We’re about to step into 2025 and it’s time again for the infamous New Year’s Resolutions. Whether those work or not that is another discussion, now very much worth having.
Peace in the New Year 2025
One helpful thing people did across ages was to evaluate how the past year has been. In times of old it was based on the amount of crops harvested, the weather, and whether there’s been any big losses in the family /community. And new hopes and wishes were echoed in the hearts and greetings, as people cast their eyes upon new horizons, setting new goals or just tweaking the old ones. To a great degree that is true today.
It took me a while to appreciate the value of this practice. My approach was to just go with the flow, and kinda bury my head in the sand when hit with future related questions.
So, how do you make it a year of Possibility and Growth in your life? Personally? Financially? Emotionally? Spiritually? In relationships?
Let me share 7 questions that I put together to guide my commitments and aims for this new year. I found it useful to organise it in three parts: 1. looking back and evaluating my parkour so far, 2. being with how I honestly feel about it, and 3. becoming clear about where I’m going and what do I need to keep the momentum. You can ask them separately in all five areas mentioned above and any you might want to add. So… here we go.
Looking Back
1. What was great this year? What have I accomplished? How I moved forward?
2. What was really challenging this past year? How did that impact me?
3. Where did I want to be in three years time to now? How far I’ve come?
The point here is not to make you feel bad, but rather focus on the progress. The journey towards our goals are rarely a straightforward road. We constantly evaluate and reorient. So, if you can treat any progress and/or lack of it with equanimity and just curious to notice, this is the way to go.
Being With What Is
4. How does it all make me feel? What am I proud of or grateful for? Disappointed?
Be honest with yourself. Acknowledge each feeling and stay with it. Notice also your inner critic. Be kind to whatever you’re experiencing, whether is contentment, joy, disappointment, anger, sadness, etc.
Looking Forward….
5. What do i wish to accomplish in this coming year?
Don’t focus on how, (you will do it later) rather envision it and be specific. Think of 1 to 3 major things. Then the trick later is to accomplish it one at a time.
6. What do I want to avoid happening this year?
Our minds tend to work better by focusing on what they don’t want, so this should be an easy one.
7. What are 3 choices I make today and commit to towards these goals/intentions?
Often we get stuck and overwhelmed with too much information, or which direction to go. Making a choice and acting on it, will open up to us the next door. For best, write it down in a statement, and set up a reminder for first steps you will take. Review & recommit regularly.
Who are the people I will let influence and motivate me on my path this year?
Choose a role-model, be it via a YouTube channel, a podcast or a real person in your life you will check with daily. Set a reminder.
This exercise might take some time, depending on how much thought you’ve given to your future goals prior to this. Take your time. If you feel defeated by how little things have progressed for you looking back, remember, it rarely goes according to plan for anyone. We need to leave room for chance, grace, luck, divine intervention or whatever you may want to call that thing, when we recognise not everything is dependent on us, and that it is OK.
Make these year’s resolutions far reaching and enriching!
Wishing you wholeheartedly a Fabulous New Year of Possibility!
Emotional healing or psychological repair are concepts used in the world of therapy that have become kind of mainstream. Partly mirroring the medical world, partly the mechanical, the quest has always been whether anything can be done to fix a traumatic experience or a problematic behavior in a person’s life.
If you’d rather listen to this talk, you can find it here.
When you hear emotional healing, what comes to mind? Usually in simple terms is that the pain of an experience is gone, or less, and does not get activated anymore.
From behavior conditioning to neuro-linguistic programming to psychoanalysis, various approaches have tackled this over time with various degrees of success.
In the latest decades though there has been a huge breakthrough in this regard, with the emergence of more experiential therapies combined with the advance in brain-imaging technology.
The therapy world has been opening more to include what in the past was in the domain of the spiritual, healers, miracle workers, various rituals that included, music, body movement, making proclamations and declarations, expressing the pain and grieving, rituals of closure, prayer and meditation, visualization and accessing a higher power or the higher self.
Two things have become clear: 1. throughout time people have been dealing with the same phenomena when it comes to human experience, and 2. humans have had the same resources in terms of body, emotions, thought, imagination, voice and expression.
