A Toolkit For The Mind

Maintaining balance in our lives is obviously important. There has been much talk recently regarding mental health and the importance of this in our lives.

It is unfortunately I think  still considered a taboo subject by most which is strange. If you break your arm people can see this and will often react appropriately. However the hurts of the mind aren’t that obvious so we never know when a person is generally well or unwell with regards to mental health issues. It's not like we can just do happy smiley face or glum face all the time. Sometimes we can be seen to be quite and thoughtful and people will often still ask you if you’re ok?

Having gone through my own patches of dark days, weeks months and even years since my teenage years.  I have learnt that, just like you can fine tune a body through diet and exercise you can similarly exercise the brain. Targeting specific thought patterns to fine tune the mind and learning that sadness is often a good thing and what I believe to be a natural part of living. Without it we wouldn’t have a measure of when where not sad and happy. However even then there are times and odd days when you just can't shake it. I have tried many times to find solutions to bring me out of the sad or unhappy phase, if I'm there too long and its affecting my daily routine. 

Rather than having just one method which we all look for, that magic pill or technique. As a psychologist once told me if there was one technique or practise that worked. Everyone would be subscribed the same treatment. So over the years I have built up a toolkit of different techniques that help bring me back to a balance. You need different techniques for different situations and issues. Some of these techniques I’ve learnt through personal research and others i have learnt through working with various mental health practitioners.

The first tool in my box of tricks. Is based on the technique of RET (reactive emotive therapy). This basic technique is as it says reactive it doesn’t look to find answers but hopefully stops the mind from going down a particular route. It's basically saying to yourself STOP! To enhance this I actually put up a brick wall in my mind. It helps to break the chain of thought. Then to clear it away take a deep breath and slide the wall away. Sometimes I actually physically move the wall. By using a physical gesture of swiping as on a tablet or phone.

I have also been through counselling a couple of times. Though the benefits are there for this type of therapy. Unfortunately for me it left me feeling worse. It is good to talk about your feelings, but dragging them up again and again I found to be debilitating, after every session I felt awful. For me the reason being as we grow older we learn to bury some thoughts and emotions. Bringing them up again and again just made me feel or relive the emotions. What i needed was an actual technique a system that would work for me.

Following on from RET. I was taught over six weeks CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy).  This system is often talked about and many people including councillors are aware of it. I have spoken to many friends and colleagues who have gone through therapy and counselling, but for some reason have never been taught to use it. It is hard work and quite an emotional ride. You do though end up with a set of tools to help you when you need it. 

Over the weeks, I was given activity to do. This included keeping a diary of my feelings and when negative thoughts intruded in my mind. This gave me a base line to work with highlighting triggers. After the first week of note talking and self-reflection i was taught basically to use RET. Or just by staying stop and instructing your brain with another image this breaks the chain of thought that is causing the issue. After these two weeks, the third week involved studying the situations and asking myself, what other explanations could there be for that feeling. Thus say I'm angry at myself for something, or someone has said something I interpreted negatively. I would write it down and work through it. Challenging myself to see if it was true? How else I could have interpreted it. Sort of seeing it from there perspective. So a partner or friend seem to be having a go at you for something. Is it you they are actually having a go about. You don’t know what type of day they had. Perhaps you as someone close to them they feel they can let of some steam with. It may not even be about you.

This week and the one that followed was the most difficult. It also taught me the importance of using correct language with other people so you don't leave them feeling or having negative thoughts. The importance of clearly saying 'I think' or' I feel ' rather than 'you made me' taught me take control over my thoughts and feelings. As another one of my favourite sayings go “words cannot hurt you unless you let them. The following week again still writing things down was to think how I could change my thoughts so I'm thinking of them in a better way. So reframe the thoughts and turn it from negative to a positive. I.e. I work hard I am not a bad person I may do bad things every now and again but that doesn't make me wrong. It makes me human. The last week was a round up and I was told to keep going. 

