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August 9, 2013 by Karin Stewart Leave a Comment

Making friends with those voices in your head

eleanor-longden-at-ted2013
Eleanor Longden

‘During her freshman year of college, Eleanor Longden began hearing voices in her head: a narrator describing her actions as she went about her day.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Longden began what she describes as a “psychic civil war,” fighting to stop the voices as they became antagonistic. What helped her was something unexpected: making peace with them. By learning to see the voices as a source of insight rather than a symptom, Longden took control’.

Hearing voices in your head is a common symptom of schizophrenia and must be disturbing for the sufferer. However, what I find interesting is that the turning point was when she stopped fighting with those voices and made peace with them. She started listening to them as though they were separate individuals with opinions and insights.

Many parts make up a ‘whole’ person

We all have many parts to ourselves. There’s a part that’s critical, there’s a part that wants to please others, a part that focuses on negative events and a part of us that is playful. All these aspects make us into a ‘whole’ person. Often there are parts of ourselves that we find unacceptable and try to deny. We try to split these off from from ourselves in an attempt to appear perfect. It really doesn’t work. We waste so much energy when we try to create an illusion of who are, an illusion that we think others will find more acceptable.

Listening to our thoughts

Our thoughts, or our self-talk will give us clues about those denied parts of ourselves.

Do you ever find yourself saying ‘where on earth did THAT thought come from?’

Listen to that thought! It could be telling you something about yourself. When you accept who you are with your ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parts, you’re able to do something about it. You become healthier, even if you don’t like what you discover. Staying in denial will get you nowhere and the stress will make you ill.

The role of Stress

Longden says that the voices in her head become more active when she is under emotional stress. For a person prone to depression stress is also a trigger for negative thinking. Stress affects the thinking neurons. Listen to your thoughts, not as if they’re the gospel truth, but rather as ‘entities’ presenting themselves and their opinion to you. If the thought is robbing you of happiness, acknowledge that the thought is there but then decide not to act on that thought. You might not be able to control the thoughts that come into your head, but you are in control of how you act out those thoughts.

A friend told me the story of a man who she had worked with. He had no time for anyone with depression, but he was obviously deeply depressed himself. He vehemently denied this as he wanted to maintain an illusion of being perfect. The stress became too great and he committed suicide.

Would it not have been better for him to accept the ‘depression’ as a part of himself and get treatment, rather than take his own life?

HOWEVER…

If a person can’t accept you as you are, it really is the OTHER person who has the problem, not you. Remind yourself of that fact whenever you feel judged. The most important person to accept you as you are, is yourself!

Click here to read the full article about Eleanor Longden
Click here to find out more about Cognitive Therapy, with very important tools on learning how to change the way you think.

Filed Under: Approval Tagged With: be yourself, cognitive therapy

May 23, 2013 by Karin Stewart Leave a Comment

Change the World – Dwayne Savaya

you're special

Filed Under: Attitude Tagged With: be yourself, life with purpose

October 15, 2012 by Karin Stewart 1 Comment

The down-side of being brilliant!

Have you ever thought
“if only…. I were thinner….then..
if only… I was richer…
if only … I was cleverer”?

We can waste our energy in this type of unproductive thinking but …

This past week I decided to read the book “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. My husband had bought the book so we had it at home. To be honest I wouldn’t have bought the book as it sounded too ‘intellectual’ for me, but seeing as we had it and I was hoping to get a bit cleverer, I started reading.

I’m a third of the way through, and am utterly amazed at how brilliant some people are, easily comprehending concepts like atoms, relativity and the universe. I think I’ll have to settle with accepting my limited intellect, but what I did enjoy were some of the personal stories of these scientists, and I want to share one of these with you.

Henry Cavendish (10 Oct 1731 – 24 Feb 1810)

Henry Cavendish was the son of Lord Cavendish and was born into a life of privilege. He attended Cambridge University from 1749 to 1753, but left without obtaining a degree. However he was one of the most gifted scientists of  his age, but also one of the strangest. He was the first to recognize hydrogen gas as a distinct substance. He also described the composition of water and made the first accurate measurement of the density of the Earth.

Now, that in my opinion, makes him intellectually brilliant!

However, he had his problems.
“He suffered from shyness to a ‘degree bordering on disease’. Any human contact was for him a source of the deepest discomfort. Once he opened his door to find an Austrian admirer, freshly arrived from Vienna, on the front step. Excitedly, the Austrian began to babble out praise. For a few moments Cavendish received the compliments as if they were blows given from a blunt object and then, unable to take any more, fled down the path and out the gate, leaving the front door wide open. It was some hours before he could be coaxed back to the property. Even his housekeeper communicated with him by letter.” (Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything, p85).

“His female domestics had orders to keep out of sight, on pain of dismissal. His dinner he ordered daily by a note placed on the hall table.” (http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Science/Cavendish.htm)

Lesson to be learnt

  • Stop looking at others with envy. We may see the brilliance of others, but seldom do we see their weaknesses. Start seeing the brilliance in yourself (even if it’s not academic!)
  • Stop saying “if only .. then…” Live your life in the ‘here and now’ because this is the reality you have. Only when you accept reality can you make a plan to change aspects you don’t like. A childhood refrain just popped into my mind – “Jealousy gets you nowhere!” – brains aren’t everything!

