negative self-stories – Grow Mindfulness

A Journey Into Sobriety

Seana Smith in her memoir, Going Under, graphically describes her journey into sobriety – a state achieved for four years at the time of publishing her book. Her memoir tracks her early childhood, addiction to alcohol and multiple attempts to escape both physically and mentally. For each step forward, there was always a backward step until she found the solution to her addiction. Her insightful, inspiring and humorous account traces the ups and downs of a life burdened by alcohol addiction.

Early childhood

Seana had adverse childhood experiences as a result of her father being a violent alcoholic and the inability of her mother to cope with his addiction and the physical and mental abuse against her. The verbal abuse by her father extended to Seana and her siblings, especially to Callum who had a serious mental health issue. Seana’s home environment lacked consistency and warmth and was constantly unpredictable, despite some happy childhood moments with her parents individually or together.

Year of sobriety

Seana was able to achieve a year of sobriety when her twins were seven years old. The catalyst was a period of heavy drinking that resulted in her trying to pick a fight with her husband, Paul. She was mean to him but fortunately he did not react to her” sarcasm and barbs”. The twins had started school and Seana had a strong sense that her drinking was undermining “her urge to feel healthy and bright and well”. She joined AA and took up ocean swimming which gave her challenge , excitement and a modicum of fear.

Despite this outstanding sobriety effort, Seana dropped back into her old ways, moving from drinking once a week to drinking a bottle a day. Alcohol provided an escape from the mind-numbing routine of motherhood and the associated domesticity. This led her to her endless cycle of “thinking and thinking and thinking about drinking”. She described herself as “white knuckling” as she fought to regain control and overcome the very real physical and mental urge to drink…and drink to excess.

The ever-present opportunity for free drinks from social events added to her pain and temptation, and ultimately resulted in her submission to the impulse to lose control over her drinking habit. While Seana did not consider herself to be an alcoholic, she acknowledged that she engaged in “gray area” drinking, leading to morning hangovers and severe headaches impacting her ability to function fully. She often alternated between moderate drinking and risky drinking.

Trauma and addiction

Gabor Maté contends that addictions, in multiple cases, originate from the pain of adverse childhood events. The addiction, in whatever form it takes, is often an ineffective attempt to remove the trauma-induced pain. The experience of trauma evokes negative self-stories and Seana’s book is replete with continuous self-deprecation. Seana was in the grip of the “need to please” and believed that if she did not drink with others in social settings, she would not be “accepted”. She also acknowledged that in her twenties, she was addicted to sex – another form of failed attempt to escape from trauma pain.

As part of her journey to sobriety, Seana discovered that her father’s “drinking story” continued through her. It impacted her need to “keep moving and moving”. She sought help from a therapist to assist her in “letting go of old trauma”. The therapist employed EMDR therapy to great effect. Seana was able to progressively move beyond the past, focus on the present, express gratitude for the “positive gifts my family and upbringing have given me” and to remember “all the good parts of Dad and Mum” and the adventures they took her and her siblings on.

The journey to sobriety

There are many perspectives on, and paths for, recovering from trauma and its muti-dimensional impacts. The road to sobriety is complicated by trauma-induced beliefs and behaviour. Seana like many others who have achieved sobriety found that it was a very long journey with many setbacks to recovery. She also recognised that recovering from alcohol addiction required multiple pathways which served to positively reinforce each other.

She took up pool swimming that, along with the social encounters and new friends, provided her with release from the physical tension of trying to overcome her alcohol addiction. She also bought a dog, “a wee black poodle called Maisie” – which reduced her urges to escape and travel.

A key to her recovery was listening to sobriety podcasts constantly. From Janey Lee Grace’s podcast, Alcohol Free Life, Seana discovered a solution, “keep the ritual – change the ingredients”, that she was able to implement by substituting “alcohol-free wines, cocktails spirits and mixers” for alcoholic drinks whenever she had a ritual of drinking, e.g. at 5pm. She listened to multiple sobriety podcasts including Annie Grace’s podcast, This Naked Mind. Seana also devoured Annie’s book, This Naked Mind: Find Freedom, Discover Happiness and Change Your Life.

A key factor for Seana in her journey to sobriety and freedom was the use of the affirmation, “My life will be better if I never drink again”. This mindset shift refocused her belief and energy because she had always valued health, fitness and happiness but had pursued these goals in the wrong areas such as social drinking.

Reflection

Going Under is a courageous memoir recording a history of childhood trauma and the constant physical and mental battle to overcome alcohol addiction. It makes you realise what is happening “on the inside” when someone is struggling with such addiction. Seana approaches her story with incredible insight and resilience. Her humour adds character to her insightful tale.

As I read her book, I found that some parts triggered the memory of my father who was an aggressive alcoholic, physically abusing my mother and creating fear for myself and my siblings. Seana’s book helped me to appreciate his internal struggle and the inability of my mother to cope with his alcoholism, sometimes aggravating the situation by berating him when he was drunk. Seana recounts how her own mother learnt a little too late how to relate to an alcoholic partner.

There are multiple social support groups such as The Sober Club developed by Janey Lee Grace which Seana refers to. I have found that the Creative Meetup group hosted by the Health Story Collaborative is a strong support for me while I experience chronic illness and deal with my adverse early childhood experiences as a result of my alcoholic father.

Following one such Creative Meetup on Zoom, I reflected on my father’s war experience and resultant PTSD. It helped me to better understand what he was going through and his daily challenge of just coping with life and family. I wrote a blog post and a reflective poem titled, Paternal Forgiveness, to express my thoughts and feelings at the time.

I found that meditation and prayer helped me immensely to deal with my adverse childhood experiences and gave me the strength to overcome the tendency to addiction. As we grow in mindfulness, we can unearth our negative self-stories, express gratitude for the positive aspects of our life and progressively build courage and resilience.

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Image by Alicia from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Surrender: A Pathway to Gratitude

In the May Creative Meetup, sponsored by the Health Story Collaborative, we focused on the theme of “surrender”. The discussion proved to be both inspiring and insightful with participants freely sharing their wisdom born of their lived experience of dealing with chronic illness or disability. One area we looked at was the act of “letting go” of what is holding us back – our old beliefs, self-doubts, negative self-stories, fears, and expectations of ourselves and others. Associated with surrender, too, is the possibility of shedding an identity that no longer works for us.

Another sub-theme was that of “giving up” as Lily Tomlin comments, “to give up all hope of a better past”. It also means accepting ourselves “as we are” with all our foibles, mistakes, deficiencies, hurts, disappointments, losses and limitations. It involves accepting that we are not perfect and, in the process, opening ourselves to life’s challenges and vicissitudes. It is about achieving equanimity through acknowledging the fragility of the human condition. Our facilitator for the Meetup, Jennifer Harris, shared a passage from Jeff Brown in which he encourages us “to celebrate how far we have come”, noting that the “river doesn’t ask itself why it is not an ocean”.

