continuing on from Dr Daniel Amen’s post…

I have added my own take in connecting with our ANT’s based on NVC and acknowledging our underlying needs. I have italicised in blue a needs approach in the models.

Here are nine different ways that your thoughts lie to you to make situations out to be worse than they really are.

Think of these nine ways as different species or types of ANTs (automatic negative thoughts). When you can identify the type of ANT, you begin to take away the power it has over you. I have designated some of these ANTs as red, because these ANTs are particularly harmful to you. Notice and exterminate ANTs whenever possible.

ANT #1: "Always or Never Thinking"
This happens when you think something that happened will "always" repeat itself. For example, if your partner is irritable and she gets upset you might think to yourself, "She’s always yelling at me," even though she yells only once in a while. But just the thought "She’s always yelling at me" is so negative that it makes you feel sad and upset. It activates your limbic system. Whenever you think in words like always, never, no one, every one, every time, everything those are examples of "always" thinking and usually wrong. Here are some examples of "always" thinking:
"He’s always putting me down."
"No one will ever call me."
"I’ll never get a raise."
"Everyone takes advantage of me."
"You turn away every time I touch you."
"My children never listen to me."

"Always thinking" ANTs are very common. Watch out for them.

ANT #2 (red ANT): "Focusing On the Negative"
This occurs when your thoughts only see the bad in a situation and ignore any of the good parts that might happen. For example, I have treated several professional speakers for depression. After their presentations they had the audience fill out an evaluation form. If l00 of them were returned and 2 of them were terrible, but 90 of them were outstanding, which ones do you think they focused on? Only the negative ones! I taught them to focus on the ones they liked a lot more than the ones they didn’t like. It’s important to learn from others, but in a balanced, positive way.

Your deep limbic system can learn a powerful lesson from the Disney movie, "Pollyanna." In the movie, Pollyanna came to live with her aunt after her missionary parents died. Even though she had lost her parents she was able to help many "negative people" with her attitude. She introduced them to the "glad game," to look for things to be glad about in any situation. Her father had taught her this game after she experienced a disappointment. She had always wanted a doll, but her parents never had enough money to buy it for her. Her father sent a request for a second hand doll to his missionary sponsors. By mistake, they sent her a pair of crutches. "What is there to be glad about crutches?" they thought. Then they decided they could be glad because they didn’t have to use them. This very simple game changed the attitudes and lives of many people in the movie. Pollyanna especially affected the minister. Before she came to town he preached hellfire and damnation, and he did not seem to be very happy. Pollyanna told him that her father said that the Bible had 800 "Glad Passages," and that if God mentioned being glad that many times, it must be because He wants us to think that way. Focusing on the negative in situations will make you feel bad. Playing the glad game, or looking for the positive will help you feel better.

ANT #3 (red ANT): "Fortune Telling"
This is where you predict the worst possible outcome to a situation. For example, before you discuss an important issue with your partner you predict that he or she won’t be interested in what you have to say. Just having this thought will make you feel tense. I call "fortune telling" red ANTs because when you predict bad things you can make them happen. Say you are driving home from work and you predict that the house will be a wreck and no one will be interested in seeing you. By the time you get home you’re waiting for a fight. When you see one thing out of place or no one comes running to the door you explode and ruin the rest of the evening. Fortune telling ANTs really hurt your chances for feeling good.

ANT #4 (red ANT): "Mind Reading"
This happens when you believe that you know what another person is thinking even when they haven’t told you. Mind reading is a common cause of trouble between people. I tell my wife, "Please don’t read my mind, I have enough trouble reading it myself!" You know that you are mind reading when you have thoughts such as, "She’s mad at me. He doesn’t like me. They were talking about me." I tell people that a negative look from someone else may be nothing more than they are constipated! You don’t know. You can’t read anyone else’s mind. You never know what others are really thinking. Even in intimate relationships, you cannot read your partner’s mind. When there are things you don’t understand, clarify them and stay away from mind reading ANTs. They are very infectious.

ANT #5: "Thinking With Your Feelings"
This occurs when you believe your negative feelings without ever questioning them. Feelings are very complex, and, often based on powerful memories from the past. Feelings sometimes lie to you. Feelings are not about truth. They are about feelings. But many people believe their feelings even though they have no evidence for them. "Thinking with your feelings" thoughts usually start with the words "I feel." For example, "I feel like you don’t love me. I feel stupid. I feel like a failure. I feel nobody will ever trust me." Whenever you have a strong negative feeling, check it out. Look for the evidence behind the feeling. Do you have real reasons to feel that way? Or, are you feelings based on events or things from the past?

