Why does it take work to feel good about yourself and who you are in a non-egoic way and generally have a positive,healthy self image? Here are a few reasons:

• Because if you live in a consumer society the people and corporations who want you to buy things know that you will be more inclined to do so if you believe that you are incomplete, unworthy and worthless. A lot of adverts that we see each day are basically saying “Feeling bad, feel like a nobody, don’t worry, just get this product and you can be someone just by owning it!”
• Because our biological brain is trained to see fear, negativity and threats in a fraction of a second, whereas it takes our brain at least 10-30 seconds of focusing on a positive object for its impact to register in the same way. This is why you have to focus for definite periods each day on the good and the positive in your life, because otherwise your survival based brain will tend to kick in and keep you locked in fear and vulnerability mode.
• We have inherited psychological programming’s from our education, parents and family ( often no fault of their own, they inherited it from their parents and so on…), TV and the internet that cause us to re-enforce the negatives; You need this type of job to be accepted, you need to look like this to be lovable, if you are not part of this societal group you are a looser…the list goes on.
• Because in order to develop a healthy self image we need to continually fight against the laziness and “path of least resistance” approach in our mind that would really rather just remain stuck in dysfunction and negativity rather than haul its ass out of the mire and start building a genuinely happy and positive relationship to ourself and our life.

What to do about this?

Well, you need to do SOMETHING to improve your self-image, and do something each day without fail! The main thing to realize is that it is not going to happen by itself, so you need to take responsibility for it!

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you MUST seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitnessnow.com

CATCH TOBY’S WORKSHOP ON “HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR STRESS” NOVEMBER 14^TH AT SANCTUARY ON THE HILL!

When trying to develop and appropriately thick skin to deal with the challenges and attacks that life and our relationships throws at us we can fall into two extremes:

•  We can be too sensitive to what others say or do to us, making us emotionally vulnerable and negative at the slightest hint of criticism
•  We can become too sensitive, blocking not just the attacks that other people direct at us, but also the love, complements and positivity. This starves us of the positive emotion and feeling that we need to be emotionally healthy and inwardly whole 

To avoid either of the two extremes we need to develop what could be thought of as a “semi-permeable thick skin”.

This semi-permeable psychological skin protects from:

• Verbal attacks and negative energy from others
•  Negativity coming from our own “inner-critic” the voice in our head that always sees the mistakes that we make
•  Enables us to strain out the negativity and take on the positive lessons when we or our work are critiqued by others
• Protects us from negative ambient energy, for example in an office where there is a lot of anger, competitiveness of jealousy

However it allows the following to penetrate our energy field and mind, allowing us to appreciate them fully:

• When someone complements us, we take it in and appreciate it in a non-egotistical manner
• We are able to receive emotional support and kind words from others. Loving in relationships is about REVIEVING as well as giving
• When we are offered something of beauty in a now-moment. For example seeing a sunset as we ride on the bus, receiving healing energy from trees as we walk through the park
• When it is appropriate to feel grateful and appreciative of something good that is happening in our life 

Exercise for developing your semi-permeable thick skin

See yourself surrounded by a semi-permeable bubble of protective golden light. In crowded environments you can shrink it to the contours of your body, so it becomes like a body glove.

During the day practise learning when to consciously open up your golden bubble and allow positive energy into your energy-field (as in the examples above), and when to consciously close it down and make it an impermeable wall of protection (as in the examples of attacks above).

The idea with this exercise is to be able to consciously oscillate between being appropriately open and vulnerable (able to take positive energy in) and appropriately closed and protected, blocking negative attacks and energy, preventing it from damaging or crippling us.

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you MUST seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitnessnow.com 

CATCH TOBY’S WORKSHOP ON “HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR STRESS” NOVEMBER 14^TH AT SANCTUARY ON THE HILL!

The quickest way to realize that you need a certain degree of uncertainty in your life is to imagine what would happen if everything was totally pre-planned, predictable and with no chance of surprises. What would your life be like? It would be:

• Boring
• Robotic
• Uninspiring
• Lifeless
• Unchallenging
• Actually, it would be pointless because there would be nothing for you to learn and no opportunity for you to develop as a person

So, if we start to think like this we begin to realize quite rapidly that uncertainty, unpredictability and chance are   a necessary, desirable and integral part of our human experience. Without them life might just about be worth living, but not at all in the same way as it is now.