Negative self-talk – an impediment to creativity

In their book, What Happened to You?, Dr. Bruce Perry and Winfrey Oprah point out that personal trauma can lead to a distorted worldview, sensitivity to cues (triggers) and negative self-messages. In reflecting as part of the Creative Meetup process, I realised that my adverse childhood experiences contributed to my sense that I was “not good enough” and, at times, that I was actually an “impostor”.

Seth Godin, best-selling author of 21 books, maintains that this kind of negative self-talk is an impediment to creativity and the realisation of our potential. There were times in my life when I was full of self-doubt and beset with “fear of failure’ or inability to achieve my desired outcomes. I also felt discouraged by resistance to organisational changes or innovations I was trying to create.

Seth Godin contends that uncertainty about outcomes is integral to the concept of creativity – we “go out on a limb” or “leap into the unknown” when we attempt to develop something new or introduce a change to the way things are done. For Seth, the chance of failure is always present when you are being creative. He argues that focusing on process rather than outcomes can free us from fear and enable us to explore new opportunities unimpeded by uncertainty.

Seth reinterprets the concept of “impostor” to acknowledge that whenever we are being creative the outcomes are uncertain. In that sense, we will feel that we are “fake” or not the “real thing” because we cannot guarantee the outcome – a natural sensation in the face of uncertainty. The ”impostor syndrome” can occur whether we are engaged in writing, facilitating, managing people or undertaking some other creative activity.

Gratitude for social support

Social support can take many forms and may involve groups or individuals. Sometimes it is being supported by a group, such as the Creative Meetups, where you share your stories, challenges and insights. At other times it may involve emotional and intellectual support from someone who helps you overcome fear of failure. When I reflected on the theme of surrender, I became acutely aware of the many people who have helped me during my life to achieve significant outcomes despite my ingrained self-doubts – to help me “let go” of the fear and embrace the creative challenge. This reflection, in turn, engendered a strong sense of gratitude towards all of these individuals who have had a positive influence in my life by believing in me and my capabilities. Some outstanding examples include:

My Mother, a devout Catholic, who supported my education at a private school and believed that I was destined to be a priest and was capable of successfully undertaking the relevant study and training. To that end, I joined a Contemplative Order and completed five of the six years required for ordination as a priest. However, I left before my final year owing to illness and external factors. During my training, I excelled in my studies, was exposed to the emerging fields of Existentialism and Phenomenology, enjoyed the practice of silence and learnt to meditate and sing Gregorian Chant. It was a life of incredible richness and balance – with strong group social support, challenging learning, daily prayer and meditation, sport and recreation and work on the farm owned by the Order.
Charlie Venning, my boss and mentor in the Brisbane Taxation Office, who believed in me to the point of promoting me to be Chief Internal Auditor, Manager of 90 staff engaged in collecting AUD700 Million of taxpayer revenue and, eventually, an Executive Director.
Peter Sullivan, a visionary Executive who worked in the Canberra Head Office of the Australian Taxation Office. Peter had such a strong belief in my capabilities that he engaged me over a number of years to work on three significant national projects involving the organisation-wide development of the Taxation Office. Peter always believed that I was capable of achieving more than I ever dreamed was possible.
Emeritus Professor Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, author/co-author of 50 books, who first engaged me in 1989 to be the Government representative on the First International Symposium on Action Research in Higher Education, Government and Industry held in Brisbane. In 1991, Ortrun and I were founding executive members of the Action Learning and Action Research Association which continues today and has had a significant role in promoting action learning and action research on a global basis through World Congresses, international conferences, publications and speaking engagements. I was President of the Association for five years from 1992. Ortrun proved to be my mentor, PhD supervisor and friend of more than 30 years. When I doubted my capacity to do a PhD, she encouraged me strongly and provided me with ongoing support. I have become one of her international “critical friends” for her book writing and provided concept editing for some of her books as well as book reviews. I have also contributed chapters to four of her books and a chapter, The Practical Visionary, to the book produced to honour her lifelong contribution to action learning and action research. Ortrun is a visionary who has enviable tenacity, resilience and resourcefulness – part of her German inheritance.
Reg Revans, Father of Action Learning, I met Reg Revans in 1990 when he was a Keynote Speaker at the First World Congress on Action Learning and Action Research. Ortrun was Convenor of the Congress and had invited Reg. I picked up Reg from the airport when he arrived in Brisbane from the UK and took him to his motel opposite Griffith University. Reg asked if I could show him the QE11 Stadium, the site for the 1982 Commonwealth Games which was adjacent to the University. In 1930, Reg had represented Britain at the Commonwealth Games and won a silver medal in the triple jump and long jump. After taking him on a car tour of the site, I joined Reg for dinner at his motel and his charisma was evident to all in the restaurant – he was a great storyteller. Reg inspired everyone at the Congress and his work continues to inspire me today. I completed my action learning PhD in 1996 drawing heavily on Reg’s work and his book, The Origins and Growth of Action Learning. My colleague, Julie Cork, and I have conducted over 70 longitudinal, action learning programs for managers over the last 16 years (involving more than 2,000 managers). We are currently co-authoring an action learning book for managers based on our experience in our manager development programs. Julie, too, has been a very positive influence on me through her belief in my facilitations skills, my understanding of action learning, and my knowledge of manager and organisation development, as well as her willingness to explore the unknown and to collaborate on creating innovative programs.
Dr. Bob Dick taught me about organisation development and facilitation skills at the University of Queensland in the 1980’s when I undertook my MBA majoring in training and development. Bob had an acknowledged, unique, participative style of teaching. I have modelled my facilitation/co-facilitation of more than 1,000 workshops on his style. Bob also provided mentorship for me when I was engaged in organisation development activities in the Taxation Office over a number of years. We have also worked together to promote action learning and action research and to co-author a book on this topic. I highly value our 40 years of friendship and collaboration.
Selva and Param Abraham who had an unshakeable belief in my action learning expertise and sound knowledge of the Tertiary Education Sector. They are founding owners and now co-owners of the Australian Institute of Business (AIB) – accredited to doctoral level and the largest provider of MBA’s in Australia. During my 32 years working in an adjunct capacity at AIB (1985-2017), I designed postgraduate courses, was a member of the Academic Board and eventually, Chair of the Research Committee. I also contributed substantially to the organisation’s ongoing accreditation within the Australian Higher Education System. In my final year when I retired as a Professor of Management, I was honoured with the award of Emeritus Professor.
My State Director in the Federal Government Department of Social Security who appointed me as HRM Director as an external applicant (against the trend of internal promotions) and, subsequently, Director, Corporate Services, with responsibility for training and development, human resource management, staffing levels and pay for 3,000 staff in 30 locations across Queensland. He eventually recommended me for secondment to Griffith University where I spent 11 years as an academic.
Emeritus Professor Fals Borda of the Bogota University who believed in my capacity to co-convene a World Congress on Action Learning and Action Research, held in Cartagena, Colombia (South America) in 1997. The Congress was attended by 1,800 people from 61 countries. I arranged seeding money for the Invitations to Present; participated as a member of the International Planning Committee as well as an Expert Panel Member; acted as Coordinator of the Organisational Development Stream; and officially opened the Congress with Orlando. The occasion led me to conduct an impromptu workshop on action learning and organisational change with a group of postgraduate students who were Spanish-speaking. One of their number acted as interpreter as I progressively explained a major action learning, organisational development project that was the subject of my PhD.
Seth Godin, among other things, was the creator of the social media platform, Squidoo (2005). The platform enabled people to create Squidoo Lenes (effectively individual, modular websites) on any topic – a very strong encouragement to write and share knowledge and understanding. Revenue from the site, generated through affiliate links/modules, was shared with authors and charities. Squidoo was also an active community of writers from across the world and became the source of two of my long-standing friendships with my German counterparts, Anne Corcino and Achim Thiemermann, who were resident in America. Together we collaborated in 2011 with two resident German programmers, Hans Braxmeier and Simon Steinberger, to build the Wizzley social media site – an online community of writers still operating today. Seth and Squidoo proved to be a great inspiration for my writing and I became a “leader’ in the platform with more than 100 Squidoo lens. I then went on to create a 6-month social media training program and developed a blog and e-book on Squidoo Marketing Strategies. Seth provided personal encouragement when he featured my biographical Squidoo lens in his monograph, For the Love of Squidoo, commenting positively on my interesting career and humourous article, An Ethnographical Study of Cartagena Taxi Drivers. Unfortunately, Squidoo became one of the dead websites after a very successful run and was sold to HubPages – which proved to be a sad day for Squidoo advocates. Seth, a globally acknowledged marketing guru, has a blog on which he writes daily posts. Seth’s blog has been a long-standing inspiration for my own blog on mindfulness. I started writing posts daily too but this became too much when I had to conduct workshops in multiple locations across the State. However, since 2016, I have created in excess of 750 posts on this Grow Mindfulness blog.

