Self-doubt, self-blame, self-criticism are normal and healthy parts of being human. They keep us in check. But for many of us, they get out of hand. Our protective parts become 'panicked protectors' and therefore sabotage our plans. When this happens we need to step back, calm the nervous system and practise some mindful reflection. One of the simplest things we can practice is appreciation. This is subtly different from gratitude. Appreciation is to recognise the value of what is present. In this blog, I'll explain why and how to do this. Self Doubt Sometimes the process of therapy, self-development and working on our goals can feel endless, fruitless, pointless and downright exhausting. In these moments we can get filled up with self-doubt.
Negative thinking is normal This is the beginning of negative and catastrophic thinking, an old friend of mine. It will always be a companion because our brains evolved to seek problems, even when we are OK. In fact ESPECIALLY when we are doing OK. It protects us from becoming complacent and it is millions of years old. It's primal. You can't outsmart it. You can work with it though. It basically wants to know that we are OK. So here is what I do: 1. Appreciate your challenging situation - Investigate the situation and your worries in the WORST case - what would you do if all your worries came to pass? 2. Appreciating your struggles as achievements - especially considering your past personal challenges Appreciate your challenging situation I came up with this tool a while ago and I still use it today. It was a realisation I had when I was trying too hard to 'think positively' and was just finding myself exhausted and miserable. Then I remembered the backwards law: 'Needing' a positive experience is itself a negative experience; Appreciating a negative experience is a positive experience"WORST tool
When I pause and do this I often feel so much better and I have an action to move myself forwards, appreciating the negatives are actually OK. So what about a deeper level of appreciation? Appreciating your struggles as achievements
Even when we are having a crappy time we can pause and reflect on how the struggle is part of the success. We often forget this. We think it's hopeless because we don't take the time to remember our context and just how challenging life is and therefore how well we are doing. This morning I took a moment from my self-critical mind and remembered to celebrate my achievements and milestones more This week I:
Intentional living Living life with purpose can be a weekly or daily occurrence. I like to set a mostly intention and track it each day, particularly in bed before sleeping. I ask myself how I did with this today. It accelerates my progress so much to celebrate small victories. In the past I have got better at so many things with this technique including:
My current intention is 'loving self-discipline and I'm tracking this very simple as you'll see by the image below. So I'll leave you with the question - how can you pause and appreciate your challenging situation and your achievements today? Would you like to begin by setting an intention for a small change? What would that be? Good luck and warm wishes. Neil Morbey, Mindfulness Coach Today I am writing about the need to rest. TLDR: It's OK to give yourself rest. To maximise the benefits of the rest you have to allow yourself to enjoy it fully, and relax. This means neutralising the negative talk, amplified by the ‘workaholism’, which will no doubt be barking at you "You need to do work!" You don't, right now. That will come. Listen to your body and slow down. If you follow my posts you'll see that my intention for the new year is "To give myself the loving discipline that I need" and within that, I posted recently about 'Committing to Your Deep Truth: Your Mission' and 'The Attention Wars - Know Your Enemies'. You can expect more posts like this as I push myself to become better, stronger, wiser and to work harder. However, there are times, like this morning, when my body is loud and clear - you need to rest. I woke up this morning feeling rough. I did a 'Gratitude Snooze' which was lovely and then upon the next alarm, I counted down from 5 and jumped out of bed. I recently read the 5 am club and whilst I'm not up for getting up at that hour, I am m making my wake up time more consistent and gradually earlier. At part of Sharma's theory of 20/20/20, I was up for some exercise, but as I began I realised my body was not feeling good. I questioned if this is a ‘trauma reaction’ and my body responded with a resounding 'No - please I need rest!'. OK so I would do my normal routine.
Do something!
With that, I was up and ready for a little movement. I put on my favourite workout playlist and it reminds me to (in the words of Joe Rogan): "Do something, it doesn't have to be a lot, jump a little rope, walk up some hills, just do something. Your body has requirements, it needs to move, and when it does you feel better." So I went for a wee run and then did a wee workout. Not as much as on my plan. I felt better. I felt much better. I had a cold shower, I ate food and I planned my day. Energy crash! Turns out I can't just expect my body to be better with a little fresh air and exercise. So I started my workday with a nap - listening to Paul Mckenna, hot water bottle on my back and one on my eyes (also cleaned my eyes with saltwater as they have been flaring up a little- a sign that my body is struggling). This was so delicious. Throughout the nap, I would neutralise the negative mind that worried I'm being lazy and should be working. I would have to do this continuously today. Workaholism - the idea that all of our value comes from working - never allows us to rest. We need rest, especially when the body is struggling. Rest is 'doing something' Rest makes us more effective and productive in the long run. It is not 'doing nothing' or 'being lazy'. Laziness is often a story we tell ourselves, when really there is some fear present. Rest allows us to listen to the body and delve in to check out the fear that prevents us from moving forward. Often a 'should' and 'need' is the language of fear, which has a counter productive effect on our work. I post this now in the hope that you are able to tune into what your body needs and neutralise the negative thoughts of workaholism. Good luck my friends. I'm in the midst of a change of direction and it's bloody hard. As part of this I'm training more, reading more, surrounding myself with positive influences and delving deep into my fears. Three recent books have been helping:
THE MIND ASKS WHY? ANSWER IT! There's a moment in Goggin's book where he is doing an ultra marathon and he is realising his brain is starting to complain. He calls this 'the governor' (like that on a car to control the speed). He has learned and practices the skill of overpowering and outthinking his governor. "The mind knows all - it knows your fears and your weaknesses. It will tell you your not good enough. It will ask you the hardest question in those moments - Why are you bothering to try this!?" What Goggins realised is that you have to have an answer prepared for that question, especially in those painful moments. You need to remember a deep truth, an intention that you committed to for a very very good reason. GOGGINS HAS A CLEAR MISSION For Goggins he wanted to be the Hardest 'Mutha-F**ker God Ever Created'. He wanted to develop mental toughness because he could see that this is all a mind game. So he saw all these physical challenges as positively 'callousing the mind'. He learned to give the pain purpose and this was his answer each time in the dark night of the soul, in the midst of his suffering he responded to 'why bother?' with "Because I don't want to! I am callousing my mind against that soft, weakness of fear. I am becoming the hardest man ever!" HAVE A SIMPLE MISSION PREPARED I love that. Though I may not share his mission I can relate. If we can connect to a deep truth - a purpose that touches something profound in us, and we recite it regularly then we are prepared for those moments in life when the mind challenges our resolve. The mind forgets why we started and so its up to us to 'prepare to remember.' To have the answer, the deep truth, the 'mission' etched into our mind, ready to respond when fear and panic tempt us to give up and convince us that we are not good enough. The mission must be simple and clear and inspiring. NO FINISH LINE Another part of Goggins race mentality that haunts me is the idea that there is no finish line. Give up waiting for the finish line and embrace this suffering. Wow! What if that's true? What if there is no finish line? What if, even in life there is no finish? I have used death as a comforter many times. The idea that I will die one day, maybe today, helps me to drop my worries and relax. I'm here to enjoy myself. It's not a race, it's a dance. But Goggins' idea popped my bubble. What if death is not the end? What if the journey continues. More suffering in the next part? Maybe I keep repeating this life forever? OK, or as Goggins says 'Roger That!' The point is to realise that if I keep comforting myself with the idea of an ending to my problems then I just wait for that to happen, which encourages me to rest back instead of pushing forward. I'm in a point in my life where I have been resting back way too much, because I've been comforting myself, getting soft and it's time to delve deep into my truth and start to embrace the difficult things. In order to do that I'm entertaining the idea that there may be no finish line. This suffering is it. This is life. This is where the joy and growth is. No waiting around for the end. Live, live now. As Jocko Willis says (another hard man) "Fight that ticking clock with everything you got!" WhN'T JUST GO WITH THE FLOW - FIGHT!
