and the enemy is truly myself.  Gerald May, Addictions & Grace

I suggested this statement to a client and she said, oh so wisely, “ I don’t like that, means there’s a war inside me”.

“Yup, you are right, let’s find a way to negotiate some peace”, said I. And I thought, how would we integrate her wisdom, her “wise-ness”, with her distrust of her wisdom, of herself?

Most of us have, as Maslow called it, a “civil war” inside us. Gerald May called it “mixed motivations.” Brene Brown calls it “perfectionism”.

Or, if we move into the positive and our potential, Abraham Maslow calls it “self-actualization and integration”, Gerald May calls it “ grace” and Brene Brown calls it “wholehearted living”.

But HOW do we get from civil war, mixed motivations and perfectionism to self-actualization and integration, grace and wholehearted living?

Wish I had an easy, efficient and effective answer for that question! Ahhh, but wishing is a part of becoming more peaceful with being with myself. Wishes are about yearnings, and yearnings move us toward parts of ourselves that need attention. I digress, more about wishes and yearnings later. (wishes require action –note to self for next blog)

Each of us has the capability to move toward integration and wholeness – making peace with our selves. But we each have different capacities; from tiny to huge, for this capability of integration and wholeness – for this making peace with our selves. Our capacity to become integrated can either be supported and nurtured or diminished and demeaned by family, friends, culture and society. We are not alone.

Let me tell a story to demonstrate. Take the now classic “marshmallow study”. The study where young kids were put in a room with a marshmallow and told they would receive a reward if they waited before eating the marshmallow. The “results” of that study were that the children who exhibited traits of restraint, which is waiting before eating the marshmallow, fared better in life than those children whose impulse was to immediately eat the marshmallow. The tragedy of this study, and its longevity in the media, is the association that restraint is better than impulsive behaviours. For those of us who would have eaten the marshmallow, and absolutely I would have, and probably tried to sneak another one when no one was looking, the message is that impulsivity is bad. If that impulse is inside me, then I must be bad. And if that impulse is controlling me, then I’m really out of luck. So the child’s lack of restraint or impulsivity becomes how she is defined and who she is. It keeps getting worse!  Our culture, institutions and generally parents value adjustment to the environment as indicators of successful living. Now I’m really out of luck!  I’m supposed to follow the rules, not myself, or I won’t be successful.

What a tragi-comedy! A marshmallow changed the value of my life; the value of me. Ouch.  How do I learn to live with myself in this story? I try to control my impulses, separate them off, distract myself, deny I have this..this…demon impulse inside me – and now I am at war with myself. And there were years of my life I tried to pretend I would have been the child who, oh so proudly, did not eat the marshmallow! But that is not I; I would have eaten the marshmallow, and more than just one!

Fortunately I grew up in the country where an independent spirit was valued; with immigrant parents who knew successful living involved adventure and hard work; teachers who valued my impulsive spirit, named it curiosity and fed my curiosity; and friends who loved me, and allowed me to love them, for our craziness and caring. And there was a part of me that held onto “we’re all different and that’s ok”, and I believed.

You can eat a marshmallow now, later, or never. It’s how you are with who you are that matters. Celebrate who you are.                

Why would you stop and take a pause when you can keep dragging all that misery around with you? Sounds harsh? Not as harsh as what you might be doing to yourself.

Our body-mind connection is the engine that fuels us, and if you are keeping your body and mind continuously revved, look out. Either your body, think hypertension, rapid heart rate, sore back, neck; or your mind, think concentration and memory problems; and ultimately your spirit, think “there’s something wrong with me I can’t keep up, what is my problem?” will be affected.

Now you’re spending your energy defending against yourself, your inner dis-ease stress, not just external stressors. Your sympathetic nervous system is on overdrive, secreting adrenaline, cortisol, and sugars because it is on your side, it wants you to be safe; but it doesn’t know what and where the danger is. Blaming work overload, kids, the partner, the economy, yada,yada,yada puts you in a one down position, ie the victim. Unconsciously you’re sending messages to your system that there is danger, get prepared – but you are the danger! I’m not saying you don’t have overload from work and life obligations, but you do have the ability, and responsibility, to stop and pause.

Stress really does limit problem-solving abilities and the creation of positive relationships, and that creates more stressors, and now you are looping, going faster and faster to keep up with the new problems. STOP, PAUSE…

Take a moment and breathe from lower in your body, stretch those muscles that are tense, look at something that triggers a smile, listen to music that soothes your heart, say something kind to yourself or a colleague.

Make a list now of 3 things you choose to do that help you stop and pause. Rehearse and practice on a daily basis – help yourself to help your health.

You may have minimal control over external stressors, but you do have responsibility to manage your reactivity to stressors.

I could keep going on and on, but good enough, I’m going to stop now. Because this is what I would have missed if I didn’t take time to pause.

“paws”

Wish that you could have better relationships? Wish that you could be more calm? Wish that you could stop blocking your own success? Even though you have fun, wish you could feel happier?

All common concerns that I hear about. Recognizing that you want or need to make a change is the first step toward successfully making that happen. And I understand that you wouldn’t be on this website if you weren’t thinking of making a change – to think, feel and act differently.

Read on if you want to live your life well and fully, being the best YOU can be in life. I help people discover better health – physical, mental and emotional health.

Healthier ways of acting, thinking, and communicating. Healthier ways of being in relationships and getting what you want. Health is living YOUR life well and fully – it’s not just the absence of physical illness. It is feeling and thinking positively about who you are. It’s about having the relationships you want at home and at work.

Offering affordable, practical and skilled counselling is core to my approach. I believe all of us can use support, information and tools to learn to prevent, manage or modify behaviours, feelings and thoughts that hold us back. Just like physical health requires ongoing attention, so does our mental and emotional health. Recent research indicates that our mental and emotional can negatively impact our physical health.

Counselling isn’t about something being wrong with you. Counselling is about consciously choosing to update those old stories, thoughts, feelings and reactions – that’s usually past stuff. We value updating our cars, houses, clothes, vocabulary, music, foods, education, furniture, phones, hairstyles… I value, and know how, to help you update your coping style. It’s about bridging that gap between knowing how you want to be, and being that person.