| InterVitalize

The mystery of knowing

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 16:22:49 +0000

A woman feels alone, abandoned and is trying to overcome an addiction issue, her method to calm her anguish.
We do a constellation. What emerges is that in her mother’s womb, there was another baby. This woman used to be a twin.
But it was just her when she was born. How is this possible?
Her mother later confirms that she had a heavy bleeding during the pregnancy, and there was a twin brother whose life ended before it really started.

A man finds himself torn between siblings and parents, always the one maintaining peace, ensuring everyone continues to talk with each other. In the constellation, the father-representative behaves a bit like a child, abdicating the responsibility to his son to resolve the troubled relationships. None of the representatives knew this about the actual father. It takes the client himself a few moments to acknowledge the truth about the father he respects: “Yes, this is how my father behaves, deflecting, not taking ownership”.
The field knew. He didn’t.

A client feels she can’t find the right partner. She also feels somewhat disconnected from her mother and daughter.
In a constellation with her female lineage, we discover the grandmother lost her first love in war and had to marry a man she didn’t love.
She wasn’t too fond of the daughter from this marriage, as she disliked the father.
The stand-in indicated that in her heart-of-hearts she felt neither her daughter nor granddaughter deserved the happiness of a good marriage since she never got one. The client later validates with her mother: yes, grandmother’s first love died in the war.
Later on, the client informed me that she feels her DNA has changed, that the relationship with her daughter has completely turned around. Not only did she influence her own life for the better: it changed her daughter’s, who wasn’t even in the room.

The mystery of knowing: family constellations and the holographic universe

Everyone is lying on the floor. Dead.

A woman I’ve not spoken with beforehand asked for an impromptu constellation about her relationship with her daughter.
But within minutes, all the representatives have collapsed.

One says she is a man, clutching his belly, describing searing pain. So, this is clearly not a miscarriage, which was my first thought.
Another feels she’s in a mass grave, surrounded by bodies.
I’m at a loss. I turn to the client for explanation.

“I’m half Libyan,” she tells me quietly. “Family members from my father’s village were killed in the civil war there.”
Nothing in our brief interaction, not even her name, suggested this history. None of the workshop participants knew.
Yet somehow, the field knew.
The representative feeling the belly wound suddenly connects the dots: “Yes, I feel I am a perpetrator. I was shot in the belly.”

This end scene is what Family Constellations founder Bert Hellinger described in his books about his workshops: perpetrators and victims lying calmly together after death. There is peace between them. Only in life do we feel hate, strife and suffering. All morality – so important in daily life – is meaningless after death. After death, all that remains is unconditional acceptance.

The impossible knowing

If you’ve experienced family constellation work, you know this phenomenon. Representatives access information they couldn’t possibly know through normal means. They feel physical sensations in body parts that mirror the original person’s ailments. They know about deaths, births, traumas, or secrets that have been buried for generations.

If you’re a sceptic and find this hard to believe: do join the next workshop!

How is the impossible possible?

I get asked this question in every workshop. My honest answer is that I don’t know. But I know what I experience, what hundreds of participants have experienced. The knowing is real. The information – whenever we can check the details with living family members – is accurate. The healing that follows from understanding the pattern, closing that open loop, is genuine.

You can decide for yourself how to interpret this, but here’s my two cents.

I’ve been exploring a framework from theoretical physics that offers a fascinating possibility – NOT as THE ANSWER (because we know from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that THE ANSWER is 42😊), but to think about what might be happening when representatives download information from somewhere beyond their individual awareness.

Where does the information come from?

The universe as information

In the 1970s, physicists studying black holes made an interesting discovery. When they calculated how much information a black hole could contain, they found something unexpected: the information wasn’t stored in the black hole’s volume, but on its surface, its two-dimensional boundary, called the event horizon.
All the information about everything that gets sucked into a black hole – stars, planets, light, matter – is in effect encoded on a flat surface, like a cosmic hard drive. This was so counterintuitive that it led to what’s called the “holographic principle.”
The holographic principle suggests that all the information in any volume of space can be encoded on its boundary surface. Just like a hologram on a flat piece of film can contain a three-dimensional image, our three-dimensional universe might be a projection of information encoded on a distant two-dimensional boundary.

This isn’t science fiction. It’s cutting-edge theoretical physics, developed by Nobel Prize-level scientists like Gerard ‘t Hooft and Leonard Susskind, and mathematically proven (in specific contexts) by Juan Maldacena.

A cosmic DVD

Now, here’s where it gets interesting for constellation work.
If all information in the universe is encoded on these boundaries, then in a sense there’s a database on our lives and those of our ancestors. It’s not like it’s sitting somewhere in space, rather, it’s the foundational structure of reality itself. And crucially, this encoding includes time: past, present, future, all encoded together. Time is a concept for humans, existing for us, but the informational field holds it all at the same time.

Imagine a DVD containing an entire movie. The beginning, middle, and end are all present simultaneously on the disc as data. The experience of time – one scene following another – only emerges when you play it. Similarly to that DVD, the boundary encoding might contain all information about spacetime’s entire history “at once.” What we experience as the flow of time is something that emerges from how that information is displayed. We are actors in the movie, not external observers. As such, we experience it one frame at a time.

But what if consciousness under certain conditions can access other parts of the encoded information?

Our antenna

When a representative steps into a constellation, something shifts. When they empty their brain to feel what’s going on in the constellation field, they’re no longer operating purely from their individual consciousness, no longer bound to their personal history and knowledge. They become, in a sense, an antenna tuned to a different frequency.
If the holographic principle is correct, and all information about the universe is encoded on these boundaries, then perhaps what we call “the knowing field” in constellation work is this universal information structure.
The representatives, if they are taking on their role without preconceptions, aren’t creating information or imagining it. They’re downloading it from a source that already contains the complete story of that family system.

How it gets transferred to these representatives is not (yet) clear. Researchers on telepathy and remote viewing are hinting at an electromagnetic field, like Wi-Fi and radio waves. The router or radio can translate these waves to data. Maybe there’s a way that we humans can do the same for – most notably – intense emotions. We all know the stories of close friends or family knowing about a serious accident or death of their loved one.

Of course, sometimes a representative is unable to release their own reality, and they may feel they need to tell their daughter as a stand-in for a mother: “I love you”. However, the field will instantly react to this lack of truth. Eyebrows will be raised by the other participants, and the daughter stand-in will reply without hesitation: “I don’t believe you”.

The information source

A universal source of information would explain several puzzling aspects of constellation work.

Why representatives know things that aren’t (consciously) known by anyone in the room
The information isn’t traveling person-to-person through normal channels. It’s already encoded in the structure of reality itself. Representatives access it directly.

Why physical sensations match the original person
If information about someone’s back pain, belly wound, or illness is part of the encoded data about that person’s existence, a representative tuned to that information can experience it as if it were their own.

Why healing one person affects absent others
If we’re all connected through this fundamental information structure, shifts in one part of the system can propagate through the encoded information to other parts. A toddler whose tantrums stopped after a family constellation on the topic wasn’t in the room, but she’s part of the same encoded family system. Think ripple effect. Although weirdly, in my experience, things happen instantly. An estranged brother called a couple of minutes after a constellation about him was broken up.

Why perpetrators and victims find peace together
At the deepest level of information encoding – beyond the human experience of time and separation – there’s unity. The black hole boundary doesn’t distinguish between “good” and “bad” matter, between “good” and “bad” people. It encodes all of existence equally. What Hellinger observed as peace after death might be representatives accessing this deeper level where separation and the morality of the living dissolve.

Beyond space and time

Carl Jung proposed the concept of the collective unconscious. This is a deeper layer of psyche shared across all humans, containing patterns and archetypes that transcend individual experience. For instance, the recurring symbols and myths across cultures with no contact with each other.
The holographic principle offers a potential physical mechanism for something like the collective unconscious.
If consciousness interfaces with this boundary information structure, then different people in different times and places might be accessing overlapping portions of the same encoded information field.

Elizabeth Gilbert tells us about a book she wanted to write, but life interfered, and she never finished the book, abandoning the idea altogether. A couple of years later, she met up with novelist Ann Patchett, and they found that Ann was about to finish the book that Elizabeth never got to write. Same protagonist, same storyline. The information was out there; the book was just waiting to be written.

Paul McCartney tells us a similar story about “Yesterday”. He was convinced it was an existing song, since it came to him in one finished piece. Only after weeks of searching for the song writer, he realized that he could claim it as his own, even if it didn’t feel like it was.

The information field could explain why Jung’s archetypes appear independently across cultures, why many inventions and breakthroughs come at the same time, by different people, in different places on the globe.
It this how constellation representatives access personal family information without prior knowledge, across continents and generations? They’re not receiving transmissions person-to-person. Instead, they’re reading from the same script, just from different positions in time and space.

Because if this encoding includes time – past, present and future together – then we’re touching on something even more profound. The grandmother’s unlived love, the great-grandfather’s unresolved war trauma, the client’s future healing are potentially all available in the present moment to those who can switch off their pre-frontal cortex and tune in. This may be how we heal from transgenerational trauma.

Sitting with the mystery

I want to be clear: all this is speculative.
There are other explanations out there if you do a Google or Chat GPT search on this form of therapy.
However, physics as it stands now supports the idea of 2D data sources and a holographic universe. Whether this extends to consciousness, family systems, and constellation work is a fascinating possibility for me, rather than proven science.
Isn’t it remarkable that cutting-edge physics has arrived at a view of reality that makes these incredible experiences more conceivable? That the universe might actually work in a way that allows for the seemingly impossible kind of knowing we witness in the constellation workshops?

Bend your brain

When you step into a constellation as a representative, you’re doing something extraordinary.
You’re setting aside your ordinary consciousness: your personal history, your ego, your analytical mind, your preconceived notions of reality as well as your need to know through conventional means. By switching off your brain and just feeling what feel, noticing what’s different, now, here in this field, you’re allowing yourself to become a receiver for information that exists beyond the boundaries of your individual self.

Where exactly does that information come from and does it reach us?
Is it electromagnetic? Is it travelling at the speed of light or is entangled particles? Or does the info all come from the client in the room, and are we just synchronizing to them, as the social animals we are?
Maybe we’re downloading from that universal information field encoded in the fabric of spacetime itself. Maybe consciousness is far more connected to the fundamental structure of our everyday reality on earth than we’ve imagined.

I don’t know with any certainty.
But I believe that when we access “the field,” we’re accessing something as real and physical as gravity or electromagnetic radiation. It’s just operating at a level that physicists have barely begun to describe and understand.
So, I know it’s real. I know when it’s accurate. I know it facilitates profound healing. And the representatives in the field know it too.

The mystery remains. But it’s a mystery that invites us into wonder rather than scepticism, into possibility rather than limitation. Everyone who has worked with me knows that “impossible” is not a word in my dictionary. That is also why I love this work, on the edge of possibility, and find it so immensely interesting.

Rewriting the script

Remember that in Transactional Analysis (see my blog post if you don’t remember), we talk about life scripts – unconscious life plans created in childhood.

As a child, each of us wrote our life script with a pencil.
Most people don’t realize they did before being made aware of it by the question: “how will your life end?”. And more importantly, they don’t know (yet) that they have an eraser and that they still have the pencil to rewrite and redesign their reality tunnel.

Constellation work reveals that we’re not just carrying our own scripts. We’re carrying the scripts of our ancestors, encoded in the family system, passed down through generations. The grandmother who couldn’t have her love. The grandfather who was shot in the belly. The mother who lost one of her babies.
Their stories become part of the information field we’re born into. And without knowing, we may be fighting their fights, living the future they intend for us, resolving their unresolved trauma’s.

When representatives access this information, they’re reading the family script. And when we work with it consciously – when we bring love where there was rejection, acknowledgment where there was ignoring, peace where there was conflict – we’re not just healing the past.

If the above principle is right, we’re changing the encoded information that shapes the present and future.
The client who felt her DNA changed wasn’t speaking metaphorically. Something fundamental shifted in how information flows through her family system. Her daughter felt it without being in the room because they’re part of the same encoded pattern.

You have an eraser. You have a pen. And you have access to a field of information far vaster than your individual mind.

The question isn’t whether this is possible – we see it happen in every constellation.
The question is: what will you do with this extraordinary gift of knowing?

Is hypnosis NLP or is NLP hypnosis?

Afke@bluewin.ch — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 15:53:15 +0000

Is hypnosis NLP? IS NLP HYPNOSIS?

What is the difference?

The short answer is: hypnosis is not a form of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. And NLP can absolutely be used without hypnosis.

