14fgfdsb

THE

Change ISSUE

HOW TO DETECT PROJECTION KNOW WHEN YOUR MIND DECEIVES YOU

SELF-TALK OVERHAUL LESS CRITIQUE, MORE CONFIDENCE

ARE YOU EVOLVING? WHERE YOU ARE ON THE CHANGE CONTINUUM

BEING APART TOGETHER

FIND YOUR TRUE CALLING CAREER GUIDANCE FROM YOUR UNCONSCIOUS

HOW TO BE PARTNERS AND SEPARATE PEOPLE

NICOLE KIDMAN “...I still feel so open and curious and want to always be jumping off the cliff with the abandonment of a 21-year-old.”

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VOLUME 2 NO. 1 / JANUARY 2018

[ JANUARY 2018 ]

THIS ISSUE

38 [ COVER STORIES ] 18

ON THE COVER: NICOLE KIDMAN After decades in Hollywood, film doyenne Nicole Kidman still feels like a 21-year-old at heart

38 SELF-TALK OVERHAUL Are the conversations you have with yourself holding you back?

48 PROJECTION MECHANISM How to tell whether what you see in others belongs to them or you

58 MIND FOOD Forget dieting. Reduce food guilt and restore natural appetite cues with mindful eating

18 70

70 QUIZ: DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR? Use the art and science of listening to build rapport and enhance influence

84 CALL OF THE WILD Beneath your conscious ambition are hints to your true calling.

Harness depth psychology to find your dream career

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80 AMBITIOUS BALANCE From paralysis to burnout and panic attacks, these successful women reveal what prompted them to value wellbeing and how newfound balance benefits their work

90 DAY IN THE LIFE: C-PTSD CEO Leonie Newton discusses her path through teenage substance abuse to hidden alcoholism as a high functioning professional and discovering the cause of her distress after years of confusion

[ BEING WITH ] 94 BETWEEN US:

[ UP CLOSE ] 24 ROLLING STONE To coincide with this year’s Australian Open, Emma Stone discusses playing feminist tennis icon Billie Jean King and enduring gender inequality

[MIND SPACE ] 42 STATUS ANXIETY How comparisons fuelled by social media fuel a me-too mentality that undermines individuality and potential

52 DO YOU NEED A LIFE COACH? The truth about the coaching industry and how to tell good from bad

[IN DEPTH] 62 THE WILLPOWER PARADOX Hidden resolution roadblocks and strategies to clear them 66 OPPOSITES ATTRACT What would it be to like to spend a day doing everything 180 degrees from usual? Writer Madeleine Dore road tests an adult ‘opposite day’

74 CHANGE THE PROBLEM.

POETIC LICENCE When the woman who edited a book Shelagh Brennand had written to aid her stroke recovery suffered a brain injury, the two formed an intense bond over uncommon understanding

98 THE ART OF

116 [ DISCOVERY ] 104 BOOKS AS THERAPY Whether you want to enhance selfconfidence, tolerate others’ annoying habits or trade your cynicism for faith in the world’s goodness, find perspective with the aid of these profound literary classics

110 YES DETOX If your breathing space and me-time get lost beneath shoulds and musts, start the new year with a ‘yes detox’

GROWING APART Relationship dynamics change as each partner grows within and beyond the couple. Navigate individual and common growth needs with this roadmap

114 DESIGNING OUTSIDE

102 IT’S NOT US, IT’S ME Is your insecurity pushing your partner away?

116 RETREAT VERSUS RESORT

98

THE LINES Interior designer Lorena Gaxiola shows how to strategically break the rules to create a bespoke space that evolves as you do While a holiday can relieve stress, the skills inherited at a retreat may realise longer term benefits. We rate their relative strengths and weaknesses

126 SKIN PSYCHOLOGY If your skin flares in times of stress or resists topical treatments, psychological issues may be to blame. Explore the emerging field of psychodermatology

128 FACE FORECAST Make-up artist Mel Von Stanke predicts the hottest products and looks for 2018

[ REGULARS ] 12

THE LENS News and views you can use

CHANGE YOUR WORLD. Why relinquishing the familiarity and assurance of adhering to social mores can open the way to entire new worlds

muse’s expert columnists discuss this month’s theme

78 PERSONALITY FORECAST

120 BEAUTY

Which parts of your personality are amenable to change and which you need to learn to live with

30 SPECTRUM

muse’s gift wish list

www.musemag.com.au musemag.com.au | muse magazine |

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[ EDITOR’S LETTER ]

I

feel as though I should start this letter with a multiple choice: change is A. Something you’ve been considering as a step towards how you’d like to be (healthier, less stressed, freed from the tyranny of perfectionism). B. Something you have no reason to do because you’re pretty satisfied with how life is.

C. Essential if you’re going to slide into your thin jeans or stop being mediocre (dear Ms Average, you could be amazing). If you imagine change as a mandate coinciding with the start of the calendar year (look for the word ‘transformation’, and possibly a tantalising timeline such as 12 weeks), keep enjoying that d’affinois. As motivators, prescribed ideals do a lousy job. While they may seem like ‘towards’ goals – and you may feel like you really want them (don’t miss the feature on the genesis of self-talk) – they’re veiled bids to flee something unsatisfactory. As positive psychology expert Suzy Green’s column on stages of change suggests, in appraising and pursuing change, you need a good ‘why’ – and someone else’s idea of how you should be pales against intrinsic motivation or true desire. Sarah McMahon expands the idea in her column on body image – because weight loss is one of the most common cultural prescriptions issued this time of year.

That’s not to advocate settling or tolerating something you consider sub-optimal. The key is discerning between this and that, another clue to which may be depth versus superficiality. While good change goals needn’t be steeped in profound notions or prose (although a sage quote can help to elucidate motive and impart a metaperspective), things like career goals, travel aspirations and family ambitions are more likely to qualify. I encourage you to read about the fascinating perspective depth psychology lends to the whole life purpose question, and what your unconscious mind can reveal about vocation.

Often the core of positive change is learning a new skill or building on existing ones (if you’re flirting with the idea of a fad diet or detox, don’t miss the tutorial on mindful eating). Relatedly, good change tends to be gradual. As such, we’ve approached this issue in the spirit of evolution rather than

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revolution and considered change in the context of its environment (rather than viewing change as something you could do on a desert island before coming back new and improved). For instance, learning to be a more agile listener could improve personal and professional relationships – with myriad fringe benefits. Discover your communicative adaptability quotient in this month’s quiz.

This slowly-slowly route may reconcile the conflict to which Nadine Cameron alludes, between coveting novelty and loyalty to our comfort zones (or mortal fear of stepping beyond them). It may also help to consider that change is rarely linear and that, as the stages of change model attests, relapse doesn’t necessarily negate progress (two steps forward, one step back). Falling off the wagon is quite different to failure. Also in the vein of subtlety and discernment of things ostensibly similar, but actually markedly different, is the feature on projection and transference. How much of what you imagine about others actually comes from within you? Something to ponder at the start of the new year, during which I hope you find curiosity and wonder, challenge and uncertainty, and learning and discovery – especially about yourself.

REBECCA LONG // EDITOR

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Think. Create. Become.

EDITORIAL Editor Rebecca Long rebecca@blitzmag.com.au Editorial Assistant Natasha Thompson Copy Editor Molly Morelli Managing Editor Ben Stone Contributing Writers David Goding, Stephanie Osfield, Madeleine Dore, Ciara Cremin, Joanna Barry, Hayley Jach

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ART Javie D’Souza Diep Nguyen, Henry Lee, James Steer, Zeenia Bhikha

DIGITAL & ONLINE Head of Digital Strategy Karl Nemsow Senior Web Developer David Ding Online Editor Christine Assirvaden PHOTOGRAPHY Cover Photography Nicole Kidman / Art Streiber / Raven & Snow Feature Photography Thinkstock/ Pexels ADVERTISING SALES National Advertising Manager Kerrie Brooks kerrie@blitzmag.com.au Advertising Manager Aleksandra Blazeski aleksandra@blitzmag.com.au

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Silvio Morelli Ben Stone Stefania Minuti

ADMINISTRATION & CUSTOMER SERVICE Finance Min You Subscriptions Manager & Customer Service Angelina Modica Marketing & Promotions Manager Frances Ricchetti customerservice@blitzmag.com.au Phone: (03) 9574 8999 Fax: (03) 9574 8899 PO Box 4075, Mulgrave, 3170 musemag.com.au Articles published in this issue of muse Magazine are Copyrighted Š 2017 and are published by Blitz Publications and Multi-media Group Pty Ltd under license from Bushi Pty Ltd.

DISCLAIMER Opinions and viewpoints expressed in muse do not necessarily represent those of the editor, staff or publisher. Reproduction of any material without written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. The acceptance of advertising does not necessarily imply endorsement of services or products.

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POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

DR SUZY GREEN clinical psychologist A leader in the complementary fields of coaching psychology and positive psychology, Suzy conducted a world-first study on evidence-based coaching as an applied positive psychologist. The clinical and coaching psychologist founded The Positivity Institute – ‘a positively deviant organisation dedicated to the research and application of positive psychology for life, school and work’. Her roles include honorary academic positions at three esteemed education institutions as well as the Black Dog Institute. She’s an affiliate of the Well Being Institute at Cambridge University.

Contrary to tropes that equate ‘falling off the wagon’ with failure, relapse is a normal, expected part of change. (p. 34)

MINDFULNESS

DR ELISE BIALYLEW A doctor trained in psychiatry-turned-social entrepreneur, Elise is passionate about supporting individuals and organisations to develop inner tools to flourish, and offers workshops and training at the Mind Life Project. She is the founder of global mindfulness campaign Mindful in May, which teaches thousands of people worldwide to meditate while raising funds to build clean water projects in the developing world.

PREFERRED EXPERTS WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH PERINATAL & INFANT MENTAL HEALTH

DR JULIA FEUTRILL perinatal and infant psychiatrist Julia Feutrill is a perinatal and infant psychiatrist who cares for young families from preconception to middle childhood. She has worked across the mental health sector in Western Australia and is currently co-director of the Elizabeth Clinic, a specialist multidisciplinary health service for families.

PROF JAYASHRI KULKARNI psychiatrist During three decades in psychiatry, Jayashri has pioneered the novel use of oestrogen as a treatment for schizophrenia and is internationally acknowledged as a leader in the field of reproductive hormones and their impact on mental health. The president of the International Association of Women’s Mental Health, she directs a large psychiatric research group, the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc), dedicated to discovering new treatments, new understanding and new services for people with a range of mental illnesses.

PHILOSOPHY

DR NADINE CAMERON Academic, wellbeing consultant and meditation teacher, Dr Nadine Cameron has been engaged in a number of projects designed to encourage philosophical thought about aspects of everyday life including art, getting dressed and using leisure time. A faculty member of The School of Life, Australia, she has a PhD in mental health and particular interests in the theoretical and practical intersections of wellbeing and the body and emotional intelligence and community. Nadine attended the Victorian College of the Arts, where her focus was photography and majored in politics in her BA.

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Constantly seeking novelty – which can distract from uncomfortable emotions because it takes more brain power to process than the familiar – defers and possibly even exacerbates the inevitable. (p.36)

SEX & RELATIONSHIPS

YOUTH

PROF PATRICK MCGORRY

ALINDA SMALL

psychiatrist

Consulting as a relationship counsellor and sex therapist in private practice, Alinda Small specialises in helping clients who struggle to form and maintain relationships, couples in crisis and sexual dysfunction. A mother of three, Sydney-based Alinda has a psychology degree and is currently completing her Masters in medicine, science and sexual health at The University of Sydney.

Professor Patrick McGorry is an Irish-born Australian psychiatrist known worldwide for his development of the early intervention services for youth.

The 2010 Australian of the Year, he is executive director of Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, professor of Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, president of the Society for Mental Health Research in Australia and president of the Schizophrenia International Research Society.

Patrick was instrumental in the Australian government’s establishment of the National Youth Mental Health Foundation (now Headspace).

relationship counsellor/sex therapist

Willpower is both exhaustible and subject to changes in mood and energy. Changing habits is better done by altering the environment. (p. 30. )

WHO WE’VE GOT ON SPEED-DIAL

CHILDREN/PARENTING MIND-BODY MEDICINE

DR CRAIG HASSED Craig’s medical background and interest in the mind-body connection have positioned him as a leader in integrative medical practice in Australia and abroad.

His teaching, research and clinical interests include mindfulness-based stress management, mind-body medicine, meditation, health promotion, integrative medicine and medical ethics. He was the founding president of the Australian Teachers of Meditation Association, is a senior lecturer at Monash University and has published 10 books.

DR ASH NAYATE neuropsychologist Ash is a transformational coach and clinical neuropsychologist with a passion for holistic wellbeing and plant-based living. With more than 10 years’ experience in the health, developmental and medical fields, Ash incorporates coaching principles to assist clients who are seeking to achieve health and wellness goals, attain more balance in their lives, improve emotional stability, overcome addictive behaviours and increase levels of happiness and fulfilment. Ash is committed to continual and ongoing selfdevelopment, and she has personal interests in fitness, yoga, travel, integrative nutrition and alternative medicine.

BODY IMAGE & EATING

SARAH MCMAHON psychologist Sarah embraces industry-leading best practice and advocates for ‘health at every size’ to help people establish a healthy and balanced relationship with eating, exercise and their bodies.

Her personal style and approachable manner supports her clients in aligning values and behaviour to achieve a happy and meaningful life.

Sarah is the director of BodyMatters in Sydney.

What if we do accept that how we look is not the real problem?

This in itself takes guts because the habituated self-talk and practices of body shame engender a sense of safety. (p. 32 )

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[ THINK ]

SLEEPLESS WITH THE ENEMY

If you tell yourself you can make up for Friday’s four hours of sleep by lying in on Sunday, you could be doing permanent damage to your brain. Extended wakefulness leads to permanent loss of brain cells integral to alertness and cognition, according to research published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Previous studies showed that attention span remains compromised after three days of catch-up sleep.

LITTLE WHITE LIES

When it comes to spotting a liar, intuition may be a more accurate gauge than conscious assessment. In fact, conscious awareness may cause us to over-rely on behaviours supposedly stereotypical of liars and miss other signs according to research published in Psychological Science. Averted eyes or fidgeting were common hallmarks erroneously assumed to indicate lying. In the study, people asked to identify liars did so just 43 per cent of the time.

A second experiment confirmed that people may have some intuitive sense, outside of conscious awareness, that detects deceit.

3

The number of minutes after the heart stops for which consciousness and awareness appear to continue.

While common theory suggests that experiences after death are hallucinations induced by brain chemistry changes while the heart is beating (the brain switches off 20 to 30 seconds after the heart), a four-year global study of cardiac arrest cases suggests that the structured narrative and easy recall of experiences were unlikely to be processes of the brain.

MIGRAINE MANAGEMENT For migraine sufferers, a sudden reduction in stress may trigger an attack.

Experiencing reduced stress from one day to the next significantly increases migraine sufferers’ risk of an attack on the subsequent day, according to research published in online journal Neurology. Sudden reductions in stress – think yoga class – were linked to a nearly five-fold increased risk of migraine onset. The hormone cortisol, which rises during times of stress and reduces pain, may contribute to the triggering of headache during periods of relaxation, researchers said, recommending ongoing stress management to prevent extreme spikes.

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MEMORY CARD

Watching an emotional film or channelling a highly charged memory may help you to remember events occurring in the next half-hour, according to research published in Nature Neuroscience. Events and information encountered in a so-called hangover phase of strong emotion may be better remembered than standard experiences, according to the study of subjects exposed to emotion-evoking stimuli before viewing neutral images. The memory-enhancing states associated with emotional experiences lasted 20 to 30 minutes and influenced the way the subjects processed and remembered future experiences, experts said.

[ CREATE ]

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STRESS TEMPO

Whether you flourish or wither under pressure can be predicted by heartbeat variability. Concordia University research found that a variable heartbeat at rest indicates an active pararsympathetic nervous system, which enables humans to restore calm in the face of real or perceived threats (think written warning or lion). Conversely, those with a stable heartbeat were more likely to run out of patience and remain stressed due to an underactive PSNS.

BOREDOM PARADOX Focusing on the boring bits of a recent experience may lead to greater happiness than recalling the highlights, according to a series of studies published in Psychological Science. Previous research shows that coaxing yourself to turn up to fully be in the present, and celebrating it, is more conducive to happiness than singling out experiences foreign to your everyday life.

DOWN-TIME DIVIDEND FLYING SOLO

Social withdrawal has been associated with lifelong adverse effects, but research suggests that some forms of solitude may enhance creativity. The form of withdrawal known as unsociability was unrelated to negative outcomes but strongly linked to creativity, according to the journal Personality and Individual Differences. The motivation for social withdrawal may determine whether it aids or inhibits positive outcomes, according to lead author Julie Bowker. While withdrawing due to fear or anxiety or disliking social interaction, those who are unsociable simply prefer spending time alone and may benefit from doing so.

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The average number of times per hour that email users switch windows.

That’s compared to 18 times per hour for those not using email. A five-day email detox may reduce stress and foster better focus, according to recent research. Rather than experiencing a fear of missing out, those who disconnected reported lower stress, which researchers attributed to the absence of a ‘high alert’ state caused by digital multitasking. If you can’t go digital free, try mitigating email stress by controlling email login times, batching messages and taking breaks from email during work time.

Mandating high-quality me-time not only improves psychological wellbeing, it can also improve work performance. According to research presented to the British Psychological Society, participants who experienced the highest quality me-time – as opposed to the most me-time – reported better work-life balance and wellbeing, and greater engagement at work. “Interestingly, we found that me-time doesn’t have to be solitary and is more beneficial if it involves freely chosen activities,” said Birkbeck, University of London’s Dr Almuth McDowall.

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[ BECOME ]

SELFESTEEM HIT

LEXICON

SPECIFIC MUSIC ANHEDONIA

Certain types of high self-esteem may be less advantageous than self-love memes would have us believe. Unlike healthy ‘secure’ self-esteem, those with ‘fragile’ high self-esteem may be verbally defensive, undermining the benefits of their self-belief, according to a psychology professor from the University of Georgia.

“People with fragile high self-esteem compensate for their self-doubts by engaging in exaggerated tendencies to defend, protect and enhance their feelings of self-worth,” said Michael Kernis. Defensive verbalisation or lashing out at others when a person’s opinions, beliefs, statements or values are threatened is among deficits distinguishing those with fragile high self-esteem from those with secure high self-esteem. Conversely, people with secure high selfesteem appear to harbour genuine self-acceptance and have less need to blame others or make excuses.

Sufferers of the condition are unable to derive pleasure from music. The condition identified in a report in Current Biology doesn’t necessarily interfere with enjoyment of other rewards such as food, sex and money, researchers said.

COMFORT FOOD CURE If you tend to self-soothe with food but have resolved to find comfort in healthier ways, try writing about your favourite comfort food when you feel distressed or anxious.

Comfort foods are often linked to ideas of significant others, so thinking about Mum’s spaghetti bol may make you feel connected despite her absence, according to a University of Buffalo study. Participants who wrote about favourite comfort foods reported feeling less lonely than peers who didn’t.

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10

The percentage of midlife adults who report having no friends, according to a study linking a wide circle of friends you see regularly with psychological health in midlife. Compared with those with 10 or more regular contacts, smaller networks of friends at the age of 45 were associated with significantly lower levels of psychological wellbeing for both sexes according to the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. One in three women reported having six or more friends they saw frequently.

Women with no friends suffered a greater wellbeing penalty than men, losing four points compared with 2.6 points.

EXHALE STRATEGY

Overwhelm might begin in your head, but once your body’s released stress hormones, telling yourself to relax is futile, as a physiological chain reaction perpetuates stress. The exhalation component of deep breathing is thought to activate the body’s primary pacifying nerve, the vagus nerve, unlike shallow breathing, which disables the vagus nerve, effectively perpetuating the stress response.

TRY • Sit or lie in a quiet place and observe your breath as you take one normal breath and one slow, deep one.

Let the air travelling via your nose filter into your lower abdomen, allowing it to expand fully. Breathe out through your mouth. Alternate normal and deep breaths several times, noticing how you feel with each.

Place a hand on your tum (it should rise and fall a few centimetres as you breathe) and repeat for about 10 minutes.

Adapted from ‘Stress Management: Approaches for Preventing and Reducing Stress’.

Photography - Tommika Valente www.tommikavalente.com. Model -Darcy Spinks @ Giant Management.

© 2017 VIVA PRESS UK FOR MUSE MAGAZINE // PHOTOGRAPHY: TRISTAN FEWINGS/FRENCH SELECT FOR AMFAR

[ UP CLOSE ]

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KIDMAN AT HEART From a kid in BMX Bandits to a film doyenne whose staying power mocks the myth that only youth survives Hollywood, Nicole Kidman combines serious star appeal with endearing childlike curiosity.

musemag.com.au | muse magazine |

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[ UP CLOSE ]

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was raised – to stand up for what you believe and not fit in.”

That attitude certainly applies to her latest film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, in which she plays the wife of a surgeon (Colin Farrell) and watches as a strange 16-year-old boy enters their lives and exerts a mysterious hold on their family. Lanthimos (Dogtooth, The Lobster) is notorious for his profoundly disturbing narrative journeys and Kidman was anxious to enter his bizarre universe.

“At this stage in my life I want to stay very bold and open, and try things and support filmmakers that I believe in... Yorgos [Lanthimos] is one of those directors who has a very unique filmmaking style and... I’m totally up for taking risks...and supporting people who are trying different things.

“When I was younger, I would try to fit into a formula, but that never worked for me. I was being advised to do big American movies, and as soon as I freed myself artistically to follow filmmakers and storytellers, I found my passion.”

Certainly, the limited series format of Big Little Lies enabled Kidman to create and develop a character with exceptional depth and gravitas in what was effectively a sevenhour feature film edited and formatted into seven distinct televised episodes. The series not only captured a massive audience but it triggered a swath of articles and commentaries about the ongoing process whereby major movie stars are increasingly drawn to cuttingedge TV/streaming productions while the major studios are abandoning dramas in favour of comic book blockbusters.

“I cannot believe how it entered the zeitgeist. It’s really been a huge eye opener for me on the power of television, the power of that particular story and how it connected. It was glorious, actually,” says Kidman. “While it was on, the way people were coming up, saying: ‘What happens next?’ They were obsessed. It was beautiful. I was very much part of people’s lives.”

An outspoken advocate for women’s rights and in particular a vociferous proponent of equal pay for women in Hollywood, Kidman applied her feminist mindset in co-producing

PHOTOGRAPHY: RUNE HELLESTAD- CORBIS/ CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

N

icole Kidman has already given as many bravura performances as any actor can rightfully be expected to deliver in one lifetime. But this has been an exceptionally rich period of late for the lithe, supremely poised Australian. Her Oscar nomination for Lion kicked off 2017. This reassuring nod of approval from her American colleagues was followed, in December, by a standing ovation back home, as kidman picked up Best Supporting Actress (Lion) and Best Guest or Supporting Actress (Top of the Lake: China Girl) at AACTA. And if that were not enough, Kidman has also drawn kudos for her work in two high profile indie films, The Beguiled, directed by Sofia Coppola, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

But it was Kidman’s portrayal of battered housewife Celeste Wight in Big Little Lies that set Hollywood on fire. Many critics have gone on record proclaiming that it was the finest performance of her distinguished career. It is no wonder then that Kidman’s contributuion to the critically-acclaimed HBO TV series earnt her the Emmy for Best Actress.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that Kidman is winning such plaudits in a year that saw her turn 50, an age that has traditionally seen female film stars fade from glory. But times are a-changing, and just as Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, and other women are proving, Nicole has just begun a brave new era in which she feels unbound and more open to new challenges than ever.

“I’m blown away,” she says. “For all this confluence of events and success to be happening in the year that I turn 50, that feels really powerful and makes me unbelievably thankful. I’m also anxious to keep taking more risks in my work than ever. I’ve always had the kind of attitude where I tell myself, ‘Why not?’ when it comes to working with new directors and wanting to explore different kinds of stories and characters...”

“Emotionally, I still feel so open and curious and want to always be jumping off the cliff with the abandonment of a 21-year-old. I’ve fallen off that cliff a few times. But my husband reminds me I’m not a people pleaser because I say what I think and I don’t choose roles that are going to please, and that’s just the way I

Nicole Kidman attends the Headline Gala Screening & UK Premiere of The Killing of a Sacred Deer during the 61st BFI London Film Festival on October 12, 2017 in London, England.

Kidman at heart

Big Little Lies together with good friend Reese Witherspoon.

Based on the eponymous best-seller by Australian author Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies made TV history in that it was the first series of its scope ever to feature five talented actresses – Kidman, Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and rising star Zoe Kravitz – in the main starring roles.

“There are five great roles here [for women]. It’s very, very rare. I like working with women, but first of all I like to find the right stories. For years I’ve worked to support women in all fields. And I believe in sisterhood. I learned so much from having a feminist mother who in the ’60s fought for our rights and has always been involved in social work... We are sisters in the world and we have to support each other.”

As Celeste, a mother of twin boys married to Perry (Alexander Skarsgard, who would win a Best Supporting Actor Emmy for his work), an abusive, jet-setting businessman, Kidman invested herself fully in a highly compelling and shattering role. While shooting Big Little Lies, Kidman realised that the role was far more physically and psychologically demanding than she expected.

“It was deeply disturbing playing her,” says Kidman. “It’s a complicated character and I definitely felt the weight of it... A lot of times I can move away from the character very easily. This (one) I found a lot harder to move away from... It’s a very volatile relationship.

They inflict pain on each other and there is an enormous amount of danger. At the end of a day’s shooting I’d go home and sit in the bath and cry.”

Celeste and Perry’s underlying relationship is fraught with psychodrama and that was part of what drew the fearless Aussie actress to the role in the first place: “We wanted it to be complicated. We didn’t want it to be black and white, because so many of these relationships are very complicated...

There’s an addictive quality for them, and the way in which they’re both culpable and the way in which they can’t get away from each other because there is love there. Deep love.

And they have two children, which made it even more difficult (for her) to see a way out.”

Audience reaction to her portrait of a woman who finds it difficult to escape a horrifically abusive relationship was as intense as it was personal. Kidman was particularly impressed by her first taste of the power of a small-screen drama like Lies to reach viewers in a more intimate fashion than anything she had previously done in film.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID M BENETT/DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGESK

“At this stage in my life I want to stay very bold and open, and try things and support filmmakers that I believe in.”

“People would want to reach out and touch me. I got so many emails and people talking to me about it, which I like because it’s a really complicated relationship. I obviously understand it, so I’m able to talk about it in complex detail. It’s so based in shame, and the desire to protect her husband and family.

“Before playing Celeste I read a lot and did as much as I could to inform myself about domestic violence. It’s a subject that I already had some knowledge about because I have been working for years with UN Women, The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, which also deals with violence.”

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Nicole Kidman arrives at the amfAR Gala Cannes 2017 at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc on May 25, 2017 in Cap d'Antibes, France.

Kidman spoke to several battered wives prior to the filming. and in the course of those conversations came away with a heightened appreciation of her marriage to singer Keith Urban.

“Keith and I always say that we are just so lucky to have each other. In this world, to be able to come back to that love and that strength is so nourishing and powerful.

“I always say this and I’m not tired of repeating it: without Keith I would not be able to do the work that I’m doing. Our marriage is so strong that it feels therapeutic; there’s this wonderful bond between us. When something positive happens to me, we both feel overjoyed, and vice versa. I still can’t believe how we found each other. Keith is my rock.”

Married to Urban for the past 11 years, Kidman is as devoted to their happiness as she is to looking after their two daughters, Sunday, 8, and Faith, 6. They live in Nashville, which is mecca to her husband, one of the giants in the country and western musical world. Together they have managed to find a pleasant rhythm to their private and professional lives.

“As an actress (you’re always) trying to balance motherhood with the work you want to do,” says Kidman. “I’m fortunate in the sense that I’m married to a musician, so our schedules are able to be juggled. I keep it simple in that regard.”

She adds: “I’ve worked a lot, (but) I don’t have to work. I work because it is still my passion... I would also like to continue collaborating with women I admire, as I recently did with Sofia Coppola for The Beguiled and with Jane Campion for Top of the Lake 2.”

Does success still matter as much to Kidman today as it did earlier in her illustrious career? She looks at success in existential terms.

“What is success, really? As a young girl it meant coming to America, acting on Broadway. Then, over the years, success became synonymous with love, because it doesn’t always last. Keith and I keep saying to each other: we are so lucky to have each other, to have the same need to be protective and supportive of each other. When you have gone through so many things over the years and your parents are aging, the strength of your relationship and your family is your success!”

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A bend in the road is not the end of the road… Unless you fail to make the turn.

- HELEN KELLER

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ROLLING

STONE

Between the successful launch of women’s football and this year’s Australian Open, Emma Stone reflects on playing feminist tennis heroine Billie Jean King while lamenting the lack of progress in the past 40 years.

WORDS BY: JAN JANSSEN

I

t’s been a very good last 12 months for Emma Stone. On top of winning the Oscar for La La Land, she was recently anointed the world’s highestpaid movie actress (with $26 million in yearly earnings) by Forbes magazine. Now she’s earning kudos for her performance as Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes, a film that revisits the historic 1973 exhibition match between the then-reigning US women’s tennis champion King and 55-year-old former men’s champion Bobby Riggs.

It was a clash that evolved from an absurd publicity stunt – Riggs had goaded King into the match by trashing the quality of women’s tennis and the feminist movement – into a feminist cause celebre that made international headlines and attracted 90 million viewers to the prime time television broadcast. The event turned King, already an outspoken advocate for equal pay for women in tennis and a co-founder of the Women’s Tennis

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Association, into an instant feminist icon. Not only was she a powerful champion of the women’s movement, but she would later become a staunch advocate for gay rights. Stone, who herself has been at the forefront in the battle for equal pay for women in Hollywood, jumped at the chance to play King.

“It was both fascinating and scary to play Billie Jean,” says Stone. “She was both an icon and an activist who inspired so many women not only as a great tennis player but as an advocate for equal pay and equal rights for women. The match was a key moment in history and she has done so much for feminism and for the LGBTQ community. I was so proud to be able to tell her story.”

Aside from the actual tennis match – billed as the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ – much of the film deals with King’s struggle with her sexual identity and her nascent affair with Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough), her hairdresser at the time.

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©VIVA PRESS 2017 FOR MUSE MAGAZINE // PHOTOGRAPHY: KEVIN WINTER / GETTY IMAGES

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In her preparation for the role, Stone spent several months on the tennis court so that she could look credible swinging a racquet in the film while also undergoing a rigorous weight training programme that saw her pack on 12 pounds of muscle to her normally lithe frame.

“It was important to try to reflect the physicality of a top athlete like Billie Jean. I had to get very fit and toned and look stronger.

I’ve never liked training and working out in the gym, but once I started getting into lifting weights and feeling myself getting stronger, it became very empowering. I started feeling more capable in every way just because I had been able to transform my body. I started getting addicted to that feeling of strength.”

Battle of the Sexes also marked the first time that the 29-year-old Stone had played a real-life character and in this case, a living sporting legend who fought for women’s equality, an issue very important to Stone, who has been outspoken in the equal pay debate in Hollywood. She felt an obligation to capture King’s fierce spirit of social commitment.

“It’s rare to be able to dive into someone’s life like I did and learning as much about her as I could,” says Stone. “But she is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met and I was so proud to be able to channel her strength and spirit. The movie is not just about one match but also about love and people discovering who they are.”

“It was also a pivotal time in the fight for women’s rights and you feel an added responsibility to reflect the kind of leadership she brought to that movement. Also, when you’re playing a real person, you don’t want to let that person down. I was very excited about meeting her before we started shooting and being able get to know more about her, but I didn’t want to get to know her too well.”

Stone met with King briefly during the early stages of filming but decided it was better not to become too close to her given that she needed to play King as she was when she was 29 rather than on the basis of her 73-yearold self.

“She was 29 at the time and I needed to play her from the perspective of someone going through everything that was happening to her then rather than from the viewpoint of someone looking back at that time the way she does now.”

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Rolling Stone

“Acting was a way of overcoming my anxiety. I’m much more secure now, but I still deal with anxiety.”

“So it was frustrating for me to maintain a certain distance, especially while we were shooting the film and she might have wondered why I wasn’t speaking to her that much. Billie Jean was so great and kind to me. I was just afraid that if I got too close to her I would be even more worried about disappointing her even though she’s so warm and funny and such a wonderful individual to be around. But I knew it was much better for me to just study the tapes of her from that period rather than ask her questions personally. But lately [while promoting the film] we’ve gotten to know each other much better and it’s been really wonderful.”

King spent dozens of hours helping Stone work on her tennis game, however, so that she would at least look credible hitting a tennis ball the way a pro would. To her credit, Stone looks very capable in the actual tennis scenes aside from delivering a spot-on portrayal of a young Billie Jean King.

“She would basically just keep hitting balls at me and telling me not to get mad when I would hit bad shots but just to focus on the next ball,” Stone recalls. “She helped a lot; although I knew I would never even come close to the kind of level she had as a true tennis champion. My main goal was to bring out her essence as an individual and capturing everything she stood for and was trying to achieve.”

At the world premiere of Battle of the Sexes at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017, Stone confessed that even though it had been nearly a year since she stopped thinking about how to look and sound like King, she can’t seem to deactivate her observational instincts as an actress.

“What’s funny is that while Billie Jean and I have been promoting the film together, I still find myself staring at her and studying every little thing about how she moves and speaks even though I don’t need to do that anymore.

But I can’t help myself! (Laughs)”

One of the interesting similarities between Stone and King is that both were prodigies in their respective fields. Just as King was a junior tennis champion, Stone dreamed of acting as a child and convinced her parents to let her move to Los Angeles at age 15 to begin auditioning for roles in films and TV series.

“Even as a child I knew that I wanted to act.

I couldn’t imagine any other life for me. I grew up wanting to make movies similar to those I loved watching so much. I lived in a very hot place [Arizona] and because the sun was so strong and I had such light skin, I had to stay inside a lot of the time. As a child I discovered that film was this parallel world into which I could dive into. I still remember all the film comedies I would watch on TV with my father, who was a big fan of Steve Martin.

“Then I got to love the work of Bill Murray and developed a passion for the skits from Saturday Night Live. I loved locking myself in the house and watching movies all the time and wanting to be a part of that world.”

Acting also served a therapeutic purpose for Stone. She suffered from crippling anxiety and panic attacks while growing up and it was at the suggestion of a schoolteacher that taking acting classes would also help ease her condition.

“Acting was a way of overcoming my anxiety. I’m much more secure now, but I still deal with anxiety,” says Stone. “Acting allows me to make productive use of my overly sensitive side and channel all that nervous energy which would otherwise be more of an obstacle in life... Doing improv was also a way of dealing with some pretty intense anxiety, but it also helped me to be in the present, to loosen up.”

Somewhat like her aspiring actress alter ego in La La Land, Stone endured several hard years after arriving in LA with her mother. She lived a very cloistered life during that time but she never once entertained thoughts of abandoning her dream.

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“My mother agreed to accompany me to LA even though that meant a big change in her life and you never forget that kind of love and really unselfish act.I lived with her in a small apartment in La Brea Park. I never went out by myself. I would always go out with my mum and we spent a lot of time going to the movies.

I wasn’t going to school and I didn’t have any friends, zero social life, and I basically just studied at home and watched a lot of movies and tried to learn as much about acting as I could.

“Sometimes I felt lonely but my mother was so good and supportive, so I felt very safe and supported and that gave me the confidence I needed to go to auditions and deal with all the rejection and the fear of not being able to make it. But I never gave up and slowly I was able to build my career.”

In her 20s, Stone’s avowed love and affinity for comedies saw her appear first in Superbad (2007) opposite Michael Cera and Jonah Hill before earning her first lead role in Easy A (2010) and then in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), the hit romantic comedy in which she costarred opposite Ryan Gosling, a film that also kick-started his career.

Stone then graduated to major stardom when she won the role of Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, in the first of two Amazing Spider-Man films. Those studio blockbusters earned her the kind of attention and bankability that all actors crave, and subsequent appearances in Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight and Irrational Man, in addition to Alejandro Iñarritu’s Birdman served to consolidate her status. Those films paved the way for Stone’s heart-rending appearance as Mia in La La Land, which will likely be one of the defining roles of her career.

The film’s themes of hope and the magic of Hollywood resonated deeply with her.

“It’s a story about the kind of madness you need to keep hoping in spite of everything and everyone, and the courage required to pursue your dreams even when they seem impossible,” says Stone.

“This movie is what I hope young people will do: work hard and achieve their dreams instead of being cynical.”

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“What distinguishes La La Land is its hopefulness, joy and beauty. The film is about dreaming, and hoping and working to achieve something. The characters might be cynical about what they are going through, but the movie itself is in no way cynical. I think young people have fallen into cynicism, and making fun of things, and pointing out the flaws in everything. This movie is what I hope young people will do: work hard and achieve their dreams instead of being cynical.”

For Emma Stone, her Hollywood is no less alive today than when she was a young girl laughing at her father’s side and entranced by the magic of movies.

Comments made by Emma Stone in this article have been condensed and edited from an interview that took place on September 10, 2017 in Toronto, where she was promoting her new film Battle of the Sexes at the Toronto International Film Festival

NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE. EVERYTHING CHANGES, EVERYTHING MOVES, EVERYTHING REVOLVES, EVERYTHING FLIES AND GOES AWAY. - FRIDA KAHLO

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ASH NAYATE

Ash Nayate Muse Neuropsychologist

PERMANENT MOTIVATION

T

he cultural obligation to promise to transform yourself is nothing if not reliable. Each year, it bares its teeth between Christmas and January 1, when advertising for weight loss products and gyms hits fever pitch. They know we know we need all the help we can get to cultivate the willpower we proved not to have last year. And the one before.

The mechanisms of failure for resolutions are both embarrassingly simple and impossibly complex since we are both more than capable of not buying Kit Kats and because behaviour change is the icing on a layered psychic cake. Only around eight per cent of people actually follow through with their new year resolutions.

In essence, resolutions are like any other goal, except that their prescribed timeframe and assumed rather than felt necessity shift a key element of motivation from within to outside us. Without intrinsic motivation, lasting change is unlikely since true change requires significant effort and what initially feels like sacrifice and discomfort. That’s on top of challenges native to even goals in which we are invested to greater or lesser degrees – lack of or wavering motivation, lack of willpower, lack of planning, or even a lack of self-belief.

Without a plan, a goal is really just a dream. A plan – not necessarily scheduled to the hour – allows us to think ahead to possible hurdles, create solutions, and have a system for implementing them holistically, with mind, body and spirit.

MIND Habits are preceded by the way we speak to ourselves. Rather than telling ourselves that healthy food is bland and boring, a better approach might be to focus on the foods we already like that happen to be healthy, and to approach healthy, delicious food as an exciting adventure.

The words we say to ourselves can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Changing self-talk means slowing thoughts just enough to become aware of what we’re telling ourselves, and to question whether they’re really true. This is where mindfulness or meditation can be useful, as they allow us to untangle ourselves from the words in our minds. Once we’re aware of our self-talk, we can do something to change it.

SPIRIT Motivation is forever – but, only if it comes from within. While there are a million reasons to change habits, only a handful really matter to us. We might want to look good on the beach, or impress our old school friends at our reunion, or have enough energy to keep up with the kids. There is no good or bad reason to change our habits – only the reasons that matter to us. They can be deeply personal and private, or something that we want to share with the world.

Uncovering deep, hidden motivations can be done with structured introspection and a pen and paper. Sure, you want to look good and have more energy for the kids, but why – what’s the reward you’re chasing? Are we really wanting stronger relationships? To feel like a better parent? To feel more attractive? To be a better role model? To feel connected with a higher power?

Being in touch with and cultivating these deep-seated, fundamental motivators can renew and replenish motivation, even when willpower has long since been depleted. Staying motivated demands the repetition of daily practice, focusing on the why of our promised change.

A plan – not necessarily scheduled to the hour – allows us to think ahead to possible hurdles, create solutions, and have a system for implementing them holistically, with mind, body and spirit.

BODY Willpower is both exhaustible and subject to changes in mood and energy. Changing habits is better done by altering the environment.

Consider habits as tiny computer programs in the brain. Things in the environment are the triggers (it might be a certain restaurant where we tend to drink too much alcohol, or a group of friends with whom we tend to overeat). There’s a reason fatigue has been linked to overeating. Changing physical actions might involve pre-empting temptations (e.g. warding off the mid-afternoon dip with a healthy snack), having an alternative (e.g. drinking soda and lime instead of a cocktail at happy hour), creating time in your calendar for the new habit (e.g. blocking out 30 minutes each day for a brisk walk) and reducing triggers (eg. switching off our WiFi in the evening so we’re not tempted to surf the internet all night when we should be sleeping)

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SIMPLE. STYLISH. AFFORDABLE.

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SARAH MCMAHON

Sarah McMahon Muse Body Image Expert

NO DRESS REHEARSAL

I

heard a tragic story recently – of someone reflecting on their youth. This person now sits above their natural body weight, but they hadn’t always. They said they had identified as ‘fat’ their whole lives and that this had prevented them from engaging in activities they wanted to do – like swim at the beach or dance in public. They look back on photos now and realise they weren’t fat at all but that they wasted decades of time, lost millions of brain cells worrying, and missed out on countless opportunities to enjoy themselves because of how they felt about their body.

This isn’t a unique story. Unfortunately it is one that I hear all the time. It’s tragic because of lost opportunities. Even more tragic is the belief that we need to be thin to participate in life (how many people do you know who feel they need to lose weight to join a gym?)

Many of us have spent years trying to sculpt our bodies to help us feel better about it – to no avail. We have lost weight, gained weight, changed our shape, changed our diet, exercised differently, exercised the same and tried varying levels of intervention from pushup bras to Botox.

What happens when we do all these things and we still feel bad about how we look?

Possibly despair at the initial devastation that what we always imagined we could achieve is an illusion. Yet therein lies an opportunity to discover possibilities we never, in our quest for physical perfection, could have imagined (because that parochial quest is like a kind of blindfold). One alternative to shaping our body is shaping our mind; changing how we think about our body.

Yet for all its actual promise, this novel vista can seem terrifying, because deciding to do this requires that we let go of what may have served as a sort of faith; a belief system anchored by the body.

What if we do accept that how we look is not the real problem?

This in itself takes guts because despite the tremendous waste of persecuting and disowning our bodies, the habituated self-talk and practices of body shame engender a sense of safety. It’s like getting used to sitting on a concrete chair and calling it comfortable – not knowing what it is to kick back in an egg chair decked out with cushions.

Psychologists call this ‘safety behaviour’.

Safety behaviours are actions we carry out to prevent feared behaviour from occurring.

They lead to a powerful feeling of relief, reducing anxiety in the short term. However, they also have the unintended longer term consequence of maintaining anxiety by reinforcing the belief as true and preventing disconfirmation of that unhelpful belief. While perhaps not directly intended, maintaining a preoccupation with changing appearance often results in avoidance of life, as illustrated in the opening example.

Changing how we think about our bodies also requires reshaping how we think about fatness. I have heard it said that fat shaming is the last form of socially acceptable prejudice. The fact is you don’t need to lose weight to join the human race. No matter who you are and what you weigh (whether you think it is too high or low), you have value and worth just as you are. That is your birthright.

This fact and the principles of change transcend psychological paradigms – from CBT to DBT and gestalt. Simply, change occurs through doing things differently and the risk of leaping, which itself shifts perspective in a way that enables the rewards of new behaviour to become visible, let alone felt. That takes faith and courage. But then something magical occurs. Once it’s in motion, change itself powerfully reinforces new ways of thinking. So if you have spent years trying to change your appearance, I challenge you to an experiment: dare to try changing how you think about your appearance instead for the next week or even month. If you really do prefer hating your body, you can always go back to it.

Psychologists call this ‘safety behaviour’. Safety behaviours are actions we carry out to prevent feared behaviour from occurring.

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DR SUZY GREEN

Dr Suzy Green Muse Positive Psychology Expert

STAGES OF CHANGE

Y

ou may have heard the saying that the only certainties in life are death, taxes and change. It’s especially true if we are to progress, evolve and grow. Yet despite its fundamental importance for coveted forward movement, people usually wait until change is forced upon them rather than seeking it out, preferring the perceived certainty of their comfort zones – however dysfunctional.

While we can’t always anticipate change and may not know when it’s necessary – curve balls and unfamiliar challenges may catch us off guard – for the most part, change paradoxically follows a somewhat predictable path. By learning to understand the nuances of its process, we can transform feared change into a growth partner.

Research reveals several stages of change that must be achieved before new behaviours become permanent – and contrary to tropes that equate ‘falling off the wagon’ with failure, relapse is a normal, expected part of change.

While, historically, behavioural science has tended to focus on correcting patterns that impede optimal functioning, the contemporary scientific field of positive psychology takes a more optimistic stance, encouraging and supporting change as a discretionary process towards positive change. It’s not a matter of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, but rather, ‘if it ain’t as good as it could be, upgrade it’.

New year’s resolutions are ripe for this approach, which reimagines what is often viewed as a punitive mandate as an opportunity for curious discovery of new frontiers. That’s not to say you shouldn’t seek to correct what’s holding you back, or even that positively oriented change is necessarily easy (it’s not)! But it is an invitation and licence to embrace change, comforted by the scaffold of an evidence-based framework that promotes curiosity and selfcompassion. I wish you a courageous and flourishing new year.

• Precontemplation – Do not intend to take action in the foreseeable future, e.g. six months, possibly unaware of consequences.

• Contemplation – Intend to change in the next six months.

More aware of pros of changing, but ambivalent about cons.

Can become chronic procrastination.

• Preparation – Intend to take action within next month. Have a plan of action, such as joining a gym or implementing selfhelp plan.

• Action – New behaviour is underway. High risk of relapse.

• Maintenance – Have made specific changes and working to prevent relapse. Risk of relapse lessens, confidence grows.

CREATE POSITIVE CHANGE WITH THIS PROVEN MODEL: Identify your stage of change – If you’re only at contemplation or even if you’re at the later stages of preparation, determination or action, write a list of all the negatives of not making the positive change. You need to know what your potential blockers are and proactively plan to overcome them.

Focus on the positives of change – Write a list of all the benefits of creating the positive changes you desire to make. Make sure your list of benefits outweighs the negatives as research shows that positive change won’t be sustained unless the benefits of change far outweigh the negatives. Put this list on a wall or door that’s highly visible and review it often!

Find your WHY of change – If the change you’re seeking wasn’t really your idea in the first place and you’re still ambivalent and not confident of success, you really need to dig deeper to find your why. This means really knowing why you’d even bother making the change for yourself (it could be for your health, or to enable greater financial security).

Create a ‘Positive Change Team’ – Research shows that those with social support are more likely to succeed when it comes to change. Choose your team with care, though, as sometimes support is actually sabotage in disguise! Make sure you really do have people who are going to encourage you rather than undermine your success (‘Oh, come on, one glass of bubbles is not going to kill you!’)

Engage a professional change expert – While most people accept the need to seek external support to cope with unforeseen and unavoidable major changes, most remain reluctant to enlist professional help to improve what’s not broken. Yet why don’t our life goals deserve every chance of success? – which has been shown to be greater with the aid of a personal coach or mentor. Even if you decide not to engage a professional coach, find a buddy who also has a goal and try co-coaching each other. If you are facing a major life change, it is wise to seek professional assistance, one who can be truly objective and has the expertise to assist you in navigating what can be destabilising changes. Visit Australian Psychological Society’s Find a Psychologist Service at psychology.org.au to find an expert with specialist skills in your area of need.

New years’ resolutions are ripe for this approach, which reimagines what is often viewed as a punitive mandate as an opportunity for curious discovery of new frontiers.

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NADINE CAMERON

Nadine Cameron Muse Philosophy Expert

AMBIVALENCE VOTE

S

itting in my current favourite cafe for the umpteenth time and experiencing a little frisson at ordering the ‘today only’ special, I realised we often seek our novelty in exact doses. I like being able to picture the airy, open space of either/or before I walk in – and my matcha tea in its familiar bulbous glass before it arrives; it’s comforting. But then I need a little spice to spike the dopamine; a little risk in the form of an untasted dish to prevent a slide into boredom.

In different ways, humans both fetishise and resist change. Our love of the idea of change is clear from our fantasies about new bodies, new jobs, new confidence. We are often keen to think of ways we ourselves might become different – even when the moral implications are the same whether we alter or stay the same. We’re much less inclined to daydream about arriving at selfacceptance (or acceptance of anything else, for that matter).

At the same time, committing to a substantial change of any nature can be more or less terrifying, depending on your definition of ‘substantial’ (one person’s changing their hairstyle is another’s moving to Angola). What if you discover that you don’t have the right resources to deal with it (cue subconscious fear of death)? What if the new state turns out to be inferior to the old one: less satisfying, less acceptable, less…good? An even harder question is, when is a change worth making?

Making the move from regularly stealing stuff to not stealing seems like a pretty cut and dried example of good change. But what do we gain from, say, varying our route home from work?

Changing the suburb we rent in? Here it’s best to think about the potential cumulative benefits – as well as disadvantages – of change. And they depend, in part, on the intention behind your changing.

Constantly seeking novelty – which can distract from uncomfortable emotions because it takes more brain power to process than the familiar – defers and possibly even exacerbates the inevitable. Constantly taking on new things, however, with the idea of, say, challenging yourself or expanding the range of circumstances you can cope with, is likely to lead to a greater sense of competency in the world.

Heraclitus, a philosopher from 6th century BC, pointed out that we are unable to step into the same river twice – or even to look at the same river twice. We can be sure that each time we stick our heads over the Princes Bridge it will be the Yarra we find ourselves peering into. And yet, at the same time, the water we look at today is different to yesterday’s.

Heraclitus’ discovery has some pretty neat implications. Once we can get our head around the idea that most (some would say all) things we take for granted as being constant are, to greater and less degrees, constantly evolving, we realise that we are already successfully dealing with change all the time. It can help make us that wee bit more confident about our ability to deal with bigger changes – such as meeting new people, or changing jobs. Or trying a new café for once. (Do I have to?)

Here it’s best to think about the potential cumulative benefits – as well as disadvantages – of change. And they depend, in part, on the intention behind your changing.

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[ MIND SPACE ]

Self-talk overhaul:

Edit your inner critic

WORDS BY: MADELEINE DORE / ARTWORKS: REBECCA LONG

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W

e all have stories we tell ourselves – stories are what make us human. We have an infinite capacity to create and recreate ourselves though our past, present and future narratives. The vehicle for this is language.

“Language is this extraordinary ability – not just in a spoken or written form, but in how we speak to ourselves,” says ontological coach Alan Sieler.

As human beings, we have the capacity to be engaged in dialogue with another and at the very same time be involved in completely different dialogue in our own mind.

“We are constantly engaged in an internal dialogue with ourselves.

Some of these conversations are happening in the moment, but a lot are often conversations that we learned over time, years and years ago, often without realising.”

The stories we tell ourselves stem from beliefs that can be both helpful and harmful. Sieler refers to this process as the random acquiring of self-beliefs that come from two major sources: our lived experiences and surrounding communities.

“As we grow up, we learn to take on beliefs about ourselves and we characterise ourselves without realising it. Someone might receive praise for their dancing and go on to think, ‘I’m a good dancer because my parents or teacher told me’, which is great. But, unfortunately, sometimes people have managed to develop negative beliefs about themselves, such as not being good enough, and that becomes part of their linguistic makeup.”

The stories that have shaped our self-belief must face the harshest arbitrator – ourselves. What we choose to be is as infinite as the stories themselves.

We are also born into the stories of our family and communities, adds Sieler. “These are shared stories that contain fundamental views of the world – for example, the implicit possibilities or opportunities available to someone born into a lower socioeconomic environment will differ from someone born into a higher socio-economic environment.”

The stories we tell ourselves become like one-sentence scripts that we rehearse in our minds over and over, shaping how we see the world and what is possible for us.

Ontological coaching inspects both the philosophical and biological basis to the conversations we have with ourselves in an attempt to uncover what aspects of our lives may be hindering us, explains Sieler.

“On the surface, someone may appear to be social and happy, but within themselves there is quite a substantial unhappiness and emptiness because the language is generating suffering.”

THE PLOT THICKENS There are several common core negative self-beliefs that form central parts of stories: I am not worthy; I am not good enough; I don’t belong; I am not loveable; I am not a good learner; I’m not valued; and so on.

“These beliefs are fundamental existential issues that may not always be present, but linger in the background of people’s lives,” says Sieler.

“We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That’s how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told.”

While we may not always be aware of our negative beliefs, stories, or the mood we are carrying in the background with us, the good news is that like any learned behaviour or belief, our stories and beliefs can be unlearned.

“I’ll often ask someone, were you born with this belief that you are unworthy or not good enough? Most of the time people say no, which is great because if you weren’t born with it then you can unlearn it and relearn something else. You can to develop another script for yourself,” says Sieler.

Sometimes this may be as straightforward as flipping the script from “I’m not worthy” to “I’m worthy, because I am.” Simply being human is reason for worthiness, but such a switch in beliefs can be difficult to accept when a story is deeply ingrained.

If so, Sieler often suggests interchanging a negative belief for another narrative that may not be at the forefront of your self-talk – for example, swapping “I’m not worthy” for “I am a good learner” if that is something you can readily accept about yourself.

“You are the only person you have got to convince,” adds Sieler.

Such an exercise may sound a lot like repeating positive affirmations in the mirror, but when it comes to letting go of negative self-beliefs, there needs to be an equal participation of the language, body and emotion.

“It’s not a matter of fake it till you make it – it’s a shift in every fibre of your being to ‘I am worthy, I am a learner’ that eventually becomes a different compass for someone to live by.”

To really feel a shift in “every fibre of your being”, Sieler recommends recording yourself with the new script in video or audio and playing it back to yourself to check if your tone sounds convincing, or your body looks solid and confident.

– NIALL WILLIAMS, THE HISTORY OF THE RAIN musemag.com.au | muse magazine |

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Another practice is standing in front of the mirror, keeping your eyes fixed on yourself as you say the new script.

“Our body and emotions are just as important as language. It doesn’t matter how many times you speak the mantra behind the toilet door, it is not going to change for you.”

While talking to ourselves may feel ridiculous, studies have proven that talking aloud helps people solve problems – from preparing for job interviews and alternative reactions to an experience to helping to find misplaced keys.

Gary Lupyan, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, found that naming what you’re looking for out loud – for example, “keys, keys, where are my keys?” – helps us to keep the visual representation of the object in mind.

“The name helps you visualise the object, enabling you to actually see it better,” he says.

Such a phenomenon shows how powerful our internal and external language can be, helping us to first visualise and eventually find something in reality.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE AS POWER Our stories can often serve as selfprotection and enable us to find order in the chaos of our everyday lives.

Yet conversely, escaping the stories may require embracing the disorder of the world around. As filmmaker Shekhar Kapur details in his TED Talk ‘We are the stories we tell ourselves’: “… the first thing about storytelling that I learned, and I follow all the time is: Panic. Panic is the great access of creativity because that’s the only way to get rid of your mind. Get rid of your mind. Get out of it, get it out. And let’s go to the universe because there’s something out there that is more truthful than your mind, that is more truthful than your universe.”

He continued: “Out of the emptiness comes a moment of creativity. So that’s what I do.”

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Be it confronting our panic or emptiness, facing our emotions and confronting our core beliefs is what can help us to change them – rather than habitually running from them or using them as an armour against reality.

“When we’re under threat, we run,” writes researcher Brene Brown. “If we feel exposed or hurt, we find someone to blame, or blame ourselves before anyone else can, or pretend we don’t care. But this unconscious storytelling leaves us stuck. We keep tripping over the same issues, and after we fall, we find it hard to get back up again.”

While researching her book Rising Strong, Brown spent time with a variety of people adept at recovering from setbacks, including Fortune 500 leaders to long-married couples, and discovered one common characteristic: an ability to reckon with our own storylines. “[Resilient people] can recognise their own confabulations and challenge them. The good news is that we can rewrite these stories. We just have to be brave enough to reckon with our deepest emotions,” she writes.

A useful metaphor employed by Brown is that of dead reckoning. “In navigation, dead reckoning is how you calculate your location. It involved knowing where you’ve been and how you got there – speed, route, wind conditions. It’s the same with life: We can’t chart a new course until we find out where we are, how we came to that point and where we want to go. Reckon comes from the Old English recenian, meaning ‘to narrate’. When you reckon with emotion, you can change your narrative. You have to acknowledge your feelings and get curious about the story behind them. Then you can challenge those confabulations and get to the truth.”

In this way, self-knowledge – knowing where we are and where we have been – gives us the power to challenge what may no longer be serving us.

We can then write a different story for ourselves. “The most effective way to become truly aware of our stories is to write them down, so get your thoughts on paper,” recommends Brown.

Similarly, writer and best-selling author of Wild, Cheryl Strayed, recommends a writing exercise to a listener of the Dear Sugars podcast who is telling herself she is in a continuous rut.

“Take out a piece of paper and write a different version of your story, one in which you are not denying any of the bad things that have happened to you or any of the mistakes you have made or regrets you have about the decisions you have made, but instead putting it into a story about you taking agency and stepping into your life. What is the other thing you can call yourself if you can’t call yourself ‘girl in a rut?’

One thing I would call you is girl at the beginning of a glorious journey.”

As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” As storytellers, as humans, we have the ability to face our emotions, rewrite the script of what may be hindering us and believe it.

ARTWORKS: REBECCA LONG

Self-talk overhaul: Edit your inner critic

HOW TO TALK TO YOURSELF Conventional thought says talking to yourself is a sign of madness, but there are many instances in which talking to yourself can be helpful.

Paloma Mari-Beffa, a senior lecturer in neuropsychology and cognitive psychology, says self-talk is healthy.

“We actually talk to ourselves silently all the time. I don’t just mean the odd ‘where are my keys?’ comment – we actually often engage in deep, transcendental conversations at 3am with nobody else but our own thoughts to answer back. This inner talk is very healthy indeed, having a special role in keeping our minds fit.

It helps us organise our thoughts, plan actions, consolidate memory and modulate emotions. In other words, it helps us control ourselves.”

While self-talk can be constructive, healthy and important for self-control, recent findings by psychology researchers at Michigan State University indicate that the language we use to refer to our self can influence our level of self-control.

Specifically, using our own name instead of the first-person pronoun, ‘I’ increases our ability to control our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour under stress.

Referring to ourselves in third person may enable an effortless form of selfcontrol and improve emotion regulation by facilitating psychological distance and reducing egocentric bias.

As study co-author Jason Moser explains, “By using your own name, and possibly also second-person pronouns, it creates this little separation from the self.

It makes you think about your feelings and thoughts like you’re looking at somebody else’s experience.”

Moser and his colleagues ran two different experiments that measured what happens in the brain when people talk to themselves in the first person compared to third person or pronouns.

The first study focused on in-themoment stressful stimuli. Participants were instructed to view stock photos and videos from violent, upsetting news stories or films and asked to silently reflect on what they saw, first using ‘I’ to work through their feelings, and then using their own name.

The researchers found that when people used their own name in self-talk, they were experiencing less of an intense emotional reaction and less negative emotion in the moment.

In the second study focused on emotionally charged memories, the researchers asked participants to talk about an emotional event in their life, half the time recalling it in first person, and the other half of the time positioning the event as part of a third-person narrative featuring their own name.

“We found that we saw reductions in the self-referential, emotional brain regions – the ones that light up when you experience an emotion that is relevant to you,” concluded Moser.

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STATUS

ANXIETY Social media and self-help have fostered perpetual comparison between what we are and what we might be. But as immersion in others’ fictions becomes normalised, are we in danger of confusing inspiration with aspiration and absorbing others’ ambitions?

I

n a world where ‘aspiration’ is the new ‘inspiration’, and ‘spo’ is a bona fide suffix synonymous both with who and what we might become, salivating over other people’s position descriptions, pets and wardrobes is a popular modern pastime. While on one hand social media influencers and major brands are celebrating authenticity, the machinations of commerce and associated consumer mindset insure against any real belief that we are good enough – ‘real women’ campaigns notwithstanding. That paradox with its delicate mesh of selfimage, logic and ideal self is the stuff personal development programs are made of.

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Self-esteem and inner peace are multi-million dollar commodities and come with the same perpetuity as the weight loss industry. You can’t really have what they’re selling – even if you do enjoy a facsimile of success convincing enough to quash niggling doubt.

“We live in the age of selfimprovement,” says Dr Stephen Briers, clinical psychologist and author of Psychobabble – Exploding the Myths of the Self-help Generation.

“As we go about our daily lives, we are subjected to a million messages – some subtle and some less so – intimating that a happier, richer, more successful life is just around the corner. With the immediate survival needs of food and shelter taken care of for the majority, Western civilisation has now turned its attention to how much better if could all be.

“This in turn has spawned a prolific multi-million dollar industry of stadium-filling gurus, bestselling books, magazines and websites telling us how to be happier, thinner, richer, and all round better people.”

Like diets, self-improvement has countless guises – from Landmark and NLP to Tony Robbins and 12step programs. Naturally, there is the odd shark seeking to exploit vulnerabilities.

“Self-help is an enterprise wherein people holding the thinnest of credentials diagnose in basically normal people symptoms of inflated or invented maladies so that they may then implement remedies that have never been shown to work,” says Steve Salerno, author of SHAM – How the Gurus of the Self-help Movement Make Us Helpless.

“The self-help movement has not been a wholesale failure. Here and there a marriage is saved, a parenting dilemma solved, a mental-health problem identified and eventually corrected as a result of advice imparted in a self-help product. Here and there. But for the most part, SHAM (standing for Self-help and Actualisation Movement) does not do what it promises. It is the emperor’s new life plan.”

One of the major self-help selling propositions is simplification of complex life challenges.

“Ironically, of course, the appetite for these absurdly simplified models of our complex lives is greatly enhanced by the fact that modern life is becoming increasingly hard for us to get our heads around,” says Dr Briers. “We move constantly between different contexts; in turns we play the roles of parent, partner, colleague, friend, carer, leader, member of the community, to name but a few.”

There are around half a million self-help books on Amazon.com and the category gains an estimated 2,000 new entrants annually in the US alone, where self-help publishing is a $650 million industry.

OSMOTIC AMBITION When it comes to product inventory, self-esteem is the core SKU. “High self-esteem isn’t a luxury,” says Jack Canfield, author of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul, “it’s a necessity for anyone who has important goals to achieve.”

But can healthy self-regard really be packaged and consumed in the same way as, say, salted caramel popcorn? And even if you do pile home with a fresh bunch of selfesteem, will it necessarily translate to what you really want?

“While the evidence is that increased self-love certainly does make us feel better, just like romantic love it can also make us blind, or at the very least a bit short-sighted,” says Dr Briers. “In various studies, people with high self-esteem scores consistently rate themselves as more attractive, popular, socially skilled and intelligent than average. However, other people don’t necessarily agree with them.”

“Their self-ratings simply aren’t upheld by the independent evaluations of their peers or by objective tests of their attributes and abilities. Simply believing something doesn’t necessarily make it true,” says Dr Briers.

Moreover, many of us probably don’t know what we want.

“We may secretly anticipate that the new house we have set our heart on will make us feel great once we have the keys in our hand,” says Dr Briers. “Fired up by this vision of our future pleasure, we set the appropriate financial targets, make the necessary sacrifices and watch with excitement as our overtime hours bring the cherished goal ever closer to fruition.

Unfortunately, all the hard evidence of several decades of research suggests that your new purchase a) is highly unlikely to make you as happy as you think it will and b) any pleasure that may come as a result will be more short-lived than you had imagined.”

Alas, the disappointment doesn’t stop at material goals. “When we make these judgments about what will make us happy, we get it wrong all the time,” says Dr Briers.

Despite paradigms espousing that we are programmed to self-actualise – a notion native to humanistic psychology – humans also seem to have a peculiar urge to be led.

“The wildly irrational faith we sometimes have in political leaders reminds us how vulnerable we are to our desire for something to believe in,” writes Hugh Mackay in What Makes Us Tick. “History is littered with sobering examples of a psychological ‘virus’ that regularly infects us when we turn too eagerly to a leader to deal with our own sense of powerlessness, uncertainty or insecurity.”

Research from two German universities found that skimming through photos online of a friend’s great success triggers feelings of envy, loneliness and even misery, particularly when those photos concern a friend’s vacation.

“It affects different people in different ways. While there are many positives in terms of exposing you to a great variety of lifestyles and people, it may be that it doesn’t do that for you at all but narrows it,” says clinical psychologist Leslie Posen. “So you go in search of things you already know or what you believe to be true and surround yourself with people whose ideas and beliefs match yours and you feel comfortable there and don’t go out and don’t explore other people’s ideas.”

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On the flip side, a study conducted by Arizona University found that participants reduced their sense of loneliness when they posted an update, which helped to maintain a semblance of connectedness, and it wasn’t dependent on positive feedback or ‘likes’.

“If social media are used to intensify pre-existing social connections, it is great in our current time-poor environments,” says psychologist Jeroen Decates. “It allows people to be in touch with short news-of-friends bites that otherwise would not happen or require lengthy telephone contacts.”

Posen says the desire to connect is a basic human trait – which makes social media hugely powerful, whether used for good or evil. “If you go in search of things you already know or what you believe to be true and surround yourself with people whose ideas and beliefs match yours and you Posen says social media can enable us to extend our social reach beyond our immediate sphere. “However, if we mix with new networks that are digital only, real-life isolation and loneliness can well occur. There is a real tendency for the development of a stronger online persona than real-life persona.

I call it a pixelated identity.”

THE FINE LINE OF IDENTITY Dr Richardson says the trend towards turning ourselves into mini celebrities and curating content to portray an ideal selfimage divorced from our own experience of ourselves in the real world are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of duality. “People have this notion of their Facebook profile as a little project,” he says. “It’s about working and reworking of the self by continually updating your information. It’s partly specific to Facebook because other social networking doesn’t require us to do that.” Instagram and Snapchat also support the portrayal of a false self. “We have this moral tradition that goes back decades of presentation of an ideal, airbrushed perfect self as our public face, so it’s not surprising that these kinds of trends get translated into a social media form and start to infiltrate all of the media productions that we do of ourselves.”

So ubiquitous is this image engineering, people have come to expect it.

Research by beauty brand Trilogy found that six out of 10 women believe that people expect online photos to have been retouched or have a filter applied – and a whopping 61 per cent of Australian women do not see the use of a filter as a form of retouching.

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There’s no denying self-image is important.

It’s how we define ourselves. But dominant psychology wisdom espouses alignment of image with identity, with the goal of achieving congruence thought to underpin mental health.

Conversely, deliberately creating discrepancies can undermine the very sense of certainty and worth we seek to gain through posturing.

“When you spend so much time working on your self-image as a project in this online environment, there is that alienation or presentation anxiety where you actually relate more to the presentation of the self and the performance of it than you do to your real self in your life and the communication you have there,” says Dr Richardson.

Dr Richardson recommends channelling effort applied to image selection and editing into more meaningful interactions. Consider it an investment. “There are more creative forms of sharing content and collaborating, so explore other kinds of social media networks.”

Status anxiety

NET EFFECT

Every generation has a moral panic, but is social media really eroding our social fabric?

Theory Multi-tasking is up, our attention span is down, and it spells disaster for productivity.

Practice While the Boomers and Gen X’s are quaintly adjusting their behaviour to the modern way, Millenials and Gen Z’s are making it a part of their DNA. It is not something they try to do, they are simply programmed that way.

The overall increase in IQs and advancement of girls in science are attributed to media-assisted learning and interactive game playing. On the flip side, attention spans are shrinking, with many experts drawing a link between media stimulation and ADD.

A study by Bernardo Huberman of HP Labs found that we are more open to peer pressure within a social network. The experiment compared two photos and asked questions such as ‘which of the two baby pictures is cuter?’ and ‘which of the two couches would you buy?’

The more time subjects were given to process the fact that others ‘liked’ one of them more than the other, the more we are likely to be swayed in that particular direction, despite the fact that we may have had the opposite opinion initially.

New research also shows that engaging with social media releases oxytocin, the hormone that stimulates trust and empathy. This perhaps explains why using social media has been shown to lower self-control, which is great news for online marketers.

“Online, the normal ‘brake’ is lacking,” says Decates. “Behind your PC or tablet no one can see you, so we tend to lose our inhibitions.”

received a ‘like’, a little zing was activated in a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, commonly associated with rewarding feelings about sex, money, food and social acceptance. So pronounced was the effect that the researches could look away and be sure when someone was hit with a euphoric ‘like’.

“It can catch you by surprise,” says Posen. “You build up expectations and habits and sometimes you only know it’s gone beyond a useful habit when you feel awkward and out of sorts and feel like you can’t meet your everyday responsibilities because you’re just dying to get back to the screen.”

“If half a dozen of your friends come up to you over a given time and say, ‘that’s enough already, put down the bloody phone and talk to me’, then maybe it’s time to listen to what they’re saying.”

CYBER-BULLYING STOPS WITH HIGH SCHOOL Theory

Theory We’re getting addicted to the idea of people rather than actually relating to real people.

Practice Experts believe you can become addicted to your cyber life. They’re calling it internet addiction disorder (IAD) and likening it to other pathological behaviours like gambling and eating disorders. Withdrawal symptoms include shivers, nausea, anxiety and increased heart rate. Try removing a gamer from their game in a hurry and you’re likely to see all of them at once.

To find out what was actually going on in the brain when a person was on Facebook, a German team of researchers wired up a bunch of people and found that we are indeed biologically wired to respond to ‘likes’.

Every time one of their subjects

If you think your fellow grown-ups are as level-headed, compassionate and mature as you, think again. There is many an adult taking their unresolved issues out on blameless strangers online. They mightn’t hate your blog post enough to find out where you live, but saying so makes them feel slightly less disempowered.

Practice “There’s no question that people who bully at school and online grow up to bully in real life and there’s a clear link between that childhood behaviour and criminal behaviour later in life,” says adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg.

If they don’t turn into outright criminals, they’re likely to skulk around online as a master manipulator.

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“Around 20 per cent of people fall into the category of master manipulators, so it’s no small number,” says Dr Mary Casey, psychologist, conflict resolution expert and author of How to Deal with Master Manipulators.

Master manipulators have very few boundaries when it comes to getting what they want and the lengths they will go to make it happen.

“Master manipulators are very deceptive in everything they do.

They’ll even tell outright lies if they have to,” says Dr Casey.

“They’ll charm you, pay you lots of compliments, discredit other people, drop little hints to you about someone else and constantly try to get information from you.

“They’re very conscious of what they are doing. It’s very easy for them. That’s just how they operate and they don’t consider doing it any other way. And you can’t change their behaviour.”

WE NEED TO UNPLUG AND GET BACK TO BASICS Theory We’ve all gone too far with our heads stuck to our screens that we’re missing out on what’s around us. It’s time to press the ‘dislike’ button, back away slowly, and schedule a crafternoon.

Practice What’s too much social media for one person is a day off for the next. There’s no recipe for getting the balance completely right for everyone.

“If it’s an extension of your current real life network, I can’t see what the problem is,” says Decates. “I do think you need to have your feet solidly planted on this earth while you manage a little screen. The moment you have your feet planted solidly in the digital world, your world then becomes a screen and you have a problem.”

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But could it be that in our drive to connect we are not giving ourselves enough old-fashioned reflective, alone time, or is that just way too scary/ boring to contemplate? A survey found that 66 per cent of people fear losing or being without their phone.

“If someone came to me and said, ‘Do you think it’s a good situation if I put everything down for a day and contemplate nature and not have my phone with me?’ I’d say go and try it, see for yourself,” says Posen. “If you start to feel really edgy and you feel like you can’t do that then that would be a time to sit down and think, ‘What’s going on here for me? How is it that I’m feeling so edgy? What is it that’s driving me to be up to date and see what all my friends are liking and what they’re all doing?’

SOCIAL RULEBOOK Make status updates work for you OWN YOUR IDENTITY • Think about what you are going to share, who you’re going to connect with, and how much time you are going to spend on it.

• Decide what you will do if someone is negative or makes you feel uncomfortable.

• On Facebook you can choose to hide unwelcome posts from your news stream. You can also ‘unfriend’ and/or block contacts (they will not be able to see your profile, and you will not be visible to them when they search for you or look at friend lists).

• On Twitter you can ‘unfollow’ contacts, block them and/or report them for spamming.

• In Facebook, assign your contacts to different lists to control what they can and cannot see (for example, family, business, acquaintances). When Facebook changes the default privacy settings, make the time to find out what it means for you.

TREAT YOUR CYBER NEIGHBOUR AS YOU WOULD YOURSELF • Think carefully before posting other people’s personal information.

Don’t discuss private or sensitive information on Twitter (use Direct

Messages instead) or on someone’s Facebook wall (use a private message instead).

• On Facebook, don’t tag friends in photos unless they have told you they are okay with it.

• If you share information on Twitter by ‘retweeting’, always acknowledge the source.

FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE • Talk about fun, quirky things in your life, and ask questions.

• Share helpful and interesting information.

• Find people with similar interests.

On Twitter, search for people by geographical area, using hash tags (words that have a ‘#’ immediately before them, which signal that they are a keyword) or look at the people in the lists the people you follow have created.

• If you like what people are sharing, take the time to let them know.

On Facebook, ‘like’ people’s status updates and comments, and when you mention someone, tag them (by using the ‘@’ symbol followed by their name) so they will get a notification.

On Twitter, you can retweet a post to share it and you can reply to people to make a comment.

www.jasminealexa.com

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Projection

MECHANISM Projection and transference often obscure the way we perceive people and events, informing a worldview based on fragments of the past.

Learning to identify both can benefit self-concept and interpersonal relationships.

WORDS: MARTHA DERBYSHIRE

T

ruly courageous people must continually push themselves to be as honest as possible in the moment.

Increasing our consciousness about how we are interpreting the world and our interactions with others informs us about not only who we are trying to be, but also who we are trying to hide and who we truly are.

When we understand the concepts

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of projection and transference, we can begin to accept personal responsibility for our language, actions and responses to life. We learn how easily we project opinions and criticisms onto others rather than own our behaviours and we begin to learn how readily we transfer our past experiences onto the present. Spiritual development includes the work of bringing the concept we have of ourselves into greater congruence with reality.

We interface with the world through our senses. We make meaning of the world by what we see, smell, hear, taste, sense and intuit. This personalises the world and makes it unique unto each of us.

No one else experiences the world in quite the same fashion; I can only have my version of reality. I don’t really ever know your reality. How I interact with the world is based on my perception as well as my previous experience.

THE PROJECTOR EFFECT I was recently in a new group where there was one woman who really got my attention. Every time she talked, I would cringe with judgments, silent opinions and feelings of not liking her. I thought she was rude, loud, obnoxious, self-absorbed and not really paying attention to the flow of the group. Wow, was I putting a lot of projection onto her! At the time, I wanted it to be all about her. But, as the week went on, I began to see how this woman represented the parts of myself that I am uncomfortable with; she was reflecting my poor esteem and some less-evolved areas in my life. I knew I was projecting onto her because my reaction was out of proportion to her behaviour.

My reaction caught my attention; I continued to observe her and have my judgments and feelings about her in order to use these projections to see myself. It took me the whole week to see my own vulnerability in the woman I was so re-stimulated by.

Even though I knew I was projecting a part of myself onto her, until I understood what part of me she was mirroring, I continued to have big, negative feelings about her.

Ultimately, these feelings weren’t about the other woman, they were about me. When I fully accepted that, my reaction to her changed. I was seeing reality more clearly. This is a case of negative projection.

If I react strongly to another person’s quality of voice, her mannerisms, speech or body movements, I can expect that I am projecting onto her some aspect of myself. When I hear myself silently saying “I don’t like the way she talks (or walks, or dresses, or looks, or

expresses herself )”, I can expect that there is some way she is reminding me of a part of myself that I might not want to accept. It tends to be easier to let her carry the brunt of disappointment, criticism or sarcasm than to realise what I am feeling about myself. We strive for survival and avoidance from pain, and therefore don’t fully accept responsibility for ourselves. We think our personal preservation is based on displacing our perceptions onto others.

However, the discomfort of accepting responsibility for ourselves decreases as we recognise that by doing so, we are ultimately more authentically who we truly are, and in less pain. Once we accept how we project aspects of ourselves onto others, we can grow our self-compassion and esteem for others as well as ourselves. Our ability to communicate, to be less violent and to maintain honest relationships are other benefits of owning our projections.

BLURRED LINES When I project onto another, I can begin to recognise myself in the projection. If I see a woman I think is exceptionally beautiful, I am seeing in her what I see to be the beautiful part of myself. If I question my own beauty, I may idealise others who I think are beautiful. This would be a positive projection. I am not necessarily seeing the other for who she is (an object of beauty) but who I want or need her to be in order for me to have a chance at understanding myself. If I am having trouble liking another woman because I think she is beautiful, this is a reflection of myself that informs

“Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behaviour, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual, organisation or entity.”

me that I might be having trouble accepting or liking the beautiful part of myself. It may be that I can’t accept my own beauty, but I can see it in her.

Often, we may begin to see the other is not really who we originally thought. We may not want to accept that this was a projection, so we might find another perception of this person to find either contentious or idealised. When the projection starts to slip, we are quick to adjust it. There is a part of me that wants to keep the other as the problem, so will quickly find a different person to project my perceptions onto. I will find different people to carry the parts of me that I don’t want to face. If I don’t want to own my anger, I will (repeatedly) find other people to carry the anger for me. I may judge them for their anger, silently or outwardly. I may ignore the angry person out there, I may argue with them, irritate them or just quietly hold judgment over them. I blame them, and with that extension of blame, there can be shame But, underneath, what is seething is my own anger. Remember, I only have my perception of the world, not the other person’s. If I am seeing the other as angry, it is not about their anger, but my own.

When I have a big reaction to another person – whether it is positive or negative – and realise that there is a projection going on and that I am really seeing a part of myself reflected in them, I can begin to heal by owning a part of me that I may have been ignoring or unwilling to recognise. With this raising of consciousness, there is more wholeness; there is the possibility of resolving my own issue rather than allowing others to carry the disgruntlement. Once I have integrated the projection as a part of myself, there will be less charge about others’ behaviours and more acceptance of who I am.

– M. SCOTT PECK musemag.com.au | muse magazine |

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FROM HERE TO TRANSFERENCE Part of the way we perceive the world is in relation to our past, our childhood and our early life relationships. The worldview that we adopt from conception onward follows us through our lifetimes. As the late American psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explained,“transference is that set of ways of perceiving and responding to the world which is developed in childhood and which is usually entirely appropriate to the childhood environment (indeed, often life-saving) but which is inappropriately transferred into the adult environment.” Transference can be positive or negative. Neither is necessarily good or bad, it is simply something to be aware of.

When a situation in life or a relationship with another evokes an emotional reaction that is out of proportion to the incident, we are reacting with transference. We frequently transfer our past onto the present. Rather than responding to the situation from the present, we react with unresolved emotions from the past. When I have a big emotional reaction, there is a likelihood that I am reacting the same way I may have reacted to my mother, sisters or father when I was a child. So, transference is a projected experience. This reaction can happen physically, emotionally or mentally.

Say I am having tea with a small group of friends. A couple of the women start talking about a mutual friend of ours. My impression is that the conversation escalates to gossip and bad mouthing. I begin to notice that my posture has changed, I am tense and I am feeling uneasy in my chest. I feel my anger mounting inside. I feel like leaving the room.

My reaction is out of proportion to the conversation. As I bring my physical and emotional reaction to consciousness, it becomes evident that I am transferring unresolved feelings from my past onto the present. As a young person, I was very sensitive to being talked about, being the brunt of gossip and would feel confused, angry and sad when I

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felt that way. The current situation reminded me of those early feelings; my body and heart unconsciously reacted to the present by referring to the past.

When I am in transference, I am not being present but am stuck in the past. Therefore, I am not in my authenticity, I am in reactivity. By bringing conscious awareness to when I am in transference and what the current issue is related to from my past, I am bringing compassion to the younger part of me and thereby healing the past and transcending the power of the past to have control over the present. With this awareness I increase my choices in how to respond to the present, from the present.

When I am more present, I deepen my contact with myself and promote communication with others.

REFLECTIVE ASSESSMENT Usually, people believe their emotional reactions are an accurate portrayal of the situation at hand and are not able to see how their past or their internal state is influencing their present behaviour or reactions.

Healthy introspection is a spiritual

practice that is like a muscle that needs to be regularly exercised.

Asking ourselves ‘What is going on now?’, ‘Am I in transference?’, or ‘Am I projecting?’ are valid tools to check on the level of contact you are having with yourself at any given moment. When you are experiencing a physical sensation, an emotional reaction or a mental overture that is clearly out of proportion to what is currently happening, just notice that this is happening. Witness yourself in order to get familiar with your style of reacting, and then ask the above questions. It isn’t necessary to find an answer with your intellect.

The awareness itself will interrupt the reaction and rouse information that may help you understand. With practice, insight will come.

As Peck wrote: “I must be sufficiently aware of my perceived ideas and characteristic emotional distortions to bracket them long enough to welcome strangeness and novelty into my physical world.”

Martha Derbyshire has an MED in Educational Administration, is a graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing and holds an MA in Transpersonal Psychology.

Visit marthaderbyshire.com

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[ MIND SPACE ]

DO YOU NEED A

LIFE COACH?

Combining principles of sporting tuition with tenets taken from therapy, coaching promises to take the guesswork and failure out of adult life. But is it really empowering self-activation or a kind of postmodern parenting that stifles independence?

WORDS BY: DAVID GODING / ARTWORKS: REBECCA LONG

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I

t makes perfect sense to seek the advice of an expert when in need – you seek out the advice of your accountant to minimise your tax, your physio to treat a pain in the neck, or your personal trainer to whip your butt into gear.

It’s understandable then, that an increasing number of people are turning to a life coach in order to point their life in the right direction. After all, aside from breathing and waking up to your alarm on the fourth snooze, many of us aren’t particularly good at the whole living thing. And the more we try to fit in our lives (more is good, right?), the more difficult it seems to become.

“Simply put, it’s about getting a person from where they are to where they want to be as interestingly and as easily as possible,” says Sharon Pearson, CEO of The Coaching Institute.

“There’s never any one script you use as a coach. It’s really about being that person who is willing to challenge based on where the client is at, not where you would like them to be at.”

Dabbling in an area somewhere between counselling and mentoring sounds wishy-washy, possibly even dangerous, but there are strict rules to adhere to if you are to become a good coach.

“Life coaching is a service that is designed to help you live your best life,” says experienced life coach Zoe Alexander. “It’s not therapy, it’s not good advice from someone who has been there and done that. It is about you. Life coaching gives you an opportunity to sit down and assess where you are, what has meaning for you and where you want to be.

Sessions then help you make progress to get to where you want to be – living a happier and more fulfilling life.”

But the big picture isn’t all roses.

With such an explosion in new coaches, there’s little wonder that experience and expertise varies considerably between coaches. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it does

provide us with variety and choice.

It’s just that we need to do a little homework in order to decide whose hands we’re going to put our lives in – so to speak – and what we can expect to get out of it. We’re here to help.

POSTMODERN PARENTING Twenty years ago, once you turned 18 and got your qualification, you were pretty well on your own. Your parents might intervene or help with major life decisions, but most life guidance fell to the informal school of hard knocks. In the last 10 to 15 years, however, life coaching has gone from being a fringe therapy with as much credibility as cancer-curing crystal healing to becoming one of Australia’s biggest mainstream growth industries, to the point where it’s hard to keep track of the skyrocketing stats. We do know that in the International Coach Federation (founded in 1992), one of the first and leading organisations for coaches (but far from the only one), there is now more than 1,300 members in Australia and New Zealand, whereas 15 years ago there was around 150.

So where did it all come from, and why do we suddenly need our lives to be coached?

“The term coaching has been utilised in the corporate setting for decades, where it is perceived as a ‘perk’ for higher-level management,” says psychologist Dr Suzy Green.

“However, life coaching did not make a real presence until the early 1990s.”

“It arose out of the US and the human potential movement. It also has emerged from sports coaching and sports psychology.”

Combining all this with elements of pop psychology and the self-help boom, and you’ve got the rather large palette available to the life coach. The art to being a good, even great, coach, however, is knowing what part of the spectrum to use and for what, and what to leave on the shelf.

“Life coaching has filled the need of a ‘mental’ personal trainer,” says Abby Lewtas, a life coach who works on harnessing the power of the ‘frustrated adventurer’ in us.

“Coaches offer a wide range of targeted solutions. They’re someone who can help you change your mindset so you can achieve your desired goals and feelings without having to rely on your friends and family.”

And if you don’t have one, you may soon find yourself left behind if predictions are anything to go by.

“I believe life coaching will soon reach critical mass, where it will be commonplace for most people to have a coach or know someone that receives coaching,” says Lorraine Hamilton, a life coach educator and founder of Coach School. “Life coaching has come a long way and there is no sign of it slowing down. As it takes on its shape, it’s influenced by cultural and economic factors. Being able to adapt is crucial.”

HELP MENU A life coach will usually have an area of particular expertise, interest or experience, so it’s best to seek out the specialist for your needs. You probably wouldn’t, for instance, seek out a coach who specialises in career guidance with your relationship, or vice versa.

“Every coach is different,” says Lisa Phillips from Amazing Coaching.

“Executive coaches are more likely to assist people with work-related and career challenges, whereas my expertise is in confidence and self-esteem. I tend to deal with more personal issues rather than leadership issues.”

Alternatively, you may want to seek out a wellness coach, a happiness coach, a travel coach, or the self-help coach – that’s you. Yes, self-coaching is a thing, and there are plenty of books and courses out there to help facilitate your self-coaching ambitions.

So how much will you pay for a life coach? Well, just as coaches vary, so does the price. A life coach charges anywhere from $80 to $500 per hour, business coaches often more than that. They may work with you for as little as six sessions or as long as several years, depending on what you are looking for.

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[ MIND SPACE ]

Many coaches offer video or phone coaching for a smaller fee, or you may prefer the option of a group setting, which can provide added insight from other like-minded individuals, also at a reduced fee.

Then there’s mentoring, which is not, strictly speaking, coaching, although there’s no denying it can feel a little coachy.

“Mentoring is about a wise senior passing on information to a grateful junior, and often involves telling the person what they should do,” says Dr Green. “Coaching does not require that you have experience or knowledge of the occupation or situation the person is in. The expertise of the coach is to facilitate the coach’s own knowledge, skills and wisdom – and/or to determine what the gaps are and identify a plan of action to fill them.”

A good life coach can help in myriad ways.

“It’s about goal setting, and incorporating motivation, tips, tricks, and accountability on the road to achieving them,” says Sara Jane, life coach, from A1U. “People often need more than active listening from a counsellor when they want to take things to the next level. It provides them with a palette of tools and exercises to choose from, for the body, mind, spirit and career.”

The fine art of a good coach involves helping you to find the answers, not in spoon-feeding the solution.

“Life coaching is about asking questions – great questions, leading questions, quantum questions that lead a client to rethink a problem or build a new neural path to a solution,” says Rik Schnabel, a trainer of life coaches.

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“Life coaches rarely give advice directly, but through well-defined questions they help the client to come to new realisations and soon they become clear about what they need to do. Therefore, a great coach understands how humans think and knows the trigger points to bring about achievement.”

What coaching can be used for is entirely up to you.

“For entrepreneurs, this can be tapping into the greatness within and finding their ‘why’,” says Alexander.

“For others, it can be when you’ve reached the point where your career is no longer fulfilling and you want to explore where to go next with the opportunities that are around you.

Then there are those who come after something has gone really wrong; perhaps a diagnosis or a break-up and they feel lost and unsure of where to go next.”

“My clients do share some themes in common: they want to feel happier, more connected to the world around them. They want to feel that their life has meaning, it matters, that they are heading in the right direction and that it’s all worth it.”

COACHABILITY AUDIT It’s not just about finding a good coach, it’s about being a good client too. Coaching appears to be far more effective with some people than others, for a variety of reasons. So, just who makes the perfect candidate?

“Coaching is suited to actionorientated people who want to take responsibility and create a meaningful, happier life and who don’t expect someone else to provide it,” says Alexander. “They understand that they have done things to the best of their abilities but they know they can do even better. So, they’re brave and they go and seek help.”

“It’s not for people who want to dwell on the past. Counselling and psychotherapy is more suitable for that. It’s not suitable for people who want to blame or not take responsibility for their life and what’s happened or not happened. It’s not suitable for those who also expect others to make them happy – be it their partner, children, family, money, etc. It is suitable for those who wake up to the fact that, despite having all that ‘should’ make them happy, they are not.”

By nature, humans adhere to routines, they work for us, give us security and provide comfort. It can be extremely difficult then, to consider change, let alone embrace it.

“If you do not develop a change mindset then it really is a bit of a challenge to benefit from the process of coaching,” says Shane Warren, life coach and counsellor. “This is not to discount that people do often have change resistance, but you need to be willing to adapt, modify and change

Do you need a life coach?

things within your life to achieve the goals of the coaching process.”

THERAPY VERSUS COACHING It is important to distinguish what coaching isn’t and when it may be futile or even cause iatrogenic harm.

The nebulous definition of coaching, which sits in a zone between selfhelp books and therapy, welcomes a broad range of credentials and approaches. Unlike psychologists, who need to have completed a certain number of years of undergraduate and postgraduate university learning as well as practical experience with clients, coaches are a mixed bag.

“Therapy is about resolving clinical issues or significant unresolved issues from the past that are impacting on the present or future,” says Dr Green. “It is often these issues that prevent us from living a flourishing life, so we need to encourage people to seek therapy – and in many cases I would suggest prior to commencing

coaching; if these issues are not resolved they will interfere with the coaching process.”

Rather than dealing with trauma, dysfunction and the paradigm of pathology, a life coach is action based, looks to educate and develop, and explore life transitions, goals and possibilities. In short, therapy is about fixing, coaching is about co-creating.

“Life coaching is forward focused and action orientated,” says Alexander. “Therapy is more suitable for someone when deeper psychological healing is needed.

Some of my clients will occasionally see both myself and a psychiatrist or psychologist or counsellor.

Eventually, they switch to seeing one of us at a time.”

Hamilton has experienced the perils of inappropriate coaching.

“I remember hiring a coach to help me lose weight a few years ago and being horrified at the shaming and telling me what to do,” says Hamilton.

“I was expecting a safe, supportive

and challenging environment for me to explore my own limiting mindset around the issue so I could come to my own empowered realisations, but that’s not what I got.”

When an unprepared client meets an under-trained coach, the potential for serious trouble is real.

“At this stage I’m not aware of any lawsuits against life coaches but that surprises me as there is a potential danger in coaching someone with a clinical disorder such as depression,” says Dr Green. “If the person is coached and doesn’t make progress on their goals, it may reinforce their feelings of hopelessness and potentially worsen their mood.

“I recently had a client who was offered 24-hour ‘on-call coaching’ at a fee of over 25 thousand,” says Phillips. “This worried me, as an experienced coach would aim for a client to become self-responsible and empowered rather than rely on them 24 hours a day. I also struggle with coaches selling often unrealistic outcomes such as ‘never have a negative thought again’, or ‘I can make you a new person in six months’.

Every person is different, so a coach should tailor the coaching sessions to the unique needs of the client rather than offering a one-size-fitsall approach.”

But for every disappointment/ disaster/charlatan there are multiple warm and fuzzy stories.

“One that sticks in my mind is a client who came to me because he had multiple sclerosis and had developed a needle phobia, which was the only delivery method for the medicine to slow the progress of his condition,” recalls Hamilton. “Just two sessions of life coaching was enough for me to reframe his experience in a way that completely flipped his fear on its head, resulting in him being able to administer his injection himself in minutes instead of medical professionals spending up to half a day at a time with him to try to coax him to take his medication.”

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CHOOSING A COACH Currently the life coach industry is not regulated, and debate rages about how standards can be improved and implemented, or if the unregulated nature is indirectly of benefit to the client.

“I often liken the coaching industry to the building industry – there are master craftsmen, skilled amateurs and, of course, the cowboys out to make a fast buck,” says Hamilton. “The problem with lack of regulation is that clients are not protected from unskilled practitioners, many of whom do not even practise with insurance. Without the prerequisite skills to deal with uncovering blocks and obstacles that clients face, coaches run the risk of doing more harm than good.”

While demand for life coaches is on the increase, making an instant living from coaching isn’t anywhere near as easy as it’s often made out to be.

“The market is flooded with non-accredited courses which use sales techniques, such as promising six-figure salaries on completion of their course,” says Phillips. “The reality is that I am contacted regularly for advice from newly qualified coaches who haven’t been able to secure a client, never mind make a six-figure salary. I also find people becoming coaches

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after only attending a two-week course, which does worry me.”

“If you’re looking for a coach, always do your research first and check out their recommendations and credentials. It’s important to make sure a coach is continuing their own professional development as well.

Coaching methodologies are constantly changing and a good coach needs to be keeping their own credentials and experience up to date.”

But is it possible that the unregulated nature of the coaching industry is a good thing?

“Less regulation allows coaches to play to their strengths,” says Alexander. “Although they help you with ‘life’, they may be particularly good at relationships, life after divorce, career or positive parenting. Models that life coaches work with can vary. And life coaching is a new industry, and like any industry that is not highly regulated, standards will vary.”

Nevertheless, it’s a good idea to commission a coach who is, at the very least, a qualified member of one of the three major coaching organisations: the International Coach Federation, the Association for Coaching, and the Association of Coaching.

[ DISCOVERY ]

S

MIND FOOD

As pressure mounts to detox or diet, redirect your efforts to mindful eating principles, which can reduce food guilt and help restore natural appetite cues.

WORDS BY: DAVID GODING

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ometime during the past century, food became the enemy. Over the past 100 years, the dawn of TV dinners and convenience stores buried the pleasure of eating under a barrage of guilt – for taking time out to nourish your body, or indeed for daring to enjoy food. The word ‘appetite’ was coined to describe surreptitious ‘cravings’ by French women for chocolate. And anything indulgent – think Magnum Ego – is obnoxiously and confusingly marketed with drippings of salaciousness. No wonder most of us have a messed up relationship with food. We’ve forgotten what it is to eat intuitively.

US-based psychologist Dr Deb Burgard says attempts to tightly control intake – whether by following a specific diet ideology or restricting calories or certain macronutrients – drives us further from our bodies’ natural cues and undermines our trust in them.

“When we look at the research on disordered eating, we find that eating in the absence of hunger is almost always preceded by either restriction – trying to diet or ‘eat healthy’ – or food insecurity, where people are in a situation like poverty where they feel like they don’t have a reliable source of food when they need it,” says Dr Burgard, one of the founders of the Health At Every Size movement.

“Dieting is a tutorial in learning to not pay attention to your body, and to just eat what someone else chooses. It turns out this is a way of eating that many people’s bodies interpret as alarming, because it is not synchronised with the rhythms and requests of that person’s specific body.”

Clinical health psychologist Ruth Wolever, co-author of The Mindful Diet, blames multi-tasking for the increase in mindless eating, which is often misconstrued as greed or lack of self-control.

“Consider the common habit of eating while doing other things – whether that’s driving, checking email, walking through the grocery store, or watching TV. Research shows that when people eat while they’re distracted or multitasking, they eat faster, eat a bigger portion, don’t remember what they consumed, feel significantly less full, and continue to eat more throughout the day,” she says.

Mindful eating is all about being ‘here and now’ with the food you’re eating.

“When you start paying attention, you realise that while you’re ‘here’ physically, your mind is often busy burrowing into the past or projecting into the future,” says Wolever. “What’s the problem with this? You end up reacting to the dramas that play out in your mind, which often have little or nothing to do with what’s happening in the present moment. What’s more, you miss a lot of what’s happening in the present.”

PRESENT TENSE Most thoughts that drive unhelpful eating behaviours either emanate from the past (guilt, mistakes, longing for the old you), or focus on the future (going without, dread, or longing for the new you). The act of eating is almost entirely forgotten.

“In real life, ‘breakfast’ was coffee on the way to work, the staff meeting starts in five minutes, and the bag of Doritos on your desk is looking good,” says Wolever. “In real life, talking to your critical older sister triggers a Pavlovian response for dulce de leche ice-cream. In real life, you blew your diet last night at your best friend’s birthday bash, so all bets are off. In real life, you ordered a vegie sub for lunch and it’s a foot long, and while you didn’t ask for potato chips, here they are. In real life, every diet you’ve tried has left you feeling two things: hungry and unhappy.”

Not being present can lead to myriad unhealthy eating patterns, says Wolever. “Rather than contending

with emotions like sadness and anger, some people overeat to ‘stuff’ their feelings down. Not being present in our bodies means that we miss our bodies’ hunger and fullness signals.

These signals are the body’s innate way of alerting you when to start and when to stop eating. Ignoring them is like driving on a busy road with no stop signs or traffic lights.”

Knowing both your external and internal triggers (think feeling anxious or upset and walking past a bakery that reminds you of home) can also help to prevent mindless eating – particularly reactive comfort eating.

“We’ve all been there,” says Wolever, “you hang up from a difficult phone call with anger coursing through you or sadness weighing you down, and before you know it, you’ve downed not one but three brownies. Or you’re trying to meet a deadline at work and find yourself munching through an entire bag of Cheetos. On the flip side, when sadness or anxiety hits us really hard – from a heartbreaking loss, an awful argument with someone we love, or pre-presentation jitters, for instance – we often feel unable to eat.”

With the space created by a meditation practice, you can acknowledge the presence of triggers and the way they make you feel, then either deal with them now, if pressingly important, or let them drift away.

LICENCE TO LOVE FOOD Of course, eating fulfils more personal and cultural functions than mere survival: food is steeped in nostalgia, sensory pleasure and social involvement and satisfaction.

Implementing a mindful approach to food may not only feel less punitive than you might imagine, but it’s likely that you’ll experience greater pleasure from eating and really identify what you love (and perhaps only thought you liked).

“Remaining in the present allows you to relax, mentally and physically, and stop the reactive cycle that leads to overeating (or choosing high-sugar or high-fat foods),” says Wolever.

“Being present also keeps you in touch with what’s happening in your body – notably, signals of hunger and fullness that are very easy to ignore when your mind is going a mile a minute.”

“And finally, when you’re present, you can consciously direct your attention to your sensory experience while you’re eating, noticing the textures, tastes and smells that you might usually miss because you’re distracted or eating quickly. Fully engaging your senses will help you better enjoy smaller amounts of food.”

However, even the most rewarding change requires commitment and time.

“Make it a priority to spend time nurturing the things that are most important in helping you reach your goals,” says nutritionist Rachel Bartholomew, who co-developed The Mindful Eating course. “I’ve seen people swap half an hour of watching television for half an hour of making a mindful bean soup instead. Some people have ditched their daily winddown with wine and chocolate and have replaced this with a family walk.”

Slowing down can actually create rather than diminish time.

“When you make time to be more mindful, this actually frees up more time,” says Bartholomew. “When you are mindful, your focus sharpens and you become more efficient at everything you do. You also start to filter out daily tasks and activities that are not helpful and don’t fit with your new lifestyle.”

CURIOSITY CONNECTION To really connect with food in a mindful way, you need to find it interesting. Start by cultivating curiosity.

“Before you begin eating, sit and appreciate the food with your eyes,” suggests Bartholomew. “Look at the variety of colours, see the different shapes and textures. Inhale the aromas of the food as you begin to take some deep breaths into your belly, relaxing into a calm state that is perfect for digesting your food.”

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[ DISCOVERY ]

[ DISCOVERY ]

“Eat a forkful of food and then put down your silverware. Close your eyes and totally focus on the flavours.

Chew thoroughly, imagining how this wonderful food is nourishing your body and mind. Listen to your body and stop eating when you begin to feel pleasantly full. Research shows that people who are blindfolded eat much less than people who can see their food, because they are able to truly focus on their body’s signals.”

You may even want to bring some of your newfound awareness into the kitchen itself. Meditating while cooking may sound like a dangerous pursuit, but it’s one that can definitely enhance the experience.

“As you cook your favourite dish, remove any distractions and bring your awareness to the moment,” says Bartholomew. “First, become aware of your breathing and then gradually expand your awareness so that you are keenly aware of everything around you and within you. Slow down the process of assembling your ingredients, gathering each one at a time, and noticing their different qualities.”

“Pay attention to the aroma, texture, shape and colour of each vegetable as you add it to the mix. Heighten your senses to be aware of each movement you make and be present as you stir the dish. Reflect on the concept that what you are doing is a metaphor for your whole life.

“By shifting to a state of mindfulness, you put yourself in the driver’s seat and take full responsibility for where you are and where you want to be. You learn to listen to your body and enjoy the process of eating real food. When you are in this mindful state, it becomes very difficult to overeat.”

@musemagazineau

THE CHOCOLATE SOLUTION Learn to savour quality chocolate and derive greater enjoyment from less with Cioccolato Lombardo chocolatier Tad Lombardo DARK SIDE: Forget sweet milk chocolate. Discernible for its telltale sheen and audible ‘snap’, couverture chocolate is luxe, expensive and must contain a higher than usual content of cocoa butter (between 32 and 39 per cent) and an overall cocoa percentage of at least 54 per cent. Otherwise try an unsweetened chocolate with no added sugar. Lombardo recommends sugarfree, 62 per cent dark chocolate from Swiss chocolate house Felchlin.

ROOM TEMPERATURE: The chocolate should be at room temperature. High-quality chocolate should never be stored in the refrigerator; in the mouth, cold chocolate does not release the flavours and aromas as quickly as room temperature chocolate.

PRE-CLEANSE: The palate should be cleared of any other flavours that may be lingering in your mouth. To do this, eat a piece of apple or a small piece of bread.

SENSORY IMMERSION: Chocolate is not only tasted with the mouth, but also with the eyes, ears, touch and smell.

Look at the chocolate, appreciate the shine and colour. Break off a piece and listen to the sound. High-quality

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chocolate produces a sharp, crisp sound when it breaks and a clean edge. Rub the chocolate with your fingers – it should feel smooth. The temperature of your fingers while rubbing the chocolate will start to release the odours and enhance the intensity of the tasting. Smell the chocolate’s array of aromas – they are infinite and different people will detect different aromas from the same piece of chocolate.

MOUTH WORK: Finally, taste the chocolate by letting it melt in your mouth. Enjoy the richness and allow the flavours to release – you don’t need to chew high-quality chocolate, as it will melt at 32°C. As the chocolate melts, be aware of the flavours, and notice whether they’re the same as the ones you smelled.

LONG FINISH: Good chocolate eaten mindfully is the gift that keeps on giving. Once the chocolate has melted completely in your mouth, be aware of the ‘finish’ – for high-quality chocolate it is not bitter or unpleasant on the palate.

The finish is an important part of the tasting process since many of the early flavours can be masked by other flavours in the chocolate.

[ IN DEPTH ] CHANGE

[ MIND SPACE ]

THE WILLPOWER

PARADOX

You say you want it. You imagine that life will be better with it. Yet for the fourth attempt running, you’ve failed to do the things you needed to to achieve what you said you would. We reveal unconscious resolution roadblocks and strategies to clear them.

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W

hether or not you maintain your new year resolution past the first days of January may have less to do with willpower or skilled goal setting than your worldview.

People who possess a capacity known as future-mindedness, or a propensity to see and consider the future while considering the present, are more likely to make positive decisions about their health than those whose perspective is entirely present-focused, according to research at Kansas State University.

Hallmarks of future-mindedness include willingness to choose larger rewards on delay than smaller but immediate ones according to study head James Daugherty. “You’re more likely to exercise and less likely to smoke and drink.” Futureminded candidates were less likely to smoke and drink than those anchored to the present, concluded research in journal Personality and Individual Differences.

In addition to comparing people’s perspectives on time with their health behaviours, the researchers also wanted to see what type of time perspective measurements are better at predicting health behaviours.

One survey asked cognitive psychology questions such as ‘Would you prefer $35 today or $45 in 35 days?’ The other surveys used two types of social psychology methods.

These included having the subjects rate the extent to which they agree with statements like ‘I am willing to sacrifice my immediate happiness or wellbeing in order to achieve future outcomes.’

The subjects then took surveys that asked questions like how often they ate breakfast, used tobacco and exercised, as well as their concerns with health risks like high cholesterol and contracting AIDS. Daugherty and psychology professor Gary Brase found that the subjects who gave future-minded answers in the initial surveys were more likely to report healthy behaviours in the latter survey. They said this could have consequences for how people deal with negative health behaviours.

“People who tend to have a very present-minded perspective will have an easier time following through with a change if they can see rewards sooner. So if somebody goes into a weight loss centre, the clinicians could measure a client’s time perspective.

Then the clinicians would know the more effective way of helping the client reach his or her weight loss goal,” says Brase.

If you are present-minded, it might help to set smaller goals with more frequent rewards – think exercising 20 minutes a day, several times a week – as a means of fooling your brain into completing the behaviours required to achieve a larger, longer term goal.

“You promote the idea that you have to do very little and you’re going to see these great results,” says Daugherty.

Another psychological tactic for increasing the likelihood of achieving goals you set is language.

Research shows that phrasing concrete behaviours towards goals as questions elicits a mental response that favours performing them. Take ‘I will exercise this year’, which is significantly stronger when phrased as ‘Will you exercise this year?’, according to the study of 40 years’ research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Experts credited the ‘questionbehaviour effect’, which has been shown to last more than six months after questioning.

“If you question a person about performing a future behaviour, the likelihood of that behaviour happening will change,” says co-author Dave Sprott.

The basic idea is that when people are asked a question about a target behaviour in language suggesting a third party, it causes a psychological response that can influence their behaviour when they get a chance to perform the new action. The question needs to both remind them that performing the action is good for themselves or has other benefits and make them feel uncomfortable if they are not performing the action – thus motivating them to perform the behaviour to avoid discomfort.

Caveats for using the technique, which is commonly used in the sales and marketing of consumer goods, include the finding that timelining behaviour may undermine success.

Entrenched behaviours are more resistant to the technique than newer habits.

ANATOMY OF A HABIT Much of our daily lives is taken up by habits formed over a lifetime. Studies show that about 40 per cent of people’s daily activities are performed each day in almost the same situations, essentially to increase efficiency.

Habits emerge through associative learning. “We find patterns of behaviour that allow us to reach goals.

We repeat what works, and when actions are repeated in a stable context, we form associations between cues and response,” Wendy Wood told the American Psychological Association.

Habits have a recognisable neural signature, meaning that when you are learning a response, repetition of the behaviour in the same context

reorganises information in your brain, shifting to the sensory motor loop that supports representations of cue response associations, and no longer retains information on the goal or outcome. This shift from goal-directed to context cue response helps to explain why habits are rigid behaviours.

There is a dual mind at play, Wood explains. When our intentional mind is engaged, we act in ways that meet an outcome we desire and typically we’re aware of our intentions. Intentions can change quickly because we can make conscious decisions about what we want to do in the future that may be different from the past. However, when the habitual mind is engaged, our habits function largely outside of awareness. We can’t easily articulate how we do our habits or why we do them, and they change slowly through repeated experience. “Our minds don’t always integrate in the best way possible. Even when you know the right answer, you can’t make yourself change the habitual behaviour,” says Wood.

Attesting to this default mode is a study in which participants were given popcorn in a movie theatre. People who have a habit of eating popcorn at the movies ate just as much stale popcorn as participants in a group given fresh popcorn. “The thoughtful intentional mind is easily derailed and people tend to fall back on habitual behaviours,” says Wood. “Habits allow us to focus on other things… Willpower is a limited resource, and when it runs out you fall back on habits.”

FORMULAIC CHANGE Standard interventions such as public service announcements, educational programs, community workshops, and weight loss programs are very successful at increasing motivation and desire, but when it comes to follow-through, their lack of attention to less conscious factors lets them down. Habits are often sustained and changes abandoned due to unconscious self-sabotage grounded in self-doubt, for instance.

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Once the initial excitement of a pep talk or book of memes wears off, skills and timelines suggested by a program or written in a diary are unlikely to sustain action, particularly in the face of discomfort or pain.

According to Wood, there are three main principles to consider when effectively changing habitual behaviour. Before new habits can be instituted, existing ones need to be derailed to create a window of opportunity to act on new intentions.

Someone who moves to a new city or changes job is in an optimal situation for disrupting cues and creating new habits. Simply, when the cues for existing habits are removed, it’s easier to form a new behaviour. If you can’t alter your entire environment by switching cities, make small changes. For instance, if weight loss or healthy eating is your goal, try moving unhealthy foods to a top shelf, out of reach, or to the back of the freezer instead of in front.

The second principle is that repetition is key. Studies have shown it can take anywhere from 15 days to 254 days to truly form a new habit.

“There’s no easy formula for how long it takes,” says Wood. Lastly, there must be stable context cues available in order to trigger a new pattern. “It’s easier to maintain the behaviour if it’s repeated in a specific context,” says Wood. Flossing after you brush your teeth allows the act of brushing to be the cue to remember to floss.

Reversing the two behaviours is not as successful at creating a new flossing habit. Having an initial cue is.

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STICK TO YOUR GOALS BY SLEEPING MORE Increasing the amount of shut-eye you get may be a secret weapon against failure at common resolutions, according to sleep physician Cathy Goldstein, an assistant professor of neurology in the Sleep Disorders Centers at the University of Michigan.

Even minor sleep deficits that may not be evident in your level of functioning and pervasive performance handicaps assumed as ‘normal’ after a time can undermine goals, from eating healthier to landing a promotion at work.

To optimise resolutions, strive for seven to eight hours of nightly sleep every night.

Try to go to bed at the same time each evening, even on weekends. Otherwise, “you’re basically putting your body through jet lag on Sunday night,” says Goldstein.

Keep your bedroom as dark as possible.

Install blackout blinds or curtains to block any light pollution that can suppress the production of melatonin, a hormone that helps control your sleep and wake cycles.

Cover any direct glow from electronics or clocks. “You’re most sensitive to bright light in the middle of the night,” says Goldstein. “Even low levels can have a negative effect.”

And don’t use your smartphone or tablet while in bed. Set the phone to ‘do not disturb’ mode to avoid sleep interruptions from late-night calls or texts.

Here are common goals that may be scuttled by poor sleep hygiene.

‘I want to eat healthier’: The pitfalls of eating junk food are twofold when sleep is in short supply. Night owls are more likely to snack in the evening (either by raiding the pantry or hitting a drive-thru) and those who eat during the nighttime tend to weigh more.

Even ‘evening people’ who aren’t getting enough sleep are apt to make poor meal choices during the day. Sleep restriction decreases one’s levels of leptin (the hormone that makes you feel full) and boosts ghrelin, which collectively increase appetite and alter food choices in a negative way. “It really changes the profile of what you eat to high carbohydrate, salty, sugary snacks,” says Goldstein.

‘I want to exercise more’: Who feels like hitting the gym when they’re exhausted? Beyond a lack of mental motivation, the physical payoffs of exercise

are reduced when your sleep routine is out of whack.

Researchers have found that adequate sleep improves speed, strength and endurance in athletes. A 2013 Northwestern University study found that the connection benefits everyone: “The less sleep you get, the shorter your exercise duration the next day is going to be,” says Goldstein.

‘I want a promotion’: Good employees are alert, motivated and cheerful. Those qualities, says Goldstein, “all are impaired by sleep loss.” Sleep deprivation also spurs what she dubs “cyber loafing” – that is, mindlessly scrolling social media or entertainment sites while on the clock.

The risks aren’t relevant only to those seeking to climb the corporate ladder. A well-rested boss is probably a better worker, too. Notes Goldstein: “There is some research saying sleep-deprived people in managerial roles are less ethical and not as nice.”

‘I want to improve my relationship’: Working through any interpersonal issues can be a challenge on its own, but fatigue hinders the healing process. “A person’s mood is going to be worse when they don’t sleep,” says Goldstein.

Those with obstructive sleep apnoea, a disorder in which breathing is interrupted during the night, often “have a really short fuse; they’re much quicker to anger,” says Goldstein. “But once we get their sleep quality improved, their social interactions are markedly improved.”

‘I want to quit smoking’: Sleep deprivation is tied to higher rates of nicotine dependence, says Goldstein.

Researchers aren’t exactly sure why, but she suspects much of it relates to nicotine’s “activating” properties to help users relax or concentrate, among other things.

Low sleep reserves affect your ability to make good decisions. That includes whether to use harmful tobacco products, even if you’re aware of their detrimental effects.

MAN IS THE ONLY CREATURE WHO REFUSES TO BE WHAT HE IS. - ALBERT CAMUS

[ IN DEPTH ]

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The dichotomous thinking children suppose before they develop the capacity to tolerate ambiguity is often seen as a hindrance to adult life, but what if you deliberately turned your life inside out for a day and did everything directly opposite to normal? Ex-child Madeleine Dore spends a day on the flip side and learns a thing or two about change.

L

ike many children in their primary school years, saying or doing something on the ridiculous side was retroactively embraced as ‘opposite day’.

The game was a free pass to get away with putting on a character who acts or speaks differently to you, a chance to modify the meaning of everyday actions, and an opportunity to play.

But play meets us everywhere as children, so it wasn’t uncommon for the official schoolyard declaration that it was ‘opposite day’ to soon be forgotten. Rarely, if ever, was the game kept up for the entire day.

Perhaps it’s us adults who need to embrace opposite day as an attempt to escape the patterns and habits that may be closing us off to creativity, keeping us stuck in a rut, or no longer serving us well.

I was curious to see what would happen if I played the childhood game with my own daily routine. Is it possible to shake the mundane, play with the everyday and step outside my comfort zone by doing the very opposite of my natural instinct for a day?

The plan for my own personal opposite day was to say yes when I wanted to say no; to get up early when I prefer to sleep in; speak my mind instead of trying to navigate someone else’s feelings through being polite or apologetic; dress up when I want to dress down; and so on.

Yet when the day I marked in my calendar to be opposite day came around, the plan crumbled. Yes, I found myself waking early – but I’d also done the very same the day

before. Saying no came with ease – but I had been consciously trying to get better at letting go of other people’s expectations.

I dressed up to get a coffee mid-afternoon when usually have them strictly before midday – but dressing up wasn’t necessarily uncharacteristic.

Much like the schoolyard, by the end of the day I had forgotten my declaration that it was opposite day. Perhaps what made opposite day so difficult to implement as an adult was there is no clear ‘opposite’ to my daily life – some days I wake up early, some days I wake up late.

Some days I exercise, some days I don’t. Some days I feel extraverted and outgoing, some days I don’t. It’s difficult to find the opposite when at any given moment an individual contains multitudes.

Our self-states also differ from one relationship to the next. Within our relationships with friends, partner, family, co-workers, acquaintances and strangers, we construct a different version of ourselves.

This is because our personalities are contextual, as psychologist Loren Soeiro described on Psychology Today.

“We exist as a collection of traits, habits and preferences that express themselves differently with different people. For example, the same person who at home is a rigid or demanding father might, in the presence of his boss, become anxious and uncertain. A young woman who’s extremely outgoing in the presence of her female friends may feel withheld or suppressed when she’s on a date. This is the truth about our personalities: they’re contextual.”

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OBSESSION WITH CHANGE It’s difficult to do the opposite when there is no constant context, but what also made my opposite day difficult is that it is impossible to change ourselves overnight.

If new year resolution lists are anything to go by, we are in constant hope that we can radically change ourselves – that this year we can become the very opposite of ourselves.

It may be the plotting and the planning – the attempts to change myself – that may be getting in my own way, not the inability to stick to the resolutions.

As columnist and author Oliver Burkeman puts it, “Once you have tried to impose a regime on yourself for the hundredth time and it hasn’t worked, you start to think maybe the problem is not that I failed to follow the regime, but that I’m too obsessed with trying to impose a regime in the first instance.”

The flaw of my opposite day experience is that it implied the opposite regime is ‘good’ and my current is ‘bad’ – that there was a rut I had to escape. But while the meaning of a rut implies dullness, it equally refers to a track that is well worn – an implied strength.

We need to flip the obsession from changing our flaws to improving our existing strengths – to find a way to make the rut work for us, not against us.

“How many of your new year resolutions have been about fixing a flaw?” asks Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis.

“And how any of those resolutions have you made several years in a row?”

We fail because it’s very difficult to change our personality or the habits of a lifetime.

“If it is a weakness you choose to work on, you probably won’t enjoy the process. If you don’t find pleasure or reinforcement along the way, then – unless you have the willpower of Ben Franklin – you’ll soon give up,” explains Haidt.

It turns out when we focus on improving our existing strengths, we flourish. Better yet, it actually changes our brain to make us happier and healthier.

A study in Harvard Business Review showed that once people focused on their strengths, they felt more satisfied with their lives and believed in new possibilities rather than getting stuck in the ‘not good enough’ trap.

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Opposites attract

“While the meaning of a rut implies dullness, it equally refers to a track that is well worn – an implied strength.”

“It is a paradox of human psychology that while people remember criticism, they respond to praise. The former makes them defensive and therefore unlikely to change, while the latter produces confidence and the desire to perform better.”

Haidt’s advice is to embrace imperfection and relinquish the need to be good at everything. “Life offers so many chances to use one tool instead of another, and often you can use strength to get around a weakness.”

THE SCARCITY MINDSET Our finances are a good example of how we can flip the narrative from focusing on our flaws or what we lack to focusing on our strength and what we enjoy.

As psychologist and certified financial planner Brad Klontz believes, the word budget, much like the word diet, is flawed because the connotation is “deprivation, suffering, agony, depression”.

Such connotations make what we are trying to resist more difficult to resist – we become obsessed with what we can’t have. In other words, we are stuck in a scarcity mindset, and the way our brain thinks we can overcome scarcity is to spend money if we have a budget or to eat if we are on a diet.

To combat this, Klontz suggests working with your human psychology, and not against it.

Rather than making a budget, he recommends creating a spending plan focused on your goals or the things you most enjoy that you’d like to save for. Then you create a spending plan that focuses on supporting your goals – it’s essentially the same as a budget, but it puts what you value at the centre.

“You get really excited about things you want to spend money on. And then you want to cut back on the things that don’t matter,” says Klontz.

Putting ourselves or our strengths at the centre of any budget, resolution or future change helps us to focus on what we really want instead of what we think we want or what we glean as important from other people.

As Haidt writes: “Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. Stop wasting your money on conspicuous consumption. As a first step, work less, earn less, accumulate less and ‘consume’ more family time, vacations and other enjoyable activities.”

EVOLUTION THEORY Cheryl Strayed said that one of the biggest mistakes people make when describing her best-selling autobiography Wild is that she was trying to ‘escape her life’ when she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

“What I always knew, even at the time, not just when I wrote the book,” she said in her advice podcast, Dear Sugars, “is that I was actually stepping into my life.”

“Even that broken version of me knew I was not running away, I was stepping into.”

Even when we may feel we are at rock bottom and only the opposite of where and who we are would appear to provide solace, we cannot escape ourselves.

True change is stepping into ourselves, as Kevin Tobia writes for Aeon. “Ordinary life offers numerous examples of identitypreserving and purposeful changes.

Sometimes, tremendous change suggests features of a person’s essence or deep self.

Committing to a relationship, flourishing in a new career or mastering a novel hobby inevitably changes us, but it does so in ways comporting with self-narrative. These changes do not make us seem ‘less ourselves’. Instead, these changes seem to help us become who we are.”

Even though waking up and claiming it to be opposite day may help invite childish play and bring creativity back into our lives, real change is finding strength in the rut, embracing our weaknesses and becoming who we are.

@musemagazineau

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DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR? Communication weaknesses often remain hidden, but deficits in listening skills can undermine both depth of connection and interpersonal influence. Discover your fault lines.

WORDS: NATASHA THOMPSON

‘I

t’s not what he said, it’s the way he said it.’ Being a competent communicator depends on more than just listening. Or does it?

Interpreting the spoken word is rarely a simple task. Dressed in subtle linguistic cues, sarcasm and double meaning, and delivered through a mask of expressions, verbal communication is a complex dance of ideas and emotions that can often end with one partner moving in the wrong direction, or worse, lying on the floor. Maybe you’ve experienced this communication breakdown. You leave a meeting and everyone agrees you’ll have to change the direction of the project. But the boss

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didn’t even talk about the project. How could you have completely missed this?

Being a competent communicator requires more than just listening. Well, that’s at least what society tells us. Thanks in part to the age of micro expression-obsessed TV shows (think: Lie to Me) and humanity’s inherent fascination with body language, we’ve come to believe that the true message isn’t in the words, it’s in the way his eyes flicked to the left after he said her name, the way her lip curled slightly up when he greeted her or how she couldn’t stop playing with the table salt. Psychology has taught us to

focus on the way it’s said, just as much as what is actually said. But a new study suggests we may be doing this at a cost.

The research, which was published in the journal American Psychologist, features a series of experiments involving more than 1,800 people.

During each experiment, participants were directed to interact with another person or they were presented with an interaction between two people.

Sight and hearing were moderated during the experiments. The authors wanted to assess whether listening and watching were really the keys to good communication. They were particularly interested in ‘empathic accuracy’, or an individual’s ability to judge the emotions and thoughts of others.

While we are taught that good communication means making eye contact and ‘reading’ the speaker, the study found that ‘blinded’ listeners (those who could only hear a communication interaction) did the best at identifying emotions, demonstrating better empathic accuracy in all five experiments. How could this be? Wouldn’t viewing a speaker’s face only add to our accuracy? Study author Michael Kraus (PhD) believes there are two reasons why people may judge emotions better when they can only hear the speaker’s voice: (1) humans may be better at masking emotions through facial cues compared with the voice, or (2) attempting to interpret facial cues as well as vocal cues may simply overload us.

“What we find here is that perhaps people are paying too much attention to the face,” says Dr Kraus. “The voice might have much of the content necessary to perceive others’ internal states accurately.” What does this mean for daily communication?

Should we all start looking down as soon as someone speaks to us? Dr Kraus’ advice is less dramatic. His conclusion is that “listening matters”.

“Actually considering what people are saying and the ways in which they say it can, I believe, lead to improved understanding of others at work or in your personal relationships,” he says.

Don’t confuse Kraus’ message, however. Given the study findings, ‘ways’ likely refers to the vocal tools speakers use to convey emotions. In linguistics these ‘tools’ are known as affective prosody. They include the tone of someone’s voice, the pitch, the rhythm, and the presence of pauses.

Why does understanding the vocal tone of someone’s message matter so much? Consider your superior telling you, “I hope the project’s going well.”

In a happy voice, this exchange could reflect a real interest in how you’re progressing. In an angry voice, your superior may be expressing frustration at the time it has taken you to complete the project or disapproval about the way you are going about it. The true message may be less ‘how’s it going?’ and more ‘hurry up!’ In either instance, it’s clear that affect can determine the meaning of an exchange.

But what about reactions? After all, communication occurs between at least two people. And there is always a reaction, even if it isn’t actively executed. So how do we know what constitutes the right reaction – when it’s appropriate to laugh, express concern or to keep quiet? Knowing how to change your communication style according to the context of the exchange is known as communicative flexibility or communicative adaptability. Adapting well requires good ‘communicative competence’. So what makes a competent communicator? According to the Communicative Adaptability Scale (CAS), there are six measurable factors, namely: appropriate disclosure (do you share too much?), wit (can you defuse social tension with humour?), articulation (do you change the type of language you use to suit the situation), social composure (how comfortable and confident do you feel in certain communication settings?), social experience (how often do you put yourself out there and speak to strangers?) and social confirmation (do you maintain others’ social images? i.e. the way they present themselves to the world).

“It’s not what he said, it’s the way he said it.”

The importance of being an adaptive communicator was highlighted in a recent study by Singapore’s YaleNUS College. Assistant professor of social sciences Cheung Hoi Shan assessed the social communication skills, vocabulary and popularity of 164 children between the ages of 52 and 79 months. Dr Cheung was particularly interested in shy children. Previous research has suggested that these children tend to be less well liked by their peers. Contrary to previous beliefs, Dr Cheung’s study found that the popularity of shy children was not affected by low vocabulary skills if they had good social skills and were able to react well across a variety of social situations. In other words, shy kids with a worse vocabulary were fine so long as they had good social skills and high communicative adaptability.

“Presumably, having a good expressive vocabulary, and by extension a good command of language, makes it easier for children to engage and interact with peers,” said Dr Cheung. “However, we have found that the presence of a good vocabulary in a shy child offered no additional buffering effect for peer likeability if the child did not possess high-functioning social communication skills.” The opposite was true for those who were highfunctioning social communicators.

“Social communication skills serve as an effective buffer against the presumed language disadvantage,” said Dr Cheung.

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What does this mean for the shy child or adult with low social communication skills? Are they doomed forever? Not at all. According to Dr Cheung, “social communication skills such as making eye contact (and the) ability to adapt and communicate in different situations can be taught deliberately.” In fact, Dr Cheung urges parents of shy children to actively teach them these skills. The payoff? More meaningful relationships at every level.

COMMUNICATIVE ADAPTABILITY SCALE THE COMMUNICATIVE ADAPTABILITY SCALE WAS DEVELOPED BY ROBERT DURAN, UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD.

RATE 1 – 5

3 = SOMETIMES TRUE OF ME

5 = ALWAYS TRUE OF ME 4 = OFTEN TRUE OF ME

2 = RARELY TRUE OF ME

ACTION POINTS Increase your communicative flexibility with these tips from communication expert and the author of numerous psycholinguistic textbooks, Joseph A. DeVito.

• Realise that no two situations or people are exactly alike; consider what is different about this situation or person and take these differences into consideration as you construct your messages.

• Recognise that communication always takes place in a context; discover what that unique context is and ask yourself how it might influence your messages. Communicating bad news during a joyous celebration, for example, needs to be handled quite differently from communicating good news.

• Become aware of the constant change in people and in things.

Everything is in a state of flux. Even if the way you communicated last month was effective, that doesn’t mean it will be effective today or tomorrow.

Realise too that sudden changes (the death of a lover or a serious illness) will influence what are and what are not appropriate messages.

• Appreciate the fact that every situation offers you different options for communicating. Consider these options and try to predict the effects each option might have.

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1 = NEVER TRUE OF ME

1.

I like to be active in different social groups.

2.

I try to make the other person feel important.

3.

In most social situations, I feel tense and constrained.

4.

When I am anxious, I often make jokes. (R)

5.

I find it easy to get along with new people.

6.

I often make jokes when in tense situations.

7.

I am aware of how intimate my disclosures are.

8.

I feel nervous in social situations.

9.

I know how appropriate my self-disclosures are. (R)

10.

When I embarrass myself, I often make a joke about it.

11.

My voice sounds nervous when I talk with others.

12.

I try to be warm when communicating with another. (R)

13.

I am relaxed when talking with others.

14.

I disclose at the same level that others disclose to me.

15.

When someone makes a negative comment about me, I respond with a witty comeback.

16.

When I self-disclose, I know what I am revealing.

17.

I enjoy socialising with various groups of people.

18.

I am aware of how intimate the disclosures of others are.

19.

While I’m talking, I think about how the other person feels.

20.

I enjoy meeting new people.

21.

I do not ‘mix’ well at social functions.

22.

People think I am witty. (R)

23.

I am verbally and nonverbally supportive of other people.

24.

When talking, my posture seems awkward and tense.

25.

I try to make the other person feel good. (R)

TOTAL

SCORE Reverse score all items that end in (R) (e.g. 1 will become 5, 2 will become 4 and 3 will stay the same). Tally all scores to reveal your overall social communication ability. Total scores range between 25 and 125. While there are no designated cut-off scores, high scores reflect better social communication skills. If you would

like to see where your weaknesses lie, tally your scores according to the different dimensions: Social experience (items 1, 6, 20, 24, 25), social composure (items 4, 10, 13, 16, 28), appropriate disclosure (9, 11, 17, 19, 22), wit (5, 8, 12, 18, 26), articulation (3, 7, 14, 21, 29), and social confirmation (2, 15, 23, 27, 30). Dimension scores vary between 5 and 25. High scores reflect higher competency.

LIFE SHRINKS OR EXPANDS IN PROPORTION TO ONE’S COURAGE. – ANAIS NIN

[ IN DEPTH ]

Defying cultural norms and forging an individual path takes radical courage.

Yet relinquishing the familiarity and assurance of implicit acceptance can open the way to entire new worlds.

WORDS: CIARA CREMIN

Change the problem.

CHANGE your

WORLD.

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C

hange is a wish, a death wish: a desire for renewal. Two years ago I changed my gender.

Ever since I was a child I wanted to wear what society deemed inappropriate for my sex. If initially I thought the problem was with me, when finally I stepped foot out of my home dressed as a woman, there was no question about it, the problem was with society. Sometimes it’s the problem itself that wants changing. Having determination of the problem is the path to freedom. It’s through this that we determine the nature of what really does need changing. Far from helping us, frequently the change we want guarantees our enslavement.

If your partner strikes you down, then by any reasonable measure and irrespective of ‘cultural values’, a line is crossed and the relationship almost certainly should be ended. Things are not always so clear-cut. Must the relationship be ended when the ‘spark’ has fizzled out? For some it surely is a ‘deal breaker’. But there’s danger in the weight of expectation. Relationships are built on fantasies that in our imagination the lover at first embodies.

However, as we all know, reality is a lot messier and more complex.

Nonetheless, relationships are torn apart because of fantasies none of us live up to. They’re the sorts borrowed from the kind of magazine you find at the doctor’s surgery.

As Freud wrote, the human condition is one of discontentment.

Discontentment is the wellspring of art, of science, of love and revolution.

Contentment is our enemy.

Contentment is on the side of reaction.

It wants stasis and what it begets is a death spiral. Vigilance is required. Our discontentment is also the wellspring of commerce, the fuel of war machines.

The feeling of discontentment is fuzzy.

We’re never quite sure of the cause.

Advertisers provide it an identity. A problem is manufactured for which the solution always, in one way or another, involves monetary exchange.

Our heads are stuffed overflowing with billboard Hollywood spectacle.

We’re born watching adverts. In the mirror we imagine perfect bodies and perfect complexions. Along our contours we trace invisible idols. We see flab, blotchiness and wrinkles. We want diets, foundations and creams.

Are you getting enough sun? How are your cholesterol levels? Wrong questions make wrong problems make products. The bare wrist becomes a business opportunity, a void you want to fill with a watch that measures your pulse. Why? Because an anxiety was stoked and where there are anxieties there are needs, needs demanding lifestyle changes. Question the question. The boss organises an away day, a ‘wellness’ retreat: the latest fad of consultancy firms. Wellness is the palliative for a virus caused by your labour. In this register, lifestyle change is of piece with contentment, about remaining stationary, passive, dead.

You had the wrong lifestyle but you can buy the right one. It’s at the gym you’re contracted to where, amongst other sweaty, irregular bodies, you run. Pop video porn is your only distraction. But at least you’re fitter, healthier in body if not in mind, and more productive.

How much are we prepared to tolerate? To be author as opposed to slave of change is to be flush through with power. Change, real substantive, life transforming, vitalising change, is an event, a rupture in the fabric of routine. Changes like this that you make issue from a kind of madness

that causes you to dispel with caution.

Others call it courage. It was in such a moment of madness, for I don’t know how else to describe it, that I crossed the threshold of my home and went to work in skirt, blouse, heels, pantyhose and full makeup.

Change, real meaningful change, has irreversible consequences. It renders what you thought once meaningful but stressful, draining and dissatisfying, meaningless. When the criteria according to which you conducted yourself are overturned, anxieties that kept you from sleeping are deprived of their power.

We put up with a lot. We tolerate conditions that if we had agency to do anything about it we’d surely change.

Some standards are important to maintain but which are so routinely violated that we cease to recognise when a red line is crossed. Red lines are daily crisscrossed: scrubbed out. That’s what’s so insidious about workplace bullying and the subtle – sometimes not so subtle – forms of harassment women are finally reporting on. Rarely is the bully so brazen, so exposed, that action can be taken. You feel the effect but remain suspicious of the cause.

Am I being paranoid? Am I expecting too much? In the routine drudgery of daily and nightly labours, the spirit atrophies. We become comfortably numb, contented in a situation that in our youth we swore we’d never put ourselves in. Of course, we want change. We’re short changed. There’s always something wrong with us.

There’s always something to feel guilty about. But to reiterate, true freedom is in the capacity to decide the problem.

Like the problem of my gender: I was guilty of wanting to wear dresses, made to feel ashamed if seen in makeup, for some my ‘condition’ a pathology requiring treatment. We are suckers to a disabling wisdom: Oprah, corporate values, family values: nations built on genocide sustained through violence.

When you take possession of the problem, the change you enact is on your terms, for purposes that are your own.

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Lars von Trier’s masterpiece, Dogville, illustrates the situation many of us are in. A stray without a home, Grace, played by Nicole Kidman, is offered the hospitality of a village community in whom she demonstrates gratitude by performing daily tasks.

She prunes hedges, polishes glasses, babysits for a busy mother and keeps a lonely old man company. Aware of her vulnerability and emboldened by her inexhaustible desire to please, the villagers assign her additional and increasingly more onerous tasks.

She’s the scapegoat when things go wrong and duly punished for it. A hand brushes ‘accidently’ against her knee, another forces a kiss and soon they’re all at it: she becomes the victim of collective and systematic rape. Even then she tries to see their point of view.

After all, wouldn’t she do the same in their situation? Then, as the full moon rises, all of a sudden those faces once bathed in a benevolent light are cast by a different, harsher, more unforgiving one. Clarity is brought to the situation.

No, she would not do the same. And if there’s to be justice in this world, if others are not to suffer as she has, then it is her duty to rid the world of this village and everyone in it.

There comes a point when we all need to recognise that the change that is needed is greater than ourselves. It is the society that must be changed, a rotten and corrupt system that everywhere breeds misery, hatred, violence and oppression. It’s the kind of change that’ll never be hawked by advertisers and that you won’t find serialised on Netflix. It’ll never be the theme of an away day organised by your employer or something you can get via a PayPal transaction.

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Discontentment is a condition of life but hope is a necessary correlate without which there’s only decay and disintegration. Throughout the world, through the course of history, people have risen up on the prospectus of change. We fight for a better world when we believe that a better world is possible. But the cynic will remind you that all such revolutions have failed, all promises of a better life have been broken. Do you mock the naivety of youth and their utopian visions?

Do you take pleasure in seeing those visions crushed? Perhaps you yourself are guilty of this kind of thinking? Do you see?

Returning to that image of the lover in whom you invest impossible expectations, the way out of this cynicism lies in this: It’s not that we must get rid of our fantasies but instead be mindful not to be enslaved by them. Change is a process involving taking risks. It’s about taking chances, the roll of the dice, bad dice: a revolution betrayed. Good dice: lucky breaks, great advances. Change is chance, a chance of a future, an impossible future, impossible from the perspective of the now. When that nylon-sheathed foot encased in a black court shoe first crossed the threshold

of my front door, I couldn’t have envisaged the changes it would usher, the opportunities that’d arise, the lifting of spirits. There were colours I didn’t know existed, a spirit I hadn’t until then recognised as damaged was renewed. In new worlds there are new peoples, different kinds of dissatisfaction and new possibilities that arise from them, both personal and collective. There are no brave new worlds and nor should we want them. Fantasies can be the motor of change. But sometimes they are the wrong fantasies. If change is a constant through which as a species we thrive, it’s not so much the point to realise them as to be the collective authors of them. We need ideas, impossible ones, that if enacted would engender a different, more beneficial compact between individual and society. We need changes that, in these dystopian times, future generations will be enriched by and also find hope in.

Ciara Cremin lectures in sociology at the University of Auckland. Her latest book, Man-Made Woman: The Dialectics of Cross-dressing, published with Pluto Press.

@musemagazineau

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[ MIND SPACE ]

PERSONALITY FORECAST Think personality is fixed? While some aspects are hard to change, others are surprisingly malleable. Whether you’d like to be more curious or less emotionally volatile, you may be able to alter your type.

WORDS: HAYLEY JACH

I

f you could change your personality, which parts would you choose? Would you be more outgoing, able to make friends easily? Would you be more organised, able to be on time to every meeting and keep your room in a state where you can actually see the carpet? Would you like to be more compassionate towards the plights of those less fortunate? Or would you simply like to be less afraid?

And how reasonable does this sound: achievable, or ridiculous?

In popular imaginings of personality, the words ‘personality’ and ‘change’ don’t belong together. Many people think personality, by its nature, is the part of you that is fixed and unmalleable. But what do we really know about personality change?

According to one popular paradigm, the five-factor model of personality dimensions known by the acronym OCEAN (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism), personality is more modular with more moving parts than sort of modular with moving parts.

• OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE: Intellectual or artistic creativity • CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: Self-controlled and organised • EXTRAVERSION: Enthusiastic, assertive, and sociable • AGREEABLENESS: Pro-social and polite • NEUROTICISM: Volatile, anxious and depressed Personality, then, is your score on each of these OCEAN factors, insofar as it compares to others’ scores. Within these there are also many variables and degrees. These scores represent how you tend to think, feel and behave on average. So even though you might score higher on extraversion than your friend, this doesn’t mean that you

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will be loud, enthusiastic and assertive in absolutely every situation at every moment.

That would be exhausting! Instead, you will simply demonstrate extraverted behaviours in more situations, more often than your less extraverted friend.

When researchers subscribing to this model ask whether personality can be changed, they are asking whether they can shift how people score on each OCEAN dimension by changing how they think, feel and behave on average. Is it possible to shift someone higher on extraversion so that they are more sociable and bold more often?

Consider a research project conducted

by Brent Robert and his colleagues of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In a large study combining decades of previous research, they investigated natural levels of personality change over time and found that, yes, personality does change throughout the lifespan! On average, people become more conscientious and agreeable, and less neurotic, as they grow older. Some behaviours associated with extraversion, like dominance, increased as people grew older, but others, like sociability, declined throughout adulthood.

Like extraversion, how open people were to new ideas and experiences initially increased in young adulthood, but then declined in later years.

A key takeaway from these studies is that personality changes naturally with age.

Personality change exists, and so, in principle, it might be possible to alter deliberately.

In field-leading research investigating deliberate attempts to change personality traits, University of Illinois researchers

be less emotionally volatile, anxious and depressed? If so, you have the same desires for personality change as the average participant in these studies.

Next, the researchers tracked these participants over the course of 16 weeks as they went about their daily lives, giving them a personality test each week. At the end of the study, they found that individuals who had indicated a desire to increase a personality trait were more likely to have actually increased this personality trait at the end of the study, suggesting that identifying desired change and signalling intent to pursue it may favour successful change.

INSTANT UPGRADE

Hayley Jach is a personality researcher at the University of Melbourne

investigated how much participants wanted to change parts of their personality, and then how much they actually succeeded in changing their personality.

First, they found that in general, participants wanted to be more extraverted, agreeable, conscientious and open to experience, and less neurotic. Think whether this is the same for you: would you like to be more outgoing, friendly and pro-social, organised, and curious to explore the physical and mental world? And would you like to

If you’d like to experiment with tweaking your personality – think minor upgrade rather than transplant since you don’t want to lose what makes you, you – choose a trait that you would like to increase or decrease. For example, suppose you would like to increase your extraversion – specifically, assertiveness – because you aspire to a leadership role at work.

First, think about the particular qualities of assertiveness that you would like to cultivate, such as freely speaking your mind, taking action when a decision needs to be made, and communicating with a strong, charismatic voice. If you’re not sure what specific qualities of personality traits are, it could be useful to take an OCEAN personality questionnaire. For example, the Big Five Aspects Scale is freely available online and includes items that make up all of the OCEAN traits.

Next, develop small, concrete and achievable strategies to demonstrate these qualities more frequently. For example, if you have a work meeting at a certain time each week, one strategy could be to speak up at least three times, giving your honest opinion, at each meeting. Or, to work on your voice, you could enrol in a public speaking course to hone the timing and tone of your speech. Your small and concrete strategy, then, could be to find a way to use one tip from the course each day at work.

Write these strategies down and put them somewhere prominent to remind yourself.

You might also write down any assertiveness ‘wins’ (e.g., if you notice people coming to you more frequently for advice, or if you are feeling more confident in making decisions) to gauge progress and motivate you towards change.

@musemagazineau

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AMBITIOUS

BALANCE The ‘don’t stop ‘til you reach the top’ mentality can undermine that very achievement. These successful women reveal the moments that caused them to value wellbeing and how it changed their lives.

INTERVIEWS: REBECCA LONG

“I BECAME PARALYSED.”

KYLIE TRAVERS SPEAKER, AUTHOR, MARKETING CONSULTANT, KYLIETRAVERS.COM.AU What/when was your aha moment?

When I became paralysed in 2015, I realised something had to change.

I spent seven months having issues with paralysis, a cancer scare, multiple surgeries and blacking out from pain. I had been doing too much, neglected my health and not bothered with self-care. Now, it’s a priority. If I don’t take care of myself, I can’t do anything.

How did you devise and implement strategies to support these priorities?

I rearranged my schedule and started slowly by implementing small exercises and meditation at first, adding more water and focusing on nutrition then building up to

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How does each of your tactics help?

My main things for self-care now are meditation, walking, eating healthy and spending quality time with those I love. If I don’t have these happening regularly, I begin to feel anxious, I find it harder to concentrate and my relationships suffer.

to include in presentations I give, along with the reasons why. Since mine was such a drastic change, it was obvious why it was needed and many have made changes in their own life.

Work-life balance is a myth.

Balance makes me think of walking on a tightrope – at some point you will fall. Instead, work out what you want in your life, prioritise your own needs, then only include the things you want. Make your life blend together instead of balancing.

How, if at all, did friends or colleagues respond to you prioritising these activities?

My family, friends and anyone I work with have all been incredibly supportive. It is something I started

If you were writing an advertising slogan for change…

You can’t help others if you aren’t taking care of yourself. How can you give your best if you are running on empty? Make self-care a priority.

having time to myself, holidays if needed, booking in to the salon and experimenting to find exactly what I needed to feel healthy.

LEONIE FITZGERALD FOUNDER AND PROPERTY EXPERT, WEALTHOLOGY AUSTRALIA, WEALTHOLOGY.COM.AU What/when was your aha moment?

As a typical A-type personality who was brought up with a good work ethic, I used to work long hours, irregular hours, on the road a lot and working some weekends. This eventually resulted in burnout because I just wasn’t taking care of myself – not eating properly, not enough water, lack of sleep, up late, no exercise or meditation. I soon discovered that to function at the high performing level that I was used to I needed to change my ways. The saying ‘you are what you eat’ is very true, so I created new habits around my eating patterns, my time keeping and my health commitments, which then resulted in better success. This has now become exceptionally important in my planning and scheduling, as I have had to make it a priority.

My hubby and I also schedule in a night away at least every six to eight weeks, where we go away, spend some time in nature, do things we wouldn’t normally do at home and just enjoy ourselves – switch off from worklife and just chill out. I also see a healing

massage therapist quarterly, focus on getting enough sleep, have regular acupuncture, walk my dog daily. I also plan and schedule my time for the week now so I have blocks of time where I’m doing certain things, i.e. desk work versus marketing versus being on the phone.

How did you devise and implement strategies to support these priorities?

I had to try certain things to see what worked for me – I soon realised when it came to meditating that I had to do it first thing in the morning before my brain fired up and became full of information and that doing it in a group environment also helped. I also quickly learnt that I had to schedule it into my diary or else it would never happen. Knowing the new ways of being was important for me to get the results I wanted – reduced feelings of guilt when doing it because I had prioritised it as important for my long-term goals. I used to feel guilty staying in bed on a Saturday morning reading a book but now it’s on my schedule, so between 8.30

“I SUFFERED BURNOUT.”

and 10.00am on Saturday that’s my dedicated time to read and for me to have to do nothing else. Reading makes me happy; it’s also my time to learn and grow myself. If it’s in the diary, I do it and enjoy doing it.

How does each of your tactics help?

In regards to my regular meditation I now feel a lot calmer in life, less things seem to worry me and my stress levels have clearly reduced.

Eating right has me having better energy, feeling better about myself and (experiencing) less downtime. If I don’t stick to my self-care plan, things can sometime not go as planned – I notice my energy levels decrease, my stress levels increase and when not exercising I can also put on a couple of kilos, which results in not feeling so good about my body, as my clothes don’t fit as well.

How, if at all, did friends or colleagues respond to your changes?

My husband has been really supportive, as we have both made it a priority and this has been great. I have someone to do things with, (like) walk the dog and stick to a healthy eating plan. He reminds me regularly to drink more water and we work with each other to help each other stay on track. It makes it a lot easier when you have a buddy to go on the journey with you. I am my own boss in the office, being the founder, so have flexibility around my time, but I must schedule it in – schedule it done, or else it can sometimes not happen. In regards to diet it used to be challenging in the beginning, particularly when dining at others’ homes, but my friends and family now know that self-care is important and accommodate me as much as they can.

If you were writing an advertising slogan for change…

Don’t wait til you’re on your deathbed to figure out that you should have taken more time out in life to do the things you enjoy. You are a human being, not a human doing.

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KAREN LEBSANFT CEO, KURRAJONG KITCHEN, KURRAJONGKITCHEN.COM.AU What/when was your aha moment?

It began in April 2016, when my husband’s mental health deteriorated.

It became a very emotional and stressful time and I felt like I was living a double life. One night it all came crashing down on me after a hospital visit. Before that I went into protective mum mode and was making sure everyone was happy and comfortable at work and at home, not even thinking about how I was feeling.

When I broke down I knew I had to start taking some heart-centred action around looking after myself, because it wasn’t healthy for me and anyone around me. I have always had the mindset that I should be doing something healthy for myself and have juggled the value of me for a long time. It was a now or never moment so crucial to the survival of me and those around me.

How did you devise and implement strategies to support your priorities?

I had been going to my local Curves at the time, but at that stage I knew I had to dedicate non-negotiable time.

I confided in my coach, Jess, who kept me accountable and mentally it helped me knowing that someone knew of my personal situation and made sure I went to the gym three to four times a week. I also called upon a personal friend who I knew was part of a running group and did this twice to four times a week, starting in the early hours as the sun rose.

How does each of your tactics help?

The routine of exercise was so invaluable. It became easier over time to make time for it because it became more than ‘exercise’. It gave me friendships, confidence, belief, support, improved mental health and it made me a better person both inside and out.

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How, if at all, did friends or colleagues respond to your changes?

It is amazing what happens when you change your perception from ‘I want’ to ‘I need’. You become amazing at time management and you will make it happen no matter what. I realised that fitting ‘me’ time in didn’t mean friends or family missed out, I just became better at using my time.

putting this pressure on ourselves, to juggle so many things, and the truth of being hurt or in need of help is hidden. We think everyone is a superwoman but ourselves, and we constantly compare and think, how is she doing it all? The truth that ‘I am not coping’ gets pushed under the covers. Allowing myself to be vulnerable to the truth allowed the abundance to flow. It’s okay to be vulnerable, it’s what makes us stronger, and once we address and become aware of it (vulnerability), it’s much easier to manage.

If you were writing a sales pitch for change…

Vulnerability brings abundance – because as women we are expected, and in some ways we are guilty of

“I WAS LIVING A DOUBLE LIFE.”

Ambitious balance

“I HAD PANIC ATTACKS.”

ELLA DOYLE FOUNDER, SOCIAL CUT, SOCIALCUT.COM.AU What/when was your aha moment?

I feel like I was always an advocate for mental health and wellness, as I was raised by a psychologist and nutritionist. I was always THAT friend who harped on about how important self-care was and everyone needs to shake the taboo of talking about mental health. I was so good at talking about it I forgot to take a step back and look at how I was taking care of myself.

About 12 months ago I began having some serious ‘holy-hell-Ican’t-breathe’ panic attacks, which scared the heck out of me. I quickly realised that I REALLY needed to practise what I preached. Since then I have had to learn to let go of the guilt around working on myself and the mentality that ‘self-time = less business/career growth time’ (which when I truly think about it is much of a muchness). My tip is to ask yourself, ‘How can my business/career grow if I’m not letting myself do the same?’

How did you devise and implement strategies to support these priorities?

This was totally trial and error, and to be honest, I’m still learning. I spent a bit of time talking to psychologists (and, no, there isn’t anything ‘wrong’ with me – as I mentioned, I’ve always believed the stigma around mental health is a bit OTT) to just ‘chat’ to an unrelated third party and to help guide me to how to ‘switch off’.

Since then, I’ve trialled yoga, meditation, social ‘blockout’ days (e.g.

Netflix and chillout days), and ‘techfree days’ (which is totally foreign to me as a social media specialist – I’m at about half a day at the moment, but getting there). I personally find spending time to explore the city/ outdoors and having a soak in the tub to be some of the best wellness tactics to letting go. And, if it didn’t mean committing business suicide at this stage, I’d even consider trying a social media detox for a few weeks too!

How does each of your tactics help?

The most important tactic for me (which I didn’t mention above, oops) is Phone-Free 45 – essentially, I don’t touch my phone for at least 45 consecutive minutes a day (usually before bed or when I first wake up).

This really allows me to set intentions for the day or for the next day

(depending on when I do it) and run through the day properly in my mind to give myself mini-snaps for small wins. I find if I miss this for a couple of days in a row, I become more on edge/short-tempered (mostly at the expense of my poor boyfriend). I also find I’m a little less productive, as my mind begins to wander and I haven’t really got a solid mental plan of attack.

How, if at all, did friends or colleagues respond to your changes?

Luckily, my Phone-Free 45 is usually practised before or after work, at home so the only person that it affects is my partner; however, learning to say no to having a heavy social calendar (both for extracurricular work events and friend catch-ups) has been a bit of a tricky one. My really close friends certainly get it but the conversation with colleagues, associates, and other friends sounds a bit like “Hey, I’ve been taking some time to make sure everything in my life is in balance, which kinda means social things need to be as well. I’d love to hang/attend but I just need to make sure I have enough time to recharge so that I can actually be there, enjoying my time with you!”

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THE REAL MEANING OF LIVING THE DREAM

Suzanne Cremen PhD, Founding Director, Life Artistry Centre for Archetype, Imagination and Vocation INTERVIEW: REBECCA LONG

SUZANNE CREMEN PHD, Founding Director, Life Artistry Centre for Archetype, Imagination and Vocation

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What place do you see career as occupying culturally and personally in contemporary life and how has that changed?

Besides the obvious economic role, our careers often play a significant part in our sense of identity and cultural / social fit. Just think of the ubiquitous question people ask to get to know and ‘place’ one another: “What do you do?” More than just a way of earning a living, a career can serve as a vehicle for crafting one’s power, identity and place in the world.

Ostensibly, people today (especially women) have considerably more freedom than previous generations

in their choice of occupation, and ability to change careers. Only a couple of generations ago a career (even a job) was for life; research shows the average young person today will likely have five career changes and at least 17 different jobs in their lifetime. For those with courage, imagination and a degree of good fortune, there’s also more freedom to forge one’s own entrepreneurial path rather than fit oneself into an existing job or occupation. But alongside this apparent freedom to ‘be what you want to be’, there are genuine limitations. For example, recent reports in Australian media highlight the increasing economic inequality for those under 30 who find themselves saddled with mortgagesized education debts, no chance of ever buying a home and shrinking employment opportunities in their

“Following a calling can take one beyond existing occupations onto untrodden paths and lead to the creation of previously unimagined kinds of work.”

chosen field of study. So having a career can also mean that one becomes a lord or a serf (or both!) in the contemporary feudal system of corporate and organisational life.

The emphasis on career in Western capitalist society has forgotten the older notion of the word vocation. To have a vocation is not the same as a career, although if we’re lucky they may converge. Today in Australia, the word vocation is commonly associated with skills training for a trade or blue-collar work. Yet if we look back in history, we discover there is a much deeper spiritual or soulful meaning, which dwells in its etymology. Vocation comes from the Latin vocatio, meaning a calling. This sense of an individual being blessed with a ‘calling’ (though sometimes in its insistence it may feel like a curse!) is typically more familiar in indigenous cultures and spiritual communities.

You can choose a career, but a vocation chooses you.

The notion of a ‘calling’ is easily consigned to a mystic or mythic world or pseudoscience. What underpins your belief in us each having a calling?

Perceiving and responding to a sense of calling necessitates a process of discernment, which will certainly test one over time. But from my personal experience, doctoral research and decades of working with people on this topic, I’ve found the notion of a ‘calling’ is only dismissed as pseudoscience or mysticism by those who are either ignorant and/or have an agenda to discourage others from attending to the authenticity of their inner voice.

As I mentioned, vocation comes from the Latin vocatio, meaning calling, or to be addressed by a voice – what Plato called a person’s daimon and the Romans called the genius. In medieval times a calling was typically to a religious occupation or monastic service. During the Victorian era, however, the concept of having a calling moved away from religious or spiritual promptings toward a sense of inner conviction in service of society, based on passionate commitment to some particular work – of art, for example, or of social improvement, such as the emancipation of slaves or the rights of women.

Today, the quest for a calling filled with meaning and purpose has become a secular concern for many people, a part of our self-actualisation.

The benefits of having a calling have been extensively researched and documented, including enhanced levels of career maturity, career commitment, work meaning, job satisfaction, life meaning, and life satisfaction. Although some may pursue a calling out of religious beliefs, psychological studies have found that having a set of spiritual or religious beliefs is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for having a calling. Yet my own research reveals that people often experience a calling as entailing some kind of non-ordinary, transpersonal, spiritual or soulful dimension, of which their ego or personal will is not entirely in control.

Alyce, for example, described it like this: “Vocation has always meant to me ‘heart work’. It’s like the artist can’t not do art. This is going to start sounding religious, but it’s that whole idea of who we are and what we are here to do, whatever that is.”

An artist, of course, receives a creative calling from the muse (also the name of your magazine – which speaks to creative inspiration coming from a mysterious place beyond personal consciousness). Following a calling can take one beyond existing occupations onto untrodden paths and lead to the creation of previously unimagined kinds of work.

Values, mission and purpose have become buzzwords, yet having a sense of meaning and purpose are broadly imagined as fundamental to psychological health and wellbeing. How do you imagine that we may realise a meaningful life?

It’s certainly energising to feel a sense of mission and purpose in life.

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However, the dogged pursuit of a mission or purpose can also easily devolve into an exhausting, wilful agenda – a grim determination that one’s life will go a particular way whether it wants to or not! The Quaker teacher and activist Parker Palmer described this as an act of violence towards ourselves in the name of a vision that, however lofty, is forced on the self from without rather than grown from within.

Instead of fabricating some statement of mission and purpose, why not learn to listen more deeply to what your life is really asking of you? What is it that wants to be lived through you?

In what ways might you be in radical and creative service to those values that are most truly resonant for you at a soul level, with your deepest self?

Being able to maintain stable employment is seen as a hallmark of adequate global functioning.

What is the relationship between mental health and paid employment?

Financial stresses and the inability to provide for oneself can certainly be a cause or a trigger of mental health problems. However, many people have also had an experience of toxic work environments. Research presented at the 2016 Congress of the Australian Psychological Society indicated that psychopathic traits are now common in the upper echelons of the corporate world, with a prevalence of between three and 21 per cent. So paradoxically, the inability to submit to a toxic or dysfunctional work environment – ‘to hold down a job’ – may also be indicative of the psyche’s innate health and refusal to tolerate more abuse. As Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

What is the benefit of aligning the way you earn a living with deeper psychological aspects – particularly those beyond awareness?

In terms of vocational choices, whether in one’s 20s or after many years in the workforce, I’d ask whether anything is really a mistake if we learn

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something we need to learn from it? Having said that, one of the most common wrong tracks people take is making career decisions based on what other people (friends, parents, media) think and say rather than attending more deeply to and having the courage to follow their own particular path.

Following one’s interests and strengths are good touchstones and tried and tested ways of choosing an occupation. Nevertheless, people will often find themselves restless and unfulfilled, particularly around midlife, even though their career choices are based on seemingly rational criteria. In pursuing a career path and crafting a professional persona, other parts of our psyches get relegated to our shadow. So depth psychology is also about becoming acquainted with and reclaiming those parts of ourselves that have been left behind, or pushed into the shadow as we conform to the requirements of a particular occupation or workplace.

It may not necessarily mean a career change, but a different way of approaching our work.

What sorts of experiences may prompt or indicate a need to explore vocation and decisions about it more deeply?

Typically, people start to explore these deeper questions of vocation around midlife. Sometimes this is because of external events, such as a relationship breakdown, job loss or accident. Other times there is just a disturbing sense of something ‘not right’ with one’s life, heightened by an awareness of ageing and mortality.

To give you one example, Jana (a pseudonym) had a respected position running important programs with a United Nations organisation. Yet at the age of 38, she found herself in a midlife crisis. “You can’t really explain why that happens,” she said. “I am working in an institution that helps developing countries, and I sense that what I do does not really benefit the poor people.

That’s one aspect of it. The other aspect is personal life, the sense of not being fully understood for who I really am. I have this realisation that life is finite, and there is something that I know I have to do, and I’m just not doing it. And at the same time not quite yet knowing what it is.”

Over time, using a combination of depth psychological practices, Jana

Call of the wild: The real meaning of living the dream

learned to discern and trust what was beckoning her. She left her secure career and embarked on innovative research related to her cultural heritage, exploring the relationship between the legend and myths of her ancestors and contemporary complexes around money. Jana now has a book contract with a leading publisher based on her research, and is stepping into a new career direction.

“I don’t know exactly how it looks… It’s more that I’m just following my calling, this vocational pull that is in me and I just follow it right now... It really involves a lot of trusting.”

I think this is what [author and philosopher] Michael Meade means by a vocation that is capable of “provoking one’s genius and inspiring one’s heart”. The genius was the ancient Roman word for a guiding spirit or soul companion that accompanies an individual from before birth and guides them towards their vocation. There is a feeling of really showing up in your life and, as Jana said, of doing what you’ve come here to do – even when you’re not quite sure where this is taking you!

How can depth psychology help to reveal more of us to ourselves?

Depth psychology is a field that is not so well known in Australia. It is a discipline that values the unconscious, not only the personal unconscious, but what the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, as a source of wisdom and guidance.

It acknowledges the continuous interaction of both conscious and unconscious factors on human behaviour. In particular, it’s an attempt to work with what we’re not so conscious of.

Above all, depth psychology can be described as a psychology of metaphor and imagination. Its methods encompass the study of myth, dreams, and symbols. It finds its home in the humanities, more so than the sciences, although there is a growing body of work linking scientific discoveries – in physics, biology, behavioural epigenetics, for example – with Jungian psychology.

I wouldn’t claim this is necessarily a superior paradigm to others. Every paradigm will show you something different, and there is value in the capacity to hold more than one paradigm when looking at any situation. But depth psychology is a seriously overlooked and generally misunderstood field, particularly in Australia. With so many people rightfully alarmed about our various planetary predicaments, I am seeing a hunger and appreciation, particularly among educated women, for what a depth psychological perspective can offer. It invites us towards a profound ontological shift, which is tremendously needed at this time.

In addition, it’s a more enriching, imaginative, soul-nourishing, endlessly fascinating way of being in the world. That’s good enough for me!

Brain, mind and soul are assumed into different configurations by different paradigms. How does depth psychology imagine their relationship?

Psyché was the ancient Greek word for soul, though as James Hillman pointed out in Re-Visioning Psychology, mainstream psychology has all but forgotten soul (from whence its name derives) and banished it from the profession. The notion of soul lies at the heart of depth psychology, which understands soul as a symbol, or an opening into mystery, rather than a scientific or religious concept.

Consider Heraclitus’ description of the soul: “You could not discover the limits of soul, even if you travelled every road to do so, such is the depth of its meaning.” Although it is impossible to define precisely what the soul is, we know intuitively that it has to do with genuineness and depth (just think of soul music, soul friends, or soul food!). Even those students in the courses I teach who are trained in the sciences – such as psychiatrists, psychologists, recently a molecular biologist – are acutely aware that this dimension and understanding of soul has been missing from their educational paradigms.

Freud and Jung are credited with elucidating the structure of unconscious content. What has their work contributed?

Beneath our conscious experience is a personal unconscious filled with thoughts, feelings and memories of which we are usually unaware.

Sigmund Freud was credited with the discovery of this layer of the unconscious in the late 19th century.

But then Jung came along and argued that what Freud had articulated was really only the tip of an iceberg.

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At a deeper level lies what Jung described as the collective unconscious – an oceanic field of fundamental possibilities inherited from the long history of experiences of the human species. Jung reintroduced the ancient idea of archetypes as structuring principles of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious has a transpersonal dimension, which manifests in universal patterns and images such as those found throughout the world’s religions and mythologies.

Far from being the repressed contents of consciousness, the collective unconscious is the very wellspring of the human imagination.

In Jungian psychology, it is the fertile ground from which new ideas, creative inspirations and big dreams arise.

What are complexes and what can they tell us about ourselves and our careers?

Jung developed the idea of complexes through his experiments with the Word Association Test from 1904, which led to the development of the

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lie detector. He considered complexes, even more than dreams, to be the royal road to the unconscious.

A complex is an impulse, pattern of behaviour, a recurring mode of imagination, an obsessive thought or preoccupation which keeps you in its grip. The things you continually talk about in your conversation will eventually point to your complexes.

They are like little centres of gravity in the personal terrain of the psyche – which can show up in our moods, our habitual perspectives, our hopes, our dreams and our fears.

When you have a strong reaction to something and think, ‘I don’t know what came over me!’ – you’ve stumbled on an activated complex. Complexes can be recognised by the heightened emotional effect they trigger, often disproportionate to a situation. When a complex is activated, then a little disturbance takes place where you are not fully in conscious control.

We all have complexes and we won’t be rid of them, even if we might wish to. Jung believed that complexes fuel libido or psychic energy, and should not be missing lest life come to a standstill. The best we can do is to learn to live with our complexes in a more conscious and satisfactory manner.

Many successful careers are driven by complexes. Think for example of the woman with a mother complex who channels this into a career as a stellar community worker. Or the man with a deep inferiority complex who overcompensates by becoming a high achiever in business to prove his worth. If you have a complex that’s working for you, you might want to ride it for all it’s worth!

Jung observed that complexes only become problematic when we think we don’t have them. Then the complex has you! When a complex remains unconscious, it becomes autonomous, operating as a ‘splinter psyche’ and sabotaging our best-laid plans for our

Call of the wild: The real meaning of living the dream

lives and work. In this untransformed state, the complex can chain a person to unfulfilling work, leading to burnout. Or it will inhibit the pursuit of a more authentic vocation – leading to the feeling of ‘being stuck’. So, for example, the woman with a mother complex finds she spends all her time caretaking others and has nothing left to pursue her own calling, to write.

How have you personally experienced/used depth psychology in your own vocation?

The twists and turns of my own vocational path have all been navigated with an ear to what the psyche, the unconscious, is saying too. So, for example, I pay attention to my dreams, my complexes, resonant metaphors, numinous moments in nature and synchronistic experiences to chart my vocational course through life. Previously I had worked as a career counsellor for adults in midlife, and I’ve completed groundbreaking PhD research integrating depth psychology into the theory and practice of career development. The archetype of teacher is strong in me, and so in 2015 I founded the Life Artistry Centre for Archetype, Imagination and Vocation to provide a forum for quality depth psychological education in Australia.

In particular, I’ve found that depth psychology has given me a much-needed language and a robust yet flexible intellectual framework for many things I have felt or intuited but for which I had previously had no words. This is one of the comments I frequently hear from the people I teach.

For more information, visit lifeartistry.com.au

What led you to become interested in depth psychology and what about it compels you?

I first came across depth psychology in 1993, when I was working as a lawyer. It was a coveted position in a prestigious Sydney firm, and yet I was anxious, depressed and felt as if something inside me were dying – what I’d call my spirit, or my soul. (Not so unusual in the legal profession today, which has since documented alarmingly high rates of depression in lawyers, but that’s another story). In search of some kind of help, I wandered into a bookstore and stumbled upon

“When a complex is activated, then a little disturbance takes place where you are not fully in conscious control.”

a book by the archetypal psychologist Thomas Moore, called Care of the Soul. Moore became a kind of book mentor to me, talking about the psyche and soul in a world where no one else around me did. I discovered that the lineage of his work and ideas went back to James Hillman, Carl Jung, and the Romantic and ancient Greek poets and philosophers who explored the depths of consciousness and the unconscious, memory and imagination, emotion and instinct, myth, art and creativity. It opened up entirely new frontiers for me.

Later, attending to my dreams and synchronicities led me to embark on a master’s degree in depth psychology and mythology in the United States. I was so fascinated by what I was learning that I completed a second master’s degree in Jungian and archetypal studies, and then received a full scholarship to do my PhD research on depth psychology and vocation in Australia.

Are there people for whom this approach is contraindicated?

I always discuss with prospective clients and students whether this will be a suitable approach for them. There are many different approaches to psychology (and career development) which suit different people.

Sometimes people simply need to learn how to craft a resume showcasing their transferable skills and present themselves well in an interview. A depth psychological approach to vocation will be optimal for those who have achieved a degree of career proficiency and success but are wrestling with deeper questions of meaning and purpose or feeling a pull to create a new project, venture or career direction (often outside the box). It particularly resonates with people who are intuitive and appreciate metaphor and imagination as modes of comprehension.

At a broad level, I’d say that a depth psychological approach can be valuable to anyone who wants to engage with the question of how work and career relate meaningfully to the rest of life.

@musemagazineau

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For CEO Leonie Newton, functioning at a high level despite distress and substance abuse hindered access to help – until she had a breakdown. She discusses how learning the cause of her symptoms aided recovery.

LEONIE NEWTON, 45, CEO OF OPPORTUNE MOMENTS SUCCESS COACHING AND CONVERSATIONS WITH A LIFE COACH DIAGNOSIS: COMPLEX POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (C-PTSD)

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Who is Leonie?

I am a life coach and mentor as well as a wife, mother and a grandmother. I live with a diagnosis of complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) and previously I have struggled with an addiction to alcohol and pain medication, which I used to soothe the savage beast in my mind. Now, my core drivers are connection and contribution. Without these, I would wither away.

How would you describe your mental health concerns?

C-PTSD is an indiscriminate violator of the mind and body. It can take a most serene moment of happiness and drag your thoughts back into a nightmare with a vividness that your whole body experiences.

I had no idea of the bully who lived inside my head and what he was doing to me until I experienced a breakdown, which rendered me bedbound and unable to speak for several months. I attempted to end my life on numerous occasions.

How did the cumulative traumatic events affect your capacity to cope with stress and interpersonal relationships?

My behaviour as a child often meant I was excluded from social circles, which flowed into my adult life. As a result of the trauma in my life, I have struggled to interact with people.

Trying to please everyone all the time only succeeds in alienating everyone most of the time. The internal selfbeatings would escalate, the alcohol consumption and flashbacks would follow, and the cycle continued.

How did you imagine your early substance abuse?

I was 12 when I began drinking as a result of my self-destructive tendencies. Drinking held the tantalising promise of escape. I ended up in the wrong crowd and this resulted in a horrendous situation where I was raped while intoxicated.

This was the catalyst for a lifelong affair with C-PTSD. My mind had been warped by trauma and, to dull the pain, I became dependent on alcohol and, ironically, I found myself in situations similar to the one I was trying desperately to forget. I also became addicted to pain relief medication. It took the edge off the pain from a chronic back injury and I liked how it blurred the images in my head.

As a child, I had access to an abundance of over-the-counter medication. My addiction started innocently as a normal part of my life.

I would regularly attend chiropractic and physiotherapy sessions for my back, so it was no surprise to anyone that I needed pain relief medication.

When I drank alcohol, I always made sure I would be away from home until the effects had worn off so that my parents did not notice.

When and how did you realise that you needed help?

