January 2015 - Be super resilient this year by Complete Wellbeing

“Adversity is the mother of progress.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Winner of the Medscape India award 2012 ISSN 2277 – 5153 VOL IX ISSUE 03 JANUARY 2015 ` 100

super resilient this year

LEARN HOW TO

EMERGE STRONGER FROM ANY CRISIS p22

Editor’s insights

Staying power

Manoj Khatri manoj.khatri@completewellbeing.com

infinitemanoj ManojKhatri

Resilience requires courage, patience and an a itude of standing firm during an unexpected crisis 02 JANUARY 2015 VOL IX ISSUE 03

icolo Paganini, a celebrated Italian violinist, was performing to a full house one evening. Towards the end of the concert, even as Paganini was thrilling the audience with one of his breathtaking compositions, one of the strings on his violin snapped. Not the one to be perturbed, Paganini ignored the now limp string and continued to play as if nothing had happened. Soon, a second string came off, which was followed by a third. The musician stood there with three strings dangling from his violin, even as the audience gasped. But instead of leaving the stage apologetically, he remained unfazed and calmly went ahead with his performance, completing it on the one remaining string. Paganini was resilient. Resilience is the ability to face and overcome adversity gracefully, even using it as an opportunity for self-growth. It requires courage, patience and an a itude of standing firm during an unexpected crisis. When I think of resilience, I remember the many survivors who have made it through unexpected hardships, some of them surviving nearly impossible conditions, to become examples for the rest of us. What is it that enables people to face unexpected setbacks—an unexpected financial loss, a painful heartbreak, a serious illness? What makes people come out triumphant in the face of the most trying circumstances? It’s their capacity to shi gears, to move from automatic reactivity to more flexible responsiveness, says Linda Graham. An experienced psychotherapist and author of the award-winning book Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Wellbeing, Linda combines modern neuroscience, mindfulness practices, and relational psychology to teach people skills that help them to become more resilient. Yes, resilience can be learned—and it’s not very difficult as Linda proves in this month’s cover story. “Skills needed to bounce back from adversity can be learned; resilience can be strengthened in the moment, over time, eventually becoming a way of being,” she writes as she shares real life examples to explain how we can cultivate a resilient mindset. The experiential tools she offers are so simple to use, you can test them right away. In their simplicity lies the power of effectiveness—you can use them anywhere, anytime, especially once you learn that your brain literally rewires itself at your command. Finally, when staring at an adverse situation, the words of Helen Keller might give you the strength you need to transcend it. She said: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” She knows; she is among the most resilient humans ever born.

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How to bounce back from setbacks By Linda Graham

In the spotlight 36 Vishwanathan Jayaram By Grazilia Almeida-Khatri

© Complete Wellbeing Publishing Pvt Ltd., All rights reserved. Reproduction, in part or in whole, in print, electronic or any other form, is strictly prohibited. DISCLAIMER | Complete Wellbeing is dedicated to providing useful, well-researched information on holistic health/wellbeing, but its contents are not intended to provide medical advice/diagnosis for individual problems or circumstances, or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Readers are advised to always consult their physician/healthcare professional/therapist, prior to starting any new remedy, therapy or treatment, or practice, or with any questions they may have regarding a medical/health condition. The views expressed by writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor, publisher, or Complete Wellbeing. Using masculine pronouns ‘he’, ‘him’ or ‘his’ for subjects of unknown gender is considered prejudicial. We respect both genders and hence use feminine and masculine pronouns interchangeably. Complete Wellbeing is not responsible for advertising claims.

