Drinking Too Much Alcohol

Hello and welcome....are you feeling shaky? Did it take a lot to get here? Sometimes just getting through the door on the first day will be the hardest thing you do on this course.
Find a comfortable position and turn your attention to your window. Just kneel or sit and let your eyes receive anything within your vision. Become still. Just notice the way your mind gives names to what you see. Do not make any judgements or try to make sense of anything. Just focus on seeing. This is your first meditation and prepares us for our sessions to get to know each other as we are all strangers yet together.
Each person has something unique to offer, so your first task is to write a sentance or two about what is around you and what you can see outside your window and what you can hear?

Our Inner Wounds

It's early tuesday evening and I'm sitting in a circle with 12 other people. For the first few minutes we talk, shimmering the surface of the pool of wounds. This shared human experience gradually pulls us shoulder to shoulder into its grasp.

I look around the group, each person sits hunched forward, head bowed down. I speak slowly breaking the silence: "Perhaps, when you're ready, you could say your name, and what brings you here tonight". The woman opposite me begins "My name is Mary and I have breast cancer....I've had chemo and am feeling a bit better now....but something is missing". Everyone is still, listening and the class shuffles. Everyone knows how Mary feels. Mary relaxes, tears streaming down her cheeks. Rupert is opposite me and he looks up. I make eye contact and Rupert begins: "My wife has left me, my children are upset and my work is stressing me, it's a mess". He sits still staring into the pool of memories and then gradually he reconnects with the room. We sit silent, each person remembering their hurt, the swirling water crashing round the shoreline of our hearts.

I don't have these problems, I don't have breast cancer and yet, I sometimes feel shame, I have imperfections and I worry about my kids. I know inside me that there is no real difference between them and me. We are all patients. Patients comes from the Latin word "Patiens". "Pati" where this word comes from, means to "undergo, endure, bear suffering". This is our common ground.

We reveal our wounds to each other and together we honour our common ground. We share our reality and we feel together strength and courage to continue. Together we can take advantage of our adversity and emerge transformed. We are all heros together.

How To Be More Creative

This is a pastel and ink drawing I did and its what most people think of when we talk about being creative.

Creativity can help in all walks of life. Creative solutions can help at home, work or college. But it isn't about "thinking outside the box" as its often called. It's about altering the way you think and being able to recognise a creative solution. Creative solutions often appear, but people don't recognise them. It's a good skill to learn. What do others think?

Feeling Angry

Do you feel that life is a constant battle and that you feel angry all the time? Or are you unsure whether you have a problem or not?

Anger is a universal emotion, along with fear, joy and sadness it is recognised by all cultures. It is part of our survival mechanism. When faced with danger or a threat, we either run away or attack. Anger is what makes us attack. But it can also have the opposite effect and cause heart attacks, work injuries, injuries when we're out and about or at school and college.

So how do you know whether you have a problem with anger or not? Just answer the following questions for an idea:

How often during a typical week in the past month did you get mad, irritated or angry?

1. Not at all
2. Once or twice a week
3. Three to five times a week
4. One or two times a day
5. Three times a day
6. For or five times a day
7. Six to ten times a day
8. More than ten times a day

Think about the times when you felt at all angry.

If you feel angry up to five times a week, your anger is within the normal range. If you feel angry more than that, then your anger is probably excessive. You can learn how to manage your anger. What's helped you?

Feeling Stressed

Feeling stressed is common in this fast moving world. Tell us about your experiences of stress and the things that have helped you.

I've got a new puppy - a German Shepherd and she's stressing me at the moment. She's tearing round the house like a whirlwind, tearing up things and trying to rule the roost. It's hard not to get frustrated. We go for a walk by the river Trent and the lovely swans and wildlife down there helps me keep my karma. We've been this morning for a bike ride to the next village and now finally she's sleeping.

Feeling Anxious

Feeling anxious or worried a lot of the time feels awful. Anxiety is a bully but there are things you can do to stand up to it. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT tells us that any disturbance in the way you think, affects the way you feel and behave. People who feel anxious are often fixated with the concept of danger and underestimate their ability to cope. This constantly makes you think that you are a vulnerable person in a dangerous world. This becomes a vicious circle e.g. the symptoms of anxiety themselves can impair your ability to perform and you then go on to interpret these as a sign of serious mental or physical illness. These thoughts increase your feeling that you are vulnerable and the circle continues. To add to this, all of these all contribute to the way you behave. You might feel unsteady, faint and weak. These can also increase your sense of danger and on it goes.

When you start to think, feel and behave in this way, the way you process information is distorted. Your thinking about things becomes distorted and another vicious circle starts. These are called "thinking errors" or "cognitive distortions". An example would be when you draw conclusions in the absence of sufficient evidence.

The good news is that there are things you can do to interrupt the vicious circles. At the Successful Living Project we have some self management learning opportunities packed full of techniques and things you can do, but we need your help to improve them. Let us know your experiences.

Feeling Down

Sometimes its hard to feel good about things. Life can be tough and its hard to know what to do to make yourself feel better. Sometimes you just want a hand up like this little lamb. Somewhere safe and out the way.

Did you know though, that the way you think about things, affects the way you feel about stuff. And the way you feel affects the way you behave and then it all becomes a vicious circle.

There are ways to break out of the circle. One way is to use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT as it's often called. We've got a course based on CBT principles for when you're feeling down and in a rut. Try this free short extract which helps you identify your distorted thinking http://www.successbox.co.uk/courses/24-extract_from_demolishing_depression_course/folders/83

It would be interesting to hear your experiences of CBT or counselling for depression - what worked and what didn't?