charlotte hinksman

Migration of Blog to new website

2011-07-29T00:06:00.000-07:00

This blogging platform served me well for many years. It has now all been migrated over to my new website platform. Please go to www.charlottehinksman.com for the current blog. Thank you! Charlotte.

Judge or Accept?

2011-05-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

There are many things that can occur in our lives. Some of those things feel amazingly good and we feel happy because of them. Some of those things feel horrible. One of the key things I have learnt by existing on this planet in the form of Charlotte Hinksman, regular human-being, and Charlotte Hinksman, life coach assisting others, is that S*%t happens in life. It doesn't matter who you are, how much self-development you have invested in, how much money you have in the bank, whether you are blissfully happy on a daily basis or otherwise - life will still, and always be, Life. Things outside of us change, life events will happen that we simply can't control - some will be great, and some will not.

There are, of course, many things within our control and many things which, by the direction of our minds and using tools, strategies and guidance, we make happen, we create the things we want in our lives and make decisions that get us the balance in life that we find personally fulfilling, based on what is important to us. Some people pull this off to the upmost degree (i.e. Anthony Robbins) and some people need more support and guidance to be the master and creator of their own life. Either way, we can all do it, which is a really amazing thing to know and hold close.

And, even so, stuff will still happen that is not pleasant or pleasing to us. There will be people that come into our lives that cause us a problem, people that leave our lives and cause us a problem, our work environment might change without first discussing it with us - how dare it - and natural disasters happen, people and animals die. As Eckhart Tolle refers to it - our Life Situation - which is always changeable and changing.

I find this subject really interesting personally, working in a role where I help others solve their Life Situation problems. I used to really struggle at the beginning of my career believing I had to be absolutely "perfect" myself before I could do good work with my clients: I had to be modelling the perfect lifestyle - be in balance all the time, have everything I wanted, never have a problem or a challenge....and my goodness, has that been a learning curve for me! Now that I have given up that old belief my life is much easier, and I know what it is that creates a good model for clients and for people in general - the modelling of imperfection (given that perfection is an absolute fallacy) coupled equally with the ability to bounce back from the various Life Situation challenges and get back into balance as quickly as possible.

This is what people need to learn and accept: you, and life, are not perfect and never will be. Things will go smoothly, and, hopefully, will go smoothly most of the time. And still, you will never be immune to Life's challenges. A lot of people trip themselves up by believing nothing "bad" could ever happen to them, and then, when it does, there are no coping skills with which to deal with the situation that has presented itself.

With Martin Seligman's research collation and analysis on depression and happiness over the last 10+ years, we now know that your inner response and coping strategies are key components of the structure of depression. People that are good / better at feeling happy in their lives are not living differently to those that are better at feeling depressed in their lives: they still experience what we may call "stressful" life events. The difference with people better at consistent happiness is the way that they internally RESPOND to these life events - their thinking style and their coping strategies are what makes the significant difference.

I could write a whole book on Seligman's conclusions - however, this article has a different focus. I want to talk about two things that are part of our "coping with our Life Situation strategy" - one of which highly damaging and ineffective, and one of which is fundamentally useful. I want to talk about them so you can recognise what you are doing within yourself, and hopefully then make a choice about doing more of the useful one.

1. Judgment.

Anyone who has ever worked with me in my office will know that this is one of my key subjects - and it would be rare for me to not be pointing this out to a client. We all go and see people, professionals like myself, because for whatever reason, at that point in time, we are struggling with something in our lives. This means that there are some unhelpful patterns inside of us that need to be noticed and addressed. One of the main players is self-judgment. It is something I have struggled to let go of in my own life, and am really getting better every day, and noticing the difference this makes. I know where I picked my judgment up from - it has been a strong one for me as it got ingrained really early in childhood.

When things go wrong, we can judge others and judge ourselves, or just judge the situation itself. We say it SHOULD be like this, or it SHOULD NOT be like this, or I SHOULD HAVE known better. The essence of this should word automatically creates conflict - the nature of the word itself is that the status quo is what it is is, and that that is fundamentally not OK. Something else SHOULD be.

We also have a fear of the judgment of others. Now this is one is really interesting - and again, a key player in those unhelpful patterns. A lot of us don't get taught how to feel good about ourselves when we are growing up at home and at school. We don't get the chance to develop a sense of self that is not reliant on other people and our perception of other people's perceptions of us. We therefore grow up with our self-esteem becoming, what I refer to as, other-esteem.

Our sense of self and whether or not we are OK, acceptable, is so often in the hands of others. Will they approve? Will they disapprove? What will they think? What if they think this or that? Maybe they think it is my fault? Maybe they think I am not cool enough? I could go on, but I will refrain from telling you something you are likely already familiar with! They key dynamic is that what someone else may or may not think means something damaging about YOU - it rocks and sways your very own sense of self.

What happens, with such a fragile sense of ourselves, is that the chance of someone not approving or not accepting us because our of our Life Situation is a very real threat, your brain sees it as a threat to its very survival. Why? A lot of my clients when they have identified this problem within themselves, will often say in response to me asking "what do you want to do instead?" - "I want to not care what others think". It is tempting to want this! However, I don't believe that completely not caring is dooable. We are a species that need bonds with other members of our species to survive, there is no getting around this. Health psychology research has shown this again and again over years of research. Some animal species do not need this, we do. So, it wouldn't make sense to our inbuilt survival mechanism to just not care at all. If everyone on the planet rejected us, we wouldn't survive.

It IS possible to care differently however, and place significantly less emphasis on the illusion of our perception of what others may or may not think about us, and to have a sense of self much more solid and reliant on something much more reliable.

Remember: when you judge yourself or the situation you find yourself in, you automatically create an inner conflict which doesn't need to be there. You never truly know what other people think. Every time you think you do, you are making it up, imagining it - unless you ask, it will always be based on this illusion you create inside your head.

Practice: Noticing those judgments in your head. Particularly the SHOULD word. Awareness creates change.

Instead: Start paying attention to the situations that present themselves in your life and use them for a perfect opportunity - what can YOU LEARN from them? Are they in your control (i.e. something you did or didn't do influenced them) or out of your control? If they were influenced by you, then AWESOME - you can begin to do something about it. You probably want a different outcome next time, don't you? Then start noticing, without judgment, what happened and what your part was. And ask yourself: What did I learn from this? What can I do differently next time? You will always find something useful with this kind of structured reflection and feedback.

2. Acceptance

This is another one of my key areas, probably because it something I have struggled with in my own life, and something I am getting better at. It is a very spiritual concept - accept what is. Just accept it. This is hard for us when what is, is so unpleasant or causes us so many problems in our Life Situation.

It is OK that it is hard, we can accept that, that is part of the acceptance. When something is hard, it means that you are learning, which is the aim, and therefore great.

We create so much resistance to our lives and ourselves. We shouldn't be crying. We shouldn't be feeling like this. We should know better. We shouldn't be tired, we should be sleeping perfectly, we shouldn't be emotional. This makes it so much more difficult to actually cope with what has presented itself.

Of course, there are things that are not ideal, that cause us problems, that would be helpful to change and that the change would allow us to live our lives with more ease. That is why professional therapists, life coaches and good friends exist, so we can move through these issues and create more ease in life. So, noticing that something isn't helpful and starting a line of enquiry as to the best way to go about changing that, is very useful indeed, and the reason my job exists!

However, how we FEEL about the problem before we change it or whilst we are changing it, is the bit that we make very difficult for ourselves by judgment or resisting the issue that has come up. Some part of us believes we shouldn't be experiencing what we are experiencing. This kind of resistance and creation of conflict is harmful to us, and not necessary, as it just makes things more difficult.

Remember: What is, is. As Tolle would say "the Isness of now, is, the Isness of now". In other words whatever has manifested in your Life Situation is here now, no matter what you feel about it. You can either resist it, or accept it. Accepting it makes it easier to change, as the conflict will disappear, and a conflict with yourself makes things harder to change. Accepting your current circumstances is not "letting yourself off the hook" - you are just resolving the internal conflict and the self-judgment whilst you go about learning how to get different outcomes, if you can.

Practice: Noticing where you find yourself, no matter where or what it is, and remind yourself: What is, is.

Instead: Start accepting where you are. Remember, this doesn't mean you like it, or that you want the same result next time. You may absolutely still want to change the situation, and you can and will. How you feel whilst you are changing it is the big one. I have a little mantra that I use to myself whenever something presents itself that seems difficult - you might choose to use it too, or find another one that works for you:

"acceptance, acceptance, acceptance."

It is hard to notice these things and practice new things. It need only start with baby steps, and awareness. Go easy on yourself. It is worth the practice and the attention, as you will create and ease and a freedom that are worthwhile.

Recommended reading:

Eckhart Tolle - Practicing The Power of Now.

www.charlottehinksman.com for coaching services in Wellington and via SKYPE.

As always I welcome your comments and feedback.

Charlotte.

How To Be Sitting And Dealing With Uncertainty

2011-04-03T13:40:00.001-07:00

People who read my blogs often say to me that the blog sometimes seems to be written just for them: like somehow I know what they are thinking and feeling exactly and this is described in the blog. People then often ask how I decide which topic to write about each month, given these personal connections to the topic.

How I do is based on two things: sometimes these two things are actually one of the same thing and go hand in hand. It is either something I am personally experiencing and have found my way through, and / or a pattern with my clients that shows up consistently in my practice; i.e. that a number of clients in that week or two week period come and, unbeknownst to them of course, start talking of the same struggles. Sometimes what I am challenged by or working my way through in my own life comes up with my clients, or sometimes what my clients say to me triggers something inside of me that I realise I too want to solve (these are well known dynamics within the therapy and coaching world, and there are many different theories and schools of thought as to why these parallels occur - which I won't go into here).

Either, or both, there is always inspiration - I can't write without being inspired by the topic - and the inspiration usually comes from finding solutions to the struggle or the challenge: helping others find a solution that really works for them, or me finding one that really works for me in my own life.

This month's topic is a combination of inspiration: from my own personal life and from what has been showing up in my practice lately, which I think has possibly been sparked off by the recent natural disasters in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Japan: uncertainty.

There is a lot of practical and personal uncertainty in these areas: not knowing where your income is going to come from, not knowing where your child will attend school, not knowing what is going to happen to your job or your business, not knowing exactly how your loved one died, not knowing what the new city will look like / be like, not knowing if it is safe to drink the water or not, not knowing if your government is telling you the truth and so on.

It is at times like this, when our every day structure and conditioning - by which I mean those things in your life which have become associated together through repetition or habit - provide a sense of "certainty" (note the inverted commas here). Our brains are conditioned into thinking when that happens then that happens, then that happens and then that happens: i.e. when the alarm goes off, I get out of bed, I make breakfast, I go the bus stop, I walk to my office, I go through my office door, I sit at my desk, I have my morning coffee which wakes me up, I come home, my partner will come home half an hour later, we make dinner together, we laugh we talk about our day......etc.

These natural associations or conditioned responses in our cause patterns in our brains that creates a sense of "certainty" - we think we know what is going to happen and when, what things are going to be like, because these things have been conditioned together in the past. A = B. This is a very safe anchor for your brain to attach things to. These associations make us feel stable and secure and creates a feeling that we know what is going to happen in the future, which creates a little safe web of "certainty".

The problems occur then, when these anchors are disrupted and taken away, or when we have new experiences, where we don't have the old associations to rely on to tell us what the outcome of these experiences are going to be: we don't know it will "be OK" because we haven't experienced it before, it is new to us and our brains. When a significant anchor is removed, we no longer have an office door to walk through, or a school to take our child to, or our partner is no longer coming home in the evening, our brain has lost its safe associations: it doesn't know what now, is supposed to "happen next" because the bit that went before it is missing - it has lost its anchors - its goal posts and road signs, and may well be dealing with a whole bunch of new road signs or goal posts that it hasn't been able to work out what they mean or what happens afterwards yet.

One thing I have noticed about myself over the last few months, is that I am really not very good at sitting on something which is unresolved, especially when that unresolved thing is highly important; something to do with one of my relationships or my work. I am a coach, and my brain is wired into finding solutions and a positive way forward. When something occurs that is "disruptive" - my mind immediately goes in to solution mode: this makes me feel better, having a plan or a some steps to move forward. This sometimes involves making quick decision and / or talking it through with someone.

The problem with this strategy is that solutions are not always obvious or clear, or always possible. My partner and I have very different conflict resolution styles: I need to sort the conflict out as soon as possible, like now, and I am driven by this emotional need to have it resolved. Once it is resolved, I can relax again. He, on the other hand, needs time to think it through. If something is emotive, it is difficult to think and see things clearly. He needs time and space to sit with it, and work it out. I need to clear my emotion immediately so I can feel better, and so need it sorted out now. You can see how these two things are mismatched!

We have come up with solutions to make these very different styles work together. For me, I am learning how to sit with something that is unresolved, and deal with my own emotion about it, whilst he has the space to think things through. It works for me if we plan a time when we will speak about it: perhaps in one hour's time, or tomorrow morning. We may not actually speak about it then, but it helps my brain to know there is a plan sitting out there in the future. I am having to learn (and I purposefully put this in the continuous tense - as I am certainly still very much learning) how to sit with something that I don't know the answer to yet, and don't have a solution to yet. It is hard!! Yet totally worthwhile. And what I have noticed is it takes some very different mental strategies to do this, which I would like to share with you here, as I think they are useful no matter what kind of uncertainty or unknown you are dealing with or to the degree of importance it takes.

1) Remember the future is uncertain and unknown for every single one of us, every single day of our lives. We only believe things are "certain" because we have conditioned ourselves through habit and repetition. We think the future will be like the past - which of course, can be a blessing and a curse, depending on what your past has been like. This is, however, always an illusion that your brain has created, to keep itself safe. This is a useful thing for your brain to do, of course, yet it is still illusionary. The future is ALWAYS unknown - for all of us, as it just has not happened yet. So, remind yourself, when you are not sure of the outcome of something, or there is a problem that hasn't been solved yet and you do not yet know how or when it will be solved, it is no different from any other time in your life, as the future is always, always unknown, and when we think about it, always just imagined.

2) Notice your control issues for what they are. People who have more difficulty dealing with the uncertain or the unknown (i.e. like going on holiday with a group of people you don't know and a place you have never been) will have a higher need to control the things around them and their lives. When the threat to your ability to be in control is present, your brain can freak out, and then everything becomes uncertain. I most certainly do prefer to be in control of things, it makes me feel safe. Most human beings have a degree of needing to control something, and It doesn't make you a "control freak" - a phrase which is commonly used and has unhelpful negative connotations. I don't agree that the need to be in control all the time is useful: as we all need to find a degree of flexibility in any behaviour that we have; however, it is useful to just acknowledge it as a safety mechanism, and just accept that the reason you feel afraid in this situation is because you can't fully control the outcome. And then, of course, find and use a useful antidote to this:

3) Practice trusting. This to me, is essential, and something I have had to really tune into in my own practice of sitting with uncertainty. The reason not knowing the outcome becomes problematic or unbearable is because there is a thought that the outcome will be less than desirable to us; and that maybe we won't be able to cope with that negative outcome. If we all sat around and hallucinated positive outcomes and really believed they were going to happen, then we would not be concerned at all about what was unknown, as we would know it was going to be good. However, of course, this is not easy, given that some of the circumstances that currently present themselves are difficult enough in and of themselves, let alone what might unfold later on. The real skill to practice is in not being deluded in "Pollyanna Positivity" but to build strength and resilience to know you can cope with whatever happens, and a belief that no matter what happens you will be OK.

So, how? Practice reminding yourself of the following:

a) I have got through things in the past, and I can get through this.

b) Things do always work out.

c) I have support around me, or support I can go to when I need it.

d) In a pragmatic way (not a catasrophising way) predict the worse possible outcome, and work out what you would do if that happened - develop a plan. For example: If I lose my job then I would move back in with my parents and it may take me a while to get back on my feet again but I will and I will be OK. Or: he might break up with me, but I have dealt with that before, it is painful and I know that I would recover and be OK again. The sentiment being IF that happens I WILL work it out like this AND BE OK again.

e) I trust in that and those around me. I trust what is right will unfold for me.