ANT #6: "Guilt Beatings"
Guilt is not a helpful emotion, especially for your deep limbic system. In fact, guilt often causes you to do those things that you don’t want to do. Guilt beatings happen when you think with words like "should, must, ought or have to." Here are some examples: "I ought to spend more time at home. I must spend more time with my kids. I should have sex more often. I have to organize my office." Because of human nature, whenever we think that we "must" do something, no matter what it is, we don’t want to do it. It is better to replace "guilt beatings" with phrases like "I want to do this…It fits with my goals to do that…It would be helpful to do this…." So in the examples above, it would be helpful to change those phrases to "I want to spend more time at home. It’s in our best interest for my kids and I to spend more time together. I want to please my spouse by making wonderful love with him (or her) because he (or she) is important to me. It’s in my best interest to organize my office." Get rid of this unnecessary emotional turbulence that holds you back from achieving the goals you want.

ANT #7: "Labeling"
Whenever you attach a negative label to yourself or to someone else, you stop your ability to take a clear look at the situation. Some examples of negative labels that people use are "jerk, frigid, arrogant and irresponsible." Negative labels are very harmful, because whenever you call yourself or someone else a jerk or arrogant you lump that person in your mind with all of the "jerks" or "arrogant people" that you’ve ever known and you become unable to deal with them in a reasonable way. Stay away from negative labels.

ANT #8: "Personalization"
Personalization occurs when innocuous events are taken to have personal meaning. "My boss didn’t talk to me this morning. She must be mad at me." Or, one feels he or she is the cause of all the bad things that happen, "My son got into an accident with the car. I should have spent more time teaching him to drive. It must be my fault." There are many other reasons for behavior besides the negative explanations an abnormal limbic system picks out. For example, your boss may not have talked to you because she was preoccupied, upset or in a hurry. You never fully know why people do what they do. Try not to personalize their behavior.

ANT #9 (the most poisonous red ANT): "Blame"
Blame is very harmful. When you blame something or someone else for the problems in your life, you become a victim of circumstances and you cannot do anything to change your situation. Many relationships are ruined by people who blame their partners when things go wrong. They take little responsibility for their problems. When something goes wrong at home or at work, they try to find someone to blame. They rarely admit their own problems. Typically, you’ll hear statements from them like:
"It wasn’t my fault that…."
"That wouldn’t have happened if you had…."
"How was I supposed to know…."
"It’s your fault that…."

The bottom line statement goes something like this: "If only you had done something differently, I wouldn’t be in the predicament I’m in. It’s your fault, and I’m not responsible."

Whenever you blame someone else for the problems in your life, you become powerless to change anything. The "Blame Game" hurts your personal sense of power. Stay away from blaming thoughts and take personal responsibility to change the problems you have.

Summary of A.N.T. Species:

1. "Always" thinking: thinking in words like always, never, no one, every one, every time, everything.
2. Focusing on the negative: only seeing the bad in a situation.
3. Fortune telling: predicting the worst possible outcome to a situation.
4. Mind reading: believing that you know what another person is thinking, even though they haven’t told you.
5. Thinking with your feelings: believing negative feelings without ever questioning them.
6. Guilt beatings: thinking in words like "should, must, ought or have to."
7. Labeling: attaching a negative label to yourself or to someone else.
8. Personalization: innocuous events are taken to have personal meaning.
9. Blame: blaming someone else for your own problems.

Feed Your Anteater and Feel Better

Whenever you notice an ANT entering your mind, train yourself to recognize it and write it down. When you write down automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) and talk back to them, you begin to take away their power and gain control over your moods. Convert the ANTs by feeding your emotional anteater.

FEED YOUR ANTEATER AND FEEL BETTER EXERCISE is for whenever you need to be in control of your mind. It is for times when you feel anxious, nervous, depressed or frazzled. It is for times when you need to be your best.

Whenever you feel depressed or anxious follow these ANTEATER steps.

EVENT: Write out the event that is associated with your thoughts and feelings.

1. A.N.T.  (write out the automatic automatic negative thoughts)

2. SPECIES (identify the type of irrational thought)

3. Convert THE A.N.T. (talk back to the irrational thoughts by acknowledging your needs and values)

Here are some examples of ways to convert these ANTs into Acknowledging Needs in Thoughts :

1. You never listen to me. Oh, I really value attention when I speak. I feel connected and more confident.
2. Always Thinking
3. I get frustrated when you don’t listen to me, but I know you have listened to me and will again. I

1. The boss doesn’t like me. I notice she walked past me without saying hello. I feel anxious because I value connection and inclusion.
2. Mind Reading
3. I don’t know that. Maybe she’s just having a bad day. Bosses are people, too.

1. The whole class will laugh at me. I feel scared and worried because I value support & understanding.
2. Fortune Telling.
3. I don’t know that. Maybe they’ll really like my speech.

1. It’s your fault we have these marital problems. I feel helpless in this situation and need support, clarity and understanding.
2. Blame
3. I need to look at my part of the problems and look for ways I can make the situation better.

Your thoughts really matter. They can either help or hurt your deep limbic system. Left unchecked, ANTs will cause an infection in your whole body system. Whenever you notice ANTs, you need to crush them or they’ll affect your relationships, your work, and your entire life. First you need to notice them. If you can catch them at the moment they occur and correct them, you take away the power they have over you. When a negative thought goes unchallenged, your mind believes it and your body reacts to it.

