meditation

Ten Positive Things To Do During COVID19 Lockdown

It looks like we’ve all got about 6 months to fill in social isolation. How you are going to spend the time? Are you going to use it productively, or waste it bingeing on NetFlix until you can’t see any more?

It’s times like these when thinking creatively is particularly important. And since I’m here to do your thinking for you, here are ten positive things to do during the COVID19 lockdown that will leave you better off in the future when we can all go out again: (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Deal With Generalized Anxiety

Anxiety sucks, especially when we don’t know what’s causing it and what to do about it. When we feel anxious all the time for no obvious reason, it’s called generalized anxiety. However there are often things we can do to reduce, eliminate or manage generalized anxiety so that it doesn’t ruin our life.

There are many reasons why we may feel anxious. Solving this problem can sometimes involve trying a number of different approaches until we find one or more that work for us. Based on my experience of what works for me and my clients when feeling anxious, here are some strategies to try: (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Heal Deep Emotional Wounds

Peter Saxon

Holistic Counsellor Peter Saxon

Emotional wounds from early life can have a profoundly detrimental effect on our self confidence and our ability to be successful in life.

Even wounds that we’re unaware of or reluctant to acknowledge can still strongly effect us because they operate on the unconscious or subconscious level. These wounds can lead to self-sabotaging behaviour that may be obvious to other people, while we remain oblivious to what’s going on. Yet we keep encountering similar painful experiences in life over and over, unable to pinpoint what’s causing this pattern or how to break out of it.

Often deep emotional wounds that we may be unaware of are at the heart of our ongoing suffering. Fortunately my good friend Peter Saxon is an expert on dealing with exactly this problem in men’s lives, and I recently seized the opportunity to interview him on the topic.

My favourite quote from this interview is:

“When we really get to experience our feelings directly without avoiding or grasping or going to the emotional drama of the feeling, and are actually be able to sit with it, and then look to identify what the need is underneath that feeling, and getting help to meet that need: life changes dramatically.”

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Manage Stress

Stress is the unspoken epidemic of the 21st century. There’s too much to do, too much pressure, too many people to please. We feel restless, tense and on edge much of the time. You can’t relax. After a while, you begin to think that this is normal; the way you’re supposed to feel all the time. You get addicted to your own adrenalin.

You never take the time to even breathe properly. You push, and push, and push as though your life depends on doing what you think you need to do. There’s never enough time. And when your current project is done, there’s always a new one to work on. The pressure never ends. You get headaches frequently, but push on regardless.

Left untreated, chronic stress will destroy your health and rob you of your zest for life. Eventually you burn out, give up, fall ill, get depressed and just don’t care any more. It’s important to learn how to manage stress before that happens. Here are some tips on how to do it:

Take Regular Breaks

Your body isn’t built to handle the non-stop adrenaline rush of chronic stress. If you live in a constantly adrenalin charged state, eventually your health will suffer.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Guided Visualization

A guided visualization is an active form of meditation where a facilitator guides you through an imaginary sequence that includes emotional healing elements. It may involve looking at your childhood or other events in your past from a different perspective, or constructing completely new experiences that have powerful positive emotions behind them.

The facilitator may be present or may be on a CD or MP3 player. Background music helps get into the mood. You can also construct guided visualizations yourself. Visualizing yourself succeeding at some task has a powerful positive effect on your self-confidence and allows you to rehearse or practice an important task before an event. It is often referred to as mental rehearsal and is used by many sport and public speaking professionals.

Advantages:

  • You can construct a new past for yourself, if the old one was really awful

  • You can purchase guided visualizations on CD or MP3 format for home use

  • Easy to do in groups

  • Can be tailored to your personal needs

  • Limited only by your imagination

Disadvantages:

  • Usually not very interactive

  • Wide range of effectiveness of facilitators

  • May have to try a few to find one that really works for you

… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

Meditation

I do a combination of Yoga, breathwork and meditation every day that I learned from the Art Of Living foundation. It helps calm my nerves and quieten my busy mind. I often find I get creative ideas popping into my head during meditation that I would otherwise never have thought of. It’s a great way of getting in touch with your intuition and deepening your sense of inner wisdom.

Aummmmmm

The benefits of meditation have been known for thousands of years, and are particularly helpful in our modern society where we are increasingly trained to think a lot and rarely get a break from the mental chatter in our heads.

Advantages:

  • Helps deal with stress
  • Teaches you to relax and focus
  • A form of meditation or prayer is a core part of most spiritual philosophies
  • It’s free!

Disadvantages:

  • Doesn’t help you develop social skills; may even impair them
  • Can make you more introverted and shy
  • Takes a very long time to release and heal trauma compared to somatic therapies
… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Overcome Self-Consciousness

Self-consciousness is a huge problem for us when we lack confidence, because it broadcasts neediness and insecurity to other people. It also makes other people feel ill at ease around us, especially women. Our social interactions suffer, and our self-confidence becomes even more undermined as a result. It’s a viscous cycle. So overcoming self-consciousness is an essential step in becoming a confident man.

This is one of the biggest issues I’ve struggled with in my life, arising as a chronic fear of what other people thought. As a result, in the past I always dressed conservatively and had a conservative hairstyle. This was dreadful as far as attracting and relating to women went.

A big breakthrough for me came a couple of years ago when a stage production I was in gave me an excuse to dye my hair blonde. Getting over the fear of what other people would think and say when I showed up with blonde hair was a big step for me at the time. And the more I’ve gone down the path of overcoming self-consciousness, the more I’ve found women both comfortable around me, and attracted to me.

Last month I decided to quit shaving and grow a beard.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago