This is the first in a series of articles I hope to write on how to be happy. Or at least happier. If you’re looking for one of those quick fix kind of articles, where you just stand on your head
The fact you are reading this suggests a number of things. Once upon a time you were looked after well enough to get through the first shaky years of life, and then after that your received a painstaking education that was good enough to enable you to read and write, and to be able to operate a computer (these things don’t just happen, they take years of hard work and resources). Moreoever, whatever technology you happen to be using, be it Iphone, laptop, Ipad, desktop computer or other device, that technology represents millenia of technological development going back to the wheel itself, inventors have sweated, strained, cried and failed to get that technology into your hands. Moreover, the technology you are using will be using components that rely on a very sophisticated distribution system, from processor to plastic to the cardboard carton it comes, in the technology could have come from many different parts of the world, transported by an interdependent network of air, sea and land. In turn, somebody had to build the ships and planes and trucks that carried all those componenents. And there is yet more complicated and interdependent magic at work in terms of how you power that device, when you plug it into a wall socket countless circuits, wires, and grids transport the power from wherever it is generated, right to your device; the internet that carries this page to your device is vast…
And yet, the chances are you only notice any of this when the power cuts out or the internet goes down. Within minutes, you are on the edge of a seething frustration, as this thing that is SUPPOSED TO WORK, suddenly no longer works. If the downtime goes beyond half an hour it can easily seem as if civilisation as we know it is grinding to a halt, and then, at last, there it is, the power light is back on, and “Ahhhhhh, at last” you breathe a sigh of relief, of thanks, and within minutes you are back to taking this utterly magical system for granted once more.
In Victorian times, people flocked to the train stations to try out this mode of transport that superseded the horse and carriage, amazed by the ability to travel by a steam train that might depart once day. Today we complain if a service only runs once every 15 minutes. We live in an age where people want it, and they want it now, and if they don’t get it now, something is terribly wrong with the world.
And so that’s the mindset we need to look at if we want to be happier. In the age of entitlement, it seems that even if 99.9999% of things are going right, we ignore all that and focus on the 0.00001% that isn’t going quite according to how we’d like it. So we don’t notice the 23.5 hours we have that internet and mains power to run our computers, but we sure as hell notice that half hour when it stops working for whatever reason. We barely think about how wonderful it is to have roads, and be able to afford cars, and drive here there and everywhere (and remember the roads don’t just appear, once upon a time people had to build them, they have to be maintained, someone has to lay the tarmac) – but if there happens to be a tailback or jam one afternoon, we suddenly find ourselves cursed with the worse road system on earth, and what the hell are all these people doing getting in our way?! (forgetting, perhaps, that we might equally be getting in someone else’s way).
Of course it’s to do with the way the mind and brain work, our brains evolved to a survive in a world where, say 50,000 years ago, that 0.00001% could be the difference between life and death, and usually was. Didn’t have just the right animal skin? Freeze to death. Not happy about that ticking noise you could hear? Could well be a snake or scorpion lurking. That person looking at me in an unfriendly way? Well back then, they may well have been intent on caving your head in for that animal skin, so your attempts to concentrate on every detail of fortifying your cave were pretty well justified.
But now, we sit in safe houses, with heating, electricity, toasters, and microwaves, fridges, freezers, cupboards full of food. But is it enough? Maybe if I had that Ipad I saw advertised, I would be happier, right?! But then suddenly we get the Ipad and the internet goes down so we can’t access this wonderful self help blog. Maybe we need to invest in a backup internet solution so we never have to be without a connection, even for 5 minutes?!
Of course a lot of this is tongue in cheek, but there is a truth in it, and that is that we tend to focus on what we haven’t got, not what we have. Yet it seems commonsense to conclude that if we spend most of our waking hours thinking about the 0.00001% that’s wrong, if we spend our time angry about the things that go wrong, that don’t work as we want, when we want, if we spend a disproportionate amount of time complaining about the bad rather than celebrating the good, we’re going to be out of balance.
This is where gratitude comes in. There is scientific research which bears out the theory that spending more time focusing on the things we are grateful for can actually lead to a sense of well being and satisfaction. It makes sense, because as much as our brains evolved to survive in a hostile environment, they can also be trained to thrive in today’s very different environments. Advertisers know tha brain can be trained, but what they do is feed our insecurities by telling us that we never enough, until we buy their products. But there are ways to train the mind to be more grateful, and this can lead to greater happiness.
