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Homeopathy, Reiki Vs The Mind

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:47:00 +0000

There is a nice article going around the media today highlighting the potential dangers of homeopathy.

Speaking to some Homeopathist's and their fans it is very clear they will ignore anything that suggests there is a problem with their therapy. What is ironic is that these people will often be strong advocates of the power of the mind and having an open one to match. Yet when it is suggested that it's not the sugar pill that's doing the healing but the power of belief, homeopathist's are quick to try and shoot this down. (Not very open minded is it?)

Click here to read article.

Personally I don't believe in homeopathy no matter how many anecdotal stories people have. I do though believe in catalysts for the mind to kick in it's own healing strategies and if we could harness that better then just imagine what could be achieved! Also we have to remember that people heal themselves most of the time anyway, by the time they sought out help the body is likely to have already started to sort itself out. How many times have you gone to the Dr and felt a bit embarrassed as those symptoms have started to go or gone completely?

It is a shame that people with careers invested in healing people refuse to open their minds to the power of the brain and what it's potential is at self healing, due to their own self interests. The usual response is to point out medical science flaws and add badly conceived conspiracies to give their alternative therapies extra reinforcement. If a therapist does this then they have usually fallen for the alternative therapy propaganda which is worth billions in revenue and needs to be protected with some terrible misinformation.

I also believe Reiki and other energy therapies are also triggers for self healing which is why it works with some and not others. It never made sense for a universal energy to have preferences on who it could heal or not. It it shown over and over that Reiki does not actually work but healing can happen as the mind can respond to the belief it is being healed. The care and compassion many healers, homeopathist's show can't be underestimated nor can the concept of people feeling relieved that their condition is being treated in some way.

Clients reveal to me their issues often in metaphoric ways; ‘it feels like hot lava in my chest, there is an invisible barrier in my way, there is a knot in my stomach.' If you work with the metaphors it can produce powerful emotional experiences which feels like energy moving in the body. No wonder people believe in Reiki as it can work metaphorically to produce solutions to those feelings. I used to reach and practise Reiki until I realised it was metaphoric and I could get better results using suggestion or as I call it Metaphoric Energy Transformation (MET).

As therapists we cannot hold onto therapies shown not to work but we can embrace as healers the power of the mind and explore as pioneers in how we can trigger self healing in clients. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing a client learn to manage their own metaphoric subconscious messages and work with them to create the results they are looking for.

Whilst my views about therapies are not that popular among the self invested therapist community, (not that I worry about that) it is important that you research the validity of the healing therapy you are seeking help from.

Just to note the therapies I practice and all mind therapies are still under scrutiny for their effectiveness and that is a good thing. Even the most popular therapies promoted by the medical establishment such as CBT, Psychotherapy, Counselling all have their good and bad points. This scrutiny helps us refine our work so the clients benefit. It is a shame some alternative therapy fields claim conspiracy when subjected to the same scrutiny. I think that speaks volumes.

Sex and the Gym

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:36:00 +0000

Would you like a more healthier sex life?

How many of you know something needs action but are waiting to be in the mood to do something?

An example is sex.

I work with a lot of clients who want to get back into having a healthy sex life but are waiting to be horny. If we all waited for these mysterious moods to fall into place before having sex then we would be about as sexually active as a Nun.

Spontaneity is the key here and just doing it regardless of mood can trigger the body chemistry which takes you into that sexual zone you used to love so much. Instead of internalising excuses why sex isn't right for right now, focus externally instead on pleasing your partner and just enjoy experimenting from there. Your relationship will be all the better for it.

The same goes for the gym too, it really is just about going without indulging in negative thoughts about why you shouldn't go. As soon as they appear, focus on your surroundings and just go. Always a good idea to have your gym stuff ready so you can just go without getting caught up in fantasy negative thoughts. Your body will love you for it.

Just do it and see what happens. Though both at the same time might be a bit ambitious....but then again.....

Life is way to short for a sh*t sex life and bad health.

If you find this difficult for any reason then please contact me as I could help you with a range of therapies which include hypnotherapy and NLP at my office in Brighton and Hove or online.

Goodbye Anxiety

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:04:00 +0000

The anxious voice starts getting louder in your head, then faster, more panicky and more urgent.

It's creating dialogue about what people are thinking about you. It's future predictions of things going horribly wrong make you feel sick so you will do everything you can to avoid that happening. It makes your head spin as it doesn't seem to stop your mind being in overdrive.

You try to think rationally and calmly, even questioning is the stuff you think about true? But it soon jumps back to being loud and forceful convincing you it's all true as it is determined to protect you from the dangers around you.

The voice in your head doesn't stop there, it will make you stronger, more productive, get you to stop being lazy, lose that weight and get those goals reached by being your worst enemy, by being your critic. Tough love is your subconscious belief and it will kick your ass until you do as it commands.

Tightness in the chest, sickness in the stomach, tension in the shoulders and knots in all three. Your mind is determined to keep you ready and alert or danger, getting ready to fight or flight.

Many will relate to the above and there is something important to realise that can help you change this forever.

YOU ARE NOT THAT IMPORTANT!

You are important....but not so important that it's all about you.

Working on this issue can reduce anxiety, stress, anger and depression quite considerably. I have seen clients become different people overnight as they realise they have become too important and began the process of letting it go.

So important they couldn't possibly have anything bad happen to their overly precious lives. They have become so serious that life is seen in such a dark and dangerous way. For some this is just in various areas such as socially, relationships or in work, but for others this is in all areas.

If you want to be like a ‘normal' person (well what we think is normal) then you have to realise and work on a few things.

You are not that important and like everyone else you can and will cope with anything negative that happens in your life. In fact you could take advantage of any negativity and use it to make your life wealthier in many areas. This is a skill you can learn in therapy with me.

When you become too important you are becoming too internalised which means you are making it all about you. Anything happening around you is about you apparently, despite people not even probably thinking much about you, you are creating a whole script of what they are thinking. You are making it all up to protect yourself as you don't believe you could handle it if someone actually does something to make you feel bad about yourself. Best if you do it before they do, at least you are in control then.

You need to learn to become more externalised to experience the world around you without reflecting it back inside and given extra meaning. To be honest most people around you are not that interested. When you walk into a social situation it is time to notice what is happening around you and not to make up what people are thinking about you. You really are not that important. They are lost in their own worlds and if they are thinking anything about you then it's their perception and nothing to do with you.

Therapy can help this process and also get to roots of what is causing you to think the world is so dangerous that you don't feel safe.

Safe is all you want to feel, that will never happen if you live on red alert scanning for illusionary danger.

