The Transformative Conversation

28/01/2018

Feeling Stressed??
Feeling Anxious??
Feeling Confused??
Feeling depressed??
Feeling Lost???
and NO ONE TO TALK TO????

Come to Riverview Therapies on 1st Feb, 2018.

1st February is Time to Talk day for Mental Health. Our Counsellor Phil Wilde is happy for you to drop in at Riverview Therapies (Riverview Clinic) between 1830-2030hrs (at no cost...FREE!!!)

Grab this opportunity for an informal chat ( "come in and have a chat") about any issues you feel is affecting your mental health.

For further details, contact us at 01474331188 or leave a message here or message us at www.riverview-therapies.com.

26/01/2018

Time to talk about mental health day is Thursday 1st February.

I will be running a free drop in session at Riverview Therapies http://www.riverview-therapies.com/ from 6.30pm -8.30 to discuss any concerns.

No appointment necessary, just drop in.

11/12/2017

Article in The Journal of Public Mental Health with thanks to Michael Neill et al.

About six months ago, Professor Anthony Kessel, a colleague and friend, approached me about co-authoring an article about the principles behind the human experience for a mainstream medical journal in the UK...

05/12/2017

Proud to be part of this great team. Check out the new website.

Riverview Therapies boasts of a team of highly qualified and experienced team of Physiotherapists with long standing experience in the field of Physiotherapy. We are committed to high standards, evidence based assessment and treatment approaches for our clients.

01/12/2017

28/11/2017

At the risk of sounding flippant (who me?), anybody who is anybody these days seems to have suffered from some form of depression at some stage in their lives and are willing to step up and share their story with the masses in the honorable belief that "it will help others going through the same".

It seems you can't turn on the TV or radio without the latest pop star, actor or royal confessing to have suffered from "mental health" in some form or other. (Funny, I thought we all had mental health. I think they may mean mental unease).

The advice being given all round seems to be to just talk to someone about it.

I am sure in a lot of cases this is good advice. If you are feeling crap about something and keeping it all bottled up and it seems to be getting worse, it's probably a good idea to chat to someone.

However, have you ever tried to tell someone about what is bothering you only to find that they have had a similar (though it isn't really is it?) problem and you spend the next hour trying to get a word in edgeways or trying to end the conversation and get the hell outta there before you scream!

"I KNOW how you feel, this happened to me once..."

"What you need to do is...."

"Oh, so what did so and so say?"

"...and what did you do?"

" Oh don't worry about your boss he sounds like a complete...."

Ever had conversations like this? They don't tend to help you feel much better, do they?

This is the problem with talking to someone who may have your best interests at heart but would also be devastated to know that they have not helped much.

You see most people don't listen It's not their fault, they've never been shown how.

They hear what you are saying (if you are lucky) but don't LISTEN. They tend to form an opinion and try to solve your issue for you. At the risk of being called out as sexist, men especially are pretty good at this (sorry geezers!).

They will evaluate what you have said against their own previous experiences and, after probing into places where, once you have gone there, you wished you hadn't, they will then either judge you by trying to figure you out, explain your motives and behaviour and then proceed to give you their very best advice,

"Just suck it up! Be a man and dig deep. I did and look at how successful I am now!

Now this isn't always the case. There are some great listeners out there. Most of the time we just want to be heard. we don't want advice generally because when we are in that place we won't take it anyway!

So what to do

Well, I tend to look at it like this. If, after speaking to someone, be it a friend, relative, councellor or therapist, you don't feel better, in fact you feel decidely worse; that's telling you something. And I'm going to suggest its telling you that they are not the person to be speaking to.

Your feelings are there for a reason. Not to tell you how crappy your life is. Your job is. Your relationship is.

Your feelings are there for one reason and one reason alone.

To let you know your state of mind in the moment.

If you are feeling low that's telling you something about your thinking in that moment and NOT about your situation.

Let me explain.

Have you ever had someone cut in front of you in traffic and you lost it? Yeah, me too. You'd be justified in thinking they made you angry, right? wrong.

I'm sure if you think real hard you can find a time when someone cut in front of you and you didn't get angry?No? Ok then. If the person who cut you up made you angry why didn't everyone else in the car react in the same way? The answer is because they weren't having angry thoughts. They may have even been thinking "what the hell are you getting so out of your pram about?" In which case they would probably be blaming you for making them annoyed...AT YOU!!!

You see you can only feel what you are thinking in any particular moment. Try and be angry whilst having a happy thought...you can't.

YOU KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE!

Have you ever seen a young child having a tantrum and you started to tickle them. "Come on, give us a smile" "Where's that beautiful little smile? I can see it, here it comes...." Inevitably the child starts to giggle. He or she is not thinking about whatever it was that they thought was upsetting them.

So What? How is this relevant to my problem?

Well, this seemingly tiny, innocuous difference; that we feel our thinking and NOT our circumstances, is the difference that makes all the difference.

It applies not just to some problems, but ALL problems!

Now that sounds like a big claim to make. and you could be forgiven for thinking "This is Facebook for heaven's sake, it must be fake news", but if you speak to someone who knows this, someone who does not allow themselves to get sucked into your story, you will find that, instead of coming away feeling even more miserable than you were when you came in. Instead of having gone through the pain of reliving old traumas, you just had a conversation about where your experience of life REALLY comes from (The clue here is :Thinking!) you may be amazed to find that you actually feel a bit better.

