Emotional Disorders - What Controls Your Conscious Point of Focus?

Scientists tell us the Prefrontal Cortex, a relatively small area of the brain just behind your forehead, performs your ‘executive functions’ – planning and controlling what you do with your brain and body.  It carries out these plans by directing your ‘Conscious Point of Focus’ to open up to certain sources of stimulation.

Your Focus acts like a pen to the cellular map writing ability of your brain – whatever stimulation you deliberately open up to determines what gets written into your neural maps.  The more you consciously and repeatedly focus on the same things the more intense and permanent those new maps become.  You have the ability to write and re-write whatever you want to as long as you are willing to do the work involved in the writing – the work is hard.

How you use your tool of conscious focus can either lead to or heal serious emotional issues.  Your Conscious Point of Focus is generally called ‘what you think about’. Usually we assume thinking means working with strings of just words in our heads.

In our brains words appear to us as sounds we identify as ‘verbal self-talk’ – of course they are not actually sounds but neural energy creating an illusion we are hearing sounds.  When we translate these stimulations into the written word we convert those sounds into pictures and these pictures act as representatives of both sounds and shared social meaning for others (have you ever looked at words as though they were pictures and also sounds with meanings attached to them?).  Words are an example of our ability to ‘associate’ different types of stimuli in such a way we do not even realise they are actually different types of stimuli combined.

Words are quick-fire representations of other things, streams of these representations flow through our conscious and we shape these streams into logical thinking patterns – but we use those patterns to build:

• pictures


• shapes


• sounds


• smells (or at least, memories of smells).

We can also reverse this process.

When meanings are related to our value systems they are also attached to powerful emotional responses.  We see new patterns in regards to these sources of stimulation in our minds and link these to previously learned patterns.  The patterns are created because of differences in intensity, vibrational tone and duration.

We can deliberately choose to focus on any of these things using our Conscious Point of Focus, but we need to choose wisely because our focus is a limited resource.

Although there are several options here in regard to stimulation type, there is a limit to the number of stimulations we can deliberately pay attention to at any one time.

Our conscious brains can only work with 4 to 11 bytes of electrical information per second.  The greater the number of bytes of information we work with at any one time  the harder it is to make sense or even remember what we did in our thinking.  Once the incoming rate of information goes to 11 bytes per second you react with stress due to information overload.

When your conscious focus works at full throttle in this way your neo-cortex uses up a lot of glucose energy and gets tired more quickly in comparison to other parts of your brain.  There is a limit to how long you can focus on those bytes.  Biologically, thinking really is hard work.

Cut It Out

Your Prefrontal Cortex has the job of choosing what to focus your 4 to 11 bytes of conscious attention on whilst dealing with the fact your brain receives stimulation from your senses at roughly  2’000’000 (two million) bytes per second.

In order for it to be able to resist this mass of distracting stimulation, most of which comes up from your body as a result of brain signals stimulating hormonal responses previously being sent downwards, your PFC controls a stimulation-resistance-system.

By the way, this organic resistance system is the same system you use to suppress and repress your emotional responses.

The main stopping valve of this system is the root-like Reticular Formation in your brain stem.  The Reticular Formation is designed to control the level of electrical/emotional energy flooding up into your brain at any one time.

From your brain stem the Reticular Formation spreads upwards and outwards into the net-like Ascending Reticular Activation System (also known as the ARAS - this system makes us consciously aware of the world around us).  Different parts of your Reticular system have the ability to reduce and filter electrical stimulation in different parts of your brain.  For example, there is a layer of reticular material surrounding the Thalamus, the main sensory signal router sitting between your upper conscious brain and lower emotional brain, acting like the insulation you find on household wiring.

Without this built-in resistance system you would be unable to focus on anything other than a mass of sensory information.  In the case of emotional disorders, however, the resistance system has been used so effectively it has led to a state of internal overcharging and to trapping the emotional charge in the body.

