So, we got quite a few questions and comments from people from our website that ask things like how do we prevent all the drama around Christmas…

or people commenting that they find Christmas really stressful and challenging.

And it is that way for a lot of people, because a lot of expectations arise around Christmas. It’s supposed to be magical, it’s supposed to be beautiful and awesome, and people find quite a lot of stress and pressure around that, needing to kind of fulfil all these expectations that they have.

I want to talk about some things that you can do to minimise all that kind of stress and challenge

So I want to talk about some things that you can do to minimise all that kind of stress and challenge, and to have a more drama free Christmas.

One concept that I talk about with my clients is the concept of managing the trees that we climb. What I actually mean by that is managing how much drama that we have within our lives.

So, first things first is going into Christmas, you need to take a look at what are all the filters, perceptions, beliefs, ideals, and expectations that you have about how Christmas is supposed to be.

How it should be, how people should be, what does this whole kind of space shuttle launch that you’re preparing for is supposed to look like, because all those things actually set you up for stress, because there’s that expectation, there’s that feeling now that all these things are supposed to happen, and these people should behave a particular way, or they will behave that way because that’s the way I always expect them to behave. 

All that kind of pressure and stress actually becomes a metaphorical tree in our lives, and if we get really invested in finding evidence for those things in our lives, we can wind up climbing right to the top of that tree, so far up that talking us down from that kind of very, very fixed position that we have, it’s like a nightmare, right?

I mean, sometimes I’ll get on a call with somebody, I’ll be like, “Wow. What tree have you just climbed? How did you get up there? Hello, can you hear me? Can you come down, like one branch at a time so we can actually get you back into neutrality and back into balance?”

Wow. What tree have you just climbed?

So first things first, identify what are these filters and perceptions that you have of Christmas and all that kind of stuff going with it.

Those thoughts that you have well, oh, Uncle Fred is going to tell the worst jokes, and Mary’s just going to irritate me, because she’s going to ask me why am I still single, and you’ve got some other person that always gives uncomfortable hugs, or whatever it is that you think and believe will definitely happen.

The thing to get about that is whatever you believe is definitely going to happen, you will end up projecting that onto the situation.

You will climb this metaphorical tree where you find evidence for those things to happen, and we are so invested in being right about what we believe you don’t actually give anybody a chance, and we don’t actually just let people just be who they are and be laid back about it.

So in validating those beliefs and finding evidence for those beliefs, we can actually create a drama out of that situation out of nothing. 

The reality is that the same situation can be perceived completely differently from two different perspectives, or three, or four, five different perspectives, so at a single dinner table, you can have Uncle Fred telling his jokes. You can have you sitting in one corner going, “Oh, here we go again. They’re going to be the worst jokes ever.”

Perceptions of the same event can be polar-opposite

And you got somebody else sitting on the other side of the table going, “Oh, there was a bit of a lull in the dinner. Isn’t it great that he’s livened it up with some jokes? Gosh, that was really funny.” And it’s exactly the same. It’s still Fred telling jokes, so no one’s right. It’s different perspectives, and ultimately you’re in charge of what perspective, and perception, and belief, and expectation that you bring onto Christmas, and onto life in general.

So some tips to be aware of, is first things first, identify what are these kind of preconceived notions, and ideas, and beliefs that you have about Christmas where you are so kind of project managing things to achieve those particular results or outcome in Christmas. 

Second thing is to kind of manage yourself and be aware of where of where you are actually investing in finding evidence for those things to be true.

What are the metaphorical Christmas trees you are climbing?

What are the trees, the Christmas trees, the big metaphorical trees that you are climbing that you’re right about where you get so invested in it that you’re so far up into the atmosphere at the top tree that you’re not actually present, and just in the now, and just enjoying what is?

Manage yourself in being aware of those reactions, and if you find yourself that you’ve climbed a tall tree, just notice it, and just go, “Okay, I’ve climbed a tall tree called this day isn’t going very well, and these people are really irritating, and I just want to get out of here.” Maybe just slow that down.

Everybody’s just being who they are. This is good. I can handle this. I’m going to have a good Christmas.

