Back in the days of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, it was necessary to constantly scan for danger, as we were never far from the threat of being dinner for some larger and faster beast than ourselves. This tendency to be on the lookout for what bad thing may happen to us is still alive and well in the most primitive part of our brain today. So if you ever wondered why you remember the one bad thing your boss said about you, and you see to have forgotten the ten good things he or she said, our 'negativity bias' that kept us alive for thousands of years is the answer. So how do we learn to allow the positive in as well? We can train our brains to be more aware of the good things by bringing our conscious awareness to those good things. Each night this week, write down at least 3 things that were good about your day. These things can be big or small, anything from a sweet birdsong you heard on the way to work, to a great performance review, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you consciously look for the good, not allowing the negativity bias to run the show and paint your days grey, when there's so much colour out there if you look for it. :) "What we focus on, we empower and enlarge. Good multiplies when focused upon. Negativity multiplies when focused upon. The choice is ours: Which do we want more of?" - Julia Cameron
0 Comments
The beauty of coming home to the breath is that you never have far to go. The breath is always with you, and once you learn to work with it, it can be a source of refuge from the ups and downs of life. A long deep breath signals the nervous system to calm down, that everything is ok. We all know that if we're anxious or upset, having someone tell us to calm down is likely to be of no benefit. Emotions can feel overwhelming, and the chatter of the mind deafening, leaving us feeling powerless and at their mercy. But a few minutes of long deep breathing targets the body directly, bypassing the chatter in your mind, and shifting focus away from emotional overwhelm. The trick is to stay with the breath, and when the mind pulls you away again and again, come back again and again. Watch out for thoughts such as 'this isn't working', or 'this is too intense', and return to the breath, it will guide you to safety if you can remain patient and persistent. As with any practice, making it a routine part of your life is key. See if you can commit to taking a few minutes out to belly breathe each day this week, and connect with the sense of safety and peace within. “Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh "We have 60,000 thoughts a day, and 98% of them we had yesterday" - Tara Brach Take a moment to think about this, is this true of your experience? I know it is of mine. Often I find myself watching re-runs in my mind ranging from the mundane and necessary "What will I have for dinner today?" to the detrimental "Remember that time I said (insert stupid comment) to (insert person's name)? What an idiot I looked!". What would happen if we opened up to this moment instead of watching re-runs in our minds? Sure, there's comfort in watching a re-run, you know what will happen, you know how the story ends, there are no surprises, and there is a time and a place for that. But what are we missing out on by doing this? What new possibilities would open up if we were to be present and aware in this moment? What new things could we learn about ourselves and our relationships? Our work and our lives? What new story would we get to tell? This week, set an intention to come back to your senses a few times a day and notice what's actually happening in the here and now. See if you can be curious about your inner and outer world, you never know what you might discover. :) “Always hold fast to the present. Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Thought creates feeling, and feeling creates action. Imagine this scenario: I wake up in the morning and immediately think of all I have to do today, it's a long list, and the thought comes "How will I ever get all this done?", quickly followed by "X always looks so in control, and she's busier than me, why am I such a failure, when will I ever get it together?" In response to this thought, my heart sinks, my shoulders slump, my head feels heavy. I feel tired already, so I turn over and go for a snooze. When I wake, it's late and I think "sure half the day is gone, what's the point??". This is the power of thought. Now imagine an alternate scenario: I wake up in the morning and immediately think of all I have to do today, it's a long list, and the thought comes "How will I ever get all this done?" --I immediately step in and ask myself "Where will this thinking take me?". I decide instead to remind myself that I am a person who can get things done, that even if it all isn't done by evening, that doesn't make me a bad person, and, that I am worth the effort to do the work of choosing to think and act differently. (It does take effort, especially in the beginning when all evidence points to the futility of even trying, but persist, and it will get easier. Are you worth it? "Your thoughts are a catalyst for self-perpetuating cycles. What you think directly influences how you feel and how you behave. So if you think you’re a failure, you’ll feel like a failure. Then, you’ll act like a failure, which reinforces your belief that you must be a failure." - Amy Morin If you knew that your body doesn't know the difference between a thought and reality, would it change how you think? When we worry - when we run scenarios of what can go wrong, or bad things that might happen, the body actually produces stress hormones in response to the worry thoughts, and we enter stress responses such as the fight/flight/freeze responses. If we do this often enough it can lead to inflammation in the body, and while we sit home safe on our sofas, our own thoughts are making us stressed and ill. Check in regularly with your mind, and when you find it wandering off to worry, or into fearful places, come back to the present. Ask yourself - is there actually any danger right now? In this moment, is there actually anything to worry about? - If there is, then what action can you take? If there's no action you can take right now, can you let those thoughts go? "The body cannot tell the difference between events that are actual threats to survival and events that are present in thought alone." - Joan Borysenko “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop. Something happens in the external world and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body it takes less than 90 seconds. This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away. After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking that are re-stimulating the circuitry that is resulting in you having this physiological response over and over again.” - Jill Bolte-Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Sceintist’s Personal Journey This quote reflects what Mindfulness training is all about.
