Paul McKenna explains how to make things better

Since the global Covid pandemic, getting a better work-life balance has moved up our priority list. A global survey of more than 21,000 adults in 27 countries in September 2020 revealed that seven in 10 people wanted their lives to change significantly rather than go back to the way they were before the Covid-19 crisis.

So if anything positive has come out of this pandemic, it’s been the fact that people have had a chance to think about what their priorities are.

But there’s no use wishing this would magically happen. We have to think about what we want and acknowledge it every time we notice or experience something that makes us feel happy.

This reinforces abundance in the subconscious and opens our minds and eyes to the opportunity that surrounds us. Have you ever thought, for example, of buying a particular car and then all of a sudden you see that make of car everywhere? You have subconsciously set up a filter to see it, whereas in the past you probably would have missed it.

In the same way, when you’re in a positive state, the world looks good, you start to see opportunities, and you’re fun to be around, so you get more of the good stuff.

One of my favorite quotes is from Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who said, “Purpose is the cornerstone of good mental health.”

However, if you are anxious, your only purpose is to survive. When the volume on the anxiety is down, or gone, you have more room to find other things to enjoy. That could be becoming financially independent, creating something that helps many people, or it could be something as simple as being a good friend, taking care of your pet, or doing random acts of kindness.

Often when I work with an anxious person, they are skeptical and wonder if the techniques will work. But as they continue with the process and continue to use them, they always start to see results. A patient I treated for insomnia came back to see me two weeks later and told me: “I am not cured.” I asked him how much better he was, and he replied, “Only 80 percent.” I looked at him and said, “Listen to yourself!”

At that moment he realized that he was looking for failure, not success, for what he hadn’t achieved, rather than for what he had.

There is a Japanese word called “Karoshi”, which literally means working to death. There is also a book by Maria Nemeth called The Power of Money which describes it as “Occupy”. This sums up a lifestyle where people feel the need to work all the time because they “need the money” or “can’t stand being bored” but are often actually addicted to the buzz they get from the chemicals produced as stress. reply.

It’s really important that every time you look into the future you look healthy and happy, as that makes it more likely to become your reality.

Havening is the granddaddy of all psychosensory techniques that can be used to combat anxiety. Until you’ve seen the almost miraculous power of it for emotional healing, it’s hard to believe it’s real. During the pandemic, I have used this amazing technique on the sharp end as a tool for doctors, nurses, and technicians. At first, they were completely skeptical, they did not believe a word. However, the buy-in for them was when they could think of something that was traumatic or upsetting and, within a few minutes, they couldn’t be bothered about it anymore. Recently, pop star Justin Bieber’s therapist, Dr. Buzz Mingin, revealed that he had used Havening on Justin to relieve his anxiety.

You should practice this sequence of eye movements, body touches, and visualizations several times until you memorize it. Then you can use it anytime you need to get rid of unhappy feelings and feel calm and relaxed quickly.

1. Pay attention to any stress or traumatic memories you want to re-encode and see how it looks in your imagination and how stressful it feels.
2. Now, rate your strength on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the most powerful and one being the least. This is important as it allows you to gauge how much you are reducing it.
3. Now, clear your mind, or just think or imagine something nice.
4. Next, stroke your forehead and the cheeks of your face repeatedly.
5. Run your hands up the sides of the arms from the top of the shoulders to the elbows, continuing to do this downward stroking motion, over and over, throughout this process.
6. As you continue to stroke the sides of your arms, imagine that you are walking on a beautiful beach. With each step you take in the sand, count out loud from one to twenty.
7. Still stroking the sides of your arms, imagine that you are walking outside in a beautiful garden. With each step you take on the grass, count out loud from one to twenty.
8. Now open your eyes and see how you feel on your scale of one to 10. How much lower is your stress level now? If you are well below the scale, congratulations, you have personally changed your own state. If you feel that the feeling of unhappiness is still not reduced enough, simply repeat the Havening sequence until it is reduced as much as you like.

Many people experience noticeable positive changes immediately after a Havening session. However, even if you are one of those people, I recommend that you do this Havening exercise as often as you like.

Once you’ve memorized Havening, I’d like you to use another awesome exercise, the Apex technique, right after. Inspired by Zen Master Genpo Roshi, this is a way to recalibrate emotions.

Using Havening and then Apex back to back resets your emotional ecosystem once you’ve reduced your anxiety. It counteracts all kinds of uncomfortable feelings, including stress, anger, guilt, pain, and frustration. It is based on a Neuro-Linguistic Programming technique known as “Collapsed Anchors” as when two opposite emotions are experienced at the same time that they are rebalanced. This process leads you to invoke an uncomfortable emotion and then counter it with its opposite emotion.

You then move your attention above your head, which has the effect of distancing yourself from the feelings. This begins the reboot. It’s a bit like a graphic equalizer that sounds shrill as only the treble is turned up.

When you turn up the bass, one balances the other.

1. Place your hands in front of you with the palms facing up.
2. Then focus on the feeling that is bothering you, whatever it is. It can be fear, anger or something else.
3. When you notice it, ask if there is anything that feeling would like to tell you. If there is, write it down; if there isn’t, that’s absolutely fine too.
4. Now imagine holding the feeling in your left hand, in front of you, and get in touch with it.
5. Now I would like you to think about the opposite of that feeling, for example, peace, calm, comfort.
6. Bring to mind that opposite feeling (peace, calm, and comfort) and notice how it feels.
7. Now imagine placing that opposite, positive feeling in your right hand, in front of you.
8. Now move your attention a few inches above your head and, keeping your attention in that position, experience both feelings at the same time.
9. Continue to feel the two emotions simultaneously with your attention above your head. By doing so, your emotional system will recalibrate so that you can experience that difficult emotion at a lower level as you reintegrate your emotional intelligence.

The word “genius” is overused these days, but I feel fortunate to have met several over the years in the fields of art, science, business, and sports.

Dr. Richard Bandler is one of my favorite geniuses. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), where touch and visualization transform the way you feel, is the name he has given to his life’s work: a psychological and behavioral technology that has significantly changed the world for the better. Part of Richard’s genius is that he sees things that other people miss. For example, he once explained to me that all feelings start somewhere in our body and then move to another place.

When people talk about fear, you often hear people say things like, “I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach.” This is because, for almost everyone, fear starts at the bottom of the stomach and works its way up. So, I’d like you to try this experiment. Think of something scary and notice where the feeling begins. It will almost certainly start at your lower stomach and work your way up to your chest! The surprising news is that through visualization you can have the sensation of going in the opposite direction.
direction, reduce it, and then turn it off.

1. Think of something that really scares you and see where the feeling of fear starts and moves to.
2. Give it a color.
3. See it as a spinning wheel.
4. Float the spinning wheel off your body and watch it spin in front of you.
5. Flip it over so it spins in the opposite direction.
6. Change the colour.
7. Pull the new spinning wheel towards you and feel it spin in the opposite direction.
8. Keep it spinning inside you until you feel completely calm.

Adapted by Matt Nixson from Paul McKenna’s Freedom From Anxiety (Welbeck, £14.99). Visit expressbookshop.com or call 020 3176 3832. Free UK postage and delivery on orders over £20. Paul McKenna will tour the UK and Ireland next month with his Instant Confidence show. For tickets and information visit MindBodySpirit.co.uk