What If I do it?
Obsessive thoughts part 2
Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff, bridge or high building and had the alarming thought about jumping off?
In fact some people are so scared of these thoughts that they avoid any situation which could result in them being tempted to jump and end their lives.
Another common one is being in a kitchen with sharp knives or boiling water and the thought emerges which shows themselves being cut or burning themselves. Of course if they try to suppress those images the thought just gets stronger which is interpreted to mean they must want to do it. The reality is...of course you don't and you won't. If you are still not convinced then please get help so you can deal with that fear directly.
Common scary thoughts include:
Self harm
Harming others through direct or indirect action
Hurting babies or children directly or indirectly
Sex with children
Losing control
Dramatic death thoughts
All of the above thoughts are normal
The mind is very good at showing you what you don't want to happen and your emotional response will determine if the thought is shown again. For example people are scared of thoughts of sex or hurting children, if the thought produces fear of doing that then trying to make the thought go away can result in the thought gaining strength. If the thought produces mainly disgust then the thought tends to not be repeated. Fear tells your mind that what you were thinking must have been very important and will keep it lingering and repeating until it becomes unimportant.
If you are bored of the thought it also isn't repeated. Hence why giving the thought your full attention reduces its power, just like the exercise below which if you have not done, you could give it a try.
Dealing with the thought experiment:
Picture for me a thought which may feel obsessive or you don't like much when it appears.
Instead of trying to get rid of the thought, give it your full attention for as long as you can until your mind wanders to something else.
As soon as it has wandered to something else go back to the original thought and repeat.
Your mind hates focusing on boring stuff including thoughts which are repetitive.
You should notice that your attention span gets shorter on the obsessive thought as your mind literally starts to get bored of it. (we only have around 30 seconds of attention span).
Keep repeating until the thought no longer can be sustained or creates weaker or no emotional responses.
Obsessive thinking can be treated by working with the thoughts and working out if there are other issues and anxiety problems which need addressing. Therapy is great at addressing these problems and relieving the stress surrounding obsessive thinking.
If you have obsessive thoughts then it may be worth checking out these tips below to reduce the pressure on the limbic system which is responsible for your anxiety levels. It is also worth seeing a therapist to help you of there are any root issues that need addressing.
1. Drop the caffeine as it's the last thing your mind needs, it kicks in the survival mode which you are suffering from already.
2. Let go of watching the news and reading newspapers, as they are designed to literally piss you off.
3. Learn to relax thought mindfulness, meditation even if for just a few minutes at a time. This really works.
4. Get help learning to vent your anger, frustration in safe and productive ways (future article coming on this)
5. Get help letting go of guilt from the past which also adds pressure to your limbic system.
6. No point trying to be calmer if you are watching programs which get your heart racing through fear and tension.
7. Exercise is a life saver for many with anxiety, I cannot express enough how this really helps the mind become calmer and more relaxed.
8. Get therapy help for any rituals or OCD behaviour associated with obsessive thoughts.
9. Connect with friends more socially for support and good times
10. Let go of bad habits and work to change habits which hold you back and affect your mental health. Smoking, drugs, wrong crowd, over working, drinking too much, mindless television etc.
Next blog will be about how to vent and release pressure from within, I find this a vital tool to use when dealing with irrational emotions. As you know suppression doesn't work so confronting the thoughts and feelings by working them out with a
Obsessive Thoughts
"My thoughts are driving me mad!"
"They scare me!"
"I can't get them out of my head!"
"I can't stop thinking about (insert obsession here)."
Your mind is very powerful and it is very good at repeating in your lovely head what it thinks is very important to show you.
Levels of importance are determined by your emotional response to the thought and what you try to do with it. The most common approaches with thoughts which are bugging people are:
Try to suppress
Fight them
Distract them
Put them in an imaginary room or box in the head
The problem with any of these strategies is that your mind is being told that these are very important and therefore must be drawn to your attention when appropriate.
A common example is food:
"I can't stop thinking about food, my meal times and what I shouldn't be eating." Is a common problem for clients who have food issues. Their minds seeing the importance of the thought keeps repeating them over and over which feels like it is driving them mad.
"Food is on my mind all the time." Cries client after client.
"I wish I could stop thinking about food." Another says unrealistically.
Do not think of a pink pig smiling at you
Your mind has to check by thinking of the pink pig that you are not thinking of the pink pig. The more you try to not think of the pig, the more your mind has to think of it, hence why people fail to suppress their thoughts.
Thoughts are just thoughts
You have thousands of thoughts each day, most of them hardly register at all as they are unimportant. Some though you give extra meaning to when you recognise the thought appearing.
Going back to food, just imagine that you noticed a thought of a cake in your thought stream. The thought is just a thought but to someone who has a food issue this cake has extra meaning and as they try and not think of it, it comes back over and over which must mean they want to eat it. This is not true, the thought is just a thought but now it has extra meaning and thoughts of acting on it are also given extra meaning which results in a more likely action of the cake being binged on.
