Emotional Immunity

Hi there.  I  hope you are looking after yourselves and each other in the post festive period.  It is often a time when we all feel a bit frayed round the edges but it is all about being HOPEFUL and staying CONNECTED.  Some of you may be recovering from 'FAMILY FLU' which is a condition that occurs when we spend time with our family and it causes us a whole host of feelings and can impact on us to such an extent that we feel ill inwardly.  Spending time with family can take us back to childhood stuff and is very often based on a belief that we need to please others, so remember you sometimes need to be true to YOU.  If you follow this path you are likely to maintain a healthy emotional immune system; YOU ARE THE EXPERT ON YOU.  It's important to get the space to work on you and counselling can often help with this.  I see people on a daily basis who are interested in getting their emotional immune system sorted so if you are curious why not contact me to here to see how I can help.

R. Mc

Time Out

Hope your Christmas is going well! Now, back to the recipe!

Just like you would need to monitor how you cook the food over the festive period there is the same process in sorting out your angry triggers. A tried and tested way is a method known as "TIME OUT".  Again its part of my pattern changing course but the basic technique requires you to physically remove yourself in an nonabusive way for a set period of time (usually between half and hour and an hour, that's how long it takes the body to get rid of anger). This time out is intended for you to be alone to calm down and to retrain your thoughts processes. It is not intended as a social time, but as providing you with a space to start understanding yourself and your triggers- R.Mc

Recipe for a Calm & Collected Christmas: Part 2

Part 2 - Reality Checking Is my reality real? What is my evidence that what I'm thinking is actually true? Has it actually happened, is it happening, or am I fantasising?

If it is not true/unhelpful: Stop giving any more of my attention to these thoughts. Become present to my immediate environment, paying attention to, and fully engaging with what I am doing, noticing what is around me. Use posotive self-talk statements to short circuit these negative thought patterns, remembering I want to behave in a caring and responsible manner.

If it is true/helpful: Is thinking about it right going to help the situation in any way? Are my thoughts helping me keep calm, or feeding my anger? Are they helping me to create an appropriate plan of action to deal with the situation constructively.

* It is very important to remember that the only person who can wind you up is you *

These steps make up elements of my 12-session 'Pattern Changing' course and if you would like to learn more, please feel free to get in touch, as I always welcome feedback, and would like to hear how you're getting on! - R.Mc

Recipe for a Calm & Collected Christmas: Part 1

My 4 part guide to dealing with everything Christmas throws at us - R.Mc

Part 1 - The Power of Self Talk 
Identifying any negative thoughts which can maintain or inflate your anger rather than diffuse it. These are often victim statements (again, we'll cover this in greater depth later) - such as 'I can't take this anymore', or catastrophising such as 'what she's done is awful.'

• Take a few minutes to consider and reflect on your negative self-talk, and write them down.
• Once you have identified these thoughts, you can turn this into positive self-talk

Some examples of Negative self-talk (NST) include blaming partner, putting yourself down, and seeing things as worse than they are.
Some examples of Positive self-talk (PST) include taking responsibility, self belief and reality checking (more details on reality checking to follow)

These steps make up elements of my 12-session 'Pattern Changing' course and if you would like to learn more, please feel free to get in touch, as I always welcome feedback, and would like to hear how you're getting on! - R.Mc

Thought for the Day - Seasonal Barometer

The weather can often dictate how we feel, particularly in the cold winter months (it's raining outside my office in Barry!). But here's the good news...

I would invite you to take charge of your emotional health, by creating an 'Emotional Barometer' in the comfort of your own head. It really is very simple - here's my 3 steps to an emotional sunny day.
(Here's a nice musical number to accompany this thought process, you might want to play it in the background... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIqLsGT2wbQ)

Step 1 Pick a number between 1 and 10 (this is called Scalling, but we'll cover more of that later) to highlight how you're feeling - 10 being fantastic, 1 being miserable.

Step 2 Check in with yourself at several points throughout the day. A miserable morning may not mean it's going to be a miserable day. A recognised elevation in your mood, such as moving from a 3 to a 7 can make all the difference to your day, but needs to be acknowledged. 

Step 3 Realise that you have the power to dictating your mood patterns more than you believe. Give it a try, and let me know.

-R.Mc

Getting to grips with Blogging

I am, admittedly, very new to blogging, but I am learning gradually! Please feel free to comment or leave feedback on any of my posts, it would be great to hear from you - R.Mc

My LinkedIn Page

For a bit more information about me and my background, have a look at my LinkedIn Page, where you can also find more contact details - R.Mc

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=153434013&trk=tab_pro