4. Know you have a choice about what to do when you just don't know. This includes how to think about the possible scenarios or outcomes BEFORE they have happened, and before you know what the outcome is going to be. As we never really know the outcome, we just think we do through past conditioning - there are therefore a myriad of choices in how we interpret things and think about things we don't know. If I send an email to my brother, and he doesn't reply, I could choose to think he is upset with me for a reason I am not aware of. That may or may not be true, I won't know until I have checked. It is therefore, uncertain. So how I think about it before I have checked (or indeed, IF I decide to check) is a choice. Two mantras that can be helpful are: I have a choice about how I think about this right now or I just don't know yet and I can deal with it if it happens.

5. Decide if there is appropriate action to be taken, and take it. This depends on how your brain is wired, however, if you are very uncomfortable with uncertainty or the unknown, it means you probably prefer to be in charge and in control in your life. Even though you accept then, that there are some things you just can't control and you don't know what is going to happen yet, you can feel better by identifying what steps can be taken now, and taking them. Even if that action step is making a plan to talk to someone in a week's time, it is still action and it is still a step and it allows you to feel a degree of being in charge and in control again. This feels very safe for your brain in its illusion with "certainty" which remember is based on the logic of past conditioning that if that happens, then that will happen, and that will happen......so, being able to take a step forward that is familiar to you because it had a positive outcome in the past, will feel good for you. It may not get the outcome yet, and it will certainly feel better in that moment, which is your aim, given that you don't know what is going to happen yet.

I remember reading once that when things don't feel good in this moment, for whatever reason, the practice is reaching for the next best feeling-thought: i.e. the thought that feels better than the one before it. It may not provide The Solution, and as we know, this may not be clear for a while, but it is about reaching for what can feel better in that moment, given that the future is uncertain.

I am practising all of this with you - so please let me know what you think, or if you have any comments or questions or tips which may be useful!

As always I welcome your feedback. With love, Charlotte.

www.charlottehinksman.com for coaching services.

How To Stay Stable When There Is So Much Instability

2011-03-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

The earth has literally been moving from under our feet. This creates instability on multi-levels. What can you do for yourself to find your own inner stability amongst all the outer instability? I hope to answer some of those questions for you in this blog.

Wherever you are in the world, you have heard about the Christchurch earthquake that happened on Tuesday 22nd February. I have a network of friends and colleagues in Christchurch, who thankfully are all safe. Since then, we have had the news of the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, on Friday 11th March. I live in Wellington, New Zealand, in the north Island, and I lived in Japan many years ago, and have a number of good friends still there, who thankfully are all safe as well.

Since the major earthquake in Christchurch we have had two small earthquakes in Wellington, which although apparently are quite normal, after the disaster in Christchurch took on new meaning and put the fear into most people - including me. After the disaster in Japan I turned on my phone when coming out of the cinema to a barrage of texts from friends and family back home, telling me they were worried sick and checking I was OK - as there had been Tsunami warnings for the whole of the Pacific including New Zealand.

I feel like I am living in natural disaster land, and over the last nearly three weeks since Christchurch, have been triggered into fear and worry on several occasions. Facebook has become an awesome resource for instantly getting in touch with people to see if they are safe, and for letting people back home know that I am, for sharing the latest news updates and for an instant connection with people when you are lying in bed during an earthquake and feeling unsettled and not sure what to do!

My point is, that if you are a person who cares, and especially if you live in NZ or Japan, these disasters are having a 100% affect rate - meaning that whether directly involved or otherwise you will have been or are being affected on some level - you can't help but be. In this blog I want to talk about what that affect could be, and how to help yourself stay resourceful during these times - finding inner stability when there is so much outer instability - when the earth literally moves from under your feet.

How are people being directly affected?

If you are directly affected then of course the answer to that is obvious; you may have lost your home, loved ones, you may be living in third world conditions with no running water.

You will likely be experiencing feelings of trauma and PTSD symptoms (flashbacks, nightmares) and be worried, fearful or anxious about what has happened or what could happen next. The uncertainty of the situation is also likely to play a major role in how you feel - not being able to be certain where your kids are going to go to school, whether the building you work in might fall to the ground, whether Christchurch will ever be safe again, whether there will be another earthquake again tomorrow with more devastating affects....

When we have a major traumatic event - the research conducted by trauma and grief expert George Bonanno shows that statistically 90% of people will recover naturally after only two months. About 45% of those people were "resilient' - i.e. they never showed any PTSD symptoms and remained resilient during and after the event. The other 45% will suffer at first and after two months go into "recovery" mode where they overcome those bad feelings naturally and without the need for any intervention. The other 10% will be traumatised and show PTSD symptoms and are statistically shown to continue having these symptoms until they receive professional interventions which help them recover.

I think this is comforting news for people and it is helpful to share this with people you know who have been directly affected. It might be little comfort when you are woken up in the middle of the night with a surge of adrenaline from a nightmare you've just had - however, statistically you now know that you will recover from this naturally, once your brain knows that the threat is over. And for those who find themselves in that remaining 10% after a period of time can be comforted also - it is just your brain doing what it is designed to do, which is to keep you safe from threat - that is what the fear response was evolutionarily designed for. We know from research conducted into the effectiveness of trauma recovery interventions, like NLP, you will be OK again.

How to help yourself

In terms of dealing with the uncertainty of the situation, there are also things you can do to help yourself stay stable amongst all this. Remember, the fear, worry and anxiety you are experiencing is there for a good reason - to keep you safe. It isn't easy for your brain to be convinced you are safe when the threat to your survival is still around - i.e. aftershocks. However, as always, there are things you can do to help yourself and your system calm down and stay resourceful at these times:

1) Learn to breathe properly. When you go into a fear or a panic response you start breathing frantically and shallowly - and you end up with more oxygen in your system than your system needs or wants. This is why you get sweaty palms and feel dizzy. To counteract this chemical imbalance in your body you need more carbon dioxide in there. If you breathe out for longer than you breathe in, this corrects the imbalance: this is a physiological fact, nothing to do with me, just something mother nature designed! You can't breathe properly and panic at the same time - so choose one.

So, no matter what, pay attention to how you're breathing and make sure you are. And then practice 8-4 breathing:

Put your hand on your abdominal area and try and breathe in deeply here, as oppose to your chest (shallow breathing).

Breathe in for the count of 4.

Hold the breath for a couple of heartbeats (1, 2)

Breathe out for the count of 8.

2. Do whatever you can to relax your system. When you are relaxed, your body believes it is out of mortal danger, and can get on with those longer term health outcomes like a healthy digestion and immune system. You don't have to wait for the threat to be over in real life to teach your body to relax now - you being in a fear response isn't going to change the outcome as to whether there is another earthquake or not, and you are much more resourceful and able to think clearly when you are in a relaxed state of mind. You may not get there fully - i.e. completely relax, which is understandable - and you can still do your best. Anything that you know works for you that relaxes your system - do it! And remember, some of you are active relaxers - meaning you have to be doing and activity in order to relax yourself like sport or knitting or cleaning. Others need to be doing very little in order to relax, like lying down with a book or meditating. Know yourself and what works and do it.

3. Have a good strategy for dealing with the stuff you have to deal with. Get someone to help you prioritise - with all the stuff that has come up and potentially all the stuff that now needs doing, you can't do it all at once and if you try you will become overwhelmed and stressed. Prioritise - make a list, and then decide what needs doing first? And then next? And then next? Plan the next SMALL steps you are going to take in order to tackle the first priority - and see them in your mind as SMALL steps. This will help you deal with the future more effectively - there are many unanswered questions right now and the way you can help yourself deal with that is having a useful and prioritised plan of action.

Here, you can also brainstorm a useful strategy for dealing with aftershocks too: like breathing three times and if it is till going then then going for cover.

If not seeking help professionally, then I do recommend going through this with other people - you don't need to do it all alone. Brainstorm it together - put your infinite inner-resources together and see what you come up with.

How are people being indirectly affected?

New Zealand is a small population. Everyone knows someone that has been affected in Christchurch, even if you don't actually live in New Zealand right now. And even if you don't know anyone personally, when the atmosphere of a nation changes so dramatically so quickly, you may be experiencing some secondary affects - fear, uncertainty, feeling unstable or unsure, or maybe just emotionally flat or concerned.

How to help yourself

1. Give yourself a break. Release that however you feel - if you are feeling a lot of negative emotion or even just "flat" - that it is normal, you are being affected on a subtle level, not always consciously. So, give yourself a break if you are not feeling 100% right now (I have!) and recognise it for what it is and perhaps not directly yours. It will probably pass, and if you are concerned about your emotional health please seek help.

2. Help others realistically. Everyone wants to help, of course. And you need to make sure you don't burn out. There are lots of things you can be doing and getting involved in, and with that comes a certain amount of pressure that you "should" be doing more, or your "should" be giving more. It is a time when we are good national citizens and want to do our share of the helping and come together as a community - which is one of the awesome things that can come out of such adversity. AND you need to look after yourself too - you being burnt out or stressed isn't going to help anyone, including anyone in Christchurch or Japan.

Decide on how much extra curricular activity you can REALISTICALLY fit in, and how much financially you can afford, above and beyond what you need to do for yourself, and do that and only that. With everyone doing the same, we are all doing our best and working collectively. Your wellbeing counts too and you need to look after it.

3. Focus on appreciation and gratitude. There is nothing like a natural disaster like this where people have unexpectedly lost their lives to put things into perspective for the rest of us. A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. It makes us realise that life is short, and can be taken away from us at any given moment. It is so precious. The things we can grumble about or be annoyed about on a daily basis cease to matter as much as realising that you are ALIVE - you are living and breathing and seeing and hearing and tasting and touching. Appreciate things about your day and your life - little things. Take a moment to write these things down before you go to bed;

Today I was grateful for:

My running water and plentiful food

My cat making me laugh with her unusual ways!

The sun shining in my back garden

It may be a prime time to asses your life, too. Are you living the way that you want to? If not, what do you want in your life? Don't waste another precious moment being anything less than appreciative and happy. If you are not happy, for whatever reason, make a plan to do something about it - there is so much you can do for yourself. It may be as simple as a small lifestyle change, like planning more time for yourself each week to read or be in the garden, or a bigger change like applying for that job you really want or writing that book you've been meaning to start...

Next steps

Whether you are directly affected or indirectly affected there are lots of resources available to you - whether it is being kinder to yourself, talking stuff through with a friend or finding professional help. There is a lot of free help being offered - it is there for a reason, so use it.

I am part of a charitable trust called The New Zealand Trauma Recovery Trust - we went to Samoa last year following the 2009 Tsunami. We are offering free NLP sessions through our coordinated list of NLP professional volunteers to those in need. Contact us through the website or call 0800 NLP RECOVERY (0800 657 732).

Please do get in touch if you have any questions and comments: charlotte@charlottehinksman.com or www.charlottehinksman.com

After The Earth Moves - Thoughts From The Chaos Zone for NLP Practitioners.

2011-03-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

Lynn Timpany has been in private NLP practice for nearly 15 years and my professional supervisor for five years. She lives in Christchurch and was affected by the recent earthquake. She is also coaching a large number of people to help them with their resourcefulness in the current unsafe situation in Christchurch. She has written this article from her experiences with the intention of assisting NLPers to be resourceful and work ecological when assisting our clients to recover from trauma safely. Please read it and let me know if you have any questions: chinksman@gmail.com, www.charlottehinksman.com.

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I am awake, 4.23am. I realise that I haven't felt an earthquake all night… that worries me. I wonder if the faultline is building up pressure and there will be a big one. I tell myself this is ridiculous. That it takes a few thousand years not a few hours. I feel better, but remember that I didn't put the radio on to recharge and if there's an earthquake I won't be able to hear the radio, again. So I get up to plug it in, and check that the torch is where I thought it was. Like most the people left in the central city area, I find it tricky to sleep. I wonder how to believe that it won't happen again, possibly even worse. All of this seems perfectly rational not anxious. I wonder if I'm traumatised, I don't think so… but as I'm considering that, I have a flashback to seeing my street, a fast flowing river. It isn't much less scary going backwards at high speed! I think, stuff it, if I'm not sleeping I may as well do something constructive, like sort my brain out and write a small article.

After doing a stack of sessions with people since the recent events the most prevalent word was "uncertainty". We don't know if/when another one will happen. Since the earthquakes started back in September I have done only a few traditional trauma cures. The structure of the problems much more frequently generalised anxiety, and also unpleasant conditioned kinaesthetic responses anchored to kinaesthetic triggers.(like trucks going past on the street.) There will of course be those directly effected by the carnage in the central city, but that will be a tiny percentage of those we are likely to encounter doing our NLP sessions.

Any outcome about feeling safe and secure is likely to be problematic, as there's just too much ecology around the reality of the recent experiences and ongoing aftershocks. For many here in ChCh, right now, the idea of feeling safe and secure seems a bit delusional. In the process of writing this there has been around 10 aftershocks, one bad enough to send me under the table, and to throw some of the things off the shelves, that I only put back yesterday.

So, in sessions it's really important to fully address the ecological concerns around any anxiety, with effective meta-level outcomes.

So, as well as the obvious VK dissociation process, these are the kinds of things I've been doing a lot of with clients effected by the earthquakes:

Bridging outcomes: Goals about responding to the current situation in a way that is satisfying.

"Ideally, how would you like to be able to respond to this uncertainty?"

"How would you need to respond to feel really pleased about how you had coped with this awful situation?"

In a couple of cases asking the values of the current time bridging outcome.

"Whats important to you about how you deal with this?"

Collapsing Anchors: Especially any kinaesthetic triggers for anxiety.

Useful core questions: Most people having problems, and also most people getting prepared, are asking "What if.." questions. Again, deal with the ecology of being prepared, and then teach about core questions and help the client pick a good one, and write it down on a card for them, or tattoo it on them, or something that get's them practising. A "how" or "what" question.

Peripheral vision. Teach clients how to relax using peripheral vision. Tell them to teach everyone else they know, especially children. This is by far the easiest way to relax without butting up against ecological concerns. It's very fast and very effective.

Strategies for dealing with 'stuff'.

Another common response is overwhelm, or generalised stress. These people need a really good strategy for prioritising and chunking down to a manageable step. The strategy will usually work much better if it also includes a great core question as one of the steps. (It could also include peripheral vision as one of the steps.)

For example:

Trigger - Core question →- Imagine the small step/check that it feels ok - do it!

(Whats the first step of the most important thing now?)

Strategies for dealing with aftershocks.

There's lots of people panicking with aftershocks. Having a strategy for a resourcefull reponse helps. (Even a wee plan really helps. For example count to 3, taking breaths, if it's still moving, duck for cover. )

However you do it, support people to have some kind of plan about how they prefer to respond to the ongoing aftershocks and future pace it. Many people are also worried about 20^th March, when there is another full moon perigree which may be a high risk time. Future pacing their preferred responses to these concerns is important.

I hope that these thoughts help practitioners to feel confident working with earthquake effected clients, even if it's not a usual 'trauma process' type scenario. As Christchurch resident, thank you so much for your help.

Sunday 6^th March 2011

By Lynn Timpany

Richmond, Christchurch

Part 2 - Communicating Better in Your Romantic Relationship

2011-02-06T14:56:00.000-08:00

The previous blog talked about how to communicate better in all your relationships, and this month's blog is focussing on how to communicate better in what I term your "romantic relationships" - which doesn't mean you are "romantic" in the traditional sense of the word, more the person who is your lover, partner, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend......

It is an interesting time to be alive on the planet, I think. So much has changed in the last 60 years or so in the western world; our roles within our genders have changed and will continue changing. What were traditional and defined in male-female relationships are no longer traditional and defined, which has been and will continue to be hugely liberating for both males and females; whether we are in opposite-sex relationships or same-sex relationships. On the other hand, of course, the new choices we all have in society about how we can live our lives and conduct ourselves can often lead to ambiguity and uncertainty - what do we expect from our partners as a man or a woman? What do they expect from us? And what can we and do we expect from ourselves? Is this realistic and well communicated, or can we string people out for not meeting them, even if they aren't clearly defined in the first place?

