemeral phenomenon. So it is worth questioning whether you feel that the norm suits you, or whether you want to create a new ‘normal’ that fits you better and makes your life feel better.

Now, anyone who knows me will know that conforming is not my strong suit. In fact, I am actively working on being who I really am, rather than who I am expected to be. And I believe that we are lucky in this day and age, because we have so many more choices of ways of being and behaving in the world. We can call on different examples from all over the world and from history, because that information is readily available, and do a ‘pick’n’mix’ selection of what suits our personality and preferences.

So let’s begin to make conscious choices, to establish our own personal norms, instead of being and behaving normally. Lets’ question the norm before we just conform to it.

How do we do this?

  1. Once a day notice something that you’re doing that’s habitual: answering the phone as soon as it rings; starting on dinner as soon as you get in from work; agreeing to do something you don’t really want to do – you’ll find lots of examples. Now check this particular behaviour out: are you doing it because you feel better if you do, or are you doing it because ‘people do’ or ‘they’ expect you to.
  2. If it makes you feel better, then it’s fine to carry on.
  3. If it doesn’t make you feel better, then ask yourself: ‘How would I prefer to behave?’ ‘What would feel like a better fit for me?’
  4. Next time that habitual behaviour comes up, experiment with a different approach: let the phone go to voicemail, and ring them back if you really want to speak with them now; sit for five minutes and have a cuppa before you do dinner; ask for time to consider before you say yes.
  5. If the experiment works for you, start to do it more often, until it becomes you new normal. If it doesn’t, try something different until you find what does.

Be warned, this can create two different forms of pressure to return to old habits – after all, they are pretty ingrained in us.

  1. Others expect you to behave as you always have behaved, and will ask you why you didn’t or in some way make you feel guilty for changing.
  2. Even more insidious is our own mind, which tells us we are causing a problem or upsetting others even when there’s no evidence for it.

The good news is that if you stick to your guns, it becomes easier, and others come to accept your new normal.

So come on, make life work a little better for you by changing those ‘rules’ you’ve been living by that don’t really fit for you. Join me in being abnormal and proud of it!

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

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Happy New Year! We have a strange tradition at this time of year. We indulge ourselves at Christmas, and then we pull ourselves back with our resolutions: lose weight, do more exercise, make ourselves ‘better’ people in some way. When did we learn to be so self-critical?

As a child, we didn’t say to ourselves that we weren’t good enough, until we learned from others that we weren’t perfect in their eyes. Nor did we feel obliged to ‘improve’ ourselves in some way that would match up to some ill-defined external expectation. It isn’t what comes naturally to us, yet it is what most of us learn to do. We absorb the beliefs that life is about striving to fit some cultural image of how we’re supposed to be and behave, and we lose touch with our natural preferences.

I’m not suggesting that it is wrong to want to improve yourself and your life – in fact I believe strongly that this is an innate tendency in us – I’m suggesting that the context within which we do this improvement needs to change. Instead of beginning from some cultural version of who you should be and what you should do – (which by the way is not constant: it changes from culture to culture and even over time within each culture) – why not begin with who you really are. After all, you are a unique and special being who has gifts and talents and characteristics which you were born to bring into the world. We all know what really ‘fits’ with us, because we’re comfortable and unselfconscious when we’re engaged with those aspects of us, and it doesn’t require great effort on our part.

For example, I love feeding people, and sharing a meal and ‘big’ conversation with friends, but I’m not into spending all day preparing an impressive meal – it’s the company and sharing that I value and enjoy. I used to try very hard to make the perfect dinner party: everything carefully prepared, the table neatly laid, the house tidied, to give the right impression. And by the time we got to the meal itself, I was tired and cross, and even with all the effort, I often had a dessert that didn’t come out right!

Eventually I realised that, for me, feeding people is a way of showing love for them, so I learned to cook with love, rather than fancy recipes and a perfectly prepared environment. It’s feeding, not cooking that I love.

On the other hand, I love the process of writing – that is where my creative urge is satisfied. I used to worry about whether I was writing in the ‘right’ way for some vague audience – was it my English teacher at school who told me I was ‘too pedantic’? – until I realised that when I just allowed myself to write, it flowed, and I enjoyed it for its own sake, whether it was published or not, and it didn’t matter whether someone was going to approve and give me an A- (she never gave out a higher mark than that!)

