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Perfectionism or excellence

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Perfectionism or excellence, that is the question….

Perfectionism or excellence is a choice.

While perfectionism can drive you towards fantastic achievements. Perfectionism can help to provide you with the motivation to keep going until you attain your goal:
Giving the perfect presentation
Doing the perfect job
Baking the perfect birthday cake
Perfectionism can really help you sustain the energy levels you need to reach your own personal challenge.

But pressure and anxiety all build when you try to be the perfect person.

Perfectionism is within you and therefore under your control.
Striving for perfectionism within yourself can lead to anxiety as you try to live up to your own expectations or how you perceive others’ expectations of you.
You will always be not quite there, not quite good enough, simply because the perfect person doesn’t exist.

Cakes, jobs and presentations are all measurable, people aren’t.

People make mistakes
People have imperfections

It’s part of what makes us human. Mistakes help us to learn.

Perfectionism, pressure, anxiety can take an enormous toll on you and your life in general.

You fear success because of the fear of maintaining success.
Fearing mistakes can be due to the fear of losing respect from others as well as yourself.
Fear of failure can mean that you never set yourself goals. Or setting goals so high as to be unattainable.
Being constantly aware and reminding yourself of your weaknesses, imperfections and failures.

Be Excellent Instead Of Perfect
Improving yourself can be an enjoyable journey.
Being great at something is an enormous achievement.
Take yourself (and life) a little less seriously, forgive yourself, be gentle with yourself.

Set small, achievable goals.
Reward yourself.
Be aware of the influence of social programming – social media, TV programmes, magazine articles.
Making the effort to change is an achievement in itself.
Just by being born, you literally won the race!

Therapy Ethics

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 Therapy Ethics is a wide subject.

In the last post from my presentation at the NCHP conference we were talking about memory. Memory is not some ethereal concept, but is made up of specific neurons in the brain.

I work with a particularly scientific client, and  this principle opens up the idea that she is not stuck with a memory for life.

Memories change, re-frame.

Memory is malleable.

This introduces a sense of possibility and with unhelpful memories.

If things haven’t gone the way the client hoped, you’re often dealing with their attachment to how ‘it should have been’ .

Breaking the attachment to the memory (because it may not be entirely accurate) attaches the problem to the memory and not the client.

I’m not blind to the juxtaposition here with the person centred concept of self-actualisation and that the client is the expert in their problem.

I believe both these principles entirely but as with all things sometimes a perspective doesn’t work, and we need more creative solutions.

It’s strange to me too, that in therapy the idea of intervention against natural process is such a minefield

There is this idea that any sense of change in the client that they didn’t initiate themselves is somehow unethical. We do however change everything around us all the time.

We make different types of plants and foods by modification. .

It’s a complex ethical issue, and we will all have our standpoints. Putting male cells into a female body however is a different story when you’re doing it in the context of a bone marrow transplant to save someone’s life from cancer.

There always consequences to acting and there are always consequences to not doing anything.

All I am suggesting here is let’s not be hypocritical. Therapy Ethics is a lens.

Therapy Ethics are important when clients come to us as therapists to change, for us to help them change.

We work in an idiographic way of course, but change is nevertheless the brief. People will always be self-organising, adjusting to minimise discomfort but there are times when that isn’t enough on its own.

In Western medicine, we celebrate advancements and ways of changing things. One day we will beat cancer.

Will anybody be saying that we should have left that process to nature?

All I am suggesting is that we fit the methodology to the client.

 

Workplace Bullying

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Workplace bullying.

The impact of workplace bullying increases stress, anxiety and depression. It can have a major effect on home life and take a toll on relationships too.

Bullying in the workplace and uncomfortable work situations can cause upset and turbulence at home. As a result stress levels rise, sleep is disturbed, symptoms of anxiety and depression increase.

Maybe it’s difficult to discuss work related issues at home because:

  • You may convince yourself that you can hide your feelings from your partner.
  • The bully has made you feel responsible for the situation and you don’t want to share your experiences.
  • You feel that your partner will not be supportive and as a result will probably blame you for bringing the situation on yourself.

It is very likely that increased stress and anxiety from workplace bullying will bring about a noticeable personality change and your partner will realise that something is wrong.

  • Frayed temper due to worry and bottled up feelings may mean that bullying in the workplace causes you to lash out at those around you.
  • There may be financial worries hence making you feel lucky to have a job at all.

Your partner could be incredibly supportive and help fight with you end the bullying. Finding out that a loved one is suffering bullying in the workplace is upsetting, especially if it has been kept secret.

