Our brain is an information processing centre that labels and categorises our senses and surroundings so that we can interact with the reality around us. Our emotions which are often physical experiences, such as butterflies in the stomach or tightening in our chest, also provide us with information about how we are experiencing the world around us. They are subjective states of our minds and often reactions to an event. These two aspects of the human experience play important roles with the functionality of our everyday life.

We live in a culture that has social constructs that influence how we experience our lives. We are conditioned to understand that feelings such as happiness, excitement and accomplished are ‘good’ and that feelings of sadness, anxiety, stress, grief and anger are ‘bad’.

Feelings are a way for us to gain individual insights into what feels okay for us and what may be crossing our boundaries or compromising our values. Our often conditioned aversion to experiencing a broad range of emotions is sometimes what I believe holds us captive in feeling ‘stuck’ and traps unresolved emotional energy in our bodies and minds.

We cannot control our surroundings or how someone else may behave but we have the opportunity to decide how we perceive, label or respond to situations. This creates a feeling of freedom in our internal world which has a reciprocal relationship with the external.

When we listen to our body, listen to our minds and hold the knowledge that we are a separate consciousness, able to witness these experiences, then we are able to respond rather than react. We create space to behave in ways that align with our truths and expand our window of tolerance. In this we can change our relationship with feelings to be information indicators of our personal experience and become free to feel, process and decide how to be in the world. This untangles some of our conditioning on what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and allows them to just be.

There are countless philosophies, leaders in different scientific fields, sociology and psychology and various groups of people that speak different truths. It is in an individualistic and Postmodernist social paradigm that we can say our truths are true even in the face of contradictory information. This can create a sense of groundlessness and uncertainty when we are seeking clarity.

Sometimes when we are feeling vulnerable and searching for solid ground we can look outside of ourselves for answers.

Sometimes it feels easier to climb in the backseat and ask someone else to be the driver of our lives.

The truth about ‘the truth’ when it comes to our personal struggles is that there isn’t an ultimate ‘truth’ to give us the answers to the complex human experience. The concept of ‘the truth’ is a fluctuating variable.

We all have our individual and subjective experiences that inform the way we understand and construct our reality. What is true for us isn’t always going to be true for someone else and in that we have the opportunity to empower ourselves by being the drivers of our own lives.

We are social creatures and connecting with others and our surroundings provides us with a platform to observe the different truths and explore what is true for us. Connection can highlight the ways we can thrive within the sometimes seemingly contradictory and uncertain human experience whilst simultaneously staying connected to ourselves and our sovereignty.

“It’s the hottest afternoon I’ve had in Copenhagen, a place I associate with the cold.

I can feel my trickling sweat and the supportive ground under my feet. The occasional breeze almost feels like a kiss from the figurative ‘one that got away’.

I’m surrendered to my senses for a moment.

There are birds singing as they nest together and a mother is stealing a moment of peace to read as her children sleep. There are giggles from the lovers hiding in amongst the hanging Willows and runners travelling at such an impressive speed. There is a unique beauty to sound of the fountain falling back into the lake and I can smell the dampness of the grass beneath me. I can taste the water I am gulping, seemingly unable to satiate my need.

There is something indescribably beautiful about where we are, what we are doing, how we are feeling and how our surroundings respond to us from this conscious place.

If I could have a wish it would be for me to breathe in these moments more than I give myself time to. There is a home within this space I’m in.”

I have written about my sensory and imaginative landscapes since the age of 15, trying to capture moments to keep them alive beyond my experiences of them. This is something I wrote when there was a heatwave in Denmark in 2017. It was during a time I often felt anxious and detached from my body so I had integrated a gradual grounding exercise into my journalling.

Sometimes when we are feeling anxious we can get lost within the intangible: thoughts, unwanted memories or painful emotions. A simple way to create a relationship with ourselves and our surroundings is by connecting with your senses and grounding ourselves in them.

What are 5 things you can see?

What are four things you can feel?

What are three things you can hear?

What are two things you can smell?

What is one thing you can taste?

We can transform our experiences by grounding in the here and now moment.

Further reading

https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques

Relationships often show us what hurts, where we have been wounded and sometimes what we have been trying to avoid looking at within ourselves. Inevitably, there will be conflict in relationships. Though these sound like painful limitations they can also be seen as opportunities to grow. Grow in love and in the depth of our self-awareness.

The Gottman’s couple research and teachings have highlighted four fault lines, or as they call them, ‘Horsemen’, of relationships that lead to break ups. These are criticism, contempt (which includes sarcasm), defensiveness and stone walling. Though these are human reactions, they are expressions that are maladaptive and cause damage to our relationships. This 20 year research from the Gottman’s has taught us that there are ‘masters’ in relationships that demonstrate more effective ways of communicating when conflict inevitably occurs.

Criticism – We have all had moments in our lives where we have wanted to or have actively criticised the people we love. This means that we attack someone’s personality or character.

