What might happen if you say no?

Do you often say yes, although you actually mean no? Do you find yourself in situations where you wonder "how on earth did I get here?". Do you often promise do do things for/with others, that you in fact don't want to do? Do you often run out of energy when taking care of the needs of others, when you actually need to take care of yourself? 

Many of us experience problems with saying no. These problems stir up a lot of anxiety and fear. Fear of feeling mean, ungrateful or tight-fisted. Fear of not being liked or loved.

How do you feel when you say no?

If you ask a friend for help, would you like her/him to say yes merely out of fear that you wouldn't like her/him otherwise?

What would you gain by saying no sometimes?


Think about these questions the next time someone asks you to do something! 

Take care! 

What defines a healthy relationship?

In his book Jaget och Missbrukaren (transl. Me and the abuser), Craig Nakken talks about some of the basic foundation of a healthy relationship;

• To act respectfully towards the other person
• To feel supported by one another
• To be accepted for who you are, and not who the other person wants you to be. 

You must treat the other person respectfully, and together you must create a feeling of security and trust. There must be mutual respect, both in words and in action, for a relationship to work.
The way I see it, these basic foundations may easily topple in relationships that includes people with alcohol- or drug abuse.

Here are some questions you may take your time to think about:

- How do you define a healthy relationship?
- What can you do to improve your relationship? What part do you play and how do you contribute? (This includes both positive and negative contribution).
- What do you seek in your relationship? 

 

What will your life look like in 2 years?

You have the possibility and power to influence your life! You can decide what your life will look like, what dreams you want to fulfill and goals you want to reach. Here are some exercises to help you on the way:

1) If you keep on living exactly the way you live right now, what will your life look like then? How old are you in 2 years? How will you feel? Will you be OK? How will you live?

2) If you would dream freely, how would you choose your life to look like in 2 years? Where do you live? Which people are you surrounded by? How do you feel? What are you working with? What are you doing in your free time?

3) To reach what you wrote above in 2 years, what will you have to do in 1 year to be well on the way?

4) To be well on the way in 1 year, what do you need to do the following 6 months to reach that partial goal?

5) What is the first step you choose to focus on?

6) Which people, organizations and groups can help you in your process of getting to where you want to be in 2 years?


The only one that can decide what your life will look like in 2 years is YOU!

Mindfulness is a way to wellbeing

I have gotten some help from a relative that has found mindfulness to be very helpful when trying to find wellbeing. Here are some tips she wants to share!

Being mindful means to be here and now, to appreciate what you have in each moment.

How many people aren't worrying about what happened yesterday or dreading what tomorrow will bring but forgetting to appreciate what is now?

We can't do anything about the past, only accept it, and the future we know nothing about. But today, right now we have the possibility to start creating the life we want to live! The most amazing thing is that we can always restart, the now is always with us!

Mindfulness is focusing a lot on breathing and I want to share my two favorite exercises that are easy to start with. It's important to give it time. If you do these exercises many times every day for two months I dare to promise that something will have happened to you!

1; Take a deep breath, hold it a couple of seconds and breathe out. When taking the next breath, pretend that you are breathing out old worries, angst or other unpleasant things that you want to get rid of. When breathing in there is strength, happiness and wellbeing in the air in your lungs. Take as many breaths you can until you feel lighter mentally and you get a feeling of calmness. Maybe you won't feel anything the first time you do this, but keep doing this exercise, when you are cooking, standing in line at the grocery store, stuck in the traffic, need a break from work, before going to bed…

2; This exercise aims to make you let go of things you can't change or affect anyway. When you feel the thoughts that you can't do anything with starting to form you can practice thinking them away and think your way to the now instead. What do I do now, ("well, I'm doing a jigsaw puzzle with my child, she/he has grown so big… and smart… "), what does it look like here, what does it smell like, what are the sounds? If it is hard to find the now you can instead try to think of a place where you find peace. It can be your favorite place, perhaps the sea, the forest or a fantasy place.