I am conscious that, owing to time and space, I have not done justice to the level of influence that these people have had on my career and life. I am also conscious that I have omitted other people who strongly influenced me in a positive way such as Emeritus Professors David Limerick and Richard Bawden.

Reflection

It is clear to me that social support is critical for personal development and the realisation of a person’s potential. It also has a significant healing power. The social support, both individual and group support, that I have enjoyed over many years has enabled me to overcome some of the residual effects of adverse childhood experiences. Social support enables us to surrender – to let go of negative self-stories, to build self-efficacy, open new horizons and go beyond where we have travelled before. I can relate strongly to the metaphor, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants – an allusion to achieving intellectual and emotional progress by building on the ground-breaking understanding of those who have gone before.

In reflecting on the social support provided by the individuals who helped me to let go of my self-doubts and fear, I am filled with gratitude for their positive contributions to my career and life. Surrendering by “letting go” thus provides a pathway to gratitude.

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection on our life journey and appreciation of all who have helped us on our way, we can gain renewed strength to move forward and contribute to a better society. The Creative Meetups sponsored by the Health Story Collaborative have a key role in this endeavour by enabling writing, reflection and storytelling for health and personal development.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Surrendering to the Process of Shedding Old Beliefs

There are times when we have to shed something of ourself that we hold dear – our beliefs, our self-stories, or an aspect of our identity. Sharon Salzberg, in her new book Real Life, describes this shedding process as “the movement from constraint, narrowness and limitation to openness, connection, and freedom”. Shedding was the topic introduced by Jennifer Harris, the facilitator of our recent Creative Meetup.

Jennifer introduced the theme of shedding by sharing Harryette Mullen’s poem, Shedding Skin. Harryette likens the process of shedding to stripping off “old scarred skin” and “sloughing off deadscales”. In her view, it involves being open to vulnerability by “shedding toughness, peeling layers down”. Jennifer also introduced the words of a song by Florence and the Machine in which she sings, “And in the Spring I shed my skin”. These words from Rabbit heart (Raise Me Up) are interpreted to mean “shed timidity and become courageous”.

Shedding old beliefs

Neale Donald Walsch, in an interview with Kute Blackson for the Soul Talk Podcast, spoke at length about the challenge of giving up old beliefs. He had been told by his father not to talk to black people because “they were trash”. He sustained this belief for some time because he thought it would be disrespectful to challenge the authority of his parent. However, his own life experience as a radio host caused considerable cognitive dissonance for him to the point where he had to shed his old belief about black people. Neale found that when interviewing for his radio show the audience was predominantly black and he found that they were, in fact, “brilliant and incredible…nice human beings” and ended up having lunch with them and seeking a close friendship with one black person in particular. He had to shed his old, wrong beliefs about black people to overcome his cognitive dissonance and sustain his relationships with members of his audience.

Neale also had to shed his beliefs about women (again taught by his father) – “women should take care of the house and kids and not being paid equally, not being as bright as men”. This belief undermined his relationships with women and resulted in multiple failed marriages. His beliefs about women were constraining, limiting and narrow. It took regular relationship crises for him to challenge his beliefs and to learn to behave differently in his relationships with women. So, disconfirming evidence and/or life crises can lead to shedding wrong or outdated beliefs.

However, some people continue to maintain firmly held beliefs despite disconfirming or conflicting evidence and will defend them with overt or covert aggression. I learnt this at my own expense when I was a young manager in the 1980’s. I participated in a national conference for State Managers of Training held by the Australian Taxation Office in Canberra. At one stage in the process, an Assistant Commissioner of Taxation (2IC) joined us to provide moral support for the Central Office Training Team (who were “under fire” from the State representatives for trying to centralise all training). During the Assistant Commissioner’s presentation, I politely challenged his statement that “The Taxation Office is at the forefront of technology in Australia.” I explained that at a State level the opposite was true – in fact we were years behind the private sector at the time. I was publicly abused for my challenge to his firmly held belief (which, while no longer true, was true in the 1960s and early 1970s). His abuse was so memorable that I was stopped in the street 10 years later by a participant from another State who recalled the “abuse”.

I also learnt again painfully that people in authority can protect their beliefs by covert aggression as well as overt aggression When I was an academic, I was introducing action learning into my university and using it as a basis for my PhD research. My Dean opposed my endeavours by trying to prevent my appointment as a tenured academic as well as my overseas travel for a World Congress on action learning in Colombia (I was a member of the international organising committee). He eventually prevented my promotion to a Senior Lecturer – in the feedback afterwards, telling me that “you had the best application [because of my experience and rating as a teacher], but you are using a non-mainstream approach in your PhD research”. Action learning promotes the view that we are all “personal scientists” building expertise through life experiences and reflection on our experiences – a position that conflicted with my Dean’s belief in the expert role of academics and the role of Universities as being the “repositories of all learning”. In consequence, he used covert aggression to try to prevent my academic advancement.