Click here to see the book “A Short History of Nearly Everything” on Amazon.

Filed Under: Book Review, Thinking Tagged With: be yourself, shyness

October 5, 2012 by Karin Stewart Leave a Comment

Stop pretending!

I always find people’s life stories interesting, especially when they succeed despite all odds. What lessons can we learn from them? The story of the actor Joaquin Phoenix (Time magazine-October 1 2012), struck me as such a story.

Phoenix’s parents were missionaries with the hippie cult Children of God. They moved around a lot and when they moved to Caracas they cut ties with the cult and ended up facing crushing poverty. To start again, the family stowed away on a cargo ship to Florida. Can you imagine being so desperate as to do this with five children! The family later moved to Los Angeles. where they changed their surname to Phoenix, a symbol of new hope, a new start, “rising out of the ashes”.

When their mother found a secretarial job at NBC she sought out auditions for her older children who were already experienced street performers. “We all used to sing and play music, and we were all very outgoing. My parents always encouraged us to express ourselves. And so it seemed like second nature to start acting,” said Phoenix.

Phoenix loved being a child actor. After a break during his teens he returned to a fully fledged acting career with films such as ‘To Die For’ (1995), ‘Walk the Line’ (2005), ‘I’m Still Here’ (2012), ‘The Master’ (2012).

Celebrities can go to enormous lengths to keep up appearances, ensuring that the public never see them looking stupid. Phoenix went to the other extreme, inviting opportunities to look stupid.

“Once I became a total buffoon, it was so liberating,” he says. “Part of why I was frustrated with acting was because I took it so seriously. I want it to be so good that I get in my own way. It’s like love:when you fall in love, you’re not yourself anymore. You lose control of being natural and showing the beautiful parts of yourself, and all somebody recognizes is this total desperation. And that’s very unattractive.”

Phoenix also supports a number of causes. One of these causes is the Lunchbox Fund, which gives healthy meals to children in need.

I can think of several lessons that we can learn from the life of Phoenix.:

  • Never give up hope even when life seems hopeless. Keep looking forward.
  • Look at your abilities and use the talents you have. “Invent yourself with the ingredients you already have.”
  • Be thankful for family and friends who open doors for you. Don’t be stubbornly independent, you don’t know what opportunities you might miss out on. We’re meant to be interdependent.
  • Encourage your children and don’t criticize them. Experience is the best lesson in life.
  • Stop pretending to be someone you’re not. Accept yourself, ‘warts and all’ because that’s truly liberating. Pretending just takes up too much precious energy! If you think people won’t like you if they know what you’re really like, give and go! Test your belief and see if it’s true.
  • Give back to the community. We can’t just be ‘takers’ in this life. We need to give back to the community as well.

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: be yourself, Joaquin Phoenix

September 4, 2012 by Karin Stewart 2 Comments

Dave Du Plessis survives being shot in the Amazon

Dave Du Plessis, a South African from Durban is an adventurer. All adventurers know that you face risks when pushing boundaries. But then who wants to live life from an armchair, cocooned in safety. Dave has been in the news because he was shot while paddling a kayak in the Amazon. The fact that he is alive is a miracle and has much to do with his determination for life.

Wanting to know more about this incredible man I had a look at his blog and found these words which can truly inspire all of us.

Take Action 

“Learn to take action, coupled with thought, determination and faith in your ability. That brilliant business idea you have – put it into physical form, make the idea tangible and physical. That person you want as a partner – don’t just say great things do great things, don’t say Love, DO Love. Take action, physical action and results will appear, maybe not the results that you ideally believe should be in place, but remember that what ever is out there, that system has foresight that humans lack. We don’t see the BIG, REALLY BIG picture – the universe’s governing system does and this only becomes apparent when taking action with belief and faith in you.

Don’t sweat the small stuff!

Don’t sweat the small stuff either. For example I knew why I wanted to go for such a project, I never knew how and still don’t know how it will turn out – the ‘how’s’ are up in the air and not for me to decide. I decide the ‘why’s’. That life governing system creates the ‘how’s’. Know, to your core, ‘why’ you have to do something and take action, the ‘how’ will fall into place. The unknown ‘how’ is what makes life beautiful, spontaneous and incredible!

Embrace the why’s, faith in the how’s!

Imagine if you knew how everything turned out? There would be no surprise, excitement, lessons, spontaneity, change and all those other words that evoke the most incredible human emotions. There would be no unknown, no butterflies, no goose bumps and no tears. Embrace the why’s, faith in the how’s!

To live is action

To Live is an action, not a thought alone. Thoughts are your blueprint so make sure they are structured to enable your actions to produce the results.
Think to Live, Live through Action.

‘DO or DO NOT, there is no TRY’ – Yoda

Live Inspired.” – Thank you Dave for these words of inspiration. We wish you a speedy recovery.

Ref: http://worldwonderer.co.za/

Other posts of inspirational people: Winning starts in the head – Olympics 2012,                    Paralympics London 2012

Filed Under: Success Tagged With: be yourself

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