NLP is a therapeutic model, a set of techniques and processes that involve communication, problem-solving, and self-development, based on the proven techniques of famous psychiatrists and therapists.
Hypnosis is a form of focused attention that can be used to achieve a desired outcome. It is a natural state, not a therapeutic model and it is by itself not therapeutic in nature, as you can see in stage hypnosis.
While both techniques can be used for self-improvement, they are thus distinct.

So, now that you know this, you can simply leave this page or… maybe you want to hear some fascinating backstory and the dark side of both techniques… in that case, do read on for the long answer!

Let start with the oldest technique, hypnosis. It has been practised for as long as we know, sometimes with enhancers in the form of consciousness expanding drugs, sometimes through ritual trances, like in the sleep temples of the ancient Middle East and Greek civilisations. The Greek word hypnos means sleep. Still today, there are religions that encourage an altered state of mind to enhance healing by laying on hands, swirling, dancing, drumming or speaking in tongues. But hypnosis is a survival skill older than humanity.

hypnosis as a Survival skill

If you have pets, you may have seen them go into a trance. A cat that is zoomed in on a prey will not react to you. A dog that caught an interesting scent will go into slow motion mode and hates to be pulled out of their focused state. An even deeper form of this is a prey animal that will go into a collapse state when it is caught, it feels no pain, and almost stops breathing in preparation for death, as any good nature film will show you. Maybe you once rescued a mouse or bird from your cat, wondering if it was death, only to find it disappeared a couple of minutes later. These states of focused attention are survival skills, either to hunt and eat, or to increase chance of survival or decrease suffering in case survival is not in the cards.

We also have these same skills. When it feels positive, we call it flow, highly focused attention. Or absorption, when we are zoned out in the cinema watching a great movie. It can be a neutral trance, like when we drive a familiar route, to work or back home, and we arrive at our destination without a memory of having made the trip (“highway hypnosis”).
It can also be a survival skill in life-threatening situations, when time slows down and minute details are recorded during a traumatic event. At its worst, it results in a collapse response, which happens to victims who cannot fight or flee out of their situation, for instance to kids or women who are too small to fight their abuser.
In all cases, our rational, critical thinking is less active, our emotional and brain stem functions are more active.

In human unrecorded history, dancing, drumming and singing trances have been used by tribes, and induced trances by shamans, healers, medicine men and women through the ages.
In human recorded history, a deep state of hypnosis was used to operate on people in the age before anaesthetics.
This deep state of bliss, in which the brain’s pain centres are shut down, is called the Esdaile state after Dr James Esdaile. Famously, he removed a 80 pound testicular tumour (elephantiasis) without anaesthesia. Today, it is used for people who are allergic to or too weak for anaesthesia but also for hypno-birthing or dental or other smaller procedures without local anaesthesia. We can also use it to process mental injury, traumatic events, deep grief.

So, a state of trance or hypnosis can be wonderful, enjoyable, healing and helpful, but it can also happen in darker situations, when the person dissociates from their situation and their body. An hypnotic state can be actively encouraged for mental and physical healing and to install positive feelings, but can also be encouraged with darker motives.

Sects will always use emotionally-charged hypnotic language and states to brainwash followers into submission. Or somewhat less evil: marketing and advertising folks are appealing to your emotions, thus by-passing your rational and critical faculties to sell you products.

what is NLP vs hypnosis?

NLP is based on research and study of the famous therapists of 1960’s and 1970’s: Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, Gregory Bateson, Fritz Perls. If you go back to their books and papers, you will find all the ingredients of NLP there. The language patterns, the systemic approach, reframing, states of mind.

NLP, Satir’s family therapy, Perls’ Gestalttherapy are therapeutic models. So unlike the natural, inherent skill of hypnosis we all possess, these are applied processes, or learned techniques. Because the NLP founders, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, studied Milton Erickson’s methods, whose go-to method was conversational hypnosis, a big chunk of NLP concerns itself with hypnotic language patterns and encourages an hypnotic state for better results with the NLP techniques.

Famously, Bandler and Grinder would have the following discussion during their trainings: “Everything is hypnosis!” “No, there really is no such thing as hypnosis!” This discussion is as alive today as it was back then. Because, is there such a thing as hypnosis when it is a natural state happening all the time? Isn’t every emotion a trance-like state?

The merit of NLP lies in the fact that it translated the life-long experience and skills of famous therapists into neatly laid-out and learnable processes, allowing us to become students of these masters. Of course, I still recommend you to read the masters themselves on top of getting your NLP certification, if you are interested in becoming a therapist.

The downside of NLP lies in the fact that the patterns, similarly to the book Influence by Robert Cialdini, explain in perfect detail how to influence others for your own benefit. The yes-set to achieve compliance, how to covertly use hypnotic language in conversations, Bateson’s double bind technique. They can all be used for sales, in marketing and advertisement, and unfortunately also by pick-up “artists” and other people with bad intentions.

To know how you can use these states and techniques for your benefit, and how to ensure they aren’t use on you to your detriment, it’s important to understand them. In a following blog post, I will tell you more about this. Stay tuned!

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Afke@bluewin.ch — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 16:55:10 +0000

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Transactional Analysis is the psychological assessment of communication and the ego states associated with the way someone communicates in each situation. It’s great to have basic understanding of these principles for a number of reasons.

With the use of TA and through understanding your behaviours, you can manipulate a conversation or discussion in your favour, by using the ego state corresponding to the one being used by the other or by using the ego state corresponding to your objective. You can understand your own behaviours and get yourself to the most opportune ego state for the situation. You can understand yourself and resolve your “favourite bad feeling”.

ego statES

This theory by Eric Berne looks at “Parent”, “Child”, and “Adult” ego states (internal parts), which remain active in all humans regardless of age. Berne believed that through identifying which ego-state one uses in a given situation, and by then using another state you can change the course of an interaction.
Also, psychological problems can be indicative if one of the states are overly or unnecessarily used in normal conversation.

The three ego-states Berne’s describes are the Parent, the Adult, and the Child.

The Parent state refers to the unconsciously incorporated parental (or other authority-based) feelings and positions. The Parent state copies how you were parented or guided in childhood and often upholds the guidelines that were set then, with learned behaviours. This Parent state can be Critical or Nurturing.

The Adult state refers to here-and-now, the current reality with rational and logical thought processes. The Adult can be assertive and practical but is rarely aggressive. Steady speech, good verbalization and relaxed attitude will often indicate the presence of the Adult part.

The Child state is natural and sometimes adaptive or rebellious, exhibiting natural instinctual drives and basic needs, including extreme happiness or anger, feeling as if things are “unfair”, being in need of extra interaction to console, and exaggerated emotions in comparison to ‘normal’ adult behaviour.
The Child ego-state is considered to be what one “feels” naturally inclined to do or behave in the Natural or Free Child. If the Child ego state responds to Parent demands in a Compliant or Rebellious way, then we talk about the two forms of the Adaptive Child.

LEVELS OF PROBLEM SOLVING

When we feel stuck or stressed, we can get lost in problems. We call this problem oriented. Often you are so focused on the problem at hand, that it’s difficult to see your way out. You cannot see the forest for the trees. When you get yourself out of the limited focus into the here and now, into your Adult self, you move into a situation oriented problem solving so you can assess the different points of view and objectives. If you take an even wider point of view, you will see the underlying support structures and you can work on the “how”: you become solutions oriented. Next step up is the “what”: you start to work goal oriented.

If you’re an engineer who has to make a road from A to B, through a swamp, over a river and across a mountain pass, you know that each of these problems are simply challenges for which there are solutions. The goal of connecting A to B is clear, the rest is work. When you orient yourself to the bigger goal, problems become puzzles to resolve.

ANALYSIS OF TRANSACTIONS

When we use the ego states to analyse transactions – the interactions between two people – they can be mapped out like this:

Example: A friend shouts grumpily, “I’m hungry!” from their Child ego state and invites me to a Child-like reaction like: “Me too! Let’s quickly find some snacks!” or a Parent-like reaction like: “Come on now, don’t be childish, we can eat after this”.
Both reactions are called complimentary transactions.

If I decide to answer from my Adult ego state, I will cross their Child state and appeal to my friend’s Adult state instead: “Ok, so where would you like to go to get something to eat?” With this question I invite my hungry friend to decide what they want to do, putting them back in their autonomy and accountability for their own state. This is called a crossed transaction. When you answer from your Adult state, this often works great to get the other person back in their Adult state as well.

A crossed transaction in the opposite direction though may lead to a breakdown in communication, sometimes followed by conflict. For example, your spouse in their Adult state may appeal to your Adult, asking “Have you seen my coat?” But your Child ego state may instead respond to the Parent in your spouse by replying angrily: “You always blame me for everything!” Or your Parent state may respond to your spouse’s Child state by replying in a condescending tone: “How many times do I have to tell you to pay attention to where you leave your belongings?”

Just by knowing about ego states, you can change yourself. For example, if you notice that you are thinking and feeling like a child (anxious, helpless, sad, angry, etc.), you might opt for a new decision. For example with this question: “How would I react, if I had access to my Adult ego state?” You can then decide to act on this. This will bring you closer to the ultimate goal of Transactional Analysis: autonomy.

SCRIPTS

A script can be described as an unconscious life plan or as a life plan that you unconsciously created. If it remains unconscious, you may be aiming for a negative, neutral or positive final payoff. You can understand the term final payoff in the sense of how your life will run and what it will feel like when you do a recap.

The Transactional Analysis life script arises in the childhood of a human being. In that period we develop our basic views of the world and the foundation of our adult life. We make our earliest decisions when we can not even speak yet, solely on our experiences and associated feelings. We create our script at a young age as a survival strategy. We need it as a child to structure and deal with our experiences, time, space, relationships, and boundaries to survive in the environment we find ourselves in.

A person with a winning life script achieves his/her goal and feels good about it. A person wanting to become wealthy, has a winning script when they have a lot of money and can enjoy life. But a winner can also be a non-possessing traveller – as long as it feels like happiness to them. Winning in Transactional Analysis implies personal success to your own standards.

A person with a non-winning script neither makes much progress nor much of a loss. These people take no risks. Maybe such people ask themselves this question at the end of their lives: “Could I have done more with my life? Well … it was not that bad. “

Someone has a losing script when they don’t reach their goals. It does not necessarily depend on the performance, but on the comfort or attitude towards what has been reached throughout their life. If a person wanting to become rich stays poor, they feel they have failed. Or somebody who became rich but suffers from the wealth, maybe in the form of never having enough money despite all the millions, or at the cost of extreme loneliness and addictions.

As a child, each of us wrote our life script with a pencil. Most people do not know yet they have an eraser and that they still have the pen. Feel free to erase and rewrite your script. What should the third, fourth and last act look like?

The life positions in the script theory consist of “You” and “I” and of “OK” and “Not OK” which result in four (preferred) life positions, or – somewhat less extreme – four ego state positions.

Example: Mary arrives at a seminar. Some other attendees are already in the room. Her first thoughts may vary according to the four basic life positions she may have.

“I’m curious about what this group will bring to the table.” (+/+)
“Weird people sitting in the room.” (+/-)
“They are all more qualified than I am.” (-/+)
“This won’t turn out good for any of us.” (-/-) (a massive feeling of desperation will spread)

The first + or – stands for your own basic position, the second sign stands for the other person, or “the group”.

Our own basic position usually stems from the “Injunctions”, the unspoken pre-verbal beliefs based on parental and authority messages in our childhood. A – position can be: “I don’t matter”, “I am not good enough”, or “I can never win”, stemming from Injunctions like: “Don’t have needs”, “Don’t belong”, or “Don’t have success”.

INJUNCTIONS

Common Injunctions are:

“Don’t exist” (our life would have been better without you),
“Don’t be a child” (you are the oldest, grow up already),
“Don’t be you” (or: your gender, preferences),
“Don’t grow up” (remain our little baby girl/boy),
“Don’t be successful” (better at sports, more intelligent, …),
“Do nothing” (you will fail, cause or have an accident),
“Don’t have needs” (our needs will always outweigh yours),
“Do not be important” (your opinion doesn’t count, we’ll decide),
“Don’t belong” (you are a different class, religion, these are not our people)
“Don’t trust” (keep your distance, do not connect, or show affection)
“Don’t feel” (or feel what I feel, not what you feel)
“Don’t think” (or think what I think, not what you think)
“Don’t be normal / healthy” (make sure you get (our) attention by being mentally or physically unstable)

DRIVERS

Counter Injunctions are first the child’s, and, as adult, the internal Critical Parent’s attempt to cope with the destructive Injunctions.

