Emotional triggers and our cover stories

Releasing Emotional Triggers and Dissolving Cover Stories

I’m John Glanvill, author of The Calmness in Mind Process for overcoming Anxiety, OCD and Depression.

In the last video, we explored the metaphor – of our feeling of I, being like the rider of a horse. And our body, with its conditioned mind, anxieties, OCD and unconscious self-regulation – as being the horse.

And that, as the rider, we may remain calm even if the horse is scared and being emotionally overwhelmed.

I trust you are getting on well practicing this – and I hope you keep reminding yourself of this each day, through your own inner dialogue – as part of continuously reprogramming yourself.

Ahh, the horse is anxious! Mmm, the horse thinks a bad thing is going to happen! Interesting, the horse is afraid of conflict, when in reality, I am just asking that person to not be horrible to me.

Poor horsey, he has a tummy ache, not really my problem though, I will stay out of his way, I will put my attention elsewhere. – Or, I can place my attention on the tummy ache and (as the rider) accept that is what’s happening and have no story about it, even though the horsey is whinging and needing reassurance. Anxiety

Or, perhaps I can just soothe and placebo him, “It’ll be gone soon, don’t you worry, there, there, there.”

Can you see, there are so many ways you can do this? – And I say, try them all! Find out what works for you, experiment on yourself?

This is not something you just intellectually say – “OK, I understand that metaphor.” No, we must repeatedly live it, until it becomes second nature within us – repetition, repetition, and more repetition.

And, even when we are consciously bored of the repetition, that’s when we know, we need do it more.

We are aiming to become a new person, where anxiety struggles to hook us, rather than trying to remain the same person but without anxiety.

Now, another metaphor you might consider – is to classify your anxiety, OCD or depression as a parasite, something unwanted feeding from you. How do you get rid of parasites? You starve them from their source of energy, from what they feed off.

So what does anxiety feed from? Well, it generates worrisome thoughts to invoke emotional reactions (which we might call energy) for it to feed from.

We starve anxiety, by in each moment, thinking less, staying out of drama and calming ourselves down as rapidly as we can?

Then by seeing life differently, so we stop unnecessarily stressing ourselves – by either, accepting, responding and fixing or moving away from life’s challenges as they present.

In this video we are going to explore “triggers” things that push our buttons, or set us off, into panic, fear or anger, almost instantly, and which seemingly just happen to us outside of our conscious control.

By now you should be well into the exposure therapy we outlined in video 8 reprogramming all your old anxiety triggers out from the amygdala’s unsafe database into the safe database through repetition, a calm inner dialogue, a sagged body and by a continually ensuring our parasympathetic nervous system is on.

Keeping us in rest, repair and digest mode where our immune system is most effective and where we are recharging our emotional battery like we discussed in video 4 (which you might want to watch again.)
Many of you have contacted me to tell me how shocked you were, at how effective the exposure process has been and what remarkable changes you have experienced.

But others have said to me things like “I would look silly doing that” or “My fear is to overwhelming to expose myself to it.” Or “I just can’t touch my body due to contamination” and so, they haven’t done it, or they have said “I will do it later.”

If this is you, don’t beat yourself up, but do be aware, that in those moments the OCD has won, the sabotage won the day, and these are the patterns we are looking to break.

Know this, exposure therapy is your primary path to freedom from anxiety! I would suggest that you spend a lot of time with video 8 and the many upcoming meditations and routines that I will be producing for you.

So, you may have made really good progress with your anxiety but things may still be “triggering” you, and perhaps that doesn’t make sense?

Let me give you an example – What if your partner said, “Why didn’t you empty the dishwasher?” And rather than calmly say, “Oh, I forgot.” You fly off the handle, with an out of proportion “triggered” response – “I’ve been too busy, and anyway I always empty it more than you!”

And when your partner says – “Whoa there, why do you get all angry like that?”

You don’t know why, you know it is silly, but you can’t stop it, why? Because it just happens to you.

So these are what I mean by “triggers” or “hot buttons” and I would like to explore where they come from, and how you might dampen their intensity, and perhaps even rid yourself of them.