Life is too short to live a life like this and if this issue affects you then please contact me for help and advice.

I specialise in stress, anxiety, panic, anger, confidence and self esteem issues using a combination of counselling, hypnotherapy, EFT, NLP, IEMT and MET in my office in Hove or online via Skype. Plenty of tools to deal with the stuff which holds you back in life.

Hunter or Prey?

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:04:00 +0000

Hunter or Prey?

Anxiety only happens when the mind is reacting as if you are in danger. This is how we evolved, people who feel they are at risk are acting as if they are prey as their limbic systems go into survival mode, flight or fight. Living a life with the attitude of feeling like prey can make life much harder than it could be. Prey can make excuses to as to why being prey is a better option, but that is just the fear talking. Fear motivates prey into their reactions of fight or flight. The hunter is pro-active more often than not.

The preys life tends to have these qualities:

Walking looking down at the floor missing the world around them lost in thought
Not wanting to be noticed
Internalising too much and making up the danger from what they think others are thinking around them
Predicting terrible futures where they or loved ones (also prey) are harmed
They isolate themselves to try and be safe which actually makes them feel more at risk
Victim, martyr
Tries to control the smallest of things
Nags, manipulates and bullies people through fear
Low self esteem
Angry, intolerant and frustrated and wants others to feel the same way they do
Blame, shame and guilt
Wanders from bad relationship to another
Health issues
Doesn't trust others due to that pesky inner voice of doom making up stories
Misses opportunities in life
All about them and have become way to important

What is helpful is to work at changing into your natural state as the reality is you are at the top of the food chain, so why act as if you are near the bottom. Your natural state is the hunter, gatherer.

Hunter, gatherer qualities are more likely to be:

The observer, watcher, curious and focused
Externalises and focus's on what is happening around them
Risk taker
Walks with head up watching and experiencing the world in a more present and mindful way
Strong
Confident
Healthy
Calm and relaxed attitude
Takes advantage of the good and bad that happens in life
Hunts and gathers the best qualities out of themselves and others
Doesn't bother to entertain fantasy thoughts of what other people could be thinking as it's a waste of time and energy
Doesn't bother to predict the future in a negative way as what is the point?
Encourages
Compassionate, understanding
Embraces their dark side as they know they are not perfect and will make mistakes
Being part of a community, creates connections in a symbiotic way
Healthy relationships develop more in the hunters life
Recognises they are important but not too important

We all can have hunter, prey qualities in various areas of our lives due to how our minds have been conditioned to see and experience the world. It is time to start becoming the hunter in more and more areas, only you will know what that will be like. Just imagine!

If you need help becoming the hunter instead of the prey contact contact me as it really is easier than your mind may think.

Wishing me Dead

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:04:00 +0000

I have been working hard to convince clients to ‘wish me dead,' over the past few months. This usually gets a few jaws to drop and the obligatory ‘are you mad?' comments.

I don't have a death wish as I love life, it's because I love life that I do this job and it would be wonderful if people loved life a little more too.

Yet powerful irrational beliefs can ruin and hold a person back from living the life they deserve. Some people are caught in a trap where they believe their thoughts can effect the universe around them. The believe that their negative thoughts will come back and haunt them with karma, bad luck or something harmful. The reality is of course they won't but yet the belief can seem so real. They are usually fuelled by religion, spirituality or new age nonsense which fuels superstitious fears. It really is easy to say that these beliefs are not harmful, but tell that to my clients who live in fear of them being real.

Books like The Secret by Rhonda Byrne or The Abraham Series by the Hicks are often a common link to why people believe their thoughts will manifest something. These brilliantly marketed books made the authors a fortune and they will keep on adding more secrets and more laws for people to follow as the dangling carrot promises to make their lives what they want it to be. Avoids these sorts of books at all costs, if you want to develop a better attitude and more positive outlook you can do it without this sort of hocus pocus.

After overcoming all the objections they may have and then getting the client to ‘wish me dead' they soon start to realise they don't have to have these sorts of powers they think they do. If we really could wish people harm and make it happen then people in the public eye would seriously be in trouble and Dictators would be dead in seconds with millions wishing them gone. The Government would have an assassination department with people just sat there wishing people dead, forget MI5 and spies! There is no evidence for mind power like this despite what some people will try to convince you and maybe it is time for you to try it yourself.

‘Could you wish me dead?'

Nothing will happen, even if you mean it or not, it will make no difference to my life at all.

Can you also stop your superstitious rituals? I mean who decides what is bad or good luck and who fulfils this for you. If your forgot to touch wood then who is tut tutting and making you pay for that?

Whilst some people say they are harmless fun, you can see the anxiety in their eyes when you test that theory. The ‘WHAT IF?' scenario plays out in their mind as they then think if I did die or they got some bad luck, that they were somehow responsible. This is not a healthy way to think at all and shouldn't be encouraged. Over time these beliefs can rule a persons mind and OCD like rituals can develop due to their magical thinking thought patterns. Experiments are the only way to realise that nothing will happen and even if by fluke it does it is nothing to do with you. YOU ARE NOT THAT IMPORTANT. YOU ARE NOT A GOD or GODDESS AND DO NOT HAVE SUPER POWERS WHICH CAN INFLUENCE THE WORLD LIKE THAT. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE WORLD IS NOT ABOUT YOU. This can create a huge release of tension and feelings of relief.

Once clients realise they are not that powerful, that important, and what happens is not about them, they can come back to reality and work towards being calmer, relaxed and happier person.

Stop the superstitious rituals, challenge your beliefs and know that thoughts are just thoughts no matter how dark, weird or wonderful.

Laugh with and at yourself.

Life is too short not to.

The Grand Delusion

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:34:00 +0000

This is one of my favourite articles about the delusional mind and how it affects the way we think about ourselves and the world around us. If there was one article today to read to change your world it would be this one.

What you see is not what you get...

Your senses are your windows on the world, and you probably think they do a fair job at capturing an accurate depiction of reality.
Don't kid yourself.

Sensory perception, especially vision - is a figment of your Imagination. "What you're experiencing is largely the product of what's inside your head," says psychologist Ron Rensink at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "It's informed by what comes in through your eyes, but it's not directly reflecting it."

Given the basic features of your visual system, it couldn't be any other way. For example, every 5 seconds or so, you blink. Yet unless you' re thinking about it, as you probably are right now, you don't
notice the blackouts because your brain edits them out.