They can be brought down to five core “Driver” messages which turn our feeling of “I am not OK” into an “I am OK if…”:

“Be perfect” – only complete detailed perfection at work, at home, in appearance
“Please others” – always keep others happy, even at your own expense
“Hurry up” – grow up fast, skip steps, learn, move, work, talk fast
“Try hard” – have a go, but get frustrated and give up, repeat but never complete
“Be strong” – do not ask for help, tough it out, manage the crises without emotion

(Counter) Injunctions or Drivers are unconsciously transferred by the parents or other attachment figures to the child and will thus be passed on from generation to generation unless the person resolves their life script patterns. They are lived by example but also often transmitted in words once the child can understand them.

Example: Mum told you: “You are a good kid, [because] you worked so hard to get good grades at school”, which is an “You are OK, if…” message.
According to your personality and circumstances, you may translate this message in a “Try Hard” (the hours are more important than the results), a “Be perfect” (flawless results matter most), a “Be strong” (I did this all on my own), or a “Please others” (mummy is so happy if I do this) driver.

The Drivers keep you afloat when the Injunctions are trying to pull you down, as illustrated in the following picture.

STROKES

Whenever you can’t live up to your Driver(s) you will experience negative feelings, self-doubt or unworthiness. We often attempt to recover from such feelings in transactions with others, by seeking out so-called “Strokes”. Strokes are positive or negative recognitions by others, in verbal, gestural or facial expressions.

Strokes can be unconditional and positive: “I love you, because you are you.”.
Or conditional and positive: “You are a great presenter!”.
A Stroke can be conditional and negative: “Wow, you are in a foul mood today!”.
Or unconditional and negative: “You are no good”.

We do not only receive Strokes, but we also give them.

What is your position in giving and receiving Strokes?
Do you give more positive than negative ones? More unconditional than conditional ones? Do you carefully consider your words when you give feedback or a compliment? Do you sometimes decide to refrain from giving negative feedback? Are you aware of (the impact of) your facial expression or gestures in interactions?
Do you accept positive Strokes (“Wow, thank you for that compliment!”)? Do you feel free to refuse negative Strokes (“Thanks for your opinion, but I love this shirt.”)? Are you able to ask for a Stroke when you need one (“Can I get a hug please?”)?

We all have healthy and unhealthy attitudes in our interactions; however, this is not necessarily aligned with what feels good and familiar to us. People who grew up on mostly positive Strokes have a heating system switched on that ensures they get into action to get more warmth whenever they grow a bit cold. Others received mostly negative Strokes in their childhood and are used to refrigerator temperatures. To them, warmth will feel like the food may go bad and they will not naturally accept positive Strokes. If you grew up in a fridge system, people with a heating system may seem too soft or arrogant or full of toxic positivity. And people who grew up in a hot tub, may feel that people with a cooling system are too harsh or demeaning themselves and others with toxic negativity. Awareness of the temperature in your system is the first step towards a more balanced Stroke system, where you can steer away from people pleasing or dismissing the hard feelings if you’re verging on toxic positivity and away from energy-draining critical commentary if you’re leaning towards toxic negativity.

CHANGING YOUR SCRIPT

If you feel your life script is not as helpful or positive as it might be, you can change it. Changing your script is a learning curve which starts with awareness.

Awareness will help you to hear and accept a different type of Strokes: take a moment to let compliments sink in, notice it when someone gives you a thumbs up and start using more, preferably unconditional, compliments or positive gestures yourself. If you tend to ignore hard feelings or dissatisfaction in yourself or others, start giving those feelings space in your life: we wouldn’t know there’s light without darkness. Not all difficult feedback is bad for you, it can help you grow.

Awareness will also help you to change your Drivers by changing your thoughts. Turning Drivers (Critical Parent) into Allowers (Nurturing Parent) starts by showing yourself empathy for the Child within you.
“I am also OK if I am not perfect. I know that I learn from my mistakes.”
“I am also OK if I can’t please everyone, I can please myself with self-care.”
“I am also OK if I don’t hurry through this, I can take my time and relax.”
“I am also OK if I don’t try this hard and only take on what I am able to finish.”
“I am also OK if I am not strong and show my feelings and my vulnerability.”

A second step is to move towards the Injunctions, allowing yourself to take new decisions around these pre-verbal messages.
If you feel your parents love you most if you “Don’t grow up”, reassess how much ownership you would like to take for your life decisions and try something new, a challenging Adult responsibility. See if you can feel safe joining a sports or hobby club with people with the same interests as you if you have a “Don’t belong” or a “Don’t”. Experiment with public speaking, for instance by joining Toastmasters, if you have a “Don’t be important”. Start writing “Morning Pages”, especially if you have a “Don’t feel” or “Don’t exist” or “Don’t think”, the stream of consciousness writing will give you confidence to be who you are and create magnificent changes in your life without you even putting much effort in. With a “Don’t have success”, it can be good to practice celebrating some small successes and achievements with friends and consciously experience the unfamiliar, often uncomfortable feelings that come with celebrating yourself, possibly for the first time ever.

PRIMARY & SECUNDARY FEELINGS

TA recognizes five big emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger and lust or longing. Other schools will add surprise, anticipation, trust, and disgust to this. Some of these are somewhat mixed feelings, like surprise is a mixture of joy and shock (fear). Disgust would belong to the bodily experiences, as an opposite of lust or longing.

Primary feelings are authentic, spontaneous, direct reactions to what is happening in the here and now. If a family member dies and you are sad, this is the reaction we expect. If someone attacks you with a knife and you get scared and run away, this is an adequate reaction to the situation. If you get angry in that situation because you feel the attacker is crossing your boundaries, this can also be an adequate reaction, provided you are able to defend yourself well. You can recognize primary feelings by the fact that they help resolve the problem, the pain, or the situation: you will feel lighter afterwards even if they are hard to experience in the moment.

Secondary or substitute feelings, however, are the feelings we show to the world because as a child we learned that the feeling we really feel is not acceptable. These feelings often come up in stressful situations but do nothing to resolve the problem and do not help you to feel lighter.

Example: Many boys got told “boys don’t cry” and rather than showing sadness, they learned to show anger. When they grow up and their wife tells them she wants a divorce, rather than feeling the sadness of having lost in love or the fear of losing custody over their children, these men will turn to anger, defending their boundaries being crossed, even though there’s nothing they can do about their wife’s decision.

Example: Many girls got told “anger makes you ugly” and rather than showing anger, they learned to show tears. When they grow up and their boundaries get crossed by other people, these women will not stand up for themselves, but rather start to cry as if they are helpless little girls. If their counterpart is sensitive to tears, this may work sometimes, but it is a rather manipulative way (see further below under GAMES).

Even if this may sound like we do this intentionally, that is normally not the case. We learned so well to hide our real feelings in our childhood, that we aren’t even aware that we put anger over fear, or sadness over anger. It is a survival mechanism we used because we needed the attention from our parents. The substitute emotion was getting us that, while our real emotion was clearly met with disapproval, disgust, or denial. For instance, with a curt “No, you are fine.” when we showed sadness, or a “You must be tired, let’s put you to bed.” when we were screaming with frustration and anger.

In other people, we usually know when they show us substitute feelings.
Your colleague who is shouting with rage while not much has happened and you find yourself shaking your head in surprise. That woman who is immediately crying at every little hiccup and you notice you feel no empathy for her but rather exasperation. The happy butterfly who pretends that everything is fine, even though she has just been diagnosed with a potentially terminal disease.
We immediately know something doesn’t add up, and the easiest way to validate if they are indeed showing you substitute emotions rather than their real feelings, is to see if you feel empathy. If you can honestly say: “Yes, I understand you are angry/sad/joyful/fearful because of what happened here”, then they are likely experiencing primary emotions, suitable to the situation. If you cannot feel empathy and they cannot quite explain to you why their emotion is right for the situation, then they probably experience substitute or secondary emotions, and they are hiding the real emotion from you.

THE DRAMA TRIANGLE

Now, why is this important? Because denying my real emotions causes me to identify with a role that is not suitable for the situation.

I can feel victimized, even though I could have set my boundaries had I allowed myself to become angry. As a Victim, I take on the role of “I am not OK”.
I can take on the role of Persecutor and get angry at someone, even if I could have admitted I was feeling sad because I lacked their support. My stance is “You are not OK, I don’t trust you”.
Or I can turn to a Rescuer role, and “Be Strong” while in fact I need help myself, which also states: “I am OK, you are not OK, let me save you”.

Whenever I go into one of these roles, I am no longer in my Adult ego position. My transactions have other, hidden motives: I do not want you to find out how I really feel, and I want to release some of the internal stress caused by my real emotions even though I would never acknowledge even to myself what I truly feel. In terms of Carl Jung: I don’t want anybody to see my Shadow Self, the unaccepted and unacceptable monster within.

If you look back at the “Transactions” picture above, in the last column you will find the mapping of transactions with an ulterior motive where the social interaction deviates from the psychological interaction. As mentioned, this happens when we are unable or unwilling to express our authentic feelings about a certain situation.

Usually, we invite a counterpart to play a Game, we invite someone else to an interaction that causes us to end up in our favourite bad feeling (racket feeling), one we have known all our lives. Thus, it confirms our familiar, comfortable world view.

When we play Games, we use an overt Transaction, that looks like an Adult to Adult conversation, while the hidden appeal on a psychological level is actually a Parent-Child transaction. Underneath the surface, we move through what Stephen Karpman calls the Drama triangle of Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim, switching roles along the way to get to our favourite bad feeling. The role switch is called the Payoff.

GAMES

Games follow a standard pattern or process. Situations and participants change, but the pattern stays the same. They are played at an unconscious level, and end with a surprise switch and a payoff in which the participants experience negative feelings, their so-called racket or favourite bad feeling.
Fights about who is guilty, who started doing what or who is right, are almost always games. They do not resolve anything for the future and keep us feeling bad.

The rules of Games

The hook is an attractive offer to an interaction, while disguising the trap (game invitation or laying out the bait);
The gimmick, interest from other person (acceptance of the bait or hook);
The response, harmless reactions, and exchange of courtesies;
The switch, the Role reversal by the inviting party;
Crossup, the moment of surprise or perplexity on the side of the other person;
Payoff, bad feelings for both and a relationship crisis.

An example is a game called “Yes, but” (or, if it concerns uninvited advice started by the other party: “Why don’t you?”).
Someone asks for advice on how to handle a certain situation. You reply with what you would do if you were them. Your counterpart tells you that they unfortunately cannot do this, what should they do instead? You give another suggestion. They have a reason why this wouldn’t work. You find yourself giving yet another advice. They immediately tell you why this is no good. You are now squarely seated in the Rescuer position, while they have taken on the Victim role. This Game could go on for another few rounds till your Victim suddenly turns into a Persecutor and says: “I knew I shouldn’t have come to you for this, you never help me!” And you switch to feeling like a Victim, because why are you suddenly falsely accused?

A Victim Game that is often played is “If it weren’t for you (I would…)” or the Rescuer Game “I am only trying to help you”, both of which have the intention of making the other party feel guilty, while the instigator remains blameless or innocent. Typical Persecutor gaslighting Games like: “See what you made me do” or “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”, put the blame and flaws on the Victim/Rescuer role-player.

“Why does this always happen to me?” and “Kick me!” are two games that use self-fulfilling prophecies as basis: mess up in the preparation or execution and then enjoy being the Victim. The other party or the situation is invited into the role of Persecutor due to your own failing to set yourself up for success. Clumsy or unorganised people manage to get themselves a lot of help by acting this way.

In the Game “Harried” people load more and more work on themselves, as if no one else can do these jobs (Rescuer) and finally they explode in anger that no one helps them (Persecutor) or collapse in a burn-out (Victim).

It would lead too far to mention all possible Games, but from the rules and the fact that you end up feeling bad after an interaction, you will know a game has been played, unconsciously started by you yourself or your counterpart.

When you are aware someone is inviting you to a game, say, one you’ve played before and you realize both of you will end up feeling bad, you can intervene. Stay firmly in the here and now, in your Adult position and ask for instance: “What do you need from me?” Ensure your tone of voice is right. And ask yourself: “What do I want right now?” Ensure you stick to your own goals and communicate those. This could be: “I feel like we are both exhausted right now, how about a hug?”

In the next picture you’ll find some more suggestions for escape routes.

CONCLUSION

Healthy behaviour implies that we each take responsibility for own role in the relationships we have and that we also regard the other as an adult and treat them as such (even if they are in fact a child). Stay in the position of I am OK, you are OK.

Making the other feel small by rescuing or persecuting them or making ourselves feel small by victimization is an open invitation to an unhealthy and upsetting Game.