An emotional charge trapped in the body keeps the body on high alert and this leads to an internal battle for control of your ‘Conscious Point of Focus’ between your Prefrontal Cortex and two other internal attention management systems; your:

• Orientation Response and your


• Emotional Alert System

When these two mechanisms are activated they repeatedly snatch control of your Conscious Point of Focus away from your PFC and it, in turn, repeatedly snatches control back through the process of deliberate ‘distraction’.  This produces a constant state of physical tension in the body as your Conscious fights with your Unconscious over which should control your conscious focus..

When a person does not suffer with an emotional disorder their mental focus naturally comes to rest on whatever their senses are resting on at the time.  There is no internal battle for control and no sense of tension.

Your Orientation Response and Your Emotional Alert System – Your Emergency Situation Managers

Your PFC is concerned with long-term strategic self-management.  It works with such things as changing your self image; deciding what kinds of environment you would like to eventually live in; planning the route it will take to get there and putting in place the motivations you will need to keep yourself energised along the journey.

Your Orientation Response and your Emotional Alert System, in contrast, are emergency problem solvers designed to work with unexpected life events.  One is an automatic process designed to search for and identify potential threats while the other is designed to galvanise the body into urgent life-saving action by responding to those threats when identified by the Orientation Response.

Is that a Spider?  No, it is a Bit of Fluff

Our Orientation Response is the mechanism that drags our attention away suddenly from what we are currently doing to pay attention to something new we have just become vaguely aware of entering our environment.

Out of the corner of your eye you spot a small fuzzy blob on the floor and you look to see if it is a spider.  It is a bit of fluff.  You go to run a bath and spot something black against the white enamel.  You cannot resist looking.  It is an apple seed.  How did that get in there?  Who has been eating apples in the bath?

Your Orientation Response is partially pre-programmed by your perceptual bias.  Your perceptual bias is your unconscious list of things you want to avoid and is decided on previous experience.  So when you go into the bathroom you are now pre-programmed to check the bath for things that should not be there.

When you leave the bathroom you are now pre-programmed to find out how the apple seed got there.

The response is also designed to pay attention to the new, the fast moving, the tiny, the potentially itchy, the unknown; the large; that scraping sound you hear that sounds like it is in your house.  The only way to satisfy this response is to consciously pay attention to the source of concern until you have fully looked at it, identified it as safe and then let it go.  This completes the release cycle for this part of our conscious focus mechanism and you can then return to what you wanted to focus on earlier.

Until you pay attention to an unknown and unexplored stimulus for long enough, and in enough depth, to the point your Unconscious attention systems believe it to be safe, they will keep grabbing the attention of your conscious focus.

Admit it – you looked for that bit of fluff, I know you did.

If you have an obsession and you do not understand how obsessions work, and you lack confidence in working with such things to the point you cannot just put it to one side without it grabbing at your conscious focus against your will, it is the orientation mechanism that keeps causing this to happen.

The other reason is because your body is on High Emotional Alert.

Your Emotional Alert System

A real-life event or an imagined event (imagined so effectively your Unconscious emotional system thinks it is real) triggers an emotional response.  The emotional response travels up through the body towards the brain to meet up with the issue identified by the brain in order that your overall body and brain together take appropriate external action to deal with the alleged problem.

Trouble is when the emotional response reaches the brain your brain says ‘not yet’ and your PFC pushes the energetic response back down into your body.  The response stays in place, the body remains energised, waiting for the ‘go’ command from the brain.  And it waits, but not for long.  It travels up to the brain from the body again, repeatedly making the attempt to link up with the issue but  again the brain says ‘not yet’.

Your body remains in this state of continued emotional pre-release and the emotional response, now held in place for a prolonged period of time, starts to desperately seek release through projection - it comes up for any stimulus that even slightly resembles the original issue.  Unfortunately by now the brain may have forgotten what the original issue was and refuses to acknowledge the response needs to release at all.  ‘What, you again?’.  Your PFC refuses to allow the emotional response to leave the body declaring ‘something is wrong with my emotional system’ but the response keeps showing up.

