Category Archives: Therapeutic Process

Having the Courage to face your Demons

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“Manning up in the past was to suffer in silence, manning up now is to put your hand up.”

(Danny Frawley, AFL Football Great/Coach, 2019)

Danny Frawley died in a car crash hitting a tree last Monday afternoon. He was only 56. The whole Australian AFL football world was in shock that this great man had died.

He was the second longest serving captain ever of the St.Kilda football club – the club that I follow – so I remember his playing days well. He also did some good things in his coaching days and then was a great host and commentator in the media, radio and TV. He was a great leader and inspired many. He was much loved by all.

Danny had major depression issues over the last ten years. He was one of the first men in football to go public with his mental health issues. Having them splashed across the newspapers would not have been easy. This was such a brave thing to do for a celebrity and for a man so much in the public eye of the australian football world.

I am hoping his legacy will have a wide reaching effect on all men, to stop playing tough and pretending ‘she’ll be right mate’ and be brave and courageous enough to speak up and ask for help without feeling it is a sign of weakness. In fact it is a sign of great courage.

It takes great courage to face your demons. It takes men even greater courage to do that, because of cultural conditioning growing up. I believe it is the beginning of a death sentence when a man decided to completely suppress his real feelings in order to be or look strong. This is just not healthy whatsoever. Blocking off feelings reduces your life span.

It takes great courage to face what you have going on within you. I see this regularly with new clients, coming in shaking and scared at what will be revealed. I was the same. Having been through it myself, most are able to calm down fairly quickly and begin the deep inner process.

Looking back at all the sessions I had over the years, I would often be sitting in the waiting area terrified at what I was likely to show to the therapist which had never been safe to show ever before in my life, even to myself. This type of courage leads to freedom and greater health in your life. It’s not easy, but it is worth it.

Doing a regular Body Mindfulness meditation practice means you will have to go within and eventually face some of your old traumas and demons that you could not face in the past. Don’t give up when uncomfortable feelings arise. Just take a smaller piece, whatever is manageable and face that. Do that regularly and you will progress further than ever before. You will thrive.

Lost Connections leads to Depression

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The last class for 2018 is running tomorrow night. The Mindfulness classes will resume again on Tuesday Jan 15th 2019. So a shorter break than other years. 2019 will make it 9 consecutive years running of this class and as is tradition, the first class will be free for whoever books in until full.

I’m reading (technically listening to) a great book titled Lost Connections by Johann Hari. Where he covers the real causes of depression in most people. And the research all points to lost connections. For example, we have lost connections with:
* People – today we have fewer friends we can confide in,
* Work – more people doing less meaningful work,
* Childhood Trauma – people are not taking the time to go within and complete their past trauma to reconnect with themselves,
* Natural World – we are losing the natural organic rhythms of nature that we use to have centuries ago.

I recommend this book highly. It’s a damning indictment on trying to solve depression with prescription drugs.

A Body Mindfulness meditative practice helps you to reconnect with your real self. I’ve found that when you reconnect to yourself within – your body – you then naturally want to reconnect to other (better) people, spend more time in nature, do more meaningful work, eat better etc.

Coming home and reconnecting to you is the first biggest crucial step to eradicating depression. And this time of year is when it usually hits the hardest. I will be on leave for 2.5 weeks from Dec 21st (returning Jan 7th 2019) but I will still be able to see some people for individual sessions (in person or from anywhere in the world over Skype/Zoom) should you really need help with that inner connection over the Xmas/New Year break.

Learning to Let Things Happen

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Learning to let go the over-use of the intellect isn’t easy in this day and age. But it is a must if you want life to flow more effortlessly and to be able to make better decisions in all areas of your life. Changing on the inside also doesn’t have to be a big effort or struggle. Whenever it is, you know your intellect is trying to do it for you. And that’s the hard way.

“As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.”
Eckhart tolle (The Power of Now p158)

Eckhart describes the effort required very nicely in the quote above. In mindfulness classes you relearn how to just be again, to let things happen naturally. You create time and space to reaquaint with your deeper self, without effort. And as it turns out, this is the best and most natural state that also helps people around you to heal, change and grow.

When you find it hard to ‘just be’ around an issue, when you find it hard to give the problem or issue space to heal, that’s when it’s good to seek out professional help. Someone who can help you ‘be’ again, to safely and gently help you face and free a deep stuck place

The Bizarre Twitches and Jerks

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“What are these twitches and jerks George! They are bizarre!”

