less is more

Well this is exciting! I have never actually done anything like this before but i'm feeling inspired. I felt the need to throw my thoughts down on a page, and invite a discussion. Its in no particular order ha ha neither is my brain.

I just wanted to air my thoughts on mental health and how the mind works. I believe I have helpful experience for anyone suffering out there. I'm sure you can read my thoughts in other formats from other people or professionals as i know there is nothing new in what i have learnt. I think the act of talking about mental health is in itself...very healthy.

I received one small bit of wisdom from one person and it changed my world so maybe that can catch on. It only requires a seed to be planted.

So my quick background

Born, raised, worked, married, kids, divorced, meltdown, after a long dark period I am now feeling very peaceful inside and want others to feel that too. I have a very robust calm mind ( in fact the melt down or allowing that might be an important ingredient ?)

Not the most heart rendering or out of the ordinary story but the principles are similar as other melt downs I think. I will discuss my view of my brain and how it works and my techniques for a stress free or at least a low stress low anxiety life.

Some of my home made sayings/ideas and epiphanies that have popped into my head while on my journey and are now what I live by. ( they have a male bias )

1, Spend lots of your emotional energy being yourself and spend none of it trying to change someone else.

2, You already know all the answers yourself, you just need to learn where to look for them.

3, Attachment to things or ideas are what cause anxiety ( nothing new there )
( does anyone else think that anxiety comes from two parts of the brain that are in conflict, ie the creative part saying "don't
buy that expensive car" verses the other saying "buy it its fucking great!" )

4, dont make decisions when you are emotionally charged.

5, put your fucking phone down and look up ( i've purposely smashed my smart phone about a year ago now and i haven't
looked back, all i see now is zombie slaves were ever i go).

6, I prefer acceptance to the word compromise theses days. I don't actually believe in compromise anymore. As long as you are happy with yourself and your actions and your motives then I don't believe you should compromise for someone else. However two people are rarely the same, so to form a relationship there has to be give. To me that has to be done by oneself in the form of acceptance. Acceptance is my choice and under my control and does not require something from the other person, compromise requires others to fit in with my needs. I believe acceptance has more longevity and I believe you will start meeting different people. People who better match who you are with acceptance rather than compromise.

7, Life is a reflection. I think i've read this else where but I discovered it myself. Life throws back at you exactly what you throw at it. If you see anger you will find angry people, you will notice angry things and you will propagate anger. If you feel love you will notice love, you will receive love and you will propagate it. Life might be the same but your perception of it will be vastly improved.

8, If you have to be someone else to be with someone then you should be with someone else.

9, If you're not training your brain to be healthy you are training it to be unhealthy ( there is no static point )

10, you must train the mind before you can train the body.

11, there's only two ways to solve a problem, change the situation or change the way you perceive the problem, sometimes a
combination of the two.

12, you can not be helped or help anyone that does not want to be helped. They must want to hear.

13, act unconditionally do things for the right reasons dont be an asshole

14, how to tell if you're being an asshole. 1, check your motive 2, check your agenda

15, truth defends itself. (Not mine but i have learnt it first hand so totally believe it).

16, a good trait is a bad trait. ( there are two sides to what makes us, us so its not all bad.......or good ha )

17, Be childlike with your honesty ( only really when needed to for your own defence or mindfulness, if you can say nothing walk away and have no further negative results then I would probably do that first but never lie )

Discuss = The brain is in two halves, with one half divided into two subsets.

                       One half I call "creative brain or slow brain" This is the half of the brain that has all the answers, the part that I 
                        now try and teach people to trust. This part knows you don't need to eat that cake and it knows that you haven't 
                       really let that person down, it knows that you don't need the top of the range car and that you have enough debt. 
                       It also knows that you should not be in that relationship. It actually feels foreign to me, as if it were not part of my 
                      body.
                      The downside to this part of the brain is that is uses much much more emotional energy ( as i call it ). Using it is 
                      like holding a heavy object, you cant keep it up for long. I see this part of most peoples brains hiding behind a 
                      wall, while the rest of the brain dominates them. This is how it used to be for me until I learnt to use this part of 
                      my brain more. And to use it to remap the fast brain. There are some very simple ways to know if you're 
                     using  this part of your brain and simple ways to help you use it.
        
                       The other half ( in two parts ) 
                        I refer to these two parts as the fast brain or the stupid brain. During my low periods in my life I initially saw this 
                         part of the brain as a great evil that needed to be ignored, I've since learnt that it just needs to be in harmony 
                         with your creative brain ( not easy to do but it is easy to know how to train it better ) and that it is essential to a 
                        healthy mind and can not be ignored. The plus side to this part of the brain is that it takes much less emotional 
                        energy to operate. If you can harmonise this part of your brain with your creative side then you day to day life 
                       gets much easier. This part of the brain controls 90% of your day to day choices and reactions, some people its 
                       more like 100%. Thats fine if it has a harmonised balanced mapping but thats not usually the case.
                  
                       The two parts of this half are emotions and habits. 
                      Emotions are a very tricky animal and the older you are the harder it is to reshape them, almost impossible in my 
                      mind, especially childhood stuff.  We all have hang  ups, so do I, I've learnt techniques to deal with them but I 
                      have never managed to eradicate them. 
                     Habits however can be changed or new ones created to override old ones. This is the best way to deal with tricky 
                      long term emotional triggers.

