Author: Deana Morris

5 good reasons to stick with your new habit commitment

Deana Morris Uncategorized , , , 6 Comments
5 good reasons to stick with your new habit commitment

How long does it take to change a habit? 

If you think it’s 21 days, because you’ve read that stated as a fact somewhere, there’s some good news, and some, perhaps, more sobering news.

So first the myth-busting…

Contrary to what you might have read, if you want to make a life change, after 21 days you do not magically have a new habit on autopilot.

I know, wouldn’t that be wonderful. But it isn’t so… except for maybe a few people and they’re as rare as hen’s teeth. Here’s why…

  1. We’re not all the same

You’re unique, I’m unique. So why would it take us all 21 days to form a habit? When scientists have looked at habit formation they have discovered it takes people very different time periods to adopt the same new habit. Just 18 days was the least but the average was 66 and the other end of the spectrum was more than 250! So have patience, there’s nothing wrong with you. You are you, in all your glorious uniqueness.

2. ‘Failing’ isn’t failing, it’s just another step on the ladder

If you slip back/up/over in this quest to form a new habit, that is not the end of your new habit’s potential. You’ve just learned something. And that is all. 

Look at what happened objectively. Shake off any emotional attachment to this moment and see it for what it is, a miss-take. Just like your favourite film, creating a habit is made up of scenes and there will be habit challenges. Heard of Jackie Chan, the martial arts comedy film actor? He’s legendary for retakes; 2,900 in one film, apparently! The director Stanley Kubrick is said to have reshot one scene in The Shining 148 times. So if you fall off your healthy eating plan for one day, remember Jackie Chan. He doesn’t consider himself any less of a human being because he doesn’t nail it first go; neither should you.

Or put simply; stop catastrophising! 

3. Not all habits are created equally

Some habits are a lot harder to change than others. Scientists have been delving into habit formation and change for a long time and they’ve discovered the truth is much less clear cut than we’ve been led to imagine. 

Take flossing (teeth, not the dance)… UK scientists looked at two scenarios for introducing a new habit. One group were told to floss after hanging up their shower towel. Once they’d flossed their teeth they could then clean them. The other group were instructed to floss after cleaning their teeth. Both groups followed instruction during the monitoring period. But those who stuck with the habit, when the scientists followed up afterwards, were in the latter group. The scientists think that’s because the new habit was tagged on to a related, already established health habit. Establishing autopilot is easier for the brain if it’s like ‘apple + pear’ (i.e. really similar) rather than ‘cauliflower + pear’ (not similar).

So if you want to create a new habit, tag it on to one you already have that fits it.

4. Your circumstances for giving up can be different

One smart academic pointed out that walking and texting becomes very easy to give up if you’ve been hit by a car while doing this and had your leg broken. It’s funny how a near death experience can ramp up our determination.

5. Motivation is your starter; obsession is your finish post driver

If you want to succeed in habit changing, amplify your ‘motivation’ until it’s a more like burning obsession. Why? Motivation is a great starter, but it’s not going to propel you onwards when the doing gets tough. And the going will get tough. You’ve got to shrug off the challenges if you want it. Change pushes all sorts of buttons you might not be ready for…. Yet. Here’s a tip evolved from podcaster and author, Tim Ferriss’ fear facing technique.

Plan for all the things that can go wrong along your quest journey. Write them out. All of them. You know yourself; what are the weak spots that could trip you up? Then write out what you’re going to do when those scenarios come up. See yourself there, meeting your hurdle and clearing it with ease. Trying to cut back on drinking but you know you’re a ‘pleaser’ and don’t like feeling ‘different’? Practice what you’ll say when someone offers you a drink and you don’t want alcohol. What’s your reason for refusing wine? What’s your new non-alcohol drink? Practice until it feels natural. Visualise the scenes.

As a hypnotherapist, I can help you ‘give up’ a habit relatively quickly, but I can’t be there when you’re tempted at every turn so I ask clients to come to a session with a full list of their Achilles heels and I weave their positive actions into their programming recording so when the hurdle emerges they know what to do. And with their recording, they’ve rehearsed it so many times it feels like a familiar success.

Knowing all of the above is going to give you a strong head start in meeting your goals – happy habit forming.

And if you have great tips for breaking bad habits or taking up new ones, I’d love to hear them. Drop them in the comments below.

