I remember so many times when my mum used to walk around our house ‘counting to ten’ to try and prevent herself from losing the rag as one of her beloved children (never me of course!) had smacked/broken/hidden/destroyed/punched/drawn over something – possibly one of her other children!

I always wondered, as a child, how effective it was and why counting to ten seemed so important.  “Weird grown up stuff” is more than likely the conclusions to my youthful pondering.

But as I’ve grown up and learned more about the mind and emotions I have discovered that many of the ideas that we now see as clichés, the little rituals that we dismiss as silly, make fun of or say sarcastically to our stressed out colleague when 3 days of work disappears in a random computer blip are actually true and can really work to calm us, chill us out and help us when times are tough.
Here are five of my favourites:

1. Count to 10 –  Many of our most powerful emotional responses happen instantly and therefore bypass the part of our minds that rationalises, calculates and has an awareness of other people’s emotions.  In some cases, like joy, love or even ecstasy, this is a good thing and allows us to lose ourselves in a wonderful moment free of our usual inhibitions.  In others, like anger, having some time to think – even 10 seconds – allows that rational part of our mind to try and work out the most effective response to get us our outcome before we act on impulse and say something we might regret.

2. Take a Deep Breath – When our emotional state changes our body changes with it.  When we are happy or excited we breathe deeply from the bottom of our lungs, when we are anxious or stressed our breathing becomes quicker, shallower and higher in our chests.  Just try breathing big, deep steady breaths and then try and feel anxious..it doesn’t work!!

Here’s a wee experiment.  Sit up straight and, wherever you are now, take 10 long, steady, deep breaths.  Go.  Now, where did you lose count? The lower the number the more your mind is controlling your body and the more you need to breathe.  Try again later until you can get all 10 in a row.

3. Go to a happy place – All of our feelings are based on our interpretations of reality – not reality itself.  If you don’t like flying, it’s not the plane or the pilot that’s the issue it is your thoughts about what might happen to the plane.  But we can literally ‘jam’ this ‘negative’ signal on purpose and replace it with something more positive if we choose to.

Think of somewhere that is your idea of bliss.  It might be a real place or a fantasy, somewhere you’ve been or somewhere you’re going.  Now, next time you are in a place or situation that you don’t like, ‘jam’ your mind’s negative signal by running your happy place again and again and again.  If you slip out of it, just go back and make it so good you find it easy to stay.

4. Sing a Happy Tune – Well if going to happy place can work then so can singing a happy tune.  I lost count of the number of times I would start singing one of my all time favourite songs inside my head before doing presentations or even going to interviews because it changed the way I felt so radically!

Think of the happy tune or the happy place like a jamming signal for negative thoughts.  If you can flood your mind with something else then there is no space for anything else.  This gives you time to return your breathing to normal and start feeling better.

Even better, choose a tune that is filled with some sort of positive meaning and emotion for you and you will get a big dose of all that good feeling and emotion back again.

Try it now, choose a tune that is packed with good memories – the first dance, the school disco favourite, the football chant, that tune that means so much to you – and notice how you feel.  Next time your thoughts begin to run away with you, sing goddamit!

5. Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) – If you live in the UK you might remember that advert that was on a few years ago, “you just need PMA, positive mental attitude”.  Mix that in with countless satirical comedy sketches, painful attempts at motivation from so called experts  and people who lie to themselves about how great everything is as their lives turn to dust and it’s no wonder the thought of anyone ‘thinking positive’ has become one of the biggest clichés of them all.

Why?   Well, because we are told that once you start thinking positive then you can’t stop.  But that’s now how to really make it work.  The simplest explanation of thinking positive is to start thinking about what you DO want rather than what you DON’T.  For example, imagine you have to do a presentation in front of 15 people.  For lots of people this is their idea of a nightmare.  But many people lie to themselves, thinking that they are ‘thinking positive’, by telling themselves “I’m fine, I’m OK.  I’m going to be great” when inside they feel terrified and are worried about all 15 audience members wetting themselves with laughter at everything they say because they don’t really know what they are talking about!!

Making ‘Thinking positive’ work is about asking yourself how you DO want it to happen, to accept that you feel nervous, discover what you feel nervous about and know that you have the skills and ability to deal with it.

It’s also about knowing that you can go to a happy place, sing a happy tune, take a deep breath and, if all else fails, count to 10 before you make your next move!!

We’ll Meet Again

My wife and I were in a large shop in Glasgow the other day and joined what appeared to be a whole city full of people looking for gifts and presents. We were ticking off our list of names and ideas making sure everyone was covered when we realised that, for the first year since we became a couple over 10 years ago, one name was now missing from our list.

This festive time of year brings many aspects of our life into sharp focus, doesn’t it; the quality of our family relationships, our financial position, the depth of our network of friends, our health & wellbeing and many other things that, as we near the turning of the year, we spend time thinking about.