A joyful Child state is wonderful when you are out dancing at a party and the Parent state is very useful if you have kids at home that need to be nurtured; there’s a time and place for all ego states. Awareness of the state you are in and whether it is useful for the situation is key.

Your challenge is to become aware of your favourite position and your favourite bad feeling so you can stop the interaction before it goes too far. Keep your eye on the overall goal of staying in your rational, Adult ego state whenever you are invited to a game, so you do not let yourself be carried away into Drama Triangle interactions.

Trauma Toolkit

Afke@bluewin.ch — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 17:06:36 +0000

TRAUMA TOOLKIT

INTRODUCTION

We used to think that only horrific events would cause trauma. The soldier or civilian who witnessed death and destruction in war zones. A traffic accident in which people were killed in front of your eyes. These days we know better.

Research has shown that many people get traumatized in childhood, because there was a lack of connection and attachment to the parents. Relationship trauma can even have a worse impact on mental health than physical or sexual abuse. The CDC- Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (“ACE”) Study (1995-1997) showed that almost two-thirds of study participants had at least one ACE, while over 20% reported three or more ACEs. The questionnaire concerns childhood abuse, neglect and household dysfunction, which proves to lead to an increase in physical and mental health challenges as well as a decrease in social success. For more information, please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html

INDICATIONS OF TRAUMA

Hyper-arousal: increased heart rate, rapid or difficulty breathing, cold sweats, tingling, muscular tension
Constriction in body and narrowing of perceptions
Dissociation, mental blankness, spaced-out feelings
Denial, amnesia or forgetfulness
Feelings of helplessness, immobility and freezing, unable to take action
Hyper vigilance or hyperactivity
Intrusive imagery or flashbacks
Extreme sensitivity to light and sound
Exaggerated emotional and startle responses
Nightmares and night terrors or insomnia
Abrupt mood swings: rage or temper tantrums, frequent anger or crying
Shame and lack of self-worth, excessive shyness, or self-mutilation
Reduced ability to deal with stress or even panic attacks, anxiety, or phobias
Avoidance: places, moments, activities, memories, or people
Attraction to dangerous situations
Addictions: overeating, drinking, smoking, drugs, etc.
Inability to love, nurture or bond with other individuals
Fear of dying or having a shortened life
Diminished emotional responses
Chronic fatigue or very low physical energy
Psychosomatic illnesses: headaches, migraines, neck and back problems, chronic pain, asthma, skin disorders, digestive or immune system problems
Depression and feelings of impending doom
Feelings of detachment, alienation, and isolation (living dead syndrome)
Re-enactment: getting yourself in the same type of troubles over and over

Below I provide some resources, starting with personal practices to calm your mind, followed by healing practices for which you will need a qualified professional.

Open focus

Change your state to open focus rather than closed focus (that deck chair on the beach rather than the tiger in the bush focus) using a “space between” meditation.
Its power & effectiveness is scientifically proven by Dr Les Fehmi from Princeton. https://openfocus.com/about-us/lester-fehmi/
I recommend Elsie’s meditation for this.

Bi-lateral stimulation

Pass a bottle or ball from the right hand to the left hand in the middle, right in front of your core, then swing your left arm far left, back to the middle, pass the bottle to your right, swing your right arm far right. You can follow the bottle with your eyes, while keeping your head still. Works well to engage your brain through cravings for your addictions. Just keep going till you feel OK again. http://bit.ly/MelissaTiersBilateral

Stop The World: peripheral vision training

Focus and keep your eyes steady on one spot, while gradually expanding your peripheral view till you can almost look behind you.
Imagine going from focusing on the tiger in the shrubs to the relaxed stare from your deck chair on the beach. A very useful, 30 second practice for an office setting.
This practice is a.o. used by martial arts practitioners to increase their awareness skills and is also useful to train your meditation skills, with all its health benefits.

Psy-Tap or Jin Shin Jyutsu

Acupressure points feed back information to the brain, thus impacting your health or emotions. To release stress, worry & tension: clench your dominant hand tightly around your non-dominant thumb. Babies know how to use this self-soothing method! J
If you sense you may have a panic attack: clench your index & middle finger together with the other hand, hard.
In both cases: make sure you put pressure on the tip of the fingers or thumb.
For anger: pull your little finger out so you cannot make a fist and relax your lower jaw.

Loving-kindness meditation & inner smile!

Positive Psychologists found that just 10 minutes loving-kindness meditation a day for 8 weeks will visibly change your brain, as demonstrated by brain scans.
Start with the Self Love meditation via http://bit.ly/LoveKindMeditation
Or check out Tara Brach https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/

Heart breathing

When you think of someone who or some situation that really annoys you, check in with yourself what you’d want to say or do. Then put your hand on your heart & breathe into your heart, while thinking of someone you love dearly, or imagine stroking your pet. Allow for three, four deep outbreaths, while keeping that image.
Then, test again: how do you feel now about this person or situation?
For more info on the power of the heart: https://www.heartmath.org/

Breathing practices

Breathing affects your body posture, body posture affects your emotional state.
The main point is that you slow down your breathing & your heart rate. Belly out as you breathe in, belly in as you breathe out. 7 counts in, 11 counts out. Relax your jaw, let your lower jaw hang, relax your face muscle & focus on your breath. Imagine your shoulder blades opening like two big sliding doors, imagine what material these doors are under your hands, what sound they make as they open up. Check out pranayama breathing techniques or https://www.somabreath.com/

Square breathing: 4 counts in, 4 counts hold, 4 counts out, 4 counts hold & repeat.
Better sleep breathing: 4 counts in, 7 counts hold, 8 counts out, repeat as long as feels good. Or use the Pranayama app on your phone or tablet.
Yoga practice: e.g alternate nostril breathing (see youtube) or slow breathing cycling through the chakra’s, down the front on the outbreath & up the back on the inbreath.

Therapeutic yoga or other bilateral activities

When done with intention, calling up the emotions you are experiencing and then moving your body, doing yoga, spinning, running, dancing, drumming, playing the piano, skating, … you will be able to gradually work through the emotional overload. Translate the anger, fear, sadness into movement and your brain will be enabled to process the emotions. Run it out, dance and sing it out, and you will feel better.

Shaking it out

In the wild, when a prey animal gets chased, caught, but makes a miraculous escape, you’ll see them shake afterwards. They’re shaking out the stress & adrenaline. Peter Levine’s method (see further below) shows we should do the same… rather than develop PTSD. An easy way is to waggle your knees very quickly, alternately, or together, shaking the muscles in the upper legs and buttocks, while imaging all tension flow through your heels or soles of your feet. Or stomp your feet on the ground, like in tribal dancing, using some intense drumming music. Chinese practices, dance therapy, bio-energetics all advise to shake the body until it naturally falls still. You may want to find a qualified professional to work with.

EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique

EFT, or tapping, lets you tap on acupressure points to release what you no longer want & rewire into what you do want. It also works for phobias and pain. Make sure to connect with the feeling or memory you want to change and keep going till you reach 0 or 1 on the scale 0 – 10! In chronological order, here are 3 guru’s. www.tfttapping.com, www.emofree.com, www.fastereft.com. The last link will get you a free video training course upon subscription. Or check out Brad Yates on YouTube for guided tapping. You may want to find a qualified professional to work with.

Havening

This is a bazooka method that you can do on yourself. It’s bi-lateral stimulation to create positive brainwaves and dissolve the negative ones. It’s been demonstrated to work for depression, for PTSD, being diagnosed with a chronic illness, abuse trauma, losing a loved one. So, use it. For yourself, a parent or a partner, when dealing with grief. For your teenager, when they go through a break-up with their first love. Or for your kid, after a bad nightmare.
Check out the YouTube video by Paul McKenna. http://bit.ly/HaveningPmcK
You may want to find a qualified professional to work with.

Somatic Experiencing

This body-oriented approach is the brain child of trauma specialist Dr Peter Levine – I recommend his book “Waking the Tiger – Healing Trauma”. This method allows you to move beyond trauma by engaging the bodily process that should have happened, rather than merely reliving what happened. This leading-edge method is based on the research findings that each organ of the body, including the brain, speaks its own “thoughts,” “feelings,” and “promptings,” and listens to those of all the others. Find a qualified professional to work with.

13. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

In this therapy the patient briefly focuses on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion of the trauma. EMDR is based on the same principles as the Havening and Bi-lateral Stimulation above, while also in yoga and the therapy called Brainspotting eye roll practices are used. Our eyes as the windows to our soul. Find a qualified professional to work with.

Reverse the memories

The NLP method for trauma release, based on the fast phobia cure, has been tested in various fields including hypnosis, with slight differences in the process, and has scientifically been proven effective. The trauma comes from the emotions which arise after the experience, and when the story line is reversed the neurologic processes are turned around so that the emotions come first and then the experience. This alters the pathways so that the trauma can no longer keep its structure. Find a qualified professional to work with.

MDMA, psilocybin, ayahuasca

Clinical trials have now shown that psychedelics used in a carefully prescribed and monitored settings can induce an experience that is medically safe and that provokes profound, durable psychological and behavioral change. Each psychedelic drug has different effects and is best used for different types of trauma. Françoise Bourzat is a resource to look up for more information. Find a qualified professional to work with.

Compassionate Inquiry

Compassionate Inquiry is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by trauma specialist Dr Gabor Maté to reveal what lies beneath the appearance we present to the world. Client and therapist unveil the level of consciousness, mental climate, hidden assumptions, implicit memories and body states that form the real message that our words both express and conceal. Through Compassionate Inquiry, the client can recognize the unconscious dynamics that run their lives and how to liberate themselves from them. Find a qualified professional to work with.

Polyvagal theory

The vagus nerve runs from our head to our heart and gut. The vagus nerve serves the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the calming aspect of our nervous system mechanics. Dr Stephen Porges researched and developed the polyvagal theory, showing how the freeze, fight, flight responses can be calmed into a sense of safety through practices to strengthen the vagus nerve engagement and response. Find a qualified professional to work with.

IN CONCLUSION

Do you think you carry trauma from a particular period in your life?

For any treatment to work, it is essential you have a base to start from. This means that if you are so traumatized that you feel you are in continuous stress, panic or overwhelm, and you can no longer feel the CORE YOU inside of you that wasn’t touched by all that happened, then you certainly need a trauma-informed therapist before you start to do any work. Because if you are in free fall, you need a parachute first. For instance, it is known that EMDR may cause overwhelm and re-traumatization if not done properly and with caution. So, creating that parachute is the first thing that needs to happen, and I am not explaining methods to do that in this overview. So, find a qualified professional to work with if you feel your parachute is not functioning.

These different practices are very powerful but not everything works equally well for everyone. For instance, if you are not a very visual person but sensitive to sound, you may want to work with sound therapy rather than EMDR.

While the list above is not complete, please be aware that the promise of healing trauma is sometimes given without scientific research backing up the method.
Also, two important treatment methods, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Psychoanalysis, are shown to have a negative effect on trauma. You cannot think your way out of trauma is the conclusion of the research.
Therefore, do your own research on Google Scholar before dipping your traumatized toe in.

Explaining all the ins & outs of how de-traumatization works stretches too far for this e-book, but if you’d like to go over & beyond, into lasting life changes, you’re very welcome to give me a call or drop me a note for a free consultation.

Have some of these ideas & practices here resonated with you?
Then simply contact me by mail or via this site!

Release the energy drainers or negative impacts from bad memories & traumatic experiences.
Train your positive, resilient states to become more constant, more beautiful, more powerful.
Develop more options, more ways of reacting to situations or people, a sense of freedom in previously difficult situations.
The neurological re-imprinting will generalize itself to improve your life in all areas, work, relationships, privately, as your neurology absorbs the learnings.

In the meantime…… use these resources to start with your self-healing!

Why therapy doesn’t work – part 2

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 10:40:01 +0000

Why therapy doesn’t work

Part 2 What if you’re smarter than your therapist?

As mentioned in the last blog post, we love to think that we’re all rational beings and that we can resolve our problems with rational methods. There, I talked about your therapist making this common mistake. Here, I will discuss what happens if you yourself make this mistake of depending on your rational (defense) systems.

Rather than relying on our first brain, the gut, or our second brain, the heart, we too often depend on the evolutionary latest brain to lead our life, and then specifically on the neocortex or thinking brain.

The Cartesian concept of “I think, therefore I am” is widespread in our Western culture.

As if cut off from the neck down, we let our mind lead us through life, rather than allowing our passion and drive, heart and gut, instruct our brain cells on how to make our essential values and core purpose happen. What then happens is that, over time, we start to feel more and more disconnected. Disconnected from our life, from our deep wants and needs, from others. We might start to feel like frauds, dissatisfied with ourselves, by lack of a valid expression of who we are.