Common examples of this may be; a person criticising you, a situation causing you embarrassment, being the centre of attention, a person doubting or questioning you, a person rolling their eyes at you, a room being untidy, a person shouting at you, or refusing to help you, someone not listening to you – you feeling guilty, even though you’ve done nothing wrong – and these triggers are often in addition to your common anxiety or OCD triggers.

These triggers have probably been with you for years, and often the people closest to you are more aware of them than you are!

I heard a woman say to her husband “I know this is a sensitive subject because you get really upset if you feel I am criticising you, but I just wanted to say…” and he flew of the handle, justifying to her how he was OK with criticism.

You could say, he was triggered, yet still defended the thought that he was OK with receiving criticism, when clearly, he wasn’t.

It’s more common for us to see this in others, than within ourselves, because we tend to hide these unconscious triggers behind stories of “self-justification.”

Like, saying, “I am OK with criticism, it’s just that you keep bringing up that one incident” or “I am very open to receiving feedback but in this situation I know more about xyz than you.”

Either way, it would be nice if we could remove these unconscious outbursts, firstly, so others won’t need to walk on eggshells around us, and secondly, so we may remain open-minded, so we can grow, and thirdly, so we can remain calm to keep our emotional battery nicely charged, no matter what anybody says or does to us.

To understand how this works, we must return to biology and psychology and break it down a bit. As ever, these are metaphors and because I am showing you many differing ways to change yourself, some of my techniques may contradict others, that is OK – life is contradictory, just accept it.

I hope too, you are getting glimpses of the fact – our horse doesn’t need you, the rider, plus the horse is very, very programmed, so much more than you might imagine.

If you were in my office right now I would ask you to sit still, to trust me and to NOT move, whatever I do. Then, I would walk towards you and put out my hand, as if to shake yours and I would say “Pleased to meet you.”

It’s really hard for the other person to not respond – consciously you think “I won’t put my hand out,” yet unconsciously, your arm just rises up – because that’s what it was programmed to do.

Go up to anybody at a bus stop, say “Hi” smile and hold out your hand, they will either shake it, or as it’s unconsciously rising, they will consciously pull it back, as they realise they don’t know you.

There is a very fine line between what is automatic within us and what we “think” we consciously control.

These responses need to be unconscious and automatic, because we can’t spend all day consciously thinking about what our body should do in any moment.

And although the unconscious mind is a million times faster and a million times more powerful than the conscious mind, it still has a lot to do each second of every day, just consider, cell reproduction, food digestion, balance, blinking, growing, breathing – running our immune system – it is very busy!

Because the unconscious is so busy – it saves time by automating every action that can possibly be automated – the handshake is learned, and then with repetition gets automated.

I remember joining the Scouts when I was eleven and they shook hands with the left hand and it took ages to master that, because although I consciously knew what to do, my programmed right hand just popped up.

Then when I left them at sixteen, I had to reprogram my unconscious back into the appropriate right-hand response, how did I do that? Repetition, repetition,

repetition, until the unconscious mind accepted, and then automated, that new response.

It’s like driving a foreign car – you jump into the drivers seat ready to go then realise there’s no steering wheel because you are in the passengers seat.

So these are the programs I have been reminding you of again and again, that were trained to become your unconscious responses, and once you can see them, with repetition you can reprogram them – although sometimes you may need to change a belief system too.

For example, you might want to put yourself first rather than always helping others, but to do that, you may need to change an old belief, perhaps changing one that says putting yourself first is selfish and that selfish is bad?

Being selfish is not bad, putting yourself first is not bad, these are just patterns you learned, then unconsciously automated.

My own way of handling that old conundrum was to change my beliefs, I now see my self as “selflessly selfish” – I’ll do anything for anybody, if I want to, and if I don’t, I won’t – and each day it may be different depending on how I feel.

We will be doing a lot of work around beliefs in later videos – here are a few extreme ones for you to ponder and watch what “stories” arise from your own programming when I say these things;

It’s OK to say no to people
It’s OK to put yourself first
It’s OK to not follow rules
It’s OK to not have an opinion It’s OK to not have to work
It’s OK to have fun and be playful It’s OK to not be serious

It’s OK to change your mind
It’s OK to not care
It’s OK to do whatever you want to do It’s OK to be messy and untidy
It’s OK to be late

Generally, people who have those types of beliefs, tend to be very happy and hardly anxious at all. I am not saying they are right or wrong, just, what beliefs might you be clinging onto that might not be serving you well?