I've lead a lot of my Mindfulness career trying to find the easy path. The least resistance. The way of the lazy guru. This 'go with the flow' attitude has value, because it helps me to relax and I needed that for a time. But it also has negativity. If we are always going with the flow we are not in any control and we are being propelled along by life and by the mind. If there's one thing I know about the mind it is that it has a negativity bias. It looks for problems to solve. It draws us into conflict and drama. It's time for me to wake up and take charge of the boat, put some work in and to go against the flow - take the path of most resistance. Fight that clock and that governor within my own mind. Fight hard and delve deep into my truth. THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL We all face the dark night of the soul when we do this. The moments where you actually turn and face your fear. We often do it alone. Ultimately we must do it alone, but I am learning now that I can also do it with some additional resources, which have been partly inspired by the way Will Smith surrounds himself with family and friends: 1. Trusted Friends: I've been cultivating a great group of friends. I have often struggled to reach out to them and this morning I realised it's time to call on them for help and support. It's going to be a challenge to overcome my inner resistance there too. 2. Mirror work and reparenting: So what's been helping me is... me. The man in the mirror. I've been making a practice of taking a good quality mirror and sitting with it in conversation. I see in the mirror the father I always longed for - supportive, loving, encouraging, disciplined, kind and emotionally intelligent. He wants to guide me but he also wants me to do the work myself. I can cry in front of him and he stays with me, with infinite patience. I talk to him for about 10 minutes every day and it alwsys ends with a shower of encouragement from him. It's been amazing and I'm excited to keep this journey going, with no finish line and overpowering my internal governor with a connection to my deepest truth: Because this experience is helping me to become the greatest counsellor and coach to others, so I can empower them to reconnect to their deepest truth and to act from a loving place, rather than the fear of a panicked mind. This is my newest mission and I practice it every single day. I leave you with three questions:
We live in a safer world now (I speak from my privileged position in it). But we still have wars and the biggest war is fought 24/7 - it is the war for our attention. We have enemies in this war and we can use their image to motivate healthier habits. In this blog I'll talk about how I use it to get up early, to stop distraction and to focus on my goals. Let's do this! I've been enjoying the music of Akira The Don, who makes beats to accompany soundbites from inspiring speakers. In this tune he takes a speech from Jocko Willink - an ex Navy-Seal - to inspire us to use the enemy image to get up early. I paraphrase quips from Jocko here:
Who have you made your enemy?We mostly use the enemy image unconsciously. We make enemies of our friends, other people and even ourselves. We don't realise we do this and we also don't realise the negative effects it has on our mood, body and relationships. Two examples come to mind:
Modern Enemies Look Like This:I imagine two main enemies in this modern battle:. I understand these are characters and not 'real' people (who are more complex). The following images help motivate me to thwart the attention wandering.
The truth is: These enemies are inside youI teach this and I still forget at times - such is the power of the modern trance. Whenever we create an enemy image it is usually a representation of a part of ourselves that we repress, but very much lives inside. When I consider my enemies - yes there are people in the world like that but the real enemy is my own pattern of distraction and then blaming, whilst ignoring my own body and mind. The real enemy is within. The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn So what can I do? I take the advice of Ghandi and Jocko (can you imagine these two combined!? What a team!) Be the change I want to see and Prepare for battle with the enemy. Just like in this video we must recognise the inner parts if we are to tame them. This means discipline and boundaries. What this means in practice:
If you'd like to learn some of these techniques and develop a healthy relationship with yourself and others please get in touch and do some coaching with me. Polyvagal theory has become core in my teaching and practice, since researching Dr Porges ideas and then through my trauma healing. It has helped me become more resilient. Here I share practical uses to improve skill in switching states and finding balance. Polyvagal Theory: Three Nervous System States find the stuff on the internet needlessly complex. I'm going to simplify it. Imagine we have three states, or gears: 1. Learning Human: Rest and Digest - The calm and creative 'Parasympathetic System' 2. Activated Monkey: Fight and Flight - The panicked action state of the 'Sympathetic System' 3. Immobile Lizard: Freeze - The helpless, numb, dissociative state of 'Dorsal Vagal System' AIM: FLEXIBILITY AND RESILIENCE We are ultimately aiming for psychological and bodily flexibility. To be able to move between states, so we can be resilient to them when they come up. We cannot just stop them from appearing. They call it the autonomic nervous system for a reason. To become more flexible and resilient we can think of it like a muscle. Does our nervous system have good muscle tone or are we weak, because we are unpractised. Yes- it turns out there are many simple and effective practices which, if repeated, make us more agile and able to change our state more easily. NEUORCEPTION - MINDFULLY BECOME AWARE OF YOUR CURRENT STATE But first you have to be AWARE of what state you are in. This is actually quite simple - tune in (mindfully) to the body and notice if you are activated into panicked action or frozen in immobile confusion and numbness. To do this however takes some skill. When we practice mindfulness we develop our nueroception -our ability to be aware and even name and describe our internal state.
