Somatic Counselling & Psychotherapy - Meredith Kitson

18/11/2022

This picture is too beautiful not to be seen by everyone.

16/06/2019

Create a Supportive Life Story

BY MADISYN TAYLOR
We all have a story to tell, but sometimes we get stuck in that story and become our story.
We all have our own life story. It is filled with relationships and events that help shape who we are and what we believe to be true about the world. Depending on our perspective and willingness to grow, our experiences can become fodder for negativity and patterns of playing the victim, or they can fuel a life of empowerment and continued self-development. It is the story we tell ourselves about what happens that makes all the difference.

Take a moment to look at the life story you create for yourself on an ongoing basis. If you generally feel peaceful about the past and trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way, then you are framing circumstances in a manner that serves you well. On the other hand, if you retain a lot of guilt or resentment and often feel weighed down by life, you may want to start telling yourself a new version of past and present events. No matter who the characters are in your story or what they have done, you are the only one who can give their actions the meaning they will have for you. You are the only one who can define what role you will play in your own life. By taking responsibility for your story, you are able to learn and grow, forgive and find compassion, and most importantly, move on into a brighter future.

From now on, you can choose a life story that supports you. Let it be proof of your own resilience and creativity. Be kind with the roles you give yourself and generous with how many chances you get to learn what you need to know. When you remember that you are the author of your own story, you are free to create a masterpiece.

16/06/2019

How true this is and how empowering it can be to work through it!

In small and passing quantities, anger can be like medicine, but in large and lasting quantities it poisons the mind and relationships.

11/02/2019

Rick Hanson continues to touch in to the basics of what we truly need in our lives with simple truths and practices. Enjoy 'Be Mind Full of Good'.

A mind full of good, you’ll have more to offer others. Growing the good in them, too, perhaps reaching eventually around the whole world.

22/01/2019

Doing Our Best

BY MADISYN TAYLOR
Your best is always good enough, because it comes from you, and you are always good enough.
We often come into contact with the idea that our best isn't good enough, as if this were actually possible. If you examine this notion, you will begin to see that it doesn't make much sense. Your best is always good enough, because it comes from you, and you are always good enough. You may not be able to deliver someone else's idea of the best, but the good news is that's not your burden. You only need to fulfill your own potential, and as long as you remain true to that calling, and always do your best to fulfill your purpose, you don't need to expect anything more from yourself.

It's easy to get tangled up with the idea of trying to be the best--the best parent, the best employee, the best child, or best friend. If we try to be the best, we run the risk of short-circuiting our originality because we are striving to fit into someone else's vision of success. In addition, if everyone is striving for the same outcome, we lose out on creativity, diversity, and visionary alternatives to the way things are done. On another note, there is nothing wrong with wanting to improve, but examining where this feeling comes from is important because wanting to be better than others is our ego coming into play.

Letting go of the tendency to hold ourselves up to other people's standards, and letting go of the belief that we need to compete and win, doesn't mean we don't believe in doing the best job we can. We always strive to do our best, because when we do we create a life free of regret, knowing we have performed to the best of our ability. This allows us to feel great personal satisfaction in all of our efforts, regardless of how others perceive the outcome.

14/01/2019

07/11/2018

I found this article to be a good reminder of how easily we can all get caught up in the media that we are surrounded by and often bombarded by.

Reminding ourselves that we can have choices as to how much or how little we want to be held 'hostage' to the various forms of media allows us to feel a sense of freedom as to how we manage these options.

Taking a Media Break

By Madisyn Taylor

Taking a break from media in all forms is like a cleanse for your soul.

In this modern age, we seldom question the pervasive presence of the media. Television, radio, newspapers, magazines, telephones, and Websites are part of most people's everyday experiences. They enable us to stay informed while sometimes taking us on amazing journeys. But the content and experiences that these outlets offer also consume space in our minds and can have a profound effect on our emotional state. If you are someone who feels like your life is oversaturated with the "buzz" that comes from the media, you may want to consider taking a break. A media fast involves not watching television, reading any newspapers or magazines, checking or sending any emails, or even talking on the phone.