And expectations to me are an interesting thing. We have a lot of them in this society, and most of them too high and unobtainable. (Which I have written about in previous blogs, and my hope for people is to develop a way of having high standards without alarmingly high expectations that they can't meet and then tell themselves off for not meeting.) Most people don't take the time they need to put into the their own self and personal development, leaving a lot of our personal needs unmet, which we then, wrongly, expect our partners to meet, and when they don't, this can lead to dissatisfaction in the relationship and arguments. So, what is the balance here and how do we achieve it?

The thing that can happen in "romantic relationships" that doesn't happen so often in friendships or family relationships, although it still can, is the fact that there are (most of the time!) just two of you involved - two people, bouncing things off just one other person, who can't be objective as the other person has their own needs and agenda, and are too, bouncing things off the other person in the relationship! Sound complicated? I guess it is, really! What it means, is because of this kind of dynamic, things can get very, very subjective in there, with no opportunity for an objective view point, unless we ask a friend - and usually the friend will be on "our side" and unable to be completely objective and help us see where we personally need to change. This is why couple's counselling and therapy can be useful, to get that truly objective vantage point when things get a bit messy. Of course there are ways of cleaning things up before it gets to that stage, with some useful communication and strategies.

The Balance

The balance needs to be this: You are a whole person. You know yourself, who you are, what you are about and what you want out of life. You know what you need to do to keep yourself balanced; meaning happy and healthy, and you do these things to look after yourself.

You have a partner that is the same. You come together as two wholes, and make one even wholer-whole - a new system. You do have needs that you cannot meet by yourself; and these needs are met by your partner - a role you play for one another. You are independent in an intra-dependent relationship.

You support one another to be your absolute best, and know what makes the other one tick, and help them grow. You can recognise when your own "stuff" is getting in the way of this, and can take steps to sort that out. You recruit agreed "support" from your partner to do this, yet you do not "expect" they will sort it out for you, or fix you, as you know this can only come from you. You are patient and supportive when it is their turn to do this.

You communicate and sort things out together, and take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings, and recognise when these end and when your partner's begin.

You are in love and secure within this. You know you have your own and each other's best interests at heart. You display love and affection towards each other and a loving and trusting environment.

You are both committed to spending time working on the relationship, and therefore making it work.

How do you get there?

Some of you may already be there - which is great. And you CAN get there in your relationships. It just takes a little work and devotion, that is all, and is also an ongoing process of relatING to one another (not a static thing).

1. Clarity about who you are

I believe and have seen that the best relationships occur when the ingredients above are in the mix - and some of you may have started from a place of relative "wholeness" before you got into a relationship, and some of you may of course still be growing into wholeness whilst being supported in your current relationship.

The key here, is to KNOW yourself. If you are single, then you are in a state where you can take stock of this - where did things go wrong in your last relationship, and how did YOU contribute to that? What kind of partner do you want to be in your next relationship? What baggage do you know you have carried from relationship to relationship and what are you going to do to let that go now? Look at this previous blog if you aren't clear on this stuff yet go here: http://chinksman.blogspot.com/search?q=break+up+opportunity

What are your values: what is fundamentally important to you in your life, so that you can make decisions about how and where to spend your time and energy and therefore your direction? Do you know? If not, how can you expect to know if you and your partner share the same ideas about what is important in the world? A lot of relationships fail because there are too many values in conflict - what YOU think is important and how you want to spend YOUR time is very different from them. If you are not clear on this yet - go here: http://chinksman.blogspot.com/search?q=review+of+the+year

What keeps you happy and balanced? KNOW this, so you don't expect or rely on someone else to know this for you. Get clearer here: http://chinksman.blogspot.com/search?q=energy+bucket

2. Get clear together

Your relationship doesn't need to be in trouble for you to do this - it is just another exciting part of your journey together, or, if it is a new relationship, it is useful to get clear about this at the beginning, to make sure you are on track and these things are aligned. Once you are clear on number one above, and so is your partner, get together and check - how much is aligned, i.e. you want the same things and are heading in the same direction? How much is oppositional? What can be worked on, and what are irretrievable differences that won't work together (wouldn't you rather know this now, rather than five years down the track?). How can you support each other with those complimentary skills you have? Is there enough here to make a life together and be happy?

3. Communicate!

Goodness, this really does seem like an obvious one doesn't it, and how many times have you heard it?! If you have good communication skills, please, please use them, and if you don't, please, please learn them! The ability to be honest about stuff and explain what is going on for you, and checking what is going on for them, and finding a solution together without projecting your "stuff" onto them IS a real skill, and it is totally possible and worth it. It is said to be the key to the quality of the relationship, and in my professional experience is one of the main reasons relationships fail.

There are many reasons people find it difficult to communicate well, it is certainly ongoing work and practice to do this, and again, worth it.

Read:

http://chinksman.blogspot.com/search?q=communicate+better

Transforming Communication by Dr Richard Bolstad

The Five Love Languages - Gary Chapman.

4. Develop patience

Your partner isn't perfect, and you are not either. Why? Because there are no perfect people in the world, sorry to be the one that tells you that. There will undoubtedly be things that annoy you about your partner, and there will be things you do that annoy them. They will have patterns that don't fit with you, or that inconvenience you. Resist the urge to make them "wrong" for this. Look at yourself too, you have things about you that are also annoying. If the fundamentals are all there (above) then these minor irritations are forgivable. You can only know the difference between what's fundamental and what is "surface level" once you have done the work above, which is why it is super useful to get clear on this stuff!

5. Show love and affection regularly

Again, seems like an obvious one, doesn't it? You would be surprised at how many couples forget! When we are not in touch with ourselves, and we expect our partner to fill ALL our needs, we forget what we need to do to fill their needs. Again, the aim is for this to be balanced between you. I heard recently that the definition of abundance was having so much of something that you can easily give some away. What would it be like to have an abundance of love? So much love for yourself, you can give so much to your significant other, without "expecting" anything back? What would it be like if you both did that? In Gottmans' research they found that successful couples (in long, loving relationships) said just 100 words of positive feedback to one another per day. One hundred words is not a great deal, just a few sentences, and it can be enough to make the difference. It doesn't mean you don't argue by the way, it just means that there is a ratio of more positive communication.

There are many ingredients that make a relationship work, and if you are single you have ample time to get really clear on this stuff, so you can walk into the next relationship whole. If you are already with someone, this will help you get clear together and set some important fundamentals in place. It is work, and it is worth it.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.

Charlotte.

www.charlottehinksman.com for coaching services in Wellington, NZ.

How to begin communicating better in your relationships

2010-12-04T22:51:00.000-08:00

John and Julie Gottman can predict whether a couple will make it or not, with 90% accuracy, from watching only 3 minutes of their interaction with each other. Quite mind boggling isn't it? Their theories come from 40 years of researching and analysing what couples say to each other and the manner in which they say it; examining in detail every element of a couple's interaction, including verbal (words and voice tone), non-verbal (body language, gestures, facial expressions) and physiological (rate of breathing and heart rate).

The Gottman's contribution to understanding the ingredients to successful relationships has been hugely significant and groundbreaking for psychology and in the couple counselling field - dispelling many of the myths about what "makes relationships work" previously assumed true. The focus, which fits in with the NLP model, is looking at what happy couples do that works (as oppose to traditional models of couple therapy which look at what isn't working).

This article is the first in a two part series. In this first one, I am going to use Gottman's research and my own professional experience as a coach to explore ways in which you can communicate better in ALL of your relationships. In the second article (next month) I will more specifically talk about how to communicate to make your romantic partnerships work. I love working with couples and teaching them how to transform their communication with each other and seeing what a difference it makes: my proudest success so far was a young couple who had been together for nearly 10 years and were on the verge of breaking up when they first came into my office. 2-3 months later after a combination of individual and couple's therapy, they came into my office and announced their engagement and their pregnancy and were married one month later!

So, let's focus on how to communicate better in all your relationships to make them a better place for you and for the other person. This topic is a real passion, and writing about it this time of year is important as many of us prepare to spend Christmas with our family members or in-laws. Something then for all of us to consider over the holiday period!

As someone with many personal relationships and professional relationships, I know as well as anyone else that when any two people come together and form a relationship - no matter what the specific nature of the relationship is - we will experience road bumps: we misunderstand each other, we disagree, we argue, we fall out, we get irritated or annoyed with one another, we love each other sometimes and hate each other at other times, we can't understand why they do that we wish if only they changed that thing about themselves then it would be easier to get on...and so on and so forth. No matter what kind of person we are and intend to be, there are no completely smooth paths in any relationship.

A personal belief I have is that most things can get solved with some good quality communication. Sometimes not, of course, which requires a different course of action, like changing the relationship in a way which means you don't interact with that person anymore. The trouble with good quality communication is there aren't many of us that know how to do it: we don't get taught at school. We also have one more thing that significantly gets in the way: our own head and the stuff that goes through it ("But surely it's the other person's fault, not mine! They're the ones that are irritating!"). I hear you. But, alas, 'fraid not - think again! It is as much (if not more) about you as it is about them, as you are about to discover. And how cool is that - considering the only person you have the power to change is yourself?! How convenient!

The stuff that goes on in your head that gets in the way

1. Filters

Your brain does an amazing amount of things for you every single day of your life. Most of those things are incredibly useful (keeping you breathing, turning on your resources when you need them) and some things turn out to be not so useful. One thing that can turn out to be not so useful is the set up of a filter.

A simple example: some kind of event occurs - let's say your flatmate doesn't do the washing up. You notice it. The next day, same thing happens and you notice it again. You create a belief in your mind "my flatmate doesn't do his fair share of the washing up".

Now we have our belief - the beginning of our filter. What a belief does for you is unconsciously (i.e. you are not aware) seeks out evidence to confirm itself as true. When you were young (if you grew up in Western culture) you believed Santa Claus was real. It didn't matter that Santa Claus looked and smelled like dad, and that you didn't actually have a chimney, and mum and dad seemed to know exactly what was in your parcels. You believed it, happily, with your child brain. Until one day, a combination of maturity and a massive piece of evidence coming along to the contrary, that you changed your belief (if you haven't yet - sorry for being the one to break it to you).

As a belief seeks out supportive evidence, it filters out contrary evidence, simply because your brain can only process a certain amount of information at a time. It deletes, distorts and generalises information to confirm itself as true.

For example with the belief of "my flatmate doesn't do his share of the washing up" every time you see the washing up on the bench - you go to yourself "See! There he goes again!". This strengthens the belief.

You may therefore delete the fact that he did do the washing up last night, or that he put away the dishes, or that he cooked you dinner, or that he offered to feed your friend's cat for you. You distort - it becomes he "never" does the washing up, as oppose to "he didn't do it those two times" and you generalise "he never does ANYTHING around the house!".

All of this stands out in your brain is the times he didn't do it, which is therefore all you will remember about him. It may mean you are accurate and it may mean that because you are focusing on this one part of the picture only, you are automatically missing the other parts of the picture.

(This is a VERY simple example - try not to take it too literally. And you can see that with beliefs like "no one in my family cares about me" or "she doesn't love me" how sticky this can become in relationships).

2. Mind Reads

This is a cracker! Especially in romantic relationships, when we think we know someone well we know exactly what they're thinking. We are so good at knowing what other people think - aren't we? Well, actually, we are not. But we think we are - don't we? Yes, we do! If I had a NZ dollar for every time I heard a mind read pop out of someone's mouth, well, you know what I am getting at.... Some common examples:

They think I am a bad mother

If I don't go to the BBQ, they'll think I am not doing my duties

She obviously thinks I am stupid

She doesn't want to go with me

He obviously doesn't give a shit, why would he?

She doesn't care whether I am here or not

A mind read is just that, what we think other people are thinking, based on our imagination, and without checking with someone, will remain based on our imagination ("But, it's based on past experience!" - that may be so, but without checking and hard evidence, it still remains made up by you, in your head. It could be true, and it also may not be).

3. Adding Meanings

In reality, there is nothing else apart from events which take place outside of you in the external world, and the meaning you make of those events in your head. It's a broad statement, I know, and it is true. We have some cultural meanings and assumptions, which make it easier for two people of the same culture to make the same meaning, sure, but the meaning still remains made up by us, it's not the event itself. I am very careful when I listen to my clients when they tell me something important like "my father passed away" - I don't immediately say "I'm sorry to hear that" as is acceptable in Western society. It's not because I don't care, it's because I don't know what it means to them yet. They could be sad and grieving, they could be delighted. It's not my place to place a meaning on it, I want to find out what it means to them. Death and grief are good examples of the difference in meaning attached an event. In Western culture, someone dying is a bad thing, and it is appropriate to grief, usually for a long time. In eastern Buddhist cultures like Thailand for example, death is a celebration, as the person moves through a spiritual evolution into the next life. Westerners have mournful funerals and dress in black, in Thailand they have a party which usually lasts for three days.

In relation to another person we perceive an external event (i.e. the dirty washing up is still on the bench) and we add a meaning to that event (i.e. they don't care about my wellbeing) which may be accurate, and may not be - and we again won't know unless we check.

In my personal and professional experience, this is easily done, and more often than not is inaccurate. I had a client once who managed an administration team, who would often be convinced that members of her team were upset with her - and would go into all kinds of problem solving and finding solutions ideas and would tie herself up in knots. When I checked with her - how do you know she is upset with you? - the only "evidence" we came up with was that sometimes a certain person would have days when they were quieter than usual. So, you can see, a bit of a leap between the external event (they are quiet today) and the meaning (they are upset with me). Realising this saved her a whole bunch of time and made her a much more effective manager, only dealing with real problems.

Filters, mind reads and adding meanings you can see are all related to, and feed in to one another.

How the effect communication in relationships is that we offer communication based on our internal filters, mind reads and meanings (assumptions) and not the reality of the situation.

For example we believe that mum treats us like we are stupid. We confirm this belief by noticing during a telephone conversation that she'd asked if we'd remembered to buy Aunty Betty a Christmas present. We deleted the fact that she praised us for finishing that big project at work in time for Christmas. We mind read "she thinks I never remember the family" and we listen to her when she asks how we are planning on getting up there for Christmas and attach a meaning that confirms our belief which is "she doesn't trust me to plan anything on my own".

And so our story continues.......

With all of this playing a role in our thinking, we would respond and communicate to that person based on these internal assumptions and not necessarily with the information that is present. For example just because mum asked you whether you bought Aunty Betty her Christmas present yet doesn’t necessarily mean she thinks you are stupid. If we believe and think it does we are more likely to say “why do you ALWAYS talk to me like that?!” and she might say “like WHAT?! I am only asking?! Why are you always snapping at me?!” and so on.

What can you do about it?

The first thing to do is to realise so much of our external communication is based on these internal assumptions, and as you can see, may or may not be based on what is real and present in that moment. A lot of it also is based on the past, not the present. We have a saying in NLP: Perception Is Projection - which means whatever we perceive is what we are actually unconsciously projecting from our internal world, not necessarily what is true, accurate or correct.

The second thing to do is to start separating out what is present at that time and what is based on the projection from your internal world, and base your external communication to that person on this.

1. Pausing before reacting

Before you react in your habitual way “why are you always treating me like I am stupid” – pause a moment. Starting to generate a gap between an external event (mum asking if I had bought Aunty Betty’s Christmas present) and your reaction will begin a new cycle of awareness, which will start giving you new choices.

2. Listen through your ears not through your head

Actually hear the words they are saying instead of the words in your head. When you notice your mind getting your attention more than the words they are saying, play with choosing to tune in your ears again.

3. Start checking the evidence with yourself

Ask yourself an important question: How do I know? How do I know they don’t love me? How do I know they think I am stupid? Not how DID I know (i.e. based on the past) but how do I know right now?