PS Oh by the way – the 21 days to create a habit myth? It originated with a plastic surgeon who ‘noticed’ it took people ‘about 21 days’ to get used to their new feature. No research. No control groups. Just one guy’s opinion. Yup, about as factual as lemmings committing mass suicide. No. They don’t. Although they will apparently eat each other if they get really hungry. Nice.

Further reading and references

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dont-delay/201310/you-can-develop-desired-health-behaviors

(Judah, G., Gardner, B., & Aunger, R. (2013). Forming a flossing habit: an exploratory study of the psychological determinants of habit formation. British journal of health psychology, 18(2), 338-353.

Fear setting: the most powerful exercise I do every month
https://tim.blog/2017/05/15/fear-setting/

Here’s How long It really takes to break a habit
https://www.sciencealert.com/how-long-it-takes-to-break-a-habit-according-to-science

Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney film faked bogus behaviour
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=56

 

Your story is your power

Deana Morris Uncategorized 2 Comments
Your story is your power

‘We all have the ability to come from nothing to something,’
David Goggins, ultra marathon runner, retired navy SEAL, author

 

We all have a story.

It’s the story we tell ourselves when we sense we don’t measure up. When we want to give up. When we blame others for what is happening to us.

Our inner critic loves our story. Perfect ammunition for keeping us in the comfort zone of mediocrity. No one thinks they want to be mediocre, do they? But I see a lot of people on social media clearly invested in their victim status, which suggests that’s exactly where they’ll stay.

And I do understand that. Stepping away from what’s comfortable and leaving it behind is not the easy choice. 

Risk of failure can be daunting. Imagining others’ judgement can be paralysing. Putting energy into swimming up stream needs focused, constant determination. The Story becomes a way to rationalise clinging to the comfort zone.

Our story’s roots usually drill right into our childhood. ‘I’ve always been the world’s worst speller.’ ‘I was a fat kid.’ ‘I was useless at running.’ And we use that story to explain why we are like we are now. Under-achieving on detail jobs at work. Overweight. Not getting any exercise beyond pushing the remote buttons.

So how do we take our story and make it work for us?

You flip it. You look for the positives and you move forward. I’ll tell you two stories from my teenage years which may help you see this concept more clearly.

I fell on this ‘bad can be good’ idea quite by accident. And then, of course, as I grew older I discovered I hadn’t invented anything and Nietzsche was far more articulate on this subject than I was. But I understood ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ very well.

When I was in fourth year, about 14 years old, I was a geek swot who loved learning. I was plump, shy and my parents weren’t getting on. Basically, I had ‘bully me’ tattooed in invisible ink on my forehead. Bullies have vulnerability radar and mine showed up to claim me pretty quickly. We’ll call my bully Julie.

Julie had a great technique for hurting; she walked behind me and step on the back of my heels. That is painful, as anyone knows who’s been caught by a supermarket trolley in the back of the ankle. And so she did this every day, as often as she could. She walked behind me , stepping on my heels and taunting me, trying to inflict physical and mental pain. And I took it, until I couldn’t. I was heavily invested in achieving at school; I endured this for weeks. But everyone has their limit.

Julie’s first lesson – do your homework. Don’t mess with a girl whose dad wanted a boy.  When I was about seven had Dad taught me to box. He’d kneel down and she me how to jab and defend. The results were I could punch. Effectively.

I knocked Julie off her feet with the first punch to the nose. She went down and she left me alone from then on.

So that was that. I realised standing up for myself was a good thing and I went on with being a geek and did my A-levels.

Just before I was due to go to move away to college I was sexually assaulted. 

He stopped me on a quiet country lane and asked me the time. Then, while I was distracted looking at my wristwatch, he lunged at me. I know. Subtle.

Almost on autopilot now, I took aim and punched him right on the nose, and then stood, side on, guard up and ready to fight. He got up and fled. 

I looked down at my dress, which was a mess, stomped off to the police station and only when I got there did the tears start. 

What I took from being bullied had made me stronger. 

Yes, I could have nipped that school bullying episode in the bud earlier, but I stopped it in the end. I didn’t see failure, I saw strength. And what I learned served me later. Ok, as would-be sex attackers go he was no Ted Bundy, just a mixed up kid with half a plan and no sense. The police picked him up a few days later on the same stretch of road, looking for his next ‘victim’. Thankfully he pleaded guilty and got a two-year supervision order. I really do hope he learned his lesson and got the help he needed.