Dealing with the thought experiment
Picture for me a thought which may feel obsessive or you don't like much when it appears.
Instead of trying to get rid of the thought, give it your full attention for as long as you can until your mind wanders to something else.
As soon as it has wandered to something else go back to the original thought and repeat.
You should notice that your attention span gets shorter on the obsessive thought as your mind literally starts to get bored of it. (we only have around 30 seconds of attention span).
Keep repeating until the thought no longer can be sustained or creates an emotional response.
After all a thought is just a thought.
The Life Doctor based in Brighton and Hove can help you with OCD, food issues and obsessive thoughts in all areas of life with one to one sessions in person or online.
Picture credit to Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot
The Risk
It was a risk worth taking but I thought I would take a chance and post the most grossest article I could about dietry behaviour. The response was mixed but I am glad I took the risk as some people have said that the Shit Diet article opened their eyes to food in a whole new way. Yes I heard some people were disgusted and even called my professionalism into question and others couldn't look at the attached picture of what appeared to be either chocolate or shit on the tongue of someone's mouth. The article in my view simply creates a negative connection with a diet out of balance in brown or beige foods, it encourages the use of more colour to be added to a diet. The feedback from those it hit hard was really good to hear with emails saying how true it was, a couple of people asked me to do the same with smoking too, which is in the works. Sometimes people need a different approach and this down to earth and gross tactic worked well for some people, with that in mind I know I can write articles which will have the intended affect. After all, how rubbish would it be to worry about upsetting a few people if I knew that some people would benefit from me taking a risk? Here is the original article if you wish to have a read. (just don't eat chocolate at the same time....) Click here
A Shit Diet
Is your diet literally shit?
Listening to people who claim to love food, it soon becomes clear they don't love food at all, they are simply addicted to really shit food. Think about all the food you claim to love and cannot but help shovel down your throat. Picture them in your mind spread out on a large table. Do they consist mostly of these?
Cakes
Chocolates
Ice cream
Chips / crisps
Curries
Fried foods
Bread
Pasta
Junk cereals
Maybe you have not thought about this before, but if the colour of the foods you claim to love or have issues with has the colour of what a sick dog leaves behind for people to step in on pavements, then the answer is a resounding yes. You love shit food!! Brown and various shades of beige is the worst coloured food diet you can have. You are worth much more than this and your diet really needs some colour or otherwise there are some dire consequences which include:
Lack of energy
Fat
Physical health issues which shorten your lifespan usually at the point when you have so much to live for
Mental health issues
Sleep disorders
Anxiety and stress issues
There is a theory that we are attracted naturally to brown and beige foods due to baby food being the same colours. We find these colours comforting and are programmed from a young age to find shit colours appealing as blended food goes the colour of poop.
Life is too short for a shit diet and you are worth much more than the poop you are shovelling down your throat. So the next time you dish up that curry, get out those cookies, cake, chocolate or down that cola. Take a real long look at what you going to eat and drink. Is this shit diet really going to help fuel your body and give it what it really needs? Do you really want to cut your life short and which members of your family are going to have to deal with by eventually wiping your ass as your health plummets and deal with crap you leave behind when you are gone? I have lost count of the clients who are condemned to a life of misery due to someone's lifestyle choices ending their lives horrendously. There is no blame here as diet information is often confusing and contradictory, combine that with stress, anger and anxiety and we have shit foods providing illusionary comfort. Yet the future beckons with consequences no-one deserves. It is time for action and 2012 could be the year where you finally sort it out once and for all.
If you have food issues - get help
If you are addicted to certain foods - get help
If food is being used to make you feel good - get help
If you don't know what's best to eat - get help
It could be the best investment you make for yourself as well as for the people who love and are closest to you. Life's too short and hard at times to inflict on yourself and others the results of a shit diet. This is about a lifestyle change, this is not about stopping the shit food for a few days at a time in order to lose some weight. Diets do not work and can cause a lot of misery as they tend to fail. What lifestyle changes can you make to ensure you leave the crap stuff alone?
So next time you get those brown and beige foods out, imagine they are dog shit. Actually that reminds me, dogs get better food than kids these days! Would you give a dog chocolate cereal? They list on pet food adverts how healthy their product is and yet adverts for food don't tend to mention the nutritional value. (Well they can't talk about what's not there).
Oh yes...dog shit on your plate and you are gonna shovel that down your throat....how tasty and....I wonder what those bits are? When you go to the loo, look down the bowl and look at the colour of what your body is getting rid of as waste. Do you really want to feed yourself with stuff that looks like that?
If you are going to make yourself eat something that does nothing at all for your body then make sure it's the best shit there is, it's amazing how many people eat shit they do not even like that much! That is only acceptable if you are into scat as a fetish (though the psychology around that leaves me just as worried!
Good luck with changing your shit diet, if you want some help then please contact me!
In the mean time.....don't even get me started on what a pizza looks like......