Such were the comments of a client recently after their session.

Welcome to my world! Where every little subtle sensation and feeling is treated as much more important than the thoughts in your head.

To the average person, when they do this work, (getting into the body) the body responds and comes to life. This life shows up as twitches, jerks, tingles, buzzing, heat, tensions, pressure, waves, feelings and emotions, to name just a few.

Under normal circumstances these body messages are ignored by most people. But, come and have a session of body based psychotherapy, enter your body mindfully, and all these previously hidden sensations that the intellect always considered totally irrelevant, come to the forefront.

You would not walk down the street and let your body twitch and jerk visibly. You would get strange looks and people will want to lock you up. ‘Who is this weird person?’

But in the total privacy of the therapy room, all these sensations become very important and normal. They are a very important part of your body releasing the causes of your blocks, pains and stresses in your life. Not just as a coping mechanism, but as an organic completion of old unfinished business that’s been buried deep in your body.

So if you want to progress more rapidly and heal more fully, spend time listening to your body’s messages in deep, deep detail. Hang out more with all those cells that make up your whole body. They have a lot to say about your current issues, problems, pains and health. Give them some attention and they will show you what needs to happen next for you to move forward and heal in ways that drugs, talking, pushing and analysis could never do.

You do not need Thoughts to Think, you need Silence

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“Do you have the patience to wait
until your mud settles & the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
until the right action arises by itself?”
Lao Tzu

This is a great quote for describing aspects of Mindfulness Meditation – especially for self healing.

The inner you (subconscious) needs time, space and usually a slowing down of the mind to connect and do its job properly, for you to heal and move closer to your goals.

This stillness time is crucial to have each day, if you want to work more effectively and have more control over your self healing. Then once things are still and clear and settled, you then need patience to allow the next movement to happen spontaneously in your body and in your mind.

I do this everyday to some extent with each and every client that I work with. There is always some time for stillness, quiet, silence.

This quote also applies very well to solving problems and making decisions when you are stuck.

Just stop, relax, calm down, settle, allow some time, then wait in stillness, silence, until the answer (the next right action) spontaneously, automatically ‘pops’ into your head.

Why does this work so well? Because when you do this, you are accessing MORE of your whole being to solving the problem. You are not limiting the answer to the narrow range of your intellect.

This taps into the common saying that “we only use 5-10% of our mind’s full potential”. In this stillness, this silence, you will find more of the other 90%.

This also ties in with my standard quote at the foot of all my Mindfulness Meditation emails…

” You do not need Thoughts to Think, you need Silence”

Consolidation Meditations

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In this post I’d like to focus a little on Consolidation Meditations.

What is that?

Once you learn to release within you, it can get addictive to keep releasing continually. Doing this to much can fragment or destabalise you. So it is good to stop occasionally and do a few meditations for consolidation. That is, for pulling together all the gains you have made and bringing them more into alignment with each other.

It’s like the cleanup after a lot of good work has been done. Pulling together all the little pieces you have released and teased out – all back into one piece again.

Most people need help with learning how to release, so I emphasise this aspect much more in sessions, to make it easier to let go. But once you can do that, then consolidations are important. Without the ability to release, consolidation meditations will not do much for you, they will at best help you keep the status quo, and sometimes this is important especially when you have been run ragged at work or very stressed.

Over consolidating brings no change, just the status quo. No movement, no growth. That can become a stuck and rigid place to be in. But coupled with release work it becomes a powerful tool to help feel the full richness of the gains you have made.

Facing Resistance

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My classes, workshops, courses and individual sessions that people attend, aim to create a safe place where a person can spend some quality time contacting what’s ticking away inside them subconsciously which affects their daily life, behaviours and health in very big ways.

I recently read a book recommended by a colleague, titled ‘Turning Pro’. It’s a simple easy to read book. In it the author talks about the difference between an amateur and a professional in life.

A quote from the book:
“Resistance hates two qualities above all others: concentration and depth. Why? Because when we work with focus and we work deep, we succeed. Resistance wants to keep us shallow and unfocused. So it makes the superficial and the vain intoxicating.”

Mindfulness Meditation and Body Based inner work gives you time to concentrate and go deep. Without depth and focus it is difficult to accomplish anything of substance that you feel satisfied with. True satisfaction comes from your inner spirit, your soul. Contacting this inner spirit part of you from your intellect alone cannot normally produce the depth required. It can only simulate.