The research says that focusing on the positive can increase our sense of well being and happiness. It won’t turn you into a beaming Buddha overnight, but little steps can go a long way.
Why not try starting a gratitude journal? You could write 3 things in it each day that you are grateful for, more if you so wish! Perhaps you are grateful for having enough food to eat today, a roof over your head, for your friends, for family, for experiences you have had, maybe just for the sheer fact of being alive in an age that is relatively safe and we have good healthcare, dentistry, and communications.
You could try this with a friend, and be “gratitude buddies” – sharing something each day that you are grateful for, you could turn this into a bit of fun, and find fun things to text or email each other that you are grateful for.
It all comes down to spending a little more time counting blessings rather than burdens. Of course life isn’t great all the time, but the amount of time we spend on problems usually far outweighs time spent focusing on the positives in our lives. It needn’t take long, just 5 minutes a day, a sort of gratitude space, could be a great start.
It could even give you something to do next time the wireless internet connection drops, instead of swearing at the screen
I’ve mentioned the benefits of meditation on this blog before, but now it appears that the folks at NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) have also recognised the benefits that mindfulness can have in combating stress and depression. If only there were enough people to teach the techniques!
Thankfully, a new self help site has been set up, which includes tips on mindfulness and how to reduce your stress levels, including a stress test which you can use as a rough measure of how stressed you may be feeling.
This new site was launched in January 2011 and can be found at:
You’ll notice I said “enhance” and not “change” – though change can happen too. Kind of depends how you look at change! I don’t believe in quick fixes (how could I, it’s taken me 40 years of existing to learn how to live well!) so I’m not going to tout meditation as a cure all for everything – but it is certainly one of those things, like exercise, and a healthy diet, that you can put in your arsenal of tools to deal with the relentless pace of modern life, or indeed those times, for example redundancy or retirement, when there are uncomfortable downshifts in our activity levels. So I decided to write a simple article on meditation. It’s not a how to guide, just a few pointers and an explanation of what meditation is, and how it’s helped me personally.
According to the dictionary definition, meditation is “to reflect on, to contemplate”, whereas the more Buddhist definition (meditation originates from thought systems such as Buddhism and Hinduism, though does not need to be religious in nature) would be along the lines of “To train, calm, or empty the mind, often by achieving an altered state, as by focusing on a single object”. Of course, there are many different kinds of meditation, with different foci, but to keep it simple, I will say that for me, meditation is a state of heightened, relaxed awareness, usually attained by focusing on the breath. It involved a concept called mindfulness. Usually, we are very busy, and focused on rushing through things, we usually do not pay much attention to how we are walking, our heartbeat, or our breath. Being mindful is more or less a special way of paying attention. For example, when I do the washing up, do I really pay attention to the delicious sensations of the soapy water running over my skin, stimulating my nerve endings, of the pressure applied to utensils, of the many diverse sounds? Probably not – usually I will be thinking of that meeting tomorrow, what happened yesterday, who I am going to have lunch with next week. When I am mindful, I slip much more into the present moment and pay attention to what is happening in the now. Such thinking can make the washing up more interesting, and be very relaxing in itself!
So it is with meditation, where the meditator will sit, and gently get into the moment. The breath is the most common object to focus on, and indeed the breath is one of the body’s rare dual control mechanisms – it happens all by itself, driven by our nervous system – and yet we can also control it, hold our breath, take deep breaths, breathe faster or slower. At it’s very simplest, meditation is simply sitting and paying attention to the breath. This is actually harder than it sounds – you will be surprised how many thoughts rush in, how many worries, niggles, decisions, memories, fantasies, crop up. Surely you are in control of your own mind? Perhaps not! By the way, how you sit is largely up to you. Lying down might make you prone to go to sleep, though there are systems of meditation that involve lying down. You could get a Zafu and Zaputon (A cushion and a mat) but a straight backed chair will do. THe first thing to do is pay attention to the body – where are the tensions? Any aches and pains? How are you feeling now, in this moment? Calm? Stressed? Hungry? All that is fine! Just something to be noted. Slowly, the attention is brought to the breath, perhaps a few deeper breaths are taken. And then counting the breath can begin, an act of focusing the mind, simply paying attention to the breath – breathe in, breathe out… count one….breathe in, breathe out… count two – and so on up to ten, then go back to one. It might sound easy, but note how long it is before your mind has wandered off into the middle of next week This doesn’t make you a failed meditator – it is just the nature of the mind. And each time you notice that your mind has wandered off, is actually the sign of heightened awareness, because usually we just let our minds race totally out of our own control.