Just manage yourself climbing down from that tree, calmly and peacefully. Have a bit of a giggle about it, and return yourself back to neutrality where you just remember that people are just doing what they’re doing, and I’m the one that’s adding all the drama, and the chaos, and climbing trees over these stupid situations. So, managing those reactions are critical to enjoyment of it.

So, managing those reactions are critical to enjoyment of it

And the last tip is whatever you focus on will expand. So if you believe that Christmas is stressful and challenging, you are going to create that. If you believe that Christmas is magical and awesome, and you’re going to have a really fun, chill day, then that’s what you will create, because human beings are incredibly good at finding evidence for whatever it is that their theories are. 

Whatever you focus on will expand

So manage those different things across Christmas, and I really wish you a very merry Christmas, and let this year be a drama free Christmas for you and your family. Til next year, thanks.

Hey, this is Adele from Naked Recovery…

So, I want to thank everybody who gave us so many awesome comments about my first tips video in advance of the webinar, thank you.

Thank you for watching the tips video, and here’s the third one. We wanted to make sure that we really covered some good content prior to the actual webinar itself. So in the previous video, we were looking at all the kind of blockages to achieving a victor mindset, and in today’s video, we’re going to look at what it actually takes to adopt a victor mindset when you’re going through any kind of life turmoil.

Cool stuff

So I’m going to cover some cool stuff that we’ve developed in many of our retreats, I’m going to be referring to some notes, hope you don’t mind I’m going to kind of look down at my notes, come back to you, and so and so forth. But, I wanted to make sure I don’t skip any of the really cool stuff that you need to know. All right, so without further ado let’s look at that.

Victor mindset

In the last tips video, we covered some of the blockages to actually adopting a victor mindset. We looked at the concept of resiliency and what blocks resiliency is a kind of learning resistance and the learning defiance. In this video, we’re going to be looking at this mentality of being a victor.

Now, as I kind of covered a little bit in the last video, when you have a bad thing that has happened to you were you’re just cruising along in your life, something really shocking has happened, the first experience is very normally to have that kind of shock. You’re in a shock experience where maybe you’re in a bit of denial about the thing that has just happened, and you feel like this thing has happened to you.

Healing Journey

Now anytime you feel like something’s happening to you and you’re in that place of being victimised this is such a normal response for people to be there. I was just cruising in my life, this thing happened, and now I feel at the effect of it and therefore victimised. Being victimised is a very normal part of the healing journey, it’s actually the first stage is the victim stage, is that feeling of being victimised.

So, if you find yourself in that stage don’t be hard on yourself about it. It’s not a problem. The problem though is when that stage lasts a really long time, and you can kind of get stuck there, and a little bit bitter. So what we want to do is look at what are some of the techniques and mindset you need to have to move on from the victim stage through the various other stages of healing. So, if you’re in that kind of victim mentality you’re going to be feeling not good enough, this thing has occurred and happened to you.

Poor me

You might be saying things like, “Poor me, how could this have happened?” You’re feeling reluctant, you’re feeling maybe a bit of outrage, you’re sympathy seeking, you’re feeling quite righteous in feeling hurt, entitled to your hurt. Maybe there’s a blame of shame game that you’re having your fault-finding, very, very normal to be in that in the first kind of stage after turmoil.

To move from the victim stage to the next stage of the journey, which is the stage of feeling like the survivor, what you need to focus on is shifting your perspective where you’re kind of in this victim place to the next part where you’re beginning to cope with what has happened.

Analogy

Now an analogy that we sometimes use is if you’re driving along in a vehicle, and you’re driving along in that vehicle and the driver of the vehicle is actually the person that has created the trauma in your life. If you’re feeling like the victim you’re actually the person that has been hit by whatever it is that they’re doing. You’re actually the pedestrian that has been hit by this vehicle and you’re in a place where you’re feeling victimised by the driver of that vehicle.

Now whoever the driver is, maybe it’s a corporation that has fired you, or maybe it’s someone who’s cheated on you, or somebody who is divorcing you, or someone that has created an accident in your life. You’re in that place of feeling like the pedestrian at the effect of what they’re doing.

