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Blog! Seize the day, then let it go 

BLOG INDEX

Reschooling and Reparenting - Heal and Train Yourself (Like a Kitten)

26/10/2021

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How many of us get a prescription from the doctor, coach or physiotherapist but don’t complete it and see it through?

How many of us spend too long punishing ourselves for mistakes and spend so much of our lives trying to live up to others' expectations?
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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...
Trauma
We are fragile and vulnerable and imperfect. It’s not that easy to care for beings that break, fail, make mistakes. It’s annoying and frustrating to take care of an object that has those traits. As children we were at our most fragile and our caregivers were imperfect, so we developed some incredible beliefs and coping mechanisms to survive and receive the care we absolutely needed then. The problem is that some of these beliefs and reactionary coping mechanisms are with us as adults. We learned to judge, shame and even hate ourselves to fit in and receive love from our caregivers. 
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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.
​Reschooling and Reparenting 
Once we have glimpsed our traumas and reactions that is the beginning of a reschooling and reparenting project that will last you the rest of your life. We need to figure out how we would want another to be treated - not just ‘nice’ - that wouldn’t cut it- you also need to take deep consideration from ‘the four pillars of parenting’:
  1. Unconditional Love & Forgiveness: We all make mistakes and we need to know we are loved regardless. 
  2. Boundaries & discipline: We need structure and consequences to help us achieve 
  3. Nurture and Care: We need help when we are weak and we need to have habits and networks of care ready for those moments. 
  4. ​Purpose & Joy: We need to have fun whilst being connected to a deep sense of purpose and meaning
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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: 

Things we can do
We can do many things to help our inner vulnerable parts:
  • Meditation, Breathwork and Grounding: Learning simple ways to calm the nervous system
  • Mindful Massage and Movement: Refresh and relax the body
  • Somatic Experiencing and Pendulation: Using awareness of the body to discover and heal trauma
  • Counselling with Voice Dialogue Parts Work: Giving space to the inner parts to grieve, express, be seen, heard and understood helps us create inner peace and integration of our shadow

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. In sessions we learn to bring in new ways of thinking and relating to ourselves that create more compassion, self-care, discipline and of course the vital energy that comes with joy and play. These habits can enrich our habits of productivity, so we can be functional AND feel good. 
One more thing...
It takes a village to raise a child.  Who is in your village? Who are your warriors, your wise elders, your traders and skilled workers?  Who can you call on for a chat?

If you need help on this journey please get in touch and we can begin to change the way you are schooled and parented. It's never too late to begin again! 
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Compare and Despair? Remember Now is Wow!

12/10/2021

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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:
  • He's so successful - I should have worked harder and smarter - I'm a failure!
  • He's got an amazing house - I need a house! I should have bought one ten years ago - I'm so stupid!
  • She's on holiday - Why didn't I sort a holiday - I'm so indecisive!
  • He's so fit and I'm weak and pathetic!
  • They're so happy  - I'm so anxious and scattered - I'm a broken mess!

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?
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Social Media Fuels Comparison
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:
  • To hear what they have to say and understand them. Once they feel heard and understood they can quiet down a little. We can also recognise how they manifest in the body (feelings/urges/pains etc) and that helps us recognise them sooner, in the future, and take helpful action.
  • To appreciate them - they each have a purpose. We can ask ourselves what that purpose it and it helps us to welcome these parts and redirect their strategies to better serve the purpose. 
  • To befriend and work with them - Once we know them, understand and appreciate them we can even find joy and usefulness in them. We accept these parts of ourselves into our lives and thus we can work with them more effectively. Our default in life is to resist and repress our parts and this often creates the problems of a negative mind and stressed nervous system. 

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. 
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Me doing inner critic mirror work - look how grumpy he is!
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Teaching a group - Now is wow - just done a meditation and feeling connected
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Make time for play - this is me enjoying the wow this weekend at Cheddar
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Using Self Awareness to Overcome Negative Emotions and Heal Your Trauma Patterns

5/10/2021

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As we go through our day, we sometimes find ourselves experiencing what are referred to as ‘negative emotions’, such as some of the following:
  • Boredom
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Worry
  • Terror
  • Loneliness
  • Sadness
  • Frustration
  • Anger
  • …
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In reality, however, these ‘negative’ emotions can be helpful. The negativity comes when we try to fight them via:
  • Repression: ignore them, push them away and pretend we don’t feel them
  • Distraction: use external things to override the feelings, such as food or screens 
  • Reaction:  quickly acting out, without awareness of our feelings - to blame, force or change something external, assuming the emotion is based on a real, present moment threat. 