ANTs have an illogical logic. By bringing them into the open and examining them on a conscious level, you can see for yourself how little sense it really makes to think these kinds of things to yourself. You take back control over your own life instead of leaving your fate to hyperactive limbic conditioned negative thought patterns.

Sometimes people have trouble talking back to these grossly unpleasant thoughts because they feel that such obvious age-old "truisms" simply must be real. They think that if they don’t continue to believe these thoughts that they are lying to themselves. Once again, remember that to know what is true and what is not, you have to be conscious of the thoughts and have an intelligent perspective on them. Most negative thinking is automatic and goes unnoticed. You’re not really choosing how to respond to your situation, it’s being chosen for you, by bad brain habits. To find out what is really true and what is not, you need to question it. Don’t believe everything you hear — even in your own mind!

How often do we let our thoughts have free rein in our minds…influencing how we feel, what we do, what we think is possible or impossible, closing off options and creativity? This article by Dr Daniel Amen from AHHA  succinctly describes some of the ways we may allow our thoughts can white-ant our lives.

Daniel G. Amen, M.D. is an award winning physician, psychiatrist, best-selling author, international speakers, and brain enhancement expert. He is the founder and medical director of the world renowned Amen Clinics, Inc. Dr. Amen educates companies, organizations, and individuals on the importance of brain health and the impact of the brain on every aspect of life. The host of 4 highly successful PBS programs and a frequent radio and TV guest, Daniel is the author of 24 books, including 3 New York Times best-sellers.

Our overall mind state has a certain tone or flavor based largely on the types of thoughts we think. When the deep limbic system is overactive, it sets the mind’s filter on "negative." If you could look into the thoughts of people who are depressed, you would find one dispiriting thought following another. When they look at the past, there is regret. When they look at the future there is anxiety and pessimism. In the present moment, something is most often unsatisfactory. The lens through which they see themselves, others, and the world has a dim grayness to it. They are suffering from Automatic Negative Thoughts, or ANTs. ANTs are cynical, gloomy, and complaining thoughts that just seem to keep coming all by themselves.

ANTs can cause people to be depressed and fatalistic, which have a profound impact on their lives. "I know I won’t pass that test on Tuesday." This kind of thinking makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy: if they’ve already convinced themselves they won’t pass, they won’t study very hard and they won’t pass the test. This type of thinking severely limits a person’s ability to enjoy his or her life because how one thinks on a moment-to-moment basis plays a large role in how one feels and how one conducts one’s affairs. If you are depressed all the time, you don’t expect good things to happen so you don’t try very hard to make them happen. The internal distress from melancholy thinking can make you behave in ways that alienate others, thus causing you to isolate yourself further. On the other hand, positive thoughts and a positive attitude will help you radiate a sense of well being, making it easier for others to connect with you. Positive thoughts will also help you be more effective in your life. So, as you can see, what goes on in your mind all day long can determine whether your behavior is self-defeating or self-promoting.

Here are some examples of typical ANTs (automatic negative thoughts):
"You never listen to me."
"Just because we had a good year in business doesn’t mean anything."
"You don’t like me."
"This situation is not going to work out. I know something bad will happen."
"I feel as though you don’t care about me."
"I should have done much better. I’m a failure."
"You’re arrogant."
"You’re late because you don’t care."
"It’s your fault."

These thoughts severely limit a person’s ability to enjoy his or her life. How you think "moment-by-moment" plays a large role in how you feel (a deep limbic system function). Negative thoughts cause you to feel internal discomfort or pain and they often cause you to behave in ways that alienate from other people. Hopeful thoughts, on the other hand, influence positive behaviors and lead people to feel good about themselves and be more effective in their day-to-day lives. Hopeful thoughts also are involved in helping people connect with others.

Healing the deep limbic system requires a person to heal their moment-to-moment thought patterns. Unfortunately, there is no formal place where we are taught to think much about our thoughts or to challenge the notions that go through our head, even though our thoughts are always with us. Most people do not understand how important thoughts are, and leave the development of thought patterns to random chance. Did you know that every thought you have sends electrical signals throughout your brain? Thoughts have actual physical properties. They are real! They have significant influence on every cell in your body. When your mind is burdened with many negative thoughts, it affects your deep limbic system and causes deep limbic problems (irritability, moodiness, depression, etc.). Teaching yourself to control and direct thoughts in a positive way is one of the most effective ways to feel better.

Here are the actual step-by-step "thinking" principles that I use in my psychotherapy practice to help my patients heal their deep limbic systems.

STEP #1
Did you know…Every time you have a thought, your brain releases chemicals. That’s how our brain works…
you have a thought,
your brain releases chemicals,
an electrical transmissions goes across your brain and
you become aware of what you’re thinking.

Thoughts are real and they have a real impact on how you feel and how you behave.