Fight, flight or freeze

When we’re confronted with danger, it’s the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ part of the brain that kicks in and takes over to remove us from danger. Back in our ancient past, when we were hunted by predators that came with fur and big teeth, this part of our brain developed. Running wasn’t wise, couldn’t outrun these predators. Fighting was the last resort solution. Freezing was your best tactic, it’s very hard to spot a target that keeps very still or plays dead. This is why people freeze when they’re attacked and then question why they didn’t run or fight back; a part of their brain that’s purpose is to protect has taken over and is in charge.

Now you might think I was foolish to fight back, but for me it was the natural reaction. I didn’t make a conscious choice. And of course it gave me an element of surprise and I had that confidence in my physical power. I’ve worked to maintain that.

3 tips for developing your power

Yes, fighting is rarely the solution, but if you move with confidence and walk with power in your step, a potential attacker will sense that. They’re looking for weakness in your presence, not strength.

1. Learn how to defend yourself

If you don’t feel confident in your physical power, go learn how to feel more powerful. Take some basic self defence classes. Learn a martial art (amazing for making friends and learning the power of team support, by the way), but take control. Using these skills is not the goal. You’re not looking for a fight on Saturday night, but moving with confidence is a great deterrent.

2. Practice communication skills

If you regularly get into arguments (verbal fighting) learn techniques to communicate effectively without being emotionally triggered. You’re an adult now, you’ll have much more powerful, lasting relationships if you’re not treating every disagreement as a playground confrontation or a shouting match with your siblings.

3. Work on your body language

Predators are looking for easy victims, not difficult ones. Walk with confidence. If you’re lost, go into a cafe and check where you are, don’t wander around looking at your smart phone for directions. Most people are walking like they know where they’re going. Anyone who’s loitering and then starts moving towards you is likely to be after something, either your loose change or something else. Be aware.

What’s your story?

Bad things happen to good people all the time. Life is unfair. Being prepared makes sense. Using the bad times as reasons to achieve your goals makes sense, but using them to keep you from achieving your potential is not.

We all have stories. I have heard far worse than these two, I have far worse myself. I’m sure you do too. But you can use them as an excuse, or as your catalyst for change and growth – if you really want it.

Think about the stories you tell yourself. The incidents that you bring up as your reason for not moving forward when you know you want to or need to. In that story are positives that can spur you on. If you look for them.

If you want help with that, get in touch.

The choice is yours. 

Further reading:
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl argues we cannot avoid suffering, but we can endure it and find meaning within it, which gives us a stronger power to endure and more purpose as we move on. In this book he talks about his time in concentration camps, where he lost members of his family, including his pregnant wife.

In David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me you’ll discover how he pulled himself back from poverty, depression and a no-hope existence to become the first man to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger and Air Force Tactical Air Controller. This one comes with a language warning though; he swears like a sailor denied shore leave. 

The truth about authority figures

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The truth about authority figures

The world needs women who stop asking for permission from the principal. Permission to live their lives as they deeply know they often should. I think we still look to authority figures for validation, recognition, permission. Elizabeth Gilbert (author)

 

How many authority figures are there in your life?

One? Two? More…?

So, surprise… this is a trick question. There should be no authority figures for you – if you are a strong, functioning adult who’s mentally healthy and emotionally functioning well.

Because if you’re an adult… you’re in charge. You’re the authority figure in your life. You’re in charge. No one is the boss of you. No one. You don’t need anyone’s permission – you’re the expert on you, it’s your call.

If that feels uncomfortable to you, maybe you could use a hand building your confidence in your power as an adult. Got questions?

My parents?

How old are you? If you’re a grown up, your parents should be wise friends you love deeply and who want the best for you. But they are not authority figures any more.

So what about my job boss? Or my boss’s boss?

Your boss is your colleague. If he or she is abusing that role, that’s an issue, because together you are supposed to be working to create something of benefit. Your boss may earn more money and there may be a hierarchy diagram which shows different levels in your work organisation, but that does not make your boss an authority figure. They may tell you things you don’t want to hear, and ask you to work when you’d rather not, but they are doing a job too. And you do have the right to say ‘no’.

What about the police?

Again, they’re doing a job. It’s not personal, they’re upholding the law. That’s their job.

What about politicians?

Along with the media and the church, they may be very keen on you giving them authority. Otherwise, well… why do you need them? Fear is a weapon of choice for these guys. Do as I say or you’ll lose all you (don’t) have. Do as I say or you’ll go to hell. Do as I say or you’ll be murdered in your bed/lose your job/lose… lose… lose…

The bottom line is, you are the authority figure of your life. You have the power – and may the force of love be with you, as a very wise woman I know likes to say.