All beliefs are learned or conditioned into you, rarely are they our conscious choice – when indeed they can be.

So, lets delve a little deeper into how our unconscious mind works, how it gets programmed, and how we can recognise what we need to do to get it to operate in a way that is more favourable to our emotional happiness.

So, here’s what happens. Imaging you are three years old, you are playing in the park with your parents and a big Doberman dog comes running towards you?

You weigh 40 pounds, the dog 140 pounds – it leaps up, pushes you to the floor and begins to lick your face.

Your mother can only see from behind what is happening, she thinks you face is being bitten off, so is screaming and panicking, plus your own instinctual DNA, which has been programmed for millennia is telling you to stay away from creatures with big teeth.

But the dog is just licking your face – why should this be a problem? Well, because your brain sits in darkness, pulling information from your senses and the environment around you.

It’s being bombarded in that moment with intense fear signals – which classifies the dog as dangerous and places an “alarm program” in your amygdala’s unsafe database.

Even though nothing bad actually happened – (although, of course, the same thing would have happened if it had bitten you.)

It was the “perception” of the moment, the screaming of the parent, you falling over and the reinforcement by the subsequent “Are you OK? Come away from that dog.” The retelling of that story, “We were so lucky, we heard about a young child who was mauled by a wolf, it could have been so much worse” – blah, blah, blah.

Can you see how, in that moment, the amygdala would have just had a “program” installed into the unsafe database as a “template” for what to avoid in the future – it’s just how we mammals learn.

Perhaps we might liken that program to a land-mine, a bomb, that will just fire off, if triggered – but it doesn’t matter how it gets triggered – or if what triggered it was truly dangerous or not – or just in the same pattern matching class i.e. a dog, where all dogs are unconsciously grouped together – regardless of their potential danger – a Doberman, a Wolf or a Chihuahua.

The child was safe, nothing bad happened, yet the amygdala became programmed. Perhaps the following day the child is in the park again, and feels a little uncomfortable, because there “maybe” dogs in the park and his mind is running “stories” about the dogs which keep ‘nearly’ triggering the bomb, so it’s a bit stressful.

And a little Chihuahua runs past, now, to the amygdala, through pattern matching (video 8) it scans to see if a dog is safe or not, finds the dog entry from yesterday in the unsafe database – fires off the land-mine, the emergency response to keep you safe, to get you out of there – all in under a second and completely unconsciously, thinking that it is keeping you safe!

You freak out with the fight or flight response, the stress chemicals flood your body, your conscious thinking mind gets turned off, and there you are “out of control” in the middle of a panic attack.

What does Mum do? She picks you up and soothes you, holds you softly, talks to you in a soft and slow tonality.

“It’s OK, don’t you worry, I am here now, it was just a little doggy, it’s all right” – sound familiar?

And her behaviour tricks your brain back down into calmness, where eventually your triggered sympathetic nervous system turns off and your calmer parasympathetic nervous system comes back on line.

She puts you back down – and you then stand there, bemused. With your conscious mind thinking “what’s wrong with me, nobody else is scared of dogs.” Whilst, your unconscious mind is (metaphorically) thinking “Excellent, that will keep him safe!”

And here is the big problem, once these programs, these land-mines are installed in the unsafe database of the amygdala – no part of your conscious or unconscious ever goes back to check, to see if they are still true.

Plus the installed program, the landmine in the amygdala does not understand language, as it resides in an old part of the brain that was around before language was.

So, a trigger, a land-mine, a program, a belief (whatever we call it) installed in the unsafe database of your amygdala when you were 3, will still fire off when you are 13, 23 or 33. Regardless of all the times you consciously tell yourself “I know it is only a Chihuahua and can’t hurt me!” because your amygdala is not listening!

It is only through exposure therapy, experiencing that which triggers you, then calming yourself down quickly and repeatedly – that we can defuse that landmine, reprogram that trigger and subsequently change your beliefs.

We’ll come back to our dog story in a moment, but let’s explore another more subtle childhood landmine or trigger conditioning experience.