Some meditations run in stages. After this first counting of the breath, the focus might change after so long, and now the count is done before the in breath, followed by a stage of simply breathing without counting, and then perhaps focusing on one particular part of the breathing process – the sensations at the nostrils, or the rising and falling of the chest. The meditator does not try to control the breath, just lets it flow naturally, pays attention to it, does not judge it, and lets distractions fall away with the rising and falling of the breath (ideally, of course!) The whole idea is to relax the mind and body, to stop the mind racing, and to stop the feverish thoughts which usually send the nervous system into a stressed out frenzy daily, meditation can provide a little oasis of calm in your schedule. It leads to a lower heart rate, stimulates beta endorphin production, and helps to focus and calm the mind. Sooner or later, the calm achieved in meditation will follow the meditator around in their daily lives. Stressful situations can be let go of more easily, as with the letting go of the breath and distractions during meditation itself. Ultimately, the goal of some meditators is enlightenment, but one step at a time! In fact, meditation can help with many problems by stilling the mind and enabling the meditator to look at things more clearly (a process often called insight meditation).
Personally, I found that meditation really helped increase my ability to relax and to deal with stress; things that seemed a “big deal” no longer seemed quite so big after a few months of meditating, almost as if it makes the mind grow a little extra stress capacity. It also made me feel a little more confident and sociable. And it’s just a great way to relax! As always, caveat lector – it may not be for everyone, and like a lot of things, you might need to stick at it for a while before you can truly know if it works for you. But millions of people around the world do meditate every day, and it really does work wonders for a lot of them!
There are plenty of books, CD’s, and audio recordings (eg guided meditations) to help explain the process further, and there is likely to be a meditation class in your area. It is a big area, but I hope this article on meditation and the links to various books will help you in your journey.
My second article looking at the different types of counselling, looks at CBT.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT for short, is a form of goal-oriented, systematic psychotherapy that brings together two previously separate schools of therapy (the cognitive, and the behavioural, as you might expect!). At a basic level it is about changing how you think (the cognitive side) and what you do (the behavioural side). Putting these two together, it can look at how the way you think affects what you do, for example the way you think about things/yourself can affect your emotions and that in turn affects the choices you make in how to act. Of course, if you think-feel-act negatively this can produce a negative feedback loop and reinforce the negative feelings. CBT therapists work to explore such “helpful” and “unhelpful” thinking patterns. CBT often involves “homework” such as keeping a journal to observe how thinking patterns are affecting elements of daily life, and to work out different ways of thinking that might be more helpful.
Currently, in the UK, CBT seems to be the therapy of choice in the NHS, but personally I wonder whether this is down to its effectiveness, or simply the fact that it is brief, and somewhat cost effective in the short term. We have seen schools, for example, gearing themselves towards shaping children who can pass “SATS” rather than whole, happy, well rounded children, and my worry is that CBT, while it may be effective at treating symptoms in a way that looks good on balance sheets, may not be the holy grail of solving mental health issues. I liken it to a sticking plaster – CBT will cover up the wound on the knee and let us carry on, but it will not help us discover why we fell over and hurt our knee in the first place. My worry would be, long term, that more and more sticking plasters would be needed. So many times have I heard people say “I’ve done CBT and it really helped… But now I seem to be having problems again…” I think CBT can certainly be enormously useful, but I have heard enough people say they did not find it helpful to come to the conclusion that it is not the universal panacea CBT evangelists might like to claim it is. There are people who will respond very positively to CBT, and some who will respond much better to person-centred, or Gestalt, or other types of therapies (always with the caveat that it is often the therapuetic relationship itself which is the key determiner of success) – on the whole, a one size fits all approach to therapy and mental health is something which I find disturbing.
One positive thing, however, about CBT, is that due its nature, it is something you may be able to “try at home” to a certain extent, and perhaps even starting to think about how we may think negatively, and how that may be affecting our emotions and actions, is something a lot of us can do for ourselves, and maybe the first step into a more wide ranging encounter with therapy of whatever kind we may ultimately choose. There is a selection of books on CBT below which may prove useful as a further introduction to this form of therapy.
A Selection of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy books in the UK:
A Selection of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy books in the USA:
Although this is a blog about self help, there are always times when we do need to look for others for help. For mental health, this often means counselling or therapy, a much misunderstood field. So I have decided to write a series of articles exploring different types of counselling and therapy, what they mean, how they work, and some of the pros and cons, together with some links to titles to read further about the different kinds of counselling.