Both of these exercises are easy and will reduce your feeling of stress, you will get stronger and stronger, get in control of your thoughts and feelings and you will be able to make decisions in a completely different way by focusing on yourself, something we relatives so easily forget!

There are many good CD's with mental training exercises, mindfulness and relaxing. Buy something that feels good and listen to it every night before you fall asleep. You will fall asleep easier, sleep better and wake up more rested, and also this will reduce your stress.

Good luck! And please get in touch later with thoughts, reflections and your own experiences!

Define yourself in strengthening words!

Here is a challenge that can help you strengthen your selfesteem. Do it if you want to encourage yourself!

We often put negative labels on ourselves, such as:

- I'm dependent
- I'm a failure
- I'm a victim
- I'm always in bad luck
- I'm stupid
and so on... you get it. We feed our thoughts and brains with these labels. How positive does that get? How much power and strength do I feel if I tell myself those things? Probably none. I'll probably only get sad, feel worthless and won't dare to put energy into things I'd like to do, because I'm already convinced that I'll fail.

That is why you should do the opposite! Write down 5 positive or strengthening labels on yourself, things you know to be true. Words that can encourage you, support you, make you happier and stronger. Then put them on a place where you can see them every day!

Example:
- I'm courageous!
- I'm understanding!
- I'm vigorous!
- I'm actionable!
- I'm responsible!

If it's hard to come up with characeristics of yourself that are encouraging and strengthening, think back to moments when you've felt that you succeeded, when you were satisfied with yourself, which characteristics made you able to succeed with that?

Exchange the negative thoughts about yourself with strengthening thoughts!

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Pay it forward!

One of the most beautiful movies I've seen is "Pay it forward". It's about the boy who comes up with the idea of how to make the world a better place. And how every person can contribute.

The ide is that you help at least 3 people with a challenge/problem/situation that they wouldn't have been able to do on their own. They in their turn will help 3 people each, that help 3 people and so on... That way the help can be spread world wide in a sort of domino-effect.

What if things worked like that... How cool and wonderful wouldn't that be?

I believe there is something called the "Pay it forward movement" in USA. I'll check it out sometime.

In the meantime i I'll pay it forward to you readers!

Exercise: A new perspective!

A problem that currently might seem overwhelming can in a couple of years appear pretty simple. When you are in the middle of a problem you get emotionally affected and it can be hard to see the problem from other perspectives, from outside. Sometimes it can be good to take a step back and try to see the situation from another angle.

Here is an exercise on perspectives that can be helpful to you! Writing down your answers on a paper will help.

- Imagine it being ten years from now and look back at this situation, what would you think then? What advice might you give yourself?

- If it instead was your best friend being in the situation you are in, what would you advise them to do?

- If you were a statistician and you looked back on how your life has been statistically the last year, number of good days, number of bad days, number of consequences of alcohol/drug addiction and so on. What conclusion would the statistics make you come to?

- If you worked for a relief organization (eg Red Cross) or the social services: What would you then think was the problem that most urgently needed to be taken care of? What would be the most important thing to do as step 1?

These are only some of 1000 different perspectives you can see things from. If you find other helpful perspectives, use them as well!

Thought traps

It is common that we as humans have different thought traps/faults that we can get stuck in. These thought traps sometimes make us feel worse than we need to, because they affect our interpretation of many situations. During some periods thought traps can be more dominant and during other they affect us less.

To not let yourself be affected by them as much, and not give the thought traps possibility to steer our interpretation, it is important to first be aware of them. Later, when we have negative thoughts we can ask ourselves: Is it just me getting stuck in a thought trap now? Is it really this way, or is it my interpretation?

Which thought traps do you recognice?

1. Disqualification of the positive
Positive things don't count or you come up with excuses for them. "There is something fishy about this..."

2. Minimizing
You see positive things as real but still insignificant.

3. Overgeneralization
A single event or situation are interpreted as being characteristic for your whole life.

4. Labeling
This is an extreme form of ovegeneralization. A person with foreign apearence takes a bike = all immigrants are thieves.

5. Black-white-thinking, all or nothing-thinking
There are only two alternatives, success or failure. "If I don't do it perfectly I'm nothing to have."

6. Selective abstraction, the binocular-trick
If you see a rose you only see the buds. You only focus on one aspect, often negative, among many other aspects.

7. Personalization
You take personal responsibility, even when other aspects have an impact. For example, you take it personally when critique is made about a group.

8. Emotional thinking
You assume that the feelings you have are the same thing as reality. "I feel that this is hopeless, so that is what it actually is."

9. Reading thoughts
You think that you know what others are thinking about you. "It's clear what they think by just looking at them."

10. The mistake of the seer
You live as if your negative expectations are fact. "That's just the way it is, it's not going to work."

11. Catastrophic thinking
Negative situations and smaller unexpected events are made into big catastrophies.

12. Must and should thinking
Is often used to strengthen motivation. It is connected to guilt and feelings of shame. "I shouldn't get upset with my mum. She wants the best for me and would get hurt..."

Air out your life!

Do you have many energy thieves that steal your time?

Sometimes it can be good to clean out some things in your life. There can be many different things that steal our energy, strength, and joy of life. It can be the shelves that you crammed with things you don't know what to do with, it can be a friend or relative that suck all energy out of you every time you meet, it can be unpaid debts or commitments you find very dull.

Write a list of the things that eat up your energy and think about what you can do to change that!

Here you get some examples of things I have changed/cleaned out:

1) Cleaned out shelves in my cabinets, wardrobes and all the papers I have - threw out things that were worthless - gave away the things that could be useful for someone else.
2) Stopped buying clothes that have to be ironed.
3) Go through my retirement savings and others savings, talked to my bank to get better investments.
4) Sent emails to friends I haven't heard from in a long time.
5) Bought a robot vacuum cleaner that cleans out all the cat hairs when I'm at work :-)

So get going! It is incredibly uplifting to have cleaned some things out! Take care of you time and energy!

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Want to - Be able to - Ready!

What does it really take for a person to make a change in their life? In big and small things?

The conversational method Motivational Interviewing (MI) says that in order to accomplish making a change you need to:
1. Believe that the change is important and has a greater value for you (greater than the current situation).
2. Have faith in your own ability to manage carrying through with the change.
3. Be prepared to start acting to achieve the change.

So think about this: Do you have anything in your life that you would like to change? Or with your relative in mind, and the change you hope they will make. How important is this change - from the perspective of your relative? (not other's perspective) And if the person really wants to make a change, how much faith does he or she have in succeeding? The risk is that we may believe that a certain change is very important, but if we are sure we'll fail we're not going to dare to try anyway.
And lastly, if both of you believe that this change is important, and you se the gains from carrying through with the change and you have faith in your ability to succeed. What are you then willing to put at stake to go through with the change? Are you ready to perhaps change old habits, using new patterns of thought, do things differently in different situations from how you did before? Are you ready to turn away from certain things in order to prioritize the change.

And when it comes to you, how do you reason regarding a change you want to make?
- How important is it to you?
- How big faith do you have in succeeding? (If your faith is low, what do you need to do to strengthen your trust in yourself? What can contribute? What can help with that?)
- And lastly, what are you willing to do to succeed?

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Who is your best friend?

Do you often do things for others that you don't really want to do? Do you say yes but you mean no? Or do you cancel or neglect things you'd want to do in favor of someone else's needs? Do you say no to yourself and your needs and prioritize other's?

Who are you guaranteed to live with every second, minute, day, week, month and year for the rest of your life?
Treat yourself like you would treat your best friend!

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What is your passion?

I'll tell you what I'm personally trying to work on right now:

Respect, communicate and clarify my passions!

Everything from realizing the small things in everyday life, make small changes in my life that concern one of my passions, or clearly take a stance and communicate the bigger dreams of my life.