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MANAGE >>

Mind & emotions 48 Worried about what people say? By Dinesh Kumar

EXPLORE >>

Perspective 33 Living a trash-free life By Lauren Singer

Common ailments 58 Your joint pains could be gout

Food & nutrition 51 Creating magic with oats

Parenting 64 Don’t bad mouth your ex, your

Sleep 54 Dreaming lucidly

By Shalini Suralkar

kids are listening

By Lisa Merlo-Booth

Living spaces 68 Cleaning your home, zen style By Leo Babauta

By Anjali Pathak

By Charlie Morley

Travel 88 The imaginary world of Cappadocia

By Lakshmi Sharath VOL IX ISSUE 03 JANUARY 2015 03

TRANSFORM >> UNLEARN >>

Self-help 78 No more new year resolutions

Consciousness 76 Stop hiding

UNWIND >>

By Osho

Humour 82 TV commercials that sell security

By Dwayna Covey

DISCOVER >>

REGULARS >>

Parenting 60 When kids choose off-beat

08 Events

careers

10 Talkback

By Sakshi Nanda

Self-help 74 Qualities of a magnetic personality

By Bijay Anand

By Sapan Verma

RESOLVE >>

Relationships 44 Receiving with grace By Wynrica Gonsalves

Marriage & intimacy 46 Choose happiness over a

17 Happy happenings 20 Write notes 42 CW Select 67 Month freshener 86 Culture club 92 Confession booth

hurtful relationship

95 New kits on the block

By Susanne Babbel

96 Reflections

Career & workplace 72 Common office stressors By Sathya Saran

04 JANUARY 2015 VOL IX ISSUE 03

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Explore prespective

LIVING

ZERO WASTE In a world consumed with consumption, Lauren Singer decided to stop generating trash and believes that it was the best decision of her life

WHEN I WAS 21 I stopped producing trash. I didn’t quit cold turkey; it was a gradual transition that started in an Environmental Studies course during my senior year at NYU. A classmate of mine would pull out a plastic bag filled with a plastic box of food, plastic utensils, a plastic bag of chips and a drink—you guessed it—in a plastic boĴle. I’d watch her, class aĞer class, throw it all into the garbage and I would get really upset. COMPLETE WELLBEING

One night I was feeling particularly frustrated aĞer watching her and went home to make dinner. I opened my fridge only to realise that every single thing that I had in there was packaged in plastic. Oops! There I was, an Environmental Studies student, constantly talking about how much I loved sustainability, geĴing upset at this girl that was plastic-ing everything, and it turned out I was that girl too! I felt like an absolute VOL IX ISSUE 03 JANUARY 2015 05

Lauren Singer is a NYC resident who lives a Zero Waste life. Her blog Trash is for Tossers is an attempt to document her Zero Waste journey and show that leading a Zero Waste lifestyle is simple, cost-effective, timely, fun and possible for everyone and anyone.

six diﬀerent deodorant recipes before I found one that worked well for me. In fact, I didn’t have any of the recipes I needed for any of the products I used. But that presented a fun challenge and I began to think about it as a game. Yesterday I transitioned away from toothpaste tubes, today I’m going to learn how to make my own lotion! Every new product that I learned to make was a step towards my Zero Waste goal and it was extremely exciting. Ultimately I went from a girl that was constantly talking about how much she cared about sustainability, to one that actually lives that way. Over the past few years I have learned some great ideas that even others can take to lessen their daily trash output.

How did I do this?

Step 1

Instead of buying packaged food, I began to shop in bulk. As opposed to buying beauty, cleaning and home products, I had to learn to make them myself. This proved to be a bit of a challenge as I definitely didn’t have a recipe for deodorant hanging about in my back pocket. I had to mess around with over

When I first started my transition towards becoming Zero Waste, I took a peek into my trash can and understood what was in there. For me, it was predominantly food packaging and food waste and so I thought about ways to eliminate them.

Evaluate your trash

Photo credit: www.trashisfortossers.com

Every new product I learn to make is a step towards my Zero Waste goal

hypocrite. So I made the decision to quit using plastic. Parting with plastic didn’t just mean eliminating plastic food packaging from my life; it meant evaluating all of the things that I used that were conventionally packaged in plastic and finding alternatives to them. When I couldn’t find products like toothpaste in plastic-free or recyclable packaging, I started to research recipes to make them myself. While researching alternatives to my everyday products, I came across a blog called Zero Waste Home that was started by Bea Johnson, a woman with two kids, a husband and zero trash. I was amazed. I thought, if a family of four can live without trash, I can too. So I took a leap and commi ed to going ‘Zero Waste’.