 

So now it’s your turn.

  • What do you love doing?
  • When do you feel in the flow?
  • How do you feel good being? (e.g. quiet, on the move, focussed, dreamy etc.)
  • What are the characteristics and talents you enjoy practising?
  • Who is the unique and authentic you?

And as you consider these questions, notice how much you allow yourself to live according to your own natural preferences.

Now you have a more useful context for new year resolutions. Don’t try to match up to some external rules for how we’re supposed to be and behave. Instead let’s resolve to become even more ourselves, our unique special selves.

Where you are already allowing yourself to be how you prefer to be, resolve to maintain it – dinner and conversation anyone?

Where you are denying yourself the delight of being you, resolve to find some simple ways to be it more:

If you love dancing, however badly, clear a space in your living room, close the door, and dance for an hour to your favourite dance music – no-one’s watching or judging, except God and the angels, who are all applauding!

If you love drawing, but were told you were no artist, go and buy some lovely felt pens and a pad of paper, and draw for you, just for the hell of it.

If you love to sit and just do nothing, allow yourself an hour a week to do just that – nothing.

In its original meaning, a resolution was a way of dissolving back into, releasing into. Let’s make our new year resolutions a way of releasing into being more of who we really are, instead of who we are supposed to be. I’d rather be myself, wouldn’t you?

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY!

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I always thought this phrase sounded like an instruction, and my reaction was to think, ‘It’s OK for you, but in my life…’ We are given so many major reasons to worry: health, money, insecurity of work, threat of war. Then there are all the everyday ones: will the traffic be bad, will so-and-so react badly when I tell them…, will I have enough time to… . It’s no wonder so many of us spend so much time worrying!

What I’ve realised is that the phrase ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ is not an instruction, it’s a simple statement of cause and effect: if we don’t worry, we are happy!! So what can we do to change the habit of worrying?

Well, let’s start with being clear about what worry is and does. The word originally meant to kill or act towards in a hostile manner. When we worry about things, it’s ourselves that we are being hostile towards! If we begin by really considering its effect on us, we are more inclined to change.

Worry is a form of prediction; it is usually about something in the future, which may or may not happen. And it is always an imagining of something not working out, or going wrong, or being difficult. When we stop and consider this in a detached way, we realise that it really isn’t very useful to us.

Firstly, the effect of worrying on us physically is that we live through our predicted catastrophe in our imagination. This releases the stress hormones we would release if it were really happening, and causes our bodies to react as if we were really in the catastrophe – not good for our health!

Secondly, this playing through in our imaginations is like a rehearsal – we are practising how to behave and react to play our part in it going wrong – is this really what you want to rehearse?!

On top of all this, the initial release of stress hormones affects not just our bodies, but also our minds, so we are far more likely to create a spiral of catastrophe in our mind once we start, because it is the ‘knee-jerk reaction’ part of our mind that is primarily switched on, not our objective analysis.

My mum was an inveterate worrier, so I was brought up to be very good at worrying! It took years for me to realise that it wasn’t useful! Slowly, I began to register that all my worrying made life harder, not easier. I suffered the effects of the immediate worrying: feeling stressed, not sleeping well, not thinking straight, and not dealing well with what was actually happening because I was busy worrying about the next thing.

Then I began to notice that worrying about the future was sometimes a complete waste of time and effort, as it turned out quite differently, and all worked out! Finally I had to admit that often, when my worrying was an accurate prediction, it was because I had more than played my part in causing it to happen: I had approached that person as if they were going to be awkward and difficult, and guess what, they were!

So what’s the alternative?

Let’s begin by recognising that predicting our future is a useful skill when used well. It gives us a dynamic in our lives which can be very positive. So predict things going well! Tell yourself you’re going to have a good day. Expect that others will be helpful and co-operative. Remind yourself of how well you’ve handled similar things in the past.

If you do find yourself running a ‘what if it goes wrong’ story, remember that rehearsing that story is not useful. So ask yourself what the wise, calm you would do to handle the situation well. If you can’t find a full answer to this question, at least find the first step: ‘If they are being difficult, I will suggest we take a break, or have a cup of tea, or wait until later to discuss it’.

If you are already going down the spiral of catastrophe, and can’t think of anything you could do to make the situation work better, distract yourself for a little while: read something you enjoy, go for a walk, watch a tv programme that holds your attention. This will allow your mind to calm down, and make it easier to switch on the calmer, wiser you.

