Archive for the ‘Well Being’ Category

Is it possible? Well, probably – but first, we’ve got to understand how we humans operate on a very basic level.

Many people have heard of humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs. He developed a theory of personality that has influenced a number of different fields, including education. This theory accurately describes many realities of personal experiences.

Humanists focus upon potentials. They strive for an upper level of capabilities. They seek frontiers of creativity and the highest reaches of consciousness and wisdom. Maslow calls this level “self actualizing person, a fully functioning person or a health personality.”

In Maslow’s theory of needs, all of our basic needs instinctive (just like animals). Humans start with a very weak disposition that is then fashioned fully as the person grows. If the environment is right, people will grow straight and beautiful, actualizing the potential(s) they have inherited. If the environment is not right (news flash: it is mostly not!) they will not grow straight and beautiful. Maslow’s hierarchy offers five levels of basic needs. But beyond these needs, higher levels of needs exist, including needs for understanding, aesthetic appreciation, and purely spiritual needs. We humans cannot move through the stages of needs until the demands of the first (or supporting) need has been satisfied.

So, what are these basic needs?
1. Physiological: These biological needs consist of oxygen, food, water, and relatively constant body temperature. They are the strongest needs because if deprived, we would not thrive.

2. Safety: When all physiological needs are met and are no longer controlling thoughts and behaviors, the needs for security can become active. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency or periods of disorganization in the social structure (such as rioting). Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe.

3. Love, affection, and belongingness: When the needs for safety and for physiological wellbeing are satisfied, love, affection and belongingness can then emerge. Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging.

4. Self Esteem: When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the needs for esteem can become dominant. These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others. Humans have a need for stability, a firm base or foundation, high level of self respect, and respect from others. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable. When these needs are unmet, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless, or worthless.

5. Self Actualization. When the first four levels of needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self actualization activated. Maslow describes self actualization as a person’s need to be and do that which the person was born to do. For example, a musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write. When unmet, restlessness ensues. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something.

Maslow believes that the only reason that people would not move well in the direction of self actualization is because of hindrances placed in their way by family or society. He states that education is one of these hindrances. Maslow states that educators should respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self actualized being.

Interested in learning more? Spend some time online learning more about Maslow and his hierarchical theory. Then, think about times in your life where your basic needs may have gone unmet. What did you do? Think? Believe? Feel? How did you move forward? Or, are you stuck?

“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.”
– Tori Amos, pop/rock singer

Some of us dive right into the inner work we know we can truly benefit from while others are more hesitant to dig up (and through) the past. Counseling, self help guides, even creative endeavors and exercise can assist us along our personal paths. And, this process of uncovering and healing all takes time.

Sometimes you can get stuck traveling down this path to healing, and a healthy, helpful boost is what you need. When you feel stuck, which is natural and common, your mind can be compared to a computer that uses software programs. These software programs are filled with your emotions and beliefs that combine together to make up what you think and feel. And, sometimes this software can get stuck in a loop and stop working the way we desire.

It seems that trauma and negative emotions can combine with a certain thought or feeling and create a locked neural pathway in your brain, trapping the negativity in your brain and body. This is how many define post traumatic stress, which seems daunting to deal with, but if you make time to approach your issues with the appropriate tools, you can and will heal.

Take a moment out of every day to assess where you are, where you’ve been, and where you hope to be. With an open mind and heart (and the right tools) you can make big changes that help you heal.

So, what does brain plasticity really mean? And, why is this an important, intriguing concept?

My clients ask me all the time what does plastic or plasticity mean when referring to the brain. Is my brain plastic? No. Of course not.

Plasticity or neuroplasticity is the lifelong ability of the brain to reorganize neural pathways based on new experience. So, as we learn and acquire new knowledge and skill, there is actual change in the brain that represents the new knowledge. This ability of the brain to change with learning is what neuroplasticity refers to.

Now, embrace this fascinating concept. In the past it was believed that as we aged, our brain’s networks became fixed. In the past couple of decades, however, an enormous amount of research has revealed that the brain never stops changing or adjusting.