Scary?

If your parents have raised you well, you’ll be saying, ‘so what?’ 

If you’re confused by these ideas. Or threatened. Or at the very least uncomfortable with being in charge of you; full stop. Well, in all likelihood, you’ve got some growing up to do. And that wake up call can come at any age. Don’t worry if 18 is a very distant memory for you, it’s never too late.

So how do I grow up?

If you’ve cottoned on to the fact you’re a child dressed up as an adult (or in all likelihood an adult dressed as a teenager), step away from the scooter/skateboard and take a breath.

You can do this.

Firstly, there is Mel Robbins and her advise is free there. You’ll find her on YouTube. She’ll tell you that parenting yourself is your job now and she gives great advice.

If you think you want to work with someone on developing your skills in parenting yourself, building your confidence and dealing with where you took a wrong turn on your growing up journey, then there are plenty of great therapists out there who will help you achieve this.

Remember, it’s never too late to grow up. Peter Pan wasn’t happy, but you can be.

May the force of love be with you.

Are positive affirmations hurting you?

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Are positive affirmations hurting you?

‘I am a good person. I am loveable. I am enough.’

If you’ve just read those sentences and you rolled your eyes – good for you! A little healthy cynicism is no bad thing. Shows a strong sense of self regard.

If you read those words and felt a stabbing sense of inadequacy, a haunting flash of ‘not me, never me’, if you wondered (yet again) what was wrong with you, why positive affirmations weren’t working for you, no matter how many times you said them…. YOU! You are who I’m writing to here…

Dear You,

There is a reason why positive affirmations aren’t working for you and ‘it’s not you, it’s them’, as they (very nearly) say.

Take a moment. Let that in.

Because it’s ‘widely believed’ x = y does not make it true. Positive affirmations are not for everyone. 

Like crop tops, dungarees, or Take That… Just because you see them everywhere does not mean they’re a good fit for you.

It’s widely believed the Earth is a perfect sphere. That’s not true, it’s actually quite lumpy. People used to believe the Earth was flat. Didn’t make it true either.

So positive affirmations make you feel better… Do they? Hmmm… Let’s have a look at the data. 

Positive affirmations work for positive people. Yes.

Positive psychology found its feet in the 1990s and since then some of its widely held beliefs have since been researched and found to be questionable.

For instance, research published in 2009 by psychologist Joanne Wood and her team, ’Positive Self Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others’, discovered that if you have high self esteem, repeating ‘I am a loveable person’ multiple times resulted in ‘slightly’ improved mood.

So, yes, there’s merit in them. For people who already have strong self-esteem.

But what Wood and her team also discovered was people with low self esteem felt worse when they repeated the positive affirmation. Why? Wood concluded that it was because the phrase just gave their inner critic more ammunition, it served only to remind them of a limiting belief they held about themselves. Like mentally poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. Over and over again.

So, dear You, please stop. For you, positive affirmations are likely to be more like a way of self-harming, if anything. Look for another solution – and there will be one for you, please do believe you can be a happy, healthy human being, I do believe that – but repeating positive affirmations when your self esteem is on the floor is unlikely to be the key that will free you from your unhappiness.

Photo by Rae Tian @Unsplash

Adventures on the grail quest

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Adventures on the grail quest

‘The Grail Quest takes place in the Wasteland. You find the treasure of yourself and the power in those darkest, most harrowing moments,’ Elizabeth Gilbert, author

Grief comes for us is many guises. Lost people, lost jobs, lost loves, lost opportunities…

By the time we’ve got to our midlives, it would be an unusual human who hadn’t experienced grief.

Then there’s the experiences of grief that are not strictly ours, but push us into examining our own world. The friend grieving a miscarriage when we are childless, a colleague devastated by a parent’s loss when we’ve been grieving the parent we’ve never known most of our lives… it is human nature to consider ourselves in others’ experiences. It may be uncomfortable, but it is nothing to feel guilty about.

Sometimes we are in the front circle of grief, sometimes the gods. 

And so it is that I have recently found myself in a Facebook group for a journalist I met from time to time in a former job where my duties including running the organisation’s press office. We were Facebook friends and sometimes sparring partners – Jonathan was a tenacious news man who seldom took the stock ‘A spokesperson said…’ statement as an answer.  When I ran into him at a press event, bounding towards me – eyes shining, huge grin – my first thought was usually an expletive. Jonathan was too bloody bright. Admirable and annoying in equal measure; but that’s the memorable moments of life, isn’t it, oxymoron in action.