What we want to do is move you from the place of being the pedestrian to being the passenger within the vehicle. So this is the place where you’re actually witnessing what is occurring and you’re beginning to cope with what has happened rather than feeling at the effect of what has happened. So, you’ve gotta shift your attention from blame seeking to focus on what you can take ownership for, and accountability for. And to have a plan in place for managing all the triggers that are occurring off the back of this thing that has occurred in your life.

Survivor

Now, when you’re in that space of being the survivor the mindset of the survivor is you’re beginning to cope with what has happened, so you’ve got some systems in place to survive this event. So you’re starting to take control of various things. You’re tolerating the pain, you’re taking control, you’re starting to get up in the morning wash the dishes, you’re starting to actually do things, and you’re stopping the incessant feeling of being victimised. You’re actually like, “Okay, I need to get on with this. I need to do what I need to do.”

To get from the place of being a victim to the place where you’re starting to survive the situation you must commit to the survival. You must tell yourself, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I need to get over this now. I need to begin to move on.” And you’ve gotta commit to actually moving on and developing those coping mechanisms. So, that’s the next stage and that’s the mindset you need to have to get to that next stage.

Now that’s not the end, right? To move beyond survivor, ’cause survivor’s also a disempowering place. It’s disempowering because you’re alive but you’re not living. You’re surviving but you’re not thriving, right? You’re not actually loving life, you’re just kind of surviving life. So to move on from survivor the next stage is to be in the learning stage, and that’s where you really decide that there’s gotta be a better way.

Learning

We’ve gotta start learning from what has happened to us so that we can actually begin to incorporate moving forward from what has occurred and what has happened. This is where you’re starting to kind of attend some workshops, attend some seminars, take on your personal development, read some books, experiment, practise, workshop. You’re accepting help, you’re starting to go to therapy, you’re doing counselling. And this is where you’re taking on the concepts that, I need to learn from what has happened, and I need to actually start being proactive in my learning.

Now whenever you want to heal, the first stage of healings is committing to learning from what has happened. And that’s hard when you’re in the victim stage. When you’re in the victim stage the first thing you’ve gotta do is just survive. You’ve gotta start coping with what has happened. But if you want to kind of be more than just coping you’ve gotta commit to learning, that’s the next stage.

So if you commit to learning, you’re starting to kind of learn and integrate things that you’re learning, you’re in that learning stage and that’s the first stage of the next part, which is healing. So you’ve got victim stage, survivor stage, learning stage. If you want to get into the healing stage this is where you need to start actually processing and integrating some of those learnings.

So in the learning stage, you’re just learning as an intellectual concept, it’s a cognitive experience. When you’re in the learning stage you’re kind of just passively interacting with some of the learnings. When you’re in the healing stage you’re actively interacting with those learnings, you’re actually wanting to kind of really integrate those learnings into your lives. This is where you’re starting to have some breakdown and breakthrough moments.

Let go

You’re actually ready to let go of this pain and the punishment, you want to move on. And you’re starting to practise what you’re learning. When you take learning from a cognitive understanding perspective and you start practising what you’re learning that’s when the healing starts to occur.

Now that’s not the end either, because the final stage, the way you really want to get to is the victor stage.

Now the victor stage is not just where you’re learning, it’s not just where you’re healing. It’s where you’ve had a massive breakthrough in your life, and you feel like the experience that you have it becomes a testimonial, an inspiration for your life. You want to share the victory that you’ve had.

You feel like none of the suffering that you’ve been through has been in vain. And you realise that whatever’s happened to you hasn’t made you less, it’s made you more. And you see that what’s happened is an actual blessing for your life, and it was a necessary turning point for you to go through to have this new life. So the victor stage is really what we focus on producing in all of our retreats and programmes, but it’s really for yourself if you want to move from being the victim to the survivor, to the learning, to the healing, to the victor stage, you’ve gotta really focus on integrating all the things that you’ve learned to produce the breakthroughs, to eventually have a place where you feel grateful for what has happened.

When you feel grateful then you’re in the space of being the victor.

So, to develop the mindset just to recap, what you need to do shifting from victim you’ve gotta move into the place where you commit to survive what has happened. You’re like, “I’m done. I’m done with winging about it. I want to survive what has happened.” From that survivor place, you need to then move to the learning phase, and that’s where you commit to learning from what has happened.