Shifting state from Immobile Lizard StateOK so you've discovered you're stuck in indecision and confusion, immobile and static. What next? I can numb out so often when I'm overwhelmed and so basically I've learned that in this state we need to MOVE and embrace some discomfort. Here are some ways to help you, starting with the easiest:
Don't:
Shifting from Activated Monkey StateOnce activated you may wish to crack on with work - great. Ideally we want to bring moderation to our action, not just use work to become another distraction from dealing with our internal state of stress. For people who are manic or workaholics this is particularly important (I can be like this). It is best to induce a state of calm learning so we can have an open mind as we move through our day. Calming things might include:
Don't:
Pro-active practices - prepare!So we can be ready for this by developing our neuroception and building healthy habits into our lives. These are what I recommend:
Since lockdown in 2021 I notice a gradual ebbing away of my confidence in myself. Self doubt has been nipping at my heels. I've been doing all sorts to try and get rid of it. I recognise it as my old friend 'IMPOSTER SYNDROME'. This part of me tries to protect me from failure and humiliation by forming the believe that I'm not good enough. Do you have a part of you that does this too? I trust I am not alone. It's part of the human condition and it's exacerbated by the modern culture. I've been re=reading Mark Manson's masterpiece 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F***' to try and remind me of some things. I'm only up to page 70 and already I'm reminded of a basic thing that culture does: "All day, every day, we are flooded with the truly extraordinary. The best of the best and the worst of the worst. The greatest physical feats. The funniest jokes. The most upsetting news. The scariest threats. Nonstop". - Mark MansonMark reminds me that in this odd culture of bombardment 'exceptional' is considered normal and to be average is to fail. He reminds me that in our desire and need to be special and exceptional we will try and be at one end of the bell curve - to be exceptionally successful or believe we are exceptionally bad. This polarising ignores the need for balance, across multiple disciplines, and the acceptance of being ordinary,. A few other choice reminders from the book:
This is just one of the ways that helps me to overcome the imposter syndrome. What about you? What helps you remember what is important, what is real and what to give less f***s about?
If you'd like help figuring that out hire me to coach you. First session is free! Yet if we were to take a pet (like this cute Kitten, Mo-Mo) to a vet we would ensure the pet completes it’s full amount of medication or exercise. If we were raising a young animal or human we would encourage it to live life with freedom and joy - to choose what they do and not worry about others’ expectations. We would love them unconditionally. Part of my work is helping myself and others learn to love, care and nourish ourselves, as if we were another - to embed the responsibility deep into our bones. To remember everyday that your job is to love this one, as if you had just been handed a beautiful baby and told to look after it. How do we do this? First we must realise why we don’t...
We continue these mechanisms even though we are the ones we now need care from So the first step is to understand our traumas through discussion, meditation, investigation with a trusted therapist. If you’d like to begin that work contact me here.
Within my work I help people heal the body and train the mind. Here are some of the main ways in which we do this: Reparenting the nervous system - Healing the Hurts We need to bring in these principles when reparenting ourselves. Reparenting is a way of healing ourselves. In my work this includes teaching people with:
Re-schooling the mind with Healthier Habits We were taught maths and English in school, but no one taught us how to live well. They didn’t really teach us to challenge our own thoughts, channel our emotions. These are some of the skills I teach:
I've had a depressing week. I've been comparing myself and letting my mind drag me into a low mood by believing (or not challenging) the stories of comparison, regret and self judgement:
This kind of thinking is responsible for so much despair in my life and so many other people's. I coach people and have the privilege of helping them to escape this endless loop of misery and internal drama. But that doesn't mean I can always escape it myself. In fact I notice how I often post all the nice bits of life on social media - then other people can compare themselves negatively to me! Oh dear! With practice I'm getting more resilient to comparison. What is the practice? I'm fortunate enough to have access to some pretty awesome friends and therapists and this week I've been taking a look at my inner critic in more detail, as well as the vulnerable inner victim. In the paradigm of 'parts work' (AKA internal family systems, voice dialogue, fooling etc) we recognise there are many parts at play in our internal landscape. There parts are like people of their own accord. If you pay attention to yourself you'll notice your energy levels, voice and posture change when you are 'playing out' different parts.
