Reeta Luthra: Stress and Your Health

Hello From Dubai

Reeta Luthra — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:21:40 +0000

If you’re a regular reader, you might have noticed that I’ve been a bit quiet on here recently.

Lots has happened – After a couple of years of travelling back and forth between the UAE and the UK, I am now based in Dubai. Moving was a hectic time but thankfully it all went without a hitch.

The culture, environment and atmosphere here in Dubai is as different from the UK as you can get! But it’s already beginning to feel familiar and I am still loving the novelty of the wall of heat that hits you as you step out no matter what time of the day or night it is.

I was thinking today about how Dubai personifies the characteristics of personal development.

It has ambitions, spectacular achievements, controversies and difficulties, Dubai kind of illustrates what goes on inside us a lot of the time. We all have personal riches in the form of dreams, ambitions, aspirations, talents and resilience. Sometimes, we go through the mirage phase too wondering if all that we feel within us is simply an illusion.

As I look out at the extravagent and lush green spaces that they’ve created in the middle of the desert, it’s apparent that money plays a big part in helping dreams come true. Is money important? Does the lack of money stop you from pursuing your dreams?

It’s a big and important question – and one I’ll save for another day. Do think about it in the meantime though – and question your first response as it might be camouflaging a different answer (mine was)

It’s business as usual as far as your personal tele-coaching sessions with me are concerned – a few things you need to know are:

6 day week

Fridays are a weekend here whilst Saturdays and Sundays are workdays.

I’m following this custom because it’s going to work out better for you as you don’t have to take time off work for your sessions if you book weekend slots.

Weekend coaching slots have always been popular with my clients and I’m glad to be able to offer more of them now.

For my US friends

I’m having to introduce an appointment system for enquiries from the USA. It’s necessary because my new time zone means that if you call or skype me during your day, it’ll be my evening and I’ll miss your call – and we could end up playing phone-tag for days.

I’m more than happy to talk with you outside my normal office hours but please do drop me an email and we can arrange a time that’s convenient for both of us.

Call Quality

In my experience so far, landline and Skype seem to give the clearest call quality. Mobile phones give the worst.

I have spoken to some people in the UK & Switzerland on their mobiles from here and I wouldn’t recommend it for lengthy calls. If you need to call me or if you want to leave a number for me to call you on, my head would be ever so grateful if you choose landline or Skype!

Getting in touch

You can still reach me through my UK telephone number +44 (0) 208 816 7013.

It will go to voicemail if I am away from my desk so please leave a message or email me on reeta@reetaluthra.com and I’ll call you right back.

And of course as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch!

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Hello From Dubai
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Change One Small Habit

Reeta Luthra — Thu, 27 May 2010 08:37:00 +0000

Habits allow to you be efficient at things. You don’t have to think about what to do, your habits let you get on and do it.

Without habits, life would be clunky and tedious and we’d all be having to think harder about things we don’t really want to think about.

Habits create comfort zones. As the name implies, comfort zones are a set of behaviours and thoughts that you have tried and tested and now feel very comfortable – even when they’re dull or inappropriate.

This morning on twitter I tweeted about stepping out of comfort zones and @adamskib replied saying “reeta, I am rarely IN my comfort zone!! I get bored easily.”

I can completely relate to Adam’s statement because I too find it very easy to develop new interests and learn new skills and as a result, I am never bored or lacking things to do.

However, as I thought more about what Adam said, it struck me that comfort zones come in all shapes and sizes and that developing new interests and learning new skills is actually within my comfort zone! I may be stretching myself with the skill I’m learning but making the decision to learn the new skill is a habit.

There’s nothing wrong with this because this habit of mine – this comfort zone – is one that supports me. It does not hinder.

Remember, just because something is a comfort zone, it doesn’t mean that you MUST step out of it. Not all habits are bad habits. Some are fabulously efficient.

I asked a few people to define a comfort zone and the common consensus was that stretching a comfort zone involves making some kind of a grand statement such as running a marathon or walking out of a relationship that’s not working.

Sometimes, it is appropriate to stretch yourself in a “grand statement” kind of way. But often, it’s the small things that have the greatest impact.

Some of the most profound changes to your life come through changing a simple, habitual everyday behaviour… Something like the way you respond to someone who is annoying… Or perhaps the way you rush around in the morning only paying superficial attention to the people you love.

Make one small change to one simple behaviour. Create a habit that creates a comfort zone that supports you.

What kind of amazing ripples would changing one small habit create in your life?

Photo Credit: Topsoft

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Change One Small Habit
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Keeping Your Head When a Professional Lets You Down

Reeta Luthra — Thu, 13 May 2010 09:49:56 +0000

Have you ever been let down by a builder, plumber, lawyer, therapist, doctor or any other specialist?

Being let down by an expert can be dramatically stressful. Not only has it left you lighter in your pocket, it’s also betrayed two of your most precious values – your sense of fair play and your sense of trust.

When fundamental values are rocked, it affects your thinking and priorities.

In fact, you might know people so consumed by stress, negativity or rage that every waking moment is spent in throwing good money after bad or in getting legal revenge and compensation.

They lose sight of their own important relationships and are genuinely surprised (and increasingly stressed) when these relationships ultimately collapse.

Even when seeking compensation is appropriate, you need to do it in a way that does not hurt the other parts of your life. Remember that Stress is like mould, it doesn’t matter where it starts, it’s going to spread unless you nip it in the bud.

I’m fairly confident that you don’t want a builder or an estate agent to come between you and the important relationships in your life.

You can achieve this by not letting the incident get personal.

This is so important, I’ll say it again: Professional/Expert/Specialist negligence, thoughtlessness or incompetence is not a personal attack on you.

The Power of Emotional Disassociation

Your first priority in dealing with something like this is to stop seeing it as a personal attack or grievance. You do need to disassociate yourself emotionally from the situation.

Disassociation gives you the mental space to deal with a situation rationally and effectively.