Jonathan was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago. He passed last Thursday.

In his last weeks, this Facebook group has been an extraordinary experience. A way for those of us who know him, and there seem to be hundreds of us, to pass on messages. A way for him to hear those messages, delivered by friends and family visiting him in hospital.

One of his friends who saw him in his final days here, reported back to us that Jonathan wanted us to know that, pretty much, all that mattered was love. That he felt ours and that we had his.

So while I usually keep my blogposts pretty factual, it seems the least I can do to honour his memory is pass on this simple but powerful message.

Certainly Jonathan has left a very empty space in the lives of those who knew him.

Love is the point. And to love we must lose. And it will feel like a Wasteland. But keep going because you’ll find strength you didn’t know you had, resources you can call on again and again, more power than you ever imagined might be available to you.

The author Elizabeth Gilbert lost the love of her life last year. Of Rayya’s passing, she recently said that she thought people who are very vivid in life are very vivid in death. Certainly Jonathan’s absence seems very loud just now. Like his sneezing. His journey here may have closed, but his grail quest was lived vividly.

Whether what you grieve was light or bright in the world, keep going.

Your grail is waiting for you. Your journey continues.

Finding your yoga tribe

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Finding your yoga tribe

Oh, the joy when you find the right yoga class for you. 

It’s all happy face, party hats flying, streamers and skippiness…

But oh my, does it take time to get there!

Last year I moved 280 miles – from Manchester to Eastbourne – away from the yoga teacher I’d been with for more than six years. I had completed my British Wheel of Yoga Foundation year course with her. I had then spent more than three years in Yoga Teacher Training with her. I attended her classes and workshops.

I hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to find the right ‘fit’ again. I thought I was moving house, but I was leaving a lot more than bricks and mortar behind. You can skype your mates, you can’t skype in for your yoga class. Well, you can, but does it feel the same? There is something about the collective energy of a yoga class that works for you. You grow in ways you can’t alone and it nourishes you in ways solo practice can’t.

If the right class for you is the first one you try, you’re very lucky. As a teacher, you know students who come to you for the first time, may not come back. Because you’re not right for them at that point in their lives. And that’s ok.

I did not know that when I was younger and for years I persevered in classes that didn’t work for me as a yoga student. 

I found them too crowded.

I found them too rigid.

I found them too samey.

But I ploughed on, because if nothing I am resilient and I do not ‘give up’. It won’t surprise you to read I’m fairly introverted with a mile-wide rebellious streak and I get bored fairly easily. So was a honouring who I was in those busy, repetitive, ‘well if this modification doesn’t work for you then leave it out’ classes? I doubt I gave ‘me’ any thought at all as I grew up a ‘pleaser’. I was invested in pleasing the teacher, not myself.

Your yoga is all about your self care. Your honouring and deep communication with yourself. Yes, there’s a place for being led, but you’re an individual, not a facsimile of your teacher.

You’re communing with your Self. The heart of you. The soul of you, if you like.

Yes, it’s about moving your body and stilling the mind, but it’s also an intimate experience that challenges you. It’s not about pushing a square peg into a round hole.

In my fierce determination to not ‘give up’ I forgot all of that.

Of course, now I’m in my fifties and I’m accumulating more wisdom, I’m better at choosing for me, whether I’m wearing my yoga student hat or my teaching one.

I teach in the evening. I focus on slow classes, designed to build strength, but also calm the nervous system, quieten the mind and prepare my students for a good night’s sleep. It’s absolutely appropriate for the class. But more importantly, it’s important to me to give an alternative to fast flow. I value smaller, cosy teaching environments. It feels right. It feels nurturing and, to me, it feels slightly rebellious. Ticking all my core value boxes.

So if you’ve tried yoga and you thought it wasn’t for you, try a different teacher. But don’t give up just because your first experience wasn’t a perfect fit. The right fit is waiting for you. It’s not you. It’s not the teacher. It just is. Think about who you truly are and find someone who reflects those values in a way you can recognise. 

Everyone will be far happier.

Meditation and hypnosis: the kissing cousins

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Meditation and hypnosis: the kissing cousins

The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances ~ Atisa

Meditation v Hypnotherapy.

It never ceases to surprise me how comfortable people are with the idea of meditation, but hypnotherapy…? Hmmm…

Imagine yourself meditating. 