It’s also at this time of year that we are reminded of those that will not be with us (physically anyway!) around our festive dinner tables. I know that many people reading this have loved ones, parents, friends, children, relatives or even beloved pets who have passed away this year and who will be dearly missed as we enter this time of family and togetherness.

As we go about buying for family and friends the fact that this person is missing is all the more apparent and that makes it easy to spend the coming weeks noticing they are not where they used to be. I want to tell you that you have a choice as to whether to spend this next couple of weeks sad as you continually mourn their loss or smiling as you periodically remember their life.

When someone close to you passes away it can be really tough, I’m not denying it. When my dad passed away in 2003 it was a difficult time for the whole family but, and this is a big but, I made a choice at that time to look back on his life with a pride and a happiness about who he was. It didn’t stop me being sad sometimes when he wasn’t there, it doesn’t stop me missing him sometimes when a big family occasion happens and it doesn’t stop me just wanting to hear his voice or his words of wisdom (that in reality I’d probably ignore anyway!!) but it does allow me to feel happy for what I have had rather than what I have lost. Do you see the difference yet?

When we grieve for something or someone, we are focusing on wanting what we have lost. Wanting ‘them’, whoever that is, to be there when they aren’t, imagining how much they would have enjoyed <insert name of event here> but they can’t, basically wishing that they were still with us. But, and this is just the reality of the situation, they aren’t.

Before I go on, I positively encourage you to sometimes miss that person and to sometimes feel sad that they are not with you, this is a sign of how much you loved them, how much you cared for them and how big a part of your life they were. I just don’t want you to live there. One person has already died, there is no point in making it two.

So what do you do? Well there are many things we can do but here are just 2 simple things we can focus on that will conquer any of the negative feelings we have talked about and I urge you over this festive period to fill yourself to the brim with both of these about those that are here physically and those that aren’t..

Firstly, Gratitude. Be grateful for everything you experienced with this person, no matter how long or brief a period they were a part of your life.

Try it now. Inside your mind and your heart remember a time that now, as you go back, if you could, you want to say ‘Thank You’ for. A happy time, a funny time, a tiny thing, a big thing, a quiet time or maybe an exciting time. Whatever comes to mind. And inside you, in the most caring and loving voice you can muster, say ‘Thank You’ to yourself, to that special person, to the world! Now how does that feel to do? How does it feel just to say ‘Thank You’?.

Yeah, there may be a tear or two but they will be tears of gratitude, not loss or grief. And grateful tears are tears worth shedding!

Now anytime you feel that dark blanket of grief coming on, recall another time and another time and another time with that person and inside, from deep down in your heart, say ‘Thank You’ and mean it.

Secondly Love. Love is a funny emotion because the right kind of love will stay with you forever. If you have loved you can always love again. The fact that the person you loved is no longer here physically doesn’t change that.

Let’s do it again; Remember a time now - it can be a tiny time that just meant something to you or something huge that almost made your heart explode with love or even somewhere in between - but remember that time vividly in your mind and in your heart and remember what that person’s love feels like. Wallow in it, recall it, be Grateful for it and live with it in your heart.

That feeling of love is just as real as when they were here, it isn’t in your imagination. It isn’t a fake feeling just because you can’t touch them or tell them that you have felt it. These feelings of love are as alive today as they ever were and while those feelings are alive, so are they.

My mission to you is to make this festive period a time filled with Gratitude and Love. That is your choice. Do you choose the path that smiles or the path that mourns? Well, when I put it like that surely there is no choice! Is there?

I hope you have a lovely Christmas period whatever your beliefs and I urge you to spend the next couple of weeks remembering the joy, love and laughter that you have experienced in your life and vowing to get more of it next year.

Happy Xmas, Slainte, here’s to your whole family and let’s go get an amazing 2010

PS The name that was missing from my list? My wife’s best, furry feline buddy Worf (yes, after the Star Trek Character!) passed away in July this year. He’s missed but remembered with a smile. Always there when he’s needed.

When was the last time you received an injection (or a ‘jag’ as we call it in Scotland)? Maybe before a holiday, or because of an illness? You might be one of those people that have syringes as part of your daily life and routine or maybe you’ve not had one in ages. What I’m actually wondering, as you read this, is if you would say, when faced with the prospect of an injection, that you are scared of needles!

The reason being, in my experience people are very rarely scared of needles. In reality, they are scared about what the needle might do to them! It’s true isn’t it? People who say they are scared of needles are, generally speaking, absolutely fine when the needle is sitting on a table and nothing to do with them or if they see a nice, innocent sewing needle. It’s when the needle is pointing at their arm, leg or other fleshy area that the fear kicks in.

IMAGINATION

Our minds are superb at imagination and we have the incredible ability to imagine in all our senses. We can imagine how good something might taste, we can imagine how something might smell, we can imagine how something might look or sound and, most importantly, we can imagine how something might feel. But, there is one really important word in all of those phrases…might!