Disassociating from negative events is often the first thing I help my clients to achieve. Once you’ve disassociated, you give yourself room to let positive mental energies circulate and these help introduce thoughts that actually help you rather than the ones that cause arguments between you and your family.

Even if the person has let you down deliberately, they’ve done it because of one of these “laws”:

All professionals are not created equal. They have differing understanding, motivations, dedication, commitment, enthusiasm and pride

Specialists are human and prone to making the odd mistake

Really, they couldn’t help themselves and they need to find their own way of overcoming whatever led them to make the mistake.

When you make something personal, you invest your emotions into it. Emotions are the currency of your mind and well-being – invest them wisely so they generate riches in all aspects of your life.

How have you been affected by poor service?

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Keeping Your Head When a Professional Lets You Down
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Your Feedback Please: How Can I Better Help You With Your Stress?

Reeta Luthra — Mon, 03 May 2010 06:51:56 +0000

This blog has just turned 5 months old and I want to check in with you to find out if I am being as useful as I can be to you.

Because website articles and newsletters are so different from personal one-to-one consulting, I’ve created a short survey that will help me to see and shape this site through your eyes.

I would love to get your feedback on the needs you have for the types of stress-related challenges that you face. This way I can tailor the things I write so that they meet your needs.

The survey is just 11 questions which are mostly multiple choice. It should only take a few minutes – slightly longer if you complete the optional sections to provide more detailed feedback.

For your peace of mind, please be assured that submissions are anonymous and the information you provide cannot be traced back to you.

Please help me give you a richer ongoing experience by taking this short survey!

The Survey

(Reading by RSS or email and can’t see the form? Simply click here!)

[contact-form]

~

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Your Feedback Please: How Can I Better Help You With Your Stress?
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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The Perils of Multi-Tasking

Reeta Luthra — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:37:17 +0000

Multi-tasking is second nature to many of us and has practically become a survival skill that we display with pride in the busy, hectic world we’ve created for ourselves.

This morning my second client call ran on longer than expected. After I had written up my notes, I switched on my links to the outside world – outlook, skype and twitter – and a short time later, found myself having one of those surreal and lucid moments when it feels like you are watching yourself doing something ridiculous and need to stop.

I was composing 3 email replies, replying to messages I’d received on twitter and exchanging instant messages with someone on Skype. Although I was, to my mind, not compromising the quality of what I was doing, it was frankly a pain in the rear.

My mind would get a jolt as I flicked between the windows, having to re-familairise itself with what was going on in that particular frame. And it took me longer to actually finish and send those emails than if I’d just focused on them one at a time.

I mentioned this on twitter and @JeffreyGuterman, Assistant Professor of Counseling at Barry University, replied that he believes that following through on one thing at a time is more productive. He also pointed me to a very interesting article on How Does Multi-tasking Affect Memory?

Sometimes we need to multi-task simply because we have to get lots done. Other times, we do it out of habit or because we don’t realise that we do have other options.

The perils when multi-tasking spirals out of control

Our mind is forced to store information wherever it can

Multi-tasking splits our attention. As we flit from one task to another, our mind is forced to quickly store information wherever it can. Because it hasn’t been stored “properly” it becomes harder to retrieve later. Basically, if you think of the mind like a computer, multi-tasking causes fragmentation.

But unlike a computer, we don’t have a defragmentation button to press to slot everything back in its rightful place. We end up getting stressed. We forget things, do rush jobs, are short to people and lose sight of the real reason that we started doing that task anyway. It becomes hard to prioritise something when we are flitting back and forth so much and so quickly that the reason for the task is not registering properly. We’re doing things “blind”.

We get a false sense of what’s important to us

Because we’re not being terribly mindful to each activity, we lose sight of our values as we judge ourselves by the quantity of what we do rather than the quality.

You put the blackberry next to your plate at dinner, mull over whether or not you’ve given your secretary all the information she needs to prepare that presentation, barely taste the meal that you’re eating and give half an ear to your son’s excitement (or distress) over something that happened at school.

It makes us ill

As we continue to do a hundred things at once, the stress builds up causing emotional, physical and hormonal disruptions in our body. As well as picking up bad habits like not making time to exercise or eat well, we can suffer migraines, panic attacks, low self-esteem, rage and a whole host of other symptoms.

We need to be busy because boredom too is dangerous. But we don’t need to busy ourselves in a way that suffocates our potential.

It suffocates our potential

Our body puts up with a lot from us and copes remarkably well considering all the pressure we put ourselves under with toxic thoughts, un-met values, “artificial” ingredients in food and chemicals we rub into our skin.

But for long-term good health and well-being, our mind really does need space to relieve itself from this pressure.

Ultimately, every single one of us is a spiritual being in that we all feel a specialness inside ourselves that is unique to us. This specialness is unstoppable, it’s like a seedling and its intrinsic nature is to grow and express itself.

“Blind” multi-tasking suffocates this specialness. It doesn’t stop it but it does stunt its growth. And this results in one of the unhappiest things we can do to ourselves – live a pretend-busy life built on pretend-priorities based on pretend-values.

What is your experience of multi-tasking?

Photo Credit: svilen001

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: The Perils of Multi-Tasking
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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10 Things I Can Trust and Like About Myself

Reeta Luthra — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:55:47 +0000

There is a strong relationship between self-appreciation and self-esteem.

Self-esteem enables us to live our lives with confidence and take decisions based on the integrity of our values.

Self-appreciation is the act of recognising the benefits of the qualities that we have. Many of our qualities are so intrinsic that they become like wallpaper in that they add colour and depth to your personality but you no longer notice them.

Develop Self-Understanding

Conscious self-appreciation allows us to pay homage to the depths of our personality and as we recognise and are grateful for these qualities, these qualities begin to shine and radiate their glow throughout your being.

They have a right to exist and you have a right to polish, frame and admire your “wallpaper” – your self-image – every day.

You’ll feel good when you create your list of things you appreciate about yourself for the very first time. However, to really notice stronger self-esteem, it’s a good idea to develop a habit of recognising your qualities every single day.