Experience

When you actually integrate those learnings into your life and have those breakdown and breakthrough moments then you’re in the healing phase. And when you start having an experience that you can share the victory, and you’re grateful for everything that has happened because you feel like your life is better for the trauma that you’ve been through, that’s when you’re in the victor stage.

So, I hope that’s kind of helped you in terms of what are all the stages you need to go through to develop the victor mentality, but you’ve gotta take it one day at a time. You can’t leapfrog from victim to victor overnight. You’ve gotta really go through the stages of development. So, some other principles to look at is, at the end of the day you’ve gotta take responsibility and ownership for your own healing journey, your own recovery.

Guilt

Don’t take on any kind of unearned guilt or shame from the event. Focus on having compassion for yourself and just moving forward every single day. Don’t compare yourself to other people. Be nice to yourself. Just give up all those destructive emotions, and the parts in the victim stage that keep people stuck, just keep committing and moving forward, and developing all of those steps as you go.

All right, so that’s what I wanted to cover in this tips video. I hope that was useful.

Come and join us on the Overcome Any Life Event online seminar, we’re going to be covering in a lot more detail a very special technique that you can use to really overcome any trauma in your life.

So we look forward to welcoming you on the webinar, till then.

Hey there, this is Adele from Naked Recovery.

In preparation for our webinar next week, I wanted to just put a few tips videos together to cover some of the other tips and techniques around how to overcome any torment that has happened to you in life. 

Now, it doesn’t matter what the torment is, whether you’ve uncovered an affair in your marriage, or you’re going through a divorce, or you lost somebody really important to you, you lost your job, you’re going through a health scare, you’ve been attacked, your child is really ill, or there’s just been some horrible accident or event that has just side wiped your life completely. 

Learning

There’s always something to get out of the thing that has happened. There is always a way to turn what has happened into a victory in some way, shape or form. Now, it’s very difficult to image that when you’re going through that trauma, because the first place that people go to when they’re in that horrible place, where you were just cruising along your life and this thing just came side wiped you, is that feeling of just being victimised by life.

How could this have happened? Why has this happened to me? And that place of feeling victimised is so normal. That’s such a natural stage of development that we go through as we are developing ourself through the journey of overcoming a trauma. But it’s staying stuck there that is the problem.

Stages of trauma

Now the various stages of moving through trauma. The first stage is that place of feeling victimised and feeling like a victim of the situation. The next stage is what I will call, being the survivor. So that’s when you’re starting to develop coping mechanisms to kind of move on and deal with and adapt to the situation that has happened. When you’re in a place where you kind of get that there’s something to be gotten out the thing that has happened, then you’re in the learning stage. 

Learning stage

The learning stage is where you’re actually, not just developing skills to survive what has happened, you’re actually seeing what has happened as an opportunity for growth, for development, for learning.

They should actually re-label healing, learning

And hand in hand with learning is healing. They should actually re-label healing, learning. Because it is kind of the same thing. When you’re learning from something horrible that has happened, healing is a foregone conclusion. And the final stage, which Is really what we attain in all of our retreats and our kind of big programmes, is the stage of being the victor. And the victor is really where you haven’t just learnt, you haven’t’ just healed, you’ve used this trauma as the catalyst for your transformation in your life. 

Self actualize

So whatever it is that you wanted to self actualize in your life has actually become possible out of harnessing all the energy and all the drama out of the trauma that has happened, for the good, for the best, for the better in your life.

Okay, so let’s go right back to the beginning of this stage, and all of us have been there. Something horrible has happened. You’re just cruising along in your life, and suddenly you discover somebody’s had an affair in your marriage, or you discover you’ve just been dumped. Your job has just let you go. A horrible thing has occurred. That first stage of feeling victimised, totally normal, totally natural to be there.

Resistence

What is the very next thing you need to do, to kind of move out of that, and to begin to develop that kind of survivor mindset? First thing is you’ve got to deal with your resistance to learning, and your resistance to kind of moving forward. And that is the process of what we will call resiliency. And resiliency is such a key cornerstone to adopting a victor mindset at the end of the day. And two of the things that really block resiliency is learning resistance, and learning defiance. 

