The actions I took to change my life (my story)

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

In this video we will be discussing how and why it is an effective process to examine your attitudes – when you are looking to shake off anxiety.

I looked up the word attitude, and it said,

“An established and settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behaviour.”

Therefore, modifying one’s attitudes are a great way to reprogram the brain and body into new responses that can foster more calmness and choice in any moment.

Because – let’s face it (respectfully) how you have been thinking, feeling, and your existing attitudes (even if they are seemingly important) have been contributing to your agitation?

Now, in my experience as a therapist – many people make the assumption – that who they are, how they are, their attitudes and their view of the world is already established, or it’s “just one of those things” – I’m shy, or dull, or clumsy or I am just an anxious person!

And I am here to convince you – that this is not necessarily true.

You were once a relatively blank canvas; you were programmed by parents, culture, school, religion, and through life’s events into being who you are now.

And because you were once programmed, there is no reason to doubt that you can reprogram yourself into a new person – given new inputs, repetition, surrendering old stories about yourself, and developing a new, more appropriate identity in the now for your future self.

In reality, it happens all the time – common phrases we hear are; they were brainwashed.

She returned from rehabilitation a new person. He left home a boy and returned a man.

Being in that relationship has brought out the best in him. I didn’t know she had it in her to step up like that.

The way he adapted after that accident has been inspirational.

We can change. It’s not easy. It doesn’t just happen. We have to make it happen.

That’s why I have presented you with so many models to describe how we humans operate – and I have been asking you to consider who you want to be and what you want from life?

Of course, I’m aware that this work is challenging; that’s why I tell lots of stories, use metaphors, concepts and ideas, hoping to inspire you in any way I can.

But, the best examples I can give are clearly from my own actions, which guided me out of anxiety and depression into calmness and optimism. Because experientially, they worked; therefore, I know them to be true (for me.)

So, in this video, I will make myself vulnerable, bare my Soul and discuss the inner workings of my mind, how I now see life, and the tools I use each day to manage my own mental health.

It’s your mission, should you wish to accept it – to discover ways of adapting my methodologies into processes that can work for you.

But you will need to keep an open mind – put doubt on hold – and take action, even if it feels strange or awkward.

We are trying new things – to see what happens, we are examining the truth of who we think we are…

So, it wasn’t until I was 35 that I began to explore any of this work; I was depressed, anxious, exhausted – and I was trying to hide this from everybody.

Inside – I felt alienated, confused, broken, and I had no idea of who I was or what I wanted – and could see no way out from the difficulty of just being me!

This led me into a six-month nervous breakdown where I couldn’t work, spent most of the day in bed and could see no path to recovery; I felt like a failure and thought my world had ended!

Obviously, looking back on it now, it was actually the start of my new life – and just the end of me tormenting myself with anxiety and OCD (Or you could say torturing myself via my excessive thoughts and overwhelming emotions!)

I was slowly waking up to the fact that the world inside my head (which controlled my emotions and attitudes) was a completely different environment from the world outside my head – as I described in video 17.

And I needed different strategies for each of those two worlds – the inner and the outer!

I could change my attitudes, my perspectives, the stories I had about this and that. And I could align with my true nature (whatever that was) rather than who I was domesticated into thinking I was.

It was abruptly revealed to me just how programmed I had been to follow rules, be good, do the right thing, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, be nice, work hard and save for retirement.

It dawned on me that just because that’s what most other people did, it didn’t mean I had to as well!

The magnitude of how I had been brainwashed by school, parents, TV, culture, books, and a hundred other sources, opened my eyes to the hypnotic trance that I had been living in for years.

I had been programmed, and I recognised that if I wanted to be calm and happy, that it was my responsibility, nobody else’s, to install new software into the hardware of my brain.

So, let me describe the top realisations I had, and teach you the techniques, attitudes and perspectives I used to turn my ship around and that I still use to keep myself emotionally healthy.

One crucial attitude change was that I stopped blindly following rules – or worrying about whether what I was doing was right or wrong, good or bad, legal or illegal.