If you wanted to get methodical about it, you could start keeping notes in a little book. Note down:

How do I feel?

Angry

Situation:

Conversation with mum

My thoughts:

She’s always doing this, she thinks I am stupid, she doesn’t approve of what I do

Check the evidence: what did she actually say or do that caused me to think this?

She asked me a question about a present.

Check the contrary evidence: what does she do or say that could cause me to think otherwise?

She did mention that it was fantastic I completed that work project on time. And she did ask me to help choose dad’s present this year.

4. Start checking the evidence with them

Check your mind reads and meanings with the person. This doesn’t need to open a can of words you are not ready to handle, just keep it very simple, and importantly, make it about YOU not about them at this stage, and try and define the actual behaviour, as oppose to your projection about what that behaviour means. For example, there is a huge difference between “when you condescend me” and “when you talk in that louder tone of voice”.

One the person can disagree with, as it is based on your projection, and one is based on an accurate description of the behaviour, which makes it harder for the person to disagree with.

Play with:

When you talk in that tone of voice, I think it means you are upset with me, is that right or have I misunderstood?

When you ask me that question, I think it means you don’t trust my judgment, have I got that right?

5. Give yourself a break and go easy

I am trained in a communication model called Transforming Communication, which takes four full days of training to learn the skills and techniques and probably years of consistent practice to make it a way of life in a relationship or a workplace. The Gottman’s research was done over a 40 year period. The point I am making is you won’t learn this all at once, take it a little a time, piece by piece, understand what’s going on for you first, and expect there to be a difference in how you feel in the relationship, a deeper understanding of yourself and the what makes the other person tick, not an immediate and miraculous shift in everything about that relationship. If you practiced one of the above only over Christmas only, you’d be off to an awesome start! So go easy and SLOWLY and this is about you and not them - for now.

Part two next month.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.

Charlotte

www.charlottehinksman.com for coaching and training services.

How your relationship with Time influences depression, anxiety and stress and what you can do about it

2010-10-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

I gave a presentation to 80 people last Sunday in Wellington. It was the last day of a large international conference. I was asked to talk about Living in the Now.

I have done a significant amount of research (both intellectual and personal) over the years about living in the Now moment and practising what we call Presence (commonly known also as mindfulness). I will talk more about what that means later. The 4-3 weeks of my life preceding this formal address were interesting for me. I live my life by a set of values: congruence and authenticity being the two main ones. For me this means I can't teach anyone anything unless it comes from a place of personal experience. I know other people that can teach anything - and I just can't, it doesn't feel right. I fell into the trap of running a workshop last year about a message that meant nothing to me personally and I didn't enjoy the experience at all, and promised myself never to do that again (and haven't).

Knowing I had this event coming up, I thought to myself "right, I really have to practice this concept in my life fully and completely". Luckily, having created a busy life for myself with lots of things that could occupy my attention at any given moment, I had a great deal to play with! It has been an awesome few weeks, despite having a lot to do, I have remained calm and energetic.

Why Practice Living in the Now?

Eckhart Tolle (www.eckharttolle.com) is a modern spiritual teacher. He is on the world famous public speaking circuit and has written several best selling books: the first and most well known one is The Power of Now. He has worked with Oprah Winfrey (although I knew about him before that!) and the Dalai Lama to name a few. He has only one message which he sends us in many different creative ways: the gist of it being (and I am paraphrasing here) Live in the Now and you will experience bliss. This will change the collective consciousness of human beings and therefore heal the world in the way it needs to be healed.

Tolle's work has been a huge influence in my own life and I commonly recommend his teachings to clients. Fundamentally his message is deeply spiritual: only when we are truly present do we get in touch with our higher Selves - what he calls Beingness. He says the human race has evolved into a "collective insanity" due to us mostly operating our of our small selves - our egoic mind, which is always insecure, always feels like it is not good enough, and always waiting for the next moment to be better, always causing a conflict with what is happening right now, always trying to prove itself right and another wrong. In his view the mind's need to be "right" is how we have evolved as a species killing each other in wars.

Beingness is the way to really KNOW yourself - you surpass the need to be "right" and make another "wrong". You are in touch with your higher self and therefore the collective consciousness. You are at peace, you are enlightened.

It's a powerful message and certainly one to consider. Difficult to pull off in every day life though and not everyone is interested in spiritual enlightenment.

I am interested in helping people feel better. People don't need to suffer as much as you do. I see clients for a variety of reasons: stress, burn out, depression, anxiety, fear, worry, sleep issues, self-esteem issues. As NLP is a solution focussed therapy, I always ask "so, if you didn't have/do that problem, then what would you have / do?" and the answer guaranteed to pop out is: "I just want a quiet mind and to enjoy what ever it is I am doing at the time". And often "I just want to find some peace".

Here we will concentrate on the practical every day aspects of Living in the Now and how, if practiced properly, how it can serve as an antidote to depression, anxiety and stress.

Why not "not Now"?

We have a curious relationship with Time, do we not? Consider the following statements that you will hear and say every day:

Hasn't this year gone quickly?

Christmas is approaching fast!

I have so much to do I am running out of time.

I was so bored, time just dragged!
It happened so fast it was almost in slow motion.

The view was so breathtaking that time stood still.

We see Time as a "thing": something we have or don't have, something we spend, something we waste, something that can speed up and slow down. And yet, this is delusional thinking. Time doesn't do anything: it is the same for all of us. 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute.

What makes our EXPERIENCE of Time so subjective and personal is the way we relate to it: our FOCUS. How we focus our attention changes our experience of Time People often come to me and ask for "time management" skills. What we really need is to learn Focus Management.

What is depression, anxiety and stress?

We know a great deal more about depression now than we ever have due to comprehensive research conducted and evaluated over the last 10 years. What we used to think were the "symptoms" of depression we now know are actually the causes of a depressed state (one example being "negative thinking"). To be in a consistent depressed state you are doing something very active in your brain: it is a process, not a "thing". I won't go into detail here as it deserves a full article in itself; yet what I will say is one of the causes a depressed state is living in the painful past. Life has delivered you bad experiences and you're re-living these unpleasant memories. You expect that your future is going to be the same as your past. You believe that because that bad thing happened to you back then, you can't be happy now. As Tolle would say, you are dragging your heavy past around with you.

Anxiety is also not a "thing" that you have, it is something active that you do in your brain and your body that results in you experiencing anxious feelings. This doesn't mean you do it consciously or on purpose! You are just not aware of what you do in your brain to get yourself anxious. Again, I won't go into full detail here. The key structure of anxiety is imagining something bad or unpleasant happening in the future. You can't get anxious about the past, although you can get yourself anxious about imagining that something bad that happened in the past is going to happen again in the future: "I was nervous last time I spoke in public so what if I am nervous this time? What if people notice? What if I pass out, or vomit?" If you imagine these things for just a few seconds, your body responds as if they are really happening and that's why you get bad feelings. As Tolle would say, you are living in an imagined problematic future.

There are a few ways in which one can get oneself stressed. You can be stressed about the impact someone else is having on your life, stressed that you have been given a task and don't know how to do it, or you don't trust yourself to do it well. You are mainly however, stressed because of Time. You have stuff that needs to get done (perhaps a lot of stuff) and if you had the rest of your life to do it, it would be no problem! It becomes stressful because there is some kind of time pressure - you have many things that all need to be done at once, and when will you "find" the Time?

Again, the experience of stress in mind and the body is an active process, not a thing. Clients come to me and say they want "less stress" in their lives. That would be the same as saying you want "less driving"! You either drive or you don't. You either do stress, or you do something else. You can't do stress and relaxation at the same time you see, so if you don't like stress feelings wer need to teach your brain and your body to do something different. We are mostly stressing ourselves by thinking about everything we have to do all at once. You are doing one activity and at the same time you mind is focussed on "and then I have to do that, and that, and that and that.......". Before you know it you have a hasty or rushed feeling in your chest and heart. Stress. It's time to pull back and slow down.

Why Practise Living in the Now?

The past and the future don't exist. That's a bold statement. Yet think about. They ONLY exist in your mind: they are only mental constructs that your mind has created to help you know where you are in life: you need to know the difference between what happened yesterday, what is happening right now, and what might happen tomorrow. If you didn't - you would be walking around in circles and you'd never make your appointments!

The problem is we allow the past and the future to exist in our heads as if they existed in reality. Our brain is too attached to them. And they don't exist in reality. The past is over, all we have is our own records of what has occurred (memories) which isn't 100% accurate anyway. The future hasn't happened yet. No one has ever been there, seen it, tasted it or touched it. The future only EVER exists in our imagination. At least the past is slightly more tangible because we have been there and survived - but it is definitely over and the future definitely doesn't exist at all - it's purely imagined. Yet our mind believes we re experts on predicting it!

All that actually exists in reality is the Now Moment. It's all you have. It's all there is. Right Now, this Now Moment. Experience comes in to our Now, and leaves are Now, and we are always in Now.

It can be an antidote to:

Depression. If you truly accept that the past is over and the future doesn't exist, then what has come before Now, apart from all the amazing skills and positive learning you have gained from it, is irrelevant. Your father beat you as a child, why does that mean you can't be happy now? You are no longer a child and your father no longer has that threat over you. Things are different Now. A new reality can exist. You are not your past "story" - you are more than that.

Anxiety. If you truly accept that the future hasn't happened yet, it does not actually exist, and there is no way of truly predicting it, and whenever you think about it it is purely imagined, then you can no longer do worry, anxiety and fear. Just because you didn't sleep well last night, why does that mean you might not sleep tonight, and then you will be tired tomorrow? Tonight is a new Moment. it hasn't happened yet. Perhaps you will not sleep, perhaps you will. What will thinking about it beforehand do for you except make you anxious? You can give the future some space in which to unfold.

Stress. You can only ever do One Thing At A Time. Truly. Only one. You may have 100,000 things to do on your to do list - so what? You can only do one of them at a time, and then PLAN to do the rest. Positive future planning is great. Plan them, and forget about all of them except the one you are choosing to FOCUS on right now. Thinking about all the other things you have got to do whilst attempting to do one thing doesn't make you complete them any quicker. Your body just responds as if they were all happening at once, giving you the physical experience of stress. A Zen master once defined Zen as One Thing At A Time. So, do one, and do it well, and then you can do the next one. One step at a time.

What does it mean to be Living in the Now?

If you took it as deep as Tolle's message it would mean you are at one with everything around you in a state of bliss and connectedness.

In the every day practical model it means:

You have your focussed attention absolutely on what is happening here and now. Whatever you are choosing to focus your attention on right now, has your FULL attention. Whether that is running on the treadmill, planning your weekend, sitting in the botanical gardens. Your senses are open, you are seeing and hearing and feeling and focussing on what is happening here and now.

You have NO thoughts wondering into the past or future. You no longer carry your heavy past in to each situation, you leave it behind you and let it go, where it belongs. You have no need to dread the future - you trust yourself to deal with whatever presents itself in your future when and IF it does.

You treat each moment as a FRESH moment. You don't expect that just because Bob has been difficult every day this week that he is going to be difficult right now. Maybe he will, maybe he won't - you can't predict or control that anyway. You enter each moment with a freshness and deal with whatever may or may not come up.

You have a new response to what "is" - Acceptance. You stop conflicting and judging and criticising whatever it is that has manifested in your current experience: no more "shoulds", no more complaining, no more waiting for the next moment to be better than this one (when I get to Friday I will be happy! When I get home from the gym I can relax!). You accept whatever "is" in this moment in time, knowing that nothing stays the same and it will change very, very soon anyway. You say Yes to now, and enjoy what is here. Whatever is in this moment, is. As Tolle would say "the Isness of now, is the Isness of now, and that is always true". It doesn't mean you can't create something better in your life next time - it's just you stop fighting it, you accept now, knowing things will change.

The Practical Aspects of Presence

This may think this sounds like wishful thinking or "easier said than done". I agree! I am not sure what would happen to the world if we were truly living as Tolle suggests. However, there are some very simple and practical things you can do to guide your focus back into the present Now Moment, which have a very powerful effect. I will share one simple and powerful one with you here:

Whenever you notice your thoughts and your attention drifting back into your past, expecting the future to be like the past, or worrying about the future (What if...? What if..? What if....?) then bring your attention back into this present moment by asking yourself a new question:

What is the problem now?

For most of us, unless we are in prison or suffering severe pain, there is NO problem right here, right now. Right now things are, kind of OK, right?

Further Resources

The message in spiritual terms and practical terms is huge. I have done my best to summarise it for you and introduce the practical benefits of re-focussing your attention back in to any given Now Moment. It is something I could talk and write about for hours, as Tolle has. I encourage you therefore if you see value in living in a more present and mindful way in your life, to do your own personal research. Here are some resources you will find useful:

Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now

Practicing The Power of Now

Stillness Speaks

Audio products galore!

www.eckharttolle.com

Deepak Chopra – The Ultimate Happiness Prescription

I will have an audio product available for sale soon on this topic - Living in the Now.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback. Email me at charlotte@charlottehinksman.com

or visit www.charlottehinksman.com for coaching services.

With love, Charlotte.

NB: If you are experiencing serious depression and have had any suicidal thoughts, you must seek professional help as soon as possible. Please start here: www.depression.org.nz.

Part 2 –The role of exercise and eating well in your process of Self-Esteeming

2010-09-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

Don’t worry – this is not a blog lecture on exercise and diet. We all know we need to be eating well and exercising well for our own mental and physical wellbeing, and we know that this needs to be part of a good lifestyle, not a just a short term spurt to achieve some weight-loss or body-toning goal.

And yet:

As Michael Hill says in his book – Toughen Up says:

“Working too many hours, eating junk food late at night at your workstation, going weeks without exercise because you simply haven’t the time – these are all symptoms of something going seriously wrong in your life”.

When we get busy, or stressed, and we get ourselves out of balance the first things to go out of the window are exercise and eating well.

It’s a curious thing. There are a lot of reasons as to why: what I have found in my own life and my practice working with folk one on one, is so much of it is to do with self-esteem – or as I call it, self-esteeming – in a few important ways:

Keeping an agreement with yourself is a very self-affirming thing to do. You said you were going to do something – go for a 5 minute walk, go to that yoga class - and when you do actually it, it is like fulfilling an agreement you have with yourself. You build self-respect and affirm yourself.
When you break this agreement with yourself, you can, unfortunately, begin to feel bad about yourself: leading to beating yourself up for not going, telling yourself you “should have” gone and so on. This can spiral into some very unhealthy self talk which, after just a couple of sentences of negative conversation with yourself, is very damaging to your self-esteem and sense of self-worth. At the very least it will lead you into a temporary depressed mood.
You get a sense of personal mental achievement when you do something physical. And I am not talking about “big” adventurous physical goals like running up a mountain – don’t be fooled into thinking it has to be that – I am talking about a yoga class today, walking 500 metres after your evening meal, a 20 minute run etc.
You have a number of different hormone substances produced and regulated in your brain and body. Cortisol is an example of a “stress hormone” and Endorphins are an example of your body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Physical exercise decreases Cortisol and increases Endorphins, as well as the receptor chemicals serotonin and dopamine. When these natural chemicals are released through physical activity they work together to boost your mood almost instantly and make you feel good. Endorphins are also your body’s natural pain killer and can also help sustain a natural feeling of wellbeing and even euphoria. Anything you can do to feel better will allow you to feel better about yourself, thus contributing to your process of self-esteeming.
Physical activity and even short bursts of exercise serve as a very effective “state breaker” or what we might call in NLP a “pattern interrupt”. Now, what does that mean? Without getting into techno-speak, we all know what it is like to have been doing something for too long – staring at our computer screens, squinting over our accounts, sewing or fixing the car in poor lighting. We are hoping perhaps a flash or inspiration or energy will hit us and we can get it finished and then we’ll stop. As your brain patterns naturally go into a trance or dream like state every 90 minutes, when you force yourself through these natural wave patterns without that necessary mind break your brain will suffer. We also get into patterns of moods – we feel bad, lonely, depressed, sad. We’ve just had an argument with our partner and we can’t think clearly. When you take yourself out of any of these “moments” by doing something PHYSICAL – you are breaking the established neurological pattern in your brain from firing and beginning a NEW one – which will, as above, make you feel better. That’s when clarity and concentration are able to return. This in turn, helps you get things done more efficiently, feel better, solve problems, and therefore feel better about yourself – feeding into your self-esteem and self-respect, and therefore your self-worth
DESERVING. When you make time for exercise, no matter how small or big your goals are, you are sending a symbolic message to yourself. I DESERVE TO PRIORITISE MYSELF AND TO FEEL GOOD. When you don’t, you are sending the opposite message I’m afraid.