So, we have tendency to focus on the brain, the power of the mind. But what is the power of our emotions and why should we care about them?

Science shows us that our feelings, our emotions find their base in the cellular connection by peptides, flowing throughout our body, including our brains. These peptides are also drivers in our memory processes – which happen not only in the mind, but also in the cells, the so-called cellular memory.

Our most impactful memories are highly emotional. A release of the same type of molecules in the body will trigger those memories, consciously or unconsciously, with the limbic system overflowing with emotions, blocking access to our rational brains. You may not notice when it happens to you, but you will have noticed a colleague, friend or family member reacting emotionally, out of proportion to the event at hand: that’s the rubber band between emotion and memory. Instead of only reacting to the event itself, the molecules of emotion surging through their body are triggering cellular memory of past events, like an emotional tsunami.

On the other hand, if the level of emotion is appropriate to the event at hand, it allows us to set boundaries, to communicate with passion and engage our colleagues, to relish a good time with friends or to process grief.

Let’s go for a practical example. On the molecular level you might say that your peptides tell you that you’re extremely happy and satisfied when you work on, say, implementing change projects in your organisation, while instead you’re kept busy with managing the politics and defining the strategic best way to keep your team afloat, causing a disconnect, leaving you feeling unfulfilled. In that case, your willpower is overpowering your passion and drive.

All the while the body knows what you really want…

Now, depending on your character – and many of my clients have very strong characters – the sheer power of your will, of your mind may drive you all the way to burn-out, or to serious illnesses. Because our immune system is heavily impacted by these peptides, these molecules of emotion.

So, let’s go back to our topic. Say that at some stage, you’ve given yourself a moment to realize you better get yourself out of this pit you’re currently in and you’re going to see a therapist.
Now comes the tricky part.

Do you trust your therapist enough to let them guide you?

You, who are always in control, have to hand over your mainframe to a therapist and follow his or her lead… Oy.
You, proud of your intellect, have to go along with a strenuous series of questions, and 10 minutes before the therapist is finally getting there, you’ve already deduced where they’re going. And, 9 minutes 45 seconds ago, you – or rather: your impeccable brain – already decided what your clever evasion manoeuvre will be. Because our brain loves to keep status quo, or you wouldn’t be in this pit. If we have proven strategies of survival, why change? So yes, chances are your executive brain is heading straight for the evasion techniques.

In addition, we all suffer from confirmation and attentional biases and reality tunnels leading to a congruent, consistent perspective on our problems. Even if we’re willing to put ourselves and our experiences in a different light, it will seem outrageously disturbing or, at the least, quite uncomfortable to take that (bungee) jump into the unknown.

While you’re sitting there, you’ll be making quick decisions: “Will I let myself fall apart here, or I will keep my composure? Can I outwit this person (oh yes, I can!) or will I let them do their work (they are soooo slow to get there!)? And then, what happens? Tomorrow I have to show up at work, in one piece, ready to stand my ground. I don’t think it’s wise to follow, not knowing what comes next.”

An essential part of therapy is trust and you’re more likely to trust people who are like you. Not that many therapists may be like you. Their work environment is most likely thoroughly different from yours. Their perspective is often thoroughly different from yours. You’ve come this far in your career with certain survival techniques, strategies that simply do not sit in the same realm as the route the therapist asks you to take now. Will you let yourself switch from your rational brain to the cognition of the body? Do you trust your therapist enough to let them guide you?

let go of the rational, welcome the irrational

Letting go of the steering wheel may be new to you, may feel utterly unsafe and unwise, but you cannot experience a book or a film without allowing yourself to become absorbed in the story and allow reality to be shifted, even if it is just for 90 minutes or the number of pages of the book. If you know your current reality is not making you happy, if you feel like a fraud or not living up to your potential, the choice you have is stay where you are or allow a new reality to emerge.
You can always decide to go back to your old normal afterwards.

You’re more than a talking head

Therapy will not work if your ego’s defense mechanisms, your intellectual coping and survival skills, stand in the way of releasing the emotional toxicity of your issues.
When you’re cut off at the neck, the solution lies in reconnecting to the body, the limbic system and the primitive brain, where the emotions are stored, stowed away, or where trauma is blocking you from experiencing true joy and happiness.

A well-trained therapist has the toolkit to lead you back to psychosomatic integration, so will you allow this to happen? Will you play a game of chess with your therapist or dance a passionate tango?
This can make the difference between a successful therapeutic session and an utter failure.

Why therapy doesn’t work – part 1

Afke@bluewin.ch — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 15:39:42 +0000

Why therapy doesn’t work?

Part 1

Every so often I get clients who tell me that within one session with me they feel so much better than after 4, 5, 6 sessions with their psychologist.
Is it that I am much better than other therapists, usually working with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Solution-Focused (Brief) Therapy (SFBT)?
Ha, I wish! …. So, how can this be?

What’s happening is a common mistake we humans make. We love to think that we’re all rational beings and that we can resolve our problems with rational methods.

If you’ve read my previous blogs you know that I love The Work by Byron Katie, a very CBT way of working. I just like Katie’s worksheet better than the ABC(DEF) worksheet from CBT / Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. It’s more personable and if you want to try it, she has volunteers available for you – free of charge!

These exercises work like magic when people are getting wrapped up in negative or self-destructive thinking or are stressing themselves out with imaginary future events that are never going to happen.
It works great when you’ve got patterns or beliefs taken over from your parents that no longer serve you. As the Buddha says: our human suffering is caused by our convictions, cravings, thoughts. Use the worksheet and you can fix it. Next time you try to go into an outdated pattern of negative thinking, your brain will recognize it and interfere. Same goes for focusing on your strengths, recognizing wins and successes. Wonderful stuff – that is, if your rational brain is on-line during your problem state.

TRAUMA

However, when the pattern you are working on with the therapist is one bypassing the pre-frontal cortex and directly hitting the amygdala, it results in a fight, flight or freeze response. A trauma-response. Your response may seem like a behavorial pattern that you can argue away, except that you can’t. The amygdala sends info to the hypothalamus which stimulates the autonomic nervous system. By now you’re running on adrenaline and cortisol: you’re ready for a life-threatening situation.
The rational brain is switched off, no sensible argument will even hit home.
You’ve been there… right?

A rational approach doesn’t resolve the emotional (ab)reaction – if even your better half cannot argue with you in such a state, your therapist will not reach that part either. Actually, more often than not, you will not show the therapist that trauma-part. It’s safely stored away, deeply hidden. Your self-preservation and defense mechanisms will keep it that way as the ultimate survival kit.
Even if you’d talk about it, a rational therapy will not change the reaction at its core.

Knowing something is not the same as fixing it.

Say, your computer is not running like it should. You’ve defragmented, cleaned out obsolete files, but no luck. Your computer has a virus. So, you go to a tech shop and find out from one of the experts which anti-virus software you’d need. Great! Now you walk out of the shop, knowing exactly which malware your computer has and where it sits, and you go back to your virus-infected computer.

Did you get rid of the virus?

No, of course not. In order to do that, you need to buy the anti-virus software, install it and run it on the infected computer to be sure every trace of it gets deleted.

Now, NLP and hypnosis therapies are not very different from CBT or SFBT.
Another branch from the same tree, but here’s one thing several of my trainers made very clear, which my clients’ previous therapists skipped:

“De-traumatize first!”

The first thing to do is to release any traces of trauma with the proper techniques, whether that is Havening (my favorite), Kinesthetic Shift, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, EFT, or other therapies that have been proven to resolve trauma.
Just to be clear, research shows that talk therapies are NOT effective for trauma and can even re-traumatize you. Unfortunately, people often get referred by their GP or by mental support agencies unaware of the latest research on PTSD and repeated trauma.

If there was no discharge from the trauma at the time, the trigger moments will continue till today. Sometimes, a discharge or abreaction sometimes doesn’t get recognized as the healthy reaction it is (see Peter Levine’s work), because it can look frightening.
So, you may have received benzodiazepines like valium from your doctor, which then stopped the trauma release rather than bringing it to a proper closure.
As from then, you’ll experience trigger moments which result in an over-stimulation of the amygdala, hypothalamus and parts of the cerebellum. If there has been long-term over-stimulation, your brain structure may have changed.
Fixing your rational thinking doesn’t fix these emotionally charged reactions which take milliseconds to arise. You can try to interfere rationally after the physical response, but you’re “mopping water with the tap open”, as we say in Dutch.

What to do?

Has your work with your therapist not given you any results?
Do you have repetitive nightmares or insomnia?
Do you sometimes feel dissociated, from the world or from yourself?
Are you feeling irritable for no reason, or are you fearful and in need of a lot of down-time?
Do you have physical upsets, pains for which the doctor did not find a physical reason?
These are signs of trauma. And they can be resolved. Easily. Fast.
With techniques you can apply to yourself whenever you need them.
Stop living with this and get help.

I’ll talk some more about this topic in my next post, stay tuned.

For immediate self-help, check out Paul McKenna’s DIY video on Havening:
http://bit.ly/HaveningPmcK

Warning: you’re bringing your family to work

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:50:56 +0000

Yesterday I was having lunch with my old colleagues. We had a great conversation: several people told me they liked my blogs, so I was feeling wonderful. Of course, this is not even remotely interesting to you, but it did encourage me to finally start writing again. So, here it is!

The topic: stress takes you back to your childhood and your family. Why?

The autopilot

When there we’ve got more work than we can handle, we build up stress, and when we’re stressed, we revert to running on the automatic pilot as much as we can. Going on autopilot saves us energy. However, the autopilot is not always pleasant for people around us:

It’s locked in on the goal
It hates distractions
It believes it’s always right
It’s quickly on the defense
It’s irritable with what- or whoever irrelevant for our goal

That type of singular focus is a survival mode. And when we are in survival mode, we depend on our earliest learnings. Oh yes, we made incredibly important decisions on how to survive at the well-established and mature age of 0 to 3 years old. How to get ourselves fed, a clean living environment (read: diapers), care in case of injuries, cuddles and the right clothing to keep us warm or cool. We learned to influence our mom and dad to get us the basis of the Maslow pyramid. And, possibly, we learned to manipulate our older siblings into being accommodating as well. Not many of us have had reasons to revisit the adequacy of our survival methods afterwards. So, with a reptilian built-in function, further socially developed at an age when we were not much beyond little mammals, no wonder our survival mode is a bit basic. So, what mattered in your family for survival? With that I mean: what was appreciated, what was frowned upon? When did you get that pat on the back and when were you sent upstairs to go to sleep without your dinner? In my family, I felt I had to be brave, strong, grow up fast and work hard. No complaining, no crying. Asking for help did not seem to be an option. Guess how I deal with stress…. I tough it out till my body refuses further duty – even then, not asking for help. My willpower and mind want to keep going.

For many of you this may be similar: your independence and drive makes you successful. Managers and leaders usually have this quality in common. They learned to take care of themselves – and others – at a young age.

Being in charge feels safe and familiar. Normal. Normal is good. So you default into that instinctual behavior under pressure:

You may take on more instead of less. Because then you’re sure it gets done, correctly.
You may want to protect others. Because they’ve got so much and you know you can handle it.
Your manager asks you to go the extra mile. Because they have this indefectible feeling for your skills in this area.
Or worst case scenario: while you’re taking on your boss’ work, your staff also knows how to manipulate you into doing what you’re great at, but which is actually their task.

Now, even if this is your “normal” autopilot, it’s probably not the most effective or efficient for the company, for your team, for you. A tad bit close to burn-out.

Solution #1 Soft shells

Knowing how you do this – stress – will help you become aware of how your automatic pilot works. And when you are aware … guess what? You’re no longer on automatic pilot. You can now choose to do something different. It will be outside your comfort zone. Not familiar, not normal. It may even give you a feeling of shame or guilt. That would be your family conscience speaking. It’s telling you that “this is not the way we do things around here…”. However, remember: what worked in your family may not be the most effective at work. So, catch yourself. Know when you’re going on automatic. And do something different, anything else will do till you find the ways that work better for you.

Solution #2 Hard nuts

One step beyond is to understand the system you came from, your family situation.

Give some thought to the following questions.

Are you regularly asked to brainstorm strategy with the boss or the leadership team a level above yours?
Are you regularly requested to mediate in conflicts?
Is hierarchy such a non-issue for you that it leads to comments and remarks by colleagues?
Are you judging your boss’ or your boss’ boss performance? Making statements like “If I were his or her boss, I would …..”.
If you’re a man: are you more connected to your mum or did you have a sense of responsibility and caring towards her because your dad wasn’t home or readily available for support?
If you’re a woman: are you more connected to your dad or did you have a sense of responsibility and caring towards him because your mum wasn’t home or readily available for support?