Blinking is just the tip of the iceberg. Even when your eyes are open they're only taking in a fraction of the visual information that is available.
In the centre of your retina is a dense patch of photoreceptor cells about 1 millimetre across. This is the fovea, the visual system's sweet spot where perception of detail and colour is at its best. "When you move away from the fovea, visual acuity falls away really quickly, and colour vision disappears", says Rensink. About 10 degrees to the side of the fovea, visual acuity is only about 20 percent of the maximum.

What that means is you can only capture a tiny percentage of the
visual field in full colour and detail at any one time. Hold your
hand at arm's length and look at your thumbnail That is roughly the
area covered by the fovea. Most of the rest is captured in fuzzy
monochrome.

And yet vision doesn't actually feel like this: it feels like a
movie. That, in part, is because your eyes are constantly flitting
over the visual scene, fixing on one spot for a fraction of a second
then moving on. These jerky eye movements are called saccades and
they happen about 3 times a second and last up to 200 milliseconds.
With each fixation your visual system grabs a bite of high-resolution
detail which it somehow weaves together to create an illusion of
completeness.

That's remarkable given that during saccades themselves, you are
effectively blind. Your eyes don't stop transmitting information
as they lurch from one fixation to the next, but for about 100
milliseconds your brain is not processing it.

Look in the mirror and deliberately flick your eyes from left to
right and back again. You won't see your eyes move - not because the
movement is too fast (other people's saccades are visible), but
because your brain isn't processing the information.

Given that you perform approximately 150,000 saccades every day, that
means your visual system is "offline" for a total of about 4 hours
during each waking day even without blinking (Trends In Cognitive
Sciences, vol 12, p 466). Yet you don't notice anything amiss.

Exactly how your brain weaves such fragmentary information into the
smooth technicolour movie that we experience as reality remains a
mystery. One leading idea is that it makes a prediction and then uses
the foveal "spotlight" to verify it. "We create something internally
and then we check, check, check," says Rensink. "Essentially we
experience the brain's best guess about what is happening now."

In conjuring up this "now", the visual system has to do something
even more remarkable: predict the future. Information striking the
fovea cannot be relayed instantaneously to conscious perception:
first it has to travel down the optic nerve and be processed by the
brain. This takes several hundred milliseconds, by which time the
world has moved on. And so the brain makes a prediction about what
the world will look like about 200 milliseconds into the future, and
that is what you see. Without this future projection you would be
unable to catch able, dodge moving objects or walk around without
crashing into things.

There's another huge hole in the visual system that can render you
oblivious to things that should be unusable. The jerky movements that
shift your fovea around the visual scene don't happen at random -
they are directed by your brain's attentional system. Sometimes you
consciously decide what to attend to, such as when you read. At other
times your attention is grabbed by a movement in your peripheral
vision or an unexpected noise.

The problem with attention is that it is a limited resource. For
reasons that remain unknown, most people are unable to keep track of
more than four or five moving objects at once. That can lead your
visual system to be oblivious to things that are staring you in the
face.

The most famous demonstration of this "inattention blindness" is the
invisible gorilla, a video-based experiment created by Daniel Simons
and Christopher Chabris at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. Viewers are asked to pay dose at attention to a
specific aspect of a basketball game, and around half completely fail
to see a person in a gorilla suit walk slowly across the screen, beat
their chest and walk off again.

Blind to bias

Whatever your opinion of President Barack Obama, it isn't hard to
find someone who disagrees. A recent poll in the US found that Obama
is the mast divisive president since the 1950's: 81 per cent of
fellow Democrats think he's doing a good job but only 13 per cent of
opposing Republicans agree.

How can so many people make a judgement about the same person and
come to such different conclusions? The obvious explanation is that
they are biased - by their political affiliations, by the media, by
their friends and family and much else.

This obvious explanation is correct. But who, precisely, is biased?
It depends who you ask. Those who approve of Obama think the
conservatives, and their media, are the biased ones. Those who don'
t, think it's the liberals. In fact, they are both right.

As any psychologist will tell you, pretty much everything you think
and do is coloured by biases that you are typically totally unaware
of. Rather than seeing the world as it is, you see it through a veil
of prejudice and self-serving hypocrisies.

To get a handle an this, think about your own opinion of Obama. You
probably believe your view to be an honest and objective assessment
based on a range of evidence from both sides. Perhaps you'll
grudgingly acknowledge that you feel the way you do because you are
liberal/conservative, but then reassure yourself that being liberal/
conservative is the only rational choice, so that's OK.

You have just experienced the illusion of naive realism - the
conviction that you, and perhaps you alone, perceive the world as it
really is, and that anybody who sees it differently is biased.

According to Emily Pronin, a psychologist at Princeton University, this conviction is "inescapable and deep".

If, at this point, you are thinking: "Yeah, right, that might be true
of other people, but not me," then you have fallen foul of yet
another aspect of the illusion: the bias blind spot. Most people will
happily acknowledge that such biases exist, but only in other people.
"It's not that we're blind to the concept of bias, or to the fact
that it exists," says Pronin. "We're just blind to it in our own
case.'

Why are we so blinkered? The problem is that our biases- which form
and solidify in childhood and early adulthood- operate below the
radar, in our subconscious. It is not that people do not look inwards
to question their own judgements and beliefs. Many do. But their
biases are not consciously available for inspection, so they leap to
the conclusion that their beliefs are correct and based on rational
reasoning.

Many of the biases are a harmless variant of the positive illusions
we routinely entertain in order to shelter our fragile egos from
reality, such as a tendency to take credit for success but deny
responsibility for failure.

Others are more serious. Few people believe that they are racist or
sexist, and their beliefs are honestly held, and yet time and again
they are betrayed by their actions. In one experiment, people were
shown a picture of a man and a woman and asked to say which they
would prefer as police chief. They were also told that the male
candidate was "streetwise" and the female candidate "formally
educated", or vice versa. Most people chose the male candidate and
then, when asked why, justified their decision by saying that
whichever quality had been attributed to him was more important for
the job.

While opinions are obviously ripe for bias, facts are also at its
mercy, with people adept at interpreting the world to fit with their
existing beliefs. For example, environmentalists interpret the fact
that most scientists and governments are convinced that humans are
changing the climate as open-and-shut evidence that we are. But
sceptics just see a conspiracy. No amount of new information will
change their minds, and yet on the whole, both camps sincerely
believe their views are unbiased and rational.

Similarly, we seek out information that fits with our beliefs and
ignore or dismiss information that doesn't. This "confirmation bias"
has been shown time and again, for example in experiments in which
people are asked to read a range of evidence about a contentious
topic such as capital punishment. Even when exposed to arguments on
both sides, most people interpret the evidence in a self-serving way,
accepting the data that supports their views and dismissing or
ignoring the rest. The scary thing is that they have no awareness of
doing it. Similarly, confronting people with new information that
contradicts their beliefs more often than not ends up hardening their
position.