Shedding self-stories

Negative self-stories can develop through the influence of our parents, teachers, peers or colleagues. These self-stories can shape our beliefs about ourself and our worth and influence our behaviours in the face of difficulties and life’s challenges. Negative self-stories can arise through traumatic experiences and are often at a sub-conscious level. Self-beliefs such as “I’m not good enough” can arise from behavioural messages of parents (e.g. through neglect, constant criticism, or extended absences). The “need to please disease” as a hidden motivator can also arise from a belief that “I’m not lovable” and “I have to be nice to be liked and not rejected”.

It is difficult to overcome adverse childhood experiences that are often behind negative self-beliefs. Tara Brach suggests that mindfulness practices (such as mantra meditation, writing and reflective conversations) can help us to loosen false beliefs about ourselves. She offers a process for investigating and challenging false beliefs about ourself. She argues that as we grow in mindfulness we can develop the self-awareness necessary to enable us to identify our habituated behaviour and to name and challenge our false beliefs. In the process, we can loosen the hold of our false self-beliefs, restore our energy and engage more positively and creatively in everyday life.

Surrendering to the process of shedding

Participants in our recent Creative Meetup discussed the difficulty of letting go of old beliefs. They suggested that the process takes time, patience and self-compassion. They discussed the movement from the pain of shedding to the realisation of potential. They suggested that the process of taking on new beliefs is uncomfortable, moving from the known to the unknown.

The rewards of surrendering to the process of shedding beliefs were valued and highlighted. They talked about “a new way of seeing”, removal of blinkers, experiencing release and empowerment, and accessing a “deeper self” and a “a new way of being”. The challenge of surrender is real, but the rewards are great.

Tara Brach, with Jack Kornfield and colleagues, offers an online course, Power of Awareness, that is designed to help us “break free from negative thoughts” to realise balance, peace and joy. They offer a mindful approach to achieving a quiet mind by bringing awareness and self-compassion to our “inner dialogue”. I have undertaken this course and found it highly beneficial.

Reflection

Lulu & Mischka in their mantra meditation, Metamorphosis, capture the essence of surrendering to the process of shedding. They encourage us to “keep letting go”, “trust in the process”, relax into the present and “stop resisting”. If we can do this through mindfulness practices such as reflection and mantra meditations we can achieve healing and a metamorphosis that will enable us to spread our wings and fly higher. This exhortation resonates with Sharon Salzberg’s encouragement to move from constraint to freedom, from narrowness to connection. from limitation to openness. I have expressed these insights in the following poem:

Surrender to Shedding

There comes a time in our life when we have to shed old beliefs.
Slough off our limiting self-beliefs,
Remove constraints on our thinking,
Break down the barriers of our defence mechanisms,
Let go and stop resisting,
Surrender to the process of casting aside what no longer works for us.

The shedding process is painful.
Discomfort with the new,
Feeling lost,
Leaving behind the known,
Moving to uncertainty,
Open to anxiety.

The rewards of shedding are great.
Releasing from constraints and limitations,
Achieving a new sense of freedom,
Moving from pain to possibility,
Discovering a new creative self,
Flowing like a river, rediscovering “Flow”.

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Image by Jonathan from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Managing Life Transitions through Storytelling

Many writers and podcasters highlight the challenges involved in life transitions. Some focus on specific transitions such as aging, menopause for women, or transitions precipitated by organisational change. Their discussions frequently highlight the need to reframe specific transitions such as aging or job loss as periods of growth and creativity rather than decline – this means changing our mindset and our narrative about these transitional periods. As William and Susan Bridges point out in their book, Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, many people become stuck in the “endings” phase of transitions because they focus solely on what is being lost, rather than appreciating the potentiality of “new beginnings”.

Bruce Feiler, in his TED Talk©, The Secret to Mastering Life’s Transitions, contends that one of the core problems people have in managing life’s transitions is that they have a linear mindset, a perception that life is always “onwards and upwards” with a predictable forward-moving pattern – schooling, job, home purchase, marriage, and children, and career promotion. We are thus ill-prepared for “setbacks” or deviations that occur through job loss, ill-health, loss of a partner, or physical disability. Bruce, who was diagnosed with cancer when he was a new father of twin girls, suggests that when we are “side-tracked” or things go “offtrack”, we can feel as though we are “living life out of order” – living a life that is totally unexpected. In his TED Talk© and his book, Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at any Age, Bruce maintains that life is a series of “disruptors” and some of these are “lifequakes” that involve massive change and demand managing the transition to a new state.

The role of storytelling in managing life transitions

Bruce, along with many other writers, podcasters and public speakers, offers tips for managing life transitions that we encounter. He maintains that a key to transition is to explore our “life story” – this is the narrative we create about our own life. The solution to mastering transitions is often in our own narrative – false assumptions, self-deceits, delusions or denials (e.g. “it can’t happen to me”!). Bruce maintains that a life transition, especially a “lifequake”, is an invitation to “revisit, rewrite and retell our life story”. He offers a catalyst for this process through his Life Story Online Interview which provides an interactive form for reflection on, and recording of, our personal narrative. Bruce’s insights on life transitions have been gained through his own life experiences as well as through over 1,000 interviews with people about their life story.

Jon DeWaal, in his TED Talk©, Two Factors that Make or Break Every Messy Life Transition, stresses the need, when exploring our life story and the associated narrative, to adopt two practices to ensure that the exploration leads to a constructive outcome. Firstly, he contends that we need to be honest with ourselves – to own up to our own part in contributing to our side track or offtrack experience. This requires deep reflection, total honesty, self-awareness and avoidance of the tendency to blame others rather than look at ourselves. Associated with this is what he calls “community support” – not the gentle, warm kind that confirms our invalid self-assessment, but the kind that offers “supportive challenge” which makes us confront our weaknesses, unfounded assumptions or persistent mistakes/oversight. Jon is a learning facilitator and life transition guide at Liminal Space – a team of transition experts who can help us grow and thrive through difficult transitions. Jon is also the creator of the podcast, Life Through Transitions, drawing ideas and inspiration from interviewees who have been able to make life’s “formative transitions” into opportunities for personal transformation.

Dr. Annie Brewster, MD, and journalist Rachel Zimmerman, in their book, The Healing Power of Storytelling, focus on the personal narrative as a way to “navigate illness, trauma and loss”. Annie shares her own life experiences and transitions and, together with her co-author, offers specific guidance in the process of using storytelling for healing. She is also the founder of the Healing Story Collaborative which provides shared stories and resources through a collaborative blog – processes that are open to anyone to engage with personal storytelling for the purpose of healing.