Instead, I asked myself, “Would I be OK with the worst consequences that could arise due to my action (or inaction) in that moment?”

Because, If I was OK with that worst consequence happening – then surely it was OK to take that risk, as rarely does the worst thing seem to anyway, and if it did, I might not like it, but I could handle it.

Sometimes what we think is the worst outcome turns out to be a wonderful thing – if we add a little time. Like being devastated by being made redundant from a job only to luck into another one six months later, that was better than we could have dreamed of!

This was a significant shift in perspective for me because I had been deeply programmed by my family to follow rules, fit in, and respect authority.

One night, soon after, I decided to change my attitudes – I made the conscious decision to drive my car the wrong way down a oneway street late at night when there was very little traffic around – to save myself from getting caught up in some street closures due to overnight roadworks.

I actually said to myself, “What is the worse thing that could happen, assuming that I drove slowly and safely?

My mind came up with the answer – To be stopped by the Police and fined – and, perhaps, to receive an endorsement on my driving license?

In that late-night (empty road) situation, I consciously decided that I was OK with that, I could afford £60, and I had a clean license, so room for a few points.

I was, an adult, so, OK with the worst thing that could happen (even if my little eight-year-old and my body wasn’t!)

So I did it; I broke the law and drove the wrong way down the road, thus avoiding a lengthy delay in all the road works!

It felt good, it was exciting, it saved me lots of time, it made sense…

But, moments later, I was pulled over by a policeman who had seen me do it! He said he had been stopping motorists all night who had been doing the same thing.

And when he asked me why I had done it, I answered truthfully, I said, “I knew it was stupid, but I had weighed up the dangers, and I was OK with the consequences; therefore, there would be no excuses from me, and he should take whatever actions he deemed to be appropriate.”

He just smiled and said, “You are the first driver tonight to tell me the truth and politely accept responsibility for your actions – everybody else has given me a sob story about being late or not realising, and they all tried to talk me out of writing them a ticket.”

He just smiled, told me I was an idiot – and let me go with no punishment at all!

So, even though my worst fear had happened – there still wasn’t a real consequence, even though I would have been OK with it anyway!

The world so rarely responds the way our minds and ego tell us that it will. Plus, how we behave in any moment may influence, to some degree, what eventually happens next!

Obviously, I am not condoning my behaviour in that moment, and I am not saying you should break rules – but it is an interesting illustration of the point I am trying to make.

To me, rules aren’t a real thing, just a set of commands that may have consequences if you break them! If you are not OK with the consequences, follow the rules.

There are rules of nature, rules of physics; however, laws made by man are often made to support or control the masses and not common sense in every circumstance; the pandemic is testimony to that!

You can decide at any moment if it is in your interest to follow them or not.

But, be aware, some rules are not rules; they are just cultural or family patterns; you don’t have to be nice or good. You don’t have to help everybody; you can say no.

An often overlooked component of anxiety is the pressure placed upon an individual from their family or peer group to fit it, behave or perform in a certain way to keep the group happy.

In recent months I have seen dozens of incidents where anxious individuals have become deeply distressed by wanting to behave in a certain way due to the pandemic but have acquiesced to the wishes of more dominant family members via threats like “unless you do XYZ, we won’t let you visit us – or we won’t attend your wedding!”

Therefore, sacrificing their own truth or values to please others.

Now, it’s not for this video; but, it has been clearly proven that for those looking to change themselves – their environment, their families and the people they spend time with, influence the degree to which they will be able to change more powerfully than their own willpower!

So, to increase your willpower, you may also need to remove yourself from toxic or controlling people – or at the very least update their virtual reality story of you through new behaviours – or put boundaries in place to protect them from you – or you from them!

I will be making a video about that process.

So, let’s get back to attitudes – these days, my attitudes tend towards behaviours and thoughts, which lead to my calmness, contentment, happiness, and my life having direction, purpose, and meaning.