STEP #2
Every time you have an angry thought, an unkind thought, a sad thought, or a cranky thought, your brain releases negative chemicals that make your body feel bad (and activate your deep limbic system). Think about the last time you were mad. How did your body feel? When most people are angry their muscles become tense, their hearts beat faster, their hands start to sweat and they may even begin to feel a little dizzy. Your body reacts to every negative thought you have.

Mark George, M.D., from the National Institutes of Mental Health, demonstrated this phenomena in an elegant study of brain function. He studied the activity of the brain in 10 normal women under three different conditions. He studied these women when they were thinking about happy thoughts, neutral thoughts and sad thoughts. During the happy thoughts, the women demonstrated a cooling of the deep limbic system. During the sad thoughts, he noticed a significant increase in deep limbic system activity. Powerful evidence that your thoughts matter!

STEP #3
Every time you have a good thought, a happy thought, a hopeful thought or a kind thought, your brain releases chemicals that make your body feel good (and cools your deep limbic system). Think about the last time you had a really happy thought. How did you feel inside your body? When most people are happy their muscles relax, their hearts beat slower, their hands become dry and they breathe slower. Your body also reacts to your good thoughts.

STEP #4
Your body reacts to every thought you have. We know this from polygraphs or lie detector tests. During a lie detector test, a person is hooked up to equipment that measures:
hand temperature,
heart rate,
blood pressure,
breathing rate,
muscle tension and
how much the hands sweat.

The tester then asks questions, like "Did you do that thing?" If the person did the bad thing his body is likely to have a "stress" response and it is likely to react in the following ways:
hands get colder,
heart goes faster,
blood pressure goes up,
breathing gets faster,
muscles get tight and
hands sweat more.

Almost immediately, his body reacts to what he thinks, whether he says anything or not. Remember, the deep limbic system is responsible for translating our emotional state into physical feelings of relaxation or tension. Now the opposite is also true. If he did not do the thing the tester asked about it is likely that his body will experience a "relaxation" response and react in the following ways:
hands will become warmer,
heart rate will slow,
blood pressure goes down,
breathing becomes slower and deeper,
muscles become more relaxed and
hands become drier.

Again, almost immediately, your body reacts to what you think. This not only happens when you’re asked about telling the truth, your body reacts to every thought you have, whether it is about work, friends, family or anything else.

STEP #5
Thoughts are very powerful. They can make your mind and your body feel good or they can make you feel bad. Every cell in your body is affected by every thought you have. That is why when people get emotionally upset, they actually develop physical symptoms, such as headaches or stomach aches. Some physicians think that people who have a lot of negative thoughts are more likely to get cancer. If you can think about good things you will feel better.

Think of your body like an "ecosystem." An ecosystem contains everything in the environment like the water, the land, the cars, the people, the animals, the vegetation, the houses, the landfills, etc. A negative thought is like pollution to your system. Just as pollution in the Los Angeles Basin affects everyone who goes outside, so too do negative thoughts pollute your deep limbic system, your mind and your body.

STEP #6
Unless you think about your thoughts they are automatic or "they just happen." Since they just happen, they are not necessarily correct. Your thoughts do not always tell the truth. Sometimes they even lie to you. I once treated a college student who thought he was stupid, because he didn’t do well on tests. When his IQ (intelligence level) was tested, however, we discovered that he was close to a genius! You don’t have to believe every thought that goes through your head. It’s important to think about your thoughts to see if they help you or they hurt you. Unfortunately, if you never challenge your thoughts you just "believe them" as if they were true.

STEP #7
You can train your thoughts to be positive and hopeful or you can just allow them to be negative and upset you. Once you learn about your thoughts, you can chose to think good thoughts and feel good or you can choose to think bad thoughts and feel lousy. That’s right, it’s up to you! You can learn how to change your thoughts and you can learn to change the way you feel.

One way to learn how to change your thoughts is to notice them when they are negative and talk back to them. If you can correct negative thoughts, you take away their power over you. When you just think a negative thought without challenging it, your mind believes it and your body reacts to it.

STEP #8
As I mentioned above, negative thoughts are mostly automatic or they "just happen." That is why I call these thoughts "Automatic Negative Thoughts" or ANTs. Think of these negative thoughts that invade your mind like ants that bother a couple at a picnic. One negative thought, like one ant at a picnic, is not a big problem. Two or three negative thoughts, like two or three ants at a picnic, becomes more irritating. Ten or twenty negative thoughts, like ten or twenty ants at a picnic, may cause the couple to pick up and leave the picnic. Whenever you notice these automatic negative thoughts or ANTs you need to crush them or they’ll ruin your relationships, your self-esteem and your personal power. One way to crush these ANTs is to write them down and talk back to them. For example, if you think, "My husband never listens to me," write it down. Then write down a rational response; something like "He’s not listening to me now, maybe he’s distracted by something else. He often listens to me." When you write down negative thoughts and talk back to them, you take away their power and help yourself feel better. Some people tell me they have trouble talking back to these negative thoughts because they feel that they are lying to themselves. Initially, they believe that the thoughts that go through their mind are the truth. Remember, thoughts sometimes lie to you. It’s important to check them out before you just believe them!