So learning resistance is whenever we are unwilling to accept what has happened. It’s just like no, this has not happened. It’s like total denial. And we’re in total denial where we’re just kind of numb. This thing has occurred, and we’re just carrying on with life as absolutely normal. Our routines are completely normal. And we’re just continuing. We’re just numb, we’re not even thinking about that thing that has occurred.

Or we’re doing some panic or some kind of negotiation to maintain the status quo. But that kind of unwillingness to accept what has happened, it can manifest in many ways. And some of the signs are even retreating, like just getting away. Like you don’t want to talk to people. 

You avoid people completely, you bury your head in the sand. You indulge in what we call short term emotional avoidance tactics. Excessive shopping, excessive drinking, drugs, sex, TV binge watching. Anything to an excess, that is actually quite negative and not good for you. That obsessive rumination, that’s all avoidance tactics. And it’s anything we can do to kind of avoid dealing with the thing.

So learning resistance is our inability to accept that which is. And you’ve really got to, in those moments stare the demons straight in the face. And just get it. It happened. It happened. It’s not great that it happened but we cannot resist reality. Reality is that that horrible thing has happened to you. 

And I’m really sorry that it happened to you. And you beating this and you overcoming this, is a function of embracing the learning from this. That is what you need to do. And the first step of the learning, is to stop the resistance, accept that this thing has happened. Now you’re beginning to develop the muscle of resiliency.

Learning defiance

The next resistance to resiliency is what we call learning defiance. So learning defiance is when we’ve accepted that the thing has happened. We’re completely clear that the thing has happened. But we’re unwilling to adapt. We’re unwilling to grow, or learn, or adapt, or adjust in any way shape or form to the thing that has happened. So here is where we … What I see the most with our clients, they go on a quest for justice. 

Now you might recognise that in yourself. Where it’s like what’s happened isn’t fair, it shouldn’t have happened. I’m not okay that it happened. And now what I’m going to do, is I’m going to seek ultimate justice from the universe. I want vengeance, or I want this to be even, or I want an explanation, or I want to be able to understand this, or I’m not willing to adjust. We begin to have external criteria and conditions for our willingness to adjust to what has happened.

We become rebellious in these phases. And to move on, you need to kind of understand that putting external conditions or demanding justice, running around gossiping about what’s happened, or repeating the same story over, and over again. None of this is actually moving you forward. 

What it does is it just keeps you stuck. And people get stuck in this place for years. I’ve seen people ruminating and asking these questions and being unwilling to adjust to the circumstances in life for years, and years, and years. And it’s just ridiculous.

What you need to get in that moment is have compassion for yourself, but don’t … Suffering is optional. And you don’t need to be in this place forever. 

Become a hero of your own story

What’s ridiculous is accepting that this trauma that has happened is somehow now going to define you. And is going to be your cross that you must bear like a martyr for the rest of your life. Nonsense. Absolute bollocks. What it is, it’s an opportunity for you to get something. It’s an opportunity for you, if you’re willing to adjust from this, and to take the learning from this, to really move through those stages and become a victor.

Not have this thing beat you. And to become a hero of your own story. So drop the quest for justice. Life isn’t fair. There isn’t always coordinated reasons for things occurring. Sometimes really uncoordinated reality is present with us. Random things occur that are horrible, to really, really good people. 

Justice

Trying to get justice for these things, it leaves you in a place where you can become really angry and bitter, and full of outrage. You become the person that is just gossiping about the situation all the time. Or you become the one that is always bad mouthing the situation or always complaining about what has happened. Just stop talking about what has happened. Focus on, what can I do to accept and adjust to what has happened. 

Those are the two important things I want you to understand in this video, so that you can move through those stages. Because once you get that, you begin to survive the situation. You actually begin to have techniques that you can adopt to get out of the place that you’re at. And when you’re beginning to get out of the place that you’re at, and you’re learning, then the learning begins to occur. Then the healing will occur. And then you will become a victor of your own story. And you will use this horrible trauma that has happened to you as a catalyst for your ultimate transformation. 