These days, I like myself; that’s an attitude I decided to foster and began to work on by consciously choosing to stop being horrible to myself!

I am kind to myself, manage my energy, embrace creativity, feel courageous, truthful, have clear intentions of what I want to achieve – these are all attitudes I chose to develop.

Now, this took me ten years to do; there was a lot of disruption, lots of things had to change, people, locations, beliefs, my profession, the story I had about who I was – many things had to be dismantled before they could be rebuilt in new ways.

You don’t make an omelette without breaking eggs!

Anxiety, OCD and depression, don’t just go away… They may lift – if your living environment gets easier (or you avoid change) but that is not a recovery, proper recovery arises as you live life differently, as you become a new person who thinks and acts in new ways!

So, let’s delve further inside my head and explore ways of looking at things differently. Bear in mind I started this twenty-something years ago when there were no Youtube videos and not many self-help books around.

These days people are pretty clued up about the mind/body connections and intelligent ways of looking at life – but I still would like to keep going back to basics because sometimes all it takes is a little “Aha” moment and a considerable shift in awareness can happen, even about things you think you already know well!

One of my earliest realisations was about my mind and the thoughts inside my head.

All my life, I had experienced a busy internal dialogue, a really noisy, judgemental, fearful, catastrophising mind – it was constantly analysing, commenting on everything, telling me what to do, what to be afraid of and reminding me all day of my limitations, all the things that could go wrong and how useless I was, and guessing what others were thinking about me.

Back then, if someone had said, what is that voice in your head, that inner dialogue? I’d have said, “It’s me!”

It honestly never crossed my mind that they were just ‘the musings of my brain’ and that I could ignore them.

And because I thought they were me, I would argue with them, try to understand them, keep asking why and would battle to stop them – which, of course, just made everything worse!

The technique that changed everything was simple (and I detail it in video 13) – I learned to (as the observer) associate each of my thoughts to an imaginary character in my brain.

But, of course, those characters were ‘of the brain’ and not me; the Narrator who would just talk all day telling me what was going on out there; Judge, Victim, Pleaser, Rebel, The Shy one, OCD guy, Self-conscious one, the Dominant one, and so on.

Each time a thought came up, I would observe it, listen to its message, then associate it back to which character I would imagine it had come from.

It didn’t take long before I had mapped out a whole list of characters, who all seemed to have differing strategies for me.

Very quickly, I saw that each time my Rebel said something like, “That would be fun.” The Judge would say, “Don’t be silly.” And the Victim would say, “You’ll look stupid if you do that.” Then my Worrying guy would come up with some story about what would go wrong if I did it.

It only took me about two weeks to realise there was a whole soap opera going on in my head – that, up until then, I had been addicted to watching and worse – being a part of – I thought that was me, but it was the brain’s mind, the horse’s mind – and I was the observer (The Rider!)

Through silently observing them – it became clear they were just little kids – their stories were my stories at a certain age – my brain had adopted those perspectives back then – and hadn’t updated them.

A few years back, I watched a Disney film called “Inside Out” that animates all the voices inside a young girl’s head, and it made me laugh out loud because it was a more friendly, dumbed-down version of how my brain used to be. And if you haven’t watched it, I would certainly advise you to take a look, it’s very clever.

So, off the back of this one simple technique – I had consciously detached myself from the unconscious (and out of date) musings of my mind.

And because I could see how childish and contradictory all these thoughts were – I could see they weren’t the truth of what I should do, just fearful kids trying to stop me from doing things.

They thought safety was to avoid or control things – and I had thought they were me!

I realised I didn’t have to give them any of my attention – so my new intention was to retrain myself to ignore them, to place my conscious awareness elsewhere.

It consciously dawned on me that the words’ safety and security, had been entirely misunderstood by my brain, and it was unconsciously and automatically running strategies that imprisoned me.

Like a long-term prisoner preferring the familiarity and perceived security of a prison, rather than having the responsibility of being free and having to face life in new ways.

My OCD had become my familiar prison, the comfort of my routines, the predictability, the cleanliness of my home, staying in rather than going out.