Your Orientation Response is continually re-triggered by this because you have no idea what is causing the repeating imagery this not -sure-what-it-is message is what the Orientation Response is triggered by.  Your brain keeps being constantly re-stimulated by the emotional charge attempting to leave the body through the normal release process but because you will not allow it release it just keeps the vicious circle going.

Want to Switch the Vicious Circle Off?

In order to removal an obsession or any other emotional problem you have to switch off the emotional alert driving it.  There is nothing you can do about your Orientation Response – but once it has taken a good look at your obsession and at the emotional response attached to it, and realises what is there is just ‘fluff’, it will stop demanding your Conscious Point of Focus be directed to it.

Your PFC is fighting the reality of how your emotional system works by creating belief systems that cause your lower brain parts to join in with resisting release.

In order to stop the battle going on inside it must change its approach and agree to taking your Conscious Point of Focus directly into the emotional world it has spent so long fighting.

By systematically surrendering to the demands of its rival competitors for control of your conscious attention it will gradually release the emotional response behind the high alert emotional state and find itself returning to its rightful place as natural, relaxed controller of your conscious focus.

Regards - Carl

Stress (and all the emotions that contribute to stress) can look like a confusing mass of unwanted sensory signals that block our ability to remember things and persuade our logical minds we're in 'the wrong'.  Writing things down, both about the content of our emotional responses and the process we see unfolding when we experience our stresses can show us that there actually is a logic to it all.

When we feel stressed probably the last thing we want to do is sit down and write about it - but it can actually be key to 'agreeing with ourselves' as opposed to getting tangled up in self-criticism.  Behind every strong negative emotional response there's a perfectly valid 'good' motivation - usually, anyway.  Journalling is an affective tool for self-discovery and for releasing emotional issues (if I get really annoyed about something my most effective technique is to sit down and write a 'formal letter' outlining all the details of the situation - then I keep it to one side for a while and decide later whether or not to send it).

Hope you enjoy the article below from Doreene Clement.

Regards - Carl

Journal Your Stress Away

By Doreene Clement

Writing down our thoughts and feelings, as in keeping a journal or diary, is a proven method to relieve stress and improve well being. The expression achieved through writing in a journal on a regular basis, or during times of high stress, helps to clarify and focus what we are actually feeling and experiencing. Putting down on paper what we are frustrated about, worried and concerned with, helps us to begin to understand in a clearer, more concise manner, what we are going through. That understanding can help us to realize what actions we can then take to work through the stress.

Journaling on a regular basis about daily events, joys, and struggles alike, can actually help us to face our day, and solve our problems with less stress. When we record our days on paper, or on the computer, we are processing our feelings, fears and joys, as we are writing.

To help with the stress in our days we can create a routine and journaling system for ourselves. Ask yourself a daily morning question upon rising. This becomes a check into the day question, and writing the answer down, can be a great way to focus the day. For Example - "What am I going to do today that will support just me?" Or - "What am I going to do today at my work, (or with friends, or family), that is different than I have done before?" Another idea - "What one thing do I want to accomplish today that I have not had time to do?" We can ask the same question each day, or ask a new question.

We can also create a journal to record what we need to keep doing, stop doing, do less of, or more of. For example - "I need to stop playing old broken records from my past that no longer apply and no longer serve me. I am enough. I do not have to live in fear. We can journal on that topic alone, until it feels finished."

Another journaling idea is to define what is causing the stress: Whatever or whomever.

For example - "Bob really bugs me when he misses deadlines."

Or - "I never have enough time to fit it all in, family, friends, work, fun."

Or - "I am in way over my head on this project."

Next in your journal write about and define the why.

"When Bob misses deadlines it makes me look bad. I can't enjoy my weekends when Bob has a project due on Monday, because I keep worrying Bob won't come through."

Then ask why again to those answers, and write them down.

"I hate to look bad in front of my peers. It is embarrassing to me. I don't like to be embarrassed. I don't need/deserve that."