The easiest way to do this without turning into some “navel-gazing, self-help junkie” (as one fabulous client worried about), is to pick any random activity and recognise your qualities responsible for making you do that activity in the way that you wanted to do it. Activities really can be anything – from brushing your teeth to the way that you dealt with a confrontation. Think about how that quality is important to you and how it shows up in so many positive ways throughout your life.

Tell the World

You don’t have to publically tell everyone of course, but if you’re shy or not in the habit of thinking about yourself, putting a list out there in public can be quite symbolic.

Here goes me…

10 Things I Trust and Like About Myself

I never have a computer issue (hardware or programming) that I’m not able to solve

I have a lovely smile and secretly I love that so many people comment on it and give me a great smile back

I can have the most marvellous one-on-one conversations with a complete stranger

Given the choice between A and B, I’ll usually find a perfect C

I’ve found my artistic niche – I’m a dab hand at sketching portraits (charcoal)

I am drawn to problems and complexities and love my stickability to see things through for myself and for others

I make delicious dinner party food but I like variety too much to have a signature dish

That my open and receptive mind is balanced with zillions of questions and this combination leads me to explore, perhaps “over-think” at times, have fun and learn

I throw myself in at the deep end a lot and usually make it! I recently discovered a flair for languages and the deep end is four languages all at once. Doesn’t sound too wise does it? But see point 6.

Amazon.co.uk… ahhh… need I say more?

Yael Brisker is a talented artist. She creates the most beautiful metalwork and also teaches empathy. This post is inspired by Yael’s article 10 things I can trust about myself -and like too!

I’d love to know what you trust and like about yourself too – please do add a comment below or even on your own site with a link to this post so we can trackback to your post

~

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: 10 Things I Can Trust and Like About Myself
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Choices and the Funnels of Life

Reeta Luthra — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:58:10 +0000

When we make a choice, we make it to the best of our ability at the time – given our experience, our resources, our background, hopes, fears and values.

I’ve always been in love with the idea of parallel universes. That for every choice made in this universe, there is a choice being made in another universe that somehow manages to take my current ability, experience and resources and come up with a different result.

When I was little, I asked Santa for a Parallel Universe Kaleidoscope that would allow me to see into every universe all at once. It never arrived and my best friend laughed (rudely) telling me that kaleidoscopes just show the same thing reflected over and over. Of course I kicked myself and realised that what I should have asked for was a Parallel Universe Funnel.

Our multi-dimensional world

People come with curiosity built in as standard. There are a couple of occassions when I’ve seen children not show curiosity openly – one is when they are suffering from a mental or emotional problem and the other is when the parent, guardian or another child has stumped on the curiosity through long-term abuse, neglect or bullying.

Apart from these instances, if we grow up not having much curiosity about things, then it’s because we’ve allowed ourselves to become funnelled into a certain mind-set. You know when this has happened because you just don’t have the inclination or energy to look at things from different viewpoints.

Generally, people who read self-improvement blogs like this one, have TONS of curiosity. Even if you don’t really know what to do about the situation you are in, you appreciate the multi-dimensional nature of the world we live in. And you know there is more to things than meets the eye.

Our multi-dimensional world gives us:

3D representation of the space around us that we navigate using our 5 senses.

Mental teleportation that whisks us to the past or the future without much effort.

Mentalist capabilities to influence others simply by projecting the appropriate blend of love and friendship. Or jealousy, fear and anger.

Cognitive and processing abilities capable of taking fundamental resources from the planet and interpretations of events and creating things that do not exist in nature.

Our world is multi-dimensional and our curiosity makes us ingenious.

Choices put us into a funnel

Despite all this enormous potential and our sizzling curiosity, there’s always a funnel effect going on. because everything we think or do has consequences that sit on a timeline influencing what happens afterwards.

When plastic was invented in 1862, it was exciting and radical and everyone couldn’t wait to hop into this funnel. This funnel put us on a conveyor belt and we travelled through picking up the things that define our modern day culture and lifestyle – things like celluloid movie film, PVC, polystyrene, packaging, silly putty and velcro.

If plastic had not been invented, it’s hard to say what funnel we would have dripped into. Would we have found another way to make movies? Would it have been better or worse for the environment?

Watch this video to see what this particular conveyor belt we chose has done to Kamilo Beach in Hawaii. The beach is full of plastic drifting in from around the world and breaking-down into smaller and smaller fragments the size of sand granules, making it impossible to remove.

If you can’t see the video on RSS or email, please click here.

The lethargy of the masses

When masses of people take to an idea (or funnel), the conveyor belt becomes increasingly established and soon appears to be a vital part of living.

Individuals can jump off but it’s hard for everyone to do so.

Essentially, human nature stops us all jumping off as a collective. We want to conform and if most people and most lifestyle-enhancing products are made of plastic, we’ll continue taking part. When enough people stop, then we’ll reconsider our options because by the time this happens, viable alternatives are being introduced and we have something else to conform to.

When masses of people are involved, turning the conveyor belt in a different direction is hard because of two main reasons:

Curiosity inspires change. But curiosity is an individual undertaking. It’s hard to sing a different tune when everyone around you is drowning you out with another song.

Powerful forces are supporting the conveyor belt from different angles such as:

Health & Safety laws keep up the demand for things like safety helmets

Manufacturers choose plastic because it’s durable, cheap and profitable

Commercialism puts profit before logic. I’ve seen plastic spring water bottles labelled “Do not re-fill this bottle”

Busy People need the convenience and low-maintenance of disposable items

Technological Advancement has seduced us and creates rapid obsoletion of products we re-purchase in their new guise

We never know where the choices we make will lead us. The answer is NOT to stop making choices – but to be aware that when a choice is hurting, it’s okay to invest time, energy and yes, even money when appropriate, in finding another way.

The personal funnels of your world

Making the leap from one universe into another is much easier when doing it on a personal level. You’re not dealing with everyone else’s agenda or waiting for them to do something first so that you can conform.