Talking myself out of doing things – rather than talking myself into doing them!

It felt safe (but it wasn’t a good kind of safe!) This realisation really shocked me – and it became clear that my perceived need for safety (or my brains conditioned need for security) was at the heart of my problem.

Somehow, the question dawned upon me that if I had a magic wand and could go back into childhood to exchange my brain’s programming, what would I change it into?

It’s an interesting question to ask yourself.

So, I started by examining what I thought safety was – and the answers that came up were quite interesting, things like; to not feel anxious, to not look silly, to not look mad, to not be judged in bad ways, to not show vulnerability, to not fail, to not break the rules, to not let people down – and things like that.

This once again really shocked me, as what it seemed I feared were my own emotions, what others would think of me and how I would use all those feelings and thoughts to beat myself up and reject myself!

These were the fears of a child! But, of course, they were! Because they were the program’s I’d set up in my brain all those years ago – and were still running the show unconsciously – though I was consciously living as an adult.

I figured that rather than attempt to redefine what safety was, I ought to explore – what the opposite of safety and security was, I needed to flip that old story and see what attitudes I would need to develop to become more comfortable with them?

Phrases like; danger, risk, out of control, embarrassment, being the centre of attention, taking responsibility, trying new things, failing, putting myself first, saying what I thought, standing up for myself, exploration, adventure, and things like that.

All the old fear programs were firing off inside me – but there was another little voice too, maybe my Rebel, perhaps my adult – I don’t know? But, with hindsight, I can see it was my Warrior and my Nomad saying, “Yes, please, we’d like some of that!”

It had been the ‘conditioning’ of my Settler unconsciously driving my actions and fears for so long that it had become the loudest and most fearful voice.

My Warrior wanted action and to achieve something- wanted me to plan, speak my mind, move towards my goals, to stop caring if I was liked and for me to ignore any negative emotions that got in the way.

My Nomad wanted fun, excitement, to be spontaneous, out of control, to try new things, travel, adventure, break rules, make connections, and to experiencing all emotions fully, right across the range from excitement to anger to love.

All of those new behaviours could only be realised if I had a new set of attitudes! Maybe even differing attitudes for each of my characters?

Therefore, how could I redefine my old stories, values, and beliefs about safety that were pulling me away from life into new attitudes that would take me out into life?

How could I change my relationship with my emotions? How could I accept them rather than avoid them? How could I stop giving them any meaning? How could I consistently be nice to myself?

How could I be OK doing anything, regardless of what the mind thought or how the body felt? As long as that action took my life in the direction I wanted it to go – irrespective of the outcome of that action.

Because if I could constantly adjust my behaviours to suit what outcome did happen, then, at least I was doing something, rather than procrastinating or waiting for life to change by itself.

The answer I found was very unexpected, and it became the foundation of my horse and rider metaphor.

I read in a book the author’s description of how she looked at the world – and although I had heard it many times before, it registered within me in a whole new way.

She said something along the lines of…

We are immortal formless energies, perhaps you could say a Soul? And we are here on Earth in a mortal body to experience what it is like to have the physical form of a body.

As a formless Soul, we can’t feel pain, grief, anger, rejection, loss and the myriad of human bodily emotions.

As a Soul, we don’t have an ego, the protective personality and the childhood programing of the bodies brain that tries to talk us out of doing things or worry about what others think of us.

Therefore, Earth-school is the perfect place for us (as a Soul) to learn how to transform the bodies fear of emotions and rise above the programmed directives of the childlike ego.

How can we, as the rider, transcend these fears and, in doing so, totally reprogram our horse, which is the vehicle for our adventure?

That way, when we return to the Universe, or wherever our formless energy returns to, we are a wiser entity, we have more value, perhaps we can move up to the next level.

Or perhaps, we may need to come back down again because we missed the point of what we were supposed to do in that last lifetime?

Now, I am not saying that this is true! I don’t know, it might be, who knows – and even if somebody did know, who’d actually believe them? – It can’t be proven!