Reflection

We are continuously controlled by the narrative in our head and this is particularly true in times of significant life transitions. We can become embroiled in negative self-stories, get stuck in the endings phase or be blind to the creative options open to us in a life transition. We need to break this destructive cycle especially when confronted with what Bruce describes as a “lifequake”.

Using reflective storytelling, meditation and other related practices enables us to grow in mindfulness and can help us to increase our self-awareness and insight, to have the courage to move beyond our “comfort zone” and to creatively explore options to manage difficult life transitions and move forward to a new personal identity and reality.

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Image by Cristhian Adame from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Trauma Recovery: A Program for Resetting Your Nervous System

Alex Howard recently provided a five-part series titled Decode Your Trauma which is designed as an introduction to his groundbreaking online coaching approach incorporated in the RESET Program. He also provides a free three-part video series to help people to reset their nervous system after the experience of trauma.

Alex is a world-renowned health specialist noted for his work in integrative medicine, his therapeutic work and his entrepreneurial projects. He has created a real life YouTube Series, In Therapy with Alex Howard, where your are able to join him as he works with patients in therapy sessions. Alex is also the Founder and Creator of The Optimum Health Clinic (OHC) – an integrative medicine clinic providing support to patients in more than fifty countries, especially those suffering from “fatigue-related conditions”.

The principles and practices of the Optimum Health Clinic – incorporating approaches such as mindfulness, developmental psychology and NLP – have been encapsulated in a Therapeutic Coaching Program led by Alex. It draws on the extensive experience and research of the OHC practitioners who have worked with thousands of patients.

Alex has also established Conscious Life – an online video platform designed to help people unlock their potential through courses, workshops and interviews with the world’s leading health and wellness experts. Through Conscious Life, Alex has hosted two of the world’s leading online conferences, the Fatigue Super Conference and the Trauma & Mind Body Super Conference.

The ECHO Model of Trauma

In his video presentations Alex describes his ECHO model of trauma which has four components (the name reflects the fact that experienced trauma has its echo in our day-to-day lives):

Events – these are the significant life events that created a trauma response in our mind and body. They can be quite overt such as the categories of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) – “abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction”. Alternatively, the traumatising events can be more covert and subtle such as disrespect of your heritage or where significant others disown your lineage (a situation that Ash Barty describes in her memoir, My Dream Time – A Memoir of Tennis & Teamwork). Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey put the spotlight on the traumatic events in our life when they ask, “What Happened to You?”
Context – Alex described “context” in terms of whether our three core emotional needs were met or went unmet. He describes these as a need for boundaries, safety and love. In the absence of boundaries in our early childhood we can suffer from the “need to please” – where we can’t say “yes” or “no” appropriately and where we make our own needs subservient to the needs of others. Where a sense of safety was missing owing to a violent or turbulent/unpredictable home environment, we can find that we have difficulty in self-regulating. Where love was missing – reflected in aspects of our early home life such as the lack of presence, interest, nurturing, respect and/or care – we can feel we need to overcompensate to earn love (to always achieve or accomplish something visible and significant). Bruce and Oprah explore these emotionally deficient contexts by asking, “What didn’t happen for you?”.
Homeostatic Shift – “homeostasis” in this context refers to the human capacity to maintain equilibrium in the face of an external, fluctuating environment. Alex highlights the fact that both the physical body and emotional body are constantly seeking to maintain a “stable internal environment”. However, trauma can upset our internal balance and lead to emotional dysregulation. This can be reflected in maladaptive stress responses or what Bruce Perry describes as a “sensitised stress response”. Alex draws on the Polyvagal Theory of Dr. Stephen Porges to highlight potential maladaptive responses in the form of “fight/flight” or “freeze” responses. He indicates that “to switch off the maladaptive stress response we have to get the nervous system back to safe and social” – described by Stephen Porges as the “ventral vagal” state involving social connection, openness, and groundedness. Bessel Van Der Kolk describes the “homeostatic shift” in terms of the “visceral imprint” resulting from traumatic experiences.
Outcome – the outcomes from traumatic events and the resulting disequilibrium can take many forms – dysfunctional communication and relationships, anxiety and depression, addiction, sleep deprivation, mood swings and various physical health issues. Negative self-stories and a distorted worldview can underlie addictive behaviour and other maladaptive stress responses.

The RESET Program

Alex developed the RESET Program after more than 20 years of therapeutic experience working with traumatised people. The Reset Model involves recognising our mind-body disequilibrium, exploring how this is being created, stopping thoughts that are harmful and replacing them with positive energising thoughts, facing up to challenging emotions to heal from them, and transforming our relationship to ourselves (both mind and body). The program employs multiple healing modalities including mindfulness, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), somatic experiencing and the S.T.O.P. process. In the final analysis, the Reset Program is a pathway to achieving what Stephen Porges described as the “safe and social” stress response.

Reflection

I can relate strongly to Alex’s ECHO Model of trauma, having experienced multiple traumatic events in my early childhood and adult life. My early childhood context involved “household dysfunction” as well as separation anxiety. I feel that at times I have over-compensated for the absence of love in periods of my early life and engaged in other maladaptive stress responses. I discussed some aspects of my early childhood trauma in an earlier blog post, Reflections on Personal Trauma.

I have progressively drawn on mindfulness practices such as meditation and Tai Chi to regain my equilibrium and build emotional resilience. As I grow in mindfulness, I am increasing my self-awareness, understanding my habituated responses, improving my emotional regulation and learning to deepen my relationships.

I found Alex’s five-part Decode Your Trauma series enlightening, thought-provoking and energising. He draws on his personal experience of trauma as well therapeutic experience of helping numerous people heal from trauma. His sincerity and keenness to help are manifested through his presentation style and his sustained efforts to explain complex concepts in simple terms. The free, three-part video presentation on his website is well worth viewing as an aid to self-reflection.

Alex is also the author of the recent book, Decode Your Fatigue: A Clinically Proven 12-Step Plan to Increase Your Energy, Heal Your Body and Transform Your Life.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Healing from Trauma

Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry address the issue of healing from trauma in their book, What Happened to You? In a chapter on Coping and Healing, they explore the impact of relational deficit in the early years of a child’s life; what neglect and parental conflict does to a child’s development, their worldview and their stress response; and the importance of an understanding, nurturing and patient carer/parent/therapist for healing to occur. In the process, they discuss, in depth, the nature of neglect, differences in the way individuals are impacted by trauma, behavioural manifestations of adverse childhood experiences, and the road to healing, including creating a new worldview.