First up, I decided to look at Person Centred, or Client Centred, therapy, from the humanistic school of thought. I am going with this first, because I have personally benefited from this type of counselling, and am indeed training to become a person-centred counsellor!
Person-centred counselling originated in the thinking of Carl Rogers, an eminent American psychologist. He believed that each individual human being had more knowledge and resources to promote their healing and growth than any therapist could ever have – so that the therapist’s job was to create conditions whereby the client could begin to explore and uncover these resources in themselves, rather than directly influence the client from a position of “expertise” or “greater knowledge”.
These conditions, often referred to as the “core conditions” for therapeutic change, are Congruence, Empathy, and Unconditional Positive Regard.
Congruence refers to a quality of “realness” or “genuiness” on the part of the therapist within the therapeutic relationship. In a world where people wear masks, the congruent therapist is not an actor, but a real person, someone who is self aware, has knowledge of their own person and individual issues, but who is not confused or anxious about being and expressing their true self as it is in that moment. In a world of facades, it is vital for the client to see the therapist as someone who will be true, who will be real, who will have the courage to honestly be and express who they are.
Empathy refers to the quality of the therapist being able to move around in the client’s frame of reference, to understand the client’s unique position and perspective. Not simply on a “I know how you feel” level, but by sharing the client’s feelings, by identifying what is going on for the client, by communicating this understanding to the client. Rogers considered it vital that this understanding was communicated to the client, so that the client knew they were being understood. This part of the therapeutic relationship is, like congruence, something that the client may rarely have experienced before.
Unconditional Positive Regard refers to the therapist’s ability to “prize” the client as a uniquely valuable person in their own right, without applying conditions of worth. Conditions of worth refer to the unfortunate tendency in society, and when growin up, to feel that one is only valuable when certain conditions are met. For example, “If I am a good boy, I have value; if get into a fight, I am bad and have less value.” or “If I like blue and everyone else likes red, I have less value than everyone else, because I am different.” or “If you are calm, that is more valuable than if you get angry.” In the therapeutic relationship, unconditional positive regard allows the client to start moving away from these conditions of worth, to start becoming a person in their own right, and stop being the person others want them to be. At some stage in the therapeutic process, they will learn that the therapist prizes them in spite of what they reveal about themselves, and this often leads to greater courage in expressing and exploring who they really are.
Combined, these conditions help the client to begin to trust themselves more, to move from a state of incongruence, towards congruence, and become more fully functioning.
Person-centred counselling is not without criticisms, one of which is that it might not be as effective for serious mental illness and is therefore a bit of a luxury for the “worried well”. Carl Rogers would disagree. To an extent, the outcomes of Person centred counselling are difficult to measure, whereas something like CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) are favoured by, for example, the Uk NHS as proving a more measureable outcome. Client Centred therapy can take longer, but I am not convinced measurability is always key.
Personally, I have benefited hugely from person centred Counselling. I have moved from rigidity to fluidity, from anxiety to calm, from shyness to confidence. All thanks to experiencing the core conditions with my therapist. My next few years of studying Rogerian counselling/therapy are going to be a fantastic journey.
A selection of UK Person Centred Counselling Books:
A Selection of US Based Client Centred Counselling Books:
Susan Jeffers’s Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway was pretty much the first self help book I ever read, and the reasons that brought me to it are quite embarrassing in many ways! I will be open with you and tell you that although I am an intelligent, capable, resourceful and at times wise individual, these qualities have not always enabled me to be as relaxed and happy about my life as I should be. Listen to this – I am academically gifted (I have a first class honours degree and a Masters degree), I am a published writer and have performed my work on stage, I have had a number of successful jobs and am now making a living from an Internet business which I started from scratch. I also enjoy the friendship of some pretty amazing people. But for a long time there was one thing which had been completely lacking in my life.
CONFIDENCE.
I am being serious – in spite of all my achievements, my success and my abilities, I was spending a large amount of my life being held back because I did not have the confidence to do certain things (speak to that person, apply for that job, leave that job, do something different that day) and I think it’s fair to say I have long been the victim of a terrible shyness at times over the years! Those who have seen me present to a room full of people would probably find this fascinating, but the truth is I have often done this through sheer will (although at times have felt totally comfortable – what I would later discover was a state of “flow” or being “in the zone”) – they should have seen how I felt inside when a complete stranger talked to me, or when I was sitting around a table hearing the buzz of conversation, terrified of speaking myself unless I said the wrong thing or made a fool of myself (and how many opportunities have I lost because it was far safer to hang on to my pride and my security by not taking a risk, not going outside my comfort zone, just plodding on thinking I was doing the best thing for myself by protecting myself from rejection and trouble.)