So it may seem that exercise and good food is just stuff that we “should” be doing, and yet, there are much more important reasons to be treating yourself well: It’s all part of a continued process of affirming yourself as an OK person, and feeling good about yourself.

This is a message being sent repeatedly by the New Zealand Government through the Ministry of Health with the John Kirwan mental health awareness programme – specifically www.depression.org.nz. This is a wonderful interactive free website –and you don’t have to have had an official experience with “depression” to be able to utilise it! Have a read of what it says here about exercise and fit that in with what we have been talking about above: http://www.depression.org.nz/content/waythrough/self+help/exercise

My advice here is twofold, both being equally important:

Make an intention to exercise every day (yes, every day in some form – little and often is how to do it to begin with) and plan something you can STICK TO. Advice for sticking to it? START SMALL and SET MANAGEABLE GOALS. It is much better to commit to something you know you will actually do, as oppose to signing up for a year at the gym intending to go four times a week every week when you’ve never done anywhere near that before. If you can set up something that means you will DO IT BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU WOULD that is the best start possible, so you can earn your own self-respect and get that sense of mental achievement, as well as the happy chemicals benefit. To begin with, it doesn’t matter if this is walking to the postbox and back every day, even if that’s just 500 metres. Your confidence in your ability to do what you set out to do will increase, and then you will go onto more ambitious pastures and build it up from there.
NEVER make yourself wrong for not exercising. Watch that critical, judgemental self-talk. There are some days that you are not going to do as you intended. I go to yoga every morning and last Thursday I knew that, because of my schedule, if I went to the morning class it was going to make everything else that morning a really tight squeeze - which didn’t feel very good at all. I made a decision that feeling good about my schedule that day was more important than “doing what I said I’d do” exercise wise. My brain was tempted to beat me up, and I let that go pretty quickly. Life is kind of like that sometimes, and the most important thing is not whether you beat yourself up for it, but that you get back on track tomorrow. Just be aware of what is genuine and what’s just an excuse (you will get better at recognising this!).

As always, I welcome your feedback and thoughts about how this blog post has helped you.

With love and esteeming thoughts as always,

Charlotte

www.charlottehinksman.com for coaching services and products

How much of your self-esteem do you place in the hands of other people? How to recognise it, why you need to change it, and how to change it.

2010-07-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

Part 1: How much are YOU really worth?

It is a tough question to answer, isn’t it? I wonder how you would go about answering it, and where the answer really lies - i.e. who decides?

People don’t choose their careers accidentally. I became a coach because I struggled in my own life. I started learning how to overcome my own barriers to finally achieve what I wanted to achieve, did my professional training and changed my life. I knew that if I could do this, others could too, and I had the experience and the professional skills to teach them how.

The most significant work I have done on myself over the years and will continue to do is the relationship I have with the most important person in the world: ME.

I know, I know, it’s a cliché isn’t it? “The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself..” blah blah blah – yes, we’ve all heard it, we’ve seen it used in advertising and soap operas and movies, we’ve all said it at some point. So, how true actually is it, and what, if anything, do we need to be doing about it?

In order to answer these important questions, I would like you to do something, if you would. I’d like you to consider the following words:

· Opinion

· Judgement

· Approval

· Acceptance

· Like

· Caring

· Love

· Perceived value

OK. Now, I want you to read them again, and repeat them to yourself in your head.

OK, got that. Now, read them again and repeat them in your head (there is a point to this, I promise....)

Ok, now we have oiled those neural circuits in your brain. Now, the next thing I would like you to do, is read the following question. Just relax, think about it once you’ve read it with your eyes closed, and be open to what comes in to your mind (there are no right or wrong answers):

How much time have you spent today thinking about one or more of these things?

Perhaps that is easy to answer, perhaps not. Don’t worry if it is not immediately easy. Just reflect on your day and consider it.

Now, consider the next question:

How much time today have you spent today thinking about these things in relation to another person (i.e. YOUR opinion or approval or love for THEM)?

Again, that may be immediately obvious for some of you, and for others you may have to close your eyes and spend a little bit of time remembering your day, the things that happened, how you felt, what you were thinking about and so on.

Now consider the next question:

How much time have you spent today thinking about these things in relation to another person (i.e. THEIR opinion or judgement or caring of YOU)?

Again, may be easy and obvious for some of you, and for others you may need a bit more time to do some active remembering and exploring.

Now consider the next question:

How much time have you spent trying to make a decision today? (if you have some big decisions to make, this will be easy to remember. If not, think about your decision about what to wear, what to buy for lunch, what to do tonight etc.)

And then:

How much influence did your consideration of other people have on making that decision?

OK. Now, let’s pause here.

Some of you may have uncovered some interesting information about your own thought processes. Some of you may be thinking “what the hell is she on about?”. Some of you may have not uncovered anything you didn’t already know. Some of you may have realised something I am not aware of yet!

And all of that is OK.

IF – through that little process – you are realising “wow, I spend a lot of time focussing on other people and what they might think!” then it would be useful for you to read on.

Let’s put it this way: as a species on this planet, we are born social. Babies who do not have interaction with other human beings when they are born do not develop well psychologically, physically or socially – they develop serious problems. Without that interaction and connection with other human beings, we simply don’t survive. We have mirror neurons in our brain that make us want to be like those around us. Babies smile and laugh when we smile and laugh to them, not because they find it funny, but because of these mirror neurons. Because of this, we are ALWAYS going to have a natural consideration of others and where we fit in with others around us.

To what degree is this useful and to what degree does it become imbalanced - making this awareness of others to our detriment?

It comes down to our own sense of self: our self-esteem, self-worth, self-perception, self-image, self-identity. This is about who we actually are: how we look physically, what we are about, what we stand for, what our values and beliefs are, our history, our current lives, our goals and aspirations, our friends, our families, our financial status, our choices; how we spend our time, what we eat and drink. And then, how we fundamentally and actually FEEL about who we are. This is our relationship to ourselves. How we feel about who we are and how we live. And how we feel about that determines our own sense of self and therefore how others relate to us.

The imbalance occurs when our own sense of self relies too heavily on OTHER’S:

· Opinion

· Judgement

· Approval

· Acceptance

· Like

· Caring

· Love

· Perceived value

......of US.

We start to rely too heavily on this because of a lack of our own sense of self. This can be due to simply not knowing ourselves very well (lack of experience, lack of awareness, young in age) or, a lack of a favourable sense of self; we don’t actually like who we are and how we live. We have a low opinion or ourselves, judge ourselves harshly, don’t approve of ourselves, beat ourselves up, don’t value our own skills, treat ourselves badly with non-caring behaviours.

Therefore we seek the acceptance and love and value from others, so that WE can feel a little better about ourselves. “If they can approve of me, then I can approve of me” kind of mentality. It’s not conscious by the way, it’s not like you do it on purpose – in fact it’s largely your unconscious mind doing it for you so you can feel better.

Sounds kind of logical and sensible really doesn’t it?!

Except that it doesn’t really work so well. Not in the long term anyway.

Putting our sense of self in the hands of others like this is high risk. Because:

1) Why should we expect someone else to love and approve of us if we don’t love and approve of us? I wouldn’t sell a car if I didn’t believe in it – would you?

2) What happens when someone doesn’t like you or approve of you? You fall to pieces with no substance of your own to fall back on. This makes your self-esteem very delicate and is like a “they don’t like me so I can’t like me” kind of mentality.

3) Decision making is a struggle. Making your decisions based on what others may approve of makes it very difficult for you. You can get paralysed for fear of getting it wrong and angst over small things for hours or avoid making big decisions and stay stuck where you are.

4) You run the risk of behaving only in ways you think will “please people”. You become a people-pleaser. If this is motivating your actions you are likely to be ignoring your real needs and will burn out.

5) We feel like we need to “prove” ourselves to others to get their seal of approval. We can work too hard for this and the motivation is wrong. We may also, never get it, which means all that hard work for no reward.

6) The big flaw in your mind’s plan to “self-worth through others” is this: how are you going to know whether people are pleased with you, or whether they have a favourable opinion of you? The only way you’ll know is by actually asking them, and mostly, unless we are in a situation where we are receiving structured feedback (i.e. a performance review) we won’t ask and we won’t know. Their opinion of you therefore remains an imagined one that you make up in your head. And how reliable is that? Not reliable enough to base your whole self-esteem on, that’s for sure!

The most important steps in personal-development are: become the person you really are, decide to keep developing yourself – always, then decide that that’s good enough for YOU. Real self-worth is about deciding “I am who I am, imperfections and all, and I love and approve of myself” regardless of what others may or may not think.

The balance lies in considering and maintaining:

How can I be considerate and respectful of other’s needs, act with good intentions towards others AND be considerate and respectful of my own self: my needs, wants, desires, comforts and who I really am?

There are no easy and hard and fast answers and rules. However, consider that every day and see what changes for you.

Coming up: Part 2: How to develop your own sense of self in a useful and sustainable way.

With love and positive thoughts as always,

Charlotte.

www.charlottehinksman.com for coaching and therapy services in Wellington.

How to turn a relationship breakup into an incredible opportunity for personal growth

2010-07-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

When a relationship ends, energy that has remained stagnant for time suddenly mobilises. For this reason, it is one of life’s amazing opportunities to learn, grow and expand yourself and therefore your life.

I am currently seeing a lot of clients in my practice for relationship issues and dealing with break- ups. When someone has ended a relationship for you that you were emotionally committed to, it’s easy to start doing some very dodgy thinking and believing about yourself and about life. This needs to be addressed and turned around into a positive as soon as possible, before you do yourself an injustice and damage your own, precious, self-esteem. I want to show you how to deal with your break-up in way that turns it into an incredible opportunity for YOU. The focus is on when someone makes the decision for you – because this is the place that can feel the most disempowering and I want to show you how to steer it into an empowering place that will help set you up positively for the rest of your life. Sound interesting? Read on...

The last time a long term meaningful relationship was ended for me, it was the beginning of an incredible journey that changed the course of my life forever. It turned out to be an embedded gift – or at least I decided to make it into one. I was deeply in love and deeply convinced that I would spend the rest of my life with this person, only to have the rug ripped out from underneath me at an extraordinary speed! Needless to say, I was heartbroken. I had just arrived in New Zealand where I had left my life in London, moved to the other side of the world and only knew a couple of people in Wellington (vaguely, from my travelling days). I found myself heartbroken without my support system. I thought to myself: Something positive has to come out of this! And I made it so it did.

I addressed myself and my issues for the first time in my life, trained in a professional discipline and started a very successful business. A private therapy and coaching practice was something which had been my dream since I was a teenager. It became full time and fully sustainable very quickly, and is one of the most consistent therapy practices in the country. I train newly qualified NLP master practitioners in how to market their own practices and have been very influential in the practice of professional NLP in New Zealand. I started to make a difference in the world – finally! It’s not so much a rags to riches story as a journey from disempowerment to empowerment. I hope to help you on your own journey:

1) Accept that they were not “The One”: If the relationship ended, then they were not The One for you. They just can’t be – the math does not add up does it?! Please avoid pointless regretful thinking like “I’ve lost the one love of my life and will never be loved again” as this is unfair on you and untrue. If they’ve ended things then the relationship had issues that you definitely knew about and didn’t want to face because you wanted it to work. And forgive yourself for that - we all just want to love and be loved at the end of the day. This one just didn’t fulfil that for you. Realise then, that they have done you a huge favour by being brave enough to be the one that made the decision and be thankful for that.

2) Continuing contact and dialogue: Break ups can be tough. You go through so many emotions (below). If we allow ourselves to be reactive to each of these emotions, we may do something we are not so proud of later, or something that could damage the other person. You will probably want to seek revenge and hurt them back – you may want to text them and tell them you faked all your orgasms anyway, leave angry messages on their phone, tell all their friends they were bad in bed, post a flyer around town publically declaring all their shortcomings (e.g. Samantha Jones, Sex and the City). You may feel like writing an angry letter setting the record straight. Here is where you need to be demonstrably self-possessed; ask yourself: In six months time, how do I want to be looking back on myself and my behaviours in a way that I can be totally proud of myself?” If you don’t yet fully trust yourself not to be reactive - recruit support. Text a friend (who agrees to this) every time you get the urge to text your ex. Delete their number from your phone. De-friend them on Facebook. Write that angry letter (a good way of purging bad feelings from your system) but wait a week and see if you still want to send it (you won’t).

3) Allow yourself to go through the Break-up Stages: You will go through; hurt, disbelief, anger, revenge, wanting to set the record straight, blaming yourself, rejection, disappointment, frustration, sadness. Please avoid trying to “fight” these stages, just accept them and let yourself feel them. You might cycle back on them a few times before you fully move through them. Seek support from friends or family that you really trust to go to and be your authentic self; whether this is crying, shouting, being angry, or just talking it through. It’s important you can be with people that you trust who accept you and what you’re going through, and can just be there to support you in your process. Eventually you will move on to the more positive stages; acceptance and then moving on. I have noticed in my practice that some of these stages are stickier and harder for people to move through, so I would like to focus on some of the main ones and what to do to move through them:

a) Blaming yourself: When the decision wasn’t yours, it feels very disempowering at first. You were perhaps willing to sort things through and they were not. You may experience all kinds of feelings, the common one is starting to believe it was all your fault. Recognise you are doing this first; and then get realistic! It is inconceivable for one person to take 100% of the blame for the relationship ending. Relationships are of 50 / 50 input, always, which means you both brought things to the table that affected the harmony of the relationship. They are a unique individual that has come to a decision in their own neurology, which is out of your control, and in a greater sense, nothing to do with you. If you are stuck in the cycle of blaming yourself – pull yourself out of it, now! Here are some exercises that will help move through this stage (and, it’s important to note here, that some of them seem a little negative at first ...... they are simply to help your mind process things whilst at this stage, and will help you move through the stage into a more positive stage. I am NOT advising you to wallow here for too long – these are just processing exercises that help you move on to more positive stages):

Write down all the things you didn’t like about them: did you really enjoy the way they were rude to shop assistants? Or the way they asked to borrow money from you? This helps you realise that you knew things weren’t right for you either, and it was not really the relationship you thought it was or wanted it to be.

Write down all things that you were dissatisfied about in the relationship and all the reasons you knew the relationship wasn’t going to work: didn’t you argue about unnecessary things? Did they really match your key values (financial, spiritual, health, relationships, goals), did you really have the same aspirations and goals in life?

b) Revenge: Revenge is a dish best served cold (please refer to no. 2!). The best revenge you can get is to bounce back quickly and genuinely, and move forward to create a happy life for yourself. This way, you will not only be a good role model for others, you will demonstrate to them the person you really are and can be, which will hopefully influence good self development for them too. However, their journey is their journey and what is important now is YOU.

c) Sadness: Once you have moved through the more active stages like anger and hurt, you will feel sad at the loss of a relationship, which, if you were involved in it, was bound to have many good points too that you will miss. This is a natural stage, and again, need not be “fought” but “felt”. We do feel sad when we have “lost” something. When I made the decision to end my last significant relationship three years ago, I felt sad for a little while. I thought about using NLP to adjust the intensity of the emotion, and then I thought: actually, it is appropriate to feel sad right now, it is sad this relationship has ended. I let it come and go, and it passed within a few months. My advice here is to feel it, understand it for what it is, and let it pass. If you stay there too long, then you may need a bit of professional help to move through it, and that’s OK too.