But then again, who can prove what love, integrity, kindness and happiness really are?

The trouble with anxiety, OCD and even depression to some degree – is the person experiencing them needs proof, they want to know what is true, they want explanations and data to reassure themselves, they want the person helping them to be an Expert; a Doctor, Scientist, Professor or a Religious leader – because then, there will be the perception of evidence and proof.

But there is no proof of what these things are, how they work or how to fix them.

The definition of OCD is via the grouping of their symptoms, giving the ‘condition’ a name. Then they work mainly on treating the symptoms rather than addressing the cause.

Calm the body with beta-blockers, quieten the mind with anti-psychotics or raise their mood with anti-depressants.

Yes, these may help, but nothing changed in the individual – their body is still afraid of emotions, and their minds are still worrying!

Now, at that time, I didn’t believe in God or souls, I really wanted to, but as a logical, rational engineer, there just wasn’t enough proof!

But something clicked inside my brain – and it dawned on me that even if this “Soul having a Human experience to learn how to grow” wasn’t true to me – it was an excellent model (or metaphor) that I could choose to live my life by.

It just made sense on so many levels; to learn how to rise above fear, to discover that thoughts don’t have to mean anything, to find the courage to start new things, to learn how to detach from pain, to not need external validation as I began to lovingly validate myself, even if I failed at something!

To accept others, be beneficial to society, inspire others by being a role model, be creative, and follow our dreams.

This way of looking at life offered me a few other benefits too.

The first was regarding death; once again, I don’t know what will happen when you die, but I do like the idea that my Soul would survive and move on, though the body would certainly expire.

Therefore I chose to make that my belief or, you could say, the attitude I adopted. And a quick note here, I don’t think a belief needs to be true – it is just the story or idea that you chose to align with.

I would rather believe my relatives who have died are safe elsewhere – than dust or buried in a box. Why? Because it makes me feel better!

Can you see that we can fib to ourselves, we can adjust the truth; and why not? Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?

So I consciously changed my unconscious story about fearing dying – into a more helpful story about fearing not living and not optimising the use of my body whilst I am lucky enough to have one.

And because I am not my body, I inhabit a body; it will be OK to leave it once it is outworn.

A big driver for this was my Godmother, who lived alone in her house near the end of her life. As she became less mobile, she also watched tv less, read less and would often just sit looking out of her living room window at the world passing by.

I said to her one day, “Don’t you get bored?” And she said, “Not really, I am blessed to have so many friends that pop in, help out and keep me company, and I’m happy to watch the children walking past, with all that playful optimism in their hearts.”

She went on to say, “I am not afraid to die; I’ll be meeting up with my husband again soon enough.”

Then she said something that truly inspired me, she said, “Best of all, I have my memories; my life was so varied, exciting and fun. We travelled to so many places, had interesting jobs, beautiful holidays, played sports, had hobbies, created a lovely home and garden, and we hung out with inspiring friends.”

She said, “I have no regrets and a thousand beautiful memories to keep me company in this last phase of my life. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be here now – if I had regrets and was berating myself for not having sampled the richness of life, that indeed would be hell on Earth!”

And I promised myself, there and then, that I would start saying yes to everything, I would stop procrastinating and reprogram my attitudes to fear not living rather than worry about dying!

And the second way of looking at life that sprung up really surprised me.

It was that, if the world was perfect, if there was no poverty, no disease, no juxtaposition between good and bad – no wars, no Governments, no death – if we all lived in perfect harmony…

How could we grow? There would be no pain for us to transcend; there would be no conflicts to rise above – there would be no reason to be here!

And if there was a God – he would need to make another planet elsewhere which was disruptive, that we could be sent to – so we would have an environment conducive to our growth!

This realisation (regardless of its truth) resonated with me to see the world and my role within it. It’s not my job to save the world; it’s my job to learn to be OK with it, to calmly navigate my way through it.

Yes, I am developing this course, but it’s not my job to fix you; that’s your job! It’s not my job to end anxiety or OCD, just to make a resource that, for those who are ready, to help them in some way.