You might say “all we are is changing.” What a concept! – one that brings us back to how important it is to truly be aware of what you are paying attention to or focusing on as much as possible. If you are fixated on anger or fear, your brain will stay in that mode.

Neurons that fire together, wire together. Neurons that fire apart, wire apart. So if you are stuck on fearful thoughts, guess what are you actually wiring together in your brain. If you are constantly thinking fearfully, your brain will most likely be stuck in that negative space.

Now, consider this. The longest time a strong urge or emotion can coast biochemically is a mere 90 seconds. For such emotions to last longer in your brain and body, you’ve got to keep fueling that fire with constant, negative internal chatter.

Your nervous system has to be reminded to keep firing the same circuitry over and over again. In order for emotions and thoughts to persist, your system has to be re-engaged either through internal stimulation (conjuring up images and pictures in your mind, engaging in self talk) or external stimulation that serve as triggers and anchors from the environment around us (seeing a particular person or place). And, the stronger the feeling you have, the greater the number of circuits are simultaneously activated.

This can be good news to the degree that you are focused on creating good feelings with strong, positive thought patterns. So, don’t focus on the negative: when you think positively, you positively change your brain for the better.

When you find yourself feeling stressed, you can neutralize the damage by engaging in this simple exercise that begins with several deep breaths.

Sit upright in a comfortable chair with both of your feet balanced on the floor. Breathe deeply and slowly from your diaphragm (not just the top part of your lungs). Notice when you start to relax. If you want to change your physiology a bit, move around a little, wiggle your toes, take another breath. You’re settling in for even deeper relaxation! Now, try to focus your attention on your heart. Try “breathing” through your heart. (Think about this for a minute so you can get a visual that works for you.) Note the sensations your body, breath and brain experience through this sequence..

Now go ahead and think about something entirely opposite from what was the initial cause of your stress – maybe a happy moment or fun time in your life. As you fill your mind with a pleasant thought (or memory, or visual) this will actually help to change the fight or flight response in your brain and body. Fight or flight response changes the biochemical mix in your body – swapping for a pleasant thought will help alter your mind/body chemistry, too.

In this exercise, I like to think about what and who I am grateful for – people, places, things, situations that make me feel good. This not only brings a smile to my face, but helps make more positive connections in my brain that then allow me to deal with stress triggers in a healthier way.

Go ahead…try it now!

Do you know what stress is? Where it comes from? How it manifests? If everyone experiences stress the same way?

One thing is certain—stress affects our attitudes and can certainly affect our overall health and well being. How we perceive a situation causes us to have an emotional reaction to it. Many people look at the outside event as the real cause of stress, when the experience of stress is actually occurring on the inside. Common responses to stress can often be tension, anxiety, anger, and frustration. These responses can then throw off our mental and physical self, pushing us—and keeping us—out of balance.

Two people in identical circumstances may respond to stressful situations or negative triggers in totally different ways. One may react outwardly, while another may withdraw and get tired. Many experts agree that 75 percent (or more!) of the unhealthy habit of continued, excessive overeating is caused by emotional stress. This means many of us are using food to cope with our feelings, blocking our emotions in an attempt to feel better when triggered by something negative.

There are many methods for helping people reduce stress and create emotional balance to march towards positive patterns and behaviors that reinforce overall health. I attribute my success in helping clients alter unhealthy patterns by teaching them emotional management skills. My clients learn how to effectively change their responses to almost any stressful situation or negative trigger. Once my clients learn how to achieve a relaxed state and maintain that relaxation, change work becomes more comfortable, empowering, and effective.

You’ve got the power to change the negative to positive. You can minimize the impact a potentially stressful situation has on your well being. You can achieve the peace of mind you’ve always dreamed of having.

The subconscious, or, your unconscious mind, loves patterns and repetition. What’s familiar to your mind resonates instantly. When it’s a positive pattern, great! You can achieve many, many things. But, when it’s a negative pattern or thought that’s repeated over time, then you become your own worst enemy and it’s harder to meet challenges, to excel, to achieve.