Emotional health and personal relationships may be under enormous strain due to bullying in the workplace increased stress, anxiety and depression.

It’s really important to look after you

  • Keeping a diary will serve as a written account of events and also help you express how you’re feeling.
  • Taking some time off work may help you feel calmer. Don’t feel guilty about doing this; bullying in the workplace is not acceptable.
  • Listen to your body, it is speaking to you. It may be worthwhile booking a check-up with your GP.
  • Exercise is proven to release stress and anxiety and need not be expensive. A swim, walk or bike ride are all great stress relievers
  • Talk to a UKCP therapist (had to slip it in somewhere)

Relaxation Ease Depression

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Relaxation ease depression and make yourself feel better.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that sadness and depression are one and the same.

Sadness is a natural, normal emotion that comes and goes.

Although feeling sad and cheerless is an unhappy state, it usually passes.

Depression isn’t sadness.

Depression is constant.

It can last for a period of weeks, months or even years.

Willpower alone won’t overcome depression, however, there are a number of ways that the methods of relaxation ease depression symptoms and hopeless feelings.

Connection – resist isolating yourself and talk to a trusted person like a family member, friend or therapist This can help make problems feel easier.

Exercise – the link between exercise and feeling good is well established. Exercise doesn’t have to mean joining a gym; a brisk walk has been shown to improve mood and positively affect symptoms of mild to moderate depression.

Relaxation – Anything that makes you unwind and feel good will benefit your emotional health

Again – for many of us relaxing may simply mean flopping on the sofa and maybe watching the TV, that may feel relaxing, but it doesn’t reduce the effects of stress.

These techniques can all help to relieve stress because they make you feel relaxed and hopeful.

  • Deep breathing – and here’s how.
  • Guided imagery – remember imagination is stronger than will.
  • Yoga– Exercise and connection – maybe take a class

Find techniques that suit you, a massage or pedicure may be good for some but stressful for others.

Make a little time each day for something that you look forward to – like a bubble bath or a walk

These are useful ways to show how exercise and relaxation ease depression, of course, a therapist will help you to improve your symptoms and you should seek out a suitable therapist through UKCP.

 

Fearing Anxiety

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Fearing Anxiety comes from how we shape reality. Our focus determines our reality, change the focus and as a result, change the reality.

You see,  your fear can  distort your reality. When we focus on avoiding uncertainty, we skew our logic, taking anything over dreaded uncertainty.

The good news is that you can create your reality.

Fearing anxiety makes the things you dread seem like things you know. We assume rather than reasoning.

As therapists, one word we use for this is ‘Awfulising’.

Fearing anxiety changes uncertainty from possibility to threat. The fear of fear works its way deep inside and prevents us from critical balanced thinking, often when we need that ability most. It blurs our ability to think rationally with emotion, The Chimp in our minds is in charge.

Fear can also make you inactive when there is an opportune moment, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is a fictional version of the world born of and bred by fear, but it isn’t always the reality.

Confronting fearing anxiety behaviour within ourselves is key to relief from it and here are some useful tools:

Identifying assumptions  helps, what is real and what is assumed on the basis of the fear?

When is the poisoned parrot on your shoulder feeds negativity into your ears, silence it.

Are you rationalising? justifying? projecting beliefs onto unrelated situations, or simply making excuses?

Do you notice yourself jumping to conclusions while stuck in those familiar shortcuts to them?

Are you seeing fiction as truth?

Are you thankful for what you do have, or struggling because you’re counting curses rather than blessings? Can you identify the difference between your strengths and your weaknesses, and can you live with your weaknesses?

Can you let go of your pain or are you identified by yourself (or others) due to it?

Are you building your own reality from guesses and maybe untruths, or your fears?

Most importantly, what are you missing out on?

Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy aren’t magic wands, they’re spades, hard work in therapy challenges the above.

You as client do a job and so does the therapist, if the therapeutic relationship is strong then results are best when the right therapist, right client and right time coincide.

Using the questions above, and with professional focused help, you can identify the negative patterns in your thinking and begin work to check them out, perhaps challenge them…

… and maybe change them.

 

 

 

 

Anxiety Support Bolton

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Anxiety Support Bolton is a resource to help understand anxiety from experiences and feedback of clients in Bolton whose anxiety I work with. See other resources here.

Perhaps a sense of interior discomfort or a feeling that their bodies are troubled by physical warning signs, it leads to the same outcome.