Then ask why again. Keep writing, then asking why to thoseanswers. What can be found is the real reason(s) for the stress. After the reason(s) are revealed then processing the root of the stress is easier to address. Then journal about those feelings.

Journaling is something we can all give to ourselves. Find a quiet time in the day, and a quiet place to journal. Set the journal where you will see it every day. Using a notebook, a blank book, a favorite journal, or a computer, any of these all serve as outlets for expression of stress. Through journaling we use that outlet of expression to help us see, process and

understand our stress. Through journaling the toll stress takes can be reduced or eliminated.

Copyright Doreene Clement All Rights Reserved

About the Author: Doreene Clement, a cancer victor and author of The 5 Year Journal, is currently writing a new book, Blessed, about her life and her cancer experience. For more information www.the5yearjournal.com 480.423.8095 Copyright 2005 OMDC, LLC All Rights Reserved
Feel free to pass this along to your friends. About Journaling, www.the5yearjournal.com

Source: www.isnare.com

Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=4589&ca=Self+Help

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Bad Stress to Eustress Article ..

A while back I was on the way to the gym when a group of youths decided to give me some verbal abuse as I cycled by ... one of the best workouts I've ever had ... thanks guys!

Do you have a favourite way of turning bad stress into eustress? Please leave a comment below.

Regards - Carl

Good Stress is Not an Oxymoron: Don't Take Stress Management Too Far Or You'll Die of Boredom

By Elisabeth Kuhn

We know all about the negative effects of stress, including everything from heart disease to diabetes to divorce to insomnia to suicide. Given all the bad press stress gets, it's easy to believe that stress is an evil that must be purged from our lives at all cost.


We continually seek out the latest in stress management techniques to achieve a less stressful life. To some degree, this is a good idea - constant negative stress should be reduced whenever possible. However, there's another side to stress - a positive side that's frequently overlooked.


Mental health professionals and doctors even have a name for positive stress: "eustress". Eustress refers to the constructive stress that helps keep you motivated and driven in all aspects of your life. For example, an athlete may find a big game stressful, but the nerves and excitement of this eustress encourages him or her to push harder and play better.


In this case, stress is a temporary response that brings about positive changes - such as the drive to play better. This is a very different phenomena than a long-term type of stress that eats away at the athlete's health and well-being.


So maybe you're not a world-class athlete - that doesn't mean you don't experience eustress in your own life. Maybe you get the same rush from performing in a community theater presentation or use the boost of stress to help inject energy into an important presentation at work. Perhaps you're someone who turns the stress of gaining weight into an impetus to spend more time at the gym.


Having a small amount of stress in our lives drives us to excel in everything we do and it enables us to feel content with life and the choices we've made. Therefore, getting rid of stress entirely is not only impossible - it wouldn't be healthy to do anyways!


We also need small amounts of stress in our lives to respond to the various threats and dangers we occasionally encounter. In this case, stress is part of the fight-or-flight response - a holdover from our primitive ancestors. When we detect the presence of danger, our bodies kick into high gear.


They release the hormone cortisol which increases the level of sugar in our blood. Our breathing rate increases and oxygen fills our muscles in preparation to either fight the threat or flee from it. Without this physiological response, we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves nearly as well against all sorts of dangers and intrusions.


While it's clear that too much stress can wreak havoc with your overall health, doctors and mental health specialists have found that too little stress can also be harmful. Negative stress causes a wide range of emotional and physical problems that can inhibit your energy and drive.


On the other hand, as long as it's reasonable and not excessive, a certain amount of stress plays a positive role in helping us fulfill our dreams and in enabling us to protect ourselves in times of danger. This eustress can give you the determination that's needed to work long and hard to accomplish your goals and will better equip you to handle the negative stress in your life.


About the Author: And if you want to achieve a little bit more balance between good and bad stress, you are invited to get Elisabeth Kuhn's FREE report with seven stress-reducing strategies. If you want Elisabeth's full-sized version instead, with lots more strategies (including an introduction to EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique), here's instant stress relief.