At 15, I overheard my friend’s mother say that due to my substance use, she didn’t like her daughter spending time with me, because I was a bad influence. Her assessment was incredibly hurtful. My reputation had preceded me before I was even aware of who I was! I made the first appointment with my GP as I needed to find a better way to manage my pain without abusing medication. I didn’t mention my drinking, though.

I remember thinking, ‘I’ll still need something to try to get rid of the nightmares.’

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Getting help proved to be incredibly frustrating as I couldn’t get to the next level beyond my GP. I was a high-functioning member of a workforce, and a successful wife and mother, which made it even more difficult for me to get support.

It was incredibly hard to know my experience with substance use was real and to have others dismiss it as nonsense.

Why do you think you had to fight so hard to be heard?

My experience does not fit with the typical stereotypes of a hard drug user or an alcoholic. This perpetuated my addictions because I had nowhere to turn to for help. When I remained sober the pressure I received from my friends to ‘Just have one!’ was immense. Previously, I would bring up the topic of my drinking at parties in the hope of someone offering support. Instead, I would be faced with laughter.

It frustrates me that a number of people still do not recognise the struggle I went through to be validated as an addict. As a child, nobody questioned my household pain medication consumption and even my parents didn’t realise it.

It took years of begging friends and professionals to have my addictions validated.

How, if at all, did being able to attribute your symptoms to a known condition with a name affect you?

Due to a work-related breakdown, I had to be independently reviewed by a psychiatrist, so my diagnosis of C-PTSD accompanied what I considered at the time to be a careeraltering blow. It was both crushing and a sheer relief because for the first time in my life I had options to overcome it.

I finally understood why I constantly felt distressed and overwhelmed. I understood why I believed I was ‘bumping into’ people who I knew were no longer alive or saw images of people in the shower.

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My mind had been doing its best to cope with the overwhelmingly violent and traumatic events I had experienced since I was a young child.

They say ignorance is bliss, but being clueless led to my repeated destructive behaviours. Once I was diagnosed and being treated by my psychologist and psychiatrist with medication, I could acknowledge that I had been living with C-PTSD. Mindfulness was a powerful tool and contributed significantly to my coping toolkit. Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is the key to my coping mechanisms and to eliminating both C-PTSD and substance abuse from my daily life.

What other challenges did you face in seeking appropriate help or treatment?

As an adult experiencing a mental breakdown, I had access to a GP, psychologists and psychiatrists through Medicare. However, I felt like I was at a dead end when I wanted

access to alternative therapies, which are not available in our mainstream system of health support.

The most negative situation I had to deal with was when I submitted a workplace compensation claim through my employer. I was already suicidal and this pushed me to the brink. Everything was questioned and shredded what little self-esteem I had left. This is how the system failed me.

What did your treatment and recovery entail?

It took five years to recover from my addiction to pain medication. My GP was incredibly supportive and recommended that I admit myself to drug rehabilitation if I couldn’t stay clean for three months, which I was able to do through sheer stubbornness.

My relationship with alcohol was a different story. When I did drink it was to black out levels. My family had no idea of the atrocious situations which were the result of my alcoholic episodes.

Behind the scene

would subconsciously sabotage my relationships. Now my relationships are nurturing for all involved. I have an entire network of support around me all day every day, if I ever need it.

How do you think your mental health challenges have influenced your personal trajectory for better or worse?

By the age of 38, I was on a steady course towards suicide (again) as a result of failing in my numerous attempts to get help for my substance abuse. I had no idea about the C-PTSD. I often wonder what my life might be like if my initial concerns had been listened to. I spent a lot of my early life hanging on to what was real and trying to let go of what was not.

Step one of the recovery process meant I had to tell everyone who mattered in my life that I was an alcoholic. I decided to use the strategies from my coaching practice to work through the issues that drove me to drink into oblivion.

How open are you about your struggles?

Due to the nature of my work as a life coach, I tell everyone about my history. I believe this can lead to others acknowledging that they may have a problem. I am a firm believer that my life would have been significantly different if there was more awareness about addiction. It is such a common issue that is swept under the carpet until it is too late.

How does it affect your relationships?

For a long time, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to associate with me, let alone be romantically inclined towards me. I would often place myself in harm’s way just to be accepted. I had several violent relationships and often I

What self-monitoring do you employ to keep your recovery on track?

If I have a drink at social events and I notice that I am excited, I remind myself about what I don’t want as an outcome. In no time, I am able to relax and focus on the people and conversations instead of thoughts of getting drunk.

Irritability, disruption to my sleeping patterns, as well as lack of attention to detail are all signs I have too much on my plate. If I pick up on this, I can avoid any negative chatter, which eliminates stress building up.

Do you participate in ongoing treatment or self-help?

I ensure I only consume healthy, natural foods and drink plenty of water. I attend Tibetan meditation classes and use relaxation techniques.

In the past 20 years, I could probably count on both hands the number of times I have had to resort to taking any form of pain medication. Now if I’m in pain, I will take myself off to a masseuse and give my body the nurturing it’s craving.

What has it taught or given you?

I can’t begin to explain the impact this has had on the lives of myself, my family and friends. I wouldn’t change a thing that has happened in my life. It has provided me insight and because of my experiences, I can use them to benefit those people. My life is now full of self-love and I have a wealth of it to share with others. I am eternally grateful for that!

DAY IN THE LIFE My mornings begin with an early start.

5am is great! I thank the universe for everything I have experienced. As my feet touch the floor, I meditate and stretch. I love to do yoga at this time too and I walk my dog, Gizmo, to get a release of dopamine.

I go through my calendar of events and get dressed. I cook up a big breakfast full of greens and an egg and eat mindfully. I take time to go through my emails and have a look to see what my friends in faraway places are doing through social media. I set myself up for work at home or head off to meetings. This is usually around 9 am. My lunch break is often spent with friends or clients, depending on where I am. My working day finishes around 4pm, usually to allow for speaking events or to host my own life coach sessions at night.

At night, when I’m not working, I love talking with my husband on the phone as he is usually around 800 kilometres away. We chat about our days. This is my bliss time. I love my food and dinner is usually something super tasty. I will often read a book related to my work or spirituality.

By 10 or 11 pm, my dog assumes his position at the foot of my bed and I fall asleep to the rhythmic sounds of him snoring.

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POETIC LICENCE

Shelagh Brennand 54, Author, Stroke Safe Speaker, Motivational Speaker, (former UK Detective Inspector and PI in Australia)

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t 49, I was living the dream. I was a successful private investigator on the Sunshine Coast with good management of workload and family life. On the 15th of April 2013, I was gardening on a hot day with my son Patrick, who was 11, and came inside for some water as I felt hot and nauseous. I put my head into the toilet to be sick and blood burst through the basilar artery in my neck and into my brain and knocked me out. Patrick found me collapsed and drifting in and out of consciousness, unable to speak, as I had no voice, and unable to move my right side. A friend came by unexpectedly and they called 000. I was blue-lighted by ambulance to Nambour General Hospital. My husband was working away but he was contacted by the friend and told I may have suffered a stroke. The paramedics were excellent, but I couldn’t communicate and felt scared, confused and helpless. I was scared of being disabled. We arrived at accident and emergency and the junior stroke doctor spoke with my sister but didn’t include me in the conversation. I could understand but

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not talk. I felt frightened and upset and excluded from potential decision-making but was then asked to sign a form consenting to the clot-busting drug – which had risks of death and severe disability. It was very frightening. Stroke physician Dr Rohan Grimley attended to me and didn’t believe I needed the clotbusting drug, which meant no surgery. I felt safe once he arrived and he took care of me throughout the MRIs and CT scans, which were all very noisy and scary.

My husband, David, flew back from work in Arcadia Valley, near Roma, thinking I may be dead! He was frightened I would die.

Patrick and David visited me that night and Patrick was scared he would lose me too or that I would be disabled. My sister Patricia was the height of professionalism and practicality as usual.

I only spent two days in hospital and my voice returned after a week. I was walking slowly, but after few sessions of OT in Caloundra Hospital, I was good again. I felt I had recovered quickly and in June flew to the UK to see my nephew get married. In July I flew to Melbourne with David to celebrate my 50th birthday.

Once my birthday festivities were over, I realised that there was nothing to look forward to. I could not see any useful purpose in my life, although I spoke little about my depression and tried to soldier on, thinking I would snap out of it. I wrote sad/dark poetry because my brain would only work in rhyme and I stayed in bed for days because I felt fatigued. I began to cry as I did not know how to get better. Good friends took Patrick to school, so I had all day to stay in bed and cry. Patrick looked after me when he got home and never left the house, which wasn’t good for him. My sister booked me a doctor’s appointment, where I was given medication, which helped to relieve some of the sadness, but I still felt ‘flat’ and worthless.

The turning point came in February 2014, when I began exercise/ fitness training with a local PT I knew, Melinda Bingley. I’d gained nine kilos and wanted to lose that weight, so I joined a 10-week mind and body challenge she was hosting. I began to realise and was taught: ‘Focus on what you CAN do, not what you can’t’ and I learned to be grateful for what I have and not what I have not. I was already sharing my poetry with other stroke survivors on Facebook and through the Stroke Foundation newsletters and knew survivors were getting better by reading my poetry. What I had to say resonated with them and helped them to feel less alone. I knew I had to publish my book to help others.

The first thing I did towards making the book happen was to consult the lovely Alex – an editor Melinda had recommended. I popped along to listen to her talk at a network event, as Alex had her own history of pulling through, and we met, spoke and connected immediately. In August, I attended two of Alex’s book workshops (one where I slept for an hour during an activity because I was fatigued) and I felt that Alex understood me. She just knew what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it and could see my vision, both in words and the reason I needed to share my experience with the world.

A Stroke of Poetry is literally ‘my heart and soul’ in a book. When my close friends read it, even they said they had not appreciated how depressed I had been and how much my stroke had affected my outlook on life. I had fatigue most days during the three-month timeline I gave myself from the end of the last book workshop until publication. It hurt my brain a lot but I was still motivated to keep going – helped, I think, by adrenaline.

Alex took the ‘hard work’ out of it. Sometimes there were days when I just could not answer her queries but she just seemed to understand and made it all okay. She was soon able to gauge my fatigue levels by the words in my emails and she helped me to move forward with each step, guiding me through the process as she’d promised. I cried on the phone several times and she didn’t care – I felt she knew how I felt. We knew there was a bond between us and a great friendship in the making, which is true to this day.

Since we worked together, Alex has suffered an accident that resulted in her own brain injury. I’d like to think that it has helped to create even deeper understanding between us and that her understanding of her own brain injury has been helped by my advice and own recovery. Alex has understood that it is a slow process and tried to manage her limitations and she knows the need for rest.

Life now is totally different to the way it was before my stroke.

My brain doesn’t work the same, so I know I can’t go back to the investigation work I loved. I suffer horrible fatigue and if I spend too long on the computer or trying to do anything logical using my brain, my brain packs up. Fatigue can hit unexpectedly and there’s no option but to go to bed and rest – your whole body aches and you cannot function.

But I have the luxury of not having to get up each day and go to ‘work’ in the sense of being in employment. I tend to know how to selfmanage my fatigue and still run, cycle, climb, play tennis and walk. My life is fulfilling every day and I am grateful for the smallest thing to the largest, making the most of each day. I thoroughly love speaking to others about my journey, stroke and it genuinely fills my heart with good feelings. At a recent Young Stroke Survivors Stroke Forum stroke education seminar at Townsville Hospital, where I was invited as a guest speaker to talk about my emotional experience as a stroke survivor, the audience applauded me and some of the OTs walked up to me in tears and shook my hand and hugged me. They said that they would now deal with stroke survivors differently in the future and not just focus on their physical restrictions. That just cemented why I do what I do and I have many other moments like that where people say: “I get it!”

I feel this was always my vocation and am truly blessed to have met some amazing, honest, loving people since my stroke. Without that, I would never have met Alex, who I know will be a lifelong friend. I believe that I was meant to have my stroke so I could educate others, help others and make a difference, however small that may be. It has made me a better person. I no longer look back to my ‘old life’, as I call it, but look at the tremendous joy I get out of my new one. Life is good.

Now my mission is to advocate for government funding to help people receive critical care in the case of a stroke. Federal government funding is a huge issue as so little gets given to the Stroke Foundation from government. The ‘No Postcode Untouched’ campaign tries to focus on those living in rural areas as they are 19 per cent more likely to suffer a stroke and quick diagnosis and treatment are essential since there is only a 4.5hour window for the clot-busting drug. I encourage MPs to share the stroke messages, even by leading a healthy life, so that risk of stroke can be reduced.

Life now is totally different to the way it was before my stroke. My brain doesn’t work the same, so I know I can’t go back to the investigation work I loved.

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$OH[ )XÀHUWRQ 51, Self-publishing Consultant

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orking with someone who had had a stroke at such an early age was confronting. The author/consultant role is very close, and working with someone my age who had had such a busy career, then been affected by something so random, was thought provoking.

Shelagh’s idea was to create more than a book of poetry, and this fitted well with my ideas as a consultant. Readers want more than a passive experience; they want to interact, and to feel that they are being understood. Together we brainstormed the concepts, the content and the reality of publishing, and found a way to bring her ideas to life.

Shelagh was so down to earth. Her Northern English sense of humour, and her detective’s pragmatism, made her so easy to work with professionally. However, I soon came up against the legacy of her stroke, and started to learn how long she could focus for, how far I could push her, and how written follow-up and step-by-step instructions were so important. After our meetings, I’d race off to do the rest of my 10-hour work day, and she’d have to go have a lie down. I wasn’t to know how that insight into brain fatigue would help me.

Shelagh has a naturally giving personality.

Because she can no longer work in a ‘day job’, she threw herself into other projects and had the time and focus to foster a friendship and create opportunities to strengthen it. I first met Shelagh at one of the writers’ workshops I ran twice every year, and she used her special charms to pull all the attendees that day into her inner circle. We worked on charity projects together and attended events. Then when I had my accident, she was right there beside me, using that same irreverent sense of humour and can-do attitude that we both share to help me find my way through the mess.

On the day of my accident, I was an ordinary working mum, running my self-publishing business, as well as a not-for-profit organisation that helped women entrepreneurs. I’d raised my kids on my own while I built my business and the Women Entrepreneurs organisation. I’d remarried a year before, so we have a blended family of seven kids, with two still living at home, one in another house on the farm, and the other four off to university. My husband is a farmer, so he works seven days a week. I spent one week a month flying to Sydney to care for my parents, who were struggling to remain independent. By strange coincidence, they finally gave in and moved closer to me only a month after the accident!

My husband and I were both constantly being told to slow down, take a break, you can’t keep going at that pace. We were juggling like mad trying to fit relaxation and ‘couple time’ into our hectic schedules. That day we were doing as recommended, taking a day out for ourselves. We hopped on his Harley and rode out into the hills for breakfast. We decided to come the long way home, up the beautiful winding road through the hills to Montville. We stopped there and bought a couple of pairs of shoes (my secret love) and then had a Devonshire tea (his secret love) before heading home in time to collect the kids.

We were coming around a blind corner, on the crest of a hill in an 80km zone, when a lost tourist did a sudden U-turn in front of us. We didn’t stand a chance.

My husband cut his foot in half taking the front bumper off the tourist’s car. I was thrown from the bike and woke up in the middle of the road. I suddenly realised I was facing into the oncoming traffic.

I knew enough about people being run over after bike accidents for the survival instinct to kick in. I tried to get up but quickly realised my legs didn’t work, so got up on my elbows and shuffled to the side of the road.

At first the physical injuries we sustained meant I didn’t know I had a brain injury. My husband was in and out of hospital having his foot rebuilt, and my foot was broken in a couple of places, plus I had neck and shoulder injuries from landing on my face, so we were both in coping mode and trying to hold everything together, with surgery, work, kids, parents and the whole hospital scene.

After a few weeks I realised my lack of concentration and balance were more than just shock and whiplash. The diagnosis process from there took a year all up. Each specialist referred me to another and each came up with another diagnosis. It was overwhelming and I didn’t know who to trust or what to believe. In the end, unfortunately they were all right. I had ligament damage, nerve damage, a frontal and temporal lobe brain injury and BPPV, which is an inner ear injury that affects my balance. I was sleeping 20 hours a day and could only focus on anything for a few minutes.

I had to hold on to the wall to walk around a corner, and could only drive the car on good days.

I kept thinking I’d snap out of it. I’d survived a cancer scare, an abusive marriage and the Boxing Day tsunami. Surely a bump on the head wasn’t going to get me.

The first six months were a blur of hospitals and specialists, plus the awful legal process that goes with a road accident. My GP was amazing and still is. He knew what to look out for as far as the lows and highs of recovery go, and was ready with understanding and patience.

After a few weeks I realised my lack of concentration and balance were more than just shock and whiplash. The diagnosis process from there took a year all up.

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Poetic justice

As a natural carer and nurturer, I don’t accept help very well.

In the first weeks after the accident, with both of us having foot injuries, I had to learn to take help because the most basic things were a bit tricky. People you’d never expect would pop up out of nowhere with an offer to drive the kids to school, or bring a meal over. Others stayed away, unsure what to do, like they wanted me to ask them for help. I was in shock and had an undiagnosed brain injury, so I was using all my energy to do the basics. For once in my life, managing how other people were coping wasn’t my main focus!

When people realised I wasn’t back at my usual pace, they asked if my broken foot was giving me grief. It was a confusing time because I didn’t know what was wrong with me and no one understood why I didn’t bounce back. I had quite a big profile in my local community, but the news kept getting worse, and there was never the right time to tell the world something was seriously wrong, so I didn’t.

My husband was using a wheelchair for the first few months, and it took about nine months before he could put shoes on. As a farmer, that makes things difficult. For the first six months I cared for him, just bumbling along doing my best, and then as he recovered, my head injury had time to show itself. Some days I was okay, some days I couldn’t drive, some days I couldn’t even get out of bed.

I was attending medical specialists three times a week, and because of where we live, this usually took a half day per visit. Plus there were my husband’s medical appointments, plus the legal stuff, so it became a full-time job. Of course I still had the kids and my parents to look after.

For the first year I focussed on restructuring my business so that I could keep the doors open. I couldn’t work for more than an hour a day, so I hired a structural editor, a copy editor and a graphic designer and streamlined the printing process so that I was free to be the face of the business and just do the project management and client consults.

When I got the final diagnosis a year after the accident, I had a strange sense of relief. I’d battled against my limitations for so long and was so tired that to find out there was actually something broken, and no way to fix it was just what I needed at the time. It allowed me to come to terms with my ‘new normal’, and begin to build a new life. I had to accept that my old life was not coming back, and that my job now was to design a new life based on what was most important to me. Because I had so few useable hours in a day, I was in the strangely empowering position of paring back

anything that wasn’t essential. Focussing on my family was the thing that had to stay top of the to-do pile. So I had to let go of my public roles. I couldn’t manage both anymore. After almost 12 years, I closed the not-for-profit organisation I ran. We had over 2500 members, all women who I helped find their way through the minefield of business. I also came to terms with the fact that the restructure of my business was permanent. It really was the silver lining to this experience, to have the opportunity to look at my life and choose only the parts I wanted to take into the new, scaleddown phase.

As my head injury symptoms became clearer, I couldn’t help relating them back to what I’d learned from Shelagh. The brain fatigue, lack of concentration, losing words, running out of steam half-way through meetings (or even sentences!), these were all things I’d seen Shelagh experience, and manage with grace and poise. I never thought I’d be doing them myself! And yet I was so lucky I’d had such a good role model, watching firsthand how Shelagh put people at ease by being honest and self-deprecating.

These were both qualities we shared, so I modelled all my coping skills on her!

My relationship with Shelagh started out with me as the teacher and her as the student, learning how to write and publish her first book and build a career as a speaker. Now, it’s the other way around!

Shelagh has taught me how to live gracefully with a permanent head injury, and to focus on what I can do rather than what I can’t.

These days I still go at a hundred miles an hour every day, but my days are much shorter. Once I’ve slept (I’m down to 14 hours a day now), done my exercises and seen whichever doctor is on the week’s schedule, I just have enough time left to check in on clients before focussing on caring for my husband, kids and parents. My husband continues to have health issues, my parents’ care needs increase all the time and the kids will always need their mumma, so there’s always someone to care for. I have good days and bad days, and on a bad day Shelagh has taught me the best thing you can do is just go to bed. It’s hard to do but when it happens there isn’t much choice. My body just packs it in and I need to lie down till it’s ready to go again.

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Often, couples are assumed to be static. You meet, you click and live happily ever after. But relationship dynamics are in constant flux as each partner’s needs and wishes evolve.

WORDS: ALINDA SMALL

The art of growing

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I

t’s a myth that people or relationships don’t change. Realistically, it’s inevitable. Like the people who comprise them, relationships go through different developmental stages and situations, such as job loss, health problems, financial issues and family conflict. Yet shifts in a relationship are often viewed as negative; equated with the loss of what was rather than viewed as an exciting opportunity to discover new aspects of yourselves and each other, separately and together. What determines the quality of change is how we view it and how we raise it with our partners. Good change tends to be defined by greater flexibility in mindset.

When you add something new, which is what a change really is, you can add further connection, love, harmony, romance and passion to your relationship. On the flip side, change can be viewed as something desperate or even remedial, which lends it a sense of urgency rather than agency.

How couples grow together is the focus of research published in the Journal of Family Theory & Review. Maintenance of romantic relationships generally rests on two primary motives or ‘macro motives’, according to researcher Brian Ogolsky, associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at University of Illinois.

Maintaining relationships relies on a combination of away-from and towards drives, chief among which are threat mitigation and self-enhancement, said researchers, who sought to uncover which aspects of relationship growth owe to growth in respective partners, and which demand cooperative efforts to move forward. One area demanding dual focus is conflict, which requires effort from both parties to resolve.

“Good conflict management or forgiving our partner for doing something wrong is an interactive process. When a threat comes in, we can do one of two things: we can ditch our partner or forgive them over time,” says Ogolsky.

REDEFINING CHANGE Most relationship experts will advise couples to bring up the little things that need change or adjustment early on and before they become large annoyances. When raising the issue with your partner, try and frame it in a way that is positive and respectful and not at all defensive. Often, simply acknowledging that change is not an indictment on the relationship or on either party can foster an attitude of curiosity rather than judgement, paving the way for better communication and deeper understanding of each other.

CRISIS POINT Generally, in therapy, most clients who present are in a crisis where change is vital for progress, either individually or separately.

Big change can be harder to navigate and manage. A couple may decide that they have vastly different views on having children. One partner may be resistant every time the other brings up the subject. Rather than resist and view this as a dangerous or difficult subject, it is better to learn to view the issue in a different light. Understanding our partner’s position does not mean we have to fully agree.

By seeing how they feel and why they feel that way allows us to view their perspective.

Additionally, considering exactly what compromise means to both partners can be helpful. Compromise for one may be entirely different to what one may expect. Additionally, looking at the importance of the relationship and comparing it to the issue itself can help with making an informed decision. But while change can seem frightening, uncomfortable or like a sign that things are irreparably dysfunctional, the reality is that without change, relationships don’t tend to grow.

Accepting that individual change is okay and can be healthy for the partnership is important. Feeling that you can discuss issues with your partner without fear can encourage openness and greater insight into each other.

Understanding each other further as the relationship itself evolves and changes is key to positive change and, indeed, growth. All relationships change with time and those who accept, compromise and grow are the ones in the most satisfying positions.

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COMPROMISE AND CROSSING THE LINE There is a fine line, however, between good change or compromise, which makes you and your partner happier and more connected, and that of self-effacement. There are things you shouldn’t change about yourself and reasons behind that. You shouldn’t dramatically change who you are as a person in the hope that your partner will love you more. This is destructive and completely ineffective. Your partner should still love the core elements and traits of who you are.

But what can change – and often needs to change – is how you interact as a couple.

“Threats to the relationship come from all kinds of different places,” says Ogolsky. “Generally, there are many threats early in relationships that can cause problems, but that is not to say that these disappear later. We know couples cheat in the long term, people end up in new workplaces and in new situations where possible alternative partners show up, conflicts arise, or a lack of willingness to sacrifice time for your partner emerges.”

Understanding that relationships change over the course of time is important. Those who embrace this and make adjustments accordingly are the people who have the most harmonious relationships. Change, compromise and self-awareness are all elements of being in a relationship.

We are part of something that is created by more than one and is a partnership; a fixed mindset inhibits true intimacy and trust.

“We get to a place where we are pouring energy into the relationship simply because we want to keep the relationship moving forward rather than just mitigating threats,” Ogolsky says.

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EXAMPLES OF ACCEPTABLE CHANGE:

the morning and the other is in bed by 9pm can present issues. Discussing boundaries, compromises and having an open discussion can prevent any resentment when the disparity occurs.

HEALTH HABITS – Smoking is often an issue and is an element that is really worth considering change, the benefits of which go beyond the relationship.

BAD HABITS – Being routinely late has an impact on others and can cause enormous issues, so highlighting it and finding a way around it is always beneficial.

DOMESTIC ROUTINES – When we live with someone, we inevitably find that we have varying views on domestic chores. While an egalitarian relationship is ideal, finding the balance and being able to be flexible will enhance the harmony within the relationship but also in self. Alleviating any domestic issues early on in the relationship is ideal.

SOCIAL HABITS – When one partner loves to party until the early hours of

THE WAY YOU ARGUE – This is one that all couples can learn skills. Learning how to disagree in a productive, nondefensive model can not only add to the outcome of disagreements but allow the relationship to continue to grow and thrive. It is often in the way we resolve issues that determines the longevity of our relationships.

YOUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE – The art of compromise when two people begin to merge their individual dreams, ambitions and desires is priceless. Having some flexibility, without losing the fundamentals of the dream, is key. When we are in a relationship we learn to include and consider the other partner in our dreams. Having someone to be part of the dream is often what makes us really value and appreciate it.

The art of growing apart

MOVING FORWARD Change can be viewed as an often terrifying encumbrance or an opportunity. Find the silver lining in forging new paths.

Change type: You’re tired of your partner making you late for concerts and dinners and are becoming angry at what you perceive as disrespect for you and the relationship Opportunity: Even where discontent is present, delivering it from an emotional perspective – in how it makes you feel – is more conducive to resolution than an intellectual standpoint, which can seem implicitly superior.

In the above example you could let your partner know how much you enjoy seeing concerts, and gain so much pleasure in seeing the act walk on stage or the opening curtain. An example may be the fact that your partner is always late for any dinner, concert or theatre engagement. The initial reaction may be to state, “I’m sick of you always running late and having to constantly risk missing anything we ever go to!” It is negative. And likely to activate a defensive response. Consider instead, “I know that time sometimes gets away from you. What can we do to ensure that we aren’t as stressed when we are seeing a show?”

Alinda Small is Muse’s sex and relationships expert.

Change type: One partner’s new passion for hiking and wish to spend time with a hiking group means you no longer share together time or feel distant/left out/less compatible Opportunity: Creates an opportunity to explore something for yourself. The healthiest relationships are the ones where we allow growth outside, and do not feel they are excluding us or not wanting to spend time with us, but rather working on self-development that will enhance themselves as a partner and an individual.

Change type: One partner’s increased confidence after a promotion (or decreased confidence after illness or other adverse circumstance) has altered the dynamic between you Opportunity: Relationships often need to be renegotiated if there has been an event that has impacted either party. Looking at expectations, needs and desires can encourage better communication. Openly discussing – in a non-judgemental, low conflict realm – any issues that you are feeling can reinvent and recreate a relationship. Relationship counsellors can assist in renegotiating relationships by being a mediator who can teach skills enabling open dialogue.

Change type: The kids have moved out and you realise that they were your shared interest and that you are now islands Opportunity: Seeking the help of a professional relationship therapist can encourage deeper exploration of relationships.

Deciding whether you feel invested enough in a relationship – by identifying if your individual needs are being met – can assist moving forward. Reviewing the relationship can help meet needs.

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IT’S NOT US, IT’S ME Are your self-esteem and insecurity jeopardising your relationship?

Y

ou’re tempted to check your partner’s phone while they’re in the bathroom. You text back about Tuesday night cricket drinks with something like the Spanish inquisition.