Do you also want to work on that? Try to answer these questions:

*What is your passion in life? Or passions? There can be many...
*How do you practice your passions nowadays?
*What space in your life do you give them?
*Do you want to give them more space? What would you do? How do you want to do it?
*Do you need to communicate your passions clearly to others?
*What do you need to realize your passions further?
*What practical thing can you do right now, to realize you passion?

Please write something in the comments about your passions and how you reason about realizing them! :-)

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Meditation works

Meditation makes us calmer and happier. There is new research showing that the brain changes after meditation over a longer period of time.

Meditating half an hour every day for two months is shown to have a strengthening effect on the part of the brain that handles our memories, feelings and what we experience with our senses, as well as the part of our brain that holds our primitive functions, such as stress and anxiety, was more easily kept under check.

Can't decide?

Sometimes the most annoying situations are those when you can't seem to come to a decision. The frustrating feeling of turning things over in your head, not knowing which option to choose. When you finally make the decision and act it out, that is an incredible relief! Has this happened to you?

Here is an exrecise  that can help you in situations like that. It makes things easier to evaluate and helps you see which option has the best reasons to be choosen.

Write long lists of everything that pops up in your mind for each of these headlines:

* Benefits of the current situation:

* Drawbacks of the current situation:

* Drawbacks of changing the situation:

* Benefits of changing the situation:

Reflect on your result, is any list longer than the others? Does anything on your lists matter more than the other things?

Under the headline "Drawbacks of changing the situation" fears and obstacles often appear. If that happened to your list, try to find different ways of handling them! There are probably many different alternatives to do that.

Good luck!

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Create your own support team

Alone is not strong. To isolate yourself and hide behind a façade has a negative impact on you and diminishes the possibility to stay healthy. That is why you need people around you that you trust and feel close to. And sometimes, when life is hard, you need help and support.

Who is on your support team?
What people do you have in your support team that you can ask for help from? Ask for advice or that can be understanding listeners? Who can, for example, support you when it comes to the kids, economy, practical things, emotional things? Maybe there is a relative who gladly babysits, a banker that can help you to make an economic plan, a neighbor that doesn't mind lending you their car, a friend that is a good listener?

Exercise
Fill in below who is on your support team. I have written a few subjects as examples. You can fill in with other subjects according to your needs.

Your support team
Subject (fill in with your own)                           Who?

Practical things

Economy

Kids

Emotional support

Health

Personal development

Support group

Others?

What do you need to ask these people about, how are you going to communicate that you need help and when?

If you think that your support team looks small you might have to develop new healthy relations or invite new people! To people with "negative" behaviors it is easy to follow the same old pattern of as before. If that is the case for you, what can you do to break these kind of patterns and create the healthy relations that you need?

Good luck!

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More or less?

Today is Monday the 9th of December. Here is a quick check on the status of your day:

- Do you put time and energy in doing things you want to do?
- What do you want to do less of?
- What do you want to do more of?
- How can you do that this week?

Hopefully the rest of the week will be what you want it to be!

When will you get to finish a thought?

Have you ever felt the feeling that you don't get to finish a thought? Like things keep happening that you have to react on, and you never find the time to just sit down and finish thinking a thought?br />
It can be the daily stress, or the situation of being a relative to an addict - that the addict always has something going on that craves your attention and that you must take care of?

What are the consequences of that?
I can think of many different consequences and there are probably more.
- It might make me run away and do things that I don't actually have to do. If I had only thought a little about it before I might have realized that.
- It takes away time from me to think about what my opinions and standards are and what I want to do - because I have to act on something before I finished figuring out what I really want.
- I don't have time to reflect on what I actually need.
- I don't have time to get a bigger picture of what is actually most important and what isn't very important. There is no order of priority but instead I do everything with the same amount of energy. The consequence of that is that I become tired and powerless.
- It makes me not feel anchored in anything I do and I get uncertain about if I'm doing the right things.
- I get worried because it always feels like I "should" do something that I forgot about.
- My thoughts circle around someone else (normally the addict) and I always act when they have an emergency or other problems. I get no opportunity to think about myself and my life.
- I flee from myself, my feelings and my thoughts, and keep myself busy by quickly solving emerging situations.
- Tired, confused, powerless and sometimes in despair.

