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September 25, 2013 by Karin Stewart 2 Comments

Hugh Jackman on Fear

Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman

Hugh Michael Jackman (born 12 October 1968) is an Australian actor and producer who has won much international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as superhero, period, and romance characters. His work in Les Misérables earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy in 2013.

What were you afraid of as a kid?

This was the question posed to Jackson by Luscombe in Time magazine (September 23, 2013.

“I was afraid of heights. I was afraid of the dark. If I was the first one home, I would not go into the house till someone else was home. I remember we were in New Zealand and I must have been 10, but I was nervous to go down this slide.

That’s when I started to realize that fear holds you back. So I went to the school diving board every lunchtime and jumped off the 1 m (3ft) board, and the 5m (16 ft) board to get over it. Now I have no fear, which is probably a bad thing.”

Speaking on trauma Jackman continues …

“When something traumatic happens, that thing which holds you prisoner, that inner fear, comes out. And that fear dictates your behavior … “

Jackman did what any psychologist would recommend.

  • Acknowledge your fear
  • Make a plan to face your fear
  • Stick to your plan no matter how much the anxiety levels soar. The adrenalin rush will peter out.
  • And finally, remember that avoidance is the very worst thing you can do to overcome a fear. You might get a sense of relief, but the fear will stay and debilitate you until you face it.

Have a look at these Tips for Overcoming Anxiety 

Filed Under: Attitude, Blog Tagged With: anxiety, trauma

August 3, 2013 by Karin Stewart Leave a Comment

Rejection? Who’s to blame?

Could YOU unconsciously be setting yourself up for rejection?
Were the seeds of rejection planted in you as you were growing up?

A person growing up with rejection will ultimately internalize that rejection into a belief about themselves. The belief is that they are only worthy of rejection. .Unconsciously this belief gets built into their psyche…. and has disastrous consequences in a relationship.

Bear this statement in mind.

Our behavior is motivated by a belief and our behavior ALWAYS matches our beliefs.

If your underlying belief is that rejection is what you deserve, you’ll allow yourself to be abused, because this behavior matches what you believe about yourself. That’s how the cycle of abuse gets passed down from one generation to the next.

On the other hand a person who values themself won’t tolerate abuse. After all you can’t let someone treat you badly unless you feel that their abuse is correct and matches what you believe about yourself. .

But what happens when you expect abuse but get unconditional love and acceptance?

cognitive therapy
Self-fulfilling prophecy!

That will really put you in a quandary because this ‘love’ doesn’t match what you’ve come to believe about yourself. You (unconsciously) reach a conclusion something like this:

“There must be something wrong with that person to love me when I’m actually only worthy of rejection”

So what do you do?

  • You ruin your chances of love by rejecting that person. ‘After all they can’t be worth loving if they think you’re okay’.
  • Or you behave in a way that forces the other person to change their mind about you and reject you.
  • Or you chase after a person who is ‘unattainable’ and experience rejection

The result: You’re rejected, which only proves that your initial belief was correct.

That might sound crazy, but it’s true. Being unconditionally accepted doesn’t feel right and you have to conclude there’s something wrong with anyone who accepts you unconditionally.

The remedy:.Your behavior matches what you believe, so if you’re going to have any chance of changing your behavior, you’ll have to consciously change your belief about yourself. Change your thinking to something like this:

“………………….  rejected me as I was growing up, but actually that was their problem, rather than mine. I believed them to be speaking the truth, when they rejected me. So I came to believe that I didn’t deserve love. But that was a lie and being a child, I couldn’t be expected to know better.

But as an adult, I now know better. I deserve to be treated with respect and to treat myself and others with respect. I will no longer allow the expectation of rejection to dominate my life, and I will love and respect others as they deserve….”

Make this into a statement of belief that you repeat to yourself or stick up on the wall where you can see it frequently.

Expectations When a person has a history of relationships fraught with fighting and rejection it’s difficult to imagine anything different. A pattern is set in place that seems correct.

Some people enjoy a relationship full of tension purely because the ‘make-up sex’ is so great. I have a friend who loves fighting with her husband for this very reason. The ‘make-up sex’ is terrific! But what a stressful life they lead between the times of ‘make-up sex’!

Actually all that stress is so bad for you as it puts your body into a ‘fight or flight’ response, releasing harmful chemicals into your system.

Moving forward … If someone likes you, stop thinking there must be something wrong with them. Focus on relationships that are peaceful, even if they might initially feel boring. Learn to love and value the other person for who they are.

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: anxiety

May 26, 2012 by Karin Stewart 1 Comment

Facing your giants

 

Face your giants and conquer your fear!

Once upon a time in a far-off valley there lived some people. These people never dared to move from their valley because whenever they tried to by climbing the surrounding hills, they were met by a huge giant who roared at them most ferociously. They were so petrified that they ran back into their valley as fast as ever their legs could carry them …. determined never to venture over the hills again.

This had been going on for hundreds of years until one day, a new and brave king was chosen from among them. And he thought to himself, ‘This just isn’t good enough! We never meet new people, never develop our trade and never make new friends. Indeed we are becoming very dull, ignorant and boring.’ The new king decided to venture out of the valley and over the hills all by himself in spite of all dangers that he’d heard about. He set off with some feelings of trepidation and expected the giant to appear at any moment. Sure enough the giant appeared, horribly enormous and roaring most ferociously.

