Well done! WELL DONE!!

This week I have had the experience of several people in different contexts telling me that I have done particular things rather well. And I must say that it felt very good. Very good indeed. At the time. 

Later, I noticed a rather curious phenomenon. I was strangely reluctant to engage with the activities that had been deemed praise-worthy. What was going on? After sitting with this reluctance for a while to familiarise myself with it, I discovered that it was exactly the same phenomenon that my coffee shop friend had talked to me about a few weeks ago: Attachment.

When I become attached to the outcome of my efforts, and particularly when I rely on other people's judgements of my efforts, stress, misery and procrastination lie ahead; when I do things with full attention on the activity involved because I love it, want to do it, believe in it, I can take pleasure in the 'doing' of it. It's not that the outcomes are irrelevant; they are highly relevant, but noticing them and moving on from them feels so much better than trying to hold on to them, striving to achieve them, and failing to engage with the journey that got me there in the first place. 

So.....to praise or not to praise? There is a large body of research documenting the effects of praise on children. In short, praising the effort taken appears to have a motivational effect; praising the outcome is less effective. If you hear me saying, 'Oh, good effort!' this week...you'll know why.

Valentine's Day 2007: the turning point.....

Valentine's Day 2007. 


I had been bed-ridden for several months, unable to feed myself or move. For the past few weeks I had been experimenting with completely switching off any mental thought process, and allowing my body to totally relax. I started doing this for 30mins 4 times a day and as I seemed better in this state than out of it, I increased it....and spent 5 or 6 hours a day in this state of suspended animation. During this time my partner found out about Lightning Process, and I knew that it was possible for people to recover from ME. I made a very strong decision that when I began to move and function again it would be as a well person.


My partner came home early on Valentine's Day, especially to make afternoon tea for me. I wanted to do something special for him, but my options seemed extremely  limited. So I decided that I would begin to experiment with teaching myself how to be a well person....and surprise him. Without telling him, I practised sitting up by myself in bed, and getting out of bed, and standing for a few seconds. Before I moved a muscle, I imagined how it would feel to sit up, and get up and stand as a well person. I imagined how healthy muscles would feel as they moved, what my posture would be like as a well person. I imagined it, then I did it.


Whilst my partner was making tea downstairs, I imagined not only getting out of bed, but also walking out of my bedroom to the stairlift, and sitting on it. Every time, I imagined what it would feel like to do it with a healthy body. Then, reminding myself of my commitment to do everything as a well person, or not at all, I got up and walked out of my bedroom to the stairlift. I paused, then pressed the buzzer. My partner heard the noise, and  appeared with a considerable degree of alarm! I told him that I was coming downstairs - the first time in many months - and that we would have tea together in the lounge. 


When the stairlift arrived in the hall, I paused again. My partner brought the wheelchair, and I told him that I wouldn't be using it. The walk to the bay window in the lounge was further than I had walked in a very long time. I set off, and started doing wobble and weak legs. I immediately returned to the stairlift, sat down, and began calmly going over in my mind how it would feel to make this walk as a well person. Then, reminding myself once more that I was going to walk as a well person, I walked confidently into the lounge. 


I can't tell you how delicious that tea tasted! And what a pleasure it was to be sitting and sharing Valentine's Day with my partner, like a normal person. This was the turning point; we both knew that after 9 years of illness I would, in time, be able to get completely well again. 


Valentine's Day is a special day for us.....

The effects of language

As an English teacher I am fascinated by how authors use language to create effects for the reader. We spend a lot of time helping students to unravel how it is that we feel excited, sad, or intrigued when we read a certain passage.

And that got me thinking about how little time we spend time looking at our own language, and the techniques that we use to create our own feelings of excitement, depression or joy. We all talk to ourselves (I don't think it's a sign of madness....) but what sort of language do we use? Do we express ourselves in negatives or positives? Do we say, "I don't want to feel too stressed when I'm doing 'x'", or do we say, "I want to feel really calm when I'm doing 'x'"? They are both attempting to convey the same information.....but the effect they create for our brains is quite different.

It would be an interesting exercise to look at all our conversation, both with other people and ourselves, and apply the same analytical tools that we apply to texts. I'm going to do it myself....and I'd be really interested to hear of anyone else's analysis.....Do I use particular extended metaphors? Is my language peppered with peculiar words? Are my sentences short or long when I'm feeling relaxed? In short, what is going on when I  speak??

 Tom Stoppard once said that when asked questions about his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he feels like he's standing at customs watching an official ransack his luggage. He cheerfully declares responsibility for a play about two people, and suddenly the officer is finding all manner of exotic contraband like the nature of God and identity, and while he can't deny that they're there, he can't for the life of him remember putting them there. 


So it is for us.....we can't remember how our language came to contain all it currently does....but once we are conscious and aware of it....then we have the opportunity to change it.

More coffee shop capers.....

I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of coffee shops....and it's not only me who finds them places of inspiration. My partner is of a similar persuasion, though his tastes are slightly different from mine. Whereas I'm a Cafe Nero woman, he's a Costa man. So Saturday morning finds us both ensconced in our respective favourites, accompanied by books, journals, newspapers.....coffee and pastry (almond croissant for me; chocolate twist for him).

Recently a friend of mine told me an interesting story about her own relationship with coffee shops. On one of her initial visits she happened on a particularly comfy seat with a rather pleasant view, which made the whole cappuccino experience even better. On her next visit as she approached the serving counter she noticed that she was looking round anxiously for the comfy seat, with a strong desire to bag it and occupy it. The seat was taken. She was filled with disappointment. On the next visit she notice feeling stressed even before she entered the shop....she 'knew' that the experience would be spoiled if she couldn't get 'that' seat; she saw it vacant, pushed through the crowds to drape her coat over it to save it for her. After a few such visits she realised that the whole coffee shop experience had become a source of stress, because the story she started telling herself long before she got into the shop was that if she didn't get that particular seat, the morning was spoiled. What a genius!

Once she'd spotted what she was doing, she decided to re-frame the whole experience and tell herself a different story. She consciously avoided looking for any seating until she had her coffee. Then, if the comfy seat was taken, she took pleasure in the fact that someone else was enjoying the seat and view. She told herself that the coffee would taste just as good wherever she sat. She redeemed the coffee shop experience.

It made me realise how important and influential are the stories we tell ourselves. They can lead to stress....or they can lead to pleasure. And the really interesting thing about stories is that we often don't even notice we are telling them!

Recovery milestones

I've recently had a couple of truly inspiring e-mails from a teenager who did LP with me almost a year ago. It's a joy for me to read of her journey and all the changes she's made....and also some of the challenges she's dealt with. As she approaches her year 'anniversary' of doing LP she wants to celebrate! And I love the way she is planning to do this. She's going to make two collages: one showing all the things she's achieved during the past year and another one showing all the things she's going to be doing in the next year. Hope she sends me a photo of them!

I can remember my own recovery, and how, in the year after, I kept noticing things that I was doing for the first time since I was well: the first time I lifted the kettle and made Iain a cup of tea; the first time I shopped in a supermarket and hadn't got a clue what to do with my debit card and the machine thing, which had appeared at some point during my 9 ill years; the first time I drove a car; the first time I made a cake; the first time I ran on the beach; and one of the most significant milestones when I lifted my wheelchair onto the lorry that came to take it away! It's a precious time.....and it's really good for our brains when we celebrate the milestones, no matter how big or how small....emotion helps to secure those good feelings, and cement the delight in our brains.

Let's notice, celebrate, remember.