What if, you were six years old and having supper with your mother and she said “Dad’s been at the football game all afternoon – and you know he drinks a little too much, and gets a bit angry when he has beer, so before he comes home, let’s tidy up all your toys and get you into bed, so we won’t upset him when he gets in?”

She might go on to add, “If you hear any shouting or crashing downstairs don’t worry, I promise you I will be alright, but you MUST stay in bed and be VERY QUIET. And if dad comes into the room, pretend you are asleep and don’t say anything, just stay really still and very quiet.”

You could argue that was a good strategy for the mother to use for the child’s safety (Although another might have been to leave him?) however, the past has gone and we have to work with what did happen, whether we like it or not.

So, a landmine program was installed in the child’s amygdala’s unsafe database – that conditioned the reaction “in times of danger, be quite, don’t speak up.”

And if that was in stalled when you were six, it will still be running when you are twenty-six or thirty-six. Unconsciously, as a trigger – even if you consciously don’t want it.

So, as an adult you may be at work and you need to leave early that day, so you go into your boss’s office to ask for permission, but he is on the phone shouting at someone.

The shouting – through pattern matching, triggers your landmine, you get all anxious and scared, overwhelmed – and when your boss says, “How can I help?” you just mutter “Nothing.” And run back to your desk.

Where consciously you think, “What’s wrong with me, why can’t I stand up for myself? And unconsciously (outside of your conscious awareness) you think – “Excellent that kept him safe!”

Are you beginning to see how this works? And if your boss has a moustache and so did your father, there lies another level of unconscious pattern matching.

I think at some level we all know this to be true, but I don’t think we are aware of how deeply programmed we are.

And it get’s worse!!

Lets return to our dog story, our dog trigger, dog landmine, whatever terminology you feel OK with.

That incident may of happened when the child was three or thirteen, however, as they grow up, they may consciously forget about that original dog experience, which makes their fears even more intangible.

However, it seems that the unconscious never forgets, although what it remembers can be changed – or even rewritten, which of course is very good for us!

So in my story a young child has a Doberman experience, the unconscious amygdala gets programmed with a landmine placed in the unsafe database – pattern matched to dogs and maybe things similar to dogs like wolves, coyotes or whatever.

Each time a dog comes into the vicinity of the child (or to a lesser degree into the thoughts of the child) this landmine fires off, flooding him or her with anxiety to try and keep the child safe and away from those “perceived” dangers.

Over time, the child learns where the boundaries of this landmine are. If the dog is big and on a leash it can come within 20 feet before the landmine is triggered, whereas, a small dog on a leash can come within 5 feet.

So, the conscious mind, the protective personality of the ego, your little eight-year- old starts to become far trained to become more alert to external happenings in any situation and starts to pre-worry as a form of “what if” safety.

What if they bring their dog? What if a dog sneaks up from behind? So the little- eight-year-old becomes hyper-vigilant and continuously scanning all these “what if” scenarios to ensure these boundary conditions are not breached.

Initially, because it’s just scary, but as the child gets older, the anxiety episodes may cause them embarrassment in front of friends and family.

For example; some friends knock at the door and say, “Hey, we are off to the park to play football, would you like to come along?” And, of course, you do, but you are also afraid that if dog were to catch you unawares, you would freak out, lose control, perhaps even cry and they would then laugh or make fun of you.

So you say, “I can’t today because I am helping my Dad, maybe tomorrow? They knock the next day, but you are still nervous and say, “I have to finish my homework?”

Then the third and forth days they don’t knock for you anymore and you may think “Why don’t they knock for me anymore? What’s wrong with me?” Not realising, that your responses “trained them” to behave in the ways they are treating you.

I think one of the most sad things about anxiety, is that, you are missing out having fun in the now, because of a virtual reality story about the future, which, as we have seen, never comes, as it can only now, and always is now.

And, bear with me here, because this is important.

Gradually, the child may forget about that dog incident when he was three, or the “ego” your eight-year-old protective personality might start to feel silly that you are scared of dogs, so it sneakily changes tactics and adopts a less embarrassing ‘cover story’ one that is more palatable, perhaps, that you are allergic to dogs?

So a friend says, “Hey, fancy coming over Friday for a sleep over?” And you say, “I’d love to, but if you have a dog I can’t, because I am allergic to them!”

