Having said this, they will still insist that there is nothing they would like more than to get better – but somehow they don’t seem to be able to do it. It can feel scary losing an issue that has become a part of one’s life however uncomfortable it may feel. Ask yourself why people stay in bad relationships or continually seem to fall for unsuitable partners that appear to have similar unpleasant characteristics? In my opinion that one of the reasons (there are other) is because one is familiar with the discomfort but the option of going out into a world that is uncharted territory feels infinitely more frightening. There can be a natural tendency to settle for a default position that helps avoid taking challenging decisions. Have a look at motivational speaker Zig Ziglar’s take on this phenomenon.

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRMogDrHnMQ

In my next blog I will be looking at the “flipside” as to why it can be hard to make changes when we really need them.

This also equates to the way I work in the therapy room. I prefer to offer my clients information as succinctly, practically and as clearly as I can. Any “homework” will be powerful techniques that can make lasting and meaningful changes that can be done easily and quickly. These will also be techniques that one can use for a lifetime but techniques that used regularly can make amazingly empowering changes in one’s life. So KISS!

Put simply we are all connected in our minds with thoughts and feelings about past and future that have a powerful bearing on how we feel in the present. If you imagine your past as a line connecting yourself to the present and the same with your goals and hopes for the future you would probably visualise this line behind you for the past and in front of you for the future. This is what in NLP we call a Time Line.

The interesting thing about time and memory is that it is not set in stone and time can change memories as much as two people can have different memories about the same event. The beauty of being able to use this technique is that it gives us the opportunity to make adjustments and empowering changes to how past experiences affect our present and future. So “it’s never too late to have a happy childhood” doe not mean that we can change history but it does mean that it is within our power to use our present knowledge and understanding to alter and adjust the way past experiences affect our present and future.

Obviously I empathised with how he was feeling but when I realised that he had no plan or even desire to change how he felt about the situation I suggested that this might be the very best time to readjust how he felt about things. Obviously this would mean some emotional work would need to be done but wasn’t the issue trying to tell him something?

When an issue arises in our lives it often seems easier to try to ignore it, soldier on, pretend it will go away or even use it as a way of letting everyone know how difficult things are for us at the moment. But if there is some area of our lives that needs sorting out it has been brought to our attention for a reason and this is the very time when we should be working on it. Using it as a prop or hoping it will go away means that it is never addressed or resolved. It is easy to become more understanding, more spiritual or more likable when everything is going well. It is when things are tough that we need to put in the effort to move ourselves on positively in our life.

I am a fan of the tv series “The Dog Whisperer” where celebrity dog trainer Cesar Millan takes badly behaved dogs and rehabilitates them (but first he has to retraining the owners!). One of his sayings is “a bad moment is a good time to rehabilitate yourself.” That moment really could be telling you that now is the time to make a change.

If you want to help bring stress levels down breathing is the perfect place to start.

“One of my teachers had each one of us bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes. For every person we’d refuse to forgive in our life, we were told to choose a potato, write on it the name and date, and put it in the plastic bag. Some of our bags, as you can imagine, were quite heavy.

We were then told to carry this bag with us everywhere for one week, putting it beside our bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to our desk at work.

The hassle of lugging this around with us made it clear what a weight we were carrying spiritually, and how we had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, and keep leaving it in embarrassing places.

Naturally, the condition of the potatoes deteriorated to a nasty slime. This was a great metaphor for the price we pay for keeping our pain and heavy negativity!

Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person, and while that’s true, it clearly is also a gift for ourselves!

So the next time you decide you can’t forgive someone, ask yourself… Isn’t MY bag heavy enough?”

- from www.pravsworld.com