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Java Mint Scrub This scrub is made with everyday kitchen ingredients. Scrubbing your skin once or twice per week improves skin tone, promotes a quick turnover of skin cells, balances oil production, rids your pores of toxins and basically makes you look gorgeous! Ingredients: >> 1/2 cup coffee grounds >> 2 tbsp mint leaves or 2 peppermint tea bags >> 1/2 cup demerara cane sugar >> 1/2 cup coconut oil [if solid, melt it]

If you are using fresh mint, spread all the mint leaves onto a baking tray. Bake them at your oven’s lowest temperature for one hour and let them cool completely before crumbling them with your fingers into a powder. If you are using peppermint tea bags, snip the tea bags open and use the leaves. In a bowl combine the coffee, mint and sugar. Pour the oil over the ingredients and mix to combine. Store in a sealed jar.

To get rid of food packaging, I began buying my food unpackaged from the farmers market and my local grocery store. Instead of buying, say, baby carrots that came in a plastic bag, I bought whole carrots, which came without any packaging. I also learned to bring jars and co on bags to buy bulk items like grains and beans. To eliminate food waste, I began composting. I would take my food scraps, put them in a bowl and place it in my freezer so they did not smell in my fridge. I would then take them to my local compost drop oﬀ at the farmers’ market every Saturday.

Step 2 The low hanging fruit This step covers the more superficial but high-impact steps that one can take towards lessening their trash output. What you have to do is:

>> >> >> >> >>

Carry reusable bags to the store as opposed to taking plastic or paper bags Use a reusable water bo le instead of plastic water bo les Bring a mason [jam-sized] jar or reusable mug to the coﬀee shop as opposed to using a disposable cup Say NO to disposable plastic straws at bars, coﬀee shops, or juice shops and use a stainless steel, glass or bamboo straw Pack your own lunch in reusable containers and eat it with real silverware as opposed to disposable plastic forks and spoons.

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To reduce packaged waste I began buying unpackaged food

Step 3 Do it yourself Lots of everyday products come packaged in non-recyclable or diﬃcult-to-recycle packaging. Instead of trying to buy products and figure out if they are being recycled properly, I learned how to make them myself. I started out with something that was simple and easy like toothpaste. I then moved on to products like deodorant, moisturiser and even cleaning products. Becoming Zero Waste is not something you can do in a day, but decreasing the amount of trash you produce is something that can happen right now with a few simple steps. You might even find that you save money, have more time in your day and feel great!

VOL IX ISSUE 03 JANUARY 2015 07

Resolve

marriage & intimacy

Is it time to s y dieu? The decision to stay in or leave a diﬃcult marriage is by no means easy, but it is instrumental for your happiness

By Susanne Babbel

WHEN WE FIRST FALL in love with someone, we are in the honeymoon phase. We feel bu erflies in our stomach and are excited whenever we see the other person. We want to spend a lot of time together. Life seems easier somehow, and our partner’s flaws seem unimportant. Falling in love happens not only on a psychological level, but also on a biological one. When we love someone, we produce love hormones that help to lower our stress and anxiety levels and even expand our ability to trust and empathise. This is due to a

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hormone called oxytocin, which is considered a ‘bonding’ hormone and is produced when we are being sexual. It is also found in lactating women and helps them to connect with their babies. It’s a myth that everything should stay blissful in a relationship, and it’s normal to go through ups and downs. Nevertheless, sometimes we regain happiness by working on our relationship, and sometimes we need to leave it in order to be happy again. There are relationships where the partners are not com-

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patible, one person’s needs are not being met or one person has to compromise much more to meet the other person’s needs. Although I have seen many couples work out their problems in couple’s therapy, some relationships are just not a good fit, and some are too toxic due to addictions, verbal or physical abuse, an unhealthy lifestyle, a lack of understanding and blaming. Relationship issues can be solved as long as the partner recognises and admits to having a problem, is willing to work on it, and takes actions toward positive change. Otherwise, it will stay the same or possibly even get worse.