4) Getting your ex back or becoming friends: There is so much literature on the internet about "Get Back Your Ex And Keep Them Forever!" Ignore it! It wasn’t the right relationship for you - if it was right and you were meant to be together, then you would be. They made a decision that makes sense to them in their model of the world at that time and you need to be graceful about accepting it and be thankful for it. Unless there are children involved, don’t attempt to become friends. You can’t really do this until you have dealt with your own emotions anyway – and by then, you will realise that you probably do not need them in your life after all.

5) They will hurt too: I have ended relationships and had relationships ended for me, and it hurts both ways. It is easier to have the decision made for you, as you won’t go through that regret and doubt stage that they will go through. If they were in a relationship with you then they definitely cared for you on some level, and will therefore feel disappointed about it ending too. In time, you will be able to realise this and will be able to feel some empathy for them soon.

6) What you can control and what you can’t: You can’t control their decision. You can’t control what they say about you to your friends. You can’t control other people’s perceptions or opinions of you. You can’t control what they do next. You CAN control what YOU do next. Notice how much energy you are spending focussing on what you can’t control, and see if you can make a shift. Ask yourself: What do I need to be focussing on for ME right now? And put all your attention there.

7) Moving on: This can only really happen genuinely, when you have passed through the previous, more stressful, stages. Again, I want to advise to allow yourself those initial stages. Don’t fight – feel! If you allow yourself to feel them fully you will pass through them very quickly – trust me. And then, you can focus on moving forward positively:

a) Deluded thinking: “I will never find anyone like them, no one will ever love me and I will be single forever”. This is delusional thinking. It’s not true. You create your own life and your own opportunities and you need to start realising that! Nothing useful can be created by that kind of thinking. Snap yourself out of it by telling yourself: I can’t predict the future and therefore I am just making this up right now. I am in charge of my life and I am making way for my better relationship to come next.

b) Avoid rebound relationships: Be careful about jumping into bed with someone else or diving into your next relationship. If you rebound you are likely to have not dealt with your own stuff and run the risk of hurting the person you rebound to. Bottom line – you DO NOT want to take your past baggage straight into your next relationship, because you will just repeat the same patterns! I always advise, for a significant relationship break up, to have a period of time on your own, to work on yourself and the issues you brought to the table so that you leave them behind you and move forward.

c) Use it as an OPPORTUNITY for YOU: This is not longer about them and why they did what they did. This is now about YOU and only YOU (the most important part of the equation!). When a relationship ends, you can’t blame yourself. And you can’t blame the other person either. It is a 50 / 50 input. What is likely is that you brought a number of issues to the table that disrupted the harmony of that relationship (as did they). If you can be honest with yourself about what these were for YOU, and make a plan to deal with them, you will go into your next relationship a significantly better and more developed person, significantly more whole inside, attract someone else developed and whole inside and therefore have a relationship that is much more likely to work long term. Have a close and honest look at:

What behaviours did I demonstrate that I didn’t enjoy about myself?

If I were to know/guess, where did these come from? A place of: Insecurity? Vulnerability? Neediness? Fear of getting hurt? Fear of rejection? A need to be the rescuer? A doormat – difficulty saying no? A need to please the other? Approval?

If I were to know / guess, where does that place within me (i.e. insecurity etc) come from? When have I felt this before? How old is this feeling? Does this feeling serve me now?

What would it be like if I were free of this feeling now? What I be like? What would my next relationship be like?

How good is my self-esteem, really? Did I fish for compliments? Did I get jealous? Did I place unrealistic demands on this person? Did I criticise them? Did I try and control them and their feelings? Did I try to manipulate them to feel good about myself? Did I get defensive? Did I need to prove myself right and them wrong?

Can I honestly look in the mirror and say “I love you and you are totally and utterly worthy and deserving of a great relationship?”

There are no hard and fast answers to these questions AND a bit of honesty with yourself goes a long way in self-development. Remember – awareness is the key to change and you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. The best relationships are when both people are whole and love and appreciate themselves, and can therefore fully love and appreciate that other person freely. Working on your own past baggage and issues can be challenging, and I would recommend lots of focussed reading and / or professional guidance. Your friends love you and some of this they simply aren’t qualified to help you with. So, seek guidance if you know you have some of the meatier stuff to work on.

d) Your Next Relationship: If you take time to recognise what you brought to the table, work on yourself and your self-esteem and release your past relationship baggage, you WILL go into your next relationship a better person, and therefore start a new relationship pattern, which will be better than the last one. You WILL attract someone equally like you: whole inside and self-loving. If you don’t attract the right person straight away, at least you WILL be a step in the right direction! And every relationship is progress as long as you’re learning. Take some time to work out and understand what didn’t work in your last relationship and what it is you actually want your life-long relationship to be like. Think about:

What do you want the person to be like? What values or qualities do you admire? What characteristics do you love in a person? What are the essentials?

Write down everything you know you like / love about yourself to realise your own self-worth and the value you can add to your next relationship.

Who do YOU want to be in your relationship? What kind of person? What kind of behaviours do you want to demonstrate?

What do you want the relationship to be like? Think about shared values, goals and aspirations, lifestyle.

e) Feeling good: What do YOU need to do for YOU to feel GOOD right now? Have you been meaning to start yoga? Take that dance class? Clarify your life direction? Have you had the same haircut since 1992? Is it time for a new winter coat? Now is the time to use that energy to get some positive movement in your life. Don’t sit around thinking – go for it! It’s all about you now.

Positive parting note: Remember, not every relationship in your life is SUPPOSED to last forever! As long as YOU learn from it positively it WAS NOT a mistake or a waste of time. You have been given a huge GIFT to learn about yourself and decide what you really want your life to be like, and what role you want your life-partner to play in that life. If you get clear now, you will attract the right person for you – please have hope and trust in yourself and in life. You are the creator of your own life, and I know it doesn’t always feel like that, and it is the truth. Remember: People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Put this person and this relationship in perspective and allow your own personal movement and power to mobilise. Have fun and enjoy the incredible gift you have been given.

As always, with love and positive thoughts. I welcome your comments and feedback as always.

Charlotte.

www.charlottehinksman.com for NLP services and products.

Your Energy Bucket - the continuous balancING of your life

2010-06-05T18:31:00.001-07:00

I work with many people to help them establish physical and mental health and wellbeing in their lives. A lot of people are making decisions on what to do in an average day based on what they think they "should" do NOT what they "want" to do, or what is good for them to do. They have values, beliefs and emotions that get in the way of making good decisions about how to spend their time. Unfortunately, what ends up occurring, is that a lot of these decisions value other people's opinions of them, not their own wishes and desired and opinions on themselves. So much is driven considering other's needs and wants and what we "should" be doing. Not always of course, as we also drive ourselves on our own measure of success or "what needs to be done" (although it is interesting to consider where our own measures come from!).

Being out of balance can cost us our physical health by increasing stress, and cost us our mental health by increasing stress. Most people want to achieve a better Work / Life Balance. This is not a solid "thing" that you will every "have" - it doesn't really exist like that. It is a process, of balancING, and is therefore continuous. When you notice yourself getting out of balance (notice your triggers - tiredness, feeling under the weather, feeling emotional, all the normal signs of "stress", not sleeping, brain too active, physically sick and so on) it is time to ADJUST the balance again. If you were to get on a bike, and notice it was all going smoothly, you wouldn't stop peddling would you?! No! You need to keep peddling the bike to maintain the balance, and that's how managing your life is as well - a continuous and enjoyable process of adjusting.

Think about these questions:
Do you think about your day and look forward to it, or think about it with dread? Do you feel calm or stressed when going about your daily business? How do you feel before you go to bed at night, relaxed and calm, or worried about the next day? Do you feel in control, or do you feel out of control?

A tool you can start to use straight away that will create awareness and make a difference to you to manage your life MUCH better:

Your Energy Bucket

Do I HAVE an Energy Bucket, I hear you ask? Well, yes, you do. It is to do with your Work / Life Balance. Do you have one of those? Well, maybe not yet! And you could start doing a good balance if you carry on reading....

Now that you know you have an Energy Bucket, what do you do with it? Well, imagine a bucket. Or, if you have time, you can draw one on a big piece of paper. Imagine this bucket is filled with beautiful, enthusiastic energy. Now, imagine (or draw) several holes down the side of this bucket. These holes each represent something in your life that drains your Energy from your Bucket. It could be difficult conversations, cleaning the toilet, arguments with your family, work, a particular aspect of your work that you don't enjoy, going out too much, community meetings, alcohol, cold evenings..and so on.

Now ask yourself - "Are there any holes I can plug up?" and have a serious think about that. Do you really need to say "yes" to everything? What could you say "no" to for now? Identify any that aren't useful or necessary at the moment.

Now ask yourself - "What fills up my Energy Bucket?" and have a serious think about that. It could be early nights, nights at home with a movie, salsa dancing, dinner with friends, hugs, massage, exercise, meditation, good conversation....and so on...imagine or draw these going into your Energy Bucket.

If we want to be balancing our lives in any given moment, in a useful way, we need to think about our own Energy Buckets. If you are getting sick and running out of energy then you need to PLUG some holes and FILL your bucket. Plug and Fill, Plug and Fill. Let that be your mantra. No one can do this apart from YOU - so begin to be more aware and see what difference it makes to you.

Yours with positive thoughts as always,

Charlotte.

www.charlottehinksman.com

When things go "wrong" how do you Bounce Back and survive?

2010-05-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

Some people, and I can't really blame them, get the impression that when you become a therapist or a life coach that you lead a bit of a "perfect" life, where you never get problems and you never get stressed and therefore you are a great role-model for your clients and others in your professional field.

I can't blame people for thinking that, as this is what I used to believe too.

Having been a professional in the self-development field for nearly five years now, and having come from a background of being mostly utterly un-empowered and having struggled in most areas of my life, I marvel at how far I have actually come in life. I NEVER would have had the courage or the will to work for myself and make a success of my life if it hadn't been for the intense personal development I have undergone, and I am grateful for all of it and the person I am now. AND indeed the personal development I continue to live every single day.

Does that mean I don't get challenges? Does that mean I am always completely resourceful and deal with things perfectly all the time? Does that meant I am always happy and bouncing around in bliss?

I am not sure I know anyone living like that ALL the time, do you? My aim is always to be resourceful and utilise my skills to the best of my ability at all times. My aim to practice the skills of happiness and to be relaxed most of the time. My aim to be achieving and moving forward in a way that's just right for me and my life purpose.

I don't always pull this off though. Sorry to burst your bubble of perfection. Or perhaps, it is a relief to hear this?

Which leads me to into the single most important thing to know about personal development. It is NOT about being perfect and living an idealistic life. This makes it unobtainable, which is not useful. It is about learning how to manage yourself and your life resourcefully. It is about responding to life's challenges (which, there always WILL be) in a useful way. It is about CONTINUING to grow and develop and to keep learning, and discover higher and higher versions of yourself that you keep growing into. As soon as you've learned everything life has to offer, you are dead as far as I am concerned. It is about responding to life's challenges by BOUNCING BACK - quickly and resourcefully, with as little impact and as many positive learnings as you can muster, in order to develop even further.

THIS is what develops you. Not the idea of living up to a perfect idea of life or what life "should" be - which simply does not exist.

I had a couple of weeks in the recent past where everything and anything seemed to be going "wrong" in my life: my website was down for one whole week due to a project gone wrong, my email was down for two weeks due to the same error, I broke the telephone jack in my office which meant I couldn't use telephone or email, a few examples among many! My partner started to joke with me that when we live together I was going to be banned from touching anything around the house!

I seemed like I kept being challenged all the time, it seemed like "one thing after another" and there were times where I would look up at the sky in exasperation and say "If there is a God I am being tested here! What am I supposed to be LEARNING from all of this??!".

And there are many things I did learn, which I will share with you here.

One of the things we know from research about depression and happiness from Positive Psychology - mainly from the work of Martin Seligman - is that life is cyclical. This means, that there will be up times, and down times, and many of life events will be considered stressful. You are living in a cycle where nothing stays the same and things change for the better or worse all the time. People who are considered "depressed" will be experiencing these challenges, as do people are considered "not depressed" or even "happy". Therefore it is not "life" itself that makes the difference to how we feel as the cyclical nature of life is the same for all of us. So, what IS it that makes the difference? What causes someone to be depressed and someone else to be happy?

It is life events PLUS a particular style of thinking.

The kind of depressive thinking we know about used to be considered a "symptom" of depression. From Seligman's research we now know it is a CAUSE of the continued state of depression.

To be in a continued depressive state, you internally respond to life's challenges with a style of thinking that Seligman terms as Permanent Pervasive Explanatory Style part of a "Learned Pessimism". Some examples of this include:

1) Negative focus of attention:

a. Past focus – remembering and living in unpleasant past events

b. Present focus – looking for and remembering all the things that are not going well

c. Future focus – imagining what can go wrong in the future or imagining the future will be like unpleasant past

2) Negative thinking patterns:

a. Making generalised statements about life and about self i.e. “life is always hard” or “I never get what I want”

b. Internal self-talk that is highly critical, judgmental or pessimistic

People who are better at doing happiness are better at doing a different style of thinking as an internal response to life's challenges that Seligman terms "Realistic Optimism". They tend to bonce back much more quickly from life's events. Some examples include:

a) Focus on the positive, as oppose to the problem
b) Isolate it to one event, not ALL events all the time. For example they might think "that was bad and that's over now" or "that was one of a kind challenge!"
c) Expect the future to be different (better) than the past "It is over now and it will be ok".
d) They make statements about the event, not about them PERSONALLY "that was hard and stressful" as oppose to "I can't manage that.." or "why is life doing this to me?"
e) Focus on gratitude and appreciation of what IS going well and what is good in life, not the problems.

When I was going through my consistent "challenges" recently I found myself dipping into the Negative Explanatory Style depressive thinking. If caught myself making generalised statements
"everything is going wrong!" and "this ALWAYS happens!" and negative identity/personal statements about myself "why is life doing this to ME?".

I caught myself one day and thought: "hang on a minute! This isn't useful. I need to do something different here to get through this!"

And here's what I started doing, and I share it with you in the hope it will be useful getting through some challenges of your own in life, now, or in the future, in a USEFUL way:

1) Re-framing events as "positive" or "perfect": For example when my internet was down, after the initial panic, I re-framed it as a positive "well, I have been a bit of a slave to my emails lately and wanting to manage time better, so at least this way I can only check them for an hour a day and can spend that time on something else important."

2) Focus on appreciation and gratitude: I really had to make a conscious almost forced effort to do this - and it was totally worth it! I consciously went though every day, twice a day, all the things I could be grateful for in my life, even if they were small things: "I have a roof over my head. I have a lovely cat. I have warmth and running water. I have food. I have a lovely flat mate. I have a loving partner..." and so on. Just focussing on these things always made me feel instantly better in that moment.

3) Seeing the future as different from the past: "OK, this too shall pass. It's been tough and it WILL get better. It WILL be OK". This really helped me focus on something much more positive. None of us can predict the future at all, so if I am going to go to the trouble of thinking about it, I may as well do it in a way that feels good. This allowed things indeed, to PASS.

4) Separating the things I CAN control from the things I CAN'T: "OK, well, there's not much I can do about that now". And "Right, this is the action I DO need to take...". It stopped me focussing my attention on stuff that is not useful, and re-focus it on stuff that definitely is useful, the stuff I could do something about.

5) Positive, soothing and supportive internal dialogue: the way I communicate with myself inside my head, my self-talk, is very important to the way I feel. If I am not feeling good I can guarantee I have let some dodgy self-talk slip in without me noticing. For me, it has to be a continuing self-awareness of watching those subtle internal thoughts and catching the ones that are not useful to me and replacing it with ones that are, the way I would talk to a friend or a loved one. I had to say: "Charlotte! This WILL be ok. You are doing really well.". I had to really concentrate on soothing and supporting myself at every given moment.

