Is it possible to be happier?

‘I’ve always been a worrier’

‘My life is very stressful, I can’t change that’

‘I always think of the worst case scenario’

‘I have always had a very vivid imagination’

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar?  Negative thoughts can become automatic and this can become a vicious circle for us. These negative thoughts breed anxiety and depression and the anxiety and depression lead to more automatic negative thoughts. Our thinking becomes ‘stuck in a rut’ and we feel anxious and sad.

Here’s the good news, we can stop this, break the circle and change it.  The way to stop our thoughts repeating their negative patterns is make a new pattern. Imagine you have a large field that you walk through each day. The grass is long when you first started this daily walk, but day by day as you follow the same route you are treading the grass down, a pathway starts to appear. The walk becomes quicker and easier, so much so that you don’t make another pathway, you stick to this one. But if you needed to, for whatever reason, you could make a new pathway, it would be a little harder at first but soon it would be your well-trodden path and the old one would start to be overgrown.

We can learn to stop our thoughts travelling down the same route, we can learn a new pathway and soon that will become our usual route. Scientists call this neuroplasticity.

How to we make this new path? How do we feel less anxious and happier?

1. Notice the negative thought habit.

Sometimes we assume that our negative thoughts are true, that they present us with an accurate unbiased view of the world. They don’t. That little negative voice has a point of view, that’s all. Think about how many times you’ve disagreed with someone’s point of view. Just because it’s your thought from your mind doesn’t make it true. We humans have a brilliant imagination. Close your eyes and imagine you’re sitting on a tropical beach, the sun on you face, the sound of the waves lapping the shore…We can do this but (sadly) it doesn’t make it true.

2. Our brains sometimes get things wrong.

Our fear/flight mechanism, our adrenaline, can sometimes kick in when we have no intention of running or fighting. Remember that feeling before an exam at school? The sweaty palms and the racing heart, the feeling of dread? Those bodily sensations are there to get you to run away from that wild animal, not a maths test! Picture the bit of your mind that is ready for danger, the bit that comes out with the negative running commentary on your life. Picture the fear on his face, eyes darting about looking for problems. This bit of your mind needs you to take a friendly interest in his worries, not be cross, not to join in with his panic. Your mind has another voice, the intellectual voice, the real you. We can take a moment to ‘hear’ that voice: just breathe.

3. Breathe.

‘It can’t be that easy.’ Just trust for a moment. Breathing will relax you. It will help you focus on the present, which is calming. Breathe in for the count of 5 and out for the count of 7. This is the opposite of what we do in fight/flight mode. Just breathe 5/7 and stay with it for the moment. Think about the breath.

4. Talk about what is going well.

 When we talk to our friends about our stresses and worries we can make things worse. It’s the metaphorical equivalent of picking a scab. We will slow down the healing, maybe get an infection and leave a bigger scar. Think about the word ‘remind’. When we talk about our anxieties we re-tell the story to our mind, we relive not just the narrative but also the feelings that go with the story, the sadness or the fear. Think about looking at an old holiday picture. The way you smile as you remember you and your friend on that beach, you relive a little of the happiness you felt then. The same is true for an unhappy mental ‘picture’. So breathe and think of something that’s been good this week, even if it’s something very small then tell someone about that good thing. Tell us: tweet us @cardiffhypno. Message us on facebook, North Cardiff Hypnotherapy. We would love to hear your happy thought.

5. Take a walk                  

Get rid of that nervous energy that your body thought you needed to fight off a wild animal. Go for a brisk walk that will burn off the adrenaline, leaving you feeling calmer, more confident and more in control. While you’re walking think about what you can see, describe it to yourself, the colour of the sky and the scenery. What can you hear? What can you feel? Is it cold? Put in as much detail as you can. Our brains (brilliant things that they are!) will see that we are drawing other things to our attention and will turn down the alarm signals they’ve been sending. They will notice that you are thinking about the present.

Lao Tzu said

‘If you are depressed, you are living in the past, if you are anxious, you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.’

6. Accept Ambiguity.

It’s ok not to be able to predict tomorrow. Trust yourself. You can’t control the events in your life but you can control your reactions to them. You can feel calm, confident and in control.

While you’ve been reading this yourself you’ve started to build that new pathway. You’ve introduced the idea to yourself of changing your mind. You can think yourself happy.

North Cardiff Hypnotherapy will be running a half-day workshop on happiness where this is one of several happiness themes we will be exploring. Our aim for the day is that it will be fun and will leave you with some really useful tools for your path to greater happiness.

The 'How to be Happy' workshop will be running 10am-1pm on Sunday 11th January 2015 at Jego salon in Llanishen village. Places will be limited, so email northcardiffhypnotherapy@gmail.com to find out more and reserve your place.