Why do we stay? Although, looking at a relationship from the outside, we might think it would be easy to leave if we were in a bad relationship, unfortunately this is not so. Some people are afraid to be alone, others worry about what society might think if they are single or divorced, and some are financially dependent on their partners. Another reason why it might be hard to leave is the fear that everyone will think there must be something wrong with you because your partner behaves normally in public and only acts out privately. We also tend to see our partner’s potential and yearn to help the other person become who he or she could be. Or we still have hopes of returning to happier times in the relationship. We have heard that even healthy relationships can be hard, so we don’t want to give up if the relationship can still be saved; on the other hand, we don’t know when to stop. Angela [name changed] was in a verbally abusive relationship in which she was constantly yelled at. Her husband persistently beli led her and didn’t listen to her. When I asked her why she didn’t leave, she explained, “I’m like a frog in warm water. A frog jumps out as soon as it learns it has jumped into hot water, but if the water gets gradually ho er, it gets used to it and won’t jump out—and it dies.” Sometimes we don’t realise how bad our relationship is until we read about a similar relationship, or we are already out of the situation, or someone tells us from an outsider’s COMPLETE WELLBEING

perspective what’s really going on. That was the case for Angela. Once she read Patricia Evans’s book titled The Verbally Abusive Relationship and talked to her on the phone, she understood the dynamic of her marriage and came to therapy to find the strength and selfesteem to leave. Usually, as a bad relationship goes on, our self-esteem declines to the point where we might need to seek some help to rebuild it.

Why we need to leave An environment that is too stressful and not nurturing or loving enough can cause depression and anxiety, as well as illness and chronic pain. In his book The Honeymoon Eﬀect, Bruce Lipton mentions that cells are shaped by their environment. He points out scientific experiments have shown that cells grow when love hormones such as oxytocin and dopamine enter the bloodstream. But when we produce stress hormones, the cells stop growing. Therefore, we need to make sure that we create the best environment possible for our self-care.

Susanne Babbel is an Integrative Therapist in San Francisco. Her passion for helping others has led her to her current occupation. She lectures, makes radio appearances, and is the author of many articles and an upcoming book.

How to regain happiness Happiness is about choosing to take a diﬀerent direction when you find that you are on the wrong path. A er Angela le her husband, she expressed, “Eventually I broke out of it, because it wasn’t a place where I could spend my life and I couldn’t fix it. Nor could I get him to fix it.” She continued, “I’m happier right now than I ever was.” Seeking out the right support system from friends, family, or a therapist helps you with your journey. Our subconscious beliefs create a large part of how we live our lives, so when you change your subconscious beliefs, you change your life too. Many methods are available to help you to change your subconscious beliefs, including Emotional Freedom Technique [EFT], PSYCH-K [Psychological Kinesiology] and Instant Emotional Healing. You have the power to be happy again, even if you can’t see that right now. When you shi your thinking and believe that you can be happy, when you focus on loving relationships and what you want, you’ll begin to a ract what you want.

VOL IX ISSUE 03 JANUARY 2015 09

Write notes

books, music, movies and more

Meaning comes alive

The OPA! Way By Alex PaĴakos and Elaine Dundon • Published by: BenBella Books • ISBN: 978-0525954187 • Pages: 255 • Price: ` 1350