If you feel that this applies to you, how can you create that "thought-pause"?
How important would it be for you to have a "thought-pause" and get to finish your thoughts once in a while?
What can be helpful for you to finish your thoughts? Write in a diary? Talk to someone? Travel somewhere? Something else?

I'll stop writing here and take my own thought-pause instead! :-)

Create a new network of friends

Our networks of acquaintances and friends give us strength, energy, new perspectives and comfort in hard situations. If they consist of the right people...
When you are young it is easy to make new friends, but something happens when you approach the middle of your life. The family, children and work take over your life and can limit the social interaction and the opportunities to find new friends.

If you feel that you are in that position, and you would want to increase your circle of friends, these are some tips on what to do:

1. Invite a colleague to lunch.
2. Buy two theatre tickets and ask, or email an ask, if anyone wants to go.
3. Join social groups on Facebook or other forums. An example of that is "Walk and talk", where people who don't know each other agree on a place to take a walk and talk to each other.
4. Take a course.
5. Go on a lecture and mingle a bit.
6. Start a new hobby - become a member in a forum, organization and so on, and attend their events.
7. Do something fun and useful at the same time - become a volunteer in an organization that needs your help and enthusiasm.
8. Get a dog. Go to dog-parks and meet all the other dog owners, take dog courses and so on.
9. Have you lost friends that you like? Look on Facebook, they might be there. Maybe you want to meet up again?
10. Do you have relatives and family members that you don't get to see as often as you want to? Do something about it!

In order to find new friends you need to be courageous, put yourself out there and endure some "no"'s. Because the reward when you get a "yes" is much bigger!

Good luck!

Whatever you believe, you are going to be correct

Whatever you believe about yourself or your fellows you are going to end up being correct!

It might sound a little exaggerated, but by and large, it will be true. Based on earlier experiences we create a picture of ourselves and others. To simplify all the information and the impressions we get we try to sort this in boxes and categories (this happens so fast in our thoughts that we probably don't observe it). Then, we use this map we have from before to interpret new impressions based on it.
That is why sometimes we distort the information and situations we experience to make them fit in to our general picture, "our map", of the world. We might also ignore information that does not fit with our picture.

That turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I have a "map" about myself as a victim of the circumstances, I'm going to keep interpreting things in this way. I find proof of this over and over again, because my brain filters and sorts all this information in to these well known boxes.

Therefore, to start seeing yourself and your surroundings in a different way you need to find proof of the contrary. When a new situation arises you need to question your own interpretation and try to make new ones instead.

We all have our maps, and the question is if they contribute to strengthening us, or if it pulls us down.

What does your map look like? How do you interpret yourself and your surroundings? Are there new perspectives you would like to see yourself and the world with? Which in that case? Find proof for these!

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Emotional baggage

We all have emotions and memories that burdens our lives. It can be from the childhood, catastrophes, broken relationships and so on.

We store them in our minds so that they are not visible on our surface. No one can see how we conceal all the junk. But when someone wants to get closer to us and opens the door to our inner memories it will all come tumbling down on them.

Instead of treading on or walking around it, it might be time to clean out you inner emotions. Make a decision and throw away everything negative and never let it disturb you again, like ripping out the pages of a book.

You can turn this into a defined exercise if that will help you more. Take some post-it notes and a trash can. Write down one negative emotion/memory on each post-it note and throw them one by one in the trash can.

Some old dark clouds that roam in you present mind are harder to get rid of than others. Then you can write them down and also answer these questions:
*WHAT can I do to leave this behind?
*WHAT do I need to succeed with this?
*WHEN should I do it?


HOW you do it can vary greatly, anything from getting therapy-treatment, to talk to someone that might be one source of your troubles, or cut of the contact to someone, or to write a letter to someone you never usually write to, or to pay debts (both financial and emotional). Yes, it can be anything. Only you know what you need to do.

If you clean out the old baggage you will have the possibility to write new pages and chapters in the future!