If you’ve said “yes” to a couple of these questions, you’ve put yourself in the shoes of one of your parents to help the other one, or you were even taking care of both your parents.

That’s a lot of responsibility. Which is fine when you’re solving kids’ problems. Which is wonderful when business is running smoothly. Everyone loves you because when they give you something it always gets done, and then some. Not so fine when you already have too much going on at work, and you’re on the automatic pilot, and this nasty little pilot needs to stay socially adept to fit into a hierarchy with a lot of stressed people.

Going overboard

Suddenly, it becomes remarkably easy to step on someone else’s toes. Suddenly, you’ve done something wrong in their eyes. Being blamed for charging ahead. While you were trying soooo hard to make it work! Are they freaking crazy?! No, actually… You are. Sorry about that. Because what worked well in your family – with one parent being unavailable, it was great that you were there when your mum needed a friend or your dad wanted someone to speak with as an equal – doesn’t work in business. You’re not supposed to step out of place into your boss’ seat, or some other department’s seat. And you wouldn’t… if you weren’t stressed. Get what I am saying here? This was a tough one for me. However, once I knew… what a relief! That it isn’t my place to have an opinion about what my management is deciding. That another department’s business is none of my business.That my boss’ business is none of my business. That if my boss isn’t functioning well, it’s up to his or her boss to decide to do something – or not. It’s not my job to do their work or sit on their seat. Wow, not spending time on those things leaves a lot of space and energy that I can use for my actual work! Now, what I described above is called triangulation and parentification in psychological terms. I don’t need you to know that. I only ask you to consider if some of this is true for you – or, in fact, for some of your staff. If it’s true for you, to take the next step. Get out of your comfort zone to do something about it. For your own good. There is an easy way to solve it. So easy that it took me 6 months just to get started. When my coach and trainer told me I had to do this, I laughed my head off. Found it ridiculous and unimaginable. Yes, I was a hard nut to crack. Maybe you are too, but then again, maybe you aren’t. The trick is to put up a photo of your parents and bow to them, while thanking them for what they’ve given you. Every day. Till you believe it. Ridiculous? Right? Funny? Unimaginable? Unfair? Easy?

What you’ll get

Now, there are some consequences when you do this.

You’ll probably stop trying to save the world all on your own.
People around you may not like that you’re no longer doing everything.
You may feel more connected to that “other” parent (alive or dead, this is your internal autopilot process).
You’ll definitely feel less stressed when you switch off the autopilot with its guilt and shame factors.

No worries if you need more than 6 months to get that picture up there. I know some of you are still laughing, but you’ll get to it in the end :-)!

I love to hear if what I described is an issue for you. If you recognize the family pattern (… it’s probably going on since generations).

Or let me know if you face another type of stress entirely.

Get that teflon coating against stress

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:48:32 +0000

Stress at work… A corporate, project or change management role is a challenge. Performing at the higher levels is top sport. Like an athlete, you need to keep yourself sharp, in shape, react instantly, be strategic, predict what the next steps need to be and act accordingly.

Athletes work a lot on state control, keeping their mental game together – even when things start to look bleak. They have to stay cool as a cucumber.

What do YOU do to manage the stressors in your life? Are you able to maintain your high performance state at all times, or do you sometimes find yourself lacking energy? Lashing out to your loved ones? Jumpy and on edge like a scaredy-cat?

What distinguishes people who are resilient, who seem to wear their Teflon-coating at all times, from those of us who bring work stress to our family and homes?

LEARNED BEHAVIOUR

Stress is a given. How we deal with it is not. A lot is learned behaviour, habits. Learned behaviour means we can change it. We can bring the stress reaction down with practice.

What do unflappable people use as defense mechanisms?

They have four important skills:

1. They distinguish professional dispute from personal attacks. If someone disagrees with them, that doesn’t say anything about them. They stand squarely in their shoes, own their attitude and have a positive view on themselves.

2. They are confident they can deal with the issues. They reframe each situation into something positive, a learning opportunity. Or, they realise the other party is under a lot of pressure and is not behaving as their normal sophisticated self.

3. They keep things in perspective. Even when facing very painful events, they put the stressful situation in a broader context and keep perspective. You will not find them blowing an event out of proportion, instead they are optimistic and hopeful that tomorrow will shine a new light on the situation.

4. They are able to ask for help when needed. They open up to others. This allows them to get support, to vent emotions and get someone else’s perspective. In addition, giving help to others, being focused on another person’s bigger problems, helps reframe one’s own issues.

WHAT TO DO

What does that tell us? What can we do to be more like them

1. Replace judgement with acceptance

When you take criticism personal, on some level you resonate with what the other is telling you. When someone gives you ridiculous criticism, you simply laugh, don’t you? So, only when you judge yourself, you’ll get upset. The trick is to learn not to judge. Accept yourself: good and bad. Nobody’s perfect. Who cares?

The easiest way to clear self-judgements is by learning compassion. Just 10 minutes – 10 minutes! – loving-kindness meditation a day for 8 weeks will visibly change your brain in scans. I recommend to start with Positive Psychology professor Barbara Fredrickson’s Self-love meditation on http://www.positivityresonance.com/meditations.html

When you’ve worked on your self-confidence and self-love, you become unf*ckwithable, as Vishen Lakhiani from Mindvalley likes to call it. You’ll know when someone is right and you hear yourself simply answering with self-confidence: “You’re right”, without emotion or judgement. Or, when they’re wrong about you, you’ll notice that you shrug you shoulders and walking away, untouched.

2. Visualise what you DO want

Visualise what you want, rather than staying focused on what you fear or don’t want. Practice becoming toward-happiness driven, instead of away-from-fear. Catch yourself everytime you start a worrying cycle and tell yourself “STOP!”. Then start an internal dialogue on what you DO want instead. Positive focus is a great help to relax.

Stopping the anxiety pattern consistently will re-wire the brain neurons into a path towards positive self-actualisation. At the same time the neurological worry track will fall into disuse. It’s like when you suddenly find a quicker way home: you can still use the long & winding road, but why would you?

3. Accept reality

Assess whether you can change the situation or not. If you cannot, there is no point getting upset about it. Stressful events happen in everyone’s life; our only choice is how we interpret and respond to these events. As Byron Katie puts it: “When I argue with reality, I lose – but only 100% of the time.”

Find meaning in adverse events by asking yourself what you learned from them. What is it that you’ll no longer do now that you know this?

When reality hits you like a brick wall, keep yourself going by setting small, achievable targets. The only way to eat an elephant is bite by bite. “What’s one thing I can accomplish TODAY that helps me move in the right direction?”.

And celebrate as you achieve these baby steps! If you’re not yet able to celebrate your achievements, practise doing so by pretending to be happy, until you really become it. Funnily enough, your mirror neurons don’t really know the difference between imagining and being. This is also the way top athletes perfection their performance: re-running the essential moves in their brain until it is hard-wired in.

4. Social connections

Enjoy your practice!

Our social network is essential for happiness and stress release. Look for growth and self-development through making connections with others. Did you know that we have a 6th sense for people who are like us? In a room full of strangers, we can perfectly seek out the people who we’ll be more comfortable with, with whom we connect at an unspoken level. When we exchange we often find that we have more than one thing in common.

It takes courage to share in intimacy, however, vulnerability in sharing gains you respect and friendship. Because when you are yourself, it gives your friends and colleagues permission to be themselves, without wearing that – sometimes too tight – corporate mask.

Last but not least, following these practices will ensure that you push yourself less and take better care of yourself. You’ll care enough to allow yourself down-time to meet your own needs, to do stuff you enjoy in order to re-boot and improve your health.

Train your happiness or “the happy few”

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:47:05 +0000

Train your happiness or “the happy few”

Weird concept: “The Happy Few”.

Honestly, to me it seems The Happy Few are usually not so happy. And besides, thanks to Positive Psychology we know exactly what to do to be happy!

Happiness is 1. a muscle that you can practice and 2. a choice you make.

Let’s start with #2. Yes, I no longer have to adhere to any rules but my own, so I can start with #2. if I like!

2. The choice you make

Say, you are not making the choices that are at your heart’s desire.

For instance: you tell yourself you are safe when you’ve got 500K on the bank.

I promise you, once you’ve got that 500K, you realize you’re only safe when it’s 1 million. Safety is a feeling you have inside – that feeling cannot be bought with money. Like you would go to the supermarket and pick safety off the shelf.

What you have to do is deal with the feeling that’s underneath the need for safety. Something happened at some stage in your life that made you decide that you needed to be safe: what was it? Were you frightened by an event, did you grow up with lack of money or fights over money? Did something happen in your life and you do not ever want anybody around you to have to feel that way, ever again? Not on your watch? Only you can tell. Only you can fix it.

Or: you tell yourself you have children to take care of.

My question back to you is: what are you showing your children today? That life is about being unhappy and dragging yourself to work you hate? Being responsible at all costs? That grumpiness is a state of being? Or would you like to teach them to find a way to do things that bring you satisfaction and joy? That leading a fulfilled life is more important than status, or owning the latest BMW? Maybe to you the material stuff matters a lot, it’s not up to me to say what makes you happy! In that case, stop reading here. I don’t want you to waste your time!

Beliefs

This concept that you have to be useful, or that you need to keep up with the Joneses, or that you are not safe: it’s a BELIEF. Does that belief serve you? Does it make you feel good or bad?
If it makes you feel bad instead of good, how would it feel if you would let go of this belief? What would your world look like without that belief? How does it sound once you stop telling yourself this story?

Honestly: who would you be without that belief?

Though there is more to this, I do not want to keep you here all day, so let’s jump to:

1. The happiness muscle

This is easy! Loads of research since Positive Psychology was invented by Maslow and further built out by Martin Seligman and Barbara Fredrickson.
Prof. Fredrickson has a free course on Coursera.org if you’re interested to know more.

You’ll want to develop your muscle for happiness through the following methods:

Flow:

When you do what you like, at a level that is pleasantly challenging for you, you will get into a state of flow. This means finding activities that enhance your personal mindset & heartset. In my previous blog, I talked about knowing your core values and going back to childhood activities. This will help you define what it is that makes your eyes sparkle. Key is that you can be absorbed, fully focused on your activity.
Meaning:

Finding meaning, as described by Victor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. We all need purpose, belonging, meaning. Developing a spiritual sense for what you would like to do with your time here on earth has proven to be very useful to achieve a higher level of happiness.
Gratitude:

O, yes, this is a big one. Every day, morning or evening, or morning and evening, make your list of 5 things you are grateful for. For quicker results, make it 3 times 5, with an increasing level of difficulty: things you are grateful for in your life, things you are grateful for in your work, things you are grateful for in yourself, personality or skills. Consider actions by yourself or by others, learnings or discussions. It’s essential that you really FEEL that sensation of gratitude, feeling thankful, counting your blessings. Without the feeling sensation of it, the practice will be less effective.
Compassion:

Developing greater compassion for self and others means less (self-)criticism, means less negative emotions. And the ratio of negative versus positive emotions changes, guess what?
Loving-kindness guided meditations work really well to develop compassion. Check out positivityresonance.com for instance. Begin with the meditation for Self-love.
Forgiveness:

Holding on to resentment is like drinking poison and hoping for the other person to die. You’re the only one suffering physically and mentally from the anger you contain. It’s simply not healthy. You have a choice: let the anger, the grudges, the sadness about this person or situation go. Release it. It does not mean that you condone what was done or what happened, or that you will ever see eye-to-eye with the person concerned. It means that you release the emotions about it through a mental exercise imaging telling that person or people that you forgive and ask to be forgiven for your share and then imagine them telling you the same – you do not (need to) do this for real. The reason you do both sides, forgiving and be forgiven, is that sometimes, consciously or unconsciously, at some level, we feel guilty ourselves, e.g. for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. After doing this, you will find that, instead of letting the other person off the hook, you’ve let yourself off the hook.

The journey

Now, this could become a rather long story. And indeed, it has been a journey.
Unfortunately, you do not fix a life-long practice of pushing yourself to ever further horizons where there may or may not be a beautiful sunset and green grass in 10 minutes at the end of a work week.
However, if you would like to get support on that journey to learn how to take the shortcuts, feel free to get in touch! Many of these practices we cover in my Emotional Intelligence for Managers course.

Learn more through this on-line, on-demand course: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EmotionalIntelligentLeadership/learning_content/

Luxury problems – too embarrassing!