Source: www.isnare.com

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3 Surefire Strategies to Look and Feel Better

This author's talking directly to me today - I've been rushing around like a bluebottle all week and haven't been to the gym for a week and a half and feel pretty yuk. You know, it's a fact I've noticed with Holistic Therapy tutors at work that they all look ready for the 'knackers yard' as they rush around trying to teach everyone else how to get every one else relaxed.

I gotta chill and get me to the gym more. Please go check out this lady's site. I'm off there now myself - but do it slowly.

Regards - Carl

3 Surefire Strategies to Look and Feel Better
By Diana Fletcher

Stop doing so much... Stop trying to do so much... Stop believing you can do so much

You truly believe deep down that you can do everything you want to, don't you? If you just can find the right system, make enough detailed lists, organize and strategize in the most skillful way, you will get everything done once and for all. But you can't, it is not possible in this fast-moving world for us to keep up. So if you truly want to feel better and look better, you have to stop.

Stop doing so much, stop trying to do so much, and stop believing you can do so much. It is possible to stop, but first you have to understand the importance of stopping. We are a nation of exhausted people. We have become a nation of overweight people, and now our children are becoming diabetic; we have high blood pressure, heart problems, insomnia and depression, these are not diagnoses that indicate healthful looks and vigor.

We don't look good and we don't feel good, and we will not live the long and happy lives that we are meant to live, if we don't make some changes. We spend our time hurrying and scurrying, and trying to get more and more done. We are trying to pack more and more into each day. It is impossible to fit everything into a day that we want to, yet we stubbornly keep trying. The reality is we cannot do it all! So, we need to focus on what we really, really want to do. We need to prioritize our lives, not just the items on a to-do list. We need to concentrate on what truly will make us happy and healthy, those are the things we need to do well.

Take the time to think about this: Why is it so important to try to do so much? Isn't it actually kind of silly that we work ourselves to the point where we cannot sleep, we are eating poorly, and we don't exercise? We run around to activities and do tasks that add nothing of fulfillment to our lives! We don't have time for what is truly important, our families, our friends, our rest and our health.

This could be the most cost effective, most economical way to look and feel great! So if this sounds good to you, STOP!

Diana Fletcher © 2009

Certified Life Coach, author, and speaker Diana Fletcher is The Stress Reducing Expert. She is a master at helping her clients and students reduce their stress and live healthier, more balanced lives.

For fun and easy ideas of how to improve your health and lower your stress level immediately, visit http://www.DianaFletcher.com and receive 25 Simple Tips to Reducing Stress, or register for one of Diana's free monthly teleseminars today. For regular tips and information, read Diana's blog at http://dianafletcher.wordpress.com

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Stress Reduction Tip - Slow Down to Get More Done

This is another tip from Michael Neill (and although we all probably 'know' this how many of us actually do it?).

"Be quick, but don't hurry" - John Wooden

SLOW DOWN TO GET MORE DONE

When we take the pressure off ourselves to be exceptional - that is, the exception to the rule - we recognize that "good enough" is nearly always good enough, and that no matter how hard we try, we will never really be able to do more than one thing at any given time.

This does not mean we have to always go slowly - just that when we are willing to slow down, we are often able to make much quicker progress on what matters most in our lives.

Several years ago, I had child psychologist and author Alfie Kohn as a guest on my radio show. At one point, I asked him if he had any tips for how to be a more caring and effective parent when you were in a hurry. His answer, tongue only slightly in cheek, was 'don't be in a hurry.'

While I laughed at the time, the more I thought about it the more I realized what excellent advice that is, not only for parenting but for pretty much any area of our lives.

When we are in a hurry, we tend to get sloppy and things go undone or worse still, half-done. Our best intentions often go out the window and our values shift, expediency and 'getting stuff done' leapfrogging their way up the list above such old-fashioned priorities as treating people with respect, doing things right the first time and even enjoying the process.

Stress is a hurrier's constant companion, as there's never enough time and there's always too much to do with it. As time gets short, tempers get shorter, and a frayed nerve often snaps in the face of a loved one.