Sadly, even knowing that you are biased doesn't necessarily help. "I
know that I am susceptible to all sorts of biases because I'm a human
being," says Pronin. "But in a given instance, I'm still not likely
to be aware of it."

Head full of half-truths

I remember it like it was yesterday. It's a warm and sunny English
afternoon and I'm playing outside in the garden. Suddenly a shiny
silver aircraft appears in the clear blue sky. My mother picks me up
and points to it; neighbours come out of their houses to watch. The
aeroplane is Concorde, climbing out of Heathrow airport on one of its
earliest flights.

I can play this memory over and over in my head as easily as watching
a YouTube clip, and yet I know it almost certainly cannot be real.
Even though Concorde could have passed over our house on test
flights, I only lived there until 1971, when I was barely out of
nappies. And Concorde was white, not silver.

Where does the mismatch between my memory and reality come from?
"We've known since the 1960s that memory isn't like a video recording
- it's reconstructive," says psychologist David Gallo of the
University of Chicago. The collection of snapshots known as
"autobiographical memory" is not a true and accurate record of your
past - it is more like a jumble of old diary entries, photographs and
newspaper clippings. "Your memory is often based on what you've seen
in a photograph or stories from parents or siblings rather than what
you can actually recall," says Kimberley Wade, a memory researcher at
the University of Warwick in the UK.

In other words, one of the most important components of your
self-identity - your autobiographical memory- is little more than an
illusion.

If that sounds implausible, consider that over the past three decades
psychologists have demonstrated beyond any doubt that memory is
staggeringly fallible and suggestible.

Most of the evidence comes from false?-memory research, where
psychologists deliberately plant fake memories into people's
heads. In one famous experiment, Wade and colleagues used doctored
photographs and fake parental testimony to convince people they had
been taken on a fictitious hot air balloon ride as a child. In
another, pioneering researcher Eiizabeth Loftus, now at the
University of California, Irvine, planted memories of meeting Bugs
Bunny at Disneyiand - impossible, as Bugs is a Warner Bros character.

The success rate of such flagrant manipulation is only about 30 per
cent, but Gallo says that everybody's memory is susceptible to some
extent. "It's an automatic consequence of how our brains process
information," he says. "You cannot remember everything so your mind
summarises and remembers the gist of experiences. You form
associations and draw inferences. That gives memory great power, but
it comes at a cost."

It' s one thing to implant memories in a controlled lab setting, but
how often does it happen in real life? "We don't have a firm grasp on
that," says Gallo. "How could you really know, without some measure
of what actually happened or some corroborating evidence?" Even so,
he says the fact that memory is so easily tricked in the laboratory
suggests that it must be in daily life too.

There are a number of lines of evidence that this is the case. Some
of the best come from studying "flashbulb" memories of momentous
events such as the terrorist at tacks of 9/11 or the death of
Princess Diana. Many people have a vivid recollection of what they
were doing when they heard the news of such events, and are very
confident that these memories are accurate. But guess what: these
memories turn out to be wrong a surprising amount of the time.

Within days of 9/11, psychologists at the University of Illinois at
Chicago asked nearly 700 people where they were, what they were
doing, how they heard the news and who i hey were with at the time. A
year later they asked them again. More than half of the participants
had changed their story on at least one count? while still expressing
supreme confidence the their memories were accurate.

Flashbulb memory is also highly suggestible. In 2002, psychologists
from the University of Portsmouth in the UK went to a local shopping
centre and asked people about their memories of the death of Diana,
including whether they had seen "the footage" of the actual crash.
Nearly half said they had, despite the fact that no footage exists.
An even higher percentage of people confidently "remembered" seeing
non-existent TV footage of a Boeing 747 crashing in Amsterdam, the
Netherlands, in 1992.

If such vivid and confidently held memories can be so riddled with
inaccuracy and open to revision, it is probably true that all
autobiographical memories are suspect. "I don't think you can put a
figure on it, but I'd be confident that the vast majority are not 100
per cent accurate," says Wade.

Again, there is evidence that this is the case. When researchers at
the University of Canterbury in New Zealand asked twins about their
shared childhood, they discovered that most pairs have at least one
disputed memory - an event they are both convinced happened to them
and not to their twin. Gallo also suggests that spousal arguments,
which often revolve around disputed accounts of the same event, is an
area ripe for exploration.

It also turns out that my Concorde memory is not that unusual. Last
year, Giuliana Mazzoni at the University of Hull in the UK found that
20 per cent of people have autobiographical memories that they do not
believe to be true, often because they contradict established fact.

Does it matter that our autobiographical memories are flawed? "In
some ways it's terrifying to think just how spectacularly wrong they
might be", says Wade. "memories are part of your narrative, part of
your self? identity." There are legal ramifications too. If you
witnessed a crime and were asked to give testimony about It in court,
how confident would you be of giving an accurate report?

In many other respects, though, it matters not. My memory of seeing
Concorde has no material effect on my life. In fact, according to
Wade, the Illusory quality of memory is now seen as a strength rather
than a weakness. Memory is no longer conceived as being exclusively
about the past, but as part of a generalised "mental time travel"
module that allows us to construct and test future scenarios based on
past experience. If memory were inflexible that would not be
possible. It seems having a head full of half-truths is the price we
pay for being able to see the future.

Egoist, moi?

How's your driving? If you are anything like the average person, you
probably think it is pretty good. One study found that 74 per cent of
drivers believed themselves to be better than average behind the
wheel. And, perversely, those who had been in a crash were slightly
more confident about their abilities than drivers who had not been.

This, of course, does not reflect reality. Unless there are a handful
of truly dreadful drivers, not everybody can be better than average.
And yet if you ask people to rate themselves on almost any positive
trait - competence, intelligence, honest, originality, friendliness,
reliability, and many others - most put themselves in the
better-than-average category. Ask them similar questions about
negative traits and they will rate themselves as less likely than
average to possess them.

This egotistical illusion has been dubbed the "better-than-average
effect." It is incredibly pervasive, yet goes largely unnoticed. In
an ironic twist, most people believe themselves more resistant than
than average to having an inflated opinion of themselves.

We also inflate our opinions of loved ones. Around 95 per cent of
people rate their partner as smarted, more attractive, waker and
funnier than average. And as anyone who has endured a 30-something
dinner part will testify, parents almost universally rate their
children as cleverer, cuter and more developmentally advanced than
their peers.