The only person you are accountable to is yourself.

Every hurt you’ve experienced, each addiction that repels you at the same it draws you, the bad decisions, the low self-esteem, the lost loves, the grief, fears and the knocks… they’re things collected on the conveyer belt of a funnel you dripped into.

Changing universes is possible. Even the masses are doing it with environmental concerns and recycling. It’s going to take time because a big machine is slower than a small one.

You’re a small machine and nimbler than you think. Skipping across universes is what the curious were born to do.

If you could look at the situations in your life through a Parrallel Universe Funnel and saw the beautiful, inner beaches of your mind were polluted on your current trajectory but they were fresh and clean in another, would you change the conveyor belt you are on?

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Choices and the Funnels of Life
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Empower Yourself: Develop a Vested Interest in Your Goals

Reeta Luthra — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:38:06 +0000

Tackling the kind of stress that causes health problems is a very personal undertaking that is unique to every person.

That’s why I ensure that everyone who approaches me for personal coaching has the opportunity to ask all the questions they want before enrolling onto their personal programme.

I’m currently arranging a house-move and a few days ago, I whipped off a series of quotation requests to a number of removal firms.

Out of all the firms I contacted, here’s what happened:

1) Two firms called to ask for an appointment to view the property so they could get an idea of the size of van and storage facilities that would be required.

2) One firm called, obviously reading from a call-centre script. They called in the middle of dinner and continued reading from the script even after I explained it was not a good time to talk.

3) Three firms just emailed a generic quote based on a “typical” move without considering my individual requirements or following up with a call.

4) Three firms haven’t responded to me.

Now here’s the interesting thing:

The two men who asked for an appointment were the owners of their removal company. As such, they had a vested interest in their goal of signing me up for their service. Both explained the entire process in detail and gave me an idea of the amount of storage space I would need. After each visit, I felt satisfied that I had been given the attention I needed.

Everyone else gave me the sense they were just going through the motions.

Own Your Mind, Body & Spirit

Stress invests a lot of time and energy in you – So return this favour!

Stress consumes your thoughts, weakens your immune system, generates health issues, clouds thinking, creates problems in relationships, causes strange decisions, behaviours and anxieties that disrupt your life…

Having a vested interest in your own health ultimately makes you the OWNER of your mind, body and spirit.

Having a vested interest means that your attitude and approach changes. You’re no longer content on relying on others to get round to looking after your needs. You’re more inclined to take the actions you need to take.

With coaching for example, where some people would simply go through the motions of coaching or therapy, you seize it and you use it to focus attention on your own individual needs so that the underlying stress becomes satisfied and therefore no longer remains as stress. It finds a way out.

Coaching and therapy are not things that are “done” to you – they become tools you use in achieving that goal you have a vested interest in – Better health and less stress.

Do you find you get better results when you have a vested interest in the outcome?

~

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Empower Yourself: Develop a Vested Interest in Your Goals
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Is That Thought a Weed or Flower?

Reeta Luthra — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:38:14 +0000

When I left home and moved into my own house, my Mum came round and suggested that it might be time to be a bit of gardening.

I looked out of the window and couldn’t see anything apart from a few huge, bushy plants with little purple flowers. What weeds?

Technically, a weed is a plant growing somewhere where it is not wanted. The kind of weeds gardeners don’t like need next to no nurturing and rampage along pushing the plants you do want out of the way. They are strong enough to lift paving slabs.

Now, if a weed is a plant growing somewhere where it is not wanted, it stands to reason that a beautiful rose could also be considered a weed if it’s growing in your vegetable garden. I don’t know much about plants but I do know that some plants give out chemicals or something that attract certain pests or hinder the development of nearby plants.

So gardeners are skilled at grouping plants that complement each other.

Weeds in your mind

We have a similar thing going on in our minds. A quality that we consider really valuable turns into a nuisance when it’s in the vicinity of something giving out metaphorical chemicals that aren’t good for it.

For example, being considerate of other people is a fabulous quality. It’s a flower. It implies respect and empathy.

But when you put it in the vicinity of say, a bullying boss, it becomes a weed if it stifles your ability to deal with the situation comfortably and with integrity. Other weeds like embarrassment, shame, self-doubt and fear also spring up very quickly and pretty soon, the garden of your mind is overgrown. You can’t move for weeds and your stress levels go through the roof, making you feel quite ill.

It’s time to do a bit of mental gardening.

The good news is that you already carry the plants that counteract the effects of the bullying boss (or whatever the problem is) – in this case, it might be masquerading as selfishness and you call it a weed and keep it locked down.

When you put it near the bullying boss and the now-weedy consideration-of-other-people, it suddenly takes on a new quality and becomes a flower! And the flower is called confidence.

Your Values

If you value being considerate, then you value other people being considerate of you. Although being selfish seems like the complete opposite of this, it’s a quality that allows you to consider yourself.

It’s a quality that stands up for your rights and under the right conditions, being selfish complements your consideration-of-other-people so that you are able to take action against the bullying boss with integrity!

You have lots and lots of plants in your mind right now – they masquerade as weeds and flowers but in reality, they are neither. They’re all assets that you can bring into play whenever you need to.

How do you see the weeds and flowers in your mind?

~

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Is That Thought a Weed or Flower?
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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The Perils of Multi-Tasking

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The Double Edged Sword of Help

Reeta Luthra — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:29:25 +0000

Two questions:

1) When does helping someone become self-serving or controlling?

2) When does asking for help become making someone else responsible for your happiness?

In therapy

If a client becomes overly dependent or shows signs of transference (diverting their buried anger etc onto the person helping them), there are established guidelines to follow. Sometimes this means referring the client on, other times it means trying a different approach. This professional detachment and objectivity create the conditions that allow the client to work on his issue – all he has to do is attend (and do the homework).

The therapeutic/coaching relationship is essentially a business partnership and comes with empathy, objectivity and focus built-in. It has to because that’s what you pay for. It’s a safe environment and the therapist is separate from your real world.