And I repeat, I run a successful business and people like me! And I could entertain such negative thoughts on a daily basis, and even find plenty of negativity in my situations – that person should have talked to me, it’s their fault, things didn’t happen quite right, it would have been better if, I should have done that. Even after working for 12 hours on my business I often berated myself for not having done enough, not putting enough effort in, and at the end of the day tried to find something extra I could do – because I felt that if I could only do a little more, everything would be all right, and then I meticulously planned the next day, then something happened to spoil my plans, and I experienced such a deep rage that all my plans had been wiped out. Even though not carrying my routine plans through that day would do me no significant harm (rationally I knew this), I felt enraged that my balance had been upset. I kicked things. I hit things. Yes, an educated and quiet, shy retiring person getting wound up in the privacy of my own home and office because the smallest things didn’t go as I needed them to go to feel secure in my routine…
Things came to a head one day when some particulararly bad (but in the end insignificant!) thing happened with my business – I got really mad and slipped into a really negative state of mind. Even though the worst outcome of it all was not really all that bad (I might use a few dollars), the fear and anxiety in my mind made it ten times worse!
I was pretty lost at that point in time. Something snapped in me and I knew if I carried on in this way it was never going to be satisfactory. I decided I would shut the computer off and get some books, as reading has always soothed me and helped me escape. I thought I could now use it to perhaps learn something. I got a pile of books, whose contents I will share with you over the weeks and months (and years – I am still developing and learning to help myself!), and also some audiobook self hypnosis recordings.
I had read such books and tried such recordings in the past, but I sensed one major difference in myself. This time, I wanted to change, and was willing to put in some effort. I think the major mistake some people make is that they think they will read the book or listen to the tape and there will be a magical transformation and it will be easy! There can be magic – but believe me it won’t work if you are thinking, “This is utter rubbish, it will never work…” Or “This is a con!” or even “I will read this and everything will magically change!” The last time I tried these were my thoughts, I thought I would give it a go, and if the book or tape changed me, fair enough. The difference this time was, I was determined that I would change myself, and needed help, which I think is a key to the self help principles I promote on this blog (self help is a tool – not a last resort or a magic cure – but a resource to help yourself!).
In any case, I am glad I shut off the computer that day and started my real work, the work of self-development, for from that day I have been growing from being an inhibited, shy, controlling, restricted and frustrated person into something I still haven’t found words to describe. The few days I have thus far spent working on my own development is worth all the twelve hour days I have or ever will put into my business!
I began with Susan Jeffers’s Feel The Fear And Do it Anyway. The title rather appealed to me as I realized there things I wanted to do and ways I wanted to be, but was afraid of getting there. My biggest fears included: Spending the rest of my life alone, spending the rest of my life with someone (fearing both equally – get that!), fear of my business failing, fear of not putting in enough time, fear of putting in too much time, fear of letting go and relaxing, fear of, fear of, fear of – I probably couldn’t finish listing all the things I feared if I sat here and typed all night long! So that was the first title I read, I suspended my disbelief, told myself I should take off my “Yes, but that’s stupid, if it was that easy why doesn’t everyone do it” head, and read it through, and couldn’t stop reading.
The book is not perfect, it is not a cure all, it may not be for everyone. I personally disliked the references to a higher power, although admittedly Susan does not let her religious beliefs become intrusive. Even as something of an agnostic and a humanist, even a cynic, perhaps, I was able to get enough tips and insights out of the book to feel a change begin to take place, with the author’s maddeningly simple commonsense solutions received gratefully by my commonsense radar. I am now eagerly reading and working through the companion book, as well as other titles, and all I can suggest is that if you are struggling with something, if you have fears, insecurities, and are not living the life you want to live, reading Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers will be of interest to you, and if you get even a quarter of what I got out of it, you will be amazed.
I honestly used to think popular psychology and self help books like this were utter rubbish. Humbly, I admit I was wrong, at least in this case, as I smilingly join the ranks of people whose lives Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway has helped to change
If you are in the US, the following iTunes link will enable you to purchase the anabridged audiobook of Feal The Fear and Do It Anyway: or on iTunes Uk with 12,000 audiobooks available HERE