While there are any number of 'outside-in' approaches to getting more done with less stress, effective time management evolves naturally out of our understanding of the 6th secret:

No matter what seems to be going on in our lives,
we don't have to do anything.

"That's insane", one client told me when I first introduced this idea. "I don't know about you, but I have to go to work in the morning."

"Do you?" I responded. "What would happen if you didn't?"

"If I didn't go to work, then I'd lose my job!"

Ignoring the likely fallacy of that statement, I continued.

"So you choose to go to work because you want to keep your job?"

"Fair enough," he said, though he didn't look happy about it. "But I have to eat! If I don't eat, I'll die!"

"OK," I replied. "So you choose to eat because you want to live?"

The reality is, every single thing you do or don't do is a choice. And while personally I'm a big fan of making choices that lead to things like money and food, nowadays in most cultures you don't even have to do that to survive. If you never got up from where you're sitting right now, someone would eventually come to check on you, if only to find out what that extraordinary smell was.

And at that point, if you continued to choose not to move or speak or feed yourself, some other people, (usually dressed in white with friendly smiles and a lot of upper body strength) would come by and scoop you up, give you new clothes to wear and a lovely padded room to live in. They would even feed you more than enough to stay alive, though admittedly the quality of that life would be somewhat less than what you are probably accustomed to.

So the corollary to our secret ("you don't have to do anything") is this:

Everything that you do (or don't do) is a choice.
Given that, why would anyone ever choose to do anything they didn't want to do?

Two reasons:

1. Because they think it's necessary to do that thing in order to get or maintain something that they want

2. In order to live up to an idea or ideal of how they think they're supposed to be in the world

In other words, we do what we do (and don't do what we don't do) either because we want to, because we think it is a pre-requisite towards getting something else that we want (i.e. because we "have" to), or because we think it will make us into the kind of person we want to be (i.e. because we "should").

The question 'why?' gets a bad name in some coaching circles because when it's asked about anything which happened in the past, the answer is invariably a story filled with confabulations that could usefully be edited down to the phrase "because it seemed like a good idea at the time".

But when we ask the question in the present about what we are planning for the future, we quickly get an insight into our motivation.

If we hear a lot of 'need to', 'have to' and 'musts', we may have fallen into the trap of thinking there's something we have to do to survive. If there are lots of justifications and rationalizations, chances are we're doing something because we think it will help us to reinforce our self-image or live into the kind of person we 'should' be. But when the answer is some variation on 'because I want to', chances are that we are following our inner wisdom.

The more quickly you can recognize the difference, the easier it will be to recognize it as a choice and if you want to, choose something different.

Today's Experiment:

1. What are the three things which you most urgently need to get done?

2. For each of those things, ask yourself the following questions:
• What would happen if I did (get it done)?
• What would happen if I didn't?
• What wouldn't happen if I did?
• What wouldn't happen if I didn't?
3. Experiment with putting each of the following sentence starters before each task on your to-do list this week. Notice how each one makes you feel and whether it inspires you to take positive action:
• I have to...
• I should...
• I want to...
• In this moment, I choose...
Example:

My task is to finish the Christmas shopping. Here's how my experiment might look...

I have to finish the Christmas shopping. (Feels true, but icky)

I should finish the Christmas shopping. (Still feels true, feels not only icky but less likely to happen than before)

I want to finish the Christmas shopping. (Actually, this is true as well. Feels true, but not necessarily imminent)

In this moment, I choose to leave the Christmas shopping until tomorrow, at which point I'll be able to get it done with a minimum of bother. (Ah, peace... :-)

Have fun, learn heaps, happy holidays, and happy exploring!