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couple of months ago, on the occasion of our 8th anniversary issue, we wanted to choose a topic that would connect deeply with everyone alive. So we seĴled on ‘finding meaning in everyday life’. We then started looking for someone to write the cover story on such a profound and universally relevant topic. As providence would have it, we found Alex and Elaine, who had just finished writing their new book on that very subject. We invited them to write and they accepted, and wrote one of the most significant cover stories in Complete Wellbeing. Their new book The OPA! Way is now in stores. The book expands on the ideas presented in the cover story. But it’s not a run-of-the-mill self-help book. Far from it, The OPA! Way is an insightful odyssey that takes you back to the basics in a delightfully non-preachy style and tells you how you can weave joy and meaning into every single day. The book is based on the authors’ travels to Greece, the land of philosophers, where they learned the secrets of living a life filled with joy and meaning. What makes the book come alive is the narration—every chapter starts, and is interspersed, with personal anecdotes of the authors’ experiences and encounters with Greek folk. As they share their stories, we accompany them to the narrow lanes of Greek villages, visit Greek kafenios [cafés], spend time at the village plateia [public squares] and meet a variety of ordinary Greek folk who, through their words and actions, teach us that living joyfully each day is far easier than the struggles that most of us have become used to. Every chapter of The OPA! Way is sprinkled with generous doses of wisdom that strike a deep chord with our fundamental humanity. As an example, when you meet someone for the first time, the conversations are about making you comfortable and establishing a human connection before asking about work and accomplishments. So, instead of asking, “What do you do?” which is the common introductory question in the west, they might ask, “Which village are you from?” Throughout their travels within the country, Alex and Elaine were recipients of kindness from total strangers—people they would COMPLETE WELLBEING

New releases Between the Serpent and the Rope By Mukunda Rao • Published by: HarperCollins Publishers • ISBN: 9789351363200 • Pages: 222 • Price: `350

meet on the streets, or in cafés—they encountered gestures that reinforce the basic goodness of humans, despite how hopeless it seems to those of us living in large cities. Even though the book flows like water in the river, it has a basic structure. Divided into five sections that include an introduction to lay the foundation of the book, followed by the three main sections—connecting meaningfully with others, engaging with deeper purpose and embracing life with a itude—and finally concluding with a summary of the key OPA! lessons. To emphasise the ideas and insights that they gained, the authors extensively use quotes of Greek thinkers and philosophers including Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Heraclitus, Epictetus, Pythagoras, Hippocrates and many more. Another endearing aspect of the book is the Aesop’s fables that spring up every now and then, making a point that is at once simple and yet intense. The tales, although familiar, seem fresh and diﬀerent in the context of the ideas presented in the book, leaving you to contemplate on the meaning in the little things in life. The chapters end with a short OPA! aﬃrmation to help us remember the essence of the ideas contained in them. Indian readers may find a striking similarity in many aspects of the Greece and India—and may also recognise, albeit somewhat unhappily as I did, that we have been fast losing the heritage that makes our culture and tradition so rich and fulfilling. In blindly following the west in its mindless pursuit of wealth and possessions, we are paying a heavy price. But the good news is, we can all return to sanity. The OPA! Way is a reminder for all of us stop and reflect on why and how we are doing what we are doing. It tells us how we can bring greater joy and fulfilment into our daily lives by following the timeless and universal values that put us back in touch with our glorious humanness and our innate potential for bliss. Read this book if you feel empty or incomplete—or just to enjoy the many heartwarming stories that bring a smile on the lips.

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By Manoj Khatri

This book is a candid account of some of the most notable spiritual movements in South India. Mukunda Rao has covered spiritual masters like Shankaracharya, Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, Ramana Maharshi, J. Krishnamurti among others. He also takes a look at new age religious leaders like Sathya Sai Baba, Kalki Bhagavan, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Mata Amritanandamayi. In an era where spirituality and philosophy seems meted out by all and sundry, Rao has put the teachings of these leaders under the spiritual microscope. The book covers Rao’s journey to various ashrams and discourses and he views each encounter with a critical bend of mind.

The Vikramaditya Trilogy: Book 1 – Guardians of the Halahala By Shatrujeet Nath • Published by: Jaico Publishing House • ISBN: 9788184956382 • Pages: 428 • Price: `257 The Halahala is an all-devouring poison found at the bottom of the lake churned by the devas and asuras. Mistaken for amrut [the nectar of the Gods] the Halahala is brought to the surface but its poisonous fumes spread, killing every living being. In order to save the world, the devas and asuras combine forces and take the Halahala to Shiva, who drinks it. But a portion of it remains. Thousands of years later, the lost Halahala is found and now Shiva turns to mankind to guard it. It is now up to Samrat Vikramaditya and the Council of Nine to retrieve the Halahala and prevent the universe from disintegrating.