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...
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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:
  • What is so bad about right now? e.g. I’m really frustrated at my partner’s anxiety
  • What triggered me, specifically? e.g. She said “I can’t do it”
  • What ‘Story’ am I telling myself? e.g. She should calm down and sort herself out!

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. ​​
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    Authors

    Neil Morbey is a meditation teacher, group facilitator and inspiration guide for Positively-Mindful.com

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    Blog Index
    1. Why I’m done with the 'cult of self improvement' and Goenka's rigid Vipassana
    2. EMDR and AIP models for trauma therapy
    3. ​Mistakes are opportunities to learn, grow and connect
    4. ​Broken Leg, Broken Bank? Here’s How to Keep Your Finances Healthy When You’re Not
    5. ​It's Time To Stop Being Ashamed Of Our Mental Health
    6. Mind - Body Health Benefits: How mindfulness connects it al
    7. My hypothesis of why I have ADHD and how I am improving it
    8. Practical Steps for Finding Peace After Loss
    9. FOMO to JOMO: The Joy of Now 10/09/2024
    10. Mentoring-teaching-what-to-think-as-well-as-how-to-think 15/8/24
    11. Putting Intersectionality into daily practice  27/05/24
    12. Self-Care is not a job, it's awesome, fun and wonderful!  10/04/202
    13. How Active Rest Refreshes Us 05/04/2024
    14. Voicing Vulnerability awaken-the-adult-state  05/03/2024
    15. How To Do A Daily Check-In And Intention Setting 27/11/23
    16. Fuel inspiration by pondering the beginning of all life 23/7/23
    17. The Gentle Village - A place to talk about relationships ​3/3/23
    18. Imagine if... you loved healthy habits ​24/12/22
    19. Philosophy is BS 7/11/22
    20. 3 Powerful Journalling Tools To Process Troubling Thoughts 27/9/22
    21. SAFER communication to help in emotional conversations 2/9/22
    22. Re-Schooling Ourselves: Refreshing Our Narratives 25/8/22
    23. Grounding: Stabilize your Wobbles 22/7/22
    24. How to appreciate your struggle 10/3/2022
    25. Allowing Ourselves To Rest 2/2/2022
    26. Committing To Your Deep Truth: Your Mission 19/1/2022
    27. The Attention Wars - Know Your Enemies! 24/11/2021
    28. Practices To Improve Polyvagal Tone 12/11/2021
    29. Being good enough - letting go of 'exceptional'. 8/11/2021
    30. Reschooling and Reparenting - Heal and Train Yourself (Like a Kitten) 26/10/2021
    31. Compare and Despair? Remember Now is Wow! 12/10/2021
    32. Using Self Awareness to Overcome Negative Emotions and Heal Your Trauma Patterns 5/10/2021
    33. How to find true love using meditation 28/9/2021
    34. 7 Steps To Establish a New Habit 20/9/2021
    35. Understanding the Main Styles of Counseling 21/5/2021
    36. When to listen to your gut: The power of intuition and instinct 1/3/2021
    37. Breaking the Lockdown Blues 4/2/2021
    38. Trying to Change a Habit? Forget Dopamine Fasting, Take a Holiday! 20/11/2020
    39. How To Liberate Yourself From Wounded Patterns 3/11/2020
    40. Overstimulation - The reason you struggle to focus 16/9/2020
    41. Reminding myself everyday: The MORNING routine 12/9/2020
    42. How to STOP reacting to anxiety 11/5/2020
    43. Creating a Meditation Space for Your Home - Top Ten Tips 5/3/2020
    44. Top 5 things the children loved about Mindfulness classes 9/12/2019
    45. What I learned from my week of being perfectly imperfect, ME 27/11/2019
    46. 5 things I learned from a retreat for fools 5/11/2019
    47. How To Meditate - An Example Practice (Body Scan) 25/9/2019
    48. How mindfulness can help you to enjoy the journey. 31/7/2019
    49. Has Mindfulness sold out and become McMindfulness? 24/6/2019
    50. How Nature Can Enrich Your Mindfulness Practice 19/6/2019
    51. Radical Coaching: Shadowing 25/4/2019
    52. Timed Talk & Listen - a tool to practice in relationship. 22/3/2019
    53. 5 Things SOME People Regret On Their Deathbed 6/3/2019
    54. Mindfulness at work: more ways to create balance, focus and clarity. 25/1/2019
    55. Everything you need to know about meditation posture and structure. 19/12/2018
