Archive for May, 2008

The Source of Wellbeing

Monday, May 12th, 2008

This email came to me today from Micheal Neill – the Genius Catalyst – and is reproduced here with his permission. I hope you find it interesting.

 
A few months back my best friend and his wife had a baby named
Kai.  When we went to visit baby Kai in the hospital, I was
struck as I often am when in the presence of extremely young
children at how peaceful and almost blissed out he seemed to be.
In fact, it was difficult to look at him without falling into a
state of wellbeing myself.

Judging by the goofy looks on all the grownup faces in the room,
I realized I was not alone in having this experience.  Since I
make a large part of my living by assisting people in accessing
their own happiness and wellbeing in the pursuit of their goals
and in the midst of challenging situations, I began to wonder
how it is that that state of wellbeing we were all born into
seems to fade over time and become more and more difficult to
access.

Here’s where I’ve got to with it so far…

The way most people think about life is that their experience is
a continuum ranging from misery to joy.  The game of life is
figuring out which things take you towards joy (and doing more
of them) and which things take you away from misery (and do less
of them).

At one level of consciousness, the path towards joy seems to be
marked by having the right stuff – plenty of money, a good job,
a great relationship and a nice home.

But we all recognize that there are plenty of people who have
all those things on paper but are still pretty miserable in
themselves.  So we begin to look deeper and see that it’s not
your stuff but your *actions* that make you happy or unhappy.
Do the right thing and you feel good about yourself; do the
wrong thing and your conscience will haunt you until the end of
time.

The problem with this theory is that we all know that as often
as not, good things happen to bad people and bad things happen
to good people. And though we may think that “doing the right
thing” should be its own reward, life viewed from this level
doesn’t seem remotely fair.

It’s thoughts like this that lead many people into a more
internal-direction in their pursuit of happiness and wellbeing,
and we quickly see that it’s not what happens but what we think
about what happens that determines our experience.  So we begin
experimenting with things like affirmations and positive
thinking, sure that if we could just control the flow of
thoughts through our own brains, we would have the key to
life-long happiness.

A lot of people get stuck at this level of understanding because
of one simple, innocent mistake – they attribute their
inability to think only positive thoughts to a lack of skill or
effort on their part instead of recognizing that the theory
itself is based on an incorrect premise – the idea that you can
actually control which thoughts come into your head.

When you really stop to think about it, you realize that you can
only choose which thoughts to dwell upon and make important -
not which ones pop into your head in any given moment.

At this point, people come to what seems like an real sticking
point.  As one of my clients once put it, “if happiness doesn’t
come from what I have or what I do, and I can’t choose my
thoughts, doesn’t that leave me kind of screwed?”

And that’s certainly the conclusion some people come to.  They
decide that happiness is completely outside of their control,
and they give up on the pursuit.  Often times, they actually
begin to feel better when they stop trying so hard to be happy,
leading them to another false conclusion – that happiness can
only be pursued indirectly.

The reason that’s a false conclusion is because it still makes
happiness into a “thing” – something which we can have or not
have, pursue directly or indirectly, successfully get or if
we’re not careful, lose.

Some people take their pursuit of connection and well-being, or
as we’re calling it “happiness”, and they decide that since we
can’t control which thoughts come into our heads, the thing to
do is to stop thinking altogether.

For reasons you’ll see in a few minutes, this seems to work,
leading people into a complex set of routines, prayer,
meditation practices, and a variety of other disciplines all
designed to at least temporarily stop thought.

Since peace and well-being often follow these practices, the
practices themselves appear to be the means to a happy end.  But
again, the problem with all of these practices is that they
take practice – and while that may seem a small price to pay for
such a precious jewel, there is still another level of
understanding beyond this one.

What if, like the baby Kai, we are born at peace – in tune with
the infinite, in touch with our bliss, resting in the well of
our being.  But even as babies, our very human needs from time
to time interfere with our connection with this innate
well-being.  We experience physical discomfort.  Because we do
not yet understand the source of our discomfort, we do the best
we know how to do – we scream bloody murder!