Next week I will continue Dr Amen’s post and add an NVC twist…renaming ANTS from Automatic Negative Thoughts to Acknowledging Needs in Thoughts.

Authors: Chun Siong Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze & John-Dylan Haynes
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain.
Nature Neuroscience April 13th, 2008.

Already several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain. This is shown in a study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, in collaboration with the Charite University Hospital and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin. The researchers from the group of Professor John-Dylan Haynes used a brain scanner to investigate what happens in the human brain just before a decision is made. "Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings." (Nature Neuroscience, April 13th 2008)

In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand. They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind. The aim of the experiment was to find out what happens in the brain in the period just before the person felt the decision was made. The researchers found that it was possible to predict from brain signals which option participants would take already seven seconds before they consciously made their decision. Normally researchers look at what happens when the decision is made, but not atwhat happens several seconds before. The fact that decisions can be predicted so long before they are made is a astonishing finding.

This unprecedented prediction of a free decision was made possible by sophisticated computer programs that were trained to recognize typical brain activity patterns preceding each of the two choices. Micropatterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex were predictive of the choices even before participants knew which option they were going to choose. The decision could not be predicted perfectly, but prediction was clearly above chance. This suggests that the decision is unconsciously prepared ahead of time but the final decision might still be reversible.

"Most researchers investigate what happens when people have to decide immediately, typically as a rapid response to an event in our environment. Here we were focusing on the more interesting decisions that are made in a more natural, self-paced manner", Haynes explains.

More than 20 years ago the American brain scientist Benjamin Libet found a brain signal, the so-called "readiness-potential" that occurred a fraction of a second before a conscious decision. Libet’s experiments were highly controversial and sparked a huge debate. Many scientists argued that if our decisions are prepared unconsciously by the brain, then our feeling of "free will" must be an illusion. In this view, it is the brain that makes the decision, not a person’s conscious mind. Libet’s experiments were particularly controversial because he found only a brief time delay between brain activity and the conscious decision.

In contrast, Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts even up to 7 seconds ahead of time how a person is going to decide. But they also warn that the study does not finally rule out free will: "Our study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer ahead than previously thought. But we do not know yet where the final decision is made. We need to investigate whether a decision prepared by these brain areas can still be reversed."

It seems we hardwire ourselves. We lay down neural pathways by the lifestyle, thinking and feeling patterns of our life. We literally embody our habits.

The Buddha pointed to this 1500 years ago with an infamous quote”

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

And its not just what we do, it seems, that is embodied – but also what we don’t do. Our broken promises create neural pathways too (and wreck havoc on relationships).

Even when we make a promise silently to ourselves and fail to keep it our subconscious remembers. It notices we fail to show up for ourselves and we feel this in our body; that heavy feeling in the belly, the twinge of our conscience, a tightening of our breathing. No amount of justifications and excuses remove this embodiment.

So are we condemned to feeling guilty, dragging around lots of old broken promises like a burden inside? I don’t believe so. In a short series of blogs I will explore what we can do to refresh our lives, honour our commitments while acknowledging human frailty and the struggle to live in the way we would like to live.

This series has been prompted by the article from the Sydney Morning Herald below:

Broken promises by Sam de Brito

April 23, 2010

Not to get too stuck on Norman Mailer, but in my Googling research for this post a few weeks back, I came across a quote from him about writing that I thought had resonance beyond just us weirdos who stick words together for a living.

In his book The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing, Mailer says that, if writers tell themselves they’re going to sit down and write but fail to do it, their unconscious stops trusting them and will no longer turn up.

“The rule in capsule: If you fail to show up in the morning after you vowed that you would be at your desk as you went to sleep last night, then you will walk around with ants in your brain.

“Rule of thumb: Restlessness of mind can be measured by the number of promises that remain unkept,” writes Mailer.

I reckon our brains work in a similar way with many of the promises we make to ourselves whether it’s about our fitness, our love life, career or family …

In my book Building a Better Bloke, I write that “if you want a magic bullet to being taken seriously as a man … it is to be true to your word”.

You’ve probably heard the saying “He’s a man of his word” and I would go as far as to invoke the hoary cliche that “a man is his word”.

If you say you’re going to do something and you do not, and you do this enough times, you cease to be someone whom people can depend on; you become a “maybe”, an “if”, and this is the opposite of what it means to be a man.

We are a verbal species; our entire world is created by and powered by words, yet so many people fail to see that a disconnect between what you say you are and how you act is the battleground of reality.

The promises we make to ourselves can be just as powerful.

If you walk around telling yourself you’re giving up drinking, smoking and the punt, yet the next day you’re drunk and puffing bungers at the TAB – it sends a message to others that your word means less to you than does that beer, ciggie and betting ticket.