What was making the difference? What is bringing the healing now and back then?
Two types of processes in psychotherapy
One of the prominent names in the world of psychotherapy is that of Bruce Echer LMFT. In his research and writings he describes two types of processes in therapy that lead to different results, counteractive change and memory reconsolidation, the latest being the one that underpins the experience of healing.
How Counteractive Change works?
Counteractive change helps manage the trauma or resulting symptoms by learning new skills that equips one to better deal with life. For example, growing up, a boy or girl witnessed his older sibling being punished for various things, so they learn to be safe by keeping quiet, doing all that is expected so they don’t get in trouble. As adults however, to counteract this fear, they took some classes and learned to express himself and be assertive, but every time they enter a meeting room with new people or the bosses there, there is that underlying fear that creeps over and they find it difficult to voice their opinion/ viewpoint. So they created a new way of behaving (learning to communicate, being assertive) on top of the old one. But now they both coexist. And one takes over the other sometimes.
In terms of neuroscience, this new learning created new neural pathways and connections. But this only works so far, if the trigger is very strong (boss reminds of harsh father or mother), and other circumstances such as health issues or a difficult relationship are present, or just tiredness, the chance for a relapse to old patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving is very much real.
How Memoy Reconsolidation works
With memory reconsolidation essentially one goes into the original memory and brings in new information. This modifies the memory in that it diffuses the emotional charge that gets activated in specific circumstances.
Before you get alarmed, I must add this does not erase a memory, but rather it takes the emotional pain out of it, so it’s not so painful and scary anymore.
To understand this we must understand that memories contain explicit data, of which we are aware and implicit data of which we are not always aware. The subconscious.
The memory reconsolidation process activates a memory with all its implicit data, such as feelings, body sensations, thoughts, beliefs. And moves into that memory to be there in a way in which the person needed someone to be with. OR do what they wished someone did back then. And bring in new knowledge about reality, about what’s true now, about how erroneous those conclusions were. This essentially changes that memory for good.
To quote Bruce Echer: ‘It’s this juxtaposition where the target learning collides with a strongly contradictory vivid knowing that is the key to transformational change because for a few hours these brain circuits are unlocked and the brain encoding undergoes a rapid change. When those synapses lock they are encoded with new information.’
In the example above, for instance in a therapy session the person would be able to go back into that experience of being scared and unable to speak, and be there for that scared part in a way it needed someone to be back then and help it see that things have changed and it can let go of that fear now. This is all new, so when the synapses lock back, they encode a modified memory.
A Wider View
In 2015, an article was published by four notable (with a total of 500 published research articles between them) psychologists published a BBS target article, Memory reconsolidation, emotional arousal, and the process of change in psychotherapy: New insights from brain science (Lane et al. 2015). The core idea of their article is that therapeutic change from a wide variety of therapeutic approaches, “including behavioral therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy, results from the updating of prior emotional memories through a process of reconsolidation that incorporates new emotional experiences.”
These approaches as you can see from the diagram seem to access different entry points to an issue.
It’s important to note that those that fall into the experiential therapies category such Emotion Focused therapy, EMDR, Internal Family Systems, Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor are far more effective, in the way they target the deeper emotional learning, which then transforms the cognitive learning and consequently the behavior.
The Game Changer
The key element in this is compassion. Both from the therapist, but also from the client towards themselves – a rather revolutionary idea. It’s a compassion directed first and foremost towards your own hurt. In all, the power of compassion is astonishing for anyone who studied the life of Jesus. The amount of which He displayed towards others. It took me a while to understand it. When people were met with this compassionate presence in the midst of their pain, they would experience a miraculous transformation in their psyche, their souls and hearts – they were changed people. Life was never the same.
In IFS therapy, an approach I’m practicing, tapping into the same power within our core self, also known as the higher self, or the image of God within us, opens up an infinite resource of compassion, lovingkindness or positive regard towards ourselves and others. When accessing this resource in a moment of distress, and allowing for the pain to be, while regarding it with compassion, this results in a transformational experience and shields against emotional trauma. The resilience thing happens. This is a sacred space we create in the therapy room, but it’s available for anyone, anywhere really.