The antidote – Masters point the fingers at themselves, they explore what they are feeling and how to proactively remedy the cause of the conflict. For example they might say ” I’m feeling … about the situation and this is what I do want/need in these circumstances.” The second part of this communication details what your partner might be able to do in a positive way. Masters are also friends. They use humour, laughing at themselves, affection and love throughout the relationship. They have an environment of play, adventure, purpose, appreciation of each other and meaning. Masters ask open ended questions and are curious about each other. 

Contempt – This is when we attack someone’s sense of self and it can include sarcasm.

The antidote – Build a culture of appreciation and gratitude for each other and be specific about what it is you are grateful for. This results in the building of an emotional bank account. Gottman’s research showed that masters have 5 events of positivity to every 1 event of negativity/conflict. Friendship has been shown to be a prerequisite to a positive and lasting romantic relationship. 

Defensiveness – This is when we victimise ourselves and reverse blame onto the other.

The antidote – take responsibility and exploring the other person’s point of view and perspectives on the matter. Stay curious about the situation and the other’s experiences of it. 

Stone walling – is when we withdraw to avoid conflict which communicates disapproval or separation.

The antidote – taking the time to do something psychologically self soothing. Take a break. Our heart rates begin to skyrocket when we are stone walling. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn response can be activated in conflict. Tell your partner a timeframe for when you’ll come back and take time away from the situation. It takes half an hour at a minimum for our reptilian brain to deactivate. When you walk away for time out, do not think about fight as this will keep you in a heightened state.

Relationships, being vulnerable and sharing with another takes courage and requires a set of skills to create an environment of deep connection, resilience and love. By developing these skills we are honouring ourselves, the other and the relationship in a way that can endure in times of challenge.

Further Watching and Listening

The word love is used as an expression of affection towards someone else and it expresses a human virtue that is based on compassion, affection and kindness. This is a state of being, that isn’t necessarily connected with something or someone outside of ourselves.

Intimate love requires vulnerability and that’s a part of what makes it sacred. Stepping toward love with someone, no matter the outcome, creates an opportunity for someone else to take a step closer to living the concept of love. In doing so, we are also being asked to step closer to living loving. If we cling to or spend hours fantasising about the outcome of stepping toward it, we cause ourselves sorrow and distress.

The history of the concept of love is polarising and ever-changing. It’s a living concept that almost appears to breathe as it changes depending on the environment in which it is explored and expressed.

Historically love has been seen as self-seeking or self-giving; possessive or submissive; Illusion-creating or truth-seeking; conditional or unconditional; inconsistent or enduring, enmeshed in fantasy or a privileged window onto reality. Despite this contradictory conceptualisation of love throughout time, the quality of its nature has been the litmus test in question.

Love is an ideology, a human conditioning, a practise and a paradigm which can provide us with a compass towards genuine love, that being unconditional, non-possessive, enduring and selfless. Loving ourselves provides a stable foundation for loving others.

As Esther Perel aptly describes “Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are”. Whether we are seeking love or in love, it is important to have a self reflective practise that privileges self compassion and creates space for us to live lovingly in our life’s expression.

Further Reading

Simon May. (2011). Love: A History. Yale University Press

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-is-love-a-philosophy_b_5697322#:~:text=The%20word%20love%20is%20used,on%20compassion%2C%20affection%20and%20kindness.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/10/13/mating-in-captivity-esther-perel/#:~:text=Perel%20writes%3A,a%20new%20way%20of%20being.

Sometimes it’s the quiet moments,

The ones leading up, the gentle, constant effort.

Sometimes it’s the moments when you wouldn’t think to take a photo, when your not lost in the intangible world but instead deeply anchored in the present. 

It’s not always the captured moments and loudly exclaimed platitudes that I’ve heard that matter most when we are fading.

Sometimes it’s the quiet ones, in solitude or shared. We could be yelling or not making a noise but they are quiet in their sacredness, sometimes they pass you by, you live them and keep on going without attention.

Taking time to live gratitude for the love you’ve received and growth you’ve achieved enriches how we experience our life. 

I’ve done so much for what feels like the past eternity, but it’s this quiet moment that I feel my most rich.

Gratitude increases our well-being, brings harmony to our relationships and produces generosity and compassion. Practising gratitude allows us to develop a greater sense of happiness, optimism and overall satisfaction in our lives. It also enables us to make greater progress toward our life’s goals, creates a sense of feeling loved and decreases our experiences of stress and shows significant benefits of reducing feelings of depression.

Ways that we can practice gratitude include journalling three things we are grateful each day, letting a loved one know that we appreciate them, slowing down and noticing beauty in nature, simply smiling, recognising how you are doing with focus on your strengths, listening deeply to others, living mindfully and practicing meditation.

Further reading

Alspach, G. (2009). Extending the tradition of giving thanks recognizing the health benefits of gratitude. Critical Care Nurse, 29(6), 12–18. https://doi.org/10.4037/ccn2009331

Sometimes we can feel ourselves being catapulted towards engaging in what can be labelled as self-destructive behaviours, whether that be picking up another drink, indulging in more unhealthy food, reacting explosively in our close relationships or picking up the phone to text someone we know isn’t ‘good’ for us. In these moments we can tap into our resources of patience but might need reminding of our resilience and capacity to do so.

HALTS is a helpful acronym that prompts us to remember human conditions that can trigger these reactionary behaviours. Originally developed to support people struggling with harmful alcohol and other drug use, remembering the HALTS acronym provides the opportunity to create space between our reactions and actions. Fostering the combination of self-inquiry, self-awareness and self-care promotes the transformation of what we do next into a response.

H – Hungry (physical and emotional)

A – Angry or Anxious

L – Lonely

T – Tired

S – Sick or Stressed

When we are feeling hungry, angry, anxious, lonely, tired, sick or even stressed, our body is asking us to stop, take a breath and address our basic human needs. These feelings are early warning systems before we reach a breaking point. In these moments we can practise patience and instead:

Hungry – Eat a healthy meal with wholesome company where possible.

Angry or Anxious – Remove ourselves from the situation if the feelings are overwhelming, ground ourselves back into the present moment, exercise or engage in self-reflective practice.

Lonely – Call or message a trusted friend, seek support from a professional, go to a café, reach out rather than internalise and isolate.

Tired – Take a nap or get some needed sleep

Sick or Stressed – Slow down to nurture your body and mind from ill-health, meditate and practise mindfulness

Practising patience can be challenging. This simple reminder when we are struggling, creates a spaciousness and supports us in making decisions toward self-actualisation.

Further Reading

https://bradfordhealth.com/halt-hunger-anger-loneliness-tiredness/

Applying The H.A.L.T. Technique To Overcome Negative Behavior & Anxiety

Recently I’ve been moved by practising presence. It mostly happens for seconds everyday.

Little moments of honesty, captured consciousness of awe. When I let myself notice. When I let myself feel. How often do we let ourselves experience the reality around us? Truly and fully? I can often be lost in a fantastic future or mourning a picturesque past but what I’ve learned is that there is nothing more real than the present moment.

Mindfulness and practising presence are used interchangeably in this post. There are countless benefits to being present to your life. Mindfulness with self-compassion supports the re-wiring of your brain and fosters the development of neural pathways of calm, clarity and joy. Vast amounts of research has highlighted the psychological, physical and cognitive benefits of mindfulness, though it is also emphasised that the ‘how’ of mindfulness is important.

Mindfulness practise coupled with self-compassion unlocks avenues of healing and transformation. Intention, attention and attitude create the bedrock for this cognitive environment to initiate supportive changes in your life.

There are many myths regarding mindfulness such as your mind shouldn’t wander, that you lose your passions and drive or that we don’t have the time for mindfulness practise. Mindfulness isn’t a silent mind, all minds wander, it’s about creating the space to see the mind as a tool to understand the human experience. It also doesn’t rid you of time, through practise you increase your concentration and attention, making less mistakes and saving you time. It doesn’t make you a guru of non-attachment and eliminate your desires and passions, it creates the potential for you to have a deeper connection with your passions, and as the observer of your life you can make choices towards your goals.

Learning to be mindful and present isn’t always easy. Let’s explore what it feels like to develop your capacity to be in the now.

Recommended Reading

Shapiro, S. (2020). Good morning, I love you: Mindfulness + Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire You Brain for Calm, Clarity + Joy. Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True.

What does change mean when it comes to counselling? If you are reading this, you may be contemplating going to counselling and you might want to understand the process with a bit more depth. Why should I go to counselling and what is it about counselling that can support me when it comes to changing particular parts/behaviours/perspectives in my life?

Change is something that is constant within our lives, despite the sometimes all-encompassing feeling or belief that we are “stuck” or “stagnant”.  Counselling can provide a space where change can be facilitated by different sets of skills inherent in talk therapy with a qualified therapist. Though change is not always linear and structured, counselling allows for a stable platform where change can be observed and directed which can increase our resources and readiness for change.

Change can present itself as gradual growth or a sudden occurrence demanding swift reorganisation of our thoughts, behaviours or emotional states. Counselling asks us to sit with and explore the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of situations and the role we play in it. It is important to acknowledge that change does not necessarily occur overnight and that there may be an oscillation between old and new patterns of behaviours. Critical life events, whether that be losing a loved one, a relationship or job, ask us to shift, change and grow. We can experience growth through deepening our understanding of the event(s) and reorganising our priorities,  exploring a deeper sense of connection in our intimate relationships and community, recognising our personal resilience, discovering new possibilities for ourselves and developing a sense of deeper meaning making. Sometimes we need to create our own meaning for events that feel inexplicable.

Change in counselling can simply be viewed as a shift in perspective to your current circumstances leading to acceptance and coping strategies for navigating your life. Change is not always a significant pivot of behaviours but a fine-tuning of how you experience your surroundings. Let’s explore what changes you might want to initiate in your life.

References

Harris, R. (2013). Getting unstuck in ACT: A clinician’s guide to overcoming common obstacles in acceptance and commitment therapy. Oakland, California. New Harbinger Publications.

Hayes, A., Laurenceau, J., Feldman, G., Strauss, J., & Cardaciotto, L. (2007). Change is not always linear: The study of nonlinear and discontinuous patterns of change in psychotherapy. Clinical Psychology Review, 27(6), 715–723. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2007.01.008