The better-than-average effect is just one of a number of positive
illusions - ways we kid ourselves that we are special. Another is
optimism bias, as well established effect characterized by
unrealistic expectations about the future. Most people expect to live
longer and more successful lives than average while underestimating
their chances of getting divorced, falling ill or having an accident.
And the more (or less) desirable the outcome, the stronger people
believe it will (or won't) happen to them.

Where do such illusions come from? According to Jonathon Brown as the
University of Washington in Seattle, one of the originators of the
theory of positive illusions, it all starts in childhood. "Parents
create them by fawning over their children," he says.

The fawning doesn't stop there. Throughout life we have an innate
tendency to divide the world into "Us" and "them." As soon as you
forge a connection with someone, you become part o their in group -
and humans are hard wired to see members of their in group more
positively than others. In this way we all sign up to various mutual
appreciation societies that exaggerate our virtues, ignore our faults
and look down on outsiders. No wonder most of us feel excessively
positive about ourselves.

Far from being pathological, though, positive illusions are now
viewed as being a marker of a healthy mind. People who don't harbour
them are more likely to be clinically depressed - a state called
depressive realism. but however deluded you are about yourself,
chances are you are even more so about how you think others perceive
you.

Everyone wonders and worries about how they come across to others,
and most of us think we have a pretty good handle on it. But we
don't. "People are mower near as good at it as they think, " says
Nicholas Epley, a behavioural scientist at the University of Chicago.

That is not to say was are completely useless. If you think of
yourself a generous, for example, other people probably do too. Just
not quite to the extent you might like. Form moment to moment
however, we are surprisingly poor at intuiting how we are coming
across. This is largely down to something called the "spotlight
effect" - the deluded belief that everything you do and say is being
closely observed and scrutinized. "Because we're so aware of
ourselves it can be easy to think that others are noticing us when
they're not," says Epley.

As a result, we blow everything out of proportion. "Say you spill
some water on yourself so it looks like you peed your pants," says
Epley. "You assume everyone is going to notice. But they don't,
because the world doesn't really revolve around you." People also
assume that their emotional states are broadcast to all and sundry
when in fact they are largely invisible.

It also works the other way. If you do or say something you think is
especially clever or admirable, you're likely to overestimate the
extent to which other people will notice. Most of the time they won't
even register because they are too busy tending to their own ego. The
central problem is that you know yourself to well. "You're an expert
on yourself," says Epley. That means you notice all kinds of subtle
things about yourself that others simply don't. They see general
characteristic."

This is compounded by the fact that we have difficulty guessing what
other people are thinking. "We have imperfect tools for getting into
their minds," says Epley. "We watch their faces and behaviour and try
to get some sense of what they're thinking, but behaviour doesn't
always reflect attitudes very well."

Surprisingly our lack of insight doesn't disappear when we're around
people we know well: accuracy does go up, but only slightly. There is
even evidence that your ability to read the mind of your spouse
actually drops after the first year of marriage. "People are actually
better at knowing how well they're communicating with a stranger. You
believe you know your partner very well as you spend more time
together, but this can actually create more of an illusion of insight
then actual insight," says Epley.

Perhaps the area where we have the least insight is physical
appearance. Everybody knows what they look like, but when it comes to
judging how we look, we're absolutely holes. For example, if you ask
people to locate a photograph of themselves in a sea of faces they
find it faster if it has been morphed to look more attractive,
suggesting we all think we're better looking than we actually are.

"When we ask people to rate how attractively they will be rated by
somebody else and correlate it with actual ratings of attractiveness,
we find no correlation," says Epley. "Zero! This still shocks me. For
crying out loud, you ought to get some sense of whether you're hot or
not. But it seems not."

Who's in control?

This is the big one. The notion that we have free will - the ability
to exercise conscious control over our actions and decisions - is
deeply embedded in human experience. But the more we learn about the
physical universe and the human brain, the less plausible it becomes.

One argument goes as follows: the universe, including the bits of it
that make up your brain, is entirely deterministic. The state it is
in right now determines the state it will be a millisecond, a month
or a million years from now. Therefore free will cannot exist.

Neuroscience has also chipped in. Around 30 years ago psychologist
Benjamin Libet discovered that if you ask people to make voluntary
movements their brains initiate the movement before they become
consciously aware of any intention to move. Other experiments have
since been performed along similar lines, leading many
neuroscientists to conclude that free will is an illusion.

But it feels so real. We all have a sense of agency - the conviction
that even though we did one thing, we could have done another, and
that at any given mount we have free choice of any number of actions.
Yet it seems that this is an elaborate illusion created by your
brain. This conclusion is inescapable. We are really deluded.

From New Scientist Magazine issue 2812.
May 16, 2011 by Graham Lawton

What If I do it?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:13:00 +0000

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

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:54:00 +0000

"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

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:08:00 +0000

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

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:09:00 +0000

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

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:10:00 +0000

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

2012 Intentions for a Better Life

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:22:00 +0000

Many of you will be looking at January 2012 as a time to make some big changes in areas of your life which need a bit of a kick up the butt.

The problem is though that some of you won't stick to the changes not because you don't want the change but simply because of a lack of a strategy. Some others will simply give up because the mind is that clever at going back to what was comfortable.

Here are some strategies, perspectives and points to remember when it comes to making changes with the intention to better your life.

Don't give panic your unconscious with too large a goal. If you intend to lose weight for example then saying to yourself lose 3 stone can seem like an unconscious mountain to climb. Break it down into smaller parts by starting with goal for each week or fortnight.

Learn to calm down and relax your mind, even if it's for a few minutes at a time as stressed minds find it hard to keep focus and make good decisions on best intentions.

Drop the caffeine if stressed or anxious. The caffeine triggers the flight or fight response which is the last thing you need to help you with your goals. It does't perk you up as believed so don't fall for that old myth.

Stop being hard on yourself as it just stresses out your mind and lowers your self esteem which in turn leads to your mind seeking comfort from old habits you want to let go of. The amount of clients who slag themselves off in the mirror then pop out for cake is a great reminder of why having a go at yourself just doesn't work. The intention is usually to motivate but it just ends up creating the opposite result.

End all criticism, this includes to yourself and others, it's shallow and dishonest as it doesn't look at the bigger picture at all. It just makes the mind stressed and creates defensive reactions which just makes life much harder for all involved.

Use encouragement to bring the best out in your and the people around you. This motivating approach helps your mind enjoy reaching the goals you are setting.