An Insider’s view of Emotional Trauma By Dinesh Kumar • Published by: Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd • ISBN: 9789381836859 • Pages: 194 • Price: `249 According to the World Health Organisation [WHO] depression, and not diabetes or hypertension, will soon be the world’s biggest killer. Unfortunately, even though India has progressed, there is still a block where mental health is concerned. People are often under the misconception that those who seek the help of counsellors are ‘mad’; Dinesh Kumar seeks to change that idea. Using real case studies, he deals with topics like marriage, adolescence, stress, suicide, anxiety and depression. You can read an excerpt from this book on page 48. VOL IX ISSUE 03 JANUARY 2015 11

Trending this month Adversity is a given and strikes everyone from time to time; it’s how you handle it that really counts. Unfortunately, we are not taught resilience in school. But the good news is that it’s never too late to learn how to bounce back from life’s setbacks. Using a mixture of science, psychology and mindfulness practices, Linda Graham teaches you how to cope with crisis, elegantly.

Being

super resilient

LEARN HOW TO EMERGE STRONGER FROM ANY CRISIS

“I am no longer afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” —Louisa May AlcoĴ I WAS WALKING FROM MY parked car to my oﬃce one morning, deep in a worrisome thought and not paying enough a ention to where I was walking. Suddenly, I mindlessly stepped into a sidewalk of freshly laid wet cement—up to my ankles. And the inner reactions just started cascading one a er the other: “How careless! Look what you’ve done. You’ll be late to work; you’ll probably lose your first client; you’ll have less income today.” I 12 JANUARY 2015 VOL IX ISSUE 03

was just about to fall into an all too familiar rabbit hole of berating myself for always being so stupid when another inner voice piped up: “Wait a minute! So I was pre-occupied! I’m sick and tired of winding up feeling lousy about myself when I was just unconscious for a moment. For once I’d like to just deal with something and not make it all about me being stupid.” I stood there in the cement, noticing all these COMPLETE WELLBEING

Resilience is the capacity to cope with the disappointments, difficulties, and disasters in life with flexibility, bouncing back from life’s setbacks with skill and adaptability, even grace

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diﬀerent reactions rushing through me, and realised that I did have a choice about how I was going to handle this. I picked up my feet and stepped onto dry land as construction workers headed over to help me. As I picked my shoes out of the cement, I tried a li le bit of compassion for myself. “Shit happens. I’m probably not the only person on the planet who made a mistake today because they weren’t paying a ention. And this probably isn’t the only mistake I’m going to make today. Sure, I’m a li le embarrassed in front of these guys, but that doesn’t mean anything more about me except that I just wasn’t paying a ention.” I took a couple of deep breaths, gave myself a quick li le hug, and walked over to a faucet conveniently sticking out of a nearby apartment building to wash oﬀ my shoes and feet. As I began to have some hope that I might even save my shoes [I did!], I noticed also some pride emerging that I was coping— with the outer event and with my inner reactions to it—as well as I was. By the time one of the construction workers gave me some paper towels to dry my shoes and feet, it dawned on me: “Yes, shit happens. Life is happening this way to me in this moment. But shiĞ happens, too.” I could open to the lesson of the moment: choosing to shi my perspective had allowed me to cope resiliently right there, right then. The experience also taught me, right there, right then, that shi ing perspectives and responding resiliently is possible in any moment, any moment at all.