I would rather sustainably visit the rain forest and first-hand experience its beauty, to spend time living with and learning from its indigenous inhabitants – rather than angrily demonstrating, campaigning and fighting corporations against its destruction.

To experience life rather than try to control it, plus, gaining those experiences gives me far broader, more inclusive perspectives.

Once again, I am not saying this is right or wrong, and I am not telling you what you should do – I am opening up and sharing with you – what points of view, beliefs and techniques worked for me.

I stopped fighting life, corporations, Governments, systems, rules – and gently, but with courage – have done what is suitable for my growth, happiness and calmness.

Some might call this attitude selfish? In my childhood, I had been programmed to see this as a bad word. “Stop being so selfish” or “It’s not all about you.”

Well, now I see that it is all about me. I am the centre of my Universe; my life is all about me – and the happier I become, the more energy I have, allowing me to be there for those I choose to have around me.

The attitude I chose to adopt was the phrase “Selflessly selfish’ I am happy to do anything for anybody, including myself, if it feels right for me in that moment.

I talk a lot about the book The Four Agreements and – for six months, I borrowed those four rules to live my life by, to decide how I would act at any moment. Thinking I would then replace them with my new values, beliefs and attitudes.

However, these worked just fine on their own!

I learned that nothing anybody says or does was personal and to stop making it so.

I learned to stop making assumptions and ask for facts.

I learned to speak with integrity to others (and myself).

I learned to do my best in each moment and to accept my best was a variable dependant on the circumstances, I found myself in – If I only had ten minutes, this is the best I can do in ten minutes!

And there is a fifth agreement too – and that is…

To be sceptical, but listen anyway!

We can always grow, always learn more, yet sometimes not everything we hear or read is true, we are mistaken – though often we can’t see it.

OCD makes you doubt everything – your ego makes you cling to what you currently believe to be true – but is it the only truth?

So what if this planet is Earth School? The perfect place for a Soul to inhabit a body?

Is it the perfect place that is so messed up, it will always provide a continuous set of challenges for the rider to navigate the horse through – on their journey to become their highest self?

To learn calmness, choice, and avoid the emotional duality of right and wrong, good and bad, safe and dangerous.

To accept things are just as they are. And in any moment, you can choose your course of action, whichever is right for you in that moment. And how will you know what that action is until that moment arises?

Can you see that as an engineer, I am trying to give you models to use that create a framework from which you can decide what perspectives you like – and what new attitudes may be worth adopting as you ride out into your life?

So, as I begin to conclude this video about attitudes, let me list some of the significant shifts that worked for me.

I had always been a poor sleeper with lots of insomnia, and my relationship with sleep was very unhealthy; I hated it, went to bed late and despised laying awake for hours on end.

However, as part of loving myself and my body, I created a new attitude towards sleep and rest – that – like food and water, sleep was essential, not only to life but recharging my emotional battery! (video 4)

I started new sleep routines by being in bed by 11:00 and getting up at 7:00; I blacked out my room, stopped having any technology or distractions close by and used any awake time at night to meditate and release trapped trauma. So even if I wasn’t sleeping, I was resting and growing.

This was fundamentally, a new attitude and one that made a massive difference to my recovery.

Let me give you another attitude change – I consciously decided that I wanted my body weight to be more important to me than enjoying food.

My logic being that I could enjoy my body all day if it were healthy and my clothes felt good. Whereas, food was only enjoyable for short periods, I could feel good about my body all day.

To do this, I had to change my attitude from “I am missing out on nice food” to “I am gaining a slim and healthy body.” That was hard to do, but it was worth it!

I changed my attitude towards guilt and realised it was a choice – and often self- abuse, as nobody was asking me to feel bad – and if they were, I didn’t have to take it personally, it was just their opinion.

I saw that guilt was just the difference between what I did and what my mind thought I ought to do (or not do) – so I stopped listening to my mind and just did what was suitable for me in that moment.