It's ok to step off the path now and then towards your goal. You are not perfect and now and then you will slip up. Your encouraging attitude will help you make an extra effort and pay back what you have done to yourself. An example being, if you eat too much one day, eat less the next and maybe pop to the gym, this is much better than simply giving up.

If exercise is on your intention list and you are unfamiliar with gym equipment then book a session which is usually free with your gym to work out a plan for the best way to optimise your time there. I often see people wandering from machine to machine with no clue what they are doing and no strategy to follow. This is a waste of time and becomes de-motivating as results desired will not show. A personal trainer is an even better idea even if it's just a few sessions to give you some ideas of exercises you can do to help you get fit, healthy and lighter.

Something that smokers or over eaters often forget is the legacy they are going to leave behind. This isn't criticism but a simple honest look at the future. I am sure no-one wants their family to go through the pain and suffering caused by watching a loved one slowly die from the most painful suffering due to poor lifestyle choices. I still meet people who years later are grieving painfully over the loss of someone close and due to that grief have had their life made that much harder. Do you really want the people you love to be left with your legacy of pain and suffering? The sad thing is that letting go of the lifestyle choices is perceived to be much harder than it is or the habit gives many illusionary benefits when it certainly doesn't. Invest now in letting go once and for all as life's too short not to and that's not just for you either.

Make your intentions fun to achieve and get support from your family and social network to encourage you to reach them. The more you enjoy it the more you are likely to reach your goals.

If you don't have a strategy then you could fail as the mind loves direction and a plan. If you need one then find someone who can give you advice on what options there are for your strategy.

Get some mind coaching therapy if there are things in your past you need to work with and let go of which will help you reach your goals. Your past conditioning can prevent the progress you deserve which is frustrating and really annoying as it can feed low self esteem and feelings of being a failure.

A vision board can be motivating as it contains images of your desired future but chunk it down to create a board of images which represent the next month or so. If for example you have a millionaires yacht or home on the board your mind can simply see that as too far ahead or impossible.

Your unconscious is like a dog who will go fetch whatever your project from your mind into the future. Wagging its tail it will bring back with no judgment what you were focusing on and will draw your attention to anything related. Great for positive and proactive future thoughts but really quite rubbish for anything negative and un-proactive.

Nutrition is vital for a healthy body which helps to maintain a healthy mind, feeding yourself lots of sh*t food (all brown and beige) will just make it that much harder to succeed. Of course you can't eat brilliantly all the time but around 80% great with 20% whatever is much healthier balance.

Get hydrated! Your cells shrivel when dehydrated and that makes it much harder to have the clarity and energy you need for your life as they can't function properly.

The key to your success is to work on developing your inner resources such as confidence, strength, self esteem, focus, willpower, determination, calm, clear and proactive mind, plus anything else you have within. Helping them flourish is the most rewarding investment you could ever make.

I am here to help too, having mind coaching to reach your goals cannot be underestimated. Good luck and make this work for you the best way you can. Life's too short to give up when it feels too hard when the reality is that your mind may simply just need a tweak here and there. Contact The Life Doctor for more help.

The Most Important Lesson

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:05:00 +0000

Wouldn't it be good when you were at young and in school that after maths and before english there was a class showing you how to handle your emotions especially in those tough times. The teacher would encourage you to recognise your inner strengths and nurture them so they grow a bit more each day as you explore yourself and life.

I wonder if the syllabus would be something like this:

The limbic system exploration of why this emotional and survival centre makes life very hard when it's over active.

The irrational and exhausted mind - how to build your energy and clarity back to full strength.

Why suppressing emotions just makes things worse.

Paradox of control, being more in control by letting go of trying to control.

Embodiment classes to work with and explore the body, mind connection.

Master techniques to accept all emotional states no matter how uncomfortable they may feel.

Promise to be honest - explore through a written essay on what honesty really means.

Why personal bias feels honest but it's not.

Lecture on why criticism is dishonest and shallow and why it is important is being truly honesty to end all criticism.

Criticising others and the defensive mind - how to focus on being truly honest through encouragement and praise.

The Perfectionist - A visit from a former CEO of a blue chip company who is now burnt out and suffering from exhaustion due to constant criticism and being hard on himself to make his career a success. Projector needed to show pictures of his family who he lost due to work life balance and what the health consequences are.

How to work with people who are in defensive mode and help them open up and reverse their behaviour from reactive to proactive.

Ending the cycle of limitations by dealing with unhelpful conditioning from parents, teachers, religion and society.

Empowerment of the mind through suggestion and self hypnosis.

If I had children, I would love them to go to classes like this. I think it's a sign on an out of balanced world that we do not take the time to help our young manage how they feel. We all have been left to work it out for ourselves by bumbling a long and hoping for the best. Life's random as it is and we have no idea what will happen to us a long the way, having the tools and the confidence to be able to manage our emotions with what happens is invaluable. It's crazy we are not equipped with what we need.

It's not anyones fault they are experiencing emotional issues such as anxiety, depression, stress or anger issues and have trouble dealing with them. Society blames people for not being on control and doing stupid things but the part of the mind responsible is designed to be irrational so how can it be their fault? Yet their critic often arises and they put themselves down and this is fed by people who do the same to them too. No wonder people often have such low opinions of themselves with this going on.

Time to end the cycle, whilst there might not be any classes like this at school. There are people who are admitting they need help to manage their emotions and life better. They are coming to seek advice, techniques and empowerment through mind coaching with various therapies. This is not a sign of weakness, this is a sign of strength and if only more people had access or thought about going for help.

It's simply the best investment you will ever make.

Life's too short for a mind held back unhelpful conditioning, it's also too short to settle for a life where you hope your issues will change all by themselves, they won't. Wherever you are in the world seek help. I offer sessions online and in person and I hope through working with me that you realise just how powerful you really are and just what you can do with that power.

The Life Doctor can see you for one to one sessions online or in my office based in Hove in East Sussex. UK.

Picture credit Jscreationzs

Fighting Coffee

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0100

The adrenaline surges around your body.

The rational part of your brain starts to be sidelined in order to run on reactive instinct to keep you alive.

Energy is diverted from your brain, immune system, digestive system into your arms and legs, flight or fight?

Your nervous system is being pushed to the limit as your brain reacts to this life threatening danger.

What's the danger here?

Of course there isn't any, but this is the typical reaction to a cup of coffee as caffeine stimulates survival mode in your brain.