What do you see? Yourself sitting crosslegged, a blissful smile playing on your lips?

erik-brolin-711851-unsplash

Imagine yourself in a hypnotic trance… what do you see?

Powerlessly telling your darkest secrets? Barking like a dog on command, unable to control your reactions as you chew away on raw onions?

Interesting, isn’t it. 

And yet, so far from the truth.

Because here’s the reality. Meditative trance and hypnotic trance. Pretty much the same state.

‘But what about those stage shows?’ I hear you. But here’s the thing. They’re not hypnotherapists. They’re in show business.

Any hypnotherapist will tell you that, contrary to what you might imagine, you won’t do anything or say anything you don’t want to do or say when you’re in a hypnotic trance. Here’s the secret to what appears to be ‘mind control’: those people you’ve seen on television, or in shows on stage… they’re highly extroverted, highly suggestive individuals who have been carefully selected because the mesmerist wants someone who loves to perform. Watch how they select who gets up on stage. That process is about assessing who is suggestible and is up for performing and really, really wants it.

In fact, moving into a hypnotic trance state itself is very like the deep relaxation state you’ll enjoy at the end of a yoga class or when you’re meditating.

levi-xu-125529-unsplash

Of course, in hypnotherapy, we use this deep, relaxed state to explore issues that are holding us back from living the way we want to live. 

Hypnotherapists are guides, helping you explore the past to understand where you developed patterns of thinking or habits of action that were once a coping mechanism, but no longer serve you. Like eating when you feel lonely or self-sabotaging your best efforts to find the job of your dreams or choosing Mr Wrong over and over again.

Then we help you take control and move forward in the way you want – because we are all authors of our own stories and we can all have a happy ending.

It’s just sometimes we need a hand to help us pick up the pen and find the positive words that will propel us along our story’s timeline, in the direction we want.

Photos: @erik_brolin @xsanfeng @romankraft

How to survive Mother’s Day when yours is a narcissist

Deana Morris Uncategorized , , 10 Comments
How to survive Mother’s Day when yours is a narcissist

‘Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?’

Mother’s Day is a date fraught with issues for many women. For some it is a date carefully ignored. Card shops walked past, certain aisles in supermarkets avoided, social media shunned as those women countdown and pass a date which pricks their memories of mothers lost, mothers passed.

And deeply sad this is.

But there are others you’ll see, carefully sorting through the cards. Stopping, hesitating and hovering over several cards, unsure of which to pick. Sometimes they’ll pick three in a moment of anxious panic. ‘Choose later’ they mouth to themselves.

And then there is a gift. But which gift? Will it be good enough? Will it cost enough? And so this desperate dance of indecision goes on. Every year. 

Always unsure of which gifts will please and which will rain down criticism. 

Motherhood is not like the movies for everyone. For some daughters, neglect or abuse is a vivid memory which haunts their best efforts to grow emotionally strong in adulthood. Narcissistic mothers see their child as a mirror, a reflection of themselves, not an individual. They’ll want you to achieve so they can bask in your glory, use you as a boasting toy, but you can never win because if you achieve too much they’ll envy you too. There is no winning their unconditional love. There is none to be had.

Snow White’s narcissistic parent may have been portrayed as a step mother, but hell hath no fury like a raging narcissist let loose with power.

A daughter of a narcissistic mother may not risk death by hitman on Mothers Day, but it can feel like a tightrope walk, without a net, where the cold hard ground of disapproval and distain awaits if you stumble.

And it’s always a long way down.

Of course, not buying a card isn’t an option either. Unlike the daughter who mourns a lost parent you mourn the unknown. Instead you stand in front of a card display that reminds you only of what you never had and never will.

No one wants to confess that their own mother is a mean girl and so it becomes a secret. So how do you get out of the woods of secrecy?

Understand what you’re dealing with: it’s not you, it’s them

Read all you can find. Remember that narcissism is a spectrum, not a one power dress fits all set up. Small amounts of narcissism are perfectly healthy, but the more traits your mother has, the more your parent walks towards full NPD (narcissistic personality disorder).

Get help to work through what cannot be said to this parent 

A therapist; a support group, find people who understand you. Emotionally, it can be like learning to walk again after you’ve walked with a limp for a very long time. But it can be done. You can stand tall. You can be free.

