I’m currently reading Be the Hero by Noeh Blumenthal and while I’m finding I agree with his advice, I wonder if it isn’t a little oversimplified. Everything he talks about is the essence of what I teach, but it can take some clients weeks to learn the concept and make the changes that he talks about. Maybe I’m making things too complicated. What are your thoughts?
Stories
August 14th, 2009Caffeine and Sugar
July 31st, 2009Of all the things one can do to improve his or her mood, reducing or eliminating sugar and caffeine is at once one of the easiest and the most difficult. There is no question that caffeine and sugar, alone or in combination, cause dramatic mood swings, especially in larger quantities. Eliminating them can help with mood in just a few weeks, but their addictive qualities make them difficult to give up.
The brain becomes dependent on the lift from the drug and “forgets” how to function without it. It can take several weeks for the body’s natural processes to take over as the drug is withdrawn. I suggest reducing the amount of caffeine and sugar in your diet over a three week period and keeping a log of your mood as you do. Your goal should be to get to zero and just commit to that for a week to notice the difference it makes for you.
Medication
July 24th, 2009There is no doubt that there are indeed expressions of mental illness that are diagnosable as organic problems that can only be treated with medication. Yet even in some severe cases, there seems to some room for cognitive intervention. I was reading a case study this morning about someone with severe anxiety disorder. It was so severe that the patient removed an IV twice during an attempt to treat her. The interesting comment made by the physician though was that “her sister calmed her down by talking to her and they were able to get the IV in the third time.” Do you see the paradox here?
Behavior or Illness?
July 21st, 2009Our behavior is shaped by our experience. Our experience is a continuous series of events that we give meaning to through our perception. Our perception is based on our beliefs which, for the most part, are handed down to us through our family, friends and cultural environment. Our parents or primary caregivers are the biggest source of our beliefs and also a major source of our mental injuries. I postulate that mental injuries occur whenever we are made to feel worth-less than we truly are as people and therefore not lovable. This is important because we will adjust our behavior in all sorts of ways in order to gain the feeling and safety of being lovable.
This distortion of personality can manifest itself in many forms of what is described as mental illness and neurosis. But again, I italicize mental illness because, in absence of some organic brain disorder inherited at birth, many disorders are learned and therefore can be unlearned.
The Power of Words
July 17th, 2009The language we use is directly connected to the way we feel. Words respresent the associations we’ve made with our experience with the outside world and our responses to them. This is obvious when we think of major events in our lives. Someone who has lived through a major earthquake will respond with a different set of emotions when they hear the word “earthquake” than someone who hasn’t. Those emotions will vary widely among people who have had the same experience. It depends on the meaning given to that word at the time of the event.
Words that have common cultural meaning, however, can evoke remarkably similar emotional responses. And each emotional response has a corresponding physiological response, so this is easy to test.
In this exercise, pay close attention to your body and slowly repeat out loud the following phrases:
- I can’t
- I’m not
- I wish
- I have to
- I must
- I’ll try
Most people describe their body as feeling stiff or tight when repeating these simple words. Their breathing is shallow and their awareness is limited. These phrases presuppose lack, scarcity and uncertainty, things most people like to avoid. Now repeat the following alternative phrases aloud and notice what your body does.
- I can
- I am
- I have
- I choose
- I claim
- I will
This time you may have even spoken a little louder. Your breathing was a little deeper, and there was a lightness in your body that felt uplifting. Your brain did this for you automatically, the same way it created the feelings with the first group of phrases. These phrases presuppose power, confidence and control over one’s destiny. Presuppositions are great tools for pursuasion – especially with yourself.
So for the next 30 days, choose to eliminate the negative phrases in the first group and replace them with the positive phrases in the second group. Just doing this will reduce some of the stress in your life.
Mental Illness
July 13th, 2009According to a May 25, 2009, story in the Los Angeles Times, some psychiatrists are urging classification of bitterness as a mental illness under the name “post-traumatic embitterment disorder.” The behavior was discussed before an enthusiastic audience at a May meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. in San Francisco.
There are many conditions or disorders that are labeled as illnesses that show up in the DSM. There is some question in my mind as to the value of this, so I’m going to take some time to debate it here.
Certainly, there are some illnesses of the brain that cause a person to behave in a way that is anti-social, self-destructive or delusional that can only be helped through aggressive drug treatment, shock or even surgery. No question that these conditions are illnesses.
So many mental disorders though are the result of poor habits of thought or mental injuries that happened during childhood. Most of these can be overcome through Cognitive Behavior Therapies which is what causes my doubt. If someone can be taught to behave in a way that brings them and the people around them more happiness, are they ill, or just lacking in skills? That is what I will discuss in the next blog, but I welcome your comments in the meantime.
A New Look at Alcohol
June 26th, 2009One of the major principles of sobriety support groups like AA and SOS is maintenance of confidentiality and anonymity. While I realize that it is possible that harm can come from certain people knowing that one has an addiction, there is also harm done in keeping the condition a secret.