Some people think caffeine doesn't cause them any problems, whilst for some that may be true, for others it's either denial or poor judgement as they are likely to be addicted to the stuff. It only takes 7 days of drinking coffee to be addicted and then after that the mind stimulation people think they are experiencing is their fight or flight going into action and also bizarrely their cravings being satisfied. Being told to stop or even thinking about stopping can get the mind making all sorts of excuses so it can continue getting its hit. Caffeine lasts about 6 hours in your system but over time like most stimulants, it's effects get less so the brain gets you to drink more or search for other stimulants to keep you alert. This is a vicious cycle as the stimulants will often lead to do a drop in alertness which leads you to look for more to keep you functioning.

Caffeine causes problems for many of my clients when combined with a sensitive nervous system, it begins with the worrying, frustration, snappiness, negative thoughts, feeling tired and the odd restless nights sleep. It then can end up with insomnia, panic attacks, anxiety, outbursts of anger, heart palpitations, stomach disorders, low physical health, poor decision making, really dark thoughts and feeling exhausted. You will know if this is happening to you and the decision is whether to let this continue or to simply cut down and stop. Life is too short to have your nervous system under such pressure when you need it for normal every day life. As stress is now being labelled the new black death of the modern age, adding caffeine to the mix as well is a sure fire way of making things worse.

A stressed mind changes the way you look at and experience life, as the mind is running on reactive mode then the wise, rational and proactive part of you is sidelined to deal with possible dangers. That is a sh*t way to live life, you can't keep on living with fear motivating your mind as the result often burn out and clients who reach that stage are often in a very bad place which I wouldn't wish for anyone to experience. Dealing with and lowering stress is vital for a healthy mind and body and life's too short for being mentally challenged from too young an age. With stress being linked to mental disorders such as Alzheimer's we have to assess what we can realistically change in our lives to bring down the stress levels. Caffeine is a small change but powerful enough to create lasting results. Another problem with caffeine is that it is prevents your brain chemistry working properly one chemical we need to work in balance is adenosine. Some of it's jobs include helping you sleep, dealing with inflammation and calm down your nervous system. It cannot do this so well when it's being blocked by caffeine. This just makes life that much harder if your body is struggling to function as well as it could.

Whilst researching this article someone told me that the caffeine in tea was different and that it didn't have the same effect as caffeine in coffee. The only difference that I could find was the theory that caffeine may be absorbed more slowly. Is that a good thing? Well drawing out the survival mode response doesn't sound that good to me. I also found some articles which suggested people becoming hooked on being stimulated by coffee are more likely to seek out being stimulated through drugs too.

The other side of the coin is that coffee in moderation can have apparent health benefits which include reduced risk of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Diabetes and certain types of cancers so you have to weigh up what's more important for you. These benefits can also be gained through other ways including decaf coffee so I wouldn't use the list as an excuse to continue with caffeine hits especially if you are prone to anxiety, anger, tension etc.

The bottom line is that caffeine is a problem for people who are suffering from various levels of stress, anxiety, restless sleep, anger and any other nervous system related problems. If you suspect this is you then you would certainly benefit from cutting down and maybe stopping. There maybe a withdrawal period which may feel uncomfortable but this passes very quickly and then note down any changes you notice with your current issues. I have seen way too many clients benefit from cutting down and stopping caffeine intake, they are often shocked at how easy it was for them and how good they feel.

The Life Doctor is available for private sessions online or in person at my office in Hove

Picture credit to Paul.

Clients are not Weak

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:46:00 +0100

I have to admire anyone who has the guts to come to a total stranger and share their deepest darkest fears in order to get help.

I often sit there in awe of someone who has the strength and willpower to come and share what they want me to help them with. The sad thing is they often feel ashamed or weak because they couldn't do it themselves. In fact some clients mention that their partners and friends look on in disbelief that they need to go and get help as surely can't they just do it themselves? Wouldn't the easy option to just hope the issues go away or sort themselves out?

We all would love to think we can handle what life throws our way but the reality is that there are times when we can't and we need help. Feeling embarrassed is natural as no-one likes to feel a failure and their issues unsolved make them feel bad. Yet what is ignored is that not many people are taught how to handle their emotions from childhood, in fact they are taught the opposite and that's how to suppress them. In childhood when you cried or had a tantrum your parents may likely have tried to reward or punish you to stop expressing yourself.

Only last week I was watching the little boy screaming his head off in the supermarket which was uncomfortable enough but seeing the parent lose control and scream back at how ridiculous he was being made me cringe. It's not the parents fault, their coping mechanisms are probably not working very well and they are likely to be doing what their parents did to them. After all....it did them no harm...didn't it?In the future this little boy is likely to have difficulty expressing his emotions as he is likely to be conditioned like many others to see expressing his anger, tears, frustrations as ridiculous. This has been going on for generations and add to that the people being programmed to think therapy is for weak, hippy, middle aged men and women with nothing better to do and you have people bumbling about hoping their issues will sort themselves out.

There is no shame in getting coaching, therapy or any other type of help to improve your life. Clients often cry at how much of their lives have been wasted by unhelpful programming which prevented them getting help earlier. It is sad and again reminds me that life is too short to not get help for anything you need to change for an easier and happier life.

If you wanted to learn a new skill then wouldn't you look for the resources that would help you get those skills?

Clients are not weak, they often have such strength which will help them make powerful changes easier than they can imagine. Their minds are often cluttered with all sorts of crap which needs shovelling out as it makes them feel weak. Once it begins to clear they can think clearly again and when they do, the world is their oyster and new beginnings await. Though this time they have more resources and can look at their future with more confidence than before and do their best to get where they want to be.

Therapists are trained to help you clear your mind from the past which influences how you experience now and think about your future. A good therapist will teach you to continue that process as life can be quite random and it's good to have support but not to have to rely on who helped you.

Life's too short to wish it would change when you can make take steps right now to make those changes.

Paul Sheppard is The Life Doctor and works online and in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. Please contact me for more information about private sessions

Picture credit to ambro.

The Realistic Factor

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:35:00 +0100

Another year, another X factor season fills our TV screens, with millions of wannabe popstars hoping for a taste of the high life.

Despite the freak show element of the early rounds, we find ourselves drawn into the lives and emotions of the auditionees, following their journeys week by week, to find out who will eventually be crowned the X factor winner.

Let's face it, it's good TV!

Although it is undoubtedly fun to watch, the problem with X factor, and other programmes like it, is that it creates false hope for thousands of people, that don't necessarily have the vocal ability or even the life skills to cope with the rejection that may follow. Many of these people truly believe that they can win the competition and become rich and famous, with very little experience or talent at all.

There are many routes you can follow to establish a career in the music business, but if you do believe that you have a great voice, and choose to go to auditions, it may initially be helpful to get a second opinion, before you spend a fortune on clothes, travel and accommodation.