The reality is we can never know for certain what something will look, sound, taste, smell or feel like. It is near impossible to imagine something and not be at least slightly off. In fact, in almost all cases when we imagine something we are wrong, to some degree at least.

So when we are there, our arm exposed and the needle approaching, we begin to imagine how this super fine, ridiculously sharp needle might feel when it penetrates our skin. Our minds begin to turn the tiny needle into something resembling the size and width of a sharpened drinking straw, we imagine the searing pain as this HUGE needle rips open our skin and this, as you would expect, this causes our bodies to react in preparation for this torture. Our muscles tense, our breathing goes haywire and, before we know it, we’re in a terrible state telling people how we are scared of needles…when actually we’re scared of our own imaginations.

I NEED A…

This is true for our whole lives. We imagine how painful things might be when, in reality, we can handle them easily. For instance, we tell ourselves that we need to have a partner/cigarette/drink/holiday (delete as applicable to you!), when in reality we have lived, are living or could live a perfectly good life without it. It is the thought that is causing the pain, not the reality of the situation.

For many people the only thing that stops them getting all the success they want, the partner they want, the job they want, the life they want is their own imagination. Our own minds are the force that holds us back, nothing else.

SOMETHING TO DO

So here’s a wee exercise that I do on many of my courses to start the ball rolling on taking back some power over your own imagination:

1. Think of something you have really wanted for a long time and haven’t got yet

2. Write down anything bad, negative or painful that you imagine might happen if you went and got this now (take about 3 minutes, write quickly!)

3. Check the time

4. Imagining that you have this thing you want in your life right now, write down anything good, positive or pleasurable that you imagine having it might bring you

5. Looking at the 2 lists, ask yourself. Which is more important to me and which would bring me more of what i want? Avoiding the painful things or going for the pleasurable things?

6. Realise that you are not scared or anxious about the actual thing itself but only about the thoughts you have about it and go take some action!

It is often the case that we imagine more pain with going and getting the things we want than is actually there in reality. When we focus on the end game, imagining the great things that will occur then we can create some incredible things.

Now, go take your medicine and I’ll see you back here next time!!

After the last time when I chatted about the ways Self Esteem affects our lives, I happened past a video about another construction that we prefix with ‘Self’, the almost physical feeling of Self Control.

I recently overheard someone talk in a cafe about a friend’s inability to exercise any of this ethereal talent that we are all expected to be instant masters in applying. I am still wondering exactly how this person’s inability to exercise their ’self control’ affected them or their friend and I’ve got to admit to being strangely intrigued as to what form this ‘lack of self control’ took and exactly how it affected them.

Was it a food stuff that rendered them helpless to temptation or perhaps it surrounded a member (or members!) of the opposite sex, maybe it was alcohol or shopping or even it could have been violence, anger or even a crazy dance in the middle of a dance floor. I wonder!

So let’s think about it, what is ‘Self Control’? To me ‘Self Control’ is the ability to really want something and then deliberately not have it due to the perception that something negative will occur if you were to indulge. For instance, you see the chocolate cake, you really want the chocolate cake but you deny yourself the pleasure and exercise ’self control’ because you imagine that the cake will cause you to gain weight, inches or, god forbid, both!

This is great. For many of us we really do need this in certain places in our lives. That ‘just one for the road’ mentality or reaching the ‘point of no return’ have been the undoing of many an evening, relationship, diet, career or worse.

The problem about Self Control is that, in certain contexts, so many of us feel bad about what we’ve done whether we exercise ’self control’ or not!

What I mean is, we have the chocolate cake and we feel sh**ty because we will pile on those ounces or inches or we don’t have the chocolate cake and we feel sh**ty because it looked so bleeding delicious and we feel as if we missed out on the joy!!

Have you noticed the pattern? Self Control is only difficult because we focus on the pain that we have gained and the pleasure we have missed rather than the pleasure we will gain and the pain we have avoided.

So here’s something for you to start making Self Control easier;

1. Understand that the urge you are feeling has a positive intention and your mind believes it is helping and protecting you

yourself, “If I do this how will I feel about 30 seconds after it is done?”

3. Make a decision based on that

4. Focus your mind on the benefits of the choice you have made, accept the decision and move on

In practice; you see/smell/witness the chocolate cake and you are not even hungry. But, it looks goooood! Your mind quickly remembers all the pleasures it has had from cake in the past and therefore you begin to feel a motivation to have that pleasure again. It is understandable, isn’t it?

You ask yourself, “If I do this how will I feel about 30 seconds after it is done?”. You get the answer, ‘I will gain momentary pleasure from having the cake and after that I will feel sluggish, a come down off the sugar and I may even feel bagged up.’

You make the decision not to have it and feel good in the knowledge that you feel light, alert and you always have the opportunity to have the cake tomorrow.

Want to see this whole process in action and performed brilliantly (by most anyway!)? Click here to watch the most charming, incredible video and remember no marshmallows once it’s done!