In one recent therapy session I took time to go into my sad 'I don't know what I'm doing' part and really empathise with him. I was able to link it back to a 12 year old version of me that had trauma when entering secondary school. He felt (and still feels) deflated, small and depressed at the challenges of 'big-boy school'. My posture become hunched and my voice is squeezed. I feel this today whenever I encounter setbacks, particularly related to my work or areas where I demonstrate I'm a capable and intelligent person. I also played out the critical parts of me - the thinkers and judges. These parts embody a more confident and even aggressive energy and posture. These relate to parents, bullies, teachers and... myself. They were necessary parts of myself that helped to protect me. The purpose of giving these parts space to express themselves is:
What does this look like? This morning I gave a lot more space to the critics - who really had some good advice (albeit delivered with some anger and judgements). I took a mirror and placed it in front of me and I began to lay out all the criticisms - full throttle, for 10 minutes! I went through what I should do and how I have been so wrong. Turns out I really do want to be more successful, prosperous and have more ease and fun and if I listen to the advice and weed out the condemning judgements. I was only able to do this because I've given each part that needed it some space. In my therapy session the vulnerable victim cried - a lot! That cathartic grieving left space for me to hear, understand and appreciate the advice of the inner critics. The beautiful side effect of all this is that the comparison mindset vanishes (along with the despair) and is replaced with a more appreciative mind - that sees the present moment as a gift - an opportunity to live! Now is wow! Today I've been exercising, working, reading and enjoying nature. It's not perfect and I still get the symptoms of 'compare and despair' occasionaly, but now I can recognise it and meet it with understanding , compassion and some really good 'self care'. If this sounds like something you'd like to explore let me know and we can do some coaching together, I'm offering a free 1 hr intro session from October 2021. Book here. In reality, however, these ‘negative’ emotions can be helpful. The negativity comes when we try to fight them via:
These are the basics of our learned coping mechanisms or conditioned reaction, which are largely unconscious (meaning we are not aware of them, or in control of them). They developed during childhood, when they were perceived as absolutely necessary reactions, to receive attention, love and/or safety when we needed it most. We carry these deep in our nervous system. Something happens that ‘triggers’ past pain, and activates the mechanism. It can be anything, from a specific type of person, environment or even a raised eyebrow to a shouted word. The reactions triggered can be severe, like a full-on panic attack, or more subtle, like anxiety and a tight chest. For myself I notice that I sometimes get very sleepy and tired during emotional conversations with my partner. I realised this is a mechanism learned from childhood to unconsciously help myself avoid conflict and forced emotional dumping and enmeshment with parents). I have since learned to pause when I yawn, and name this as a 'conditioned reaction', which often stops it. Which leads me into the next step... How to heal our conditioned reactions
The methods I work with involve multiple therapies to work on grieving, accepting and revaluating past interpretations and coping mechanisms in both the mind and the body. I also advocate for self healing through self awareness and self love and coach myself and others to do this in everyday life. “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Rumi We can do the healing work moment-to-moment by utilising these so-called negative emotions. First I remind people to ‘celebrate the catch’ - to recognise that there is a power in being able to recognise an emotion and se it could be valuable. Each powerful emotion is a clue to help you learn about yourself, to understand your patterns, mechanisms and past pains. I encourage people to become fascinated with these moments, like they are gold. Feeling the body as we ask ourselves these key questions:
This understanding is the first step in the STOP technique, which is one tool that I teach to my clients. In reality the emotions are not just about the situation, but more about our ‘thoughts about the situation’ (stories). Most stories are rooted in the past - a conditioned judgement about how we should react, internalised. so much that we use them as expectations; not just for ourselves, but for others. Shame, anger, anxiety and even sadness became tools to make sure these hidden expectations are met as children, but of course they are ineffective as adults, in the present context. The work of healing begins by admitting these hidden stories of expectations to ourselves internally. As we do the work of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we learn that it’s OK to have judgements and feelings, and we can find more helpful ways to act that are aligned with what we value and want. For example, if I realise I’m holding an expectation for another person to ‘calm down and sort themselves out’ then I can start to give that to myself, giving me a chance to help them and also achieve what I want: calm, loving connection. The real gold is in the process of helping ourselves; finding our power through admission of what we really feel and think, instead of fighting and repressing the emotion. We can turn a so-called ‘negative emotion’ into a powerful and positive force to help us heal, grow and create the outcomes we want, instead of perpetuating the outcomes we hate. So try these questions today: if you feel ‘bad’, STOP and ask yourself “what is so bad about right now?” By admitting the truth we are set free, even if we are a bit pissed off first. I hope this helps you. If you’d like any help finding more inner freedom and empowerment please call me today. I believe we can generate unconditional love through a practice of loving connection, which helps us feel more love towards everything and everyone. How? Well just did a lovely practice with the Monday group, that I really enjoy. I call it the ‘I love you’ Meditation. It does what it says on the tin. Many meditations use visual imagery to create a loving feeling, but this one is even easier. It uses the power of repetition. Just repeat the thought “I love you” over and over, silently, on the outbreath. Here’s more detail:
"Practicing love turns you into a love unicorn"I have also found self love helps create ease in giving love to others - we exude love and it becomes easy and familiar to love. What’s your experience? Try this guided meditation now and find out. Also available on YouTube. I am changing my practice to make love the centre of everything I do. This is as part of a more trauma informed practice that I am bringing into my work, after fascination with the work of Gabor Mate, Peter Levine and Nicole Lepera. If you would like to do some coaching work and get more love in your life contact me, or come along to the Monday group sessions. With Love Neil Morbey In this short BLOG I'm sharing a slide from session 2 of my course 'Mindfulness and Emotional Resilience', where we focus on habits. I'm doing this because I am currently using this process to begin a habit of more frequent online sharing and blog writing. this is week 1 for me and I hope it inspires you to begin a new habit today.
1. STOP judging yourself with ‘shoulds and needs’ (use the STOP technique) and develop a loving attitude to your new habit I believe that self judgement is our worst enemy in the creation of a habit. If we use excessive 'shoulds and needs' then we are using fear to motivate. This is a primitive and short lived motivator that will only make the bait feel heavy and stressful. Your willpower will give way. Instead try and address those 'shoulds and needs' using a tool, like the STOP technique (which we teach on the course) and develop a positive and purposeful attitude towards your actions. As Tony Robbins says: "use inspiration not desperation!" 2. Take time to consider why first, then what, when, where. Write it down The book 'Start with Why' by Simon Sinek details how developing a clear WHY allows you to be selective of the advice you take on board. You need to make sure that WHAT and HOW you do things is consistent with your WHY. A WHY provides a filter for decision making which differentiates his quote: “Achievements comes when you pursue and attain WHAT you want. Success comes when you are clear in pursuit of WHY you want it. 3. Reduce the amount to its minimal - start with tiny steps. One habit at a time. You can increase and habit stack later I learned a lot from Seth Godin , author of 'The One Thing' who reminds me "The hardest move in Yoga is rolling out the mat'. In other words the starting energy is the difficult bit. So make it small, REALLY small. You can gradually improve and the early habit can act as a sequence starter that you can stack more habits onto. 4. Share publicly and/or with an accountability buddy / contract We have a brain that is constantly worrying about what others think of us, and is trying to be efficient with resources. Use it to your advantage - include others to check on you and include a contract to make it have consequences, if you like that My contract uses Stikk to add a financial consequence if I don't stick to the habit! 5. Place positive triggers (notifications, posters, images, props) at home/on phone. Remove negative ones. I find it so helpful to have my trainers out ready if I'm intending on going for a run and I also like to record a positive association reminder on my phone and/or YouTube (and recite it daily ) to keep my intention in mind. I have removed distractions from my phone and environment and I continue to do this as an ongoing process. For me my calendar provides the most useful prompts. 6. At the end of the day review how your commitment went well Make the pattern pleasurable and purposeful by adding rewards and self celebration. I find the end of the day a great time to do this as it puts my mind into a positive place before bed time. We humans are great at denying our achievements. Stop it! Celebrate yourself! 7. If you don’t manage it one day activate your inner curious compassion. Journal about what stopped you, how you feel and what you imagine. Begin this list again... We are imperfect - you will fail. That is good. It shows you are trying and discovering the blocks. This is a time to really become fascinated with the blocks and use the techniques I teach to help you. These seven steps are an iterative process - I repeat them to refine my habits. Can I help you to start a new habit? I currently have a group beginning a habit of meditation and journaling. I can work with you one-to-one or in a group (new ones coming soon). Please get in touch to find out more. The real reason I posted this is because the three videos at the bottom blew my socks off. If you want just skip to them - they are worth it! I recently began a formal qualification in Counselling and I'm loving it. I've been a trained coach and mindfulness practitioner for years, but often I found the biggest shifts occur in people when they were given space to express repressed emotions and all I had to do was counsel them. In this short blog I'll write about the main skills and styles in counselling.