And remember, we don’t know what will happen in the future – often our fears are unfounded – so put your attention on what’s happening here and now, and make this moment a happy one!

Actions for less worry, more happiness

  • Gather the evidence that worry doesn’t work: makes you feel bad; messes up your thinking; often inaccurate prediction; may lead you to cause what you didn’t want.
  • Do predict your future in a positive way: a good day; a situation you can handle.
  • If you find yourself worrying, ask yourself how you could handle the situation well, or at least the first steps the wise you would take.
  • Just concentrate on whatever is going on now for you and make that as good as it can be.

BEING KIND TO YOURSELF

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Most people I know are kind people. They are considerate of others, thoughtful about what might make someone else feel good, and forgiving when others get something wrong. I would put myself in this category as well and have always thought it was a good way to be.

And of course, it is!! Being kind is a lovely way to be in the world, and it is good for us as well. It enhances the health-giving chemicals in our body as much as it does for those we are being kind to. However there is a caveat: are we also remembering to be kind to ourselves? I know that I used to put others first all the time, and run myself out of energy because I didn’t give myself enough time to recover and re-energise. Worse than that, I would then beat myself up for not being able to maintain the level of kindness that I expected from myself.

When we do this, the good effects of our kindness start to diminish, not just for us, but also for those on the receiving end. The effort we make to maintain being kind offsets any benefits we derive biologically from being kind: the stress hormones are released and outweigh the health-giving hormones. And even though our intention to be kind is still the same, there is a little bit of us that feels somewhat resentful of giving of ourselves when we’re running out of energy, and others will get some vague sense of this, despite our best intentions: they are left feeling as if they owe us somehow.

On top of all this, we then criticise ourselves for not being good enough, and make ourselves feel even worse! This is very mean of us!! We would never treat a friend as badly as we often treat ourselves!

Now I wouldn’t claim to have cracked this one completely. I still find myself over-stretching in order to be kind to others, and I often find that I am beating myself up for not being considerate enough of others. Nonetheless, I am getting much better at remembering that neither of these old habits is useful for me, or my ability to be kind.

So what helps us to remember to be kind to ourselves as well?

Notice when you have over-stretched. If you are having to ‘gear yourself up’ to be kind, you’ve gone past your limits. If you feel really drained after even a brief interaction with someone, you’ve gone past your limits. If you find yourself wishing the particular interaction were finished now, you’ve gone past your limits.

Notice when you’re criticising yourself for not being considerate enough of others. You will begin to notice that the effects of being over-stretched are often followed by a second dose of thoughts that make us feel even worse.

When we begin to notice these negative effects on ourselves consciously, we are more likely to do something about it. Then we move to the next stage: being consciously kind to ourselves.

As a kind person, decide what kind thing you will do for yourself each day. Do this in the morning when you first wake up, so it becomes built in as part of your day. You may allow yourself to stay in bed a little longer, or let yourself off that task you set yourself, but don’t really need to do today. You may buy yourself a little treat at lunchtime, or have a conversation with a friend and talk about your ‘stuff’ rather than theirs.

By getting onto the habit of being kind to ourselves in some way each day, we are both re-energising ourselves and practising kindness as much as if it were for another, thus enhancing the level to which we are a kind person.

When you realise you are being critical of yourself, ask yourself what you would say to your best friend about this, if they had done it or thought it. We are all much harder on ourselves than we are on others, and that’s just not fair!

Limit your kindness with others. This is a hard one for a kind person! But you know that sometimes your kindness doesn’t seem to be appreciated, and you also know that sometimes your kindness to others is detrimental to you.

Give yourself a better chance of sustaining your kindness, and feeling good about it. Give your kindness when you’re in the mood, to those who appreciate it. And if you are in the mood, sometimes give kindness where it doesn’t feel appreciated – it’s fun then, feels good if you have no expectations.

When we apply kindness to ourselves first, we don’t become less kind to others. The reverse is true in my experience: we have more heartfelt kindness to give away. It’s like stocking up our reserve of kindness so we can be even more generous with it.

Experiment with these ideas and see what happens, to you and with others. And let me know how it goes!