Recommended further reading:

The Stone Child: Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Will I Ever be Good Enough? Dr Karyl McBride
Dangerous Personalities: Joe Navarro

Everything I want (and more) is on the other side of fear

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Everything I want (and more) is on the other side of fear

It’s the night before I’m due to speak on a stage, in front of an audience who are paying actual money to be entertained… There I am. Lying in bed, tears streaming down my face.

‘I can’t… I don’t want to… He’s making me sound like a retired porn star…’

My long-suffering partner sighs silently to himself. He tells me I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to (cunning move, this kind of talk always spurs me on). Then he comes a smart quip about Belle de Jour. This makes me laugh. And I stop blowing my nose long enough to smile, at least at the thought that in his head I in any way remind him of Catherine Deneuve.

I’d just been having an email conversation having a difference of opinion about what the title of my talk should be, at a local event the next night. My talk event host is blithely unaware of how seriously I am taking this. (Perhaps until he gets an email which is mostly in capitals with the phrase ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT!’ repeated several times.)

Am I having a disproportionate meltdown? Absolutely.

Am I caught up in am emotional whirlpool that feels more like a tornado? YES!

Am I aware of all that, that I know logically that this feeling will pass, it’s just an emotion telling me I’ve hit a mental speed-bump, but still freaking out with a racing mind which appears to have forgotten lots of things, like full stops for instance? OH YES. 

But the thought of coming off sounding like I’m planning to recount the loves and lives of an X-rated movie starlet had sent me over the edge of rational and into teary meltdown.

I am reminded of the little girl I blogged about a week or so ago… But I wasn’t being diva, and neither was she. We were overwhelmed.

I go to sleep, exhausted by my tantrum (while my partner probably lies there blinking at the ceiling). Then the next morning I get up, redraft the title to one I can stomach (and so can the event organiser – hurrah) and the day moves on. I also rewrite big chunks of my talk. And it was probably better for that too.

Fear lives in the amygdala. I know public speaking is a big fear issue for many people. I know I’m not alone. But I feel like I am. As do we all at these times.

I’ve not spoken in public for a long time. Like 40 odd years long. Not like this. I’m invested in this. This is for me. When you’re invested beyond waving a pointer at a powerpoint in front of a committee; it’s different. it’s personal.

So why am I doing this? Scaring seven shades out of myself here, and doing so on a regular basis these days…

My top 3 fear pay offs

  1. Fear is a friend not an enemy
    It’s very easy for me to say ‘fear is just a flag, acknowledge it and move on’ because I do a fair amount of saying ‘hello’ to fear and spending time dancing with her (I think Fear is female, but that’s just my fancy). Rather than hide from Fear, I like to hang out with her from time to time, because I’ve noticed interesting things happen when I do. When she reduces you to a big sob mess, you’re on to a winner. This is your 100-1 winner, you’ll get so much more back than you invest. I knew my teary, sobbing fit meant this was big. I was right and it was worth every moment of vulnerability.

2. Fear is a catalyst for creativity
If you want to move forward, think differently, take on tasks that you suspect are beyond you, do one thing that scares you. Just a wee one. Because facing fear has big pay offs. All that ‘but I can’t…’ mind chatter starts hearing ‘yeah, but you did’. And if you can do one you can do another… and another…

3. Great ideas keep surfacing
I was really struggling to find meaningful blog topics before the talk. Now I cannot stop! Three months of ideas banked! Fear kicks down doors in many ways.

So how did I prepare for this first big public speaking step?

I have a method and it worked for me. People like the podcaster and entrepreneur, Tim Ferriss and Susan Cain, the author of Quiet and another Introvert, prepare to speak publicly in similar ways too.

A blog for another day, very soon…

Dysmorphia, self-love, myths and the magic of mirrors

Deana Morris Uncategorized , , , , , , , 0 Comment
Dysmorphia, self-love, myths and the magic of mirrors

‘I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected,’ Paulo Coehlo: Goddesses of the Forest

Since being a little girl, I’ve loved fairy tales, myths and fables… haven’t you? I was frequently caught red handed as an eight year old; head under the covers long after lights out, with a torch, nose-deep in Enid Blyton’s Tales of Ancient Greece. 

As I grew older, my fascination grew. Not so much with the stories I read as a child, but the older, darker folk stories in which I realised there were deep, dark warnings… and not just for children.

Last week, I spoke at the Bavard Bar in my new hometown in theUK; an event to entertain audiences in a TedTalk-style evening, with a few asides of games besides. I wove a few of these old myths into my talk as it’s a light evening; not one for delving too deeply into issues such as body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), an anxiety condition impacting on between 1-3% of theUK population, according to NICE figures. Or the ferocity of inner critics, which effects far more men, women and children each time they look in the mirror.