Self Reflection and Personal Development We all have blind spots and as 'helpers' we must work on becoming aware of our own, so that we are capable of holing the counselling space and not accidently end up being counselled by the client. Blind spots could be a belief that some character trait is bad, or a leaning towards certain relationship styles, or a slight prejudice against a certain type of person. Self reflection helps us see and understand ourselves. Integration of blind spots Our job then is to 'integrate them' so that we are less likely to fall into automatic reaction. Integration is the process of maturity, where we discover parts of ourselves that we repress or abandon and bring them into our awareness and make them more cooperative towards our values and goals (This is my definition. There are many others). An example for myself is I know my mind is critical of 'weakness' (because of my past conditioning) and I integrate that by priming useful reminders for myself and I use mindfulness to see a person as they are, not how I think they should be. In a session now, if I notice my critical mind I will thank it and take a breath, remind it that it's OK, and bring my full attention back to the present moment. This could happen within a single second. Styles of CounsellingEveryone has their own style, based on their own understanding of how the psyche actually works. Here is some basic history of the main influences. The three videos below are incredibly useful in showing three main styles used today. We begin though with two big pioneers from the early 1900's:
The three big modern styles - check out the videos! These practitioners from 1960-1990 are shown in striking contrast on the videos above.
My counselling and coaching offer
I work with all these modes in my work, alongside more goal oriented coaching. This blog talks about the difference . If you feel drawn to a particular type of therapy contact me and let's work together. We can all use a little help to discover our repressed patterns of thought and behaviour and integrate them to become more empowered and fulfilled people. TLDR: The main insights of this blog
MY RECENT EXPERIENCES I wrote this blog as a reflection of three distinct experiences recently:
WE EVOLVED TO MOVE, BUT NOW WE INHIBIT What these showed me is that I often want to pause and notice my emotion and sometimes 'move with' with it' to get clarity. I realised that us humans are basically monkeys with more brains. Like any animal, or monkey, we live on fear and libido - survive and reproduce. We train our instinctive reactions through past experience. Painful past experience is our main trainer. Modern humans have these issues :
INTUITION AND INSTINCT - SOURCES OF POWER When you think about it our bodies have more than one brain and more than one mode. We have:
THE LANGUAGE OF THE BODY - FEELINGS AND URGES - DON'T LET THEM DRIVE THE BUS Imagine the conscious you is like a driver of a school bus, except the bus is full of child monkeys! When things are in balance we are 'happy' and the bus is on track passengers remain quiet. When the passengers sense a potential threat or desire they make noise at the driver (via emotions). They are trying steer you towards desired outcomes and sexual partners and away from pain. The more fearful emotional feelings and urges could be:
REACTIVE URGES When passengers feel more threatened they react quickly, to avoid danger, trying to take control of the bus for a moment. It might not be an actual danger though. It's likely that the current event reminds your nervous system of a past painful experience and the instincts automatically activate a reaction mechanism to avoid the pain. This could be something along the lines of:
Be a SANE driver So the driver needs to maintain control, to listen and acknowledge, but not to buy into the emotional reaction. It may be necessary to allow a physical response to channel the instinctive urges before the can calm the bus down. One method is a strategy I teach, called 'SANE':
PLAY: ENCOURAGE YOURSELF TO MOVE & EXPRESS The best bus drivers will have a healthy relationship with the passengers and will be interested in their feelings and needs. This driver will occasionally realise that monkeys need movement, reassurance and PLAY! Here are some examples of playful expressing activities I do regularly, to meet the need of my inner child/monkey like passengers:
IF STUCK, USE A TOOL If you are really stuck and can’t access your playfulness, then here is a practice of recognising the interpretation that is setting off the instinctive reactions and playing with the words. I do this with myself and my clients for about five minutes. It is inspired by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT):
MOVING ON AND THINKING MORE CLEARLY The aim is not to stay stuck in the feeling, but to allow the feeling to be expressed and then move into clear thinking, so you can see viable options move forward and feel the motivation to act. This works so much better when you connect and move first. If you would like help with this coach people specifically to think, feel and express themselves and I teach SANE strategies in my latest Mindful Relating course. Register now if you’d like to learn how to tune into your intuition and channel its power to be helpful instead of inhibited. Or do some private coaching with me.
“I’m a mindfulness coach, I’m not supposed to feel miserable! Why the hell am I so low?” These were the words uttered by my brain this morning, as I woke up and laid there, thinking. That was rubbish so I avoided the thought with a solid 45 minutes of phone time, until… Clap! (this is actually a tool I teach!)
