Tag Archives: depression

Let Me

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Mel Robbins, in her recent book ‘The Let Them Theory’ offers a simple but powerful mechanism for reregulating discombobulated brains and redirecting our attention so that we more fully access the brain’s power, increasing awareness, self worth and agency.

In a nutshell, when you find your mind occupied by something troubling, simply say “Let Them/It/Her/Him, etc” and turn to ‘Let Me’.

When our minds are occupied by troubled thoughts, an habitual neural circuit is in play.  It is an internalised habitual ‘script’ like the ones parents use to develop habits in their children, eg. ‘clean your teeth’, ‘pick up your clothes’, and ‘wash your hands’.  Those scripts must become embedded (habitual) for behaviour to become a habit.

The process is testament to the amazing unconscious learning mechanisms of the brain. The brain doesn’t distinguish between habits we wish to develop and those we don’t (that’s the role of awareness), and nor does it distinguish between internal behaviours and external ones. For the brain, all activity occurring in its operational centre is ‘live’ data.

‘Let Them’ is a powerful script. It erases all the ‘victim’ type thinking that usually sits under our troubled thinking. It is a circuit breaker (but may require a few repeats), re-regulating a stressed brain. It creates space – which we can then use to explore ‘Let Me’.

I recently used the approach to explore a past experience that has tended to revisit. I felt the power in the words ‘Let Them’ (in this case to walk away) and, picking up pen and journal, embarked upon writing to explore what sat underneath the words ‘Let Me’.

We can’t know what the ‘Me’ part needs to take responsibility for unless we explore it. Writing or talking are the most fruitful portals for this work. Anxiety, depression, and neuroplastic symptoms created from troubled minds are indicators that we are not responding to issues in our life with agency and power. Through early learning experiences, people develop inaccurate beliefs about these human qualities. We innocently learn to think ‘untruths’ about ourselves and get stuck in spirals of angst created via these untruths sitting below consciousness but manifesting nevertheless. ‘Let them’ breaks the circuitry, calming the amygdala and opens up space for us to explore the vast repertoire of wisdom our brains have gathered and stored – also out of sight.

Use your journal to explore the ‘Let Me’ element. What emerges will be different for everyone. What emerged in my exploration revealed deeper truths about my thinking and naïve processes for encircling myself with people who nourish me deeply. It revealed ‘blunted’ thinking I had internalised about myself and how this played out. It revealed an ignorance of the wisdom I had gathered through all my earlier experiences. That wisdom had been filed away, I just hadn’t accessed it.

Experiment with journal writing into the ‘Let Me’ aspect of Mel Robbins’s theory. But don’t lash yourself if the process feels messy. It’s new. Keep trying and if you need guidance or more structure, call to make an appointment.

Roads … and Where They Lead

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I’m at a turning point in my life and whilst I’d like to only make ‘moves’ that are comfortable and are assured of a positive outcome, sometimes we just have to jump into experience and see where it leads.

Yesterday, I returned from a weekend away camping – on my own. A new experience, not necessitated by retirement, but rather brought about by the rounding out of 18 years ‘late in life’ responsibility for single parenting. Intense active involvement is no longer required. What to do with all the free time I now have in a personal life bereft of satisfying social activity?

Start with the activities I do like and go from there. Being in nature, camping, journalling, ‘barnstorming’ (without the plane) down neverending unknown West Australian roads that pass through towns marked only with a building or two. I booked a favourite camping site, loaded up the car, opened the door for my Red Cloud Kelpie and drove off.

The camping spot is just over an hour from Perth. Located in forest country along the escarpment running down the coast, it experiences more rain than its neighbouring regions. We woke on Sunday to thunder and my dog whimpered under the sleeping bag whilst I relished the tinkle of raindrops on the swag roof.

After the storm passed, and breakfast was done, we ventured to a section of the river I had identified the night before as an alluring swimspot. With no one else around we both luxuriated in quiet isolation. This exquisite moment revealed itself as the highlight of the trip.