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:42:30 +0000

So, I was sitting at my desk, with Mont Blanc view, in my dream job, leading a great team, interesting projects. Happily married, a lovely house, dear friends, bucket loads of money and …. I was freakin’ unhappy. What the heck?! Impossible! Embarrassing! Unthinkable!

To cut a long story short, I found my way back to happiness with positive psychology. Rainbows & roses. Let me tell you about it… or am I the only one with luxury problems?

What if the job you loved makes no sense to you now? You had energy to run marathons before but now you ask your love to kick you out of bed each morning. All your life you were convinced that you must add value, work hard, rise to the higher echelons. You’ve pushed yourself day-to-day like a top athlete. Is turning your life around really an option? Retiring early? Going down another path? What to do with the rest of your life? You may fear the lack of status. Because who are you, if not the VP of xyz, the partner in this firm, the director at this company? Who will want to know you if you are no longer moving within your professional network? You may fear not having that regular income, not convinced you deserve to live so selfishly, choosing to do only what you want. This is not what your parents taught you. Who are you to live only for pleasure & freedom? Not earning that income, losing that status, no longer measuring your success by a big car, a job that impresses, being useful to society in a way you believe is right… If becoming a rat-race drop-out is your dirty secret desire … I’ve got some tips.

If you already know that you want to become rat-race drop out, jump to section B) below.

If you’re not sure yet, let me ask you: do you frequently tell yourself “O yes, I’m OK, but I’ll be really happy when…..”?
Far too often we project our happiness into the future, to the moment we’ve achieved x, y or z.
And then when we achieve x, y or z, happiness is again postponed, because now we realize that what we really need to be happy is a, b or c.

A) What’s keeping you?

I was personally chasing the top jobs for two reasons:

Status: if people respected and admired me I would feel good about myself. Or so I thought. Until I realized that even if I was highly respected in my field of work, I felt the same inside as I had always felt. Which was “ it’s never enough” . I was always chasing the next achievement, the next promotion, the next project completed, higher numbers in earnings and cash than last year.
Do you recognize this? That you cannot celebrate your achievements? That it’s never enough? Or you celebrate for about 5 secs and then you move on to the next peak to climb?

Hide my introvert nature: as long as I had a role which allowed me to reach out to people, or people had a reason to speak with me about my work, I didn’t have to worry about how to start a conversation and about what. I was my job, that defined my role in life. I didn’t have to wonder who I was without the function.
How do you introduce yourself? “I am [name] and I am [function] at [company]?” Is that your identity?

You may have other reasons to keep chasing the dream

I NEED to be useful, add value, because … well… eehm…
I will become an outcast if I don’t, people will reject me, I will die, …. Or something like that?
I CANNOT feel safe unless I have € x,xxx,xxx on the bank.
What if I, my spouse, my children get an accident, become seriously ill, lose their job, the house is destroyed by a fire, ….?
People WON’T take me seriously without this job, this money, this house, this life style.
And who am I if people do not take me seriously?
I WON’T be happy without this job, this money, this house, this life style.
Forgetting that you are not happy now, as it is….
I MUST keep growing, learning, achieving, because standing still is like dying.
….

If you’ve got other reasons, please do let me know – comments are welcome!

This becomes a problem when you feel you don’t have a choice or you’re not considering other possibilities, as showing in the “one ought to”, “must”, “should”, “cannot”.
We have our conscious and also unconscious reasons to keep going, without stopping to realize we have that choice to simply be happy now. That you have everything you need, right here, right now.

“But…, but…, but…” you say?
All nonsense, there are people happier than you, living a way worse circumstances. The question in the end is: do you want results, or reasons?

B) Leaving the rat-race … for what?

Maybe you don’t know what’s at your heart’s desire, you only know it’s not this you’re doing now.
Go back and remember: what did you love to do as a child? What puts a smile on your face? Wouldn’t you still love these same activities?
What have you lost along the way that you’d want to recover?
And, have you ever done a Values Exercise to find out what is really important to you? You can drop me a note for instructions or find it on the internet. Basically, it comes down to writing down the most important life events, what you learned from them and why they matter. Keep asking yourself what lies beneath that is important , till you come to your (current) core values like freedom, safety, creativity, compassion, learning. Does your job tick these boxes? What kind of role will tick them? Get in touch if you would like to having a sparring partner for how to find security, and a solid base to start living your (new) dream.

Top job = top sport

When you’ve been in the corporate game at a high level, you’ve played top sport. High levels of adrenaline, performing under pressure or stress, with big responsibilities. This is not child play. You may have loved the game, you may still love it, or possibly it has worn you thin.

In any case, when you switch or retire you will need recovery time. It may be that you need to let go of the stress levels slowly, like a former athlete who’s building down their sport’s heart.
We all know (about) people who dropped the moment they retired. My granddad was Corporate Controller at Unilever and did exactly that, my father-in-law was a VP at Solvay and did exactly that.
I retired at 46 and was ill during 6 months. I just came off the phone & the friend I was talking with needed 8 months to get back in shape. So, what I learned is that it’s better to make a plan – you may want to build down slowly, or ensure you give yourself time to recover while keeping the carrot dangling in front of you: creating an enticing plan for the future.

That plan you can create and bring to life with visualization exercises. Close your eyes and dream: what does your life look like, sound like, feel like, smell like in 3 years from now?
Who’s with you? Where are you? What time of day? Is there a soundtrack to this? How do you feel when you look around you?
How do you know you’ve got what you need, right there and then? Then what are the steps you took to get there?
For all I know, it might be a sunset on a beach, apero and dinner with some friends and family, celebrating that 2 years ago you took the leap to finally start with ….

Let me know!

More on the happiness journey to rainbows & roses here: http://intervitalize.com/train-your-happiness/

Emotional Intelligence

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:40:00 +0000

Emotional Intelligence is an essential skill for any leadership function.
The topic is often snubbed as “soft skills”, but a.o. HBR, McKinsey, Korn Ferry research shows that these skills are in hard demand by the corporations for any leadership function.

Several recruitment agencies reported that they are now being instructed to value “soft skills” above “technical skills” for leadership searches.

Certainly for service companies, people are the most important asset and losing important talent in your team can cost you and the company dearly. Sometimes this means you have to say goodbye to those who are undermining your team. And, how do you do that with emotional intelligence?

Do you have concerns about keeping your talented team members on board? Are you working effectively with other functions and businesses in the organization? Would you like to keep growing and learning, so you become eligible for your next promotion? How can you increase your influencing & persuation skills?

Emotional intelligence is not something we get trained on in school.
Our attitude towards these skills often resembles the way we drive our car… we all think we are highly skilled and it’s the others on the road that are the idiots and the maniacs, aren’t they? Hm, how about validating your skills by actually training on this?

Module 1. Leadership & Talent Development
Module 2. Strategy & Vision
Module 3. Communication & Negotiation
Module 4. Relationship Management

Your time engagement: ~ 2 – 3 hours per week

Stop wondering what “emotional intelligence” effectively means, just follow the logic of my toolkit developed especially for corporate leaders. With 20 years corporate experience under my belt, including global corporate leadership functions, I know the drills & will give you the skills. Simply drop me an e-mail and I will give you access.

When the universe spits on your security

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:25:26 +0000

Sometimes we find ourselves holding on, with our nails digging in, hoping to maintain security, safety, certainty.

For me, this usually happened when I was holding on to relationships that had died, 6 … 9 … 12 months before. Utterly unhappy, without the guts to end it. Because the devil you know…

Well, one thing was certain, I maintained the security of unhappiness till the bitter end.

That bitter end is usually when the universe throws you a curve ball and you are forced to do something, anything.
And then finally, you go through the shouting, the tears, the grief, the pain.
Only to come out on the other end, a bit shaken but still in one piece (surprise! surprise!).

And there the “epiphany” awaits you that you should have done this months earlier. That yes, you feel guilty. That yes, you disappointed people. That yes, this was painful.

But YES!!! IT WAS WORTHWHILE!

Because in taking the guilt, you’ve grown up and grown taller at least 2 inches.
Reality comes with the unexpected – can you believe that that curve ball the universe throws at you is for the best?
When will you start to have trust that your life leads you down the path that was meant for you?
Fighting reality… haven’t we all been there? How about you? Are you ready to stop it?

When we are fighting reality, it hurts

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:20:54 +0000

Our suffering comes from our thoughts, desires, convictions about what life should be, what should happen, not from what is actually happening. Suffering will cease as we let go of this clinging & craving for things that aren’t. When we experience grief, we want back what we lost.
When we are angry with someone, we want this person to behave differently than they do. We experience anxiety about (imaginary) things we do not want to happen. In all these cases, you are wasting energy fighting reality – in the last case, even a reality that does not exist and most likely will never exist.

The unthinkable suffering Victor Frankl experienced in the concentration camps left him with wisdom where death was close, because he was able to maintain purpose, meaning in his need to survive this suffering. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, you’ll find his endless wisdom that prescribes us to find meaning in the things that we want to believe should not be so. Once we find that meaning, we know that everything is as it should be – even the bad experiences have a purpose.

As we stop trying to change reality, as we let go of our thoughts of how this world ought to be for us… That’s when we gain happiness in return.

Our consciousness is relative – how many times have you felt bad about an experience only to realize later on that it was good it happened? The break up with that boy-/girlfriend, losing a job opportunity only to find a better one, the relief you felt after a difficult discussion that you had been postponing.
We can learn from this – happiness stems from the immaterial, from learning, from growth, from appreciation, while material items give little and certainly no long-lasting satisfaction.

Our “existence” is not defined by our current physical being: most cells in our body get replaced within days or months. Your body change, your brain is equally malleable.

The Buddha’s and Victor Frankl’s wisdom may speak to us, but how do we achieve this, in our daily lives?

If you are looking for a practical entrance to this kind of thinking, check out Byron Katie at thework.com. For me, her “judge-your-neighbour” worksheet gives you all the training you need: it frees your thinking, helps you release convictions, limiting beliefs, and clinging to what’s no longer useful.

And, you’re very welcome to connect with me if you want to add more tools to your toolbox for a good life.

Breaking through perfectionism

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 10:52:45 +0000

So, I totally broke through my perfectionism! Happy release! This is so powerful…

My perfectionism was very specific: for me it meant that I could not fail, not that I would do everything perfectly.

Well, what does it mean “to fail”?
For everyone, these words mean something different, while the consequences can be fairly similar.
Self-torture, pushy for others, taking too much time for things that are not worth it.
In the end, it can thus bring you the opposite effect of holding you back from being the best you can be.

What is the underlying purpose of your perfectionism?

If you ask yourself that question, it could be something along the lines of: to ensure I succeed.
So then be brutally honest with yourself:

How is this busy work I am doing now to dot all the i’s and stroke all the t’s helping me in my long-term vision of success?
What do I really need to do to be successful?
What are the people I consider successful doing that I am not yet doing?
What other ways & examples are there to succeed without messing up myself or the relationship with others?

Or, you ask yourself that question, and the answer is: to ensure I am safe.
Again, be brutally honest with yourself:

How do I know this busy work I am doing now to dot all the i’s and stroke all the t’s is really keeping me safe?
Let’s stop those films and audios I run in my head when I do not feel safe: they are not real.
When is it that I feel safe and what other ways are there to feel safe more often?
What are the people I feel safe with doing that I am not yet doing?

If you need more help, come over for training or coaching with me – the New Code NLP games bring powerful shifts, allowing you to let go of unhelpful states and bring you high performance states instead.

If you want train with the NLP guru’s: https://www.nlpinthesun.com/en/

You forgot something

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 10:49:59 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I do sports regularly, eat healthy and make sure I rest well.
But it wasn’t until a couple of years back that I realized that I was forgetting something….
And I think most of us are in the same place.

We do sports to keep our body in good shape, we go on holidays to spend quality time with the family, we take vitamins to support our immune system. Maybe you even do your calls standing up these days, since you heard “sitting is the new smoking”?
So, would you consider yourself to be fit?

Whether yes or no, let me ask you another question: what efforts do you make to ensure the fitness of your magnificent brain? Most of us treat our laptop better than the wiring of our internal computer: virus protection, defragmenting, removing the cookies,…

Scientists now tell us that mental aspects heavily influence all kinds of (auto-immune) diseases, with a positive mindset having a tremendous impact on recovery.

Mental fitness matters greatly, so why don’t we initiate regular upgrades?
How much better would your life be with a brain wash – clean out the cob webs?

Take the edge off. Stop the tiring energy drains. Work more freely and easily with your co-workers. Alleviate strong memories that only cause recurring tension between you and your spouse. Lift the anchors and get more excited about challenging targets. Reach them halfway the year instead of scrambling at the end. And why not: have your bonus increase accordingly?