Anxiety, Confidence and The Power of Hypnosis
Many of you reading this may be a little curious as to how a therapist like myself works with powerful therapies like hypnosis, NLP, IEMT, NLP, counselling or any other tools I use to change anxiety. With your curiosity in mind I thought I would write a short article hopefully answering any questions you may have. If I have not then you can always contact me to ask me directly what you want to know. I work in Brighton & Hove or online with people around the country or world.
The biggest frustration many people have with anxiety is that they know their thoughts and reactions are in their words "stupid." They hate the irrational dark thoughts which create behaviours and feelings they know deep down, simply are not right and out of context with the situation. Feeling powerless adds to the anxiety and they simply do not know what to do next to help themselves and it's not as if we learn how to manage the mind in school is it? In my view it's pot luck as to what happens next when faced with an over active limbic system which is the survival and emotional centre of the brain.
Imagine an area of your brain which scans like a radar all of life around you and reacts in an instant to anything which threatens your wellbeing. It does this brilliantly by locking out any part of you which will question the danger so you react on instinct instead as the questioning may take up precious life saving time. This really works well in real life threatening danger but in today's society where we have never been so safe in our history, this reaction causes more harm than good. As most clients will tell me, fear of fear is a real problem for them as they hate it when their minds kick into reactive survival mode when it's completely unnecessary.
Why does it do it?
There can be many reasons but here are some common ones:
Traumatic past experiences creating memories which are referenced unfairly to protect them from future harm.
Suppressed anger from childhood or past experiences.
Guilt from past experiences (never underestimate the power of guilt, if it wasn't for this one I wouldn't have so many Catholic clients. Sad but true.)
A combination of past experiences which have stimulated the limbic system to be over worked.
Stress (they are calling this the black death of the 21st century, it's not an exaggeration either).
Interesting but poor lifestyle choices with drugs, drink, food etc
More clients are mentioning to me how their minds seemed to change after smoking the stronger forms of weed out there. Mind bending drugs seems to live up to their name but I bet the smoker wasn't thinking about developing paranoia for months or years after as side effect.
What does hypnosis do then?
Well it's not a magic cure that's for sure but it's powerful enough when combined with other therapies to change the way the brain is perceiving danger. Which results in a more calmer and confident attitude. Each client is different so using just one therapy is in my opinion a bit limited so a combination is used to help get each person to where they want to be as quickly, thoroughly and as successfully as possible.
Hypnosis is an altered state of mind which people can experience in different ways, some feel likes it's day dreaming, some feel deep in some sort of trance, some remember nothing, some remember everything. The best part of my work is to help each client learn to learn self hypnosis and program their own minds to change as who want's to rely on a therapist to do it? In my view part of the mind change is to go from powerless to powerful by being empowered to handle their own emotional states and program their own minds. Programming takes place through verbal, visual and feeling suggestions which influence how the mind processes life around you. Hypnotherapy is simply hypnosis with the therapy part added to influence positive change in the mind. My work always focuses on the limbic system becoming calmer and more proactive instead of reactive.
As one client remarked me to a few weeks ago "I can sort of remember what you said but it felt like my brain was being rewired. I just feel differently about that situation now, almost as if it never happened to me and it doesn't matter anymore."
That client in particular was able to carry on their own programming to continue their own progress as they had other goals in mind to use it for.
Hypnotherapy does work differently on some people as yes it's true it's all about who is more perceptible my work takes that into account, still making the combination approach is the best likely way to get the results desired.
Another way of working is through the client appearing to receive counselling, not that I am giving to give much away but I use the power of suggestion through our conversations to enhance our work together. The session is as proactive as I can make it, what happens next is the hopefully honest feedback which then gives me the information to fine tune further sessions to get the results wanted.
Will I need lots of sessions?
I have no idea how many sessions someone will need. I can only work as thoroughly, quickly and as successfully as I can by dealing with symptoms and the possible root of the problem. I do get clients who want me to just treat the symptoms which is really the lazy approach for the therapist and doesn't treat the problem. It's quick and easy money for the therapist who doesn't care about ethics or having the client relapse in the future. The client only comes when they can afford it and between sessions are given plenty to do to continue their own progress.
Can't you just do what Derren Brown or Paul Mckenna does on the television?
The people you see on these programmes have often gone through quite a few elimination processes to see if they are going to be susceptible for the dramatic results you see on television. You don't get to see who hasn't made the grade for good television and I don't and can't just pick the clients who I think will make me look like a better therapist. I have a great success rate which improves all the time through my passion in learning new ways of working with the mind and developing strategies for handling life feeling more confident, calm and in control. I am not the perfect therapist who promises what I cannot deliver, your mind is a grand experiment using therapies which with some personal tuning can deliver some powerful results. There's no guarantee but I can do my best as all I am interested in is getting you to have the life you could have.
After all my motto is "life is simply too short not to."
Picture supplied by Salvatore Vuono