The good news is that your life is always going to be full to a greater or lesser degree with uncertainty, unpredictability and chance, so no need to worry!

Yes the uncertainty may make you anxious at times. Sometimes things will not work out the way in which you want them to. There is always (until you get to a certain level of your inner development) some pain and suffering experienced with genuine change.

However, wherever there is uncertainty, there is also

• The opportunity to be creative, and participate (in however small a way) in the ongoing creative dance of the universe
• To develop qualities and aspects of yourself that you previously were not aware
• To do things that you would not have thought yourself capable of (in a good way!)
•  To embrace the new rather than clinging to old patterns and beliefs
• To learn how to manage your attachments appropriately (it is primarily our attachment to past beliefs and patterns, and to future outcomes that causes us pain in situations of unpredictability)  
• To experience excitement, anticipation and challenge in a positive way
• To learn to go with the flow of the Universe, rather than fighting against it

 So what I am saying is, the next time you feel the fear and anxiety kicking in as you face a situation of uncertainty in your life:

• Take a few deep breaths
• Recognize the fear without being intimidated by it
• Mentally step forward into the uncertainty that stretches out before you thinking to yourself “Stay on your toes, this is going to be fun!”

 © Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitnessnow.com

One of the basic skills for dealing with stressful situations and becoming more mentally balanced (and therefore more mentally resilient) is to know how to balance positive thinking with a healthy sense of realism. In order to do this one of the keys is to understand that both positive thinking and realism have a higher expression and an extreme or imbalanced expression.

Positive thinking

The higher expression of positive thinking involves:

• Seeing the positive side of every situation
• Thinking and envisioning the best possible outcomes
• Thinking from a senses of fullness rather than lack
• Taking responsibility for the situation and our role in it (see previous article on personal power)
• Ensuring that what you think and say about a situation are framing it in a helpful and constructive light, and not a negative one that will sabotage a potentially fruitful outcome.

 The lower, imbalanced or negative expression of “positive thinking” involves what is commonly called the Pollyanna complex the characteristics of which are:

• Turning a blind eye to the very real drawbacks, risks and dangers of a situation due to naiveté, underlying fear or just because we believe we can just think our way to a positive result
• Choosing to trust people, groups or aspects of ourself who are really not reliable. Sometimes this is naiveté, sometimes we have become attached to an outcome that causes us to not want to see what is really there
• Confusing realistic risk assessment (necessary) with negative thinking that will sabotage our positive thoughts and visualizations (unnecessary and dangerous).

Healthy realism

The higher or positive expression of realism involves:

• Being able to take a good hard look at a situation and make an objective or scientific assessment of the real risks or drawbacks of the different courses of action that we might choose to engage with. If you doubt the objectivity of your own perspective, get someone else’s
• Not being attached to outcomes. Attachment to outcomes blinds us to risks and drawbacks
•  Without being cynical, knowing when others are not revealing the truth about a situation, or when we may be hiding the truth from ourself.

 The lower, unhealthy extreme or imbalanced expression of realism involves:

• Undue cynicism
• Being a victim of circumstance
• Thinking the worst due to fear or anger
• Any time where there is undue or unhealthy emphasis on the worst case scenario 

So, in conclusion Mastery of this aspect of transforming stress involves

• Combining the higher expression of positive thinking and healthy realism together
• Avoiding imbalanced extremes of either. 

© Toby Ouvry 2010. You are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitnessnow.com

What is personal power?

Personal power means making  a habit of taking responsibility for the situations that you find yourself in, and for the direction that your life is taking.  You may not be able to control everything that happens in your life, but you can take control of your RESPONSE to all of the things that happen to you.

In this sense you could say that owning personal power gives you a type of liberation. It is a form of liberation because it liberates you from all the sufferings, anxieties and problems that you experience when you:

• Forfeit your ability to choose your response to what is happening to you in any given situation
• Allow your emotional reactions to slide out of control and cause your thoughts to get locked in a negative spiral
• Blame things that you are experiencing inwardly on something that someone else has done externally
• Give up on a goal too early saying “If only this had not happened then I might have made it”
• Cannot appreciate all the good that is going on in your life because all you see is the bad. This  deprives us of an abundance of both happiness and pleasure that would otherwise be readily available
• Feel like a victim of circumstance  

On being a victim in life

The opposite of owning our personal power is being a victim in life. Nothing saps our energy in life more than having a victim mentality. Many people allow themselves to feel like a victim in life because it is an obvious and manifest truth that we cannot control everything that happens to us. However, as I mention above, this is to miss the point. Being a master in our life and owning our personal power means taking control of our inner response to what happens in our life and thinking, acting and speaking in a way that reflects that.

