The Big Peace

Big Peace December Day 2

  I got a dog last April – a beautiful little black cocker spaniel called Oscar – and he has changed my life! I’ve lost a stone (have to walk him once a day, rain or shine and it’s the only time I’ve ever stuck to a exercise regime because I have no choice), I’m getting out every day in the light – usually I’m depressed and gloomy as soon as the clocks go back so feel happier, and I’ve never known such unconditional love. I’ve got a new machine (called an emwave machine) which measures stress levels but turns green when you’re happy and unstressed and all I have to do is think about Oscar and it turns green immediately! Oscar is my ultimate de-stress secret.

I’ve made new dog-walking friends (a whole new social circle) and have whole new topics of conversations on everything from castration to the best poo bags!

There was a piece in the paper this week which said that a dog charity is urging GPs to prescribe puppies and not just pills.

A study from the University of Warwick has showed that owning a dog gives you a robust immune system and over a 10 month period have reduced levels of loneliness and depression.

“Dog owners visit their doctors less, respond better to medication, have fewer heart problems, higher self esteem, lower blood pressure and cholesterol and are less likely to suffer from depression," says Dr Roger Mugford, animal psychologist at the Animal Behaviour centre in surrey. 

Ok, Ok, I'm not suggesting you all go and buy a dog for Christmas (because we all know dogs are for life and not just Christmas - ha, ha!) But what struck me is that despite having quite a challenging year, I have felt calmer and happier than I have for a long time.

And what I've realised is that many of my new habits I've formed from owning Oscar...tie in to what William Bloom recommends. 

William Bloom is one of Britain’s top holistic teachers and author of The Endorphin Effect.

I interviewed him recently. Here's the interview if you missed it.

William studied and taught meditation for years but was thrown when people in his meditation classes said they felt just as good stroking their cat (dog/riding their motorbike/going for a lovely walk) as they did meditating.

This led Bloom to research what is now known as the ‘endorphin effect’ – that flood of natural feel-good hormones that relax you, anaesthetise pain and are responsible for a feeling of well-being.

Bloom’s research showed that are five ways you can trigger these endorphins – without meditating – to feel good instantly, no matter what is going on in your life.

So today's Big Peace task is to try one of the below and trigger some feel-good chemicals.

1. Think about someone you like or do something you like. (Make a list of things you genuinely enjoy and do more of them – this will naturally trigger a flood of endorphins)
2. Making napping your greatest skill. Or at least allow your body to slump and your body language to sink into napping body language. A 3-4 minute slump will release that flood of feel-good hormones.
3. 20 minutes of movement – it doesn’t have to be aerobic but any sustained movement for 20 minutes or more will release endorphins.
4. Connect with nature  - be it staring at a blade of grass or going for a walk in the woods. This is proven to release endorphins into the body.
5. Monitor how your body feels and give it a break – treat it as you would a hurt animal or child and gentle relax , and think loving, kind thoughts about your poor, old body. Apparently, every time we do this, endorphins flood to the rescue.

www.williambloom.com

Day 1 Big Peace December

So it’s Big Peace December. I’ve just spent all weekend at our first Big Peace yoga retreat and boy! am I ready to share what I learnt.

 

The weekend was profound. The thing that moved me beyond belief is how -  if we believe the negative script of our inner pessimist (inner critic whatever you want to call it) -  we live our lives steeped in anxiety and misery – how if we believe his ‘you’re not good/beautiful/clever/you fill in the blanks’….rant, we are imprisoned.

The good news is that it is in a prison of our own making.

 

And all we have to do is open the prison door OR just create a new reality for ourselves entirely. (And as say in my book, listen to your inner coach.)

 

I interviewed Dr David Hamilton recently (he’s the scientist who became fascinated by the Placebo effect) and author of How The Mind Can Heal The Body.

(Here’s the interview if you missed it) and he explained that the mind cannot tell the difference between real or imagined. Whatever stories we tell ourselves become true for us.

One of the studies he quotes in the book revealed that we can get fit and stronger – simply by imagining that we are. A study followed three groups and showed that the group who did not exercise, but rather thought about exercising experienced nearly the same gains in strength as the exercise group by visualising three times a week.  (The real exercises improved muscle strength by 28%, the visualisers improved by 24%) Yes, you read that right.

And that’s just fitness levels. Dr Hamilton gives study after study and case history and case history of how our thinking can induce healing, anti-ageing, losing weight – and even healing ourselves from heart disease and cancer.

On the yoga retreat this weekend, we did physical demonstrations of what happens to our bodies, our stress levels, our lives when we listen to negative stories. Then practiced over and over again with different tools on how to make the leap from listening to our inner pessimist to listening to our inner coach. We experimented with different tools on how to create new thinking and new stories which would get us to our Big Peace place.

In this month of our Big Peace December, I would love for us to create a daily practice for ourselves and try one tool per day to notice our negative stories/ thinking and create new positive, healing stories for ourselves instead. Over the last couple of years, I have interviewed some the biggest self development gurus in the world so we will be experimenting with some of the most tried and tested and most effective tools we have available to us.

At the end of this month, I would love for you to find one or two brilliant tools that work for you. I believe creating The Big Peace in our lives is a daily practice (and sometimes minute by minute practice for me!) and we just need to find a way that works for us to access that place within that can get us tuned into the radio station of our inner coach versus our inner pessimist.

Today, I want us to try a visualisation that Dr Hamilton recommends in his book. (Before you do this exercise today, try to listen to the interview that I did with him so you realise the weight of scientific evidence that shows that this works):

Visualise three times a day:

Imagine a ball of soft green, pink or white light in the centre of your brain or heart, or see it like a little candle flame. This represents your happiness. Note its size.

Now imagine a dial and turn it up. As you do this, see the light get bigger and bigger and brighter. Mentally affirm that it is a symbol of your inner strength and happiness.

Continue to turn the dial and watch the light get bigger and brighter. See it expand right out of your head or heart and throughout your entire body. See the light flow through your arteries and your veins, though your heart and your internal organs. Imagine it tickling your cells and organs and see them smile. See it flow over your skin and imagine your skin cells smiling. See yourself surrounded by this powerful light and mentally affirm that your power and happiness are great.

Try this out - I just have and found myself smiling and then the sun broke through the clouds outside my window. My god, I knew I was powerful but that powerful? Sunny days, all round then?

Speak tomorrow and let me know how you got on with this.