So Much Happier Blog
So Much Togetherness
“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”
If you are in one of the many places in the world that are self-isolating right now, then you have been experiencing multiple challenges. One of those is a LOT more time with family and pets who may be used to having a lot more space and alone time. I came across an article on how to keep the peace with you loved ones, and I thought I’d share it for your health and enjoyment!
You can find that here. In addition, know that anytime we undergo big changes to our routines and have to turn on a dime as we have recently, it’s very normal to feel confused, overwhelmed, frustrated, afraid, annoyed, and to be tempted to lash out at others. That doesn’t tend to go well, though, so I suggest you plan to do extra work on yourself and your inner life right now. Taking a little of the time you normally spend on commuting, doing errands, attending social engagements, etc. to do calming activities like taking a bath, writing in a journal, reading a good book, or Tapping can be a huge help in managing all the rapid change you’ve been enduring. Life will begin to pick up again at some point, but for now, don’t try to pretend this isn’t hard.
The Way, Way Back
“We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.”
Last week we looked at how much we tend to avoid how we actually feel at any point in time, how this tends to create a life of stress and panic, and what we can start doing to turn that around. It’s true that learning to notice the signals from our bodies and emotions, and building nuanced language skills to describe them specifically, are building blocks in creating a happier, more peaceful experience. And these skills will serve us well for a lifetime in dealing with what’s happening in our internal worlds. This week, I want to add a dimension to the discussion that makes things more complicated, but also increases our chances of success in getting to that happier place.
Being able to tune into how you feel and work with it is tremendously helpful in empowering you to live a better day-to-day experience. On the other hand, Gary Craig, the founder of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), used to say, “The problem is never the problem.” In other words, the reason we react the way we do to current events in our lives usually goes back much farther than the event we’re dealing with now, usually to old patterns and traumas, sometimes from the very distant past. Being able to do something about those, then, is like finding the map to where all the treasure is buried!
Lucky for us, Tapping has been shown through both extensive use and scientific studies to be effective in dealing with old traumas as well as beliefs that result from patterns of experience. These are two areas in which it is generally most difficult for people to create lasting change. Before I mention some ideas on how to work at this deeper level, please note that big traumas are not generally something you should tackle on your own. Though Tapping can be used as a self-help tool in many cases, if something feels too big or scary for you to confront on your own, then don’t! Get help, and you’ll get faster, more comfortable results, feel supported, and deepen your skills with Tapping as you go.
If you find that you’re Tapping on something that isn’t reducing past a certain point, or that you seem to be working on very similar things over and over, chances are that you need to look to previous events for the foundation of your current problem. Here are some approaches that may help:
When you’re clear on your current issue, and you’ve gotten specific about the associated emotions you’re experiencing and how your body feels in response to those, ask yourself one of these questions:
What does this remind me of?
Who does this remind me of?
When have I felt this specific mix of emotions and sensations before? (If it’s all very familiar, when was the first time you can remember feeling like this, or the worst time?)
What does this seem like a metaphor for (as in, if your neck hurts, what in your life is a pain in the neck?)
In asking these questions, you may find more layers of your issue becoming clear to you. If you do realize new connections, your next step will be to Tap on the original event/cause and all the little pieces of your memory that bother you. These might be sounds, images, smells, words that were said, decisions you made about life as a result, or beliefs you took away from the event, as well as many other aspects. Try working on each aspect of what comes up for you one at a time until how you feel about it plummets in intensity, and when it doesn’t bother you much anymore, move on to the next. By targeting the root causes of your current issues this way with patience and attention to detail, you have a much better chance of feeling better about where you are in the present.
As you go about this kind of work, remember that we all have many, many distressing memories of varying intensity left over from past experiences, so you’re not going to clean them all up in a day! Even if what you’re working on feels thoroughly manageable, don’t go overboard and push yourself to take on too much all at once. We all have at least hundreds of unpleasant recollections that would probably benefit from Tapping. With the time you have, work with whatever seems most appropriate in the moment, celebrate whatever gains you’ve made in how you feel about the past, including any helpful realizations you’ve had, and come back to the rest at a later date. Any progress you can get to is valuable. If you get a sense that you’ve done enough for the day, or that today is not the right time to work on something specific, honor that intuition and make a note to come back to it later. It’s also helpful to keep notes on what you’ve worked on, since it’s easy to forget, and having a record is a way to be able to look back and appreciate yourself for all the good work you’ve done.
The more you address older patterns and root causes of why you feel and react the way you do, the more you’ll find that you can maintain a sense of calm as you go through your life, which will always include daily ups and downs. It’s hard to communicate just how much of a difference doing this kind of work can make over time, but if you give it a try, you’ll quickly start to see what I mean. Having the courage to get real about how you really feel and do something about it can be a challenge at first, but you will also find that as you practice, it becomes a tremendous relief to know that you have the opportunity to bring improvement to your emotional world, and to feel that happening every time you spend a few minutes Tapping.
The Emotional Pressure Cooker
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”
Last week I mentioned that most of us are trained through the way we’re socialized to minimize any emotions we feel that might be uncomfortable—for anyone, not just for us. The result is that we ourselves generally don’t know how we really feel and why, we don’t learn from our emotions, and we feel powerless to combat the rising tension that accumulates as we age over the persistent unresolved emotional gunk that we’ve swept under the rug.
When someone starts Tapping, they’re often surprised at the intensity of something they thought was relatively minor as we open it up and work through it. It’s well known by practitioners that the intensity of a targeted issue may seem to rise rather than abate in the first few rounds, but this is actually a result of the client tuning into what they’ve been studiously ignoring in the absence of productive tools and solutions. When further rounds are completed, and the heart of the issue is uncovered and addressed, the intensity will start to fall as expected. Then, when it dawns on the client how much relief s/he has experienced, s/he may feel a wave of gratitude, and hope that more relief is just around the corner. I feel this myself all the time when I Tap! It’s so encouraging to know that there are simple tools that can change everything about how you feel, and that every time you use them you’ll make some sort of progress.
It’s true that tuning into how we really feel may cause some momentary discomfort, but when we do this while Tapping, we’re able to vent some of the pressure that has built up and usually feel much better in the space of a few minutes to an hour. In addition, we are often able to gain some clarity about what we were afraid to look at. The meaning of the emotions we were avoiding starts to bubble up, and we see that we are being called to make new choices, either internally in the ways we think and judge, or externally by bringing new actions to our life’s circumstances. Emotions aren’t random. They arise for specific reasons, and unwinding their tangles draws us naturally down a path of healing and progress toward maturity and wisdom.
What if, instead of denigrating and denying how you feel, you could admit, befriend, and even celebrate your emotions without getting overwhelmed by or lost in them? What if doing so tapped you into your inherent brilliance and problem-solving capabilities? Wouldn’t that be a more peace-filled, fulfilling existence? Well, I’m here to tell you that all this is waiting for you when you get to Tapping. And good news—you can start anytime!
There’s a lot of shame drilled into us when we’re young about crying and about wanting love and attention that it’s inconvenient or difficult for the adults around us to give. Parenting is a tough, relentless job, and shaming is often a very effective tactic in shutting down an unruly child; it’s also a tactic that has been passed down through countless generations and seems to have proven its salt. However, a lifetime of suppressing powerful emotions, needs, and desires builds up internal pressure that contributes to all kinds of problems that only worsen the longer we allow the pressure to build. Shaming ourselves as adults, continuing the learned pattern, is a recipe for disaster for our health and happiness. Instead, we can learn to listen to what’s going on for us internally, and through self-compassion, gain clarity and strength, working productively with our emotions.
Should I Help?
“Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.”
All of us are good at some things and less good at others. In the areas where you’re highly competent, it can be tempting to attempt to “help” and guide others, basically just because you can; if you’re empathetic, and you’re aware of the pain that’s involved in someone else’s struggle, it can also seem like you have an obligation to help. The call toward alleviating suffering where you see it may be part of your spiritual outlook, or you may enjoy taking the opportunity to save others time and shorten their labors with your expertise. This desire generally comes from a kind-hearted place, and it spurs many of us to do a lot of good in the course of daily life. But is it ever inappropriate to help?
I think the answer to this comes down to respecting the concept of free will. “Help” is actually helpful only when it is offered and accepted freely, generously, and without coercion. The exception to the rule might be if someone is in a state of emergency and you either know the person well enough to recognize a need that they are not capable of handling, or you can clearly see that they are in legitimate danger of serious injury. Children too young to be aware of the consequences of their actions would also be an exception. Otherwise, difficult as it may be to see others struggle, it’s generally not your job to override someone else’s choices and timing. Once you’ve made yourself available for substantive assistance, it may be necessary to step back and allow them to learn through experience if that’s what they choose. Some lessons only stick if they’re learned this way anyway, frustrating as that might be to the observer!
Most spiritual traditions include the concept of acceptance—not as in, you must accept a condition you don’t like and never seek solutions, but as in, it’s important to be able to find a place of calm and acceptance within yourself. This might be through meditation, prayer, deep breathing, a physical practice like yoga, journaling, or whatever works for you. If you formulate a plan and take action without having done so first, you risk making decisions from a reactive, fearful place, which is not the best state from which to deliver your best and brightest offerings. If a life-and-death decision doesn't need to be made, and you don’t feel able to accept rejection of your help by the other person, then you might want to save the offer until you do. I also believe that there are times when it’s not appropriate to offer help because you are not capable of doing a good job with the task at that moment. If you are overwhelmed, very tired, or emotionally overwrought yourself, it’s probably best to attend to your own needs before trying to assist someone else. Another consideration is whether this particular person or situation seems like a good match for your skills and your passion. There is someone out there who would love to help in any given kind of situation, and leave the endeavor feeling wonderful and energized in some way. In other situations that same person would feel overwhelmed, frightened, and find themselves shutting down, becoming a burden themselves. It’s a good idea to get to know your strengths, and to consider whether this situation is one in which you can be helpful, or whether it requires skills and qualities you don’t possess. If someone needs a surgeon, and you’ve never had a day of medical training in your life, if you want to help, you need to spend your time in handling basic first aid and getting them to that surgeon—not trying to handle the situation yourself. Most people appreciate an offer of help when it comes from a calm desire to do them a good turn (even if there would be payment of some sort involved) rather than a need to have the offer accepted. When you bring a sense of distress and need into your offer, the person on the receiving end may feel that you’re trying to manipulate them, and run in the other direction! Then an opportunity that might have been rewarding for both parties is lost, at least temporarily.
On the other hand, if someone knows that you’re on the sidelines willing and waiting to help whenever they need it, that can be tremendously reassuring. When you don’t overstep or force yourself into their process, you become someone who will be very easy to turn to when the person is ready to accept help. In the meantime, you can just listen and celebrate the person’s wins, and still be a supportive part of getting them to the finish line. This can be quite challenging, and we may all become overzealous at times because of our own internal baggage; if you find that you have gone overboard, an apology and affirmation that you have faith in the other person goes a long way. Afterward it might be useful to take a look at why it was hard for you to remain calm in that situation, and do some work on that through Tapping or some other method you find helpful, to increase your ability to recognize that situation if it resurfaces and choose another way.
Helping others can be one of the most fulfilling aspects of living. It can be one of the best expressions of love for others, and it often brings joy and upliftment where there was struggle. Being able to be an effective part of this wonderful exchange is worth some occasional work and self-reflection. Building your skills around balanced helping will bring you the opportunity for more frequent fulfillment of this kind, and the opportunity to co-create better results with others. Next time you’re looking to help, see if you can do so from a calm, centered place and notice what happens when you do.
Oh %&*#!
“We all wish to be brave and strong in the face of disaster. We all wish to be looked up to for our endurance and efforts to help others.”
When it seems like the world is falling apart around you, whether it's events in your personal life or in the world at large that are leading to this impression, what will you do? We all go through periods like this, and while they may never fully make sense to you, even in distant hindsight, we all want to get back to having a sense of balance, purpose and momentum. In my opinion, the worst thing we can do in this situation is retreat from thought and emotion and deny what's happening (except to the extent that we may be in shock and need some time to recover). The best things in life come from using our conscious awareness.
In most cultures, we are not taught to handle discomfort and stay functional while in periods of intense difficulty. We're definitely not taught to be open, even with ourselves, about our emotions, and techniques for handling them artfully. Both of these skills have an important place in dealing with particularly difficult, even tragic times.
I'll be honest, the first skill is not easy to build if you're an empathetic person, and if you are, it may never be your greatest strength. Focusing in on the moment at hand and allowing yourself to think only of what you can do to help yourself and others in this particular situation takes strong intention, concentration, courage, and a willingness to reach deep into your reserves of confidence for belief in your ability to serve yourself and others. This is more difficult to do if you feel deeply for others who are in pain. But working on finding these qualities in yourself makes you massively useful when the going gets tough or even horrible. One of the most important things you can do if you want to grow your capacity in this regard, perhaps counterintuitively, is to meditate regularly. There are many styles of meditation, so if you do some research, hopefully you'll find one that appeals to you. You cannot function well under duress if you don't have access to a quiet place within that feels familiar and clear when you need it most. On the outward, action-oriented side of things, it also helps to challenge yourself regularly to stay calm while outside of your comfort zone. Knowing that you can experience discomfort without sustaining long-term harm is an important foundation for getting through tough times. You gain confidence by proving this to yourself through experience. You also gain faith in your own creativity and resourcefulness as you figure out steps to succeed on the fly when you're not sure what to do. Even if you fail, at the very least, you'll gain data on how to do better next time. And that is priceless.
Knowing how to be open about your emotions and handle them, the second skill set, is more about picking up the pieces when you've made it through the worst of your challenge, because it's far easier to process emotion in the relative quiet and safety of the "after" picture. If you're dealing with severe trauma, it will be best to work with a professional who can guide you appropriately so that you can avoid being retraumatized as you work back toward a calmer baseline. If what you have work with is more manageable, you can work through it in small chunks using EFT's numerous techniques and often reach a truly gratifying level of insight and peace. There are many ways you can make progress in processing emotion—this is by no means the only way—but I have found it to be the most empowering because EFT is a self-help set of tools that you can use free of charge whenever you need them. Because EFT brings the body (which stores many aspects of difficult experiences until we find a way to release them) into the equation along with your private store of experiences and impressions, it brings about permanent change in ways that just talking about an experience, or turning it over to a practitioner of some sort, can't do.
As you become more accustomed to the process of admitting how you feel while taking simple steps to tap down the intensity of your stored emotions, you find that suddenly big emotions are not as frightening. Releasing them, and allowing in the perspective changes and resulting healing, starts to feel like a natural and even enjoyable sequence. The feeling of freedom that results in knowing that you can thoroughly let go of old "stuff" and feel lighter, as well as get back the energy it took for the body to hold onto that stuff, is a natural "high." Churning through the backlog of old emotion you've stored over the course of decades takes some doing, but as soon as you experience what it's like to get a taste of this freedom, I think you'll begin to understand its value.
Functioning well no matter how crazy life gets can be a pretty tall order. Building your ability to do this takes time and effort, true, but it also gives you powerful options for creating the life you want despite what's going on around and inside you. Using tools that support this goal but don't require you to pretend or ignore your real needs is a revolutionary act, and I highly recommend it! The best time to lay the foundation for sailing through challenge with the highest degree of functionality, and to repair damage you've sustained afterward, is always when you're not in the thick of it. Start now. As soon as things get hairy, you'll be grateful that you did.
People Are Annoying
“I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!”
You know how some days you have a run-in with someone (not homeless or obviously mentally ill) who displays just jaw-dropping rudeness, selfishness, or malice? This can be a shock to the system, and it happens to us all. Even microagressions can pile up in the course of a day so that you go home feeling like you just hate people. I don't think any of us is proud of this, but it's a common enough experience that I suspect you recognize it! This week, I've been thinking about how important it is to actually work at acknowledging that the world we live in is like this, and letting go of the tendency to let our sense of outrage ratchet up and push against it all. Being in a state of outraged resistance is an exhausting distraction that will erode the ability to achieve your own goals.I'm not saying that it's easy to avoid, but you can learn ways to navigate the world that will minimize its negative impact on you.
This gets to the heart of a truth espoused by many ancient schools of thought that seems counterintuitive, which is that in order to be happy and at peace, we need to first accept what is. The very human response to this idea tends to be immediate rebellion, because we think that must mean we have to also accept that "what is" will never change, or we have to somehow approve of something that is downright wrong (or at least drastically not to our liking). Yet neither is true. All it means to accept the present conditions is to step aside from the cyclone of emotion and the physical, chemical responses that stem from falling down the rabbit hole of rage and resistance. The more you can avoid that slide, the more you can stay on solid ground, maintain your equilibrium, and keep access to your greatest skills at your fingertips. If you manage to do that, you can be a part of the solution you seek; if you don't, you miss opportunities left and right to live a life that really fulfills you.
For most of us, the right answer is to learn to acknowledge the chaos that is this planet, vent about it when absolutely needed, and then get back to focusing on what is uniquely ours to do. Now, there could be a few people out there who feel that their purpose is to educate others on how to move through the world with broader understanding and better manners—latent Mother Teresas of the chronically rude (and if you're one of them, that's fantastic. Please let me know and I'll help you get the word out!) But making change happen in this arena would, I fear, require a commitment at about her level of total dedication. Most of us have other purposes. Spending unnecessary time in outrage is draining and will distract us insidiously from projects in which our brilliance would be best harnessed for good.
As you deal with people you don't know, see if you can make it a game to acknowledge that many people WILL be annoying to you—and it's not the end of the world—while you keep ahold of your calm, and even cultivate a sense of amusement at the crazy. You still get to choose how to react, in other words, you get to choose who you will be in the world even in the face of annoyance. I'm sure there are some aspects of the incredible diversity that greets you every day that you appreciate. It makes sense that in order to enjoy that, you might have to put up with a bunch of things you'd rather not have as possibilities. Endeavor to spend less time and energy worrying about the second group, and practice continually enjoying and refocusing on the first. If something feels like your mission to fix, then go for it, and try to enjoy the process. Do it because it's an expression of you and what you have to give, but not because you're desperately seeking perfection that will last for all time. Such a thing doesn't exist, and that's ok. Life is always change, whether we acknowledge that or not. Trying to create an unassailable legacy that will last through the ages is about fear of death and an out-of-control ego rather than joy and authentic purpose.
Being annoyed won't hurt you (though being chronically stressed out may, so learning to stay calm is a great investment in your health). Remind yourself that annoyance is part of life, and practice avoiding unnecessary, reactionary drama. This is one of those lessons we all have to keep learning, so just stick with it and do the best you can!
Silence Is Golden
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
Even if you’ve never meditated, you’ve probably heard that one of the benefits of many kinds of meditation practice is supposed to be a quieter mind. Since most cultures today place great value on the use of the mind, the benefits of a quiet mind can seem mysterious. Use it or lose it, right? Aren’t we supposed to be exercising our minds in order to stretch their capacities and keep them nimble? Well, just as our bodies need both weight-bearing exercise, cardio, stretching, AND rest in order to function at peak capacity, our minds need various kinds of use and rest in order to provide us with the capacities we want from them.
Modern life is so hectic, demanding, and distracting that we don’t generally get much time for silence and reflection. This leaves is with a mind that is mostly running at high speed all the time. With a mind so busily engaged, it’s harder to notice the patterns that are running on autopilot, keeping us stuck in ruts that we never seem to be able to break out of for reasons that elude us. When we put ourselves into a situation where nothing is required of us, and practice meditation with the aim of quieting the mind, we allow the mind to rest a bit; by the way, this in turn allows the body’s stress response to calm down, which is great for physical health—a bonus side effect! While it definitely takes practice to make progress in disengaging from normal patterns of thought, so that benefits may not be immediately felt, over time, it’s possible to build familiarity with new mind states. This familiarity makes it easier to take them with you, or recreate them when you’re experiencing something difficult, so that you can function more smoothly throughout your life. A hyper mind isn’t necessarily a resourceful mind, just as a chronically tense muscle isn’t always useful—it needs to be able to relax and stretch in order to do everything it’s meant to do.
When you’re meditating for the ability to quiet the mind, there are numerous benefits that I know I immediately experience, and you may as well, such as:
· As I head toward greater quiet, my mind will usually chime in a few times to reveal things I need to do or remember, which is legitimately helpful. I can make note of these and continue the process. Without giving myself a few minutes of quiet, I would not have remembered these, and opportunities would have been lost.
· As my mind slows down, I become more aware of my body, and anything about it that I need to address.
· I start to notice more about what is really going on with me, how I really feel about things that have been going on recently in my life. I begin to feel more like myself and less like someone just running around at the behest of every distracting thing I encounter every day.
· I begin to feel that there’s more time available to me than I would otherwise.
· I begin to feel calmer, more at peace, and more powerfully able to define what’s important and where I will choose to put my energy and focus.
· I feel more in touch with my intuition.
· My body feels more pleasantly calm and peaceful.
· I feel like my to do list falls away and I’m able to recognize the goodness of just being alive, which at this point is much more a feeling than a thought.
Once you’ve practiced an expanded state of mental quiet, there are many other meditation techniques to pursue depending on what you want, but being able to create that quiet space is a foundational skill without which only certain kinds of progress can be made. This state also becomes something you can remind yourself to revert to when you find yourself getting hyper for any reason. It can immediately help you to regain helpful perspective on the ways in which you may have been contributing to your own stress. Bringing a greater sense of calm to challenge allows you to stay more creative, less reactive, and more reasonable. You’re then more likely to be able to solve problems and work well with others, which makes you less likely to spend your time feeling stuck and confused.
In a seemingly unlikely way, spending time creating mental quiet leads to greater focus and energy, which can make it seem like you have more time rather than having lost it in the pursuit. Even if you don’t think you can spend more than a few minutes practicing, you can still benefit from the attempt to create a few minutes of internal quiet throughout your day here and there. I highly recommend making this a little game that you play with yourself. You may have other mental games you already play, like doing crossword puzzles. This is just another category of game that builds capacity your brain needs to function with excellence.
There's No Place Like Home
“He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.”
Sometimes daily life can seem like it's all about just trying to keep ourselves and our families clean and fed. Certain periods of our lives may need to be very much about those things—for instance, when we first move out on our own after our schooling (everything from cleaning to paying bills is new and takes conscious effort), or when there are young children in the house (who need a great deal of time, energy, and care). But there are times, hopefully, when we have more energy and focus available for pursuing projects for the sake of interest, self-improvement, career marketability, or creative expression and enjoyment. In order to have the stability to apply ourselves in satisfying ways to these projects, we need to handle a few other things than just physical needs. After we've satisfied our most basic needs, our old friend Abraham Maslow posits that we need to feel safe in order to keep progressing. There are several important areas to consider as we attempt to care for ourselves at this level, all of which are important in allowing us to move forward in life with enough confidence to achieve more than just staying alive every day.
The first one I want to address is the home. Humans are uniquely evolved animals, but animals nonetheless; we crave a retreat that can keep us warm and dry as well as safe from marauding predators. This may not be something you think about consciously all that often. It’s something you no doubt assess in some way when looking for a new place to live, and you may give it some thought in the first few weeks after moving into a new home, but after that you may find that you drop into a routine and take your safety somewhat for granted. While I’m not suggesting that you encourage yourself to be paranoid, I am going to ask you to think about whether there is anything about your home base that you feel uncomfortable about. Perhaps every now and then you have a thought about how you wish there was more light in a certain area outside, or a better lock on your door, and you experience a low-level sense of fear about something you haven't yet defined. If you find that there is something like this that comes up for you, consider that you may be wasting some energy on these worries that would be far better applied to the things you’d prefer to be spending your time on.
Most of us do not realize how much mental, emotional, and physical energy we waste on worrying about things that are in our power to easily change. The things that touch on our sense of physical security affect us on the level of our animal selves, and this level is instinctive. When it feels threatened, we go into “fight or flight” mode, which means that our bodies rev up an array of chemicals to help us prepare for running away from danger at top speed, or for combating the enemy, real or imagined. The body reacts the same way in either case, as it can’t tell the difference between thought and reality. In his book The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton details how when we’re in the fight or flight response, blood rushes away from the organs and toward the extremities to fully enable movement, and the organs slow their processes; that means that the body is using energy, but not creating much of it from the resources at hand. The immune system also is greatly disabled in favor of the emergency chemical response. And the center of conscious mental activity, the forebrain, slows in favor of the instinctive hindbrain, because reflex is faster to respond than reason; by boosting the hindbrain’s activity, the brain joins in to help the body survive while the state of emergency persists. While all of this is happening, the body can’t engage in may of its normal activities, including growth processes that repair damage. This overdrive cycle greatly contributes to physical problems over time if it gets activated too often—and in modern life, with its hectic pace and constant demands, this is often the case.
If you could halt or slow this exhausting cycle by choosing to address a few things at home, such as adding a brighter light bulb or springing for a better lock, or even just hanging thicker curtains in the bedroom so it feels more private, why not make that a priority and give yourself more ease on a daily basis? These things may seem small, but they can add up over time. We’ll be looking at other ways to feel secure in future blogs, but in the meantime, just give a thought to how you could make your home feel more relaxing by addressing anything about it that makes you feel nervous or unnecessarily vulnerable. These small changes need not cost much, and they can yield far more than the value you invest.