This chapter of their book is very rich with stories, insights, principles and personal disclosure by Oprah – disclosures that are enriched by observations by Bruce on her life experiences. Oprah, herself, and the vast work that she does in the area of trauma healing, is an exemplar for coping with, and healing from, trauma. What she has learned through her own life experience and ongoing discussions with Bruce over many years, has led to her establishing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG) in South Africa.

The emotional environment in early childhood

Bruce maintains that the quality of the emotional climate in early childhood impacts our worldview and our stress response. If there is stability, nurturing and predictability, our brains and our behaviour can develop. If the opposite exists, this has an adverse impact on our childhood development and our capacity as an adult to deal with challenges and stress. We can develop the mindset that we are not lovable or not worthy of people’s attention. Dr. Gabor Maté utilises a process he calls “compassionate inquiry” to unearth these negative self-stories – vestiges of an early life lived in an environment of neglect.

Bruce highlights the fact that different, deficit emotional environments can result in very different traumatic effects. He illustrates this point by an in-depth comparison of two boys who manifested their traumatic upbring in contrasting ways. His explanation shows clearly why one boy became fearful and aggressive while the other “had no feeling at all” and engaged in threats and thefts. His description of their respective adverse childhood experiences and their differentiated impacts brings into sharp focus the key role that quality relationships play in early childhood.

This discussion of the differences in personal development of the two boys led Bruce to assert that an important consideration is not only “what happened to you?” but also “what didn’t happen for you?” – in terms of the behaviour of a parent/carer who provides undivided attention (in lieu of distracted attention), gentle touch (rather than physical abuse), consistent nurturing (instead of an on/off approach) and regular reassurance (instead of a belittling attitude). Not only does the quality of relationships in early childhood impact brain development but also the development of social and motor skills. Bruce contends that “relationships are the key to healing from trauma” because trauma often results from deficient relationships.

An environment of conflict

Bruce notes that if you are a young child and you are in an environment of parental conflict, you have limited options. You are too young to flee and unable to fight as you are easily overpowered and may draw physical attacks from either or both parents. Often in this situation, a child will dissociate – retreat to their inner world. Dissociation becomes a problem when it is prolonged or becomes a habituated response to everyday challenges – this can lead to what is termed a dissociative disorder. I can relate to dissociation as a stress response as my parents had frequent verbal and physical conflicts over my father’s alcoholism and gambling – my mother would berate him over his misuse of our family income. This would sometimes escalate into a physical attack on my mother, on a number of occasions this put her in hospital.

When I was young, my natural response would be to dissociate from the traumatic experience, as flight or fight was not an option – fight was out of the questions as my father was a very successful professional boxer. However, as I reached the age of 12, I used to get on my pushbike and ride into the night as fast as I could (flight response), hoping that when I returned the conflict would be over. The physical exertion of bike riding at speed served to release some of my pent-up tension and fear from the conflict.

Both Bruce and Oprah make the point that there is a positive side to dissociation in that it could be a life-saving response in some situations but is also part and parcel of what each of us do every day – e.g., day dream. Bruce contends that the “capacity to control dissociation behaviour is very powerful” – it underpins our capacity for reflection and focus and to achieve a “flow state”. I experienced a number of personal traumas in my early childhood and adulthood, including a serious care accident in the family car when our car was hit on the side by another car, rolled a number of times, went over a 10 foot embankment, and came to rest on its hood. I have learned to control my dissociative behaviour and, as a result, developed high levels of reflective cognition and focused behaviour – reflected in my PhD, Professorship and this blog (this is my 700^th published blog post for my Grow Mindfulness blog).

Reflection

“What Happened to You” by Bruce and Oprah stimulated a lot of reflection for me and in some instances, “flashbacks” as well. I began to appreciate more how my five years spent as a contemplative monk (from ages 18 to 22) served to provide me with a highly structured, stable, reflective and meditative environment with high quality relationships that together enabled me to self-regulate after a traumatic upbringing in a conflicted parental environment. In my upbringing, my mother’s unconditional love and support offset to some degree my father’s (PTSD-induced) behaviour.

I am sure my period of development in an environment of daily silence, meditation, prayer and study helped me to achieve a degree of peace and tranquility (sometimes punctuated by moments of panic over my deteriorating home situation). As I grew in mindfulness, I was able to develop resilience, a positive mindset and the ability to find refuge in meditation.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Identifying Our Blind Spots Through Observation and Reflection

Kelly Boys, author of The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You, highlights the fact that blind spots have multiple dimensions, including cognitive (the way we think) and behavioural (what we actually do in response to stimuli). In an earlier post I explored these dimensions in more detail and shared Kelly’s approach to identifying our core blind spot involving a meditative exercise that focuses on our bodily sensations and the underlying cognitive message that we are giving ourselves.

Our blind spots can impact every facet of our lives, including our relationships, work endeavours, sport activities, exercise routines and our diet and nutrition. Through mindfulness and employing observation and reflection we can gradually recognise our blind spots and work to overcome them. This is a life-time pursuit that needs to be worked at consistently and persistently. Our blind spots are often manifest in our reactivity to stimuli whatever form they take. Underlying our reactivity can be negative self-talk, prior adverse experiences, assumptions or resentment. Tara Brach offers a simple S.T.O.P. practice that can be used, particularly when we are anxious or agitated, to overcome our habitual behaviour (whether fight, flight or freeze) in a particular situation.

In a recent post, I compared playing tennis to day-to-day life emphasising the uncertainty, the mental and emotional challenges and the constant need for adaption that they have in common.

Reflection

Being a “tennis tragic”, I have been watching the Australian Open Tennis Championship, particularly the matches played by Ash Barty, World Number 1 Australian tennis player. In the process, I have been able to observe the behaviour of players and reflect on their mental attitudes, especially when they were challenged by falling behind in the score. Some players became despondent and were able to regroup, others let out their frustrations in a show of anger (e.g. by smashing racquets), while others succumbed to the weight of expectations – their own and that of others especially the World Press.

While watching tennis matches during the Australian Open I was able to reflect on my own tennis game and, despite having played tennis for more than 60 years, I learned two key things through observation and reflection that will enable me to improve my social tennis games and enjoy them more, even while aging. One had to do with a behavioural blind spot and the other with a cognitive blind spot.

My first revelation involved a behavioural blind spot that related to how I had my hands placed on my racquet as I waited for a tennis serve from my opponent. Having just learned the technical aspects of a two-handed backhand, after 60 years of using a single-handed backhand, I was curious as to how two-handed backhand players prepared to receive serves in excess of 180 kph. It surprised me that they could be prepared to use a single-handed forehand or a two-handed backhand with little loss of flow in transition. Through observation, I learned that when receiving a serve they held the racquet differently to what I had been taught when using a single-handed backhand. It made me realise that instead of having the left hand loosely supporting the right hand like I have been doing, they were already prepared to play a two-handed backhand by having a firm grip with their left hand in the right position on the racquet.