Next…

Alright so in the next tips video, I’m going to talk about how to develop that mindset of the victor and how to move through the stages of resiliency in a faster way. So I hope this was useful, until next time.

One of the first things that goes out the window during an emotional trauma is routine.

But routine helps stability – and STABILITY is critical.

We often react in crazy ways to an emotional trauma. When I was going through my own significant life-event (divorce), I started drowning myself in a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. I would stay up until 3 in the morning drinking bottles of wine, and just generally not sleeping, not eating properly, driving like a maniac and being chaotic in everything that I was doing. This did nothing to improve my stability.

It’s like we almost enjoy the craziness, or give in to it. Don’t – resist it.

Chaotic energy

A challenging life-event can provide a very chaotic energy, and if you don’t take charge of your daily activities (routine) then your in-stability will just increase. And that’s not good. You’ll find yourself just getting buffeted along and swept along in the currents of the emotional turmoil you’ll be experiencing. Which only makes matters worse.

Now, the first step to really taking charge of your healing is to come back to the rituals that root you in life. At risk of stating the obvious your rituals, and routines will increase your stability. You can only make sensible decisions when your emotions are grounded and stable. Until then, do not make any big critical decisions!

So, establishing a grounded routine will help you take on and handle the rollercoaster of energy much better, so you can feel the feelings of the rollercoaster, but not completely get swept up in it. 

It’s almost like you step a little bit back. You’re the person who is observing what’s happening, and you are noticing yourself feeling and going through the rollercoaster, but you don’t end up getting buffeted around by the rollercoaster.

If you establish a grounded routine, you will not internalise the chaos around you. You’ll be more adaptable to the changes. And you will start to feel more emotionally stable. 

You can only make sensible decisions when your emotions are grounded and stable. Until then, do not make any big critical decisions!

Things to avoid are things like not eating, not sleeping. Excessive socialising one minute, while hiding in a cave or hole the next minute. So, anything that’s crazy, up, down. Changing your hair colour chaotically, excessive social drugs / alcohol, altering your sexual behaviour or doing things that are completely out of character. 

Physical activities

Things that really ground you and help increase stability are manual gentle physical activities. Such as walking around in a beautiful park (like I’m in right now), cooking, cleaning, gardening, filing, ironing. Anything that uses your hands in a manual way is perfect. Doing things around the home. Cleaning out cupboards. Things that organise the chaos around you and bring it back into order.

Gentle exercise, walking, light regular jogs, yoga etc are great. Anything to get the blood flowing. If you aren’t use to physical exercise just add a moderate walk to your daily / weekly routine. Now is not the time to launch a massive fitness initiative, but moderate exercise is very helpful.

The more stable you can make the environment around you, perhaps not surprisingly the more stable you will feel. You’ll have more mental bandwidth to deal with the emotional drama itself.

Exhausting

Emotional traumas (life-events) can be totally exhausting. So the more energy you have, and can give to the situation the better equipped you will be to make it to the other side.

Einstein, Steve Jobs and others decided to only wear one set of clothes to help increase their stability, routines, and remove one more decision they had to make every day. If those geniuses go to such lengths to increase their routine during their ‘normal’ every day lives – perhaps you’ll see that increasing your routine, and stability will better prepare you for the transition and mental challenges that you are going through.

Nutrition

There’s now huge evidence about the role nutrition takes in our emotional state. It’s easily ignored in an emotional crisis, we often run towards the beer, pizza and other so-called ‘comfort foods’. Don’t! Or at the very least be aware and limit it to sensible levels.

Moving to, or continuing with a healthy nutritional and varied diet is a massive asset. This is a huge topic, and one that I will go into some detail another time – but please trust me on this one – nutrition matters big time.

So in short Get Grounded – Get Stable!

Our Clearing Retreat clients tell us that they love the certainty, the routine, and stability that our retreats provide. It’s the necessary foundation we need to move forward into the transitional phase. The more routines, and certainty you can add to your daily life practises will help you stabilise emotionally, it will give you more mental capacity to digest and transition through and past this life event (even if that feels totally impossible right now).

Last thought

I believe we all have a responsibility to ourselves for our own physical and mental health. So take on the challenge pro-actively. Start with Stability!