In trying to gain control, they can ignore the gut feelings and avoid internal awareness which can mean they hide within and from themselves.

Ignoring these feelings leads as a result to secondary feelings of confusion, and shame. That can mean closing off or panic symptoms because any sensory change makes them feel like a “little boat on a big sea”.

The result can be a fear of fear itself.

Fear comes from a primitive response to a threat where escape is difficult, impossible or embarrassing.

Perhaps we’re stuck on motorways, in planes, in meetings or in crowds.

Relief comes not just from external aids such as drugs, but more helpfully from changing how we feel by how we think, or react subconsciously.

Such fear is no respecter of intelligence, creativity, gender or status.

However it does have common threads.

The sufferer’s field of vision is probably inward not outward.

It can cause people to freeze.

Everything can suddenly seem blurry.

Making decisions, even simple ones is hard.

We can feel self-conscious.

Maybe it comes from the need to please others or conform. Perhaps fatigue, repressed emotions, setting the bar too high or too much responsibility.

Some of the feelings can include shame, self-blame, or frustration at being trapped in a repeating cycle.

In all the years, we haven’t made enough progress to break this negative mind/body link.

Psychology can explain  but those primitive parts of the brain don’t switch off so easily.

By being over-vigilant and reacting to inappropriate or misunderstood danger signals, we see danger where there isn’t any.

We become overwhelmed and therefore we dread.

We don’t feel fully alive, our senses work overtime but feel dulled, the body keeps a score.

Language, and the Talking-Cure of therapy is our solution in Anxiety Support Bolton.

By communicating, learning to move back into our inner selves and finding meaning, we can make some sense

In conclusion, We can find our peace.

Anxiety Help Bolton

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Anxiety Help Bolton.

I’ve heard a lot about anxiety and panic attacks. I’ve heard anxious people say “I feel like I’m going mad, like I’m going to die, I feel out of control, I worry about everything”.

It can be constant and therefore they become exhausted.

They also worry that someone will find out.

It can strike out of the blue.

It can prevent travelling.

It can cling on to them.

They feel dread.

Alone.

I know a lot about anxiety and panic attacks because it’s my main focus of work.

Most of all, I know it’s treatable.

I know that Psychiatrists believe up to 30% of the population suffer with anxiety at any one time, that it costs the economy £80 million every year. That it can commonly be found alongside depression.

I also know it isn’t new, but maybe what triggers it is new.

Often the future is where the problem begins. Sometimes it’s society because if we compare ourselves with others and come off worst in social media, it can feel like a competition.

Perhaps it’s a build-up of things that finally reaches a tipping point. Maybe a single life event that maybe brings it on.

Whatever the cause, Anxiety Help Bolton therapy first of all gives you tools to rationalise, a strategy.

Because you’re not alone.

You don’t have to feel the dread.

You can challenge those negative thoughts.

You can learn to recognise patterns in the negative voices

No one should have to spend their days being afraid of being afraid.

Use integrative therapy, drawing from hypnotherapy, counselling, analysis or behavioural methods (such as CBT) to help.

I know that you can learn the coping skills and methods that can bring you back from that exhausting hamster wheel of worry and panic to embrace the life that is waiting for you.

I know as an Anxiety UK therapist that psychotherapy and hypnotherapy can help.

I know this because it happened to me.

For help first of all contact me below.

 

 

Improving Memory

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Improving Memory is the third part of my presentation at the International Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy conference. Earlier parts are here and here.

Changing your outlook from ‘I am like this’ to ‘I can be different’ however – is a first step towards positive thinking. To do this therefore let’s focus first on memory.

Here are some points you need to know about improving memory;

Repeat – As humans we need to process information immediately and repeatedly. It’s why learning to play a musical instrument demands repetitive practice. Repeat to learn.

Match – Because when new knowledge comes along, we fit it to what we already know.

Picture it – We think in pictures and not words.

Slower – If we slow down,  we move information from our working memory into our long-term memory.

Structure –  we are meaning making machines, we search for meaning. It’s a classic part of the psychology of teaching. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell it to them, and then tell them what you’ve just told them, therefore creating a structure.

Creative – our memory is both creative and re-creative, as in the movie ‘Inception’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio, where he implants memories to change reality.

Obviously (and ethically) therapists don’t do this, but many of my therapy clients are stuck in thoughts, one client for 20+ years.

We all know thoughts are important in therapy, take negative automatic thoughts in CBT. Thoughts and memories obviously connect, but importantly memories are not always fixed.

We think the memory works like a recording device

This is not true.