What to do next? I had already written many pages in my journal, begun reading a new novel and made a start on this blog piece. With limited external ‘drivers’ to snag my mind, it had immersed itself in trains of thought about the folly of coming away, how I could be at home (but bored with what is becoming an entrenched daily routine), and my lack of social networks. Giving in to my lowered mood and returning home would only provide more of what I already knew. That didn’t feel right so I waited, and other, more enticing ideas arrived.

With the campsite packed up, I hit the bitumen road and drove an hour inland to the next town – Boddington. The townsfolk seemed to enjoy building local sculptures out of defunct farm equipment. It was hotter than our overnight stay and Shire signs forbade swimming in the river. Whilst the shady campsites were enticing, no swimming mitigated against staying. My dog, however, ran through the shallow edges of the riverbank. It was only as we were about to get into the car that I noticed her black, oily, smelly feet. She could not take them into the car. Ten minutes later I found a tap and spent 5 minutes washing her four paws. My hands were black. What was in that sludge?

On the road again, we drove in a different direction, further south and inland. Sheep land. Hundreds of them standing around the edges of water holes in the middle of dry arid paddocks. I wondered how many sheep farmers lost on days when the temperature was 10 to 15 degrees harsher.

At Quindanning I took a photo of this church. The square turret seemed out of place. The pub seemed busy judging by the number of cars outside.

At Williams, I got excited about what I would find inside the ‘Williams Woolshed’. Whilst it accommodated a great looking cafe and a huge display of products like wine, oilskin products, emu skin shoes, natural health care products, local books and wool attire, I was disappointed to realise not much of it was local. Real local people, living real local lives, is what interests me. What do they create out of a dry, isolated landscape while the sheep do their thing? What does their creativity inspire? Another product from interstate or overseas held no interest for me and the op shop in the old building next door was shut. It was time to move on.

It was now mid afternoon and I had to decide whether to drive home or find another place to camp for the night. Finding another place with water nearby was looking bleak so I turned for home. Little did I realise it would take another two hours at least to get there. I also didn’t realise how tired I was. Whilst the drive was a strain, I did come across signs to places I had previously earmarked to explore. At least now I had reference points both in terms of location and travel time. I also identified a few places of interest to explore along the way.

Overall, my camping trip wasn’t as I had anticipated. Whilst there were moments I relished, it wasn’t the pleasure I yearned. I know that both my enjoyment and despondency were a reflection of state of my mind at the time. One moment I was thinking that the opportunity swim in a pristine natural pool with no one else around was bliss, and in the next I was wallowing in thoughts about how isolated or tired in body I was. The weekend was an endurance test of my mind.

One I am glad I experienced. Even though I didn’t happily enjoy every moment, giving into my low state of mind would have robbed me of what I learned about myself and my terrain, and none of that which unfolded on my return would have unfolded. My experience provided me with information about the location of places of interest. I can now plan more confidently. I learned I need to take my good camera. I also now know much more about myself. I no longer have the stamina to drive for long periods of time. I need to take that into account. And I really do need to participate in activities other people organise.

Which is why, on my return home, I booked into several group events run by one of the fb camping pages I belong to. It is time to meet new people. Taking into account my reduced driving stamina, I have chosen events that are closer to home. With more experience and familiarity I will ‘range’ further. Small steps. Incorporate what I have learned and keep going. A low state of mind is like the sludge on my dog’s feet. Wash it off and keep going, even if you have wet uncomfortable feet. Do nothing and the sludge of a low mood state of mind becomes encrusted. The possibility of experiencing different destinations diminishes. All actions lead somewhere, including the inaction in response to low states of mind. They are nothing more than sludge. Keep travelling down different roads of experience, and relish what they bring, even when uncomfortable.