Two, two minute methods for beginning find liberation in your life through personal power:

 1)      Spend a couple of minutes reflecting on the last time you gave up control of your response to life and became a victim. For those two minutes re-live all the pain, suffering and anxiety that you experienced. End the exercise with a firm mental determination “No more will I give away my personal power and become a victim!”

The point is to use past experiences to make you totally determined to mould a new positive future, free from victim consciousness.

2)      The next time you can feel your personal power being challenged by an inner or outer event say to yourself “I may do many things in response to this situation, but the one thing that I will not do is relinquish my personal power and become a victim”. Focus on this determination mentally for a minute or two.  As you then progress to deal with the issue, stay mindful of your determination and act accordingly.

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitnessnow.com

Below is a basic eight point template for developing your mental resilence. I use it as a handout for corporate talks that I give on this subject, enjoy!

Mental resilience defined – The ability to remain strong, directed and creative in the face of stressors induced by the contrasting experiences of  pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and blame, good reputation and bad reputation

Eight  factors  for developing mental resilience:

1. Keep your body relaxed – It is impossible to have a stressed out mind in a relaxed, well postured body!

2. Develop equanimity – The ability to remain centered in the face of the four above mentioned extremes of pleasure and pain, loss and gain etc…

3. Personal power – Make a habit of taking responsibility for the situations that you find yourself in and for the direction that your life is taking. Nothing saps our energy in life more than having a victim mentality.

4. Balance positive thinking with healthy realism – Always look for the best in any situation, whilst at the same time facing the real problems that have arisen, or the potential problems that may arise.

5. Plan, don’t worry – If you have something that is concerning you, plan a course of action to tackle the concern effectively. If you have made a plan and there is nothing further you can do about the situation (at the present time), them be mindful not to worry about it. Worry is a futile activity that by definition has no purpose other than to sap our mental and physical resilience.

6. See uncertainty as a creative opportunity – If everything in life was certain, then our experiences would be robotic and dead. Uncertainty is what makes room for our opportunities to grow and express ourselves. Thriving in uncertain spaces is essential for developing our mental resilience and for our overall personal growth.

7. Develop a healthy self-image and a thick skin- Learn not to rely on outside forces to feel good about who you are and what you are capable of.

8. Find role models – Seek out people who can help you develop your mental resilience.

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you MUST seek Toby’s permission first. Contact info@tobyouvry.com

Much of the time we unconsciously spend our day putting off the things that we really have to or need to do and distracting ourselves with things that we call busyness and activity, but which are really often non-essential and at worst straight out avoidance tactics.

When we finally get around to doing the things that need to be done, we then pick out the most pleasant things first, and put of the things that we are looking forward to least until last, hoping that maybe we will run out of time and thus be able to put them off until later (even if they really do need to be done today!) Thus we set up another mini cycle of avoidance and ineffectiveness.

The problem with this pattern is that, quite appart from the lack of effectiveness and the time-wasting, we spend quite a lot of our day with an unconscious feeling of discomfort that arises from our avoidance. This underlying feeling of discomfort chips away at the depth and quality of our ability to be happy and fully present in each moment of our life. 

Here is a simple three point plan designed to address the above issue that you might like to try out over the next few days and see where it takes you:

1) At the beginning of the day (or allotted period of time you are considering) ask yourself ask yourself “What are the things that I need to do today, and of those activities, which am I least looking forward to?” Write down your list with the least appealing activity highlighted.

2) Note the discomfort and avoidance tactics that arise in your mind when you look at the list, then use your personal power and self-direction to sit down (or stand up/ walk off or whatever the activity demands) and start the list, begining with the activity that you least want to do FIRST.

3) Execute your “must do” list one by one, one after the other. Once you have completed them all you then have the rest of the day to enjoy whatever else you want to do without having any nagging feelings in the back of your mind regarding the activities that you need to do but are avoiding!

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you MUST seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitness.com