The boundaries are clear.

In the real world

In the real world – our homes and offices – the boundaries are not so clear. The overlaps in roles, relationships and expectations can be confusing, messing with our personal identity and perhaps even harming the person we are helping… or seeking help from.

Here are three examples of help-related behaviours that commonly lead to relationship breakdowns or poor self-image.

Making all major decisions for your child

It feels like you are helping him, but long-term his self-worth and self-belief is at stake. He is missing out on learning to think for himself, to correct mistakes and to take responsibility for the consequences of his decisions. He may be learning to cast blame instead. Interacting with him without harsh judgements or ultimatums will help him explore with support. Create boundaries that encourage responsibility and personal development.

Playing on an illness

Sometimes a call for help becomes a reliance on being labelled as an “illness” or “condition”. Almost as if you’ve given yourself permission to stay unwell, it becomes difficult or unappealing to leverage the help you receive. The mind/body connection means that it’s worth speaking to a doctor or therapist if you find this happening. This is a hard step to take but important because often, the person doesn’t recognise he is risking:

Mentally keeping himself in a weak, incapacitated condition. Recovery is slow and tedious and further complications may develop if there is a subconscious desire to stay ill – perhaps to hold someone’s attention or some other secondary gain.

A one-track record playing inside his own head, strengthening his belief that he won’t recover. He complains a lot and may become manipulative and bitter.

Isolating himself or the people he loves.

Fuelling a demon

He urgently needs to lose weight but guilt-trips her into late night trips to the store for him. She does it for a quiet life and because she loves him. He blames her for his continuing obesity. He’s asking for help (buying excess food) because it means he can offload responsibility for his poor health. She’s helping (buying excess food) because she’s afraid he’ll leave her. They are both making each other’s life a continuously stressful experience.

His fear of taking responsibility is greater than his desire to reach a healthy weight or to be respectful to her. Her fear of being alone allows her to accept his resentment and blame. They’ve both tapped into a need in each other that they are fulfilling in a way that harms. In real life, at least one of these people needs to be able to see what they are doing. Recognising their own part in the problem allows the opportunity to at least start making small changes in their own behaviour.

Temporary crutches

When you break a leg, they give you a crutch to use to help support you while your leg mends. After a while, they tell you to ease off the crutch so that your weak leg can build its own strength.

This works in relationships too. Help is assistance is support. It’s not replacement.

1) If you’re doing the helping, remember you are a crutch. If the person you are helping uses your support all the time, their own ability to stand will weaken.

2) If you’re asking for help, remember it’s up to you to use the crutch in a way that helps you to get stronger in that area. Like all things on loan, if it’s treated with respect and returned, it’ll always be on hand if you need to borrow it again.

How do you identify your boundaries?

~

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If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: The Double Edged Sword of Help
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Are You Playing Pretend-Normal?

Reeta Luthra — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:32:21 +0000

Have you noticed how we only take certain things seriously when they go wrong on us or when we’ve clocked up enough years of wisdom-gathering?

Matthew drinks around 5 litres of coke every day, he’s as skinny as a rake and really intelligent. He doesn’t eat any fresh fruit, exercises with a joystick in front of a computer and has the clearest skin and brightest eyes I’ve ever seen. Lucky devil…

I talked to him about making a few lifestyle changes and as he replied, I could hear the echoes of my own teenage know-it-all’ness living on through his words.

“There’s nothing wrong with me… yeah, yeah… I can drink however much I want and I feel great… I’m in tip-top shape and absolutely normal…”

Matthew’s doing what we all do. He’s taking an inventory of himself and he’s automatically discarding the information that has become so normal that it doesn’t even stand out any more.

That’s information like:

His sluggish digestive system

Stomach cramps

Sleeping entire weekends because he feels lethargic

Feeling cold constantly

He feels normal because he’s turned these “problems” into a part of his character and he doesn’t think about them as something he can change. If he feels normal WITH these issues, imagine how he’d feel WITHOUT these issues.

Matthew chose to work on making some lifestyle changes and readjusting priorities that brought him to a new level of normality.

He said to me “I’m so glad I stopped playing pretend-normal.”

Have you caught yourself playing pretend-normal?

~

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For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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7 Ways Role Models Reduce Stress and Encourage Success

Reeta Luthra — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:39:16 +0000

Just as water moulds it way into rock, the people we encounter leave their mark on the bedrock of our world too.

As you think of areas in your life that have been influenced or shaped by others, it can seem as if the enriching encounters happen more by luck and good fortune.

When luck is an attitude, you control the influences entering your life. You can cherry pick just the right kind of positive influence on your experiences, actions and thoughts.

As you do this, you gain strength and confidence in your ability to manage the stresses life throws up at you.

Role Models encourage:

1) Self-belief

Viktor Frankl survived Auschwitz. Surrounded by evil, death and fear, he found a way to continue his life’s work. Terry Fator’s dedication to his art went unappreciated for many years before he finally won America’s Got Talent and became internationally reknowned. Nobody would have thought any less of Frankl or Fator if they had given up. In fact, many would have expected it. But thankfully, Frankl and Fator were not driven by what was expected, they were driven by their own aspirations and beliefs.

As role models, they teach us that it’s okay to work hard towards what we want despite circumstances.

2) Faith in our ability

Milton Erickson was paralyzed through polio aged 17. Watching his baby sister learn how to crawl helped him become aware of his own muscles again. Stroke victims have also found role models in babies when re-learning how to walk.

Until 1954, nobody had run a mile under 4 minutes. Then Roger Bannister did it. Just 46 days later, his record was broken. Records continue to be broken because of the role model effect. If one person can do something, someone else can learn to do it too.

Watching a master at work is a graceful experience. Your hungry student eyes will let you pick up the nuances that marks the person out as a master. NLP is big on modelling behaviours. An NLP presupposition is that if someone can do something, then anyone else can learn to do it too.

3) Action

When problems and obstacles seem a hassle or even unsurmountable, it can be easy to remain at best in a comfortable everyday rut and at worst, a victim. Limiting your exposure to negative people, and having people around you with the type of energy that moves you, provides a helping hand that complements your own efforts. With resistance being what it is, it’s up to you to let their positive influence in.

A role model inspires you to step beyond wishful thinking and into a place of action.

4) Self awareness

Sometimes, a kick in the butt comes from the unlikeliest sources. I once worked with a guy who would snack on an apple every afternoon. He’d sit there and polish it diligently for 5 minutes and then take a big juicy bite that would resound in his mouth for an eternity. Then he’d sit and stare into space for a while before taking another big, juicy bite, sucking it dry before finally putting it out of its misery. Every day I would seethe at his blatant inconsideration.

It was a rude awakening when I realised that boredom and frustration in my own job were resenting him for having the job I deserved. This was even though I knew his job would take my career in a direction I didn’t want to go. That spurred me to face my fears about doing what I wanted to do and ultimately taught me to understand the stress signals in my body before they impacted my behaviour.

When you take an unreasonable dislike to someone, there’s a good chance you are seeing something about yourself being reflected back at you.

5) New perspectives

In everyday life, we follow patterns that we have created. You may have noticed that in your personal relationships you tend to favour a particular sense. You may lose yourself in the closeness of touch, the musical sound of voice, the comfort of words or the delightful vision before you. This pattern tends to hold true in the various aspects of your life although the favoured sense may change according to context.

A role model encourages us to step out of these patterns and experience things using more of our senses. As children, we used all our senses all the time. We loved getting dirty, feeling the paint, seeing the colour and making a lot of noise. Role models can give us a similar sense of freedom and opportunity. Because we’re out of our usual pattern for the moment, we’re using more of the lesser used senses in that particular context and so process the information in a different way.

6) Your intrinsic value

Here’s a quote from “The Waltons”, a childhood favourite.

“[narration as John 'John Boy' Walton, Jr. reading from his journal] Whenever I look back to those days when I was growing up in the Great Depression, I’m always convinced that I came from a remarkable family. It wasn’t that my brothers and sisters and I were sheltered from the realities of those difficult times. It was simply that our mother and father had a way of making more of what we had and less of what we didn’t have.”

Role models help us to make more of what we hold inside us. As you fulfil your potential with integrity, in a way that meets your values, your self-esteem flourishes.

7) Independent thought - You will never be your role model. And that’s a good thing. You will infuse what they teach you with your own qualities and produce something fresh and unique as you grow into your dreams.

That’s when you realise that your individuality isn’t something you display by simply being quirky. Your individuality is your gift to the lives you touch – once you lose the fear to use it.

If life is a game of Snakes & Ladders, role models bring more ladders onto your board.

How have you been inspired or helped by a role model?

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If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: 7 Ways Role Models Reduce Stress and Encourage Success
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Changing a Gloomy Person Into a Tasty Person

Reeta Luthra — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 10:29:22 +0000

People have a flavour – a certain quality that you recognise as THEIRS. It’s unique to the relationship between you and them.

It can’t be identified with a single word. Rather their flavour is an amalgamation of things sweet, sour, bitter, salty all blended to a particular depth.

The blend becomes a personality that we then use to help us draw conclusions about them.

Take Shaggy and Scooby-Doo for example – you wouldn’t have to ask them if they wanted to spend the rest of their lives as accountants. In your mind, you can imagine what kind of accountants they’d make. And this image is based on the flavour of their personality as you’ve come to know it.

If Shaggy and Scooby were to ask each other the same question, they’d draw a different conclusion because their relationship is different.

Gloom & Doom

When someone is constantly putting up obstacles and objections, moaning, gossipping, complaining, it can become easy to dismiss them, get angry at them, run away from them or even get drawn into their behaviours.

It is more of an issue if they live with you or you see them often because they have a greater impact on your life and influence your own behaviours and thoughts.

It helps to remember that their gloomy flavour is unique to the relationship between you and them. When you start changing aspects of this relationship, he/she is compelled to respond differently to you and takes on a different flavour.

Yesterday on twitter I asked: When people get all “gloom & doom” on you, do you question what they say or accept their statements as fact?

Here are some of the replies I received:

@robin_dickinson: I focus on being present with them – hear them out. Avoid problem solving unless asked.

@pamdodd: I notice that people who are all “doom & gloom” don’t like to be questioned about their statements.

@alohacarrie: I guess I silently ask myself, “Is it so?”… It’s a habit. Helpful for the chit chat in my head as well.

What do you think about gloomy people – can they change or are they best avoided?

~

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If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Changing a Gloomy Person Into a Tasty Person
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Scarface: At a School Near You (Video)

Reeta Luthra — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:15:36 +0000

School plays are nice, aren’t they?

Memories are made of seeing Little Johnny in a sheep costume stumbling over his lines.

Not quite for everyone it seems. A group of parents and teachers thought it would be a good idea to let the little darlings act out some infamous scenes from Scarface.

If you’re reading this by email or through your RSS and can’t see the embedded video, please click here to view it.

The jury is out as to whether this is a real school play or a publicity stunt for something as yet undisclosed.

But nevertheless, Kudos to the scriptwriter for disguising the swear words and popcorning the cocaine, the children I’m sure don’t have a clue (ahem).

The kids are cute, enjoying themselves and they’ve rehearsed their parts well – but although their dedication really does stand out in this clip, publicity stunt or not, this is just disturbing on so many levels.

If it is an actual play, I wonder what kind of responsibility the school feels it has over the kids who are within its sphere of influence?

What do you think? Harmless fun or disturbing?

~

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If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Scarface: At a School Near You (Video)
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Living Together… But Is My Relationship Serious?

Reeta Luthra — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:59:43 +0000

I had an email from someone who had been living with her partner for 5 years. They had their own house together, she was pregnant and they both got on well with each others parents.

The trouble was that throughout the whole of their time together, her partner had always resisted the thought of the two sets of parents meeting and consequently her parents had never met his parents. Now that she was pregnant, she wanted both parents to meet but he still resisted the idea.