A lot of people go through life simulating and never really facing their resistance.
You need to face your resistance in order to go deeper and become more healthier and authentic.

Facing resistance can arise when you are avoiding going somewhere you know is good for you, events of substance. Feel your resistance, the part that’s giving you all the reasons not to go. This is a good sign – for you are now going deeper and accessing old out dated programs that are not assisting you to live effectively today.

Feel them and be with them. Don’t try to change them, don’t judge them and don’t hate them. Accept that they are there right now and take the risk to allow them to release in the way that they didn’t get the chance to, when they were first formed. If this is too difficult to do alone, then seek out a therapist that can keep you safe, deep and focused long enough for this release to occur.

Dependancy

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I shouldn’t have to be writing about this topic this day and age but sadly I still need to bring some attention to it. I heard again from another client recently how other therapists that she had been to in the past, she felt had tried to ‘milk her’ of her money by making her dependant on coming back for continual sessions. This client said,

“George, you’re not like most of the other therapists out there. You are not trying to milk me for what you can get. You are not trying to make me dependant on you, (coming to see you for years without signs of solid benefit and progress.) I can feel how you really care and are genuinely helping me to change and release the past. I can feel the difference with you. I can feel the progress and the change.”

Sadly many therapists out there are not really interested in you healing yourself. They want to make sure that you keep having your problem so you have to keep going back to them, so they earn an income. How crazy is that? Years ago, I even had one prominent psychiatrist say this exact thing straight in my face, with a smirk. I was appalled. But I kept a straight face and moved on.

How I work? How I imagine any good therapist works.

I want you to get better 100% (or at least feel genuine improvement) in the least amount of sessions possible! Once you feel the benefit and go off to live your life, you would want to recommend others to see me to get help too. This is how I operate. 75% of my client base are now referrals from past satisfied clients. Of course I also recommend some maintenance sessions every year or two if needed. But not full dependency, where you have to keep seeing me for life, just to get by.

As my client said, you can normally feel this attitude in the therapist. Are they really on your side and listening and adapting to your needs and pain? Or are they just going through the motions, relying on their ‘qualifications’ to mesmerise you into believing that they know best and that you will need them forever.

As a rule, if you haven’t felt a genuine benefit within (max) 10 sessions with a therapist – leave! Find someone else. Even if that therapist is subsidised by the government and you don’t have to pay much – leave! Don’t become a dependent victim. Deep down, you are a powerful, loving, joyous, free and alive spirit/human being. If your therapist doesn’t see this when they work with you, my recommendation is to leave.

A little about ‘Acceptance’

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I’d like to say a little about ACCEPTANCE that can be very beneficial to remember.

In the mindfulness classes (as well as the private therapy sessions) I often talk about acceptance. Sometimes people think that by accepting their problem, that it means that they will be stuck with the problem forever. That’s how it feels to the intellect. There is a feeling that you have to keep fighting this disease, ailment, pain or negative behaviour pattern, to get rid of it or else it will never go away, or ever heal.

This is not the case.

If you can stop and feel what the problem is and its location in your body, and actually stay with it, accept that it is there and not try to fight it, it then has the space to release properly. But acceptance is the hard part because it means accepting exactly how it feels in your body right now, and that’s not always pleasant to allow. But if you can take the step to let go judgment and just fully allow the problem to be in your body, then amazing things happen.

In classes and personal sessions, you have the opportunity (for an hour or more) to stay with and accept parts of you that you have denied, hated and avoided for a long time. And when this allowing happens, your body then has the freedom to actual heal the issue in ways that your intellect could never fully understand.

Stillness

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Who we are I believe, correlates more with the state of stillness than it does with our intellectual thinking. Your ability to feel stillness, to just be with yourself, the world, nature, or with others, is a greater indication of your maturity and level of humanity.

Stillness is not reading a book while lying on a beach or watching TV numbed out on the couch. Stillness is being comfortable with silence and doing seemingly nothing in that moment for a period of time. Whether with yourself alone, or with another.

So in Body Psychotherapy and in fact with all the work done in a session with a client, once the initial talking is done and we move to deepening, there is a lot of stillness time. The stillness can be quiet or active, but there are few words if any, it is simply still. The thinking becomes less important and the attention moves to the body and the inner workings of the subconscious.

Stillness breathes in fresh air to a crowded over thinking, over worked mind and gives the body a chance to speak and heal itself in areas that had been locked and pushed away for far too long.

This is why Mediation is a good practice. To meditate you need to accept stillness.