On the simplest level, undertaking this fast will free up thinking space. When you are constantly being bombarded with signals coming from outside sources, it can be hard to disassociate yourself, particularly if what you are hearing or reading is negative or stressful. Avoiding the media for a few weeks, or even just a few days, can help you center yourself. As you enjoy some quiet time and reconnect with other interests, the fast may even introduce you to creative aspects of yourself that you didn't know existed. We may feel like something is lacking from our lives during the first few days of a fast. But it is this emptiness that opens up the space for a more expansive and clutter-free life.

Research has shown that both news and television programming can have an intense effect on mood, even causing sadness and anxiety. Without the "noise" of the media running through your head, you are freer to focus your attention inward. Ideas will present themselves to you more readily, and you will find yourself available to revel in the small joys of your own life.
You also will be freer to live in the present moment, rather than focusing on what's going on in the news or your favorite soap opera.

A media break can also help you develop a more conscious relationship with news and fictional entertainment. When you aren't continuously subjected to the media, you are able to look at what you are seeing or reading more objectively.

Taking a break from the media may also give you a greater sense of calm, balance, well-being, and a new perspective on life.

01/08/2018

This story touched me, as I know there are so many of us who have experienced this.

So moving.

09/06/2018

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09/06/2018

What's the hurry?

Avoid The Rush.

Why?

As I was meditating this morning, our cat hopped up in my lap. It felt sweet to sit there with him. And yet – even though I was feeling fine and had plenty of time, there was this internal pressure to start zipping along with emails and calls and all the other clamoring minutiae of the day.

You see the irony. We rush about as a means to an end: as a method for getting results in the form of good experiences, such as relaxation and happiness. Hanging out with our cat, I was afloat in good experiences. But the autopilot inside the coconut still kept trying to suck me back into methods for getting relaxation and happiness – as if I weren't already feeling that way! And of course, by jumping up and diving into doingness, I'd break the mood and lose the relaxation and happiness . . . that is the point of doingness.

Sometimes we do need to rush. Maybe you've got to get your kid to school on time, or your boss really has to have that report by end of day. OK.

But much of the time, we rev up and race about because of unnecessary internal pressures (like unrealistic standards for ourselves) or because external forces are trying to hurry us along for their own purposes (not because of our own needs).

How do you feel when you're rushing? Perhaps there's a bit of positive excitement, but if you're like me, there's mostly if not entirely, a sense of tension, discomfort, and anxiety. This kind of stress isn't pleasant for the mind, and over time it's really bad for the body. Plus there's a loss of autonomy: the rush is pushing you one way or another rather than you yourself deciding where you want to go and at what pace.

Instead, how about stepping aside from the rush as much as you can? And into your own well-being, health, and autonomy?

How?

For starters, be mindful of rushing – your own and others. See how other people assume deadlines that aren't actually real, or get time pressured and intense about things that aren't that important. (And yep, you get to decide for yourself what you think is real or important.) Notice the internal shoulds or musts or simply habits that speed you up.

Then, when the demands of others bear down upon you, buy yourself time – what the psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach calls "the sacred pause" – in order to create a space in which you are free to choose how you will respond. Are you letting the rushing of others become your own? Slow down the conversation, ask questions, and find out what's really true. Consider the sign I once saw in a car repair shop: "Your lack of planning is not my emergency."

On your own side of the street, try not to create "emergencies" for yourself. You can get a lot done at your own pace without rushing; plan ahead and don't procrastinate until you're forced into hurrying.

More fundamentally, be realistic about your own resources. It's a kind of modesty, a healthy humility, to finally admit to yourself and maybe others that you can't carry more than is really possible.

There are 168 hours in a week, not 169. It's also a kind of healthy renunciation, relinquishment, to set down the ego, drivenness, appetite, or ambition that over commits and sets you up for rushing. And it's a matter of seeing clearly what is, a matter of being in reality rather than being confused or in a sense deluded.

Nkosi Johnson was the South African boy born with HIV who became a national advocate for children with AIDS before dying at about age 12, and not one of us can do more than what he said here: Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are.

Also watch how the mind routinely gets caught up in becoming: in making plans that draw us into desires that draw us into rushing. The trick is to see this happening before it captures you.

Most deeply, try to rest in and enjoy the richness of this moment. Even an ordinary moment – with its sounds, sights, tastes, smells, sensations, feelings, and thoughts – is amazingly interesting and rewarding. Afloat in the present, there's no need to rush along to anything else.

Even when you don't have a cat in your lap.

Written by Rick Hanson.