My attitude towards guilt became – “I won’t abuse myself in that way, and even if others try to guilt me – I won’t guilt myself!”

I chose to change my old OCD attitudes about being in control and wanting to know what would happen next – to that of really accepting that there is only now (as I show in video 10); it is always now.

So I developed (with a lot of struggle and repetition) a new attitude – to live in the now, to stay out of my mind’s ‘what if’ stories about the future and its ‘if only’ stories about the past – which are just virtual reality stories!

To decide the best action in this now, for me – one that will take my life in the direction I want it to go?

Which led neatly into another new attitude – to be courageous – which, as I have said before, is just feeling vulnerable but taking action anyway!

Let’s end this video with one final conscious attitude shift I made. I decided to develop the habit of consciously (and positively) talking myself into doing things that I knew were good for my life, rather than my old anxiety pattern of talking myself out of doing things, which we might call avoidance.

When my unconscious mind said, “that will never work”, – I would consciously start a new dialogue (over-writing that old one), saying things like, “I am looking forward to starting that new project, I am so happy to clean the blocked drain, it will be good to resolve that issue with my neighbour…”

Which, of course, is also setting up an attitude of consistently talking positively about what needs to happen to fulfil my intentions, thus programming the RAS part of my unconscious brain whose job it is to help us achieve our goals, as I detailed in video 18.

So, your homework…

My personal experience proved that tremendous changes are possible when you stop identifying with your thoughts, feelings, and old self-identities.

And don’t get caught up in the logical definition of words – am I talking here about values, beliefs, attitudes, intentions or goals? It doesn’t matter, they are just words!

What matters is; if your life, thoughts, and behaviours are leaving you exhausted, anxious or depressed, and if your life has no direction, purpose or meaning, then something must change.

Can you write down all the stories, attitudes
and behaviours that currently dominate your life.

Going back and rewatching video 21 will certainly help you with this.

Do you remember how we explored anxiety loops, then flipped them over into new, more positive behaviours?

Stop clinging to the same old stories, stop behaving in the same old ways, reverse your stories – rather than thinking about safety, how can you explore excitement?

Rather than thinking about guilt, how can you explore selfishness?

Instead of following rules, how can you explore consequences?

Get out some paper, start writing these things down, make a mind map, and talk to friends about how they see life – whatever works for you.

And as you go to do this – watch what excuses come up – observe how your anxiety will try and talk you out of it and sabotage you!

Then ignore that sabotage and get on with it! We might call that the attitude of not waiting for motivation and just seizing the moment.

I have shared some of the high-level models I chose to live life by; even though I can’t prove them to be true (or even fully believe them) however, they do work for me, and that is good enough!

What high-level models could you adopt?

Who around you has a way of being that you admire? Can you copy them? Can you ask them how they see the world, how they motivate themselves?

Could you try my model on for size?

Or perhaps adapt your existing belief in some productive way?

And finally, who (or what) in your environment is overpowering your willpower or stopping you from changing your life?

A dependant relative, a judgemental parent, a critical partner, a controlling child, an unhealthy inner dialogue, an untidy house, an unhealthy body?

What unnecessary distractions do you use; like computer games, zoning out on weed, helping others instead of yourself, going to bed late, obsessing on study rather than starting work, acting like a victim rather than courageously taking action?

I like the phrase ‘where your attention goes energy flows…’

And one last thought, if you are saying to yourself, “Once I get over OCD, then I will go and do XYZ…” This is an OCD trap; you need to start doing XYZ now – while you have OCD! – Fake it ’til you make it -This way, it is proper exposure therapy in action, and there is no better cure!

How can you courageously ride your frightened little horsey out into the world with a whole new set of attitudes – just to see what will happen?

Vulnerability, with action (regardless of the outcome) and regardless of how you feel, and regardless of what your mind is thinking — is courage in action!

Keep positively talking yourself into what you do want, not what you don’t want.

Keep up all the great work; thank you for supporting me – and until the next video – let’s work on our attitudes!