    56. Mindfulness Coaching - is it for you? 23/10/2018
    57. Happiness: How Do We Find The Balance? 19/9/2018
    58. The Work of Ghostbusting: Meet the mind with kind inquiry 25/1/2018
    59. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    60. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    61. Removing Drama Is As Easy As A-B-C! (Part 2 - Spot the signals, name the role.)  24/10/2017
    62. Using Mindfulness to Sleep Better 7/9/2017
    63. 3 Ways you can help your workplace become more mindful. 16/8/2017
    64. Top 5 things the children loved about Mindfulness classes 9/12/2019
    65. What I learned from my week of being perfectly imperfect, ME 27/11/2019
    66. 5 things I learned from a retreat for fools 5/11/2019
    67. How To Meditate - An Example Practice (Body Scan) 25/9/2019
    68. How mindfulness can help you to enjoy the journey. 31/7/2019
    69. Has Mindfulness sold out and become McMindfulness? 24/6/2019
    70. How Nature Can Enrich Your Mindfulness Practice 19/6/2019
    71. Radical Coaching: Shadowing 25/4/2019
    72. Timed Talk & Listen - a tool to practice in relationship. 22/3/2019
    73. 5 Things SOME People Regret On Their Deathbed 6/3/2019
    74. Mindfulness at work: more ways to create balance, focus and clarity. 25/1/2019
    75. Everything you need to know about meditation posture and structure. 19/12/2018
    76. Mindfulness Coaching - is it for you? 23/10/2018
    77. Happiness: How Do We Find The Balance? 19/9/2018
    78. The Work of Ghostbusting: Meet the mind with kind inquiry 25/1/2018
    79. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    80. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    81. Removing Drama Is As Easy As A-B-C! (Part 2 - Spot the signals, name the role.)  24/10/2017
    82. Using Mindfulness to Sleep Better 7/9/2017
    83. 3 Ways you can help your workplace become more mindful. 16/8/2017
    84. How to overcome psychological abuse, mindfully 21/7/2017
    85. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish 23/6/2017
    86. 3 Steps to returning to your nature 10/6/2017
    87. The words you speak become the house you live in 29/5/2017
    88. Low Energy? Listen to your needs. 12/5/2017
    89. How to stay inspired (not impotent by importance). 29/4/2017
    90. What is Spirituality? (And how does it relate to thinking?) 14/4/2017
    91. Breath Works: practices to program BOLD focus. 23/3/2017
    92. Procrastination part 3: TURNING THE SHIP AROUND 10/2/2017
    93. Loosen your TIES to suffering 20/1/2017
    94. Understanding Procrastination Part 2: Just do it now. 15/12/2016
    95. What happens in a 1 hour mindfulness class? 23/11/2016
    96. Transforming Hatred with Kindness - Storytime! 1/11/2016
    97. When Feedback hurts - Own your Shit - Take a SEAT 4/10/2016
    98. No pain, no gain? 22/7/2016
    99. Life is like an echo... echooo... echooooo.... 8/6/2016
    100. Etymology and Mindfulness of Language 13/5/2016
    101. An Awesome or Choresome Life? 24/4/2016
    102. Mindfulness for Young People? 8/4/2016
    103. Explore the depths of your ocean. 29/3/2016
    104. Let Go and Be - escape the Drama triangle! 22/3/2016
    105. THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDBACK 2/3/2016
    106. Don't Mindfill 22/2/2016
    107. Love is messy, scary, risky... Love and need? 9/2/2016
    108. Awareness of the road! 30/1/2016
    109. Dealing with the emotional drop 12/1/2016
    110. Tools for patience in meditation and in life. 6/1/2016
    111. Useful language and tools for creating healthy discussion 12/12/2015
    112. Craving the crux: 10 lessons learned from my rock climbing addiction 9/12/2015
    113. PLAYFULNESS AND PRESENCE: TEDX BELFAST 2015  30/11/2015
    114. Orestes, The Furies and The Eumenides (Kindly ones). A story of vengeance, guilt and forgiveness 5/11/2015
    115. Learning barefoot: feeling more 26/10/2015
    116. Musings on Choice and Obligation 20/10/2015
    117. What is enlightenment and what's the process of getting there? 10/9/2015
    118. What is Mindfulness and Why Practice? 3/9/2015
    119. ​​My Vipassana Retreat Experience 9/7/2015

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