The steps to being kind to ourselves

  1.  Notice when you have over-stretched.
  2. Notice when you’re criticising yourself for not being considerate enough of others.
  3. As a kind person, decide what kind thing you will do for yourself each day.
  4. When you realise you are being critical of yourself, ask yourself what you would say to your best friend about this, if they had done it or thought it.
  5. Limit your kindness with others

 

STOPPING

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Are you one of the millions of people who think they are closet lazy devils? You may well recognise the thought: ‘If I allow myself to stop when I feel like it, I may never get anything done, because I’m naturally a lazy person.’ It is amazing how powerfully this message has been inserted into our consciousness!

So where does this thought come from? My belief is that it is built into western culture as part of maintaining what is called the Protestant work ethic. Remember those little children we once were? Not only did we have too much energy some of the time, we also inconveniently wanted to just stop and rest or sleep sometimes. Whilst this is accepted as part of being a baby, we work hard to train children into only sleeping at night-time, and being active physically and/or mentally when it suits. We teach them how to counteract their natural tendency to balance activity with rest, and fit in with the way things work: school, workplaces, family life.

Now children, who are still aware of their natural tendency, are likely to object to the training, which is when they learn that those who don’t fit in are called ‘lazy’ and this is a bad thing, and no child likes to be classified as something unacceptable, so we adopt the habits we see around us.

I know that I lived with the fear of being a closet lazy person for many years, and still find it reappears sometimes.  Yet a part of me felt that it was a false message. If I really were lazy, why did I find it boring after a while when I had enforced ‘laziness’, like being ill in bed? And I began to notice the evidence that suggested we aren’t lazy creatures at all.

When you step back from it for a moment, you begin to realise that it makes no sense. No child is born lazy – in fact we frequently complain that they have more energy than we can handle! So it is not an inherent part of our nature. And when we do allow ourselves to stop for long enough – maybe only if we take a holiday! – we discover that there comes a point when we are ready and wanting to do something. So as a grown-up, maybe it’s time to remember that we are actually designed biologically to ebb and flow, to have energy and to have time to rebuild that energy. If we want to be at our best, then we need to cater for our natural design and stop forcing ourselves past it.

This is radical, but doesn’t have to be dramatic: we can start gently. I remember I began to experiment when my son was young and I was working full-time. The normal routine was: busy at work, dash to the child-minder’s, pick him up, take him home, and immediately launch into tea, homework, getting things ready for the next day. I knew I wasn’t the most pleasant of mums, but I dutifully got everything done! I asked Jo if it was OK with him if we experimented for a week with me having 15 minutes to myself when we got home – time for a coffee and a cigarette and a sit-down – before starting on everything else. He agreed somewhat reluctantly, and I felt guilty, but decided to try it anyway. At the end of the week, I felt better – less exhausted, less snappy – but I still felt guilty about making him wait his turn for my attention, so I thanked him for letting me do it, and said we could revert to normal now. His response surprised me: he suggested I took 5 minutes longer from now on! When I asked him why, he pointed out that I was much nicer during that week, and he preferred that, so maybe 5 minutes more would make me nicer still!

Since that time, I have gradually got better at finding ways to stop for a while, and allow myself to recover my energy. In the process, I have gathered more and more evidence that it is not only a more natural way for us to live our lives, but also a more effective one. It is astonishing how a little stopping now and then allows us to be more pleasant, more creative, less exhausted and generally more our real selves.

So how do you introduce stopping into your life more often?

Breathspaces: begin simply! Remember to take a breathspace, before you respond to someone, send that email, get into the car, answer the phone. Just a breathspace can make a difference.

Five minutes: take five minutes before you launch into your day, start on those home duties when you get back from work, start the next task.

Fifteen minutes: allow yourself 4 or 5 fifteen-minute gaps in your busy week. Call them admin time and write them in your diary as part of your schedule. And do nothing: stare out of the window, go for a stroll, relax into a comfy chair.

When these become habitual, you can start to expand on your experiment with stopping. A half-hour or hour at the weekend that is just for you, an evening where you just read a good book or watch a good movie and leave the chores until the next day, a whole day with no list of things you have to do.

And notice how, after a while, your energy starts to lift again and, if you relax into it enough, you start having thoughts like:’ Oh, I know what I can do about that thing that’s been bugging me,’ or ‘I haven’t seen so-and-so for ages – it would be fun to catch up with her,’ – the healthy and positive thoughts that often aren’t allowed in because our minds are so full of what we have to do next.