“I’m better than this shit!” I got up and made my bed and decided to go outside. I remembered some of my sources of inspiration that cheer me up:
Break the lockdown - give myself permission to EXPRESS MYSELF. This I remembered is the main reason I feel crap sometimes. I am creating my own personal lockdown, because I judge myself. I compare myself to some imagined standard of how I should be. It’s not safe to be myself, to express myself - my brain won't allow it. Bullshit! It's not true that it's not safe. If the STOP technique (another tool I teach in collaboration with Mark Dunn) has taught me anything it is that the brain talks a lot of shit. But we can’t just tell ourselves that. The self judgement keeps us locked in to a spiral of shitty habits. So what can we do? Give yourself permission - allow! Think about it. If judgement, resistance and comparison is at the root of our suffering and the perpetuation of our stuckness then stop fighting it and allow it - just for 10 minutes even! You can then short circuit your lockdown blues. For example:
I’ve found emotions don’t last long if I give them permission to be here. If I EXPRESS THEM without harming anyone else. Personally I like to play with them, play the fool. This is a result of my clowning and fooling work with people like Holly Stoppit and Jamie Catto, but also my intuition. When we play we are giving ourselves permission to live life as ourselves, without the 'personal lockdown'. So if you want to break the personal lockdown blues can you play with them? How can you express your blues today? (or whatever else you have inside) If you want some help with this let me know. I'm offering some reduced price sessions for people in the lockdown struggling with money - check out my Coaching page or email me: neil@positively-mindful.com for a callback chat A behavioral brain trick called “dopamine fasting” has been around for a while now - the idea of restricting most of your pleasurable daily activities — from social media, to watching videos, gaming, or even eating — you can “reset” your brain. The idea also plays into people’s simplistic ideas about how the brain works. But does it work? TLDR: No, not in my opinion. It is still focused on using willpower to overcome primal drives, using a high stress method of deprivation, rooted in the false notion that dopamine imbalances cause bad habits and addictions. They don't, cultural and mental persecution does. Dopamine rises are the result of MAD habits, caused by trauma and disconnection with positive things. Instead let’s change all that. Let's take self-judgement, comparison and expectation out of the equation so that there is less stress (the very thing that drives the craving for relief) and more inspiration. This blog is inspired by session 2 of my course: Mindfulness and Emotional Resilience. Here is a summary of some of that session: Are habits biological or psychological or environmental?Our reward systems - the old view of addiction Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that signals anticipation of pleasure. Ir helps you be motivated to get things done and to move. Dopamine pushes you to crave more stimulus. This is a natural drive and nothing is wrong with it. Modern life offers a lot of stimulation of dopamine. Feeling over-stimulated is often a sign of doing too much and getting a high dopamine hit. This can inhibit present moment focus and stop you from enjoying simple things. The balance of dopamine and it's antidote, serotonin, plays a part in our understanding of addiction and I wrote about that here - but does this isn't the root cause, as we once thought. It's not in the genes, it's in our society and in your own mind! For years we've been labouring under the assumption that addicts are that way due to an imbalance of dopamine and serotonin, and so we've relied on drugs to balance these levels. This can help in the short term, but not long term. That's because dopamine is the result of a lack of positive connection. If a person is brought up in a negative environment, or doesn't have meaningful work, sustainable income or worse, has a criminal record, then they will feel the pressure of life as stress in the body and negative thinking in the mind. This inner and outer persecucion is the very thing that humans need relief from as shown in these insightful videos:
How you think about it matters We all have 'monkey minds' that tend to think negatively. We often beat ourselves up about our habits. We have high expectations of ourselves and others, so we talk about our habits as 'bad'. This drives the habits - it adds stress, which makes the cravings for relief stronger and make it more likely you'll relapse into the old habit, eventually. A ‘dopamine detox’ is a way of thinking that uses a serious amount of willpower an ‘deprivation stress' to remove all pleasure. Willpower can get used up. The internal slave driver will sap your energy and make things less enjoyable. How long will it be until you need to escape and find some instant pleasure from the old habit again? What you are really running from is the negativity of the mind, felt as stress in your body. Your body needs some relief. A holiday perhaps? Willpower!Reframe your habit change, positively - as a holiday! If you can use the mind in a cooperative, instead of punishing way then you'll be happier AND get more done. Positive, empowered thinking will not add stress, it will add enjoyment! I have a few suggestions to help you here:
Here's some ideas... ![]() MAD habit holiday One experiment you can try is a holiday. Pick one thing that you notice is a old, unhelpful habit and decide to take a short holiday from it. Write it down and look forward to planning a trip away from it. Remember - it's a treat. Time off to enjoy yourself. You might consider something you'd actually like to do instead. Write that down too. A holiday can be an hour, a day, a week, or even a whole month of liberation from something stressful and unhelpful, You lucky devil! here are some more tools to help you... Dopamine Doggie Reframe
Clap yourself out of it!
Travel Companion: Accountability BuddyFind someone enthusiastic, to go on holiday with
I like to tell everyone I’m on holiday and celebrate it daily. I can do it so much better if I holiday with another person. We can call this an ‘accountability buddy’. We encourage and celebrate daily. If we get an urge? Tell them. Call each other ‘lucky swine!’ for the fact they have painful cravings. Ha! That’s because the pain is a good sign - a sign of growth and opportunities for more growth if framed correctly. Bon Voyage! Ps. After your holiday you can choose, naturally, without any ‘shoulds’ or willpower, how to re balance your habits. I will probably still look at visual stimulus sometimes! ;) Want to experience this course or 1:1 coaching - contact me now. This blog is my perspective on why we repeat patterns, get attracted to people who trigger us, and why nothing is wrong - this is all good stuff, if we choose to play with it. Reactions Rule We are emotional creatures (more than logical). Most of our 'reactions' are caused by hidden emotional wounds, obscured by defense mechanisms . Until we can see them and trace them to their origin we will react cluelessly to them. People in therapy are going through a process of recognising, accepting and working with these internal wounds and reactions. Michael Singer calls these wounds, the inner thorns. I tend to agree. The clues that you are reacting to an inner wound are 'disturbance':
I have found the best way I can change my patterns is to prepare to remember. If I do some prep work then I can spot the wounded reactions and more easily interrupt them. Prep involves facing our fears. What is the underlying need or fear? Fear and need are two sides of the same coin. So working together and switching between fear and need the two questions you could ask repeatedly are:
Here's an interview between a Client (C) and Questioner (Q): C: "I need to get this job and I'm feeling anxious all the time" Q: 'What is the need beneath that?' C: "I need money and a career that I like!" Q: 'What is the need beneath that?' C: "I guess security. And maybe satisfaction?... No... Purpose!" Q: 'What is the need beneath that?' C: "I don't know!" Q: 'Then what is the fear of might happen?' C: "What if I don't get it? I'll be penniless, broke... my girlfriend might leave me." Q: 'Then what is the fear of might happen?' C: "It'd be awful. I'd feel like such a loser - alone and lost" Q: 'Then what is the fear of might happen?' C: "I don't know... I guess I could become depressed, go mad and lose the will to live!" Q: 'What is the need beneath that?' C: "I guess I'm needing connection and the knowledge that I'm OK" Q: 'So what you're really needing is a sense of connection and acceptance" C: "Yes. I want a job for those reasons. I guess it's not really about the job after all..." Deep Diving Reveals Insights If we keep diving into this 'fear and need' we will get closer to the wounding within. However the nervous system does not always think in verbal language or even in images. Some stuff is pre-verbal and not remembered, so much be explored through the emotional system itself. You have to 'feel to heal'. The Role of Mindfulness
Meditation and mindfulness invite us to see beyond our thoughts and stories, our words and imaginations, to look into the void within, to feel the sensations and emotions of the body and to hold them in loving awareness, so that we may find and heal wounds and change patterns of behaviour. To cultivate loving responses rather than fearful reactions. The Nervous System Wants a Disconfirming Experience Until we do realise our reactions we will continue to unconsciously create that which we fear the most. I believe this is our nervous system's way of recreating the original wound, as a way of finding a healing experience, or a 'disconfirming' experience. For example: A client of mine was afraid of getting close to men, because of a difficult early experience in her life. When she experienced a man who she wanted to be close to, and she engaged with him with openness and some coaching, they found a surprise. With open communication and boundary skills the man was loving, kind and safe. This 'disconfirming experience' helped her to relax and enjoy his company. She was drawn to men like this and, unlike in her youth, the person was not mean. It meant she could relax, knowing 'it isn't always true' that men are nasty. That meant she could let herself get closer to men. She could do this in a safe, balanced way. Gradual Exposure Reduces Fear The original difficult experience, and many others, confirmed the fear was legitimate. The only way to change that is to expose ourselves, vulnerably, to something similar, and have a different outcome - one that changes the way the mind and body perceive the reality. To see that positive outcomes are possible and then we can relax and stop reacting through fear. Be Process Oriented Life is a process. We can be a slave to it or we can be an active participant and use the process to help us heal, grow and learn. Coaching, therapy and training mindfulness is simply a way of getting into that process more consciously, so we can move it forward. It will be painful, it will be difficult (at times) but nothing is wrong. This is OK. This is exactly where you need to be. Create Safer Exposure For Yourself, Now. If you'd like to begin this process, in a safe fun way, come and chat with me and do an introduction Coaching session or a course with one of my Groups or In your Workplace. You can contact me below. It's 7:00 am and as I wake up I habitually reach for my phone. Do you do the same? I notice. I stop. I take a breath and make a decision - not today. Today I will connect with what is important, what is real and I'll take my sweet time about it. I'll leave the smartphone off for a bit. I have realised for myself (and for many of my clients), that the overstimulation from smartphones, TV, advertising, fast-paced movies and click bait is one of the key reasons that we struggle to focus. Rather than go into the science (which you can find here or a video) I'd like to offer you some experiential learning. It'll take 5 minutes. (Here is my short video to guide you) Go sit in stillness for 3 minutes. Tune into your bodily sensations as you take five deep in-breaths, through the nose, into a soft belly, letting out five long and smooth out breaths through an open mouth, allowing a sound (like the ocean). Close your eyes. Notice how it all feels. Yes your mind will be buzzing still, and that's ok. Keep breathing and refocusing on sensations, relaxing your face and smiling a little, if you like. Count your breath for the remainder of the time as you feel the body. 1 (in), 2 (out)... Restart after 10 counts. (5 breaths total). Relaxation Response - Tuning in. This is what I call 'Relaxation Response'. It settles your nervous system and helps you connect to what is real. Notice how it is at least 10% more peaceful and you even feel more alive? Well, now let's mess that up... Next, pick up the smartphone Load up YouTube, or FaceBook or Instagram etc. Stare at it as you monitor you breathing, sensations and feelings in your face. Notice how your eyes dart around and thoughts in your mind get faster and faster. Close your eyes. Notice the difference. Stay with it and notice the urges inside, the craving for more stimulation. It is like fuel for the fire. Dompanie has been activated. The mind has received tiny rewards and it naturally craves more. Restart, for one minute. Now try the 'Relaxation Response' one more time. Just a minute this time. Notice the difference. The more you practice the less time it takes to reset and reconnect. Try it yourself
This experiment has shown me just how I feed my own addiction and destroy my own ability to focus. The constant craving for immediate stimulation detracts from my ability to deep focus on creative endeavours. Time to focus So now I put on some repetitive music, set a timer and get to work. I love the feeling of deep focus, when I feel the difference. I hope you do to. If you'd like to practice or learn techniques like this please come onto the course I'm running soon: "Mindfulness and Emotions" beginning on October 1st. Book Here. Every morning I forget. I wake up brand new and forget that I'm OK, that life is beautiful, as it is, that this is a gift and life owes me nothing. So everyday I have to remind myself. Like someone with a memory condition I proactively build into my daily habits practices that reconnect me to the deep, felt knowing and wisdom. This blog will show you my routine and inspire you to make your own. I want to act with wisdom, to build a strength of character that focuses my energy and attention on what is truly important, and not get caught up in the petty dramas and confusions of my mind. ROUTINE OR CHECKLIST The way that I have found to do this is to have a morning routine, or at least a checklist that has within it some of the key components to help me step back from petty thoughts and to infuse my whole body with my deeply considered values before I launch into the action of the day. These components are:
NOT TOO RIGID Within this I have found that I cannot always do all of them, or dedicate the time I would like to each, or do it in the order I want. That's OK. The main thing is that I begin. I pick one to do and then check them off, often setting a deadline for completion so that I do not over indulge. I will often use a timer to help guide me, allowing a maximum of 20 minutes per section. WHAT OTHER THINK DOESN'T MATTER I have been mocked and criticised by others who think I am wasting my time. I have had my own doubts too. Sometimes I can use this routine to avoid work, or some other issue. But I know that I would avoid it anyway - we all have avoidance strategies. I have found the two most important elements in this routine are the journalling and the movement outside. These two can really help me step back from the petty mind thoughts and reconnect with my deeper desires. The thing that really helps me with those...