Can you see how less “silly” that story makes you feel?

And if you are not careful, you may actually become psychosomatically allergic, where an uncomfortable unconscious condition may be ‘helping you’ although it not a good kind of help – and we talked a lot about that in video 6 about all the ways anxiety can sabotage you, to keep you at home.

By now, you have forgotten about the incident, you don’t have to worry about going near dogs, and if you do flip out, you have a cover story that saves you looking silly.

Then as you get older, from the allergy story, the ego might morph it into something like “I don’t like dogs because they are dirty.” Then this becomes your new conscious story, what you believe, what you tell yourself, yet the real problem is a landmine, programmed into your amygdala, from all those years ago, pattern matched to dogs.

Can you see how that one past event (where Doberman didn’t even hurt you) may become a whole different “story” that is woven into your own identity and belief system? It feels so real, but it is only a STORY!

So, how can you retrain your amygdala, when you think the problem is – dogs are dirty? Which, you might not even see as a problem, as long as you stay away from them.

Can you see how nested, hidden and separated we may have become from our own triggers?

So, if you have any triggers or hot buttons like;

• Not liking to be criticised or judged
• Feeling awkward if you are forced to make decisions
• Not wanting let go and embarrass yourself
• Not wanting to get angry
• Not wanting to let people down
• Not wanting to get muddy
• Not wanting conflict
• Not wanting to ask for help
• Needing to be perfect
• Needing to win
• Needing to be tidy
• Needing to be right
• Needing to be quiet

Whatever, your trigger, whatever your hot button is….

Know this, you need to start exploring deeper down, under the cover story your ego has given you about it.

Then, perhaps you may begin to glimpse the truth, “oh yeah, my Father used to criticise me, my mother used to embarrass me, my grandfather shouted at me, that teacher bullied me, that traumatic event conditioned me.

Here’s the message I need you to grasp. We are starting to separate “the story” from “the trigger.”

Your partner says, “Did you empty the dishwasher?” Which is not a criticism, it’s just a question.

Or, “What did you do that for? Which (for the most part) is just a question an enquiry.

You notice your landmine has been metaphorically been stepped on – up rushes all the fear – and you do your best to separate the “story” from the triggered “reaction.”

Instead of just flying into an unconscious “Well I emptied it last time!” you might say “Oh, oh, oh – give me second, I think I have been triggered.”

You close your eyes, you sag your body, you stay out of the minds “stories” if you can.

You keep your attention on this “potential energy” this trauma, being released as “kinetic energy” through the agitation of your body (which is wonderful thing because it is discharging your atomic battery).

And you just accept and breathe, like I taught you in video 11 – a deep breath in, then gently blow it out through pursed lips with a little resistance until your lungs are completely empty, then let your diaphragm pull the next breath back in – you breathe this way until the energy, fear, has passed through you.

You then, return to your partner and say, “Thanks for waiting, what were we talking about? Oh, yes, you are right I didn’t empty the dishwasher, it didn’t even enter my mind to do it – sorry.”

So, this is the next big step of your recovery, to separate the stories from the emotional reactions.

These triggers that set off our landmines in the amygdala can come from so many differing places; a TV commercial, a co-worker, a government policy, a neighbour, a parent, a friend, a dog.

Even your own unconscious mind, in the form of OCD – using your own landmines against you, to keep you stuck at home, thinking you will be safe – but as you are discovering, that is how a child thinks, not an adult!

The next video, video 15 is a big one, where I will be teaching you a deep meditation that you can use, so we can go hunting for landmines, then safely detonate them and finally vent out all that stuck atomic energy, that you have been dragging around for years, causing heaviness, lethargy, fear, anxiety and depression.

I will also be teaching you ways to find landmines, that you might not even know you have, this is especially important for people who have a lingering depression that just won’t shift – or have serious past trauma, that you may, or may not remember in its true entirety.

You are probably becoming more aware now, that I am guiding you through a process that has a lot of structure and is ordered in a certain way.

If you are watching the videos, doing the homework, repeating, repeating, repeating, this is what will probably start happening to you in the next month or two, if not already.

You are going to start getting more angry than usual. Shouting a bit more than usual, flipping out through frustration (rather than fear) more than usual, standing up for yourself more than usual.