As long as we are alive, as long as we love and care for people and things, there will be joy and pain. We can't avoid our emotions, and efforts to do so usually wind up causing more pain. Better to learn to form a healthier relationship with our emotions, so we can live and love fully and fearlessly. If you would like to learn more about mindfulness, and how to apply it in your life, click here. "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning In times of uncertainty, instability, and change, it's really important to ground ourselves, and connect with the inner stability we are all capable of. This short meditation is excellent for tapping into our inner stillness and strength, see if you can manage to do it every day this week. (It may take a few seconds to start after you press play, thanks for your patience!) Stay safe and well. “Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.” We've had a lot of change in the past few weeks, changes we never dreamed we would see in our lifetimes. Last week it was all a bit novel and weird, this week, I think the realities are hitting home more. You might be noticing your feelings more these days, not surprising when there are a lot of feelings to be felt at this time, and, we have more time on our hands to notice them, and fewer options to distract ourselves from them. We tend not to want to, or allow ourselves to feel our feelings, we say things to ourselves like:
This is now wallowing, it's just allowing. When we stuff down feelings, they tend to come out whether we like it or not. We might snap at a partner (there's no escaping them these days! :)), or we might snap more at ourselves, or we may start reaching for the extra cookie or glass of wine. On the other hand, we can allow the feelings some air time, name them, offer ourselves some compassion (imagine how you would reassure a frightened child), remind ourselves of the strengths we have to face the uncertainties of current life. This way we can face our fears, and remind ourselves that we have what it takes to get through this strange time. Stay safe, stay well. *apologies for the lateness of the weekly minute this week, I was finished writing it Monday and my website crashed, deleting it all. Then I had to go feel some feelings... ;)
The effects of the Covid-19 situation are being felt by all, and there's not much we can be sure of at the moment. That in itself is a challenge, we humans tend to feel uncomfortable in the face of uncertainty. It would seem that things will be this way for a while, and our best bet is to take good care of ourselves until life returns to 'normal'. Instead of fighting against what is, or getting stressed, we can learn to accept, and turn toward the difficult, and not allow an already challenging time to defeat us. This week's Weekly Minute is a meditation which teaches us to be with difficult thoughts, emotions, and sensations in an easier and more calm way. As with all mindfulness practices, it's the doing that helps, so see if you can challenge yourself to revise this meditation daily, knowing that each day, you're building your tolerance to be with the uncomfortable. The Guest House Fact: The Weather is Bad (For everyone but the ducks) Thoughts about the fact: Oh my God if I see one more day of rain I'll go crazy. I'm sick of the cold, the wet, the weekend storms, the grey. I can't go anywhere, I can't do anything, this has gone on so long I can't remember summer, no wonder I'm so porky I can't get out to do any exercise. I was supposed to have the garden prepared by now and it'll be too late by the time this stops, it'll be ruined for the year now............. Fact: Coronavirus Thoughts about the fact: Wow the queues into Tesco this morning, everyone is out buying up stuff, should I be out buying up stuff? Where would I put it, this house is so small, imagine being quarantined in here I'll climb the walls! What if we all get it, will we turn on each other for supplies? I hear they're shunning people who recovered from it in China, what if that happened to me? What would I do if all my friends and family shunned me?......... The mind can run wild (and often does) when we are faced with adversity. There's the fact of the thing, and then the thousand thoughts we have about the fact. We are programmed as humans to problem-solve, and this part of our brain kicks into action when a problem arises, this is generally a good thing. However, when we are faced with a problem we don't have much control over, many of the thoughts we have about it are pointless. We can only do what we can do (remember your umbrella in the rain, wash your hands properly to avoid Coronavirus etc.), then, we should try as much as we can to let other thoughts go. Worrying increases our vulnerability to stress, and can have an impact on the body. To be at your best so you can effectively face life's challenges, let worry go, that means, choosing to disengage from worry thoughts. "The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another" - William James |
The Weekly Minute is a blog I write each week with the aim of providing proven tools to help promote positive mental health.
The collection of short, practical mindfulness and therapy tools for self-reflection and self-improvement, can equip people to take their mental well-being into their own hands, and improve their quality of life. The Weekly Minute is posted here every Monday, or you can sign up to get it delivered to your inbox via the link below. Follow me on social media (see below) to make sure you don't miss one! Get the Weekly Minute delivered straight to your inbox, or follow it on social media!
Categories
All
Archives
March 2021
Privacy Policy
By subscribing to Claire Shannon Therapy you are agreeing to receive a weekly blog post via email. I use Mailchimp to store and manage this mailing list and your data will not be shared with any third party. You are free to unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe button which appears at the end of every blog. You may wish to review the Mailchimp privacy policy. This privacy policy will regularly be reviewed and any updates will be listed here. This privacy policy was last updated on the 21st May 2018. |