A professional singing teacher can a) give you an objective opinion and b) help you prepare your audition piece and give you real advice about these auditions.

There are, in fact, many other competitions like Open Mic UK or Live & Unsigned, that can give you a platform to show off your vocal talents, but that have smaller regional auditions and fewer applicants.

Singing lessons can improve your voice; they can also boost your confidence! A good teacher will be a good listener and very able to give you the skills that you need to perform well, as a singer, but these skills will also translate into other areas of your life - "the way you do one thing is the way you do everything".

For more information, or to book a free trial singing lesson please call

Zoe on 07788 585009 or email zoe@singconfidently.co.uk Website

Should I Call?

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:23:00 +0100

A friend contacted me with an intriguing question.

Should I call?

The situation was this: They had been on a date with apparently a wonderful guy who seemed to make it really clear that they were interested in my friend and after what was a great night, promised to call to arrange to meet up again.

The problem was that this was a week a go and they had not called since. Of course my friend was naturally running through possible excuses as to why they could not have called and was confused as to why in this day and age that they hadn't managed to. The excuses ranged from losing their phone to being really ill or dead at the most as they wanted to know why they had been avoided all this time. They asked me if they should call and try and arrange something or make an excuse to phone for a chat.

I said not to bother as this guy was simply not that interested, hence not making any effort to get back in touch. If they did eventually call, it will because they are lonely and bored and was going to use them as a time killer or a way to get their rocks off if sex was on the cards. Just move on as it wasn't personal that they rejected you, they obviously have a subconscious or conscious checklist in their heads and you didn't tick all the boxes. It's about them not you so let them go whilst you enjoy meeting other guys who may be very interested in you and will make the effort to get to know you.

My friend knew this to be true and didn't want to face that fact as rejection doesn't feel nice at the best of times but my advice to just move on was just what was needed, life's simply too short to chase people who are not that interested in you.

Picture credit Graur Codrin

Bored of Happiness?

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:29:00 +0100

When I ask most clients what they want, they usually reply that they just want to be happy.

Is this enough though?

Happiness flows into our lives at various times due to various experiences which we find ourselves in. If we were happy all the time wouldn't we just be bored of happiness and become apathetic and complacent with it?

Light and shade seems important for us to experience which are the ups and downs to life and when we experience an up we know what it feels like because it feels different from a down time, or other feelings which are on various levels.

We could with intention place ourselves in situations which are more likely to create feelings of happiness, joy, wellbeing and laughter and this tends to work well for a life which feels good to live. We will though be motivated by feelings which feel uncomfortable such as boredom, frustration, fear etc. This helps us begin to explore what we can do next to get that good feeling we crave for, this cycle will pretty much continue for the rest of our lives as one is for sure, no-one can be happy 100% of the time. They would be bored of it very quickly, I know I would.

Why are men so f*cked up?

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:43:00 +0100

"Why are men so f*cked up," a friend moaned to me last night as yet another date with a guy had turned sour.

They have a good point as women and men complain to me all the time about their relationships with guys from hell who carry around way to much emotional baggage.

The answer may be simple, women are in general much more likely to visit the doctor or a therapist when something is wrong. Men are taught from childhood to simply "man up", when it comes to their issues so they become masters of suppression and bottling up anything they need to address. This over time can cause anger, stress and depression which again get ignored or makes the guy feel ashamed and weak. There is a stigma that people seeking help are weak and useless when in fact I see it as the opposite.

This is changing though and I see many more guys taking the first steps to getting well needed help. Clients often worry they are coming across as mad, crazy, weak or a lost cause when they start opening up and they don't often acknowledge how brave they are to come to see me. I cannot but help admire anyone who comes to see a total stranger and share their deepest and darkest fears, worries and behaviours so they can be changed.

I think as a society we should be embracing therapy to help enrich our minds and lives instead of just bumbling along hoping for the best.

If we need to learn new skills for example a new career, then we would not hesitate and I see gathering skills to deal with life and the mind just as vital. Empowering yourself is one of the best investments you can make for your future and it's never too late as some of clients in their 70's will testify.

If more people got help for their issues wouldn't the world be a more relaxed and easier place?

I think so.

Paul Sheppard is The Life Doctor and is available for therapy sessions online and in person in Brighton and Hove, UK.

Picture credit to Graur Razvan Ionuf

Chatting to Your Darkside

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:33:00 +0100

Let's face it, we all chat to ourselves in various ways with conversations within our heads. These conversations can be just mundane or they can be helpful, motivating, inspiring and energising. For the people coming to see me though they are having conversations within which are very unhelpful, berating, judgemental, teasing, sneering, angry and frustrated.

Have you ever stopped to listen to your inner voice and how it can make you feel?

Some clients are very surprised when they do this and how they can even actually visualise the owner of their voice which is a part of them they usually at war with.

Here are some examples of the angry inner voice:

You are nothing
No-one likes you
You will end up alone and with nothing
You are stupid

The natural reaction is to continue the war and fight the owner until they either disappear or are pulverised into submission somehow. Yet fighting with this part of yourself just continues a war no-one is likely to win, so what can you do differently?

The Yin Yang symbol is a great example of what we could focus on. Yin yang are complementary opposites that interact within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. This dynamic system in my view is you and if you try to fight or suppress the dark side in favour of what you view as the light side you are creating an imbalance within that causes imbalance in the way you interact with the world.

What could you do differently?

I say embrace your dark part, explore what they are trying to do for you that has a positive intention. Most clients report that their angry dark part is trying to protect them or get them noticed but it's intention has got distorted. Often the negative behaviour worked in childhood but as an adult the tantrum or destructive behaviour is no longer appropriate but is repeated as they don't know how to do something else.

Therapy is brilliant at helping to negotiate with that dark part and find out what it's intention is and what it could be doing instead. It's not happy and would love to be, which is a great motivator to explore what else it could help you with.

Maybe you could sit and imagine that dark part which causes you problems and maybe you could help calm it down and learn to relax. Therapist Andrew Austin mentioned in one workshop imagining massaging the dark parts shoulders and speaking softly to help that part chill out. This has worked wonders with clients as they calm the parts of themselves which are in pain, angry, frustrated or negative in other ways.

Also pay more attention to that critical voice within and experiment with it:

Can you imagine your inner voice changing?

Could it be quieter?
calmer?
Deeper?
Slower?

What would happen if you rehearsed that negative inner speak in a totally different voice inside your head?

Something different has to happen next and that's worth paying attention to.

Paul Sheppard is The Life Doctor and is available for therapy sessions online or in his office in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex.