Archive for April, 2010

It’s interesting that few people going through a crisis such as anxiety stop to consider where they think recovery actually comes from !

Ask yourself the same question: ‘Where does recovery come from?’

Many people seem to hold a view that they should just somehow get better and that there will be some outside agency that will bring this recovery, be that a healer, a pill, a therapist or a therapy or even divine intervention, without actually having to do anything about the problem themselves.

Picture this: Over here on your left is your problem. This where your total focus is currently directed. You can see it in full technicolour detail and the more you look at it the more you know that you really, really don’t want this, which is surprising really, because you dedicate so much of your time and energy giving it all of your attention !

But over here, on your right is recovery.It’s here and it’s accessible. But you can’t even see it because right now, you have your back turned on it while you concentrate on how bad things are.

Now what would happen if you just turned around and faced in that direction?

For a start, what would your recovery look like? How would you feel if you were recovered? And,most importantly, what would you be doing differently in your future recovery that you’re not doing now?What changes would you need to have made, especially to the way you think?

And, once you have captured a glimpse of that, you will now need to amplify it so that recovery becomes your central focus, instead of anxiety.

Wherever your focus is directed is where your energy will go and whatever you feed with your energy and attention, will get bigger.So what’s it to be? What do you want to grow?

In order to claim recovery, you will need to firmly head in that direction. It can’t come to you; you must go to it.And,even more importantly, you need to stop looking back at all that misery.

Let’s agree that yes, it feels bad but that’s all that needs to be acknowledged. You have now established that you are going through something and that you would prefer to be going through something else instead. Now you know what it is that you don’t want, you can start seeking out what you do want!

If you see this as a starting point from which to commence finally making the changes that you need to make anyway (if you wish to feel better that is) then your anxiety is a pretty good motivator, isn’t it?

One foot in front of the other. One day at a time, one hour at a time, if need be but just make sure you keep yourself turned in the direction you actually want to go ! You must reach for recovery. It is not home-delivered. Those who get there do so simply because they keep headed there.

A question often asked…do I do one to one counselling?  The answer is  no and for this reason. I have done one to one in the past and the hitch that I find with this is that there is a tendency for people to get stuck on the ‘story’ and to focus on the problem, rather than actively seeking the solution.

I have found that the workshop approach (both live and through the IT Kit’ ) is far more effective and speedier for those who are really willing to reclaim their lives and move on.

It may seem remarkable but not everyone is willing to do that.Some still hold a notion that a counsellor holds a special key that will unlock recoveryor that the source of healing lies outside of oneself and that it is a matter of ‘finding it’. The truth is, recovery does not come to those seeking it. Instead, they must start actively moving towards recovery in order to claim it. Going over and over old pain doesn’t really move things forward in the same way that making different choices and  taking back the steering wheel of one’s own life does.

My work is and always has been about empowering people to take responsibility for where they find themselves and where they take things from here. It is about putting the client back in the driver’s seat.

Not everyone is ready for that,and that’s fine but if somneone is ready and willing, there is no reason why they cannot steadily move towards recovery under their own terms.It’s wonderful to see people move from a sense of helplessness to a greater sense of direction and focus. I notice that throughut the process, these people start to look different…they sit up straighter, they start to smile, they are listening more keenly. Now that’s what we want to see ! Read the rest of this entry »

On 15th April 2010, I will be conducting a lecture ‘Anxiety and Depression – taking the fear out of IT’ in Prahran. Bookings essential.

 Details www.adavic.org.au

My weekend workshop to help overcome anxiety will be held in Kew on 29th and 30th May 2010. Bookings and details as above

I will soon be conducting two very different classes at the Louis Joel Community Arts Centre in Altona commencing in June this year.

On a Saturday over five weeks, I will be running cartooining classes for people who would like to do cartoons either for fun or to add a bit of flavour to their business materials. This class is based on the same format as the cartooning course that I ran for several years at the CAE

The anxietyclass is for people who wish to work in a small group guided by myself through the five week anxiety recovery program that I have facilitated over the past 12 years. Limit of 8 people

Both courses will run from June and further details will be posted as they are locked in closer to the time. However, if you’re interested in putting your name down, contact the Louis Joel Arts and Community Centre on    03 9398 2522 or email louisjl@bigpond.net.au

My artwork has been on the Fine Art America website   www.fineartamerica.com  for some time (even though I’m an Aussie.  Artists from around the world represented) and they have just provided a terrific new service which provides a URL as a direct link to my own web page where you can see a large range of my artwork past and present. Some of the pieces are for sale and some of the original images can be printed on demand through the site onto canvas, paper or as greeting cards. Exciting stuff ! So here it is: http://bev-aisbett.artistwebsites.com/
Please take a look !

OK so here’s the thing…the ‘Domestic Madonnas’ were a tad touched by some acts of God last year…the economy crashing, the serious drought and the ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires only two weeks before the opening tended to put a bit of a dampener on things to say the least, despite lots of raves about the paintings themselves. Anyway, they now have another chance for a bright new viewing now that the mood is far more optimistic, so please get along if you can and take a look. The paintings will be up till end of May. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, it has been a long time since I’ve posted here but my aim is to do so more often this year, so here we go .Ignore the fact that the year is already well advanced!  

OK so here’s a little update on all things literary to date.

The new book ‘I LOVE ME’ hit the shelves in February.

I received a beautiful email soon after from a young man who had been estranged from his family and had been generally rejected because he was gay. He said that he had been given the book by a friend and that it had truly uplifted him and that he knew he would refer to it throughout his life Read the rest of this entry »

Not long ago, I received a phone call from a man who had seen an article about my work in a local newspaper.

 

Having barely introduced himself (we’ll call him Allen), this man immediately launched into telling me his life story. Hardly pausing for breath, he told me about his childhood, how his mother had abandoned him, details of the abuse his violent father had visited upon him, how he was estranged from his siblings and later his children, that he had been injured at work and was now on a disability pension, that his wife had cheated on him and so on and so on.

 

I listened quietly for something like fifteen minutes as he laid out a banquet of misery before me, till I finally interjected (it took some doing!) and asked “What can I do for you, Allen?”

 

‘I want to write my life story and I want to know how to get it published”

 

So I proceeded to tell him the painful facts –it is extremely difficult to have a book published these days, few publishers will even look at an unsolicited manuscript without representation by an agent and publishers receive many, many manuscripts from people like Allen but very few actually end up in print.

Of course, I pointed out, it was always worth a try and, failing that but given the resources on the Internet, I suggested that Allen could perhaps look at self-publishing his memoirs, as many people have done.

 

Of course, this was not what he wanted to hear, nor, I suspect, was it the true intention behind his phone call. What I believe he really wanted to do was tell his story to whomever would listen, something I am sure he had done many times before and sure enough, he resumed his tale of woe which ran for another fifteen minutes at which point I told him I had to leave for an appointment.

 

His disappointment and annoyance at my ending the conversation was palpable but it was evident that this would have been the case even if I had let him go on for the entire day.

 

Several things occurred to me about this phone call. The first and most outstanding revelation was that even if Allen’s story were to go into print and become a best seller, nothing in his life would essentially change. He was so entrenched in the energy of loss and struggle, he would not have be able to

sustain anything that was not struggle and, as a consequence, would probably attract the very things he might hope to leave behind.

 

Because of his attachment to lack, any fortune he might amass would very likely be lost on a bad investment or, in keeping with the repeated theme of abandonment that had run through his life, he might attract someone who would steal from him and a new chapter of the same story would be written.

 

Allen was very attached to his story and in being so, he remained snared by the past. In a perverse way, he was almost proud of his struggles, not only because he had survived them or, better still, learned and grown from them (which would have been a legitimate source of pride) but because the story gave him strong ‘currency’ with others.

 

Holding onto suffering brings its own benefits: it incites pity and concern and elicits the support, interest, attention and affection that may otherwise be missing from one’s experience.