Then, to our delight and amazement, someone comes (this is in a
functional household) and “makes it better” – they feed our
hunger, dry our bottom, entertain our nascent brains with funny
noises and rollercoaster type movements, and before we know it,
we are back in touch with our innate well-being.

Over time, it would be the most natural thing in the world for
us to connect/attribute that return to well-being to the people
or activities that seem to be causing it – we are OK because
Mommy loves us, we are OK because Daddy protects us, we are OK
because the people around us, for the most part, appear to have
our well-being at heart.

And then one day we do something in our joy that mommy or daddy
doesn’t like – we splash colors on a wall, or cry when daddy’s
tired, and suddenly the ocean of love we are used to swimming
in is filled with sharks and other monsters.

Before long, we have bought in to the myth of love and
well-being outside us.

But well-being – happiness, connection, love, peace, spirit – is
your nature.  And the reason you can never consistently hang on
to it when you pursue it from the outside in is that it’s
already inside you.  It would be like looking for your keys in
the street when you had left them in the house – no matter how
long and hard you look, you can never find what’s not there.

Sitting in the hospital that day, watching the baby Kai as he
slept off the rigors of his birth, it became clear to me that
the source of well-being comes from deep inside us.  It is not
the fruit of something we do; it is the essence of who we are.
And all our attempts to find wellbeing from outside ourselves,
no matter how well intended and practically followed, are
doomed to fail.  Not because happiness and wellbeing are
unattainable, but simply because it is impossible to find what
has never been lost.

Have fun, learn heaps, and  take some time this week to hang out
in your own good feelings.  Worst case, you get to feel good;
best case, they may lead you all the way back to the source.

With love,
Michael

PS – If you’d like to explore these ideas further and London
seems a bit far to travel, why not join me and Oprah’s happiness
guru Dr. Robert Holden for an evening talk in New York City on
June 20th?

For more information and to book, visit:
http://www.hayhouse.com/event_details.php?event_id=507

================================================================
Remember, you can share this tip with your friends and reprint
it in your blogs and forums providing you include an author
credit, full copyright information and a link back to
http://www.geniuscatalyst.com.

To subscribe to the MNCT, visit us online at:
http://www.geniuscatalyst.com

(c) 2008 Michael Neill/All Rights Reserved

Genius Catalyst Inc.
 
4220 Esteban Road
Woodland Hills, CA
91364
US

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The Relationships We Have With Food

Friday, May 9th, 2008

 

I am a member of an online site called Mumsclick (www.mumsclick.co.uk). As the name suggests it is mainly for mums, so that they may have ‘me’ time. A number of weeks ago, an article was posted by another Mumsclick member, Felicity, about her experiences with regard to her daughters anorexia. It got me thinking, and lead to me writing the following article, which was posted over two weeks, and is reproduced here in full.

 
 

 

 

 

I read the very moving story that Felicity was kind enough to share with us recently on this site (mumsclick), about the experiences of her and her family around her daughter’s anorexia. I know that it stirred a lot of thoughts amongst the members, and it certainly got me thinking about the relationships that we have with something so simple as the food we eat.