The capacity to cope It’s the capacity to shi gears, to move from automatic reactivity to more flexible responsiveness, that is the hallmark of resilience. Resilience is the capacity to cope with the disappointments, diﬃculties, and disasters in life with flexibility, bouncing back from life’s setbacks with skill and adaptability, even grace. We are all called upon, every day, to cope with disruptive, unwanted changes in our lives—losing our wallet and car keys, discovering mould in the bathroom, leaving our laptop on the plane, dealing with the washing machine going on the fritz or the car needing a new transmission. Occasionally, we have to respond with grace to greater troubles and tragedies: infertility or infidelity, a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, losing a job, placing an aging parent in a nursing home—things we never asked for, things we deeply, deeply do not 14 JANUARY 2015 VOL IX ISSUE 03

want. Resilience is what allows us to cope with the pain and suﬀering inherent in the human condition by staying open to our experience and skilfully shi ing gears. Capacities of resilience are innate in the brain, hard-wired in by evolution. Some are unconscious and automatic—we don’t have to ‘learn’ the survival responses of fight-flight-freeze in the lower brain. They happen automatically without any need for conscious choice or processing. Other coping strategies are learned from interactions with other people, especially early on in life. We learn to withdraw in the face of criticism; we learn to walk out the door in tight-lipped anger when we feel insulted. These strategies can also operate unconsciously; 80 per cent of the time they do. But they can be brought to conscious awareness and rewired to become more resilient.

Learning to be resilient Because of the brain’s neuroplasticity—its lifelong capacity to grow new neurons and create new neural structure—we can also learn new more resilient coping strategies and rewire old, less adaptive ones, when we know how. Modern brain science is illuminating how the brain ‘learns’ its pa erns of response to life events in the first place so that we can learn to change them now. Any experience, any experience at all, positive or negative, causes neurons in the brain to fire. Repeated experiences will cause repeated neural firings. “Neurons that fire together, wire together,” strengthening the connections between them, and creating new neural pathways, even new neural circuitry. We’re learning how we can rewire our previously learned responses [“How stupid!”] to more flexible resilient responses [“I’m not the only person on

Neurons that fire together, wire together

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the planet today… ”]. This rewiring allows us to shi from the reactivity of the lower brain [very fast, but its range of options very limited] to the responsiveness of the higher brain [s-l-o-w, but very comprehensive in its range of options]. This shi in brain functioning allows us to shi our state of mind from a ‘poor me’ victim stance to an empowered ‘I’ and sense of agency, thus shi ing our behaviours to be more and more resilient. Skills needed to bounce back from adversity can be learned; resilience can be strengthened in the moment, over time, eventually becoming a way of being.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptive to change. — Charles Darwin I’ve organised the experiential tools to rewire the brain to become more resilient into four intelligences below; all of these tools create new experiences for your brain which, when repeated over time, help the brain learn how to shi gears and bounce back.

Somatic intelligence When the body-brain senses danger or life threat, it releases the stress hormone cortisol to mobilise us into action. We respond to an external stressor with an internal stress response. Cortisol works; we move. But it can also hĳack the functioning of the pre-frontal cortex—the brain’s centre of executive functioning, which I call the CEO of resilience. We literally can’t think straight. In the long term, cortisol also damages brain cells in the hippocampus, the brain structure we use for learning and the installation of long-term memory. Cortisol also severely impacts the immune system, compromising our physical health. The fastest way to down-regulate the stress response and reduce the flow of cortisol is through touch, because warm, safe touch activates the release of oxytocin, the hormone of safety and trust. Oxytocin is the brain’s direct and immediate antidote to the stress hormone cortisol. It returns our body-brain to a state of physiological equilibrium and brings the functioning of the pre-frontal cortex back online.

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Rewiring our brain allows us to shift from our habitual reactivity to responsiveness

Hand on the heart One technique, powerful enough to calm down a panic a ack in less than a minute, is called hand on the heart. When you notice distress or discomfort: 1. Place your own hand on your own heart centre [the warm touch begins to activate the release of oxytocin] 2. Breathe deeply [activating the parasympathetic or calming branch of the nervous system] 3. Breathe a sense of peace or ease or goodness into your heart centre [restoring the heart’s coherent heart rate variability] 4. Then, take a moment to remember an instance when you felt safe, loved and cherished by someone. This someone could be a partner or close friend; it could be a spiritual figure or beloved teacher; it could even be a pet.

VOL IX ISSUE 03 JANUARY 2015 15

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