Once the course finished. I made sure as I often knew with myself that starting something is easy keeping the habit going takes effort and discipline. Just like putting on some weight takes time, it's going to take an equal or longer amount of time to get rid of it and stay healthy. I asked the therapist if she could phone me at six months and 12 months interval as a top up. So I knew that someone will still be monitoring the situation. After about another months of keeping a diary. My brain finally developed the ability to go through the process in one go from saying stop, understanding what the issue, finding an explanation for it, and then changing that thought process by reframing the issue all in one go. 15 years later at my worst times I still use this method.  If nothing it makes me concentrate on the problem not worry at it. 


There are literally thousands of self-help books out there and it can be a minefield to find the ones that work for you.  Having worked through quite a few here are some of my favourites and how and why they worked for me. 

An old one but one that stands the test of time. Dale Carnegies How to win friends and influence people. Personally I think the title does not do it justice, as the book isn’t about winning or influencing. It's more about human interactions and how a person should behave with their fellow humans. It’s full of wise quotes and stories that I turn to over and over again. I honestly believe that a lot of our negative thoughts come about due to our negative views on how other people see us. When in fact most of the time they are so busy living their own lives and having the same thoughts. Phrases from this book like God does not judge a man till the end of their time so why should you or I. Or when a politician chose a member of his cabinet from an opposing party when asked why? He stated because he's the right person for the job I don't judge him by my standards I judge him by how he stands by his own standards. I honestly think this book gave me so much insight in to human relationships and the need for us all to maintain such.  Often the quotes and stories have become mantras in my own personal life. It taught me to genuinely show interest in my fellow beings.

Another book I’ve often used or used in part is Steven Covey’s the 8th habit. I know he's more famous for the 7 habits of highly effective people and it's a great book but the 8th habit was the one that I learned more from. His book is about ’finding your voice and inspiring others to find there’s'. Seemed to me a natural philosophy for me one which I was taught from a young child, one of service to others. In this book he talks about ensuring there’s a balance between four parts of your life. Mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. That they are all regular maintained. If one level dips then this has a consequence on the others. It is important thus to keep them all in balance.

At one time the search for answers took me to a deeper level. It wasn't enough for me to know how to change my thinking. I needed to try and understand where these thoughts come from. I studied the work of a few psychoanalyst the usual Freud, Jung et al. The one that seemed to stand out and most relevant and practical for me was the thoughts on individual psychology by Alfred Adler a contempory of Freud’s.

Adler books understanding human nature, the science of living, and what life could mean to you were all devoured in trying to understand where our thoughts came from.

A deeper understanding of Adler led me to Eric Burns which led me to the practise of transactional analysis (TA). And his book the games people play. For an easier understanding of TA. I would recommend the book 'I’m ok you’re ok' and 'staying ok' by Thomas Harris.

The theory and practise of transactional analysis is based on the understanding that we have three people talking to us in our heads at all times. We have our child; which is things we've learnt as a child in our formative years. I.e. if I cry my mum will feed me. Our Parent; things that are taught us so this don’t do this from our elders and thirdly our own adult self. Whenever we try to make a decision these three have an internal dialogue. We need to examine these dialogues to try and understand which is right and follow that path.

So sometimes we will do things instinctively as above we know that crying or showing sad emotions brings us love and attention. But if where constantly given in to when we cry this can lead us to acting spoilt and throwing a tantrum when we don’t get our way. Similarly we may do something like be picky with our food and decide we don’t like something based on our parents never introducing it to us or saying they don't like it. There is also in this mix our own voices. The ideal is to look at these voices in circumstance of trouble and decide which of these voices is most relevant. Are you doing it because of the past, what you were taught, or what you decided? In the end you want to make the decisions not based on what you felt or what you were told but what is actually right. Thus having an adult conversation.

I must admit though all is still work in progress, things change new studies often show or teach us new things or techniques. That's why I don’t have just one technique I use some or all of them as is relevant or as needed. Some days RET may be enough other days may take more in depth sole searching and putting down some thoughts to bed by clearly understanding where they come from and actually realizing that those thoughts are based on my feelings or taught and are not relevant any more.

Mental health is a massive area and this blog won’t do it justice. This is just my personal journey to date. No matter what I've read or learnt sometimes you may need pharmaceutical help and your GP will prescribe you what is needed. Don’t be afraid to get help from professionals. They are an important part of the toolkit.