You’re not lazy, you’re just over-stretched! Don’t worry: if you stopped for days on end, you would come to a point where you said to yourself: ‘ I want to do ….. now.’ What an improvement that would be over: ‘I’d better get on with  …..’ – wouldn’t it!

It’s a simple change I’m suggesting in our thinking process. It replaces: ‘I’ll just do …. and then I’ll stop’ with ‘ I’ll just have a little rest and then I’ll do ….’. It seemed like common sense when you were a little child – maybe it will again now!

 

 

STARTING YOUR DAY

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How did you start your day today? I have recently been reminded of how many people start their day in a way that gives them a disadvantage from the start – it goes something like this…

I wake when the alarm goes off and go, ‘Oh shit!’, because I am still tired and wish I didn’t have to get up yet. Then I throw myself out of bed, with my mind already thinking about all the things I have to do today. I have a shower, using up the shampoo/shower gel that no-one else is using up, put on some clothes that will do for today, and go downstairs. I switch on the news, just to depress myself a little more, and eat/drink something – I don’t actually know what it is unless I look at it, as I am not tasting it, just shoving it down while my mind carries on with its busyness! And then I pick up my things, and go to the car to face the awful traffic at this time in the morning.

If you took a snapshot of me as I leave the house, you would realise that I already have a frown on my face, my shoulders are hunched, and I look miserable. And then I have to drive to work, where I am of course going to have a great day!!!

Is this too extreme, or do you recognise it? If you start your day like this, it is a miracle if you ever have a good day! You have not connected with your body or the world around you at all, you have already predicted your day with your thoughts, and you have treated yourself very badly – would you welcome a baby back into the world in the morning like that?

So what is the alternative? Well, it requires that you take allow an extra five minutes in your morning as a minimum, but the pay-off is enormous. It goes like this…

I wake up when the alarm goes off and allow myself one more minute in bed, snuggling into its comfort. I then get out of bed gently, allowing my body to properly wake up, and take a breathspace to smile at the lovely colours in my duvet, or the picture I have on the wall – (most of us have something in our bedroom we chose because we like the look of it – and if you haven’t, get something!). I have a shower, using something I love the smell of, a favourite shower gel and shampoo. And I use my best perfume or after-shave – who told us we were supposed to save favourites for best? No child would do that with anything that was a favourite! Now I get dressed, choosing to wear something that will make me feel good: I may need a bright colour or something that feels nice against my skin, or just something that is really comfortable – and if there are rules about what I can wear for work, I can always wear something underneath that makes me feel good – no-one will know but me!

Notice that so far, I have been thinking about the comfort of being in bed, the look of things around me, the smells in the bathroom and the sensation of the shower, and the feel and look of my clothes – I haven’t gone into the future yet.

I go downstairs and put on some music that will make me feel good – sometimes something soothing, sometimes something lively or that just makes me want to dance or smile. After all, people will always talk about it if there is anything important happening in the news – I will find out soon enough. Now I am going to have breakfast – notice that the word means breaking my fast – I haven’t eaten or drunk anything for quite a while, so I make sure it is something I like, and savour that first taste.

In total, my extra activities have probably taken me about 2 of my extra five minutes – 1 minute in bed and some seconds appreciating the sensations I have – so now I have the luxury of something else to make me feel good before I go to work – 3 minutes is ages! I could have a second coffee, stroke the cat, do a couple of crossword clues in the paper, look at the flowers in my garden – I might even say something pleasant to someone else in the household!! Perhaps most importantly, I can consider how I am going to make the rest of my day work well, to keep up the good mood.

This time, if you took a snapshot as I leave the house, I would have a smile on my face, be more relaxed in my body, and probably have a favourite cd in my hand, to play while I sit in traffic! Maybe this time I really will have a good day at work!

We all tend to underestimate our own power to choose how our life is and how we are. We assume that things just happen to be the way they are, and forget to notice that we tend to have the sort of day we are expecting – which suggests that we play an active part in creating the tone of the day.

When we first wake, we are setting ourselves up for the rest of the day. We are showing ourselves how we are going to be and what the day is going to be like. If we treat ourselves kindly, and put ourselves in a good mood, if we notice the things that make us feel good and pay them attention, if we choose to think about how we can make our day work as well as possible, then we have set a different tone to our day. It might not be perfect, but it is far more likely to work well for us than if we start the day by making ourselves feel like crap!!