And this is a really good thing, it might feel bad, but it is very positive and I really want you to embrace it.

Recovery seems to follow these steps – as you rise out of depression; you seem to go into anxiety, which although it feels bad, you have more energy available to you to do things.
Then as you rise out of anxiety, you step into anger, which though still a negative energy has more power than anxiety, so you start saying no, or making changes to your life.

Then from the changes you make due to your anger, you feel pride in what you have achieved, which moves you up into the energy level of courage – which is simply the ability to feel vulnerable, yet, get on with doing whatever needs doing for your own wellbeing.

As I said before, excluding unhealthy thoughts and behaviour patterns and excluding not fixing life’s crappy situations – depression is the result of stuck energy in our atomic energy battery, which we need to find and release.

Anxiety is the result of too many landmines in the amygdala’s unsafe database.

And OCD – is the focus on thoughts and physical compulsions that distract us from the anxiety, and the too many landmines in the amygdala’s unsafe database!

So, in summary, I would like you to begin to separate your stories from the emotions, I would like you to explore what “cover stories” might you have unconsciously developed to stop you feeling bad about your anxiety?

And would like you to honestly ask yourself “what and who” pushes my buttons and triggers me?

Then, how can I use these triggers wisely, how can I move towards them, (rather than avoid them) – so you can vent stuck energy from your atomic battery?

So, your homework.

Watch this video a few times, then revisit video 8 where we discussed the amygdala and the unsafe database, just to remind yourself of its absolute importance in your recovery via exposure therapy.

For those of you with OCD you should be doing the video 8 tapping process on all of your compulsions and intrusive thoughts, if you are not, this is OCD sabotage in action, smile that you were caught, then get on with your exposure therapy.

I also said in video 8 that I would be teaching you a tapping routine to use each morning and each evening, well, I haven’t forgotten, and here it is.

And I would urge you to see these two routines as a meditation and something you incorporate into your daily regime, time for yourself, to work on and with yourself. It might it mean you have to get up fifteen minutes earlier? Good, make the time.

The first meditation is as you go to bed each night and I call it “Decompressing the Day.”

You sit for a moment and consider anything that happened that day, that you didn’t like, angered you, frustrated you – something you did, something they did – or didn’t do – They accused you of not emptying the dishwasher.

The kids annoyed you, the weather frustrated you, spending money on that new car tyre you had earmarked for a meal out.

You get the picture – anything that gave you an emotion you didn’t want or a thought pattern that didn’t serve you well.

We want to make sure, that before we sleep, we dissipate those energies and let go of those stories.

As we do this meditation we are not looking for answers or asking why anything happened, we are just “Decompressing Our Day.” Letting go of stuff, surrendering to what DID happen. I
Abbreviation

To remind you of the tapping process I will start with the whole routine – but then abbreviate to save time, and of course, find your own way to make this work for you.

Start with tapping on your hand…

“Even though, Fred was angry I didn’t empty the dishwasher, I love and respect myself” Four times, like before and in your mind picture the event.

But don’t get caught up in the story – we are separating the story from the energy.

“Even though, Fred was angry I didn’t empty the dishwasher, I love and respect myself”
“Even though, Fred was angry I didn’t empty the dishwasher, I love and respect myself”

“Even though, Fred was angry I didn’t empty the dishwasher, I love and respect myself”

Move to the hollow under you cheekbone:

“Dishwasher, dishwasher, dishwasher” keep picturing the event, but don’t run a story..

Crease of you chin…

“I can let that go now,
it’s only my problem if I make it my problem,
I just got triggered and that is fine,
I accept Fred got triggered by his own landmine”

See what I am doing? On to your chest…..
I can let that go now,

It’s just a dishwasher
I’m glad it got emptied,
How lucky are we to have a dishwasher? How lucky am I to have Fred
How lucky is Fred to have me?

If any emotions come up let them flow through you, don’t add a story.

Of course sometimes your unconscious will add a story, it’s what it does “yes, but Fred should know better” – We are learning to see it, detach from it and place our awareness back into the emotions and just be with them, accept them, surrender to them.”

On your wrist……

“The rider can be calm, even if the horse is not, I am the rider,
The rider is calm
It’s not the rider’s problem

I can let that go…..