It also sends a message to your unconscious that you can’t be trusted and it builds a dirty momentum whereby we expect to fail before we even attempt something.

You say: “Why bother? I’ve broken promises so many times before, why even kid myself I can get fit, or maintain a decent relationship or get this job done on time?”

Sound familiar?

I had that conversation with myself about 432,567 times when it came to smoking cigarettes as well as a couple of other habits I’m not going to discuss in a public forum.

I also know I’m happiest when I keep my promises to myself – when I look back at my day and I’ve run, written and been good to the people I love by doing the things I said I would (vacuuming).

When I don’t keep my promises to myself – especially with habits that are self-destructive – the guilt grinds around inside me like broken dinner plates.

So, if you’re feeling antsy some days, it might be worth remembering that quote from old legspread Mailer and check if you’ve kept your promises to yourself.

What promises do you break?

************************************************************

STOP! Now our culture would normally have us make a list and feel bad, really bad. This inventory is not about creating a weapon to beat yourself up with. It is about honestly looking at how our habits can actually become the next step towards a better life. So before you start…

Think of someone or something (music, art, nature, the sound of the ocean, surfing, running, yoga, your pet) that supports you, gives you strength and love. Take that feeling into your body. Stay with it for at least a minute – maybe two or three – allow it to settle there.

Invite a quality of care, or kindness, or love, or patience or gentleness to be present for this process – to hold and support you as you take your inventory. This quality of self-empathy is both the arms around you and the ground under your feet.

Now ask: what is in the way of me taking this inventory? Wait…now as each thought or feeling, image or body sense arise acknowledge it and then gently put it aside…it may need to go outside, it may need to sit on the other chair in the room, or it may need to go to the beach. Keep clearing a space until you feel nothing more is in the way of taking your inventory.

From this cleared space and with your self empathy nearby ask your question with a gentle curiosity. “Ahhh, so what promises do I break?” Remember to breathe. As you note each broken promise wait there a minute with it. Keep it company and become aware of how your body knows it. You might get a sensation, an image, a metaphor, a sound, a body posture or gesture, a phrase or an emotional quality that really “gets” it. Write down the promise and the felt sense of it that your body holds.

Ask what’s the worst of this? Wait – let your body respond not your habitual mind. You will know when your body responds by a sense of release (a breath, a sigh, a laugh or smile, tears or just a shift of awareness within). Ask what “it” needs – “it” being your felt sense. Write this down.

Notice how you feel inside after asking these questions. Take your time with this…sensing the complexity and richness of how your body is now compared to when you started. Now ask what is the best of this? Enjoy this moment – allow it to expand – give it time to be taken in and embodied.

You do not need to act on any of this in a hurry. Give yourself some time for your unconscious to point you towards a new way of living. Journal about what you are noticing now in your life. Pay attention to your dreams. Notice what other things you see around you that you weren’t seeing before. Each day invite a new step – of this whole list – what is the next right forward movement for me…thoughts, plans and ideas will immediately pop into our mind because it is trained to answer questions. Wait…drop into that whole space inside your body and listen for your body’s answer. Again, it may be a metaphor, a phrase, a movement or gesture, an image etc. Hold that a moment and sense “is this it?” and you will know because it is just right for you. It will feel right and whole and good and life serving. It won’t contain shoulds, musts or have-to’s.

Good luck.

Once again I invite you to explore a range of ways you might bring meditation into your life from Sounds True. Maybe you have tried meditating before and become restless or bored, or it brought up painful feelings or perhaps you have never tried meditation. In the links below you may find a meditation practice (or more than one) that is just right for you.

Research has scientifically proven that meditation is a safe and simple way to balance your physical, emotional, and mental state and its countless values have been known and practiced for thousands of years. More and more doctors promote the benefits of meditation to cure many stress related illnesses.Meditation has been proven to:

• relieve stress
• lower blood pressure and heart rate
• improves the immune system
• improve mood (such as feeling blue or anxious)
• create new neural pathways in your brain leading to better states of mind and wellbeing
• increase the level of healthy neurotransmitters (e.g. serotonin)
• reconnect with yourself
• recognise and release  habitual thinking patterns

The ultimate expression of meditation comes when we can feel all the pains of the world, experience them with mindfulness and equanimity so they dissolve into energy, and then recolor that energy and radiate it out as unconditional love, moment by moment, through every pore of our being.
—Shinzen Young

Are you ready to experience meditation for yourself? Simply select the category on the right that interests you, and you’ll be on your way. “Meditation to Calm the Mind” and “Open to Awareness” offers you eight traditional techniques to settle your thoughts, strengthen your attention, and build a foundation for successful practice.
“Meditation to Soften and Nourish the Heart” includes a series of practices that focus on nurturing qualities like compassion and kindness. “Meditation on the Energy of the Body” shows us how to open up the free flow of life force throughout our being.
“Meditation as ’Just Being’” is less about technique and more about simply welcoming all experience. And perhaps the most practical, “Meditation in Daily Life” helps you bring the fruits of meditation into your everyday activities—while eating, driving, at the office, and so on.