"I'm not sure what happened in there but I feel as though my problem isn't quite as bad as I thought"

This is a typical reaction to a conversation with a person who understands the role of thought in our experience.

Why does this seem to happen?
When we are in a low mood its like we have a pair of dark glasses on. Everything looks bleak. This is why advice is never heeded when given to someone when they're feeling down. All our thinking seems to go round and round and round in a downward spiral. The more we try and think our way out the worse we feel.

Do you see how we feel our thinking?

Conversely, when we are in a good mood, carefree and light, we tend to see things completely differently. Why, sometimes I struggle to remember what the argumant with my wife was all about. I know I should be mad at her for something, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. And if I do my reaction is usually "Oh, That. What was i so annoyed about?"

Relationship problems/kids/parents/work related
Stress
Anxiety
Depression
Addiction
trauma
Lack of purpose
Dis ease
Boredom
Overeating
Self-esteem
lack of confidence

What if all of the above are NOT caused by what the general population previously thought but are to do with your thinking in the moment?

Do you think there would be a greater chance of breaking free when you haven't got to change something OUT THERE(That person, situation or circumstance)?

Could it really be as simple as gaining a deeper understanding of the role of thought in our lives?

If you glimpsed a sliver of truth in what I have written above and would like to know more...let's have a conversation.

29/08/2017

Following an off the cuff remark I made recently on a coaching page I was asked to expand about the link between my coaching-whilst-walking and the biblical story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus.
Rather than hog somebody else's page I decided to post on here.

Nearly fifteen years ago now, following the birth of my daughter, I felt the urge to have her baptised into the Catholic faith. Odd really because I had nothing to do with the faith I was brought up in long before the breakdown of my first marriage.
To my shock the priest I approached at my local church to do the deed refused point blank to baptise Emily, stating he hadn't seen me at his church.

As was my way back then I cut a deal with him. I would go to his church on a regular basis if he agreed to answer questions that I had since I was a teenager. After a sufficient time had passed he would baptise my daughter.

So, after attending mass for a while Fr Victor sucked me into parish life and before I knew it I was reading scriptures to the congregation during mass, co-running the youth club, taking the youngsters on retreat for instruction so they could confirm their faith (something catholic teenagers are asked to do) and oh yes, taking a foundation degree in Catholicism...as you do.

It was during the two-year course that I came upon a story ( I'll call it that but I am not doing it a service in so doing: it's far more than that.)

The story is from the Gospel of Luke and is known as the Walk to Emmaus.
This story is the bog standard teaching for catechists (one who teaches the faith to others) in the Catholic faith. Which was what I had unwittingly become. Little did I know at the time it would be my stock-in-trade as to how I would share what has become known as The Three Principles.

Basic overview.
Jesus is dead and his disciples are distraught and confused.
Distraught because when they listened to this man speak, although they didn't really understand what he was saying they felt somehow at peace. And he was now gone.

Confused because they had heard stories about how his body was no longer in its tomb after three days of being laid there. He was their teacher, how could this happen and now who were they going to learn from?

A couple of His disciples were walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus when they were joined by a stranger ( the risen Jesus) on the road. They did not recognise Him.
He listened to them; to their worries, their anxieties, their fears as he walked beside them.
He asked them questions about their fear. He walked on in front and left them to their own devices.

The walk to the village was a walk of despondency and their eyes were closed.
On arrival at an inn they asked Jesus to join them for a meal and during this, whilst just enjoying their food, they recognised him and he disappeared.
Their hearts burned with joy!
Their journey home was full of excitement and enthusiasm. They couldn't wait to tell the others of the change which came over them when they realised the truth.

This story is so full of symbolism and lessons for those of us wishing to share what we have seen.

For me it's a tale of meeting people where they are at. Not taking anything for granted, asking questions in order to try to fully understand.
A tale of walking beside each other, a side-by-side relationship, not teacher and pupil, each learning from the other.
In the story Jesus spoke to them of the scriptures. For me it reminds me to speak from truth as I understand it and also not to be attached to whether they get it or not.

Benefits of walking.
Aside from this story I have found that walking occupies part of the brain leaving another "part" free to roam and find what is needed.

Beautiful places, views, scenery like those in Turkey I have the privilege to visit whilst walking alongside friends seems to work. It's a cheat really. It seems to allow people's minds to slow down, their thinking appears to evaporate and they tend to relax. I get to do very little!

A nice coffee shop and a pub meal with a pint along the road to Emmaus speaks more about my idea of what a fulfilling life is, but maybe that's a lesson about the mental health of the doctor being important too...or maybe I just want to have my cake and eat it!

17/04/2017

Man at his birth is supple and tender, but in death he is hard and rigid.
Plants when young are sinuous and moist, but when old are brittle and dry.
Thus suppleness and tenderness are signs of life,
While rigidity and hardness are signs of death.

Lao-tzu

09/04/2017

21/03/2017

I know I've shared this before but the message is clear...connection and love.

The brilliant short animated video below will explain to you why drugs don't actually cause addiction, changing your view on drugs forever.

05/03/2017

So simple we don't see it, but when we do..Well, life seems a little more gentle.

25/01/2017

Highly recommended

[https://insightprinciplesinstitute.com/].

Enabling Professionals to Dramatically Enhance their Clients' Business Results by Growing the Human Capacity of their Organizations. There are fundamental principles behind how the human mind works, revealing a crucial missing link in our understanding of human performance. By awakening to how