She asked me if I thought he was in denial of their relationship.

I think the signs of denial and avoidance are certainly there – but without speaking to him, it’s a mistake to assume that as a fact.

I have known people in similar situations where one of them was absolutely just hanging in there until something better came along.

But I’ve also known situations where a person did not want parents to meet because they feared that formalising the “in-law” status would put pressure on and damage their relationship.

Know What You Want

Introducing parents to each other is such an established part of marking the next phase of a relationship that it wouldn’t typically occur to us to check that our beloved sees it in the same way.

Moving in together is a serious alternative to marriage and although it’s a proper commitment, the romance under which it normally comes about means that you might get yourself deeply into something without meaning to. You might not know each other terribly well. One person may go along with things to avoid conflict.

Before you move in together, try and get a good feel of the following areas. You don’t necessarily need 100% compatibility in all areas but you will get an idea of possible areas where you’ll need to compromise and work together in ways that are not immediately obvious.

Cross Cultural Relationship

How can you cope in each other’s cultures? How will you handle home-sickness? Are you prepared for your home to be used by her friends and relatives when they visit?

Children and Child Care

Do you want children? Would you expect the mother to work or stay-at-home? Do you have similar views on child-rearing? Do you prefer private or public schools? Do you have any issues from your childhood that may get in the way?

Marriage

Yes, the “M” word. Do you want this someday? Under what circumstances? How do you feel about the thought that it may never happen?

Parental Responsibility

How much interaction do you want with your parents as they age? Do you want to look after them in your own home? Do you want to live near them for support?

Finances

Are you spenders, savers or one of each? Are your financial habits going to impact what you want for your children? How will you each share costs, save for mutual spending and maintain financial independence? Can you easily talk to each other about money?

Education and Ambition

Do you have mutual interests, independent interests, things to talk about and a supportive attitude towards each others future ambitions. Ambitions and hobbies do change over time, so this is less about the actual activity than it is about finding a level of energy and action that you are comfortable with. If one person wants to change the world and has many activities, the other person could soon build up jealousy and resentment.

Friends

Do you each have your own friends as well as mutual friends. Does your partner have friends that you particularly dislike? If so, why is this and what are the possible consequences for you? Also, women in particular can stop seeing their old friends once they enter a relationship and especially if they move to a different part of the country. Paradoxically, maintaining friendships helps you to maintain your identity while you find your feet in this new phase of your life.

How do you know when a relationship is serious?

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If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Living Together… But Is My Relationship Serious?
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Overcome Procrastination: 4 Steps To Stronger Thinking Patterns

Reeta Luthra — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:15:16 +0000

When there is a conflict between logic and emotion, emotions usually win.

I talked about this last time in my post about procrastination taking the path of least resistance and you added lots of depth to the post through your comments.

So if emotional resistance creates the kind of thinking that leads to psychological delaying tactics, then changing the emotional response to the task becomes an effective way to overcome procrastination.

Today, I’d like to share the steps I use when I help my clients to get out of the kind of thinking that created the problem and establish stronger thinking patterns.

Changing Your Emotional Response

1) Define clearly what you want.

Feel it, see, hear it, smell it, embrace it, internalise it.

Many people want a result but the result is out of their reach or quite blurry to define. They cannot imagine themselves ever getting there and therefore they cannot achieve an emotional state that energises them to achieve it.

2) Define your objections

If you didn’t have objections, you wouldn’t be procrastinating. Objections are your hidden beliefs and ideas that contribute to the procrastinating self-sabotage and keep you stuck in complaining about your present state without doing anything about it.

Think about what you want and then feel your resistance to it. Put this resistance into words – these are your objections and can include things like:

“Skinny people are miserable, fat people are jolly”

“He’ll leave me if I become a successful writer”

“My friends will think I am stuck up”

3) Define what each objection really means to you

There is a valid reason that you are holding on to the unhelpful thoughts and ideas. Your mission in this step is to uncover the core values that keep you attached to the idea.

Your valid reason is in your subconscious so you will need to root around a bit to bring it up to your conscious awareness.

They might include things like:

“I want to be loved”

“I have good morals”

“I want to be respected”

These values will almost always be positive. Although it’s normal for us to sabotage ourselves, we do it for a good reason.

It’s important to uncover these meanings because these are at the root of your inability to move forward.

4) Act on the insight

Reframe, redefine and change the meanings you uncover as they relate to your goal.

Some of the associations will disappear by themselves when you make the conscious link. There are psychotherapy methods and techniques that will help you with the others.

Once you have taken the limiting emotional charge out of the assosiations, you feel freer and lighter in your mind and the outcome you wanted starts to feel within your reach.

More importantly, you become energised and able to take the necessary steps to get there.

Which areas of your life would benefit from you having stronger thinking patterns?

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If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Overcome Procrastination: 4 Steps To Stronger Thinking Patterns
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Stress and Procrastination: The Path of Least Resistance

Reeta Luthra — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:39:45 +0000

Procrastination is the curse of our good intentions.

There you are all fired up to lose a bit of weight or get a new job or start writing that book when suddenly a black hole descends and when you finally manage to clamber out of it, a whole day or a whole week or maybe even a whole year has gone by.

Procrastination is an emotional block to success and seems like a brick wall because emotions are generated by our subconscious mind, driving our response to the thoughts that we have.

When our emotions are in line with our logic, we can follow our logic very comfortably. But when there is a battle between logic and emotions, emotions usually win.

Stress and Procrastination

When we cannot identify with the result that we want, it’s harder for us to take steps to achieve it. So we procrastinate, not because we want to, but because procrastination is the path of least resistance.

Our well-being and our health suffers when procrastination becomes a way of life. We busy ourselves in pointless activities and fool ourselves that we have no time.

We are so immersed and strongly identifying with what we currently are that we don’t appreciate that our current state needs to change if we are to achieve that future we so desperately want.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them – Einstein

The stress of being in a state that we don’t want to be in takes its toll on our behaviour, self-esteem and self-image.