Meditation Exercises Overview:

This interactive guide is designed for people who have heard about meditation but don’t know where to begin. To make it easy for you to learn how to meditate, Sounds True have created five categories, each of which includes exercises you can try right now

Meditation to Calm the Mind and Open to Awareness

• 1: Observing the Breath
• 2: Meditation for Relaxation
• 3: Mantra Meditation
• 4: Centring Prayer
• 5: Meditation on Harmony
• 6: Sufi Meditation
• 7: Walking Meditation
• 8: Meditation for Pain Relief

Meditation to Soften and Nourish the Heart

• 9: Metta— Meditation
• 10: Tonglen— Meditation
• 11: Forgiveness Meditation

Meditation on the Energy of the Body

• 12: Chakra Meditation
• 13: Standing Meditation
• 14: Inner-Body Meditation
• 15: Earth Breathing

Meditation as "Just Being"

• 16: Natural Meditation
• 17: True Meditation

Meditation in Daily Life

• 18: Meditation for Busy People
• 19: Morning Meditation
• 20: Mini Meditations
• 21: Eating Meditation

I’d like to share this  response that Ann Weiser Cornell wrote recently in her Weekly Tips and Support Newsletter.

“Focusing is a simple matter of holding a kind of open, non-judging attention to something which is directly experienced but not yet in words.” –from the introduction to The Focusing Student’s and Companion’s Manual by Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin.

Something which is directly experienced but not yet in words? What is that?
Well, that’s what we call a “felt sense,” and it’s really the heart of the matter.

A “felt sense” is what a problem or a situation “feels like” when you pause and get a sense of the whole thing. It’s not your usual emotions or thoughts–which can get stuck and keep you going around in circles–but rather it’s fresh, immediate, and often contains new information or a new perspective.

People are not used to pausing and getting felt senses. If more people would do this, I believe the world would be quite different!
Focusing starts with that pause…

18 Self-Healing Exercises

We all have the capacity to generate healing in our own lives and to help others to do the same. Are you ready to experience the benefits of energy healing? We invite you to select whichever category on the right is most interesting to you, and jump right in to explore this fascinating field.

The first section, Working with the Life Force, begins with two foundational relaxation exercises where you will be introduced to the flow of energy in your body and how to work with it to stimulate healing and combat stress and fatigue.

Breath, Prana, and Qi

•   1. The Relaxing Breath– Andrew Weil
•   2. Yoga Relaxation– Shiva Rea

The next section on Energy Medicine Exercises awakens your subtle energy body through powerful practices involving the chakras, including a daily energy routine you can do each day to infuse your life with clarity and vitality.

Chakras, Meridians, and Aura

•   3. A Tour of the Chakras– Anodea Judith
•   4. Chakra Healing– Cyndi Dale
•   5. A Morning Chakra Exercise– Caroline Myss
•   6. Purification and Balancing– Layne Redmond
•   7. Five Minute Daily Energy Routine– Donna Eden
•   8. Matrix Energetics– Richard Bartlett

Our Sound Healing section introduces three practices which give you a first-hand experience of the unique power of sound to connect you with deep levels of healing and transformation.

Sound Healing

•   9. Chanting the Chakras– Layne Redmond
• 10. Self-Healing with Sound and Music– Andrew Weil and Kimba Arem
• 11. Vocal Toning the Chakras– Jonathan Goldman

The next section on Using the Hands for Healing provides an effective exercise for tuning into the innate healing powers which exist right in your very own hands. By learning how to activate our hands for healing, we prepare ourselves to bring forth powerful energies of transformation.

Using the Hands for Healing

• 12. Your Healing Hands– Jack Angelo

Guided Imagery and Visualization includes five simple, yet transformative exercises, each of which opens a doorway into a more awake and alive experience of life. 

Guided Imagery and Visualization

• 13. Imagery for Self-Healing– Martin Rossman
• 14. Healing Lake Meditation– Jon Kabat-Zinn
• 15. Combating Energy Vampires– Judith Orloff
• 16. Meditation for Pain Relief– Shinzen Young
• 17. Color and healing– Laura Alden Kamm

We conclude with Soul-Level Healing where you will learn to enter the "non-ordinary reality" of the shaman. As a part of this journey, you will discover useful information and ways of healing that are not ordinarily available in the normal waking state.

Soul-Level Healing

• 18. Intro to Shamanic Journeying– Sandra Ingerman

These are qualities of practice that I alluded to in my last blog. Most spiritual or personal development practices imply “improvement” or at least some kind of movement towards something.

I know that I have swung from trying to “repress” or “avoid” particular negative emotions or actions I have labelled as harmful to myself and others, or problematic at the very least, to indulging in the emotions or actions.

When I repress I tell myself a particular kind of story – how “bad” or “weak” I am, how lost I am or how I just can’t get my act together. I wallow in a critic-fest.