Behavioural Experiments of the Mind

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We are all the directors of our experience of the story of our life. Our story has a beginning and an end. It has unique content. In between, we get to choose where we focus the camera of our awareness and the point of view of our thinking.

The craft of a great director of our human story is in understanding and deftly working with our thinking and feelings.

In all the myriad of details we can focus on in each moment, we unconsciously choose what we pay attention to — until we become aware of what we are doing. Alongside our attending we are interpreting, using the words and images from thought to make meaning, even if that meaning in the moment is to operate on automatic.

We experience where our thoughts meander.

Often we change direction, instantaneously experiencing the miracle of the mind body connection. We change our mind, our attention is caught by something, we have an insight, we hear the logic in another person’s words, we become immersed in a flow experience and … what we are experiencing in our bodies changes.

We experience where our thought moves.

Our thoughts, whether in the form of words or images are not ‘facts’. They are akin to clay, something we can shapeshift. We may not be able to direct what comes in to our minds (and maybe we can), but we are able to choose which forms to engage with and which ones to leave behind. We can direct the experience of our life story, regardless of its content.

As a therapist, I will at times set behavioural experiments for clients to discover for themselves what I point to in our sessions. I also utilise them when I too get caught up in an uncomfortable perceptual lens that takes me nowhere. Try them for yourself. See what you learn about your capacities as the director of your experience, about the creative nature of thought, about your own habits of mind and about the so-called truth of much of what we think, particularly about ourselves!

1. The first step is to notice. Notice the feelings in your body and check in with what is going on in your head. If this isn’t possible in the moment, hindsight is a remarkable human tool. Look back at the experience you have just been through. Look at the thinking driving it. If you acted on it, what was the result? If you didn’t act on it, what was the result? Much wisdom is gained in life through hindsight, when we see how behaviours that erupt from a troubled mind usually result in more trouble. Noticing is a powerful inbuilt mental health faculty.

2. When caught up in overwhelm, with a list of things that must be done running through your head, go in the opposite direction. Stop, ask yourself what you need to do to slow down your mind and your actions — and do it. What did you learn? How important was all that stuff you had on your list? Did the world open up and swallow you when you stopped all that pushing ahead?

3. When you are caught up in hurt and pain, wanting to lash out at others, stop and look after yourself instead. Be kind to yourself. Write in a journal, have a bath, dress in your favourite clothes, soften, be gentle to you. The other person may not be kind to you, but you can assuage your hurt by being gentle with yourself. And once you are feeling better, you can then decide what to do with unkind people in your life.

4. When your mind drops into a low mood, when everything about you appears gloomy and you have no energy — do something. Do something that fully engages you. Run, ride a bike, play chess, garden, walk in the sun. Those gloomy states of mind can be dangerous. They aren’t a life sentence, they are a thought created psychological state playing out in your body. Experiment with relating to it as a ‘state’ rather than a ‘trait’. Know that the true ‘trait’ is the power of awareness. If we can see that we are gloomy then what is the true self? The gloomy abyss or the point of awareness that sits above it all. Instead of buying into the gloom buy into the awareness. Act from there and see what happens. Did the gloom disappear? Did it shrink? What did you notice about your attention and thinking as you wavered between the activity you engaged in and the gloom in your mind. What we attend to expands.

Always notice, then when in a calmer state of mind, listen for what needs to be done, if anything. Not only does a director have a keen eye, she/he also taps a creative faculty when problems are encountered. How else would brilliant stories in films and books be created? We need the content of the story — and we need the interpretation. It is the latter that captures us, inspires us and reflects the hope that is inbuilt into life. Hope is part of its nature. Hope is part of our nature. It is part of the effervescent vitality of life. But it is hidden if we stay in ‘stuck’ states of mind. Developing our director skills in choosing which thoughts to privilege and which ones to walk away from is a key skill to determining whether our story is one of fulfilment or one of suffering. Which life story will you direct?