In my Cognitive Hypnotherapy practice (http://www.anitamitchell.co.uk), I see many people who would like help with weight control. Quite simply, they are overweight and would like to be slimmer. Usually they have tried more diets than they care to remember, and they may come to me with mixed ideas of what is achievable. I’m sure that many of us can relate to this sort of thing – I know that in the past I have had my own, not very healthy relationship, with food that was along these lines. So my client and myself will begin to work together. One of the first things I will tell them is that with my approach, they are not ‘on a diet’. If this is going to work long term, we need to tackle the relationship that they have with food. So, weight control in these circumstances can be a fairly easy thing to help people with, and over a number of weeks, together, we look into the relationship that the client has with food, and work to change it. If they are really committed to the process, we get to the stage were my clients are able to have a normal eating pattern, so that food doesn’t have the emotional attachment that it might once have had. People begin to eat consciously, body weight can naturally begin to stabilise to a sustainable level over time. Depending on how much they need to lose, it can take from a few weeks or months, to a few years. Occasionally, I will have a (usually) young person come to see me whose relationship with food has gone beyond this to the stage that it may even be life threatening if something isn’t done soon. Quite often they have already been through mainstream approaches which have not had the desired affect. Sometimes, it’s their parents who bring them to see me, at their wits end because they don’t know where to go from here. Occasionally the clients may themselves recognise that they need more help than they are presently receiving. However they end up in my office, unlike the person who might want to lose weight, those diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia nervosa, are unlikely to be with me for only a short number of sessions. But this is still brief therapy! I say that because we presently have a system were a patient may often see a psychiatrist for a long period, some will need to enter residential treatment, others will be seen as day patients. With this traditional way of treatment, it can often continue for many years. Mainstream approaches tends to centre on group therapy, action planning with a key worker, and health and weight monitoring. Therapeutic interventions are mainly behavioural. So, they may focus on changing eating habits and routines, food choices, portion size, or the feelings surrounding food, rather than their feelings about themselves, which in my opinion is key. It may also be that by focusing on altering conscious behaviour towards food rather than the unconscious intention behind their behaviour towards food, that the motivation behind the behaviour is being overlooked. Could that be why recovery levels in such places appears to be quite low and subsequent relapse upon discharge so high?
When I was in training to be a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, my trainer, Trevor Silvester of The Quest Institute (www.questinstitute.co.uk), talked about his thoughts on these places of residential treatment. As an ex-policeman, he recognised a parallel between young offender’s institutes and residential treatment homes. In his opinion, young criminals are often sent to young offender’s institutes as inexperienced juveniles, only to re-emerge at the end of their time there having learned the tricks of their criminal trade. In the same way, residential treatment homes could be seen as places where those suffering from anorexia or bulimia go to learn how to do it properly! If we bear in mind the competitive nature that those with eating disorders quite often have, then it is easy to understand why. If each person wants to be ‘the best’ at being anorexic/bulimic, what better place to learn! The result may be that sufferers could get worse and not better in this environment. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that this mainstream approach hasn’t had its successes, or that it is not the right way for some people. All I am saying is that it is not necessarily the best course of action for everyone, and that alternatives need to be available so that there is choice. We need to ask ourselves if this is always the most effective way of dealing with the problem?
Another common factor of people who have eating disorders is the avoidance of adulthood. By not eating, the body re-enters a pre-pubescent stage. What better place to stay a child than somewhere that has adults controlling almost all areas of someone’s life?

One of the main things with people who have eating disorders is that they often use food and the control of food in an attempt to compensate for feelings and emotions that may otherwise seem overwhelming. Sometimes they feel that it is the only area in their lives that they can control, after all, no one can make them eat if they don’t want to, or indeed stop them from vomiting afterwards. This is how it often starts; dieting, bingeing, and purging may begin as a way to cope with painful emotions and to feel in control of one’s life. Ultimately, these behaviours damage a person’s physical and emotional health; their confidence and self-esteem diminished. The irony is that the sufferer ends up being controlled by the behaviour, instead of the other way around.

From the point of view of a Cognitive Hypnotherapy approach, the first step in treatment is to change “I am an anorexic,” into “I am doing anorexia,” so that it is no longer the person’s identity, but merely a series of behaviours – it is no longer who I am, but something that I am doing. Quite often clients with this illness have grown up with a poor sense of identity and low self-esteem. They may fell like being labelled anorexic or bulimic somehow makes them feel like they are somebody. Better a label than invisibility. Often this desire for a label is a defence to hide the belief they hold at an unconscious level about their relationship with themselves and the world. This might typically be expressed as “I am not loved” or “I am not loveable.” They will usually rate their liking of themselves very low, so there is much work to do to improve self-esteem and confidence. Initially food and eating habits are not focused on at all. It is important to pace the client, so that we only move forward at a rate they are comfortable with. So it may be some time before food is even mentioned during therapy sessions. Instead work is done in two main areas, to improve their relationship with themselves, and also to de-identifying themselves with their illness. It is about getting to the root of a problem and dealing with it, rather than putting a sticking plaster over it – doing the ‘head stuff’ as one of my clients once put it.

Cognitive Hypnotherapy is not THE answer to eating disorders, and of course, may not be right for everyone, but it certainly has the potential to be the difference that makes the difference for many.

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

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