When I indulge I tell myself a different kind of story. I make enemy images of the people I am affecting – how they deserve it, how they brought it upon themselves, how I am acting righteously or justly to bring them to some new awareness. I criticise them.

Both ways are just stories I make up to justify my responses.

Now, however,  I am trying a middle way, one that has 3 processes.

Acknowledging

Now, I try and notice when I am moving towards repression or indulgence. I say hello to this movement, holding myself with a kind of friendliness that one feels with an old, dear friend.

“Oh, hello my dear friend anger. I can sense you arising in my body – I can feel the tension and tightening across the front of my chest and the shortening of my breath. I acknowledge you there just as you are.”

Accompanying

When I say hello to whatever is arising – what comes is a relationship between me and it. For example a relationship between me and anger. I am not anger and it is not me but we are here, in this moment, together. I can sense how it moves through me. I can accompany its arising, its response to my acknowledgement and I, now, can accompany it as it tells me what is up for it. I can listen to it and listen for its deeper needs or the values it thinks it will protect by doing what it is doing. I can accompany it a little way down the road.

Accepting

I can accept that this is how I feel just now and as I journey with it I can notice moment by moment shifts and changes. Accepting doesn’t mean agreeing – it just means –yep, this is how it seems for me just now in this moment. I can accept that I might be experiencing suffering or discomfort. I can accept that it feels strong or overwhelming.

It may seem like accepting will be buying into the story (whichever one is being told) – yet that has not been my experience. I have found that once I accept whatever I am experiencing – no matter how subjective – a new possibility opens up for me. There comes a softening, a letting go, a relaxing of sorts.

And there, in that space I can invite something more.  I might invite some questions:

“Is this true, really true? Can I be absolutely sure that what I am telling myself  is true?”

“What needs or values are needing care in all of this?”

“Is there any other part of me that needs attention too? Is there something more that also needs to tell its story?”

“Is there something happening here that brings up old, unresolved material from my childhood? How can I best take care of myself if this is happening?”

“Can I get a felt sense of this – an image, a metaphor, a word that best captures all of it? Can I stay with this and explore my inner landscape and what it knows, in my body, about the best way forward?”

This process of acknowledging, accompanying and accepting is so helping me to connect more compassionately with myself. I am better able to stay with my present moment experiences and find such richness in them.  I sense they are the first step on a journey to a delightful self-acceptance.

Fresh air is surely one of the most important requirements for a clear mind, for feeling energised. In our lives we often lack fresh air because of the amount of time we spend indoors and due to air pollution.

I thoroughly recommend watching this TED talk.

Swiss psychologist Alice Miller wrote:

“Ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, cigarettes or medicine, it usually has the last word because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but its rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality.”

This is a very powerful statement. Our true sense of self is rooted, not in ideas or thoughts, but in a “feeling of what happens” that is experienced at a bodily level.

Because this statement is so powerful, I also want to be careful to point out what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t negate the value of ideas and rational thinking. This would be absurd. It’s just that, if we were to only pay attention to logical thinking, we’d be cutting ourselves off from a major portion of our resources. Our goal is to combine both.

This is the power of Focusing. We can take an issue that we are thinking about, a feeling or an emotion, a situation and sense inwardly all about how our body holds this too. We come into balance in the considering of all the data that is entering our field of awareness. If we just “think” and use logic then we become top-heavy. All of our energy stays in our head. If we just follow feelings we can become blown about by emotions which come and go, we can start to believe we are our feelings and we lose our stability. If we combine all 3 ways we are designed to process information we become stable. It is like the process of “triangulation”. The term triangulation originated in cartography where two or more reference points are used to locate an exact position.

Most of us spend so much time thinking about our problems and some of us spend time overwhelmed by the our feelings about our problems  that almost forget to be in touch with how our body is carrying the issue. Sometimes thinking and feeling don’t even connect to each other. have you ever been dissuaded from feeling a certain way through the power of logical arguments – or does that just leave you feeling unheard, invalidated or labelled as emotional.

The felt meaning your body carries enables you to listen to the story within that, at the same time, needs to be told and heard, by you. This is your own story. This is the key to Focusing and is what Gene Gendlin found was an important clue that unlocks the mystery of how change happens in people.

He discovered that:

Our bodies hold the key to transformation

when we can allow

the felt meaning to unfold

and tell its story.

Emotions such as fear, anger, confusions are just the easily-recognised tip of how our bodies carry felt meaning. Your issue speaks like a story by moving forward in the changing body feeling of it.

Connecting with care and curiosity to our own story as it is known by our living body connects us to our own inner wisdom. We become both the author, the reader and the listener to our experience. And it is through the felt meaning held in our body that we are able to move beyond (yet still include) our minds (ego, will, pre-written story lines, and inner critics) and our emotions (moveable and reactive) to a more stable place within that can lead us to an undivided life of self-trust, self-respect and self-connection.