Conclusion
To recap, healing happens when we turn towards that traumatic experience, instead of running away from it, and let the feelings and sensations it carries be met with openness and compassion. Often having an outer source of compassion will facilitate the process.
The underpinnings of healing are known in therapy as memory reconsolidation, a process by which we clear the pain receptors or modify the painful memories, as opposed to counteractive change learned on top of that.
Further connecting to the larger context – our goals and dreams, the meaning of life, a greater power, calling, vision – tapping into the core resource of our higher self or the image of God in us allows us to thrive unhindered. And then if further connecting to God – this source of infinite love – we become truly unstoppable.
In uncertain times like these CoViD crisis days, any stressors we used to be able to fend off with reasonable ease, now just seem to throw us out of control. We orbit on the outer edges of our balance, reacting to life, rather than being at the helm of it. How do we re-center? How do we regain our place of calm, confidence and clarity?
I’ve stumbled upon a pretty clever tool I’d like to share – PACE. PACE is an approach developed by clinical psychologist Dan Hughes, PhD. It consists of accessing four personal qualities which allow adults to support a child’s development of their own self-awareness, emotional intelligence and resilience. Over time, and with practice, a child will acquire strong skills to better understand and regulate their emotions.
PACE works remarkably well for adults too. If key to this approach is a deep respect for the child’s own experiences and their inner life, this is true when applying it to oneself as an adult. Appreciating and respecting our own inner experiences and feelings is key. Eventually, it helps one grow from being Reactive to being Receptive in life and relationships, which ties in with Resilience and living with Presence.
Grow from being Reactive to being Receptive in life and relationships. That is Resilience and living with Presence.
PACE stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy. I have spelled it as PAUSING & PLAYFULNESS, ACCEPTANCE, CURIOSITY, EMPATHY.
How does it work? In a situation when you feel you’re getting tense, angry, or uncomfortable PACE yourself by pausing first and getting into a light mood. Or, if you see another person or your child is getting reactive, resistant or angry, you can apply PACE to how you deal with their feelings, instead of reacting. Below, I have quoted the description in working with children, and then applied it to adults.
Pausing & Playfulness – an open, calm, relaxed and engaged attitude
’When children laugh and giggle, they become less defensive and more reflective. Playfulnesscan help keep it all in perspective… It can also diffuse a difficult or tense situation when a parent has a touch of playfulness in his or her discipline.’.
Humor and a good joke can change the atmosphere. You’ve heard “Take your work seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously”. Or take everything with a grain of humor. Before reacting, pause and find some way to get amused at the situation, take a playful stance or say something light. Accessing and maintaining a sense of joy and lightness as you go through the day-to-day life, including any difficult situation, doesn’t mean you make less of it or treat it as unimportant.
Acceptance – unconditionally accepting yourself and how you feel
“Unconditionally accepting a child makes them feel secure, safe and loved. It means actively communicating to the child that you accept the wishes, feelings, thoughts, urges, motives and perceptions that are underneath the outward behavior. It is about accepting, without judgment or evaluation, her inner life. The child’s inner life simply is; it is not right or wrong. The parent may be very firm in limiting behavior while at the same time accepting the motives for the behavior.’
As an adult that means accepting how you feel in that moment, what’s going on inside and that that is ok, as opposed to shutting it down or denying it. For example, the statement “in your anger do not sin” implies accepting your anger, admitting and feeling it, while resisting the urge to act upon it.
Curiosity – without judgement becoming aware of one’s inner life
‘Curiosity involves a quiet, accepting tone that conveys a simple desire to understand thechild: “What do you think was going on? What do you think that was about?”
Imagine saying this to yourself with a calm, kind tone: What is going on? What is that feeling there? Or that thought? What is this all about?
Empathy – compassionate understanding for self and your feelings
’The adult will stay with the child emotionally, providing comfort and support… The adult is also communicating strength, love and commitment, with confidence that sharing the child’sdistress will not be too much. Together they will get through it.’