With love,
michael


Copyright © 2008 Michael Neill. All Rights Reserved
MNCT 640
Slow Down to Get More Done
December 22, 2008

Stress Management in a Recession - A Simple Technique

I think this is a tough technique to learn.  I've been affected by recession twice in my lifetime - for 3 years when I was 19 in the 1980's and couldn't get a job (not even a floor-scrubbing job) and ended up doing voluntary work that eventually led to working as a nightclub doorman and then as a full-time postal delivery worker.  Then I had another period of two years in the 1990's where I decided to go into full-time education for two years after being laid off from Raleigh (the UK bicycle makers where I used to be a frame assembler).

I never looked back after those two years in college training as a secretary - but it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't changed my mindset - the first recession I saw my situation as 'disastrous' and the stress made me ill, the second recession I saw as an opportunity to do something more in line with who I was.

At first the technique described in the video may appear too simplified for some - but what it clearly explains is that most of our stress and anxieties are built around things that have not yet actually happened.  That scenario building mechanism in our heads known as the 'imagination' can be our best friend, or our worst enemy

We must deliberately take steps to reduce our stress-related thinking (for most of us 'catastrophisation' is a natural inclination and although designed by nature to protect us against potential dangers it can turn against us unless we deliberately work at separating real threats from imaginary ones).

I would also recommend this technique for changing your stress levels when thinking other people 'may' be thinking or saying unpleasant things about you behind your back - it doesn't matter whether or not they actually are - it's more important you don't think they are!  When it comes to negative stuff deal with what is actually happening, rather than what you  imagine could be happening - and foster a habit of building positive possibilities in the imagination - I think that's the underlying principle here.

Hope you find it useful.

Stress Management in a Recession - Tips To Reduce Your Stress

Stress Reduction Tip: Breathing Exercise

Found this interesting video on YouTube (you may want to check out the website listed on the video) - starts off with some interesting stuff.  Apologies for the quality of the picture, no idea where the streaky lines come from - but the content is good.

If you have any similar tips to share please post a comment, ta!

Carl

Stress Reduction Tip - Stop Catastrophising

You're on your way to work and you're late.  You know you can just get there and not have your lateness noticed as long as there are no delays in the journey.

Unfortunately 'everybody and his dog' have picked this particular journey to create as many delays for you as they possibly can.  Waagh!  You imagine your new boss, who you've never met before but who is starting this morning, as one of those 'hot off the mark' types who wants to make an impression with the staff - you know that new bosses want everyone to know they're no 'soft touch'.

You imagine and feel the shame as new boss reprimands you in front of your colleagues while you repeatedly but pointlessly keep telling new boss it's the first time in six months you've been late and you didn't mean to 'test them' but new boss is not having it.  Now you're furious at all the stupid bossy bosses in the world and their need for power and how they get it by humiliating people like you who have worked hard all their lives and look how easily they got their big salary while you ... .

So you get to work and as you get through the door someone comes up to you and with a smile extends their hand for a handshake and says 'Hi I'm Kevin/Dominique and I'm the new manager' and you reply 'you can shove your job!  I hate you!'.

This mental process is called 'catastrophisation', more commonly known as 'making mountains out of molehills'.

The most important word here is 'imagined'.  If you imagined it, it isn't real.  When you find yourself doing this just remind yourself of this fact and you will greatly reduce your stress levels and also stop relationship difficulties developing that should never have developed.

Realise you do it and learn to habitually ask 'did that happen in reality or did it happen just in my head?'.

If it happened just in your head, work on it just in your head.  It isn't reality until external reality shows you it is.  Train yourself to watch out for this and eventually you can stop it happening right at the point the very first 'catastrophic mini-molehill-to-mountain seedling' hatches.

What molehills did you demolish lately?

- Carl

Stress Reduction Tip - Re-frame to Stay Sane

So I was asked to go to a meeting and explain to a team of 30 administrators my new role as an elected staff Governing Board member; I had been elected twice by the staff and this was my third year in office. My intention was to encourage those 30 people to give me more competition the next time elections came up and to explain to them how a 'lowly administrator' could have a big impact on an organisation that was the largest of its kind in Europe.