Life is cyclical. Life is challenging. Life will continue to surprise you. Life is life, and you are you. It is the way you RESPOND to these events that make a difference to how you feel, we know that from research now. So, if you are not feeling good, let's look at how you are thinking about life and what has or hasn't happened / happening. If you made a deal with yourself to practice these five tools above, I would love to hear about what a difference it made to you. It sure got me through some tough recent times and I learned so much about myself and about life! What an awesome opportunity for me to grow and help my clients grow!

As always, this is a continued practice. THIS is what makes me a good role-model for others.

As always, I welcome your feedback and comments.

Yours with positive thoughts,

Charlotte.

www.charlottehinksman.com for NLP services.

When are our emotions "normal"? and when is it useful to do something about them?

2010-04-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

I had a couple of interesting experiences year that got me thinking about this.

I joined a creative group which I am still a part of. In the beginning group process we were each given a task to do. This involved asking at least three people I respected to answer the following questions about me:

What do you see as unique about me?
What talents or qualities do you think I have?
What do you think may be possible for me?

I asked 5 people and got 5 responses back - and the feedback was interesting! People had different perceptions of me as a result of knowing me in different contexts, and it was an interesting exercise. One thing that surprised me was a common thread in the feedback, that, even though I think I "knew" it about myself, I didn't really "know" - if you know what I mean?!

Apparently, I am a very emotional person and that my emotions are often the drivers for my actions and behaviours. Sometimes to my advantage it seemed, and sometimes, however, not.

It was a little surprising to see it written there, from about 3 out of the 5 people that completed the task for me. I think I knew I was an emotional person, I didn't think other people perceived me that way.

It got me thinking.

My Grandmother on my mother's side, Molvina, was a very emotional person. She passed away when I was only 14 years old, and I remember lots of amazing things about her. She was beautiful and she was fluent in about 7 different languages. She was loving and caring and warm and a wonderful cook. She was Armenian and a refugee to Cyprus, where she married my Greek Grandfather Dimitri, and then a refugee again from Cyrpus to London, England, with their two children, my mother and my Uncle George. She was a devout Catholic and my Grandfather was also highly religious of the Greek Orthodox faith.

Grandma Molvina always wanted her grandchildren to be religious. It was however, in conflict with how we were being brought up by our parents - our 2nd generation Greek refugee mother and Welsh policeman father - as non-religious. Grandma had pictures of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary all over the house, and her experience of religion was so that she would love Jesus so much that every time she thought of him it brought her to tears (often).

My mum, also, is a very emotional person. She doesn't think so much as feel, and her feelings are everything - her complete guidance for all her thoughts and behaviours. Unfortunately, this isn't always positive. Over the years she has become very good at some very negative emotions.

So, I can understand my family line, and how much emotion and trauma seems to be there, and how that history may have influenced me as the person I am now, emotional.

Except - in my head, I am thinking "I am an NLP practitioner! Is it OK to be an emotional person?" - a conflict of "I am a human being" and "I am also a professional helper and a model to others". Something perhaps other therapists and coaches have also experienced at some point in their lives and careers.

In this article I think I have answered something important for myself, and my hope in sharing it here with you, is that it can help you answer your question of:

When are emotions useful and/or a normal part of being human and when do they begin to become a problem, warranting attention to bring you back into balance?

I can answer it by telling you one personal story.

Last year, my big brother got married in England, and I went home for the wedding. I was back in the UK for about 5 weeks, more than enough time to get totally connected to everyone again. It was quite weird, because when I was there I was actually feeling totally fine. I knew I had to leave and come back to my home in NZ and it didn't seem to be a problem at all. I didn't even cry at the airport, something I have always have done in the past (and there have been many tearful airport departures in my life).

I got back to NZ after the long flight, and within an hour or so of landing, the emotion hit me like a Japanese bullet-train. It was unexpected and painful. The best way of describing it was pure grief from loss. I had had no warning signals, one minute I was fine, and then there it was! It reconfirms every belief I have ever had about the difference between your conscious mind and your unconscious mind's processing! Where we consciously think or feel something and what is going on beneath the surface unconsciously are two very different things. I did already know that of course, and this was really "knowing" it.

As I was experiencing my grief, I had to decide, as a skilled NLP practitioner, what to do with it: Do I feel it and ride it out? Do I talk to someone about it? Do I try and change it? Partly, these questions came from a vantage point of knowing I had some kind of choice. Something which not everyone considers when they are in the throes of an emotion. I also had a time factor to consider. I had about three days before I was due to start work again and start consulting with and helping my own clients - plus I was running a retreat the following weekend. I had work to do and I didn't feel in any kind of state to do it.

So, I decided at the time, that considering what I had left at home, that it was appropriate to feel this grief for now. It didn't feel right to rush in their with my NLP techniques and go changing it, it just felt necessary to let it come, and (I was hoping) go again. I left it to do what it needed to do, and used all my willpower, skills and tools to work my way up to my usual resourcefulness to complete my work commitments.

And it did do what it needed to do, it came, and then it petered out again, and allowed me to get back to a normal state. I decided to keep an eye on how I was feeling though, and make sure things were balancing themselves out.

About two weeks later, I was aware that I was still waking up in the mornings and feeling sad. It didn't linger all day, in fact, it was gone once I was out of bed and looking forward to the day. It wasn't too bothersome, however, after a few more days I decided it was time to do something about it. It affected my well-being to be feeling sad in the mornings, and I had tools in my toolbox and, if I couldn't do it alone, people that can help me change it.

I had got to an appropriate point in time when another choice became much more appropriate. It was kind of like that my emotion had served it's purpose, it had given me the message it needed to, that I loved and missed my family and friends and that they were important to me (at least, this is what I took as the message from it) and now it was just hanging around, not because I needed it, but because my neurology was confused about how much of this chemical I needed to have in my brain. It was beginning to over produce it, unnecessarily, and it was my job to teach it that the message has been received and understood and that I no longer needed it and it could safely let it go now.

Once again I find myself booking a session with myself. I did everything with myself just as when I am working with a client. I got an outcome, I checked with my brain that it was OK to achieve that outcome, and I used an NLP process to clear the unnecessary emotional chemical (Time Line Therapy).

I woke up the next morning feeling absolutely fine again. I had that "wow" feeling that I used to so often get during NLP trainings when you practise the processes in pairs to learn them. Even though I live and breathe NLP and see the living example of what is possible with it every day with my clients, I still get surprised sometimes about what a powerful change vehicle it is, especially when it is your own experience. I am sometimes still left with the thoughts of "wow, can it really be that easy to change something?!" - and I have to accept that yes, it can be, and that that is OK and wonderful.

When are your emotions useful and a normal part of being human?

Virgina Satir was an amazing influence in the therapy world - the mother of family therapy and who a lot of NLP was originally modelled from. She described human emotions like the lights on a car dashboard: when you are out of oil, your car flashes a light on your dashboard to let you know, so you can do something about it and therefore keep your car safe and functional. She said that what we get good at doing, is seeing the oil light flash up, and think "I can't deal with that now.." or "I don't have time to deal with it..." or "I don't know how to deal with that..." and therefore ignore it, and the oil light keeps flashing. Then, we get tired of seeing the oil light flashing, and we might place something over the dashboard so we don't have to be reminded anymore. Then, when that stops working, we cut the electrical wires so we can't see the flashing light any more. And then we can pretend that it's no longer there.

The car still needs oil though, whether we pay attention to it or not.

And without it, the car will either encounter other problems - other lights will start to flash - or it may just break down all together.

Emotions can also be described metaphorically like a flower: they grow - and then, when they have grown all they need to, they die a natural death.

Theories of a spiritual nature consider all human emotions to have a "purpose" e.g. for the less than positive emotions:

Fear = protection and survival
Guilt = to correct something wrong
Sadness = reminding you how important someone/something is to you
Anger = to right an injustice (this has got to change)

In this sense therefore, an emotion is never right or wrong, negative or positive, it simply has a purpose to be there or a message for you that needs to be paid attention to.

The way that Virginia Satir thought of them is similar, and that we get very used to ignoring the "message" because we don't know how to deal with it, causing break down later on, which shows up in the struggling family and relationship dynamics that she helped people change.

In this sense, I have come to believe that all emotions are useful and therefore a normal part of being a human being. All we have to do, is, instead of cutting the electrical wires on the dashboard because we believe we can't deal with them or the message, is simply acknowledge them and what they are trying to tell us.

When you are experience a significant emotion ask yourself quite seriously:

If I were to know or guess, what is this emotion trying to tell me?
What is the important message?
What action, if any, needs to be taken for this emotion to know that the message has been understood and it can safely leave again?

This will help your brain know that you've paid attention to the light on the dashboard and that you are dealing with it. Then it will stop flashing the light once the problem is solved.

When do emotions begin to become a problem, warranting attention to bring you back into balance?

There are three useful ways of measuring this:

The Trigger: Is this obvious, specific and understandable? Does it make sense, that given the circumstances that you would feel this way?
Relativity: Is the emotion you feel relative to the situation - does it seem in-proportion?
Time: Does the emotion flower, and then die a natural death in a relative period of time after the trigger? This could be a couple of days, weeks, months or in extreme loss a year or two years.

If the answer is NO to any of these measures, then you are experiencing emotional imbalance. You could have excess emotion stored up in your system which wasn't dealt with at the time, and is now sitting under the surface waiting to bubble over at any given opportunity and linger around, in order to get its message heard and understood. Or, you could have become so good at ignoring the lights on your dashboard that you are feeling significanly less than you'd like to feel.

These are signs of emotional imbalance that can be adjusted in your neurology to feel more comfortable. Sometimes your brain gets neurologically "good" at a certain emotion, not because it is necessary, but by accident. it is our job to teach it different so that it serves you better.

This will allow you to feel more balanced and in control of your emotions, and be able experience them in an appropriate and relative way, where they come, leave their message and then go, leaving you feeling balanced and happy again.

My parting thought is that I am a human being and I am an emotional person and this is OK with me. I am pleased I have a sense of choice about how I feel and it is this sense of choice I would like others to be aware of too.

With positive thoughts, Charlotte.

www.charlottehinksman.com for NLP services in Wellington.

What is Trauma, a Phobia and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how can you safely overcome it?

2010-03-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

I have recently been to Samoa with a team of NLP professionals on a voluntary basis, training their health care professionals and emergency services in some basic NLP skills, the key one being the NLP Trauma Process or Phobia Process. We had about 37 professionals on our three day training, and we taught them these skills to help them overcome their own fears or trauma as a result of the Tsunami disaster that hit the island in September 2009, and any other fears or traumas they may need healing, and, importantly, so that they can use the skills to help others - their patients, their clients, their co-workers and / or families and their communities. So the people of Samoa can move on and build their lives again in a healthy way.

You can read much more about our project on our website http://www.traumarecoveryteam.org.nz/.

The NLP Trauma Process is one of the better researched areas of NLP in terms of its effectiveness. The process itself takes about 20-30 minutes from start to finish, yet the success of the process depends on many other detailed factors which influence the success of NLP interventions. There are too many to go into detail here; yet just to be aware that anyone thinking of doing the NLP Trauma Process with themselves or another person needs to be aware that the process itself is only one step in a series of important steps that enable change (Dr Richard Bolstad - in his book RESOLVE).

In this article, I will go through the main "symptoms" or ways in which you can tell if you have been traumatised, developed a phobia or have the symptoms of PTSD, the NLP approach to solving these issues, and how the NLP Trauma Process works.

Firstly, it may seem strange to you, that I am grouping these three - what could be seen as very separate - "disorders" together. And this is one of the key differences between NLP and the traditional psychological or psychiatric approach. Where traditional approaches see these "symptoms" (i.e. fear, panic) of the brain as a "solid thing" that exists inside a person, and labels them as a special kind of "disorder" - sometimes with a fancy name (i.e. Ranidaphobic - fear of frogs) that some one "suffers from" or is "inflicted with" - the NLP approach is very different.

We see these "symptoms" as a series of events that the brain is going through - the connections the brain and the nervous system is making at any given moment - which ends in a certain tangible result for someone (i.e. fear, panic, nightmares and so on). Therefore, there is no solid "thing" that exists inside of you. A phobia doesn't exist as thing you suffer from - it is just a process that occurs in the brain and body that ends in particular (unpleasant) results. When we teach the brain how to do a different process - then we get a different result. When we can teach the brain and nervous system to connect things differently in there - the person can get used to generating different results in the system, which can be favourable - even enjoyable - to the person.

This is not just the NLP perspective on healing trauma, it is a fundamental belief of the NLP model about anything which is labelled as a "disorder" in traditional psychology (depression, insomnia, eating disorders, lack of self-esteem or confidence and so on) do not exist inside the brain somewhere, where a drug can stop them existing, they are processes. And as absolutely nothing is ever static in the Central Nervous System (CNS), that the CNS is in a constant state of communication between the brain and the body, these procsses can be changed, new skills can be taught to the CNS and new processes can start occurring, ending in better results (happiness, restful sleep, healthy eating and weight, positive self-esteem and relationship with self and so on).

The "symptoms" (or current process)

How do you know if your brain and nervous system has become good at doing the process of some of these very unpleasant experiences we know as Trauma, Phobias or PTSD?

Here are some of the common results you will get if you are:

Firstly, mostly (not always with phobias) there would have been some kind of outside "event" that occurred, which you perceived or where involved in. This event could be the kind of event that everyone would agree was a "traumatic" experience i.e. something like seeing your village get swept away by a giant Tsunami, or seeing your family be killed in war. It could also be a fairly "non-eventful" event, i.e. something conceivably harmless like walking into a comic book store, or seeing a bird flying on a beach. Yet, for some reason, at that one moment in time, your brain decides it is going to do something interesting with that seemingly innocuous event:

Your brain could produce the following symptoms (as defined by the DSM IV 309.81 for PTSD):

repeated, distressing memories or dreams of the event
acting or feeling as if the event were still happening
intense distress when exposed to images or sounds resembling the event (i.e. loud noises)
efforts to avoid anything that could remind the person of the event
inability to experience normal range of emotions and interest in life
not planning as if life had a future
difficulty concentrating or relaxing (especially sleeping)
sudden anger and startle responses

Some of these are more extreme and distressing than others, especially so if they occur over a long period of time with no relief - this can cause the person to develop some other secondary phobias or symptoms and can seriously limit the person's every day life.

The NLP approach (starting a new process)

The distinction between traditional definitions of the symptoms being labelled as a "disorder" that exists inside of you somewhere and the NLP approach of these results ("symptoms") are occuring because your brain and your nervous system are engaged in a particular connection - a process, which is always a continuous steam of communication in your CNS - and therefore one that can be changed, and changed quickly, is a very important distinction.

Richard Bandler, one of the co-developers of NLP, studied large amounts of people who had overcome a phobia or a trauma themselves, naturally. Something they used to produce all the above symptoms for, and are now able to feel completely relaxed about. He wanted to find out - as is the spirit of NLP - exactly which process their brain went through to get the new (sometimes magical) result. He needed to know, because, NLP is about the study of success and using the brain's natural processes to heal itself (people have all the resources they need to succeed).

He discovered that with all these people, there was a consistent and definite shift in how they remembered the event - which caused the new favourable results in their system.

You see, the brain is very complex, and magical (when you know how to use it!) and also, sometimes incredibly simple.

When you freak out (technical term) the brain is doing what it is designed to do. It associates that fear feeling with the stimulus (or event) that caused it. Simple classical conditioning, or, as we call it in NLP, anchoring. Now that these two things are connected in the brain, one will trigger the other. Therefore just a mere mention of the event or a smell, or a noise, will trigger that associated fearful feeling. That's why people go to lengths to avoid anything that may do this, as it is very unpleasant for them.

A phobia or a traumatic response, is when the person gets anchored back into an experience like that, one that was really unpleasant for them. And that's ALL it is. A strong, and rather unfortunate anchor.

Why does your brain do this? Because we are designed to preserve ourselves and survive, which, in the old days when we were hunter gatherers, meant remembering danger, very explicitly, so we can do our best to avoid it next time. When we came up against a tiger, a real life threat, the brain produced fear - adrenaline in the body - so you either could flight (get away fast) or fight the thing that was a danger to you, so you can survive.