From this I learned why I was having trouble accessing my two-handed backhand when I was waiting for a serve. With my usual way of preparing for a tennis serve, I had firstly to move from holding the tennis racquet loosely with my left hand to achieving a firmer grip higher on the racquet (above my right hand) – all of which took too much time and impeded my readiness to receive a serve. The new stance for me will be uncomfortable for a time. This experience reinforces the point that we can have behavioural blind spots in any aspect of our lives, even something as simple as how we hold a tennis racquet.

My second revelation involved a cognitive blind spot in relation to the “slice tennis shot”. When I learned to play tennis the slice tennis shot was part of your tennis armoury, but not your primary shot. I have often used the slice tennis shot when out of position or when I have difficulty handling the power of an opponent’s shot. However, I always viewed it as an inferior tennis shot – one played from a position of weakness.

However, after watching Ash Barty’s dominance using the “slice shot” as a primary tennis stroke, I have had to change my mindset and elevate the slice to at least an equal part of my tennis armoury along with a flat or top-spin forehand. This has been a mental block for me in the past. But now I have realised that the move from an Eastern forehand grip to a Western grip (sometimes extreme) has meant that a lot of players are unable to effectively play or handle the slice tennis shot. The reasons are explained by Jon Crim in his overview of the Western grip. This means that times have changed yet again and that the slice tennis shot (mainly through the success of Ash) has now achieved a status equal to that of the top-spin forehand. While the top-spin forehand gives the tennis player an advantage in net clearance and depth of shot, it has the inbuilt disadvantage of making it more difficult to play the slice shot which tends to go lower over the net and stay quite low on impact, as well as having a “shooting” effect.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, observation and reflection we can develop curiosity about our blind spots, enhanced self-awareness and the capacity to overcome our habituated responses. The insights gained can open up the opportunity for more joy and success in our relationships, work endeavours and sporting activities. As Kelly points out, unless we observe and reflect on our thoughts and behaviour, we can miss what is right in front of us because of our blind spots.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Cultivating Kindness through Meditation

In a recent meditation podcast, Diana Winston discussed Meditation and Kindness. She maintained that kindness is “embedded in meditation” because to meditate we have to be able to do so “non-judgmentally”. Even when our mind wanders, which is a natural human characteristic, we can return to our focus without beating up on ourselves. We can acknowledge that in this era of disruptive advertising and the incessant pull of “weapons of mass distraction”, we are going to become “lost in thought” at times and lose our focus. Our concerns and worries about the past or future will also intrude. However, to be kind to ourselves and achieve the refuge inherent in meditation practice we have to avoid engaging in “negative self-stories” such as, “I am hopeless at meditation”, “I will never master the art of meditating” or “I’m bad at everything I do”.

Meditation as kindness to our self

The practice of meditation is itself an act of kindness towards our self. When we meditate, we open a rich store of benefits, not the least of these is the increasing capacity to handle our difficult emotions and our destructive thoughts. Meditation builds our “awareness muscle” and strengthens our capacity to pay attention. It can serve to enrich our relationships by building our ability to engage in “deep listening”. Kelly Noonan Gores, in her book, Heal: Discover the Unlimited Potential and Awaken the Powerful Healer Within, stresses the healing effects of meditation, especially meditation practices involving mantras, positive imagining, gratitude and forgiveness. Mindfulness practices can help carers engage in effective self-care in the face of all the demands on their time, energy, and emotions.

Meditation as kindness to others

While there are specific loving-kindness meditations designed to offer kindness to others, the very practice of meditation brings benefits to others because of our improved awareness of our emotions, thoughts and actions and their impact; increased emotional self-regulation; and enhanced capacity for listening, empathy and compassionate action.

Guided meditation on kindness

During the podcast, Diana offers a guided meditation on kindness that extends beyond self-kindness to kindness towards others. She begins with encouraging a couple of deep breaths to release accumulated stress and bodily tension. As she describes the meditation process, she adopts a trauma-sensitive mindfulness approach by offering a choice of anchors such as the breath, sounds, and bodily sensations, to enable us to focus our attention. Diana suggests that if very strong emotions or pervasive thoughts intrude on our meditation practice, we can temporarily turn our attention to them, explore their origins and significance and then return to our anchor.

Reflection

There are so many benefits to be gained from meditation, not the least of these being kindness towards our self and others and the capacity to heal ourselves. There are many forms of meditation – we have only to explore what approach is best for our self and this may vary over time. As we grow in mindfulness through regular meditation practice, we will realise the multiple benefits of meditation and this will be self-reinforcing. However, we need kindness and persistence, particularly in the early stages, where we can be discouraged by our “conscious incompetence”.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Self-Healing through Energy Techniques

Tami Simon of Sounds True provides a podcast of her interview with Amy Scher, energy therapist and author of How to Heal Yourself from Depression When No one Else Can. The interview is part of the podcast series titled, Insights at the Edge.

In the conversation with Amy, Tami explores the origins of her interest in “energy psychology”, experiences a number of energy techniques, and discuses the implications and efficacy of the energy processes.

Amy’s interest in energy psychology

Amy was motivated to explore the whole field of energy psychology when she found that nothing worked in terms of being able to treat her own severe illness, including chronic Lyme disease. She experienced all kinds of debilitating and energy-draining symptoms, including difficulty with walking, being bedridden and suffering from headaches, nausea, and other severe symptoms. Amy even tried the risky procedure of an “experimental stem cell transplant”, which required her to travel to India. While this latter treatment worked for a while, her symptoms started to reappear, albeit with less severity. This symptomatic recurrence and the fear that her condition would worsen again provided the motivation to explore self-healing as an alternative to doctor-controlled treatments.

The mind-body-energy-emotion connection

Energy psychology recognises that throughs, emotions, and beliefs impact the physical systems of the body, e.g., the digestive system and nervous system. Our emotions and thoughts can create ill-health and physical dysfunction. So, the associated process of “energy therapy” works with the body’s own self-healing processes by stimulating the internal energy system of the body – an approach that is consistent with that of other healing modalities such as acupuncture, Reiki, acupressure, and Japanese Seitai Massage. While the latter treatment modality focuses on the musculoskeletal system to remove physical blockages to energy flow, energy psychology involves “working with the emotional landscape” and its connection to the energy system of the body, thus helping to “heal body, mind and spirit”.

Energy techniques

Fundamental to a wide range of energy techniques provided by Amy in her book is a recognition that our thoughts, emotions and beliefs impact our body’s welfare, e.g., we might say, “I’m feeling really uptight just thinking about what might happen”. Negative self-stories about self-worth, how others view us and what we are capable of, all add to the stress experienced by the body and manifest in different ways depending on the emotions involved. The challenge is accepting that we play a significant part, consciously or unconsciously, in our physical health. This is a difficult concept to swallow and even Amy talks about the strength of her own resistance to this idea of personal contribution to her own ill-health. The techniques she discusses primarily involve listening to your own body.