A deep breath in, hold it for three or four seconds and slowly let it out with some resistance at your lips, sag down your body, breathe all the way out until your lungs are empty – and let your diaphragm pull the next breath back in.

You may need to go around again if a secondary story or fear comes up – so off you go “Even though I have trained Fred to shout at me by not standing up for myself, I love and respect myself.”

Or you jump to the next one….

“Even though I took my anger out on the poor dog.” I love and respect myself” – and just process that energy, let it out, but stay out of the stories, it was just what happened, you can’t go back, but you can discharge any guilt, fear, blame whatever – let the emotion go.

Then around again….

“Even though the government is making me xyz – I love and respect myself.” “Even though I didn’t phone my Mum, I love and respect myself.”
“Even though I maxed out my credit card, I love and respect myself.”

Until you have decompressed the energy of your day, but stay out of the stories.

It will take a while, a few evenings until you find a way that suits you, tapping is best, but equally you may lay on the bed and just do it in your mind, either way make sure you do the big breath at the end, stay out of the stories and keep your awareness on the feelings and just accept them.

“I surrender to these emotions as they flow through me.”

If you are feeling good you may finish with a few rounds of gratitude (which is a whole other video I’ll be making.)

(hand) “I am thankful for how well I am proceeding through this course” (cheeks) “Thankful, thankful, thankful”
(chin) “So happy to change”
(chest) “Just trusting my body”

(Wrist) Happy, happy, happy” Big breath.

“So happy I have a house.” “So happy for my health.” “So lucky for xyz.”

And even if you don’t believe the positive stories yet, it is still a good thing to do – because we are rewiring our attitudes.

Now the second meditation is for the mornings, as you awaken. Here we are going to “Pre-worry and Pre-decompress for the Upcoming Day.”

Same process as the evening one….

“Even though I am nervous about that presentation…. I love and respect myself.” We do this four times.

Picture yourself doing the presentation, stay out of the stories, let the emotions come up, be with them accept them.

(Repeat 3 more times) “Even though I am nervous about that presentation…. I love and respect myself.”
Under the cheekbone, “Presentation, presentation, presentation.”

Chin – “I can let that go, I’ll just do my best, nobody likes presenting, it’ll be over before I know it.”

Chest “It’s not personal what anybody thinks, I’ll just do my best, I won’t beat myself up.”

Wrist “It’s just a job, I’ll be fine.”
Deep breath all the way out, sag down, no problem.

The pick the next thing…
“Traffic on the drive to work.” “Parents meeting at the school.” “Trip to the dentist.”
“Need to get that report finished.”

You get the picture.
Stay out of the stories about what may happen, just process out the emotion.

Now, this process obviously doesn’t mean you won’t have to go and do your thing, but you might be surprised how you react, because in a way, you have done some pre-exposure therapy from the safety of your bed.

Our horsey is so trick-able, placebo-able and programmable, so silly us if we don’t take advantage of this!

Once again, as you get good at it – you might want to finish the meditation with a visualisation of how well it could go, how good you felt when they all clapped at the end of the presentation, how handsome or pretty the dentist is, how you used the traffic jam to sing your favourite song or do some more of these meditations?

Whatever makes you feel good – a virtual good story will make you feel better than the same old virtual bad stories that have been running for years.

There is no wrong way to do these meditations except to not do them, play around with them, find what works for you.

Then, finally, as these meditations become more natural, start to observe your landmines and the roles they may play in those stories, see if you can find your cover stories, your excuses, and your avoidance strategies.

Observe too all these landmines and cover stories in all the people around you; it will expand your compassion for them, as well as, for yourself.

If you really love a person, why would you push their button? You could rephrase your words so as, not to trigger them, out of love – “Hey, you look like you have had a busy day, let me empty the dishwasher.” You might be very surprised at how differently they respond, back to you.

Remember too, you might be working on letting go of your triggers, but they may not even know they have one!

With this knowledge comes a little responsibility, and we might call that accepting people “the way they are” – rather than how (the story in our mind) “would like them to be” – It’s a gentle, calm and loving form of acceptance.

The next video is a big one and will include another meditation – thank you all for your continued support and positive feedback, until then, lets find, then discharge the stuck energy in those landmines!