“There is a capacity for us to shape the way we experience the world more actively”
[Anil Seth: Professor of Neuroscience]
I grew up with a constant reminder that, “a healthy body leads to a healthy mind”. Exercise, look after your physical wellbeing and your mental health will follow. I turned 63 this year 2023 and can, thankfully, attest to this truth. Exercise, all these years, has helped me balance my moods and support my ability to self-regulate. It has helped me remain on track.
What, however, if I wanted more than to ‘remain on track’? What if I wanted to be on the best possible track, like the casual cyclist choosing to train physically to cycle from Malin Head in the north to Mizen Head in the south? Is it possible to also train my mind, to reshape my thoughts, and the feelings that follow, and by so doing become the best version of myself?
My work with clients over the last 18 years, approximately 21000 hours, has brought me deeply into the world of story. The truth that each of us has a story, a history, with its own unique set of details and experiences and that from the very beginning of your story, your very arrival into your life and world, these details and experiences began to put a shape on the quality and clarity of your thoughts and feelings. It began to construct an early operating system, so to speak, from which your thoughts, feelings and experiences began to flow and unfold.
Fear, guilt, anger, self-doubt, inner criticism, lack of confidence, fixed mindset along with resilience, optimism, self-confidence, hope and growth mindset are all examples of primary programming that can flow from an early operating system.
How then to create change, to move from fixed mindset to growth mindset for example, and by so doing ‘update your operating system’?
We cannot permanently change what we do not understand deeply.
The first part of this process is a short deep dive into an understanding of the experiences of your story and how these experiences have shaped, unconsciously, any inhibitors, blocks or poor choices etc.,
The second part is learning to build in a pause, a breath, a stepping back, to notice your old, primal, responses that have been shaped by these experiences.
Then, like a kind yet purposeful parent, we learn to lean into the unconscious primal thought or feeling and offer a more adult, up-to-date, alternative.
Like all parenting it takes more than one conversation with ourselves, that primal child-like part, to create change. With practise, however, new pathways are formed, more adult conversations are had and more is achieved.
I am giving you the bones of the process, not sure I give it complete justice, but I wanted to put it out there – to let you know that it is possible.
Leaders of industry, Business owners, Parents, Medics, Teachers, Principles, Lawyers, Athletes, Actors even have all put this to use to foster outstanding achievement – to be the best version of themselves.
I call it The Lifeworks Process. A client of mine calls it ‘Pilates For The Mind’.