PS. The information provided in this post is for general information only. Appointments are available for anyone in Australia seeking more personalized support either face to face or via Telehealth. Please call 08 9330 3922.

Photo Courtesy of Denise Jans, Unsplash.com

State of Mind First

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I know that educating people about the 3 ingredients that create human experience is a powerful pathway to increased feelings of wellbeing, clearer decision making and creativity/wisdom in living. However, that understanding is a radical shift in how we have learned to think about ourselves and life.

Whilst everyone has experience of what I point them to (because it is true for everyone), the way that we use thought (focus and content), gets in the way. I know the presence of the latter by its feeling – flat, fearful, low, anxious, busy, overwhelming, arrogant, angry, hesitant, timid, and more. They are created from our learned use of thought.

As sessions progress and people feel safer, their learned thinking wanes and their minds open to the understanding I bring. Safety allows thinking to calm. As it calms, we come home to a more natural state. Warm feelings, wisdom and clarity unfold and navigating life becomes way less effortful.

People generally enter sessions seeking a calmer and happier state of mind. That can’t be achieved with the thinking creating the busy and unhappy state of mind. The mind needs to slow down if insights, realisations and common sense steps are to be recognised.

I like to write in a journal. In my journal I have learned how to calm my mind and how to reap the treasures that lie within.

One journal activity I have found particularly useful to calming the mind is a strategy taken from Positive Psychology. I initially read about it here. It emerges from the observation that people tend to focus on the negatives in their day and/or create negative interpretations of the expressions of life manifesting around them.

This brief journaling technique turns our attention in the opposite direction to our learned habit. The instructions are simple. ‘Spend a few minutes at the end of the day making a list of 6 – 10 moments throughout the day that you appreciated for some reason or another.’ And when you wake up, try and remember as many as you can. After a week or so, increase the number to 12 – 20.

The purpose of the activity is not to test your memory. It is to change the habit of how you use attention and thought. In the process you will also experience the truth that your body feels what you think and that our external circumstances do not create our feelings, even when they are tough. The practice changes the wiring in your brain breaking the strength of its learned automaticity. It also has the potential to create a change in your awareness of how your experience is created. And … in the move to feeling better, you create the conditions for you to experience more of your innate intelligence, wisdom and creativity. The warmer our feelings, the closer we are to living from ‘home’ – before our conditioning.

If you are consistently feeling low, I offer this idea as something to try. But if it doesn’t appeal, then ask yourself ‘what can I do to slow down and come home’. The natural wisdom inside you, inside everyone, will guide you in your own unique way.

Image courtesy of @lucaupper Unsplash.com

‘Snakes and Ladders’ Thinking

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I have this children’s game sitting on my coffee table in the office. I use it to explain the role of thinking as we all play the game of life. Some of our thoughts are ‘snakes’ whilst others are ‘ladders’.

‘Ladder’ thoughts move us forward. We can know them by their feeling. They feel alive, right and positive.

‘Snake’ thoughts eventually take us backwards. They feel dead, revved up, chaotic, rushed, muddy.

‘Ladder’ thoughts emerge from a clear and calm mind.

‘Snake’ thoughts come out of a chaotic, revved up or depressed mind.

Solution ‘ladder’ thoughts are found in a clear mind – our default setting.

Solutions are never ever found in ‘snake’ thoughts.

A clear mind yields thoughts of love, compassion, wisdom, insight, creativity, innovation.

A tumultuous mind yields the opposite.

Both types of thoughts flow through our minds. With the gift of ‘free will’ we have the power to choose which ones to invest in and follow and which ones to drop and leave behind.

‘Ladder’ thoughts emerge from our true self. When caught up in ‘snake’ thoughts turn your mind to your true nature. Know that it is there and slowly you will return ‘home’.

