Lives That Work

Big thanks to Tawa College Community Education for hosting my Emotional Health course, 6 weeks starting May 13!!
Great chance to explore an empowering approach to taking charge of our mental health. Look forward to working with you there!
https://www.tawacomed.co.nz/Course,Emotional-Health-stress-mental-health,5526

Lives That Work You’ve found yourself at a good place to explore what you need to have a life that works – the life that’s a platform for the person you truly want to be.

Lives That Work is a counselling and mental health coaching practice, with a special interest in trauma resolution.

Michael's training in the Human Givens approach (humangivens.com) is aimed at delivering effective brief therapy for clients. It is based on powerful insights into the place of emotional wellbeing in healthy minds. It includes the rewind process, using deep relaxation and guided imagery, for resolving trauma.

The rewind process is the therapy of choice for trauma support organisations like PTSD Resolution in the UK (ptsdresolution.org). The process is non-intrusive – there is no need for the client to recount their trauma. They simply need to be able to access its emotional effect. The process essentially reprograms the disturbing triggering and turns traumatic memory into a normal, if bad, one.

The rewind is part of the Human Givens’ holistic approach. This works with how the client is meeting their emotional needs and dealing with the challenges of their current situation. The approach is aimed at empowering the client to use their inborn resources and the strengths of their life skills to achieve their goals for emotional wellbeing and clear thinking.

'Worry is a cloud that rains destruction'
(saying, Idries Shah, from Seeker After Truth)

Stewing, churning, ruminating, agonising … worry is a state of high emotional arousal.
Like all states of upset it locks your attention on itself, blocking your path to clear thinking and a sense of perspective.
Worry hijacks your imagination, turning this amazing problem-solving tool into a damaging weapon. You imagine all the bad stuff and its worst consequences in vivid virtual reality.
Your brain can’t tell the difference between the virtual world you’re imagining and stimuli from the outer world. It fires off your fight/flight responses to your fears, but then you don’t act on them. Your emotional wheels are spinning … and you’re going nowhere.
Worry is your vital defence system gone haywire. The immediate remedy is to calm yourself down.
A powerful tool for that is your breathing. Lives That Work coaching equips you with skills to relax yourself, settle worry and get your problem-solving brain online.

Here’s a parable for our times. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 70s, many US soldiers took narcotic drugs and many became addicted to them. The authorities in the States expected a tsunami of problems with tens of thousands of he**in addicts returning home. They invested in follow-up research to keep track of the outcome. The researchers found, to their amazement, that once these folk got back to ordinary life, most dropped their addiction. Relatively few continued with it.

Why was this? The toxic environment of the war zone was left behind. The returned soldiers were once more surrounded by people and engaged in activities meaningful to them. Their core needs were being met in ways that promoted their wellbeing.

Fast forward to now and the current churn of anxious talk about anxiety and depressing talk about depression ... the story here illustrates the wealth of information and experience available to CHANGE THOSE EXPECTATIONS. Creating lives that work.