Listening to your own body

Amy indicated that the real breakthrough for her occurred when she started to be still and quiet and to listen to her own body and what it was telling her. She maintains that physical symptoms are the “body’s communication system” and that emotions convey a message. We just need to listen with openness and curiosity to begin the process of self-healing. In her book mentioned above, she identifies the “most common subconscious blocks” to energy flow in the body, exploring the body’s messages, symptom by symptom.

Practising energy techniques

One of Amy’s own foundational energy blocks was the belief that “If I express my true self, I’ll be unlovable” – a damaging belief that had its genesis in her Jewish origins and the generational trauma passed down through her grandfather and father who lived through the Holocaust. Both Amy and her father experienced deep depression – hence, the motivation for her recent book.

Amy provided a sample of energy techniques during the podcast and enabled podcast listeners to experience three techniques:

The Sweep – a particular narrative that is spoken or read to “sweep” unconscious, harmful beliefs from the mind. Amy maintains that this process can lead to a shift, however small, in perspective or belief.
Tapping – this is an increasingly recognised healing technique that is part of the repertoire of energy therapists and is described by Amy as one of her “micro-movements” – a recognition that a shift happens in small steps, especially for someone experiencing depression. Amy provides a specific tapping technique that involves focusing on the emotion that you are experiencing in the present moment while tapping on your chest. She suggests that you can strengthen the freeing effect of tapping by saying over and over, “let go, let go, let go”.
Accepting yourself – Amy suggests that an approach you can use when you are tending to “beat up on yourself” is to challenge the thought that generated the emotion by saying something like, “Was I really that bad or unforgivable?” She maintains that a shift can happen if you focus instead on “the next less shitty thing that you can think about yourself”. Again, this practice constitutes a micro-movement.

Amy explained that her book provides a wide range of energy techniques that readers can practice to help them achieve their own energy shifts and self-healing.

Reflection

Research confirms the negative impact of stress and trauma on our immune system and the tendency of the body to experience various forms of inflammation. The current challenging environment is contributing to “emotional inflammation” as well. Amy highlights the impact of these stressors as causing “energy suppression”. Her energy techniques are designed to release the trapped energy and enable the body to heal itself. The process of self-healing generates a sense of agency for the person engaged in the relevant energy practices. Some people have found that the vibrations involved in singing too can be a form of self-healing along with the positive emotions expressed in sung mantra meditations.

As we grow in mindfulness through energy techniques, meditation, and other mindfulness practices we can develop openness and curiosity, deepen self-awareness, and learn to heal our self. Movement towards healing is possible if we sustain our practices.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Barriers to Silence: Discomfort of Others

In a previous post, I discussed the challenges Christine Jackman experienced in attempting to find silence as a retreat from the busyness of her life. I explained then that she encountered a number of barriers early on in her quest – her own negative self-stories, her worry about the perceived expectations and thoughts of others and her own habituated behaviours. She found silence in participating in a number of retreats at Benedictine monasteries but the challenge then was how to sustain the practice of silence once she returned to her normal life as an investigative journalist. In her book, Turning Down the Noise: The Quiet Power of Silence in a Busy World, Christine identifies another barrier – the discomfort experienced by others when she mentioned her pursuit of silence.

Discomfort of others as a barrier

Christine writes about her experience when invited by a friend to join a book club meeting. As usually happens at such an event, people started sharing what they were doing. When Christine’s turn came to speak, she debated with herself whether or not to mention her silent retreat but decided to go ahead. The responses she received confirmed her expectations and the reason for her initial reticence.

Christine was met by a stunned silence when she mentioned her pursuit of a silence of a different kind. The other participants were somewhat speechless – despite being intelligent and well-informed. Her admission about seeking silence in her life was considered too left-field. As Christine commented in her book, her pursuit of silence was unfamiliar and too challenging to those in “a world where being busy is considered a virtue”, or a sign of productivity.

This discomfort of people with being silent and “doing nothing” was brought home again to me in a recent conversation with a friend who has been a lifetime sailor, making extended sailing trips during her life such as from Australia to America. In a discussion with friends, she mentioned that she had just returned (by boat) from a 3-months sailing trip from Brisbane to the Whitsunday Islands in the Great Barrier Reef (around 1,000 kilometres).

My friend was met with a stunned silence and then the inveterate questioning, “But what did you do all that time? “How did you occupy yourself?” They could not fathom spending anywhere near that amount of time being still and doing nothing. My friend, being a very experienced long-distance sailor, was able to respond, “I was just being – taking in the water, the whales, the sunrises and sunsets, the fish, the horizon” – she had been experiencing the unfathomable benefits of silence and “natural awareness”.

Neither Christine nor my sailing friend were put off by the stunned silences or interminable questioning of others. Christine noted that she was more perturbed by her inability to articulate why she was engaged in what was considered an “unusual thing” – the pursuit of silence. She found that she could not muster a “compelling , rational argument” for something that “defies conventional description”. So, someone lacking the deep experience of silence and/or having a limited conviction of the benefits of silence, can be easily put off by the discomfort of others who actually begin to wonder about your sanity – because your behaviour and commitment are so counter-cultural.

Reflection

The expectations of others and the associated discomfort can play on our mind whether they are expressed covertly (by looks or silence) or overtly (by words and actions). To maintain our commitment to silence as with any other attempt to reduce the busyness of our life, we need to have the conviction, resilience, and courage to persist despite the discomfort of others who want us to “be like them” and not “stand out from the crowd”.

I recall working with a group of managers as part of our managerial mindfulness training program. One of the participants, a nurse unit manager, indicated that she worked from 7am to 7pm every working day. When undertaking a reflective exercise on what messages she was conveying by her behaviour, she realised that her own habit of working very long hours was contributing to an unhealthy work environment – she was conveying that “busyness and extended working hours are viewed as signs of productivity” and therefore desirable.

However, as soon as she implemented a plan to reduce her working hours, her staff were uncomfortable and questioned her about “why she had lost her motivation?” In their view, if you were not continually busy and working long hours, you lacked commitment. Fortunately, the positive benefits in terms of work-life balance and her unerring conviction of the benefits for her staff of reducing her working hours were enough to enable her to sustain her new practice of working reasonable hours.

The evidence is mounting that as we grow in mindfulness through stillness and silence, we begin to experience wide-ranging benefits such as clarity, calmness, and resilience. The dilemma, however, is that thinking about silence will not realise the benefits – we have to experience being still and silent in our daily lives to achieve its benefits. Without the reinforcement of the benefits, it is difficult to sustain the practice and commitment in the face of the incessant discomfort of others. Meditation practice, incorporating stillness and silence, builds positive habits and sustained practice brings enduring benefits.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.