As I’ve travelling through Europe, and then North, Central and South America over the years, I’ve put together quite a collection of local folklore books. I discovered that they told me so much about the people who lived in those countries today. If you want to know a culture, look to its ancient vision of life, god and its explanation for how the world came into being.

You’ll also start to notice that often the psychological and ethical issues we face today (and carry on like we have just invented them) have been echoing in the past for millennia. 

For instance, those stories by The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson are mostly based on ancient folk tales. But certain elements, often sexual or violent, were erased from the versions these authors published. Probably to meet the moral tastes of 19th century European parents.

In the older versions of Rapunzel our heroine is cast out of the tower with her two children. The children? A result of her relationship with the prince who came to visit. Sex before marriage? Hmm… out!

And take the Queen in Snow White… is she a raging narcissist, pathologically jealous of her stepdaughter? Or is she a woman lost in self loathing as she stares into the mirror? Does the mirror literally speak, or is it her own inner critic she hears condemning her to torment? Whatever her crimes, in the original tale she is the cabaret at Snow White’s wedding, forced to dance in red hot iron shoes until she drops dead. Seems a little extreme a punishment for an attempted murder conviction.

Dark mirrors

In the Snow Queen we can get so wrapped up in the story of Kai and Gerda, we forget how the sliver of glass that turned a boy’s heart to ice came to be. The glass, just a speck of a speck, was a minuscule fragment of a vast spellbound mirror, created by a demon who wanted to reflect wickedness and envy, jealousy and meanness and all the sins that you might imagine, and many more besides. The mirror shattered, thwarting the demon’s plan to shine the mirror into the face of God, but tiny bits of it fell to Earth, washed into sand which in turn became glass, used in spectacles and mirrors, and forever distorting our vision.

So yes, the trouble that comes from judging ourselves by our reflections has been around for a long time.

Narcissus, of course, fell in love with his own reflection and wasted away by a pool; perhaps a metaphor for what happens when we don’t look deep enough. His future was predicted by a blind prophet, a man with only inner vision; a telling paradox.
Like many of us I spent a lot of time, while I was growing up, criticising the woman I saw in the mirror.

I met my partner when I was 18 (we were a six-month pash back then, but we got back together when I was in my Forties; it’s a long story) and while as a student then I was quite convinced I was ‘fat’, although as my observant partner has said more than once ’you were stick thin and you never ate’. It took me a long time to see that whatever the scales showed, whatever the mirror reflected, I was seeing myself as ‘other’ and the bottom line was I didn’t think I was enough. Thin enough. Pretty enough. 

Using mirrors for good

Oh yes, there’s another way to use a mirror. Hold it up to your face. Really close. Or walk up to the mirror so you’re almost nose to glass. Now look deep into your own eyes…. Ah yes… that’s where you really are.

Because when you look into your pupil, you see deep into yourself. You can catch a glimpse of your inner self; the part of you that is deeply you. They talk about the eyes being the windows of the soul; perhaps they are, perhaps that is your soul you see. But it is certainly a deeper way of seeing your self in the mirror, that is for sure.

And perhaps that’s where self love can start from, because the inner critic somehow struggles to speak when confronted with the depths of the self.

Transform your experience

Inspirational speaker, Lisa Nichols, has an exercise using this intimate use of the mirror. One that can transform your experience with yourself because it you start a deep conversation at this level – nose to mirror.

Look yourself deep in the eye and tell yourself; ‘I am proud of you for’ and think of anything from your life for which you’ve accomplished a moment that gave you a glow. Even if you’re struggling to get our of bed in the morning, the act of doingAnd you can go way back to childhood, because you have 7 of these to find. Now repeat this on ‘I forgive you for…’ and let go of that self-judgement you’ve been holding on to. And one more… ‘I commit to you that…’ Now repeat daily. Lisa Nichols swears this prescription for self love was one of the practices that saved her from being medicated for depression.

I’ve tried it. I recommend it to clients too.

You will find it an emotional connection and you may surprise yourself. Healing our relationships with ourselves and turning that relationship into a life-long love affair, has to be a worthy goal, doesn’t it? We are certainly in a relationship with ourselves for a very long time; and turning mirrors into a force for good in our lives has to be a powerfully positive step in our self love journeys.