Modern research has discovered that our emotional states are produced by a couple of things like how we hold our bodies (our physiology) and the mental pictures we focus on. Did you know that we have approximately 44,000 to 66,000 mental pictures or thoughts a day? That’s a lot of content to experience, process and react to.

The one primary way we can change our emotional states is to change our physiology or how we are holding our body. Exactly how we are holding our bodies can trigger every emotion that we have ever experienced—how you carry yourself throughout the day has the potential to trigger feelings like being sad, mad, happy, or confident. As soon as we train our body to be in the physiology we want, we can instantly feel the corresponding emotion!

My Mental Toughness and Success Moment CDs are each designed specifically to help you get into and stay in the physiology and emotional state you want each and every day. My CDs are designed with specific suggestions and imageries that teach you to develop a mental toughness and with repetition (or, as I like to say, repeatedness). Take control your states of mind—positively and effectively!

Is it really possible to change how we think? There are so many self-help books out there telling us we can alter our thoughts to change our brains. I have many friends and clients that buy and read every self-help book there is but they still can’t seem to change their lives. They have done everything and yet nothing seems to work to undo years of negative thought patterns.

Many of you know that I have dedicated my life to finding ways to solve the problem of anxiety and depression. In the ’60s and ‘70s there wasn’t much help for these symptoms and often doctors thought you were crazy if you exhibited symptoms of anxiety. I was personally treated terribly by friends, family, doctors, teachers and therapists who all thought they were helping. As I look back on it, my condition was not really understood, so everyone thought I was making it up. I hear it in my office today from many clients who have family and spouses that think they are making it up, that panic and anxiety are not real. But, these are real conditions with real symptoms that stop people from having full and rich lives.

So, can you change the way you think? Can you really change automatic negative thoughts?

Understanding more about your brain/body connection can be helpful. You are born with a fight or flight mechanism that allow us to protect ourselves in dangerous situations. When a person senses danger, the body prepares itself to either fight (defend itself) or flee (run away from the situation). The body’s fight or flight mechanism causes the heart rate to increase, the eyes to dilate, and the body to prepare itself for a dangerous situation. Even though these effects are intended to be a good thing, sometimes the body misunderstands a situation and believes that there is danger when in reality there is not (e.g., taking a test, giving a speech, meeting someone for the first time).

The part of the brain that triggers fight or flight is called the amygdala. The amygdala is trained to remember the thing or event that triggered the fight or flight mechanism (the test or speech). This part of your brain is keeping track of all things that might cue danger. You can see how this can cause much unnecessary anxiety. The brain has to be retrained to stop reacting in flight or flight to something that is not actually dangerous.

Part of successful retraining includes using guided imagery, hypnosis, NLP, HNRI, Brainspotting or EMDR. Finding a personal development coach that is trained in the some or all of these therapies is critical to success, too.

Change the way you think to positively affect your life!

There are mounting statistics on how stress has detrimental effects on the body, mind, emotions and health. The American Institute of Stress notes that 75 to 90% of doctor visits are for stress-related complaints. A Harvard study shows that people who live in a state of high anxiety are 4.5 times more likely to suffer sudden cardiac death than non-anxious individuals. And, consider this: in 2002 people in the United States alone purchased nearly $17.2 billion dollars worth of anti depressants and anti-anxiety drugs, up more than 10% from 2001. What do you think this will amount to in 2010?

In 2002, Americans also spent $1.1 billion on prescription sleeping pills. Seven of the top ten best selling drugs are for stress-related ailments. However, this is not just an American problem. Developed nations across the globe report higher levels of stress, anger, anxiety and dissatisfaction.

Something’s gotta give.

We are constantly “on”—email, internet, cell phone, television—there is endless noise in our lives. And more and more we are experiencing the stress of others. Their energies, reactions and words. We are all get bombarded by too much information, too much chatter, too much negative energy from the busy world around us.

In my office, people will tell me they actually need their stress to get things done. It’s almost become normal to some people to think stress is a good thing. My advice and reframing of that thinking is wouldn’t it be better to have motivation, drive or power—instead of stress—pushing us forward? Remember, too much stress quickly transforms to overwhelm. Energy, clarity and creativity decline. More aches, pains, restless nights and here come the ants (automatic negative thoughts) abound. Stress truly robs us of our enjoyment and our vitality.