One of the driving factors in any addiction is shame. And it’s shame that keeps the disorder out of sight and therefore out of support. Naturally there are people who are judgemental whose attitudes and words can increase the persons feellings of worthlessness, but for the most part, admitting the condition openly will REDUCE the shame. The person can now be okay and still have the condition without BEING the condition.
The whole idea of labeling someone an “alcoholic” is contrary to helping someone overcome shame. By wearing the label, the person now sees themselves as flawed, and in being flawed, one feels inadequate and less than human. How could being addicted to a substance not required for human survival be a flaw? It’s crazy.
Only by being accepted as one is can one overcome shame. If there is always something to hide, the shame will persist, and so will the addiction.
Your Environment and Depression
June 17th, 2009Your environment is a critical component in how you feel. It is important to note that there are three components – the external reality, your perception of it, and your reaction to it. So while one person can be surrounded by tragedy and sadness and emerge seemingly unscathed, another may experience life changing trauma that can take years to undo. This can be very complex, but there are some simple things one can control that can make a noticeable difference in the way one feels.
Television news is perhaps one of the most pernicious sources of ideas that one can feed his or her brain. Here is a medium that by design deletes any evidence of life being good and then dramatizes the bad news that is left. And you can have this 24 hours a day. Unless you are able to be truly objective when viewing this, there is little doubt that over time, it begins to make you cynical and you will begin to globalize the what you see and hear. Even if it is only on in the background, your brain is picking up the words and ideas and forming opinions and views based on this input. It is a form of subtle programming. I strongly recommend you give up all TV news for at least one week just to notice how you feel and to never watch the late night news before going to bed.
This one step can make a profound difference for most people.
What else makes up your environment? Your friends, family and co-workers are key ingredients in the environmental soup of your life. And they are things that you have surprising control over. It is very important to understand what I mean by control. You cannot change anything about the people you surround yourself with, but you can change who you surround yourself with or how your react to them.
There are two kinds of people you do not want to surround yourself with. Those who bring you down, and those who keep you down. The ones who bring you down are those whose behaviors and view on life are consistently negative. The ones who keep you down are those that listen to you when you’re feeling down and then sympathize with you! I know that you may value these people, and certainly there is a time for them, but if you have someone whose shoulder you have been leaning on time and time again, and they don’t offer you any alternatives to your negative thinking, they are not helping you!
Triggers
June 10th, 2009You will likely easily understand the principle of triggers You’ve all experienced them in connection with a variety of things in your life. The most common is the association of music with a certain event or period in your life. Chances are there are a number of songs I could play that would remind you of a certain period in your life, a certain relationship or specific event.
Triggers are stimuli that elicit a emotional response in the present that is similar to the one experienced in the original event or related event. So if you broke up with your boyfriend or girlfriend six months ago and you see a car like the one they drove and that causes you to think of them (and call them names and curse they very being) that is a trigger.
There are also physical triggers which occur when a body part is touched and a memory is elicited. I remember about 20 years ago I had learned about this concept and was getting a massage in San Luis Obispo. The therapist was working on my back and touched, with pressure an area in my upper shoulder. To this day I don’t know what that trigger was, but it instantly created a flood of sadness in me. It was pronounced that the therapist sensed and stopped working to ask me what was wrong. Being the macho guy I had to be I denied everything. I had come into the room cheerful and bright, and left sad and depressed without knowing exactly why.
One of the keys premises of NLP is that the body can lead the mind. This is best demonstrated with war veterans who suffer from PTSD. When a person not suffering from PTSD is given the drug yohimbe, their heart rate and blood pressure will increase and they might feel a little more “frisky”. When a PTSD sufferer is given the same drug, the increase in their heart rate simulates the physical response they experienced under the traumatic event and they relive it!
NLP and Depression – The Eye Scramble
June 3rd, 2009Your eyes are connected to your brain and they play a major role in the storage of memory. There have been a number of studies regarding this, including the use of eye movement to improve memory. One of the consequences of this is that our eyes may be hyper-activated during periods of stress so that certain memories are easier to recall than others, and unfortunately, unpleasant ones. What you’ll notice though is that during the recollection and recreation process, our eyes tend to become fixed in one direction. That direction is generally associated with the mode in which the memory is stored, whether it be visual, audio or kinesthetic.
To disrupt the recollection process, there is a technique called eye scrambling. I’ve done this on people and they describe a feeling of being brainwashed after it’s done – and it takes less than a minute. It works best for mild to moderately intense memories that you tend to ruminate on.
Here is how it works. While holding on to the memory in your mind as best you can, rapidly move your eyes in random directions – up and down, back and forth, diagonally, etc and continue to do this for at least 30 seconds, preferably a minute. It may be helpful to have a grid of dots in front of you to focus your attention on and then just scan the dots rapidly in random order. You must work to hold on to the memory while you do this. Why? Because the act of getting up and moving and moving your eyes will cause your brain to want to release the memory. This won’t “reprogram” it though so it could return with whatever stimulus brought it up the first time.