We can even train ourselves to NOT see opportunities!

I’m a member of several online social networks and forums and one of the behaviours I spot regularly goes something like this:

Person A: I’m having trouble with XXX – Please help me.

Person B: Here, read/talk to/do/eat this.

Person A: Wow, thank you

2 weeks later:

Person A: I’m having trouble with XXX – Please help me. (he hasn’t investigated anything previously suggested)

To change this path of least resistance so that we are able to recognise and act on our opportunities, we need our emotions to support our logic and our ambitions.

Do you find there are emotional reasons to your procrastinations?

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If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Stress and Procrastination: The Path of Least Resistance
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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What Causes Stress and Anxiety?

Reeta Luthra — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:15:50 +0000

Continuing my “Ask the Therapist” series as a guest over at Letters of Love, a pen pal support group for people struggling with depression, self-injury, addiction & eating disorders.

This is the fourth article in the “Ask a therapist” series.

To view all the articles in this series, you’ll find them filed in the Q&A topic.

The readers question this week is:

I don’t even know where to start with my anxiety. I would have to ask something about my anxiety – the cause of it, what to do to help it, etc.

–> Click here to read my answer.

If you are visiting from Letters of Love, welcome!

I’m a therapist specialising in stress. My primary passion lies in helping you improve your health, decisions, relationships through helping with the psychological reasons behind your health and behavioural issues.

Here are some of my articles you might like to start with:

What does YOUR stress say to YOU?

5 Signs Your Stress is Reaching Danger Level

Some of the methods I use to help you

Please do subscribe to the free monthly newsletter and the free blog updates by email. These resources help you make the changes to invite better health and well-being into your life.

The articles in this series are filed in the Q&A topic.

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: What Causes Stress and Anxiety?
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Is Your Child Starving For Attention?

Reeta Luthra — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:45:23 +0000

Juggling responsibilities is a way of life for most of us. So much to do, so little time.

I had an interesting conversation with Michael, a man who did some work on my house today.

Michael is a school governor and through his duties, he gets to spend a lot of time with Year 6 children (that’s eleven year olds).

He said that just through the way the kids behave and talk, he can tell which kids come from a single parent family, which kids have two working parents and which kids have a stay at home mother.

Michael talked in terms of the children crying out for time, attention and understanding.

External behaviours reflect our internal emotions and conflicts

From the work that I do, I know that many, many people harbour unresolved conflicts, pain and hurt from their childhood, directly related to their parents.

However, childhood hurt and pain is not the exclusive domain of single parent families and shouldn’t be seen as such. Behavioural issues and emotional stress occurs in the more traditional homes too.

When Michael talks about Time, Attention and Understanding as qualities that a child yearns for, this is what resonates with my own experience with things my clients tell me about their childhood memories and experiences.

I think being a parent is fabulously rewarding, yet tough. After all, you are imprinting your own values onto a mind that questions them and mixes and matches them against values he is forming himself through his interactions with the world around him.

What are your thoughts about this? How do you provide time, attention and understanding to your child?

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I send out monthly newsletters with practical ways to improve the impact of stress on your health. If you'd like to sign up click here.
If you'd like to leave a comment on this article, visit the article online here: Is Your Child Starving For Attention?
For personal help with your stress and health, you can find out about working with me.

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Depression: Brain Fog, Clouded Thinking and Confusion

Reeta Luthra — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:40:11 +0000

A “heaviness” in our thought process is a common symptom of depression, long-term shock and despair.

Depression is an umbrella term for a host of biological, chemical and emotional processes taking place all at once.

Here, I am focusing on the emotional and psychological aspects that might be contributing to the “brain fog” that settles over your mind, weighing it down and preventing clear and lucid action-orientated behaviours.

Self Worth

People are special because each one of us wants to mean something. Deep down, we know we have a purpose that is special and unique to us and we strive to achieve it – I think it’s part of the pursuit of happiness and our self-worth contributes to this.

Issues around self-worth create a muddled brain fog feeling. We’re torn between a sensation that there must be more and the “reality” that we are unappreciated or unsure of our capabilities. We re-live “evidence” from our past that supports our excessive guilt and doubt – this keeps us locked into the state of depression or helplessness.

Therapy and coaching that taps into and addresses these self-worth issues allows you to feel appreciation, love and understanding coming from within yourself – this strengthens your self image and the brain fog and clouded thinking gives way to purpose and more focused thoughts.

Excessive Analysis

Sometimes we can think too much and become adept at concluding that every issue needs the same level of detailed picking-apart, processing, examination and analysis.

We have trouble separating important things and letting go of the things that don’t really matter.

We live in an emotional state of high alert and have trouble with trust. Our thinking has become quite fixed and regimented, holding firm to assumptions and biases that we don’t feel we can challenge.

Because analysis is already a part of your natural behaviour, analyse and challenge your thought patterns. What point of view are you firmly refusing to consider? What would happen if you chose to think about a certain issue in a different way? What beliefs and limiting thoughts are causing the painful and conflicting thoughts?

Place in the World

Just like we want to mean something, we want to feel as if we belong too. Not necessarily as belonging in a group or in a society – but belonging on a more worldly, spiritual level. We need to know we belong in this world and that there is a place here for us.

Unlike self-worth issues that have their root in self-image and capabilities, here we can feel overwhelmed by the opportunities open to us and how we are not making the most of them. We know we can do it, but it’s too overwhelming and it’s easier to fit in with the flow of others. We then become despondant about the way our life is going. This causes a kind of emotional freezing brain fog within depression where we can’t even approach thinking about our opportunities, let alone do anything about them.

Breaking problems and challenges down into their component levels helps you to stop being overwhelmed and thaws the freezing fog. Because the issue lies around your place in the world, you also need to break this down too so that when you look at your place in the world, it becomes more manageable.

How have you experienced the emotional aspects of depression? Which areas would you prioritise?

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