Extending the same compassion to oneself can be transformational. Typically there is an inner critical part that can fill us with regrets, feelings of guilt and anxiety. Compassionate understanding means being present with oneself when distressed or another when they are distressed, instead of reacting with anger, criticism, self-loathing, correcting or minimizing the unpleasant feelings, etc.
PACE can be used by anyone to validate, explore and understand their own feelings, or those of another adult or child. This approach limits shame & blame, promotes compassion and brings a sense of strength and resilience, as well as support. It can take only a few minutes, but it can make a huge difference. Then one can move into action and problem-solving, as needed.
How often did you rehearse it in your head, but still struggling to get it out? Find your voice, you read in various places. And if you are like many who feel a calling inside to speak but something is holding them back, than you also feel your throat tightening and anxiety kicking in, along with a nagging feeling of angst. Eyes dropping. Heart sinking.
Could there be another way to approach it?
What about looking at it as if there is nothing special about speaking out, nothing out-of-the-ordinary? As if this is just a natural thing you were born to do? What if there was nobody to impress and nobody to disappoint? What if this was simply part of your responsibility in life as a human being, just as showing up on time, or caring for a loved one is?
But I hear that voice of disapproval in my head, you’d say. That voice needs to be heard. Perhaps at some point it had a point. And a purpose. However, it became too loud and too restricting as you grew more aware of who you are and the world around. What if you could have a conversation with that part, validating it and letting it know it served its purpose? And that from now on you can take over and grow out of it.
Understandably, it can be daunting to get out there, because it means exposing oneself. Eyes on me. Making oneself vulnerable to some degree. It’s a risk to take. Nevertheless, there is strength in being vulnerable. And there is gain from taking calculated risks. And there is freedom to be found in finding one’s voice.
Of course, the opposite is true. There are also risks, a sense of powerlessness and bondage to face when holding back. So another question to ask would be: what do I stand to lose if I don’t find my voice and make it audible?
May 2020 be the year when you mark a bold step in being dauntless – fearless and determined – about finding your voice. You only live once. If not now, when?
When you ask people what they want most in life often they will answer, “To be happy…” However, if you’ve heard about the corruptible nature of happiness you wonder: this pursuit of happiness, is it a worthwhile endeavor?
Well. It depends how you pursue it. Make it the goal of your life and it will ever elude you. Why? Such is the nature of happiness.
Slavoj Zizek stated that happiness should be “treated as a byproduct, and a necessary one”, of whatever pursuit in life. If you focus on it you’re lost. One the other hand, if you work on a goal, towards a dream, and it brings you satisfaction, both the process and the anticipation of the outcome, in there lies the holy grail of happiness.
For example think of it as the shadow of an object. First the object must be there, call it objective or goal. And than light must act upon the object. Call it the action. Casting the right light on the right object will give you a distinct, refreshing shadow. Call it the state of happiness.
Happiness is a necessary byproduct of a life’s pursuit.
On the other hand, others believe happiness is a choice. And there is a great deal of truth in this as well. No pursuit is straightforward and any aspect of life, whether career, relationships, health, etc. will have its ups and downs. Yet how you choose to view it will matter. What you choose to zoom on and dwell on will constitute the choice to be happy.
The thing to bear in mind is happiness will never come solely from one successful aspect of life. We are complex human beings. Our lives have many facets. Some are core major facets. Failure to set and accomplish goals successfully in any of them will affect the rest. In fact that is what often leads to imbalances in people, psychologically and existentially. This in turn will often keep one trapped in depressive states, making them loose hope.
In addition, happiness is linked to the capacity to see beyond the current circumstances. In other words, hope plays a key part. Erik Erikson put it this way: “hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.”
Are you happy? As an exercise, make a list of all the important areas of your life and grade your level of success in each of them on a scale from 0 to 10. How do you think that impacts your state of happiness? Choose one aspect that needs working on and think of three things you could do even today to improve it’s grading.
One amazing thing about some of the recent discoveries on neuroscience today is that our thoughts generated by our minds can grow into physical matter in our brain, changing the brain structure.
The other amazing discovery is that we are not built to live in a negative, toxic belief system or mindset, and that by doing so, that creates brain damage or mutations that eventually affect our health and life. As a matter of fact 75% to 98% diseases can now be attributed to toxic thinking.