When we have a cold, has our innate physical health left us? No. It is working to kill the bacteria. Our innate physical health system springs into action and sends the chemicals, white blood cells, etc. our body needs to overcome the illness. We experience the symptoms of our innate physical health working and if we ‘tune in’, we rest. In resting, we work with our innate physical health system. If we don’t, we work against it.

When we experience ‘snake’ thoughts has our innate psychological health left us? No. The feelings that accompany ‘snake’ thoughts call us to slow down so that our innate psychological health system can right us. Just as our innate physical health system is available to respond to threats, so too is our innate psychological health system. The ‘outputs’ of our psychological health system are thoughts – thoughts with a feeling of truth in the moment.

Noticing is the key. Notice our cold symptoms as soon as they begin and we can rest quicker, reducing the duration of our cold. Ignore them, push ourselves and we increase the possibility of hospitalisation. The same is true of our psychological symptoms. Notice them early, slow down, turn to innate health, listen for guidance accompanied by a feeling and follow.

We have both an innate physical health system and an innate psychological health system. We are just more conscious and therefore knowledgeable of one. Are you ready to become conscious of the other?

Mess

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Sometimes we make ‘thinking’ mistakes about the mess in our lives.

That thinking can cause more damage than the mess itself.

That thinking can bring the living of our lives to a halt.

Mess is just mess, problems to sort out, and move through. But if we mistakenly think that mess is a reflection of something negative about ourselves, i.e. we make a detrimental judgement of ourselves based on the mess, then we increase the risk of shutting down our capacities for resolving the mess and instead replace it with shame. Shame shuts us down and we get stuck.

FootpathIt has taken me a while to see this folly clearly and to consciously move through it. Years ago, whilst living in an uncaring, unhealthy relationship, I changed from a confident, independent, professional woman to a frightened, confused shell of my former self. I shivered within but pretended to the outside world that I was okay whilst at the same time withdrawing from everything that supported me, nourished me and reflected who I truly was. My thinking stalled me (for a number of years) and the mess worsened. Eventually, I responded to what I was doing to myself, disconnected from the relationship and slowly reconnected with affirming activities and people.

I run a small and hopefully nurturing life writing group for women. Writing our stories and voicing them allows us to explore and experience deeper and bigger definitions of ourselves. Being part of a nurturing and accepting group also offers each of us affirmation and the possibility of ‘hanging in there’ when our lives slip into mess.

I suspect no one avoids periods of intense mess in their lives. We can slip into it in the blink of an eye. Many of us think we are the only ones in a mess. This is not true. Mess happens. And when it does, it’s important to stay actively connected to people, groups, and activities that affirm who we are.

We are not the messes we find ourselves in. We are the person that others like, that others invite into their lives, that others call on the phone, that our dogs love, that our neighbours say hello to, that people recognise on the street, that others care about. Be that person and ways to navigate through each mess will become clear. Judge yourself negatively on the basis of the mess and know that it is not the mess that has done you in. Your thinking has.

Discontent is Just a Habit

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Malcontent, or discontent, is a habit in thinking. Even if you personally think it isn’t, does it matter? We all create our feeling states via the thinking we host. Those thinking states translate into behaviours – including the ones that don’t help us get on with life. We all have periods of discontent. So what? My conclusion with my own moments of moroseness is to do something that ‘gets on with my life’. How I feel is irrelevant.

Catherine Deveny, in her book ‘Use Your Words‘, has a chapter on another habit, ‘Procrastination’. Whatever reasons we make up about why we procrastinate, her point is that in real life we can’t avoid the need to do things to keep our lives going. If we indulge our habits, that indulgence incapacitates.

Notes tim-bish-Irvc7o5Bang-unsplash

Deveny suffered from depression. In a desperate attempt to get better she bought $350 worth of self-help books. In one of them, she found this little nugget – ‘pocket notes’. Turns out that writing a little note can provide an antidote to a bad habit. Carry it around and look at it a number of times during each day. You might be surprised at the impact.