The Chair of the meeting introduced me and half-way through my first sentence interrupted me and closed me down with a remark along the lines of 'We don't want to hear your vote-for-me-stuff here'.  I explained I wasn't there to get votes - I wanted to explain and encourage others to go for the role.

I start again and the Chair cut me off with another interruption again.  And again.  I conceded and shut up.  But I didn't get annoyed - I changed my reason for being at the meeting.

Instead of thinking 'I came here to do something and the Chair is undermining me' I chose to think 'I came here to meet these lovely people who I've not met before and it's great' instead.  The choice was deliberate.   If you have the choice of thinking one way and being miserable and thinking another way and being happy which are you going to choose?

The external 'truth' doesn't matter so much if the truth is you're more concerned with being internally happy than you are with being externally 'right'.

As a result I got positive emotional benefit out of the meeting - I decided retrospectively I had gone there to learn instead of to teach (incidentally out of those 30 people only two other people, apart from me, actually contributed to the meeting - the Chair and an HR officer who was there to talk about a pay dispute).

As a follow up to the meeting a couple of people told me they found me really approachable and wanted to hear more about the role I'd gone there to talk about.

When you're in a situation you don't have control over and find yourself getting frustrated try and see if you can mentally re-frame it by changing your reason for being in that situation.  It doesn't really matter what motivates other people - by not re-framing you increase the risk of becoming defensive and falling under the spell of 'victim think'.

Have you done any re-framing lately?  Please comment below.

- Carl

Stress Reduction Tip: Turn Your Blenders Into Helicopters

A senior manager in catering came out with this little gem of a 're-framing' technique and it fits perfectly with something I've done in the past (I'm sure you have too) but the imagery really solidifies the meaning for me.

You look at a situation that seems to be chopping your expectations up and say 'how can I turn this into an opportunity that lifts me up instead'.    Here's a professional example:

I was supervising a team and in that team one person was a poor performer (to the extent they would fall asleep not due to tiredness but due to sheer lack of motivation - they weren't in a job that was right for them at that time).  This colleague just wasn't developing and no matter how many times they went through the workplace standard training their performance just didn't improve.  But something started to happen alongside the 'problem' ...

... another more senior and able colleague found this colleagues' behaviour a bit irritating and started to develop bespoke, more user-friendly mini-training programmes to bring the non-performing colleague up to scratch.  Their training materials were great (even though they had never done this kind of thing before).

But the colleague didn't improve.  The 'trainer' talked to me about creating more materials and I told them to go ahead. However they were also getting more frustrated as to why the unmotivated colleague couldn't 'get it'.  The unmotivated colleague, by the way, was a teenager and this was their first job.

I started taking the materials the 'trainer' colleague was producing and passed them to other managers to see if they would find them useful.  The training material got continually more effective but at the same time the trainer started to get more frustrated and started to behave more harshly towards the less motivated colleague; which I had to put a stop to.  The trainer started talking about the need to dismiss the lower performing colleague and I explained this person had in fact led to improvements in the entire team performance while they themselves had earned a reputation in the organisation that would servie them well (the trainer was an ambitious person and had previously voiced their sense of being 'stuck'.  People were talking about head-hunting them from me).

Everybody outside my team loved their work.

A while later I organised the transfer of the less-motivated teenage member of staff into a role they felt more motivated to do and the 'trainer' was recruited as a paid training officer and now earns twice their previous salary.

I took a blender situation and used it to lift everybody up.   Several years later I met up with the no-longer-a-teenager less motivated team member who told me the training they had received had 'hit home' after the training had ended and they had eventually gone back into the same type of work with another company - and enjoyed it.

Whenever you're in a difficult situation take a step back and see if there's something there you can regard as potential  'helicopter material' and focus  on the benefits you can get from a bad situation.  In fact sometimes it's only when you get thrown into the blender you realise just what you're capable of (the situation in this scenario acted as a catalyst for the trainer too, although if they resented the experience too much they probably missed the lesson and may remain stuck where they are now until another blender appears and they flip it upwards) .

What blender situations have you turned into helicopters lately?

- Carl