                   The first habit i try to get everyone to learn is to count to 3.............. The very act of slowing down thought helps you 
                    access the creative side of the brain.

So thats how i see the brain is split up, I would love to hear others experiences of their brains and how you see them.

Discuss=How to train your brain.

The objective is to harmonise the two sides of the brain. So the auto stupid fast emotional habitual brain makes the same choices as the slow creative brain would if that were strong enough to make the choices.

It works exactly the same as going to the gym.
Lets say you want to be able to do 100 press ups. There is no quick fix, the only power you have today is to decide to go to the gym. You can not decide to do 100 press ups anymore than you can decide to be happy, or eat better or get over someone. You can only decide that you want to, and understand that you must train to do this.

and lets say that you don't go to the gym, then you are actually training not to be able to do 100 press ups ( there is no static point )

Anyway we've established the objective ( 100 press ups ) we know we need to train so we start training.

At first it is very hard to do and we can only manage a couple sets of five. It hurts like hell and you don't feel any stronger. You feel like its not achievable and that its pointless. The brain does not like change, even if youre doing a unhealthy thing or in an unhealthy relationship, your brain will still find it hard to change. Hence Stockholm syndrome and all that jazz. All you have the power to do at this point is to decide to go again or not.

Still very hard, You have to look for motivation, you have to talk yourself into it, you have to try to overcome the brains desire not to change. if you make it again then you are one step closer to developing a new habit. Good positive habits are great to get as they take over eventually and you can just let the auto brain run them which is not hard at all.

Anyway after several months of training you have developed a new habit and you can do 100 press ups.

The important thing here is to understand that now you can not chose to, not be able to do 100 press ups. So if tomorrow you decide it was all a big mistake, guess what!? you can still do 100 press ups. The only choice you have is to decide not to train any more. You will need to overwrite that habit with a new one. Over time you will lose the ability to do 100 press ups and you will learn a new habit of not going to the gym.

The point here is that understanding how to remap your own brain is essential in being able to do it. Understanding what parts can be overwritten and what parts can't are essential. You are never going to feel good about your father leaving you as an infant but you can learn to love yourself for who you are and want your father to be happy and understand that it would not do either of you any good to be forced together. You can understand that it is better for you both to be happy than not. It was also the cause of some of my best traits ( also worst ) confusing :D

Other tools you need

Understand your triggers and how they work.

Some triggers start small and grow, some start big and shrink some fluctuate.

small to big example- You agree to do something for someone because you are a pleaser but you don't really want to or they are taking advantage of you. This can start with a doubt or voice in your head saying "dont do it" and as time goes on and the event gets closer the anxiety grows and grows until the event passes.

Big to small- You have a fall out with someone and you feel terrible about some aspect of it which fades over time.

fluctuations- hormones or work patterns ie Monday blues.

You need to find your triggers to your emotions so you can work out strategies to deal with them. It also helps you avoid doubling up on triggers ie a night out before work on monday when your on your period (Women) or when you know you have a challenging meeting with the boss on monday. ( very easy to predict where that is going to end up if you are not in the best time of your life right now. Poorly thought out timings and poor mindfulness could see 4 or 5 avoidable triggers all arriving at once).

After my tough divorce i did not drink for 2 years ( I am usually a normal social drinker that enjoys a night out ) I don't know how anyone can drink when they are not in a good place, it seems crazy to me. Of course if drink is your problem then that's a different story so this bit would be very helpful sorry.

At this point, Is there anyone out there that doesnt know that after drinking alcohol you will most likely experience a downer over the next 24 hours? This is one really easy trigger to avoid.

So i will give some of my triggers and strategies to better explain.

Trigger one, Alcohol
= dont drink it

Trigger two, Letting people down ( usually my perception and from being abandoned as a child by my father. Its one of those
triggers that i will never shift, however it has its good side.)
= Count to three, Dont over commit, count to 3 before replying to a request, don't make promises, don't
pin myself to timings, learn to rationalise it to see if i am really letting anyone down, learn to dismiss
guilty feelings, don't agree to things i dont want to do, be more assertive, reduce my commitments.

Trigger three, Taking on other peoples emotions
=Count to three, Learn that i am not responsible for other peoples happiness, Learn that i can only do
what i can do so i must understand my limitations. When trying to help people, don't be attached to
an outcome ie dont focus on the fix, just focus on the trying to help.

Tactics and strategies
1, buy time.................................... My best new habit i have trained into my brain using my creative mind is to pause briefly
when i get an emotional trigger. I guess this might not work if confronted by a lion or
something but i think it works is most other normal situations.
2, pre fabricated answers ............I'll just check my diary, Oh let me check i might be doing something, or simply No. Theses
answers and others can help buy time, allowing you to access your creative mind and make
the right decision for you.
3, go to bed early until the emotion passes.
4, Avoid situations that i have already identified as problematic.
5, Be honest, sounds easy but telling a loved one that you don't want to spend time with them for a period of time is tough for
both of you. Honesty eventually buys confidence all round.

I just wanted to air some of my practical tips for surviving life, I am not a professional but I am a student of life. I see so many of the people around me riddled with anxieties, bad habits and emotionally strained. I look back at the place I used to be and how convinced I was that I was doing all the right things. I am feeling more and more like an outsider as I drift away from the norm and I LOVE IT :) The current norm is fucked up.

I want to help others break free and just talking about it can be enough. Does anyone else feel like this? I would love to hear how other people combat the modern world.

ps excuse the bad presentation, this was impulsive :D