The third even more thrilling side of this discovery is that, even if you lived in a toxic thought environment you can change it – you can change your brain structure, by starting to change your mind, the way you think. This is mind blowing, but true.
I’m glad science is catching up with the ancient wisdom shouting across the ages: mind over matter, a sound mind in a sound body and such. Building a new thought, it has been discovered, takes a cycle of 21 days of dwelling consistently on it. Repeat it for three such cycles and you’ve got a habit of thinking that way. Did you notice that happening with the negative beliefs and thinking?
The mind consists of our thinking, feeling and deciding! A new mindset, has the power to create a new destiny, one that you really desire and were made to have.
Start the New Year with this one new resolution. And watch it become a truly happy one!
Living in a place like London or anywhere where life is expensive, it’s hard to ignore the topic of money. Most people dream that one day, maybe, they will become financially free, or at least freer. There are various schemes that promise you to get rich quick, or how to make easy money, selling you a high-priced course or training.
Everyone has the freedom, the potential and the responsibility to increase their wealth, create more value and enjoy it. Yet true wealth is not of material nature. Anyone who reached financial wealth will tell you that true wealth is emotional, psychological and spiritual.
Let’s look at the lives of the wealthy. You will see there is a certain quality of life they have. You’ll think it’s because they are wealthy and don’t have any cares. That until you take a closer look at another category of the wealthy and discover that they are miserable and suffer despite all the money they’ve got. They are unhappy. Why? Because being happy is an art they never mastered.
Anyone can make more money, but will that make you happy and fulfilled. I’ll bet you, it won’t. A famous wealthy man wrote:
You can be successful financially, but without fulfillment that would be the ultimate failure.
The big question to ask is: will I commit to BE happy, no matter what happens?
Whatever is in the way of your sense of fulfillment, it’s not the money, it’s not the lacking in life, the deficiencies, the losses, the less. It’s the thoughts you have about these, the beliefs about self and the world that are in the way. When you deal with those, clear them out, than true wealth is yours. And you know what? That in turn will create more abundance in your life, your relationships, your wealth, your health and everywhere you go. It is the best gift you can give yourself and others.
What are some of the things that cause you suffering… limiting you? Look back… they’ve been there for a long time. Feel the pain. Write them down. Are you tired of holding on to that pain? Decide what you want to do with them. Do you need someone to help you navigate towards a new mindset and keep you accountable?
Be dauntless to make a decision today. You only live once.
Imagine having clarity and being able to navigate with confidence the transitional changing situations in your life.
Imagine having support and encouragement as you take steps towards your dream goals.
Imagine leaving discontent, confusion and self-doubt behind and finding new confidence and joy in living.
Welcome to Dauntless Minds – the place where you learn to face and overcome giants and wield a solid foundation for a life of meaning.
There are three questions you have to ask before you launch into hard working.
One. What result am I after? Make a clear picture of it in your mind of the outcome you desire. Envision it. Make it in vivid colours. Let it become very clear.
Two. What is my purpose? What is your why? What drives you? It must be the thing that makes you as excited as a baby with the dawn of every new day. Let it inspire you.
Three. What major action do I need take to get there? Identify the steps, the strategy, the people you need to contact, the research you need to do. At first it might be small steps. Set deadlines to keep yourself accountable. Or better find someone to keep you accountable and support along the way.
These are the ways of the prosperous of all ages, the successful ones, and you can be one of them. Decide to start today and resolve to be dauntless about it.
But, you say, something is keeping me blocked, I’m stuck, can’t get passed it. I get it. And there is always a way out – seek and you will find, knock and it will be open onto you, as Jesus would say. I know it for a fact because I’ve made it my life quest to find a way to help those who are stuck, or who hit rock bottom or a roadblock. And all I can say is, there is hope. Contact me for more.
HEAL & THRIVE
What would it be like to live more vibrantly from the Inside Out?
Any setback can be a trailhead to immense opportunities to heal our past trauma, change how we live in the present, and create a future based on who we truly are rather than who we expected to be.