Come on, give yourself a chance – you wouldn’t treat your best friend or your child as badly as you do yourself! And even if you don’t feel you can do it for your own benefit, just think of the pay-off for others – you will be so much easier to be around!

The morning ritual

  1. Enjoy the comfort of your bed for a moment
  2. Notice the lovely colours in your bedroom
  3. Use your favourite smells in the bathroom
  4. Wear something that makes you feel good
  5. Listen to some favourite music that sets the right mood
  6. Have something you love the taste of for breakfast, and savour the taste
  7. Do one more thing to make yourself feel in a good mood

 

REMEMBERING TO USE YOUR BODY’S INTELLIGENCE – PART TWO

Ways of Remembering, , ,

Last time I wrote about ways to notice the body signals that tell us that we need to take more care of ourselves physically. Once we get better at listening to the simple basic needs of our bodies, we can move to the next level of awareness of our body’s intelligence.

The body has a direct physical reaction to every thought action or behaviour we have. Each of these is ‘assessed’ by the body as either maintaining/enhancing our ‘ecology’ – the optimal balance of the system – or throwing it off balance. By the way, if you were in consistent static balance, you’d be bored to tears! The balance I am describing is not static, it is dynamic.

There are times when I need to be off-balance for a while, in order to move to the next level of balance as a system. For example, if I am learning a new skill, I may feel uncomfortable until I have integrated it into the way I do things. So the assessments by the body are constantly taking into account the specific circumstances, rather than having a single ‘right answer’ – part of what demonstrates its intelligence!

If we can use this element of the body’s intelligence, we can make our lives so much easier! I know that, for me, I used to persist in situations and cycles of thought which made me feel anxious or irritable, because I thought I had to. I would be with someone whose conversation offended my values, I would continue to worry at the miserable thoughts I was having, like a dog with a bone, I would agree to do things that I thought I should do, even though I didn’t want to – and I still do all these things sometimes!!

However I was lucky enough to be taught a way to help myself to tell the difference between something that made me feel a little uncomfortable because it was unfamiliar, and something which my body’s intelligence assessed as uncomfortable because it detracted from my balance, my ecology.

Notice I only use the words comfortable or uncomfortable: they are good generic words which don’t label the reaction specifically and pin it down.

So what is the ‘trick’ to this distinction? Your body has two clear signals it gives to you: one tells you that whatever it is is wrong for you, and the other tells you that whatever it is is right for you.

‘Wrong’ signals may be things like: your breath becoming shallower; your foot fidgeting; your shoulders hunching a little; your arm feeling itchy; that sinking feeling in your stomach.

‘Right’ signals may be things like: your breathing becoming deeper; your chest feeling expanded; your shoulders relaxing; your jaw loosening; finding you are humming a little tune to yourself.

To discover your signals, just remember a time when, you realise with hindsight, it was just right for you. When you think of how your body was reacting, what’s the first things you are aware of? And now do the same with a time when you know it was wrong for you.

Once we are aware of our signals, we can use them to help us. Let’s start with the ‘right’ signal. Just begin to notice the thoughts and situations that switch it on. And then consciously consider ways you could bring more of those kinds of thoughts and situations into your life. By the way, don’t make this hard! If your answers are like: ‘when I am with my friend whom I only see about every 3 months’ or ‘when I’m on holiday’, then it can seem impossible to have more. So what is it about these situations that feels right? Maybe such things as being with people whom I can just be myself with, or allowing myself to do just what I feel like, which are both situations you could expand into other, more everyday parts of your life.

Now what about the ‘wrong’ signal? Again begin to notice the thoughts and situations that switch it on. Now ask yourself: ‘How can I reduce the number of these thoughts and situations I have to deal with?’ I am a great believer in beginning by applying the Snoopy axiom: if you don’t like it, avoid it whenever possible!! Where it isn’t possible to avoid, then ask yourself: ‘What could I do differently in the future to make this more comfortable?’ Our innate wisdom usually gives us some useful things to experiment with, such as limit the time spent on it, or distract yourself by doing something else, or take a step back from the situation and let them get on with it.