And changing this can create a new sense of possibility – a space where we can become

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus is especially relevant in this area. She described memory as like a Wikipedia page because you can go in and you can change it, and so can other people.

As therapists we can’t plant memories, this is the reason that I don’t do Hypno-Gastric band work. If our memories represent our identity, it helps to know we can change it.

We can recreate a sense of self.

Memories are not cast in stone, there is room for change,  you are not painted into a corner. How many times have you heard people say “well, it’s just me, it’s just who I am”?

it’s because memories are a foundation to identity that if you can challenge them, then you can ask yourself, “what else can you challenge?”.

What can you change?

Brain and Memory

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Brain and Memory is the first part of my serialised lecture from the recent International Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy conference.
It’s a free resource to help you and the introduction is here.
 So let’s begin with the brain and memory. Now the human brain is a remarkable thing. It represents 2% of our body weight yet uses 25% of our daily calories.
Why is the human brain is different from the brains of the other great apes?
In fact the answer is cooking. We don’t eat raw food like for example gorillas or chimpanzees, so we’re not involved in a trade-off. The trade off between the amount of neurons in our brains and our body size.  You can’t have both a big brain and a big body on raw food.
It’s impossible for us to obtain the number of calories necessary to keep our brains working from raw food. So,  we predigest our food by cooking it.  Otherwise we would simply run out of hours in the day to eat.
As humans, our brains are very neuron rich, they’ve grown that way. If  you count the nuclei in a rodent brain, you find that they are far fewer than in ours.
We have 86 billion neurons in our brains and if a rodent brain had that many neurons, it would weigh 36 kg!
We use 6 calories per billion neurons of brain every day. Gorillas are physically much larger than us but their brains are smaller. This is because of the fact that to maintain that body size, they have to sacrifice neurons.
What makes our human brain and memory unique are our cognitive abilities. We have a very dense concentration of neurons in our cerebral cortex. This is what gives us our cognitive abilities.
That rich concentration of neurons fuels our working memory.
Now what working memory does is that it interfaces between what’s going on now, our experiences – and our stored knowledge, the long-term memory.
Now this is a mix that we re all familiar with. What it goes to is meaning
and we are all aware of the fact that how we attach meaning to memory is very important That’s also true in therapy.
In physical terms that working memory is about the size of a pea. We can think of the working memory in terms of RAM, random access memory. It is for example, what allows us to listen into other people’s conversations while we’re pretending to pay attention to the person in front of us.
It always amazes me how many tips and techniques exist in the self-help books relating to making sure that you appear to be paying attention to someone. There is only however one fool-proof method of making sure that you do this and I’m going to let you in on the secret…
 and that is to actually be paying attention.
There are limits to working memory though, losing your keys for example, forgetting what you were going to say, the good news? There are also strategies to improve it.
More of those in the next installment….

Therapy Art & Science

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Therapy art & science information for you.

It was both an honour and a pleasure to have been invited to speak at the 8th Annual International Hypno-Psychotherapy Conference in Leicester this last weekend. Many thanks to Shaun and Fiona from NCHP&M for asking me, and to all the delegates, students and my fellow speakers who included Pat Hunt from the UKCP and Professor Windy Dryden.

In the forthcoming blogs, my lecture ‘The Holism Grail – The Science Behind the Art of Therapy” is going to be serialized as a resource for Psychotherapists and Hypnotherapists alike as well as anyone who wants to understand a little more about linking Psychology and Psychotherapy in the clinical setting.

So if you weren’t there, you don’t miss out. This resource is aimed at casting some light on the science of  hypnotherapy and how that can help clients to achieve lasting change. It is designed to also be interesting to clients, patients and psychologists as well as psychotherapists and anyone remotely interested in the mind and the brain. Topics include anxiety, self-esteem, stress, depression, panic, worry, habits, PTSD, OCD, addiction and many more.

The aim was to provide a useful resource on therapy art & science to therapists and sufferers alike about why talking therapies help as well as just how. The content is drawn from my UKCP and CNHC practice working with private clients in my specialist areas of anxiety and self-esteem,  and from The University of Liverpool MSc in mental health psychology.

By understanding the reasons that treatment works we can make it more effective and save time and money in the treatment room. A belief in giving back to the therapy community and spreading knowledge and experience as an open resource are what encouraged me to release this material free of charge.

I hope you enjoy it and please don’t hesitate to contact me here if you wish to comment or ask anything at all.

Stay tuned for the first part of the content in the next blog, and thanks for reading.

Stuart Cale