Symptoms of stress can include:
• irritability
• lack of humor
• worry
• excessiveness
• forgetfulness
• aches and pains
• anxiety
• fatigue
• illness
• and so much more..

In understanding stress, consider for a moment that stress is not really about the external things, like the boss, the wife, the job, the sport, the performance, the big win. It’s how you perceive (or filter) any situation and how you respond with your emotions that truly causes symptoms of stress.

Many of us reach a point in our lives when we have a negative experience. Many, too, experience emotional ups and downs. Negative energy builds up as it has nowhere to go. Our anxiety, anger, frustration, blame, can all build up inside us until we either blow up, hide under our covers, have a panic attack, or worse.

But, there really is hope! New research and modalities in therapy can help us all to have more calm and inner peace. At even the most sensitive and volatile point in life, I truly help my clients reverse the negative thought patterns. By working together, even the very, very stressed out can learn how to consistently change their reactions to almost anything life throws at them.

Curious about what awaits you? Try my CDs—Stay Calm, Stay Confident, Stay Connected—to learn more about how to manage stress this spring.

Have you seen the bumper sticker that reads “You don’t have to believe everything you think”? Well it’s true. Change your thought patterns – especially to manage the stress in your life – and your well being will change as a result.

The American Health Association and the American Medical Association have stated that stress is the number one reason for doctor visits. Stress is anger, sadness, hurt, guilt, fear, and the old voice that echoes “I’m not good enough” that manifests in your mind and in your body. People in the United States are now working more hours with less sleep and (surprise!) not experiencing as much enjoyment or fulfillment in life. This scenario sound familiar? Well, it can be turned around.

My personal breakthrough coaching helps you align with your true purpose and goals, and enables and activates your own inner strengths to lead you to resolve the negative patterns that are preventing you from having the life you want. Individual coaching works wonders with clients who really wish to deal with and minimize stress in their lives by creating effective, healthy patterns. Changing your response to your personal stress triggers is key – when you change your thought patterns you do indeed change the physical manifestations stress can have on your body (migraines, twitches, aches and pains, insomnia, and more).

It’s best to jump start this process to healing with individualized sessions. Then, on your own, my specialized CD programs can help reinforce the positive changes you experience in individual coaching sessions.

What are you waiting for?

In John Overdurf’s coaching perspectives classes, he talks about many studies about the brain and the unconscious mind.

The quantum Zeno effect (aka “a watched pot never boils!) is a concept you might be familiar with. This quantum phenomena was first demonstrated by George Sudarshan at University of Texas in 1977, and, in 2005, Stapp and Schwartz applied the quantum Zeno effect to mental experience. They found that attention and focus stabilize brain circuitry. Paying attention to any specific neural connection keeps the associated circuitry open dynamic and alive. Rapid and repeated observations not only stabilize transient chemical links, but eventually can alter physical changes in the brains structure. (Similar studies are conducted via neuro-plasticity research and can be read in The Brain That Changes Itself. All fascinating.)

So, the moral of the story is we get what we focus on–unconsciously!

And, you probably want to avoid the negatives in life, right? Suppose you have a panic attack. Your brain now has a neural pathway called anxiety or panic…then it happens again…so your brain now is really paying attention to panic. You could go to talk therapy and talk about your panic attacks. but what is happening in that situation? You are focusing on the panic and therefore repeatedly observing the panic, which then causes the neural pathway to light up and here comes the symptoms again. It’s quite a cycle of negativity.

I always tell my clients it’s like going down the same railroad track over and over again, consciously and unconsciously. And, not one client in over 20 years has told me that they can hardly wait to panic or are excited to be depressed. But, remember, by the time you experience panic there is already a mental pathway there for it to easily occur. Our work together is to help shift your conscious attention (your own attempt to solve the problem, the panic) to increased redirected unconscious activation (a new railroad track – get on it!)

Stay Confident, Stay Connected, Stay Focused are all effective CD programs that can be used to help your brain change to discover new neural pathways that can positively affect your life.