The brain wanted to remember that tiger as dangerous, and so associated it with the same fear response, so you could flight or fight again. All you would have to do is think of the tiger, and you'll get the same adrenaline, just to be extra specially sure you can stay safe. That tiger is now stored in the "red alert" place in the brain. This is your anchored response.

Fear was designed to keep you safe and protect you from bad things happening in the future. Nothing more, nothing less. That's why we have it. These days, we have so much stimulus available to us, our brain overuses this ability to keep us safe. That's why it is possible for us to develop some pretty far our or irrational phobias and fears! We know logically that a frog is not going to kill us, yet, if it triggers that innate fear response in our body, it will anchor them together and remember for next time. Here we have a simple "phobia".

And it is the same, no matter what the event or stimulus was. And your brain, if it believes it to be dangerous and wants to protect you from it in the future, will keep reminding you of it again and again (and yes indeed, it overuses this function) in the shape of flashbacks and nightmares and the like.

The important thing, in its attempt to warn you of, and protect you from this discovered danger, is it will have you remembering the event or stimulus in a particular way, to keep you afraid of it.

There are only two ways in which a human brain remembers something. These two different "types" of memory are stored in different areas of the brain:

1) Associated - remembering it vividly as if it was happening now - through your own eyes, life size, bright, full colour, clear, and probably as a running movie. Remembered with strong emotional connection.

2) Dissociated - remembering it as if it was happening to another person - seeing yourself in the picture, from a distance, perhaps smaller than life size, maybe a still image not a movie, and perhaps in dulled down colours and in black and white. Remembered with a vague emotional connection, if any.

As a general rule, people who are enjoying their lives, remember the pleasurable and happy events associated, and the unpleasant and yucky events dissociated. People who are not enjoying their lives, perhaps they are doing depression or living in fear, remember the pleasurable and happy events dissociated (they feel like they happened to someone else) and the bad and unpleasant events associated (living them as if they are happening now). Based on this, the brain comes to expect the future to be the same as the past - which explains why depressed people can keep themselves depressed for a long time, and why we can begin to "live in fear".

Bandler discovered from his research that people who had had a trauma or a phobia or PTSD symptoms had naturally found a way to change the way they remembered the event that had caused the fear. They somehow taught their brain to switch it from associated memory to dissociated memory, meaning they could remember it with little if any emotion.

Their brain still keeps them safe however, as it knows what really is dangerous, and what is just faulty, over-active programming in an attempt at self-preservation.

Bandler designed the NLP Trauma Process by refining what he had learnt from this important research. And this is now the process we take people through to help them overcome their fear symptoms.

How does the NLP Trauma Process work?

The trauma process works by taking the person through the step by step process of re-coding and re-storing their memories - out of the "red alert" place in the brain and into the "neutral" area. We teach their brain to go from associated memory to dissociated memory, in a safe way. We lock that into place, so that each time the brain remembers the event, it remembers it like this. Therefore, we create a new association in the brain, a new anchored response that's actually useful to the person and they can't get anchored back into the old response again.

These changes are always carried out in the context of a therapy session, where all the other steps of therapeutic change are followed. The process itself takes about 20-30 minutes and is tested before and after, and followed up one week later. A session in its completeness may therefore take 1 - 2 hours.

We use the NLP Trauma Process for simple or complex phobias, traumatic events, significant emotional experiences, and for any symptoms of PTSD. I also use it a lot for helping the grief process.

This process has been researched and used all around the world, in war zones and in post-war situations. In the research carried out after 9/11 attacks in New York, its effectiveness after clinical use was 80% effective after 2-4 hours of treatment, compared to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which was effective 32% of the time with 4-5 months of treatment.

To find out much more about where this has been used in the world and to what significant effect click here.

If you know anyone who could benefit from overcoming the symptoms described here, please feel free to forward them this article, and let them know they can get in touch at any time on charlotte@charlottehinksman.com if they have any questions.

With love

Charlotte

http://www.charlottehinksman.com/ for NLP services in Wellington

Flagellation Foibles - The 7 Biggest Lies About Success And How To Overcome Them

2009-12-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

I was running a corporate training recently which was all about how to achieve more success in the workplace. It got me thinking. I started doing some general research on the trusted internet. I wanted to see what highly successful, well known business people had to say on the subject. I came across one of Donald Trump's websites. There was a list of things that he wanted to teach aspiring business people about becoming highly successful. One of them was "Dealing With Failure". I got to thinking, what is "failure" exactly and how do we deal with it - in a way that moves us forward?

Firstly, let me tell you how people don't deal with it well, and the patterns they get into as a result, and where these patterns came from. I am speaking from a professional experience from working with hundreds of clients, and from personal experience as well, as what I am about to share with you has taken me some time to change within myself and has been quite a journey let me tell you!

The 7 Biggest Lies About Success

1) There is a "right" and "correct" way of doing something. Someone else has the authority on this.

2) There is also by definition, a "wrong" way. You will be judged on getting it wrong.

3) Doing it "wrong" means failure. And failure is bad: very, very bad.

4) Perfectionism and getting things "perfect" equals success.

5) Having high expectations and high standards are the only way to succeed.

6) If you don't meet the above (either yours or someone else's) you have failed. Which is very bad.

7) If you fail you have to beat yourself royally, and this helps you succeed next time.

Surprised?

Am I saying that you should not high standards and goals for yourself? No! Indeed not. I am all for success and achievement of goals - it is what my life is based on! I am saying, that to be consistently and succeeding and achieving your goals in a fun enjoyable way, these lies need to be dispelled and the truth needs to be told right now.

To demonstrate, let me tell the story of Ingrid. Ingrid is a fictional character and if she bears any resemblance to you or anyone you know, that is because many people you know are like this, or indeed have been in the past. I am simplifying this story and leaving out the details. The purpose of telling the story is to demonstrate the patterns people get into when they base their success on the 7 Lies above:

Ingrid comes from a family of four siblings. She is the youngest of these four with a bit of an age gap between her and the other three. Her siblings are all fairly close in age. Her parents were hard working folk and believe that you have to work hard to be able to succeed. They expected a lot from Ingrid. Ingrid went to a school where they expected a lot from her. She did her best to meet these expectations: she worked hard and diligently, and always got reasonably high grades. As her father always said, she needed to work a lot harder though. She agreed with him: why was it that she only got 90% in some of her school assignments and not 100%? She knew she could be lazy sometimes and get distracted by her friends.

Her siblings, being close in age, could tease her and make her the subject of their jokes. She went a long with this with a smile outside. Inside, unconsciously, she never felt quite good enough for her parents or her brothers and sisters. It seemed like whatever she did was met with a joke and a criticism. She developed a pattern of having to prove herself and and her worth to them. She wasn't aware of this until much later though, when, successful in a high achieving important job, she wondered why she wasn't quite happy, and why, having achieved many of life's significant things (lovely husband, lovely kids, good job, lovely house and cars, able to go on holiday twice a year) she was having problems managing her life. She wondered why she wasn't quite happy yet?

She went through cycles of burn out: working frantically to achieve deadlines, and then collapsing in stress and spending all weekend in bed sometimes. She started having trouble sleeping: lying awake going over and over in her head what she needed to get done the next day and worrying about what it would be like if it went wrong. Sometimes she would wake up in a state of panic - heart rate going like mad, just with the anxiety and adrenaline of what will it be like tomorrow?

There were also things that happened that day - damn! She was embarrassed about them - how could she have forgotten to say that important point in her presentation? That totally threw the whole thing off course! They looked confused for a while, I know what they were thinking of me... how embarrassing! I really should know these things after all this time! How could I NOT? I really needed to get that right this time....I can't believe I missed such an opportunity! My boss must think I am a total idiot... ! It's OK, I can schedule a meeting with her tomorrow and just get a bit of feedback. In fact, I'll just get out of bed and write that down now, just in case I forget...Oh God..I hope it doesn't look too bad! I screwed up this time but my boss knows what I am capable of, surely? I can get it right next time, I know I can. Next time I will go through it in more detail, and then it will go more smoothly...yes, that is what I will do. I know my boss will understand. It was an important meeting though. It's OK, tomorrow will be fine. I have that report to do, and I will be able to impress her with that. Yes...so there was the review, and then I will put the paragraph in about innovative culture..and then.. What if I can't get it right, though? It needs to be perfect this time....

After taking two week's stress leave as signed off by her GP (her husband was worried about her), she was mortified. What a public display of incompetence! It's OK though, she will be able to prove her competence when she got back. In fact, perhaps she should try and clear some of those emails now? A couple of hours work won't hurt, and then she will be able relax. "No, I promise, let me just do this and then I will get out for that walk... Yes.. I do remember what the doctor said..I will be fine, I have a whole two weeks to rest..."

The Real Cost Of These Patterns And Where They Come From

These 7 Lies create patterns of thinking and feeling and behaving that don't sound like much fun, do they?

Who says there is a right and a wrong way? Who sets the standards? How many of them are real standards or perceived by ourselves? Are they realistic? What is realistic anyway? Are they a sustainable way of living? What do we do when we don't meet a standard? How do we cope when we get it wrong?

Great news. These kind of patterns are not even yours! So, you can give them back, if you like...!

Here's the real deal:

These standards and expectations and come from school and our parents and caregivers. Our early influencers. When we grow up, they become our own measure of the standards we "should' be meeting. They are often therefore, made up, and imposed upon ourselves.
At school we have an authority on what is right and wrong, and we get assessed continuously on whether our work was done in the right way. We get high marks for doing it right, and low marks for doing it wrong. We therefore believe there is a right and wrong and we will get judged for doing things "wrong".
We are perfectionists because we are trying to prove ourselves and our worth to the people that were around early in our life: teachers, parents, caregivers, siblings, school friends.
Not being able to meet a high standard means we have failed. We view "failure" as bad because we are trying to get it "right" - the right according to our teachers, parents, caregivers, siblings.
We beat ourselves up with the purpose of doing better next time. The actual internal voice we use in our head to do this beat up is very likely to come from our teachers, parents, caregivers, siblings. This causes negative cycles of thinking which make us depressed.
This causes an increase in stressful emotions that will damage your body and will make you physically sick later in life. These negative cycles also damage your confidence and self-esteem and self-image.
These patterns do provide a shorter term motivational drive and push to succeed, and can be very very effective in achieving. This does have more costs than rewards in the bigger picture (see above).
To be consistently achieving and moving forward in a way that is achieving success AND is fun and enjoyable at the same time - you need to change these patterns of thinking and behaving and DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

The Solution

It is fun in life to be pushing yourself and seeing what you're capable of - to be setting goals and achieving things consistently. It stretches your comfort zone, feeds into your confidence and self-esteem and a positive self-image. It expands your identity and your self-belief and makes you a well-rounded, interesting person. You will live a well-rounded life AND enjoy it.

So, how do we do it in a FUN way, in a way that creates ENERGY - not drains us of it?

From recent research, we know there are some very important differences in the way truly successful people view "failure" - or what I am now going to term "when things don't go as smoothly as you would have preferred".

Successful people are actually realistic optimists. When they achieve success i.e. "when things go well" they have a positive mindset and view it as:

Personal - they did something that caused their success
Permanent - because happened this time it will happen consistently
Pervasive - it happened in this situation and will therefore happen in all other situations

(The Three Ps).

When things don't go as smoothly as they would have preferred they have a positive mindset again and view it as:

Impersonal -it may not be solely down to them and other factors may be involved
Temporary - it happened this time and won't happen every time
Isolated to that one event - it was just this one time. Next time will be different

People who are not achieving consistently in a fun way, have a pessimistic mindset. When things go well they view it as:

Impersonal -it may not be solely down to them and other factors may be involved
Temporary - it happened this time and won't happen every time
Isolated to that one event - it was just this one time. Next time will be different

When things don't go as smoothly as they would have preferred they have a pessimistic mindset and view it as:

Personal - they did something that caused their failure
Permanent - because happened this time it will happen consistently
Pervasive - it happened in this situation and will therefore happen in all other situations

From this research we know that people who are consistently acheiving are realistic optimists - those who think positively and not so much so that they can't recognise "mistakes" or "where things went wrong". They are the ones that allow themselves to LEARN from these "mistakes" and therefore create something different next time. They do not see the value in spending time in self-flagellation, as that isn't learning and moving forward.

Other research that came out just five weeks ago demonstrates this strongly: quite simply, no mistakes, no learning. If you don't make a "mistake" or are not allowed to make a mistake, you simply don't learn anything. Simple as that. So, not only are things supposed to "not go as well as you preferred" AND you are designed to LEARN from them AND that this is where the BEST learning comes from! So, in this sense, everything is working PERFECTLY - in its imperfection.

Five Top Tips In How To Be Successful AND Have Fun!

1) Embrace "failure" and try to fail quickly

Not everything is going to go well every single time and that is awesome. It is not only a realistic way to live your life it is also a massive opportunity to learn. When things don't go as you would have preferred - ask yourself very earnestly "what can I really learn from this?". Failing quickly allows you to move on and get on with doing something better next time.

2) Recognise your internal self-talk is not even yours

Always remember - if you are telling yourself something negative you are slowing yourself down. You weren't born beating yourself up! That means you learnt it from someone in your life. It ain't even yours brothers and sisters! Keep a very close eye (or internal ear) on that negative self-talk and choose to turn it off. Please see earlier blogs for advice about how to do this!

3) Become good at Imperfectionism to succeed more quickly

If you are trying to get things right and be perfect at everything you do before you start you WILL DISABLE YOURSELF and you WILL NOT move forward. Well, you might, but it is going to take a bloody long time and be really, really stressful. If you are wanting to give life to stuff and move forward and have fun along the way - it is NOT USEFUL.

Instead:

Ask yourself: "what is the best I can do with the time and the resources I have available?".

Tell yourself: " It may not be quite as I want it right now AND I have permission to be learning along the way".

And just get on with it.

4) Be committed and consistent to move forward more quickly

Part of a tried and tested success pattern is being committed to what you are wanting to achieve and being consistent in your efforts in achieving it - NOT being perfect at it.

Think of an important project you are working on, personal or work related. Identify the goal (what it is I want to achieve at the end of this project?). Then, knowing why it is important to you, commit to spending some time on it each day - preferably first before anything else. Load up the files and resources needed for the project and ONLY these, and spend time on it BEFORE you open emails and other files which can distract you and drain your energy. Even if it is just 15 minutes one day instead of the preferred hour, you will still be moving it forward consistently and will prove your commitment to yourself this way.

5) Care very much about how you FEEL

Bottom line - if you are running out of steam and drained of energy, or even burning yourself out to the point of collapse - something is simply not right. You are labouring under a misapprehension (I love that phrase!). You are doing one of either two things, or both:

Putting your energy into something that is not right for you, and is not aligned with what is really important to you, or
Using your energy in the wrong way - i.e. running yourself ragged trying to prove yourself to others as oppose to doing something because you love it and see the worth and value in it.

When you are aligned with what is really important to you, and you use your energy in this purposeful way, you mobilise energy in your body. You feel energised by doing tasks, not drained by them. You find them fun and that increases your energy levels.

This last one is pretty significant, isn't it?. For some of you reading it you might be thinking - how do I find out what I love? Or, does that mean my job is not right for me? Or, how do I find out what is really important to me?

These are important questions this last tip may have raised for you. They can all be answered by my previous blogs or by contracting a coach or therapist for a re-evaluation of what is important in your life. For now, I will leave you with a beautiful quote:

"Whatever you love you are gifted at."

- Barbara Sher

Babara Sher is the famous author of I Could Do Anything If Only I knew What It Was: Discover What You Really Want And How To Get It.

How you feel is everything. Life is too short to feel bad. If you don't feel great every day, please, do something about it.

With love and positive thoughts,

Charlotte.

NB: I would like to acknowledge Lawrence Lewis Green in all his purpose wisdom, who, without knowing it at the time, significantly contributed to this blog post. Thank you LLG!