MUSIC! If you want to start a morning routine I highly recommend preparing a playlist, or some sounds that help keep you focused as you do it. I love the sounds of chanting as I meditate and journal. I love upbeat songs as I go into nature. AVOIDANCE BLOCKS (SMARTPHONE!) And finally, the thing I do most often that stops me is... I over-think and then go onto my smartphone for relief. What this does is actually increase my thoughts, whilst numbing my body. I have to remind myself of this again and again. I prepare all sorts of things to help me, but overall, the STOP technique really drives this home the most. If you want to read about that click here. If you'd like help setting up a morning routine, or finding a more healthy balance in your life and cultivating the ability to step back from petty thoughts get in touch now. "Neil really helped me overcome negative thinking and get on with my day! Love it, Thank you Neil." - Shane If you’re anything like me, you have worries. You worry about your health, your finances, about the way the world is and, of course, about how much you worry! I've managed to find a way to reduce my worries, using a tool we call: The STOP technique. This blog will tell you all about it and help you to try and relax your anxieties. THE LOGIC BEHIND THE STOP TECHNIQUE This version is an excerpt of the full STOP technique that we teach in our 6 week course. Both Mark and I have adapted it over the years, experimenting with the best wording. Regardless of the prompts, there are four main stages or 'principles' that we are trying to cultivate in our relationship with life:
![]() HOW WE FORMED COPING STRATEGIES We all have a worldview of belief systems from our past experiences, culture and education. Deep within these are lots of unconscious expectations about how ‘I’ should be and how ‘others’ should be. These result in patterns of behaviour that are designed to help us fit in and survive. We call these ‘coping strategies’. Some coping strategies work well in the modern world. Others create larger problems than the ones they were originally intended to solve. This is because they are leftover from a different phase in life, from a different context, where survival meant using tactics of aggression, avoidance, anesthesia or appeasing others (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease). I call these ‘problematic coping strategies’. MY PROBLEMATIC COPING STRATEGIES In my case I experienced plenty of bullying at school, from both boys and girls, which led me to believe:
THE SUBTLE USE OF THE TOOL What you don’t see in my written text is the mindfulness work behind the tool. At each stage I’m stopping to check out how it feels in my body. I’m finding the root of any resistance. If something doesn’t seem right I ask, why? This will get me to the ‘root belief’ and reveal unknown shoulds, which I can work on instead. We teach a more in-depth version of this tool in our 6 week course at Bristol City Yoga, and I teach my own course online, (starting 14 May) which you can read about here. I also made a video of the STOP technique here. IT TAKES TIME AND PRACTICE When I first used this tool it was clunky and slow and I got too obsessed with the words, but after some practice I internalised the desire for learning and for inner peace, and prioritized those traits over the need to be right, or impressive, or afraid. I now live life as an adventure, full of curiosity, and with a very simple awareness: It is not situations that cause us problems, it is our internalised beliefs. If we explore our beliefs we come to realise that all problems are opportunities for growth... If we are willing to dig into them. If you’d like to let go of anxiety and find more peace, focus and clarity then consider coming to one of my *pay what you feel* online classes. I have a different theme each day. Each Tuesday I use the STOP technique in a group, to help people process stuck thoughts and instead: TAKE THE TIME TO FREE THE MIND. Want to come? Click here to register for free. YOU STILL HERE? Ok, so if you want to read more... ...OK!... WORRYING IS USEFUL The truth is worries normal and natural. Worries demonstrate care and they draw your attention to potential dangers. Worries, like all emotions, can be positive and useful, if we let ourselves ‘feel them’ and choose to interpret them positively. They can then give us the awareness and energy we need to make effective and peaceful action. NEGATIVE THINKING However, we often interpret emotions, like worries, very negatively. We deeply believe the thought: ‘something should be different!’ We miss the truth, that the very thought itself creates an internal conflict, expends our energy and misses the learning potential. Thinking negatively about emotions themselves often ends up creating the very thing we were worrying about. I battled with this for many years. I WAS A CHRONIC WORRIER MY EVOLVING STORY WITH THE STOP TECHNIQUE My turning point happened when I first started a meditation practice. My verst meditation showed me strong emotions hiding in my body, and belief systems in my mind that I wasn’t even aware of. I met Mark Dunn, of Positive Meditation, who crafted a tool that he called ‘The STOP technique’. Working alongside body awareness this tool used the strong emotions and situations in life to highlight what I was believing, and then showed me how to change it. I studied with Positive Meditation for two years, working through my inner pain, and then worked with Mark for the last five years, honing the STOP technique for myself and my clients. FINDING THE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LOOPS My work was mainly about spending time listening to the body and catching the ‘shoulds’ of the mind. These hidden expectations led to the ‘gold’ of learning about myself and changing my responses. So I began to ‘celebrate the catches’. For example, I often catch the belief “I shouldn’t worry so much!” When I get curious I see that this ‘should’ creates a reaction of ‘more anxiety’ and a mild addiction to social media, which I use to distract myself from the anxious feelings in my body. The belief that I shouldn’t worry makes everything much worse! But how the hell do we change an ingrained belief? I STOPPED FIGHTING Rather than trying to avoid or get rid of my anxiety, I learned to acknowledge and accept it as a feeling, whilst questioning the background thinking. This helps me to discover what my mind and body want and need. Over time old beliefs and reactions become weaker and new responses become stronger. This is called neuroplasticity. We can train the mind to change the brain and nervous system! Thing is, it’s a lifelong pursuit, because like any part of the body, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Old programming can and will resurface. So now I use the STOP technique and meditation daily, to stop any internal fighting with my mind. HOW IT CHANGED MY LIFE
I’ve found that I catch things much earlier now. I often perceive a challenging moment in life as a kind of playful test, and difficult people as ‘my mindfulness gurus’ (Thanks to Jamie Catto for that insight!). Inspector Clueso (pictured below) hired 'Kato' to jump out at him. This was to train his reflexes to be sharp and ready, 'at all times'. When I practice the STOP technique I am able to be more ready to notice and respond to my own mind and emotions with this mentality. I learn something each time. I grow my calmness and clarity of mind. I use the STOP technique verbally, in quick questions to myself, and in journalling. I can now reduce my worry much easier. |
AuthorsNeil Morbey is a meditation teacher, group facilitator and inspiration guide for Positively-Mindful.com NewsletterSignup to be notified of new blogs, courses and workshops. Thank you!You have successfully joined our subscriber list. Blog Index
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