However, instead of running away as all of his people had done before, the king took one step forward. To his amazement the giant became one inch shorter. This encouraged the king and so he and so he took another step forward. Eventually, when the king came right up to the giant he was so small that the king could hold him in his hand. The king then asked the giant his name. The giant replied. ‘My name is fear.‘

The moral of the story?

Face your fears as that’s the only way to get rid of them. Avoidance maintains the anxiety and keeps you living in the valley rather than on the mountain-tops of life. Ask yourself, do you want to be like the King or the villagers?

Filed Under: Anxiety Tagged With: anxiety

April 26, 2012 by Karin Stewart Leave a Comment

The Question of “WHAT IF?”

 

WHAT IF? .. What If? … what if?… what if?

The question of ‘what if?’ is typical of a person who suffers from anxiety. Anxiety is always future related and the question ‘what if?’ is usually followed by a negative future prediction. The trouble is that these negative future predictions can seem so real because they usually do contain a grain of truth. The end result is that everybody else around the anxious person gets drawn into believing that this predicted outcome is based in reality and also end up in a heap of anxiety!

When you start predicting the future with ‘What if?‘ ask yourself this question: What evidence do I have that this will be the outcome?

Let’s look at a few examples and see how we can change the way we think in response to ‘what if?:

  • A friend of mine won’t go at night because ‘what if the house is burgled when I’m out?‘. Your house might be burgled, but then again, it also might not. Reassure yourself that you’ve done all you can to secure your house. Then go out and enjoy yourself. What fun is there in life staying housebound and bored just ‘in case’ your house gets burgled.
  • I don’t like flying in a plane because what if it has engine problems? Again do you stay housebound because of this fear. The truth is that far more people get killed in road accidents than in plane accidents. Perhaps go on a desensitization program with one of the airways to overcome this phobia.
  •  I can’t go to that party because what if I don’t know anyone there? Once again, are you going to stay housebound and miss the chance of possibly meeting some exciting people. You don’t have to know anyone at the party to have a good time, do you? You can make the party exciting and make other people feel wanted. 

Whenever I hear the words ‘what if?’ my mind immediately reacts with the words I probably heard way back in the 1970’s. ‘If all the hippies cut of their hair, I don’t care! …  I don’t know where it came from but if you know, please tell me.

Stay grounded in the present, the past is gone and keep the future as a surprise!

WHAT IF??  =   ANXIETY   =  THOUGHTS NEED TO BE RE-EXAMINED!!

Filed Under: Anxiety Tagged With: anxiety, change your thinking

April 22, 2012 by Karin Stewart 5 Comments

The Question of “WHY?”

 

The Question of “WHY?” Do you feel stressed by people continually asking you ‘WHY?’ . Read on to find out why it causes you stress.

Automatic Behavior

Most of our behavior is automatic. If you are familiar with a particular task, the ‘how to’ is stored in your unconscious. The next time you do a similar task, you do it automatically. Once we’ve read an instruction manual we don’t need to read it over and over again as most of it will be committed to memory. If you had to work out ‘how-to’ afresh each time you did a particular task, the brain would go into overload and would probably shut-down from the extreme stress it would cause. As an example think about when you drive your car. You don’t rethink how you have to put in the clutch to change gear …. Once you know how to reach your destination you don’t have to look at the map again and again and rework out your route, do you? When you sat down this morning did you evaluate or think about whether the chair would hold you? Of course not! Obviously there are times you do have to consider each step of what you are about to do but most times we function on ‘automatic’. And the ‘automatic’ response comes from life’s lessons down the years.

The question why “WHY” can cause stress

If most of what we do comes from this ‘automatic response’ most of the time the appropriate answer to the question WHY would be ‘I really don’t know why, it just seemed like the right way’. Often the person asking ‘WHY?’ won’t be satisfied with that response so the stress increases as you are further interrogated!

When asked “Why did you do …?” in a harsh, irritated, manner the question comes across as a criticism and a put-down for having done whatever you did  in the wrong way. You didn’t do it how you ‘should have’ according to the other person’s expectations and their automatic response patterns. So stress is usually triggered by the way, the manner in which the person poses the question “WHY?”.

A gentler approach aimed at reaching a mutual understanding would be better. Replace  the word ‘WHY’ with an inquiry like ‘I’m trying to understand what you did. Is there a reason why you did it that way?’ . It’s a case of working together. If you don’t want to answer the reason ‘why’, turn the question around and ask the other person why they need to know!

If you want to interrogate someone for not having done things your way, or how you think they ‘should’ have done it, ask yourself the question if the other person was intentionally trying to harm you. The answer will usually be no, so let the issue go and accept that we all respond differently in a given situation. Rather move on and deal with what comes next rather than stagnating and stressing about something that is now in the past.

The word ‘should, must and ought’ are the source of anger. If you would like to know the effects of using these words consciously or unconsciously, please click here.

Photography by Nicola Stewart at http://beblessed-cards.blogspot.com

Filed Under: Anxiety Tagged With: anxiety

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