How does one achieve “the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”?

I’ll tell you about my experience. You don’t have to do the same, just consider this.

In the economic downturn of the early 80’s, my teenage years were less than spotless. My father’s business went bankrupt due to bad business partners and a worse economy (or vice versa), and he spiraled down, lifting depression with alcohol. My mother, responsible for the maintenance of 4 children and a spouse, didn’t have much energy left when she came home.
I got to stand on my own two feet fast and early. I made sure to keep my distance, never ask for help, shun intimacy lest I would embarrass us all by exposing the family secret.
That was the unconscious bit – the conscious teenage me suffered most from walking around in my older cousin’s out-of-fashion clothes (yes, really, even with 80’s fashion! :-)) and torn trainers.

Since challenges bring wisdom, in the end I came to realize that intimacy is good, rather than something to avoid and I reinvented myself clearing all the limiting ideas from my brain. With what I know now, about communication, better cooperation, how to lessen frustration and stress, my earlier working days would have been smoother, promotions might have been quicker.

This is not me crying over spilt milk – thanks to my overarching goal to become independent my career definitely meets the standard definition of success. It JUST could have been SOOO MUCH EASIER … which is why I am sharing this: I would love people to realize that it can be easy. It does not need to be hard. Really. Promise.

Today, I defragment my mind regularly.
I’m simply happy and in charge of my own thoughts and emotions.
People tell me I look better, more relaxed: the inside work showing on the outside.

So, how can knowing this help YOU?

Your intention and attention forms a positive or negative energy, which is immediately picked up by others. Remember that speaker who was just not getting the message across? Their stage presence not authentic, incongruent, their posture and energy level not in line with their words?
You do the same. If your brain is engaged in other stuff, if your thoughts are not aligned with your actions on a real level, it stops you from winning, and thus from hitting your targets. At home. At work.

There are good practices for a “Spotless Mind”. No, I am not talking about erasing your memories like in the movie. Just that you don’t have to drag the emotional anchors of your past. You will speed ahead like lightning once you’re running a virus protection regularly to remove the inevitable corruptions that life brings.

These practices are easy to do and only take a couple of minutes – play with them to see which one works best for you.

1. Integrating your subs

You know these moments when you’re arguing with yourself? One part of you wants to eat the cookie, another part of you is telling you off since you just decided on a sugar-free day? Annoying, draining your willpower. The weird thing is, if you’d really let the two voices in your head talk about their intentions, you’ll find that both subparts want the same thing for you: give you a good life. Take some time with yourself to conclude such internal conversations, ask yourself what’s the purpose behind the superficial yes/no discussion and you’ll be amazed.

2. Focus on the positive

Set your intentions with positive goals only.
I’m sure you’ve heard it said before, but let me give you some examples.
It means replacing ”I don’t want to be overweight anymore” with “I am ready to be thin”.
“I don’t want to feel this stressed, I can’t take it anymore” will become “I’ll feel relaxed today, tomorrow, and the day after”.
Instead of “I have to stop drinking this much”, think “I am happy with one drink”.
Visualize yourself, hear yourself, feel yourself as you’re reaching your positive goals, every day for 20 days, and find yourself a changed person.

3. Your little masochist

Change the words you use in your thoughts and conversations.
Replace sentences with “I have to …”, “I should…”, “I must…” with three different sentences: “I will…”, then “I can…”, then “I want to…”.
What impact does each rephrased sentence have on you?

4. The critical voice

That voice that’s calling you names when you forgot something. That talks to you about what you should have done, could have done. The one that’s presenting you feedback on failures like running a slow-motion rewind of a missed goal in a soccer game.
You know it? Useless, right?
Going over the past as if that’ll change the outcome of that game.
Now hear that voice and notice where it comes from. Left ear, right ear, somewhere above your head, behind you? What tone of voice is it speaking in? Once you’ve registered this, replace the words consciously with positive phrases, same location, same tone, same volume. Use sentences like “you are doing great”, “you’re an inspiration to your team / your children”, “I’m impressed with you” until you realize that it’s impossible for the old critical voice to come back without you laughing at it’s words.

There is more where thIS came from

These are some examples of tools to upgrade your mental capacities, clean out negativity and gain GB’s of energy for other things – maintain your brain.

You can find these and more complex ones on the net, if you look for NLP, that is, neuro-linguistic programming, if you like to do more self-help.

However, you’re very welcome to drop me a note or a call for us to work together on a concrete toolkit tailored to you and your circumstances. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter for regular updates and some great discounts.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself – 1

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 10:48:03 +0000

Two – honestly! – life-changing points to make on this quote.

We tend to think problem focused:
“Why does this happen?
How can I be so stupid?”.
As a result your brain comes up with ten reasons why you are stupid.
Ok, so that was really helpful. NOT!
Your brain does not register a negative.
If I tell you not to think about a pink elephant….
What happened in your mind’s eye? That’s right!
So, asking yourself: “How do I make sure I don’t miss the deadline” will echo in your brain as: “… how to miss deadline… how to miss deadline…”

The short and simple conclusion is to practice the following:

Register your thoughts about a challenge you are facing and ensure you re-write these thoughts into something that is solution oriented.
“How will I handle this in future situations to be successful?”
Ensure your goals and thoughts about them are positive. “What will I do this week to be ready on time?”.

If you are not yet quite aware of what is happening in your head – whether your internal voice is negative or positive – practice watching your own thought pattern.
At the moment you are facing a problem, have a negative experience, or need to set yourself a goal.
Or while you are sitting in a traffic jam: either to register how you react to the traffic itself, or how your internal voice is filling up time till the cars start to move again.

Then, each time you catch yourself nagging or making a negative statement, search for a positive way to reframe the situation or rephrase your goal.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself – 2

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 10:45:02 +0000

Or in my case, I started wondering about the quality of my life by the questions Umair Haque asked me.

Early 2013, I read his HBR piece “How to have a year that matters”. In which he posed the following question, among a number of other relevant comments:
“… let me humbly ask: do you want to have a year that matters — or do you want to spend another year starring-slash-wallowing in the lowest-common-denominator reality show-slash-whiny soap opera of your own inescapable mediocrity-slash-self-imposed tragedy?”

OK, maybe that does not speak to you the way it did to me.

But he also asked: “Why are you here? I don’t mean to induce a full blown heart palpitation accompanied panic attack filled existential crisis in you (or maybe I do) — so let’s keep it simple. This coming year: why are you (really) here?”

Which did induce a full blown heart palpitation with panic attack and existential crisis. Why am I here? What am I doing here? Does this matter, what I do? Why do I really want to be here?

And then he asked: “What do you want? Here are some perfectly valid answers, if tedious mediocrity is the limit of your horizon this year: money, sex, power, fame, keeping up with the Kardashians.”

None of those mattered that much now, even if they did before – OK, well the sex one I still dig that, it’s our life’s purpose to procreate, but seriously, Kardashians… who the ^%*& cares? If you do care about them, don’t read this piece – it is not the right timing for you.

So, he says “What’s it going to take? […] You need to “use” not just your whole mind, but to learn to employ your whole being: mind, heart, soul, and body.”

I sensed that the only piece of myself that I was using at work was my brain, leading me to my next question: “Actually, where ís the rest of me…?” So I spent four years gathering the pieces. And deciding that in order to become a whole being the above list should also specify our gut. As in: gut feeling, as in: intuition, as in: EQ. Gives you so much additional information about the people and the world around you.

Last question for today “Who’s on your side? […] Who’s at your back, manning your sails, crewing your boat? Here’s a hint: if you look around and your boat’s empty, learn to lead. Challenge, provoke, inspire, connect — and then, harder still, evoke the best in people.”

I picked up the glove on this one and while inspiring my team and helping them to grow, I realized that manning the boats is the true calling, the true north of my life. So, there I go. Four years later including three years of post-graduate in psychology, I am starting a year that matters – and hopefully many years to come still. Let me help you with your crew. Thank you, Umair.

How to have a year that matters: the quality of your life

Afke@bluewin.ch — Sun, 24 May 2020 10:41:30 +0000

I read Umair Haque’s HBR piece “How to have a year that matters” early 2013. Umair challenges the usual superficial New Year’s resolutions big time “… do you want to have a year that matters — or do you want to spend another year starring-slash-wallowing in […] mediocrity-slash-self-imposed tragedy?”

I picked up the glove and started working through his questions – not that I remembered every single one of them, however, once you start considering what it means for you “to have a year that matters” you will work through them naturally.

He asks: “So what’s your true north? […] Does your true north point to consumption, status, transactions — instead of investment, accomplishments, relationships? If it’s the former, I’d bet: a life well lived is going to remain as elusive to you as it’s been to Lance.”

During the 2017 Tour de France, Lance was quoted: “Cycling is still struggling to come to terms with its past”. He may be projecting his own state of mind there …
Anyway, rather than navel-gazing into eternity on how you ended up in south-eastern direction instead of north, ask “How do I want to move on from here? ”, not “How did this all happen?”.

Many people I speak with are surprised that I would take the radical decision to leave a perfectly fine career and start something new and uncertain. Our inborn loss aversion often leads us into the sunk cost fallacy (Daniel Kahneman – Thinking Fast and Slow), or an escalation of commitment (consistency principle, Robert Cialdini – Influence). At our core, we prefer to continue the same behavior aligned with previous decisions, rather than alter course – our reptile brain loves a steady go. Even if continuation is irrational, no longer in line with our values and beliefs, resulting in mediocrity or a downward spiral of indifference to our daily work or lives.

Umair asks: “What breaks your heart? […]It’s there that you begin to find what moves you. If you want to find your passion, surrender to your heartbreak. Your heartbreak points towards a truer north”

Over the last few years, I experienced real intimacy with people who were willing to open up their hearts and disclose their pain. Who knew they had to push through to save their relationships with partners, children, parents. Who had the guts to face their monsters. To show their whole being. WOW! That is real. There is no tragedy in honesty, intimacy and openness. And yes, that includes facing my own monsters. Making this journey myself.

I close with the piece of his text that I chose to ignore.
“ And here’s the inconvenient truth: it’s going to take more than the tired old refrains of hard work, dedication, commitment, and perseverance. It’s going to take very real heartbreak, sorrow, grief, and disappointment. Only you can decide how much is too much. Is it worth it? […] The scales of life always hang before us — and always ask us to weigh the burden of our choices carefully.”

We’ll see. I have given myself a couple of years – I know I have no lack of perseverance. Thank you, Umair.

| InterVitalize

The mystery of knowing

The mystery of knowing: family constellations and the holographic universe

Everyone is lying on the floor. Dead.

The impossible knowing

How is the impossible possible?

Where does the information come from?

The universe as information

A cosmic DVD

Our antenna

The information source

Beyond space and time

Sitting with the mystery

Bend your brain

Rewriting the script

Is hypnosis NLP or is NLP hypnosis?

Is hypnosis NLP? IS NLP HYPNOSIS?

What is the difference?

hypnosis as a Survival skill

what is NLP vs hypnosis?

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

ego statES

LEVELS OF PROBLEM SOLVING

ANALYSIS OF TRANSACTIONS

SCRIPTS

INJUNCTIONS

DRIVERS

STROKES

CHANGING YOUR SCRIPT

PRIMARY & SECUNDARY FEELINGS

THE DRAMA TRIANGLE

GAMES

The rules of Games

CONCLUSION

Trauma Toolkit

TRAUMA TOOLKIT

INTRODUCTION

INDICATIONS OF TRAUMA

Open focus

Bi-lateral stimulation

Stop The World: peripheral vision training

Psy-Tap or Jin Shin Jyutsu

Loving-kindness meditation & inner smile!

Heart breathing

Breathing practices

Therapeutic yoga or other bilateral activities

Shaking it out

EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique

Havening

Somatic Experiencing

13. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Reverse the memories

MDMA, psilocybin, ayahuasca

Compassionate Inquiry

Polyvagal theory

IN CONCLUSION

Why therapy doesn’t work – part 2

Why therapy doesn’t work

Part 2

What if you’re smarter than your therapist?

All the while the body knows what you really want…

Do you trust your therapist enough to let them guide you?

let go of the rational, welcome the irrational

You’re more than a talking head

Why therapy doesn’t work – part 1

Why therapy doesn’t work?

Part 1

TRAUMA

Knowing something is not the same as fixing it.

“De-traumatize first!”

What to do?

Warning: you’re bringing your family to work

The topic: stress takes you back to your childhood and your family. Why?

The autopilot

Solution #1 Soft shells

Solution #2 Hard nuts

Going overboard

What you’ll get

Get that teflon coating against stress