 

The trouble with this device is that struggle and suffering can become addictive as a means of gaining such emotional ‘rewards’.

 

We all do it. Ask someone how they are and invariably they come up with a list of complaints. Ask someone for their life story and they almost always trundle out a litany of loss, sorrow and pain.

 

It is at this point that the question needs to be asked. ‘Didn’t anything good ever happen?” If the answer is  ‘Of course there were some good things!’  the next logical question would be ‘Why isn’t your life story about those things?’

 

The answer ? Good things don’t incite as many ’rewards’.If you’re happy, you don’t need anyone else to validate it for you; you’re just happy ! However, if you’re ‘wounded’, you will receive much more attention. We’re pretty much children most of our lives in that we seek out comfort, support, reassurance, sympathy and understanding from others. In other words, we still want to be ‘looked after’.

 

However, holding onto such a position means that you have placed your own wellbeing into the hands of someone who may or may not have as much of a vested interest in that wellbeing as you do, given that most people are just as focussed on having their own needs met as you are.

 

 If those appointed guardians should turn out to be unreliable, cruel or neglectful caretakers of the wellbeing you have handed over to them, you are left with little to turn to.

 

Ironically, when you are focussed so strongly on the pain of the past this also means that you have your back turned on the very things that you so desire!

 If, for example, your focus is on past rejection, that is what you will expect in the present and most likely invite as a result.

 

What you experience in the present is simply a matter of where your major focus is directed. Like attracts like.

 

To demonstrate this in the context of anxiety, if you suffer from anxiety and your focus is on your past, present and even future anxiety, how can hope to find your way to peace? The way to attract peace is to turn your focus to peace and move in that direction, not to keep travelling back to anxiety.

So what are some of the ways to free yourself from the past?

 

• Stop defining yourself by your past sorrows, hurts, perceived  injustices or losses. These keep you small. Be BIG !
• Revisit your memories and do a bit of ‘positive editing’. Call up the things that were good and make them your predominant memory.
• If that’s too difficult, focus on how you have spiritually expanded or become a better person because of what you experienced
• Be honest about how much ‘sickly comfort’ you derive from remaining a victim. Embrace the choice you are free to make about how much you wish to remain in the victim role from here on
• Notice any patterns that continue to play out. These are simply telling you that you need to steer in another direction. Again, notice what you are focussing on.
• Give yourself all the love, care, nurture, kindness and attention that you feel you have been deprived of, rather than hoping that others will be the source of these things
• Stop focussing on it ! Stop talking about it, thinking about it, making a monument to it. It’s done, it’s over. The past can’t be changed…only your present view of it.
• Finally, in order to let go of the past, you need to want to enough to do so.

 

Here is an exercise that is useful for releasing the past.

Stand in the middle of a room and, facing one end of the room, picture  yourself gathering together all of the hurt, loss, grief, pain, sorrow, torment, despair, anger, pain or fear from the past into a huge, ugly, festering pile in front of you. Really see it for what it is – a toxic, poisonous, disabling and disempowering pile of rubbish that is doing nothing except weighing you down and keeping you from reaching your magnificence.

 

Now get rid of it – anyway you like. Nuke it, blast it into space, set it on fire, bury it or whatever takes you. Feel how good it feels to finally rid yourself of all that junk you have been dragging around.

 

Now turn to the other end of the room. That’s where you are headed to from here. You can go anywhere you like. You can create anything you like. What’s the first thing on your list?

Bev’s new book on releasing the past ‘Get Over It’ will appear in bookstores in June. ‘I Love Me’ her title on building self reliance was released in February and is currently available.   Both books HarperCollins Publishers RRP $20.00   The irony is not missed on Bev that at the time of writing this article, she  is putting together an expanded submission to write her autobiography “All of It’ ,the first submission having been conditionally approved. Though this of course means revisiting at times painful episodes in her past, her philosophy is to learn from the past and move on.   “I am not what happened to me. I am what I chose to become”