Most of us put up with a lot of discomfort we aren’t obliged to, because we don’t see any alternative. In fact, a lot of the time we don’t even see it as discomfort, we just think it’s normal! Yet we have a means of helping ourselves to increase the time we spend feeling good, and reduce the time we spend feeling bad – our bodies encompass great aids for our well being, in every sense. They are a live, dynamic and intelligent system, designed to help us to be at our best. So let’s use that help to make our lives easier!

Questions to ask yourself

  1. Remember a time when, you realise with hindsight, it was just right for you. When you think of how your body was reacting, what are the first things you are aware of?
  2. What sort of thoughts/situations switch these signals on for you? And how could you bring more of them into your life?
  3. Remember a time when, you realise with hindsight, it was not right for you. When you think of how your body was reacting, what are the first things you are aware of?
  4. How can you reduce the number of these thoughts and situations you have to deal with? And if you can’t avoid those situations, what could you do differently in the future to make them more comfortable for you and reduce their negative impact?

REMEMBERING TO USE YOUR BODY’S INTELLIGENCE

Ways of Remembering, , , ,

Our bodies are a marvellous network of awareness that can help us to be healthy and happy. They are designed as a complex inter-related system, which passes messages from one part to another, to maintain and build itself to be the best it can possibly be. So why don’t we use its intelligence more?

When we were little, and didn’t know any other way, we listened to and responded to our bodies’ messages. In the first place these are simple: I’m hungry, thirsty; I need to move or rest; I need a cuddle or to be on my own. Quite quickly, we learn to ignore these messages, because we are reliant on others to a large extent to fulfil the need, and others are not reliable!

Then, as we are more able to fulfil our own needs, we realise that ‘the world doesn’t work like that’. We are expected to eat, drink at certain times, stay still in classrooms and offices, keep working until it is time to stop, and not ask for cuddles any more! We get so good at ignoring our bodies that we forget to listen to their messages at all, until they are shouting at us so loudly that we have to take some notice – usually through illness or complete exhaustion.

Like most of us, I learnt these lessons well, and became very skilful at ignoring my body until it broke down. It was when my doctor told me that the reason I couldn’t move without pain was that I had refused to stop for too long and my body was rebelling and forcing me to stop that I registered that this was not very useful!

So I began to re-learn how to listen – and at first it was quite shocking! I realised how often my body was uncomfortable – aching, palpitating, tired, stiff, ‘butterflies in the stomach’ etc.

I had more complex messages from my body than when I was a baby: there were not only the simple physical needs; there were also the emotional reactions to deal with. What all the physical signs told me was that I was very out of balance as a system a lot of the time.

Do you recognise any of these body messages? Just do a quick scan right now and notice what your body feels like…

It is one thing to become aware again, and quite another to do something about it. So how do we remember to listen to our body’s intelligence, and then act on it?

Firstly, let’s gently learn to listen again – we have to retrain ourselves, so you need to go gently – otherwise it becomes onerous. Start by checking in, maybe twice or three times a day. What do you notice when you stop and pay attention to your body? Is it hungry or thirsty? Does it need to move or rest? Is it uncomfortable or comfortable? And if you can make it feel more comfortable by responding to these basic needs, do so. So often I will say to myself: ‘ Oh, I need a piece of fruit, or something to drink, or to sit down for a few minutes’, and wonder how I could have been so unaware of it!

When we begin to pay this attention to the needs our bodies are expressing, it becomes more habitual, and we start to notice the messages more often. Then we can take it a step further, so that we are not just responding to needs, but are beginning to actually nurture our bodies.

Firstly, you start by not just doing something to satisfy the need, but rather asking: what sort? ‘What sort of food do I want?’ what sort of movement do I want?’

Then, to enrich it further, give your body some treats! What makes your body feel really good? Is it a cycle ride, a slow hot bath, a good curry, a nap in the afternoon, a massage? You will have your own favourites. So, at least once a week, preferably more often, do something that makes your body feel good – after all, it works hard for you, it deserves some treats!

By gradually remembering more and more to listen to our bodies, we enhance our well-being, and reduce the need for our bodies to ‘shout’ at us with illness and exhaustion. It has to be worth it!

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

2 or 3 times a day: What do you notice when you stop and pay attention to your body? Is it hungry or thirsty? Does it need to move or rest? Is it uncomfortable or comfortable? And if you can make it feel more comfortable by responding to these basic needs, do so.

What sort of food/drink/movement/rest would work best for my body right now?

Treats – at least once a week: what would make my body feel really good today?