In my world of understanding, that note acts as a circuit breaker, distracting your thinking from its habit, and frees your mind to consider alternatives. Follow the circuit breaker and you break your connection to the thinking behind the habit. You break your habit of indulging your habits!

The example about ‘pocket note therapy’ Deveny quoted pertained to weight loss but it got me thinking about what my ‘pocket note’ could look like for discontentment.

‘Leave your morose thinking alone – it’s not important.’

‘Do one thing to get on with life before you give in to inaction – every time.’

‘Turn off the TV after an hour.’

‘Only use Twitter to post information – no surfing.’

‘When you feel like a glass of wine, drink a large glass of bitter lemon and water.’

If I follow my ‘pocket note’ every day, my life moves forward. I am more creative, I meet new people, my relationship with my daughter is closer and I feel more energized. My only commitment is to follow the advice when discontent surfaces – as it will. Much, much better than feeding the habit of malcontent. What’s the habit that stalls your life – every time? What simple actions could your ‘pocket note’ contain? Are you willing to give it a go?

Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash.

Ticker Tape Thinking

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IMG_0681 (002)Decades ago, when I was first exposed to the inside out understanding of how we create our experiences, my very first ‘different’ way of thinking about things was to see my thinking as ticker tape crossing my mind. I was doing the dishes at my kitchen sink and could see my thinking moving across my mind as ticket tape. It was the first time I could see my thinking  separated from ‘me’.

Last week I came across a tweet from a person feeling bored with the ongoing recording in their head about themselves as ‘marmite’ and how it had become a habit that was now labelled a mental health issue. The use of the word ‘bored’ reminded me of times when I have felt exhausted and down and retreated to my bedroom to hide, only to have something later shift in my mind, a realization that I was bored with feeling down and to leap out of bed with a fresh, vital energy with which I moved into something different. This has happened several times and I am always left with the question, “How can this be? I was physically exhausted and yet here I am with boundless energy!” The experience points to a deeper truth about the nature of our feelings – they are created from the state of our minds, i.e. the quality of thought moving through them. I love the waking up to being ‘bored’, sooner or later our thinking always, always changes.

As I reflected on that tweet, the ticker tape image came to mind again, only this time it was paper tape that changed colour according to the thoughts we entertain. Imagine the flow of thought through you mind as a pale pink tape. When your mind is in that state, you too, flow lovingly in peace. But when our thinking changes, we experience the result. Start to think angry thoughts (see the red on the tape?), we feel that. Start to think self defeating thoughts (see the dark blue on the tape?), we feel that. The driver of our feelings and moods is the ticker tape of our minds, not our external events. This is where we need to turn our attention when we are not feeling so good.

We think that our changes in mood are created by the events around us. But this is simply the illusion we live in. Two people can view exactly the same circumstance in physical reality and have different experiences. What accounts for the difference? Our differences in perception and changes in mood are created by the quality of thought flowing through our minds. In any moment, we are either thinking from the ‘flow’ or thinking from how we have learned to think – our conditioning. Fresh thoughts and bespoke solutions never surface when the ticker tape of our minds is contaminated with the old habitual thinking we have imposed on it. Fresh thoughts and bespoke solutions can only surface when that ticker tape is at rest and uncontaminated by our personality or conditioning.

When you are feeling discombobulated, instead of focusing on the external events, look to the ticker tape first. See what you are creating with your thoughts, thoughts that like the Tweeter with the ‘marmite’ problem, you too have learned to think. We are all conditioned to think in certain ways, but when we repeatedly live life from our conditioned ways of thinking, they have the potential to become personality traits, habits, addictions, diagnoses and disorders.  Try and see your ticker tape of thinking. See the relationship between your ticker tape of thought and your experience and everything changes. And even when life gets messy, your best chance of elegant navigation is through the use of uncontaminated ticker tape, the only state of mind capable of tapping into limitless possibility. So rest, don’t act, and wait.