You Are What You Think……..

oh dear…time to spring clean?

Are you aware that every thought you have has a chemical response on your body? Amazing isn’t it, when I was training that was one of the most profound things that I discovered and since then just that tiny bit of information has been invaluable in change work with clients.

Estimated to have 12,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day with some research stating the cleverer you are the more thoughts you have, who really knows and how important is that? well in my experience the only thing that matters is the quality of your thinking definitely not the quantity. What do I mean by that - well lets look at the power of our thinking.

Our thinking is part and parcel of our self-talk, that internal dialogue that we all have, the chatter inside. We basically fall into four categories of how we filter the world we are a mixture of all four but tend to have one dominant filter, these filters, called rep systems, are visual, auditory, digital and kinaesthetic - but we all have the self talk.  Now I’m pretty sure that most people reading this have a vast experience of largely negative self-talk, in fact the way we talk to ourselves is often so harsh and so intense we would never dream of speaking to another person that way. And yet in a weird and wonderful way we seem to think that berating ourselves in an often vicious, no holds barred way, will result in us making vast improvements in our life.

You know the scenario - “ok, starting the new diet Monday, fridge full of carbs/protein/pieces of cardboard whatever the latest fad is.  All geared up and raring to go - breakfast, tick; mid-morning snack (got to keep the blood sugar up) tick; standing in the queue at the supermarket grab one mars bar, two flakes, oh the mini eggs are out, quick before the conveyer belt moves again. Ruined it all, er  tick…and then that little gremlin begins…you stupid, stupid idiot, why are you so lazy, you are just pathetic, you’re a failure, you’ll never get anywhere, can’t even last for one day, for “goodness“  (fill in the expletive of choice) sake and so on and so on and so on….. 

Now let’s have another look at this, if for example someone you loved unconditionally wanted to lose a few pounds and set off on a diet Monday morning and at lunch time they came to you, sat down and said “I’ve blown it, just eaten a load of chocolate” now you really wanted them to succeed because you know it would be good for their health and their happiness do you imagine sitting them down and shouting at the top of your voice in the most vicious tone you could muster “you stupid, lazy, pathetic, fat person, you are a failure, you’ll never get anywhere, can’t even last for one day! for goodness sake look at you!” What would that friend believe about themselves, do you imagine that they would (A) jump up, overjoyed with the support, hug you and get right back on that diet or (B) weep uncontrollably, fall on the floor and crawl off to find more chocolate or possibly (C) punch you in the face.  You see my point?

We usually are our own worst enemies and one of the most damaging array of words are the shoulds, shouldn’ts, ought’s and the negative ‘what ifs’. This applies to everything we do, and if we continue the same self-talk, self-talk which then creates belief - we believe things that are not necessarily true and we create the same behaviour over and over. How many people do you know that get in a situation be it a relationship, starting a new hobby, giving up smoking only to go full circle and end up with the same person (different head), give up on the hobby, start smoking again?

We all have stress and times of lessening confidence or anxiety in our lives, a common problem with social anxiety is the fear when walking into a room of people. Fear because that gremlin is going for it “they’re all looking at me, I’m not as clever/rich/attractive…. they are all looking at me!” those chemicals will be firing on all cylinders, your body is going to be on red alert, you will automatically tense, feel uncomfortable and start looking around to see who’s looking at you and bingo! they’ll look back and you’ve just created exactly what you didn’t want by priming your mind to expect the worst. A prime time for tripping on the carpet or bumping into a table. Many of my clients are amazed at how nobody is really that bothered about them and as soon as we get them feeling comfortable in their own skin with some gentle, healthy self-talk the world opens up with opportunity.

Einstein’s theory on madness was keep doing the same thing when it doesn’t work over and over again….I’ve been guilty of that madness how about you?

So if each of those delightful thoughts is kicking those chemicals into action our bodies, if we are not careful, will be full of stress hormones the adrenalin, noradrenalin and cortisol are just a few and if we keep topping those thoughts up those chemicals get more and more regularly used and if they hang around in our bodies for too long we begin to feel tired, suffer headaches, low energy, don’t sleep so well, don’t digest our food that well, feel heavier and achey, get tense and irritable. Up to 70% of patients in the doctors waiting room are there with such stress related problems.

Truly a vicious circle, it’s a bit like growing an enormous weed in the garden, slap bank in the middle of the lawn and hating it. Really hating how it spoils everything in the garden and stops you seeing, let alone enjoying, the beautiful flowers, so what do you do? every so often you chuck miracle grow on it and voila! surprise, surprise it gets bigger, you hate it more and then…. you go and do it again (remember Einstein?).

So, the old clichés “think nice thoughts” and “think positive” does have some resonance in feeling well, less stressed and healthier. But how do we do this after years, decades of the old negative self-talk; well for starters

·        catch yourself when you talk down to yourself, at first it is hard but soon becomes second nature

·        if you find yourself saying “what if I fail the exam” counter it; “what if I get the highest mark”

·        if someone pushes your buttons and irritates or makes you angry let go of it, counter it with “well maybe they’re having a bad day”

·        remove should, shouldn’t, ought to,

·        change your responses “I hate my bank manager” to “I prefer dealing with the cashier”

·        cut out anything that would put someone down I’m stupid, I’m pathetic - you’re not, something has probably not gone well change it to “I’ll try a different way next time” “that didn’t seem right for me”

Once you start doing this you will literally feel the change in your body, those of us that beat ourselves up usually look beaten up, head down, cross look on our faces - start talking nicely to yourself and it is like having someone with you encouraging you, supporting you and you’ll walk taller, be more inclined to smile because the cocktail of chemicals in your body will be enabling you to relax, repair, rejuvenate, calm and sooth - get it right and your thinking will be sharper, memory clearer, you will feel more like a walk than a double espresso to get you through the morning.

Why not try it for just a morning and see what a difference it makes.

So give some thought to those thoughts, get spring cleaning you and you will benefit mind, body and spirit.

Welcome to my blog,it’s like having something very new and shiney that I don’t quite know what to do with yet! but anyway here goes….. having moved into the 21st Century I also now (vaguely) understand twittering, bebo, facebook and skype and various other new shiney things.

A huge learning curve for me but it has made me think about something that anyone who is seeking therapy wants and that is change.  When clients come to me for the first consultation or just a chat to see if this is the way forward for them they all say they want change.  Often the change is about measuring themselves against others  “I want to be like other people that can do x, y, z”  or “I want to feel normal”  sometimes it is about other people changing “I want him to treat me better”  - we cannot change other people nor can we use others as a yardstick.

Over the next few posts I’m going to be looking at change and what it means, how sometimes stopping fighting and letting go means just maybe you have more strength and power than you thought possible.

Jane blogging

Greetings world!

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!