Soon enough your partner is indeed acting suspiciously, spending more time away from home, heightening your sense that they’ve lost interest or are being unfaithful. It’s a common scenario researchers have sought to unravel in a bid to help preserve relationships that become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Anxiety over whether or not your partner loves you and is committed to the relationship may be detrimental to the long-term success of a relationship, according to a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

High levels of fluctuation in how secure an individual feels in his or her relationship may actually doom its success.

“For people anxious in their attachments, they have anxiety as to whether the person is going to be there for them and whether they are worthy of others,” says researcher Ashley Cooper. “I was interested in how attachment security impacted partners’ experiences in their relationship on a daily basis. Some couples experience instability from one day to the next in their relationship, so we sought out to explore what could increase or decrease this volatility.”

Cooper and her colleagues found that individuals who experience high levels of anxiety about their partner’s commitment were likely to experience more volatility in their feelings about the relationship from day to day. Furthermore, women’s relationship anxiety tended to incite reciprocal volatility in their partner’s feelings about the relationship.

It caused the very response they feared.

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Two types of insecure attachment behaviour known as attachment avoidance and anxious attachment – behaviours associated with distrust of relying on other people and behaviours associated with fears regarding consistent care and affection – were particularly detrimental.

When an individual reported high attachment avoidance, both the individual and partner reported generally low levels of relationship satisfaction or quality. When individuals reported high attachment anxiety, there tended to be increased volatility in relationship quality.

In cases where one or both partners was insecurely attached, Cooper recommended being aware of making assumptions that could escalate conflict. Couples’ counselling could also help to prevent ruptures due to attachment insecurity.

“Trusting in your partner and your relationship is important to daily interactions and stability for your relationship,” she says.

Conversely, low self-esteem can lead to staying in an unhappy relationship, according to research at the University of Waterloo.

Sufferers of low self-esteem tend not to voice relationship complaints with their partner because they fear rejection.

“There is a perception that people with low self-esteem tend to be more negative and complain a lot more,” says study author Megan McCarthy. “While that may be the case in some social situations, our study suggests that in romantic relationships, the partner with low self-esteem resists addressing problems.”

Communication was key to relationship satisfaction, she said.

“If your significant other is not engaging in open and honest conversation about the relationship,” says McCarthy, “it may not be that they don’t care, but rather that they feel insecure and are afraid of being hurt.”

“We’ve found that people with a more negative self-concept often have doubts and anxieties about the extent to which other people care about them,” she says. “This can drive low self-esteem people toward defensive, self-protective behaviour, such as avoiding confrontation.”

The research suggests that people with low self-esteem’s resistance to address concerns may stem from a fear of negative outcomes.

Sufferers may believe that they cannot speak up without risking rejection from their partner and damage to their relationship, resulting in greater overall dissatisfaction in the relationship.

“We may think that staying quiet, in a ‘forgive and forget’ kind of way, is constructive, and certainly it can be when we feel minor annoyances,” says McCarthy. “But when we have a serious issue in a relationship, failing to address those issues directly can actually be destructive.”

“We all know that close relationships can sometimes be difficult. The key issue, then, is how we choose to deal with it when we feel dissatisfied with a partner.”

In a cruel self-perpetuating cycle, breaking up over low self-esteem may put you behind the eight ball for subsequent relationships.

For those with attachment insecurity, the end of a relationship may jeopardise selfconcept or a peron’s sense of ‘me’, more than in peers with secure attachment styles.

“Not only may couples come to complete each others’ sentences, they may actually come to complete each others’ selves,” wrote authors Erica B. Slotter, Wendi L. Gardner, and Eli J. Finkel. “When the relationship ends, individuals experience not only pain over the loss of the partner, but also changes in their selves.”

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BOOKS

as THERAPY Transform your experience by reframing your dilemma with the aid of these literary classics.

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Y

ou’re turning the pages and a very strange – and very nice – thing dawns on you. This book gets you. Obviously the author (who might have died centuries back) never knew you at all.

But they write as if they did. It’s as if you’d confessed your secrets to them and then they’d gone off and written this work around what you’d told them – transformed, of course, into a story about people with different names or into an essay that doesn’t cite your case explicitly, but might as well do so, because it’s completely on target.

We never quite feel we’re understood well enough even by the people who we genuinely like and who are emotionally attached to us – and who might at times be very generous, sweet or compassionate.

The permafrost of loneliness persists below the surface even when things are, broadly speaking, going well enough.

The book in question might be one that speaks to millions – like the Harry Potter series. Or it could be an almost unique discovery of your own: Schiller’s Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man, written at the very end of the 18th century, with its haunting efforts to fuse a noble idealism with political realism. It could be a self-help book about sex that alights on just the thing that’s troubling you. Or you might feel that Mademoiselle de Maupin, written by Theophile Gautier in the middle of the 19th century – which tells the story of a man and a woman who are both in love with the central character, the opera singer Madeleine de Maupin, and which is deeply tender towards the complexities of sexual desire – was written, by a historical miracle, exactly for you.

A book knows you by pinpointing – and taking very seriously – a major but often ignored problem that happens to be looming in your existence. For instance, when Harry Potter is with the Dursleys: the feeling of being an alien in a familiar environment. For long stretches of time Harry has to live around people who have no idea of his real nature, they never acknowledge his actual strengths, he is regarded as a contemptible freak for things that elsewhere would make him popular and important. The book is hugely alive to the feeling of not being appreciated.

We’re pleased because we’re encountering sympathy for things that deserve generous treatment but normally don’t get it. This is what happens with Balzac’s Lost Illusions.

The central character, Lucienne, does many objectively quite awful things: he’s selfish, greedy, vain, he takes advantage of his friends, he makes big mistakes with his career. Balzac isn’t presenting any of this as anything other than very bad. But he’s deeply attentive to the forces at work around Lucienne (his longing to be a success in a world stacked against him) and in him (his fear of humiliation). And it’s clear Balzac very much likes this character. The darker aspects of one’s character are getting a tender hearing: you have been hurt, you have hurt others. And the book says: I know.

In Middlemarch George Eliot tells the story of Dorothea Brooke.

She’s easy to ridicule. She’s got some advantages, she longs to help the world, but in fact she never does much. She makes a very unhappy marriage and wastes a large portion of her life lamenting it. In an obvious way it’s all her own fault. She has plenty of chances and misses them all. It’s not a self-description one is likely to be keen to avow to others. But it describes a side of many people’s experience. We feel very much like this, sometimes. Eliot isn’t saying this is actually rather charming. What she offers is validation: this is what can happen to a very reasonable, wellintentioned person. It doesn’t push you off the human map.

To be generously understood is nice, of course – hence the pleasure – but it’s a bigger thing than that. It’s helpful. Because feeling alone with difficult parts of oneself increases the trouble. We’re haunted by the worry that no reasonable person could feel anything but derision or contempt for our problems. We fear to share them with our friends because we anticipate bewildered rejection.

The book that understands is like an ideal parent or friend who makes it acceptable to suffer in the way we do.

Our weirder sorrows – or enjoyments – are recast as valid parts of human experience, which can be met with sympathy and kindness.

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TRANSFORMATIVE READING Find your literary life raft with therapeutic holiday reads hand selected by The School of Life.

1

I FIND A LOT OF PEOPLE ANNOYING…BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE LONELY

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy There is a moment in Anna Karenina when the main character, Levin, is at a party. He’s on the margins of a conversation in which a couple of his neighbours are arguing about farm management. Today the equivalent might be a disagreement about a restaurant or a film or the PM. Levin is struck by how annoying the two men are. They are talking past one another and Levin, who has his own ideas, thinks they are both wrong. He’s bored. He starts to hate them.

It’s an archetypal situation. If Levin escapes, he’ll probably just be faced with another version of the same thing. It’s not just these specific men. He realises that they are only doing what people mostly do: air their prejudices, and keep on asserting what they already think, whatever anyone else says.

Levin had been imagining that he could get the two men to understand one another. Now he recognises that this isn’t going to work.

Then Tolstoy gives Levin a helpful thought.

Suppose, Levin thinks, I focus less on the truth of what that person is saying; suppose instead I try to see what it is that they like. Instead of judging the wisdom of what a person is saying, he gets curious about their enthusiasm: he asks why it might be appealing for them to think as they do. And once he sees them in this light, his feelings change. He sees that these are decent people – not very adept, maybe, at understanding each other, but honestly trying to set forth their own experiences. This is a liberating, helpful move that Tolstoy wants us to use in our own lives. It frees Levin from frustration and makes him more generous – more able to get on with people who, before, he found irritating.

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2

I LACK SELF-CONFIDENCE Ecce Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche

From time to time we all feel inadequate about ourselves and our endeavours. Nietzsche knew this very well; he was acutely aware of the crippling effects of low self-esteem. His books were frequently slated by reviewers and his supporters were few. He would not, however, let himself be dragged down by these circumstances, but composed an antidote in the form of an autobiography, Ecce Homo (‘Behold, The Man’). It is an extraordinary exercise in how to buoy up one’s selfconfidence without becoming puffed up.

The procedure of Ecce Homo is simple: examine your life dispassionately. This is a difficult thing to do. Either we remember only the good bits and so develop an inflated, unrealistic sense of our own abilities, or we remember only the bad incidents and become ever more morose. Nietzsche focuses attention in surprising places. He is proud of the fact that he moved from Germany to Italy because the weather is better there. Normally we don’t see that as an achievement, but he sees that it was a big thing for him to realise that rain and cloudy days got him down and to do something about it. He is proud of the music he likes (Rossini, Chopin) even though these were hardly unusual preferences at the time. He likes that he has worked out who his favourite writers are: Montaigne and Molière. He has stopped drinking beer; he has lightened his diet. He is ready to chalk up as successes things that are really good in his life, even though they may not look particularly impressive to

Books as therapy

anyone else. All this could sound trivial, but Nietzsche has latched onto a real problem. For decent, sensitive people it can be remarkably hard to appreciate oneself. And this difficulty undermines self-confidence. We find it hard to form a just opinion of our own merits. We are so used to the problem of people having too high an opinion of themselves that we naturally forget the reverse (but for many people very real) difficulty of not thinking well enough of oneself.

So often self-confidence is dependent on the basic, but for good people, elusive premise: I’m fine as I am.

3

I FEEL INSIGNIFICANT ‘The Death of the Moth’, Virginia Woolf

Sometimes we can feel painfully unimportant in the scheme of things, puny in comparison with the powerful, marginalised in comparison with the glamorous, causally vulnerable to the brute forces of the economy. At times like this self-worth withers. There’s a feeling of being worthless, a minor cog in the machine.

In her essay ‘The Death of the Moth’, Virginia Woolf meditates on a little moth that flutters around the window-pane near her desk, trying to find a way outside. Its life is so meagre and limited. In brusque moments a moth seems a mere nuisance, to be swatted or crushed without hesitation. Outside, through the window, she can see the bigger, grander rhythms of life. Birds are venturing into the sky, a farmer is ploughing the land so as to harness nature to his own ends. And farther away, we know that somewhere a physicist is making a great scientific breakthrough, cabinets are taking historic decisions, cities are being built; someone is starting out on a career that will lead to fame and fortune.

But Woolf has great tenderness for the fragile moth and its limited life, and the fact that its hay-coloured wings can carry it no farther than a corner of the window. It is ‘a tiny bead of pure life’. Properly seen, it is a marvellous, beautiful thing – and through her essay we can be drawn to see afresh, and with deserved generosity, the worth of our own lives. Defeated by the simple, but to it incomprehensible, barrier of a pane of glass, the moth dies in its pitiful attempt to reach the sunshine and flowers of the garden.

In ancient Greece the moth genus was named psyche, meaning soul. Which helps us, if we need it, to see how we might look on our own unlikely spark of life the way she, that day, looked on the moth.

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4

I WANT TO BELIEVE THE WORLD IS GOOD

Civilisation and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud How is humanity doing? How are we going in our search for happiness? Well, yesterday there was a punch-up between football fans in Manchester, Barcelona, Milan, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Today three journalists have chosen to review books that they think should be wiped off the face of the planet. There are some knifings, two religious wars, a massacre in a school and 126 politicians having affairs.

Freud teaches us to be unsurprised about this general bleakness. The reason is that we are all constitutionally horrible. What is surprising, in fact, is that things aren’t even worse. Rather than lament the bloodlust and greed of the world, we should instead celebrate so many people having kept the impulses to murder, assault and infidelity under control for such long periods of time.

Idealism can often be a danger when we crash so devastatingly into the realisation of just how miserable things are. The idealism of early years can flip into cynicism later in life.

Yet in the context of a civilised psychoanalytic essay, we can let ourselves down gently, and accept with calm rather than despair just how nasty we can all sometimes be.

Looking closely at the darkness ingrained within us doesn’t have to be the end of all hope.

On the contrary, it might be the best starting point for building a more merciful society.

5

I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY

How Proust Can Change Your Life, Alain de Botton

Naturally it would be wonderful never to have to suffer. But this is impossible. We are prey to endless strains and trials of both body and mind. Given this is how things are, de Botton examines a strategic line of thought that he uncovers in the work of Marcel Proust: greater wisdom than the pursuit of happiness lies in finding ways to be properly and productively unhappy. For suffering, in spite of being obviously horrible, opens up unexpected but real possibilities for intelligent and imaginative work.

“It is as if” – writes de Botton – “the mind were a squeamish organ which refused to entertain difficult truths unless encouraged to do so by difficult events”. Suffering, of course, is not enough on its own. We may all too easily be betrayed in love, fail to get invited to

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parties, be intellectually anxious or troubled by envy, without this suffering causing us to become wise. Instead we simply become forlorn, defensive and enraged.

Take for instance one of Proust’s central characters, Madame Verdurin. She wants to be socially successful but she is also terrified of rejection. This fear makes her lampoon and denigrate almost everyone – especially people at the top of hierarchies – because if she assures herself they are all stupid, she’ll never have to seek their approval. She’ll never be vulnerable to the suffering of seeking their company and finding that they are not interested in her. By cutting off the possibility of suffering, she limits herself. She can never discover that the people at the top might have a great deal to offer but just not be interested in her. She can only feel safe from pain when she is around people who agree with her completely, and so she has a limited circle of fragile relationships. A bit of moderation, a touch of sympathy for the powerful, and some good-natured curiosity about the lives of others might gain her more true friends.

The big move de Botton makes in How Proust Can Change Your Life is to invite us to bring the actual needs and difficulties of our lives with us when we read even such an esteemed classic as Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time. We should read about Madame Verdurin and pause to think: what is this to me? In what subtle ways do I seek to avoid suffering – to my detriment?

This is an edited extract from The School of Life’s Book of Life, bookoflife.org

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[ DISCOVERY ]

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Balance is among the most coveted yet most elusive goals – particularly for people with a keen desire to keep others happy.

If you get lost beneath shoulds, musts and others’ wants and needs, start the new year with a ‘yes detox’.

A

‘no’ to something is a ‘yes’ to yourself.

If you’ve got a finger in every pie and you’re feeling overstretched, you may have difficulty saying ‘no’. You probably feel resentful because you are doing too much, but you know there’s no-one else to blame for this predicament. Even when you really want to, or know you have to, and even if you have given yourself the pep talk beforehand, you feel the ‘yes’ slipping through your lips!

“I really need a session with you. Can you meet me at 5:30pm?” It had been a long day and she was looking forward to going home and relaxing. But she agreed. After all, he needed her. She turned up to the session on time, exhausted and ready for a break. He turned up at 5.50pm apologising…he had been busy.

You’re probably a very agreeable person; a reliable friend who people can turn to; a dedicated worker who is known for getting things done; and a person with a strong sense of responsibility. You don’t like to let people down, and you feel guilty when you say ‘no’ to a request. However, you are letting someone down. In fact, you are letting down the only person who relies on you fully and completely: yourself!

You already have many things to do: things you are passionate about, things that will make you healthier and happier, time you want to spend with family members, priorities that will move your life in the direction you’ve dreamed of. It’s already difficult to embrace your idle moments in a busy life. But when you lease these precious spaces out to other people’s requests, you are shuffling yourself to the back of the queue, deferring your dreams, delaying your priorities, and robbing yourself of the precious time you have been given to live a full life.

When you say ‘yes’ to something, you are always saying ‘no’ to something else. A ‘yes’ to attend a breakfast meeting might be a ‘no’ to your health, because it means you’ll miss your morning run. A ‘yes’ to bringing forward a deadline so someone else can take an early holiday might be a ‘no’ to your family, because it means you need to stay later at work each night. A ‘yes’ to a networking event might be a ‘no’ to some much-needed ‘me time’ to recharge your batteries.

While it’s important to be giving and generous to others, it’s important to keep the giving and receiving cycle in balance. Giving from a near-empty cup will be fruitless. ‘Am I letting myself down by saying yes?’ is an important question.

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A common reason people struggle with saying ‘no’ is because they can’t find a good excuse at the time. The trap is thinking you must have an excuse! You are the only person who can set boundaries for your life, and they don’t need to be explained every time you decide not to cross them. So next time someone asks you to do something, avoid searching for an excuse and just try one of these simple statements: • Thanks for the kind offer/invitation. I won’t be able to take you up on it this time, but I wish you all the best.

• That sounds like a great opportunity, but I need to say ‘no’.

• Thanks for thinking of me, but I won’t be able to take that on.

• I can’t do that right now without something else falling off my schedule.

With practice, it gets easier to say ‘no’. It might help to start practising on email first until you find the words that you can deliver confidently face to face. The important thing is to start somewhere, but focus on those requests that really can be done without you.

Sure, it may be hard to try this for the first time on your boss when a list of demands hits your inbox, but there are undoubtedly many other things arising in your life where you do have the complete freedom of choice about your response.

Saying ‘no’ is really empowering! Once I knew how to say it in a way that felt half comfortable, it became a lot easier to do. I now think twice before saying ‘yes’ and I give careful consideration to what would be lost if I take something else on. It’s opened so much space for me. I’m saying ‘no’ so much more now!

TRY THIS THE ‘NO’ NOTE Write yourself five ‘no’ notes for the week.

These are permission slips to say ‘no’ to an offer, invitation, extra task or responsibility.

On a small piece of paper, write as follows: • I give myself permission to say ‘no’ to this:

(insert your signature) • Carry them in your pocket or wallet for the week. When you are faced with a situation that you know you should decline, mentally hand yourself one of your ‘no’ notes, then respond to the request with a polite and appropriately worded ‘no’.

• On the back of that ‘no’ note, write down all the things you gave back to yourself by saying ‘no’ to that request. Maybe it was time with your children, an opportunity to spend another two hours on something you really wanted to finish, or a peaceful night alone without taking any work home.

• Eventually you will not need the notes.

You will naturally assess the trade-offs and make a choice that is a ‘yes’ to the thing that matters most.

CAN YOU SAY NO? Grab a piece of paper and list all of the things you are doing at the moment that you really don’t want to be doing.

Why did you say ‘yes’? Are some of these emotions behind your choice?

• • • • • • • • • •

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Guilt Fear Responsibility Being agreeable Seeking approval Avoiding conflict Don’t want to be judged Don’t want to offend A sense of duty or obligation Other …

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This is an edited extract from Do Less Be More

by Susan Pearse and Martina Sheehan, June 2017, $19.99. For more information, visit hayhouse.com.au

TRY A TRADE-OFF If you are still stuck, try this. Before saying ‘yes’ to a new thing, identify something that you will give up. If you can’t give up something, then don’t take something on!

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(02) 8313 9085 www.lavenderhillinteriors.com.au

[ DISCOVERY ]

DESIGNING

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Between the concrete facades of the urban jungle and prescribed trends, attempts at expression can easily succumb to sameness. But interior designer Lorena Gaxiola shows that by strategically breaking the rules, you can create a bespoke space that facilitates and follows personal growth.

WORDS BY: NATASHA THOMPSON

B

etween the trends du jour and a world of design principles, the notion of a personalised sanctuary may be oxymoronic with individual imperatives squeezed out by obligation. It’s an impediment to designing a home space that encourages personal growth and the freedom to live authentically, says interior designer Lorena Gaxiola.

Informed by her Mexican heritage and a background in fine arts, she suggests that breaking the rules is a promising foundation for truly reflecting your current and future needs and individual style. “People are often afraid to hang artwork or paint walls because they are renting, but it is not hard to patch walls and repaint,” says Gaxiola. “How else can you make a space your own if not by changing the main characteristics of your space? The walls are the face of the home and without make-up, you have a washed, untidy face; but just like make-up, you don’t want to overdo it or you will look like a clown.

A little goes a long way.”

In her own home, Gaxiola adopts a ‘make-up’ palette that pays homage to her rule-breaking heritage. “Growing up in a very colourful country and a country where rules are made to be broken, I tend to apply the same sentiment to my designs,” she says.

“I always ask myself, why not? I live outside of the box and often argue with my clients when they just want to follow rules. But, when I finally convince them to break a design rule, more often than not that design motif becomes their favourite feature.

There is something to be said about getting over a fear or overcoming a personal challenge.”

One objective Gaxiola sought to achieve when designing her home was to avoid pursuing perfection. “Fixed finishes and materials like joinery and flooring do not need to match the furnishing styles or colours,” she says.

“Like my practice, I tend to view the fixed materials as one matter and then look at furnishings and accessories as a completely different animal. The two do not always need to relate and, in my home, that is very clear.”

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Gaxiola’s appreciation of the impact of accessories, artwork and furnishings led her to launch her eponymous homewares brand (lorenagaxiola.com) . “The devil is in the details,” she says. But Gaxiola’s accessories are not details for details’ sake. “From the books on my bedside table to the furnishings and the artwork, everything has a meaning and a purpose,” she says. Much of this purpose is emotional, meaning the details, like Gaxiola’s materials and furnishings, do not always match. “I like to surround myself with things that matter to me and I keep acquiring more and more things whilst moving them from home to home,” she says. “I have an emotional connection with my objects and this means that I constantly need to mix different styles of furnishings with lots of artwork and sculptural pieces.” Gaxiola admits that these unorthodox pairings can lead to ‘disaster’ in the wrong hands, but with careful planning they produce standout features.

Any possibility of chaos is also reined in

by Gaxiola’s celebration of symmetry, which brings an over-arching sense of order to the space. “My obsession with symmetry is definitely influenced by my fine arts degree,” she says. “There is something to be said when you can make chaos look poetic or relevant.”

Modern architecture and functionality also inspire Gaxiola’s practice. “I think I draw a lot of my designs from a deep spiritual connection with life,” she says. “Not so much in a religious

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Designing outside the lines

way but in a matter of holistic function. I like to balance materials, shapes and colours to create a sense of peace and zen.”

Creating this sense of zen and establishing a family-friendly environment in a multistorey inner-city apartment was challenging.

“We have an open floor plan and we don’t have many walls to anchor furnishings to, so the furniture selections were considered firsthand,” says the designer. Next she had to consider every family’s dilemma – toy storage.

“I have a six-year-old girl that likes to play 24/7,” she says. “I want her to feel comfortable and included so there is plenty of storage to hide the clutter while she maintains close access to her favourite toys.” To achieve this ease of access without the clutter, Gaxiola uses multi-functional furniture. “That doesn’t mean it needs to be boring and square,” says the designer. “In her bedroom, we use media furniture to conceal her objects while still giving her a bench top area to play.”

The finished product is a bright, spacious home that exudes playfulness and character while never straying too far from the clean lines and functionality of modern architecture.

“I love to sleep in on the weekends and if I could stay in my bedroom for days, I would,” Gaxiola says. “I am lucky to have a gorgeous view to the city. During sunset, when the lights in the buildings start lighting up, I feel like I am floating in the sky. It really feels like I am in a hotel room.”

TAKE A CUE (WITH YOUR OWN TWIST, OF COURSE) To cultivate a sense of space and dynamism in an urban space, Gaxiola suggests the following: • Try to float your furniture.

• Keep the designs clean and lean to avoid creating too much volume.

• If you are looking to make your furniture stand out, put a marble slab on an existing table.

• If you want to add some drama, paint a few walls black.

• To increase light or reflect views, the answer is mirrors, mirrors, mirrors.

@musemagazineau

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Soneva Kiri Yogic Sleep

Retreat Versus Resort:

The rise of

Functional Breaks R

To holiday or to retreat? While a holiday can relieve current stress, the skills and reflection inherited at a retreat may realise long-term benefits including greater resilience.

WORDS: NATASHA THOMPSON

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etreats have traditionally been divisive – met with accolades from spiritual types and eye-rolls from non-believers.

But is the modern retreat really that black and white? Muse positive psychology expert and co-director of Flourishing Retreats Dr Suzy Green (PhD) believes the concept of retreats is burdened by misconceptions.

“Often, people believe it’s simply ‘navel gazing’ and potentially a waste of time,” she says. “Or they have visions of

yogis meditating in the mountains. The emerging ‘urban retreats’ are more focused on precious time out with like-minded people who want to be the best versions of themselves and realise that self-reflection is key.”

The practice of ‘being in retreat’ does, however, have its roots in religion. “In its simplest form, retreat means to ‘draw back’ or ‘withdraw’,” says Dr Green. “A spiritual retreat is a withdrawal from our everyday lives for reflection, insight and transcendence.

Spiritual retreats are an integral part of many Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Sufi (Islamic) communities.”

An example of this is vassa or ‘rains retreat’, which has been a part of Buddhist practices for centuries.

Monks and nuns observe the threemonth retreat by staying in one place, often a monastery, and engaging in intensive meditation. The practice is so important that some monks measure their monastic life according to the number of vassa they have observed.

RETREAT OR WITHDRAW The modern Western retreat need not have any religious sentiment, although the concept of withdrawing from routine life to focus on the self is still key. Health retreats, those that focus on restoring or optimising physical and mental function, are an emerging (and lucrative) trend.

The revenue produced by the global wellness tourism industry is estimated to have risen by US$200 billion in the last six years. “The purpose (of health retreats) is often to focus in on self-care,” says Dr Green. “The aim is to kick-start positive health changes on return to usual life and/ or gain clarity and insights about particular issues in your life that might be causing stress.” To facilitate these changes, retreats can include a variety of health-focused activities, from yoga, meditation and spa treatments to journalling and group discussions. Diet is often controlled, with the consumption of nutritious food encouraged.

Dr Green believes the stressful nature of today’s fast-paced lifestyle has increased the demand for these types of retreats. “People are seeing these (retreats) as important ‘pause’ buttons on their lives,” she says. “The levels of uncertainty and stress in our lives seem to require time out to be able to re-enter the world and cope with such stresses.” Dr Green’s observations hold true. You only need to type ‘stressed’ into Google to find anecdotes of today’s stressed-out, busy-burdened population. But is spending time with stressed-out others really the answer?

THE SCIENCE OF RESTORATION Analysing the health-giving benefits of retreats is no easy task. With so many models, formats and goals in the equation, comparing one retreat against the next is difficult, at least in the scientific sense. Despite this challenge, there are a small number of studies that have assessed the health benefits of retreats. One review, published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, analysed the findings from 20 studies, including data from more than 2000 participants. Significant improvements in health were observed, with some of the largest changes being seen in ‘clinical domains’, such as depression and anxiety. Reductions in perceived stress and improvements in emotional regulation, life quality, compassion and mindfulness were also observed.

Notably, the researchers found that in many of these studies, changes to mental functioning were maintained long after the study finished.

Unsurprisingly, a holiday, whether enjoyed at a retreat or at a beach house, led to less stress and other psychological benefits according to a study published in the Journal of Alternate and Complementary Medicine. Researchers from the University of California and Harvard Medical School came together to assess the differing health benefits of meditation compared to a standard vacation. The study of 64 healthy women aged 30 to 60 followed candidates over six days at the

Chopra Center in California, where the women either spent their time at the resort in meditation training or simply on holiday. Results revealed that all participants displayed the ‘vacation effect’, shown by marked improvements in psychological wellbeing and changes in gene expression associated with improved stress response regulation and immune function. However, compared with vacationers, novice meditators experienced more enduring improvements, reporting less stress and symptoms of depression 10 months after the retreat. Experienced meditators, on the other hand, showed changes in gene network expression typified by lower regulation of protein synthesis and viral genome activity.

What does this mean? Study authors suggest the finding may reflect a boost in ‘innate antiviral activity’, essentially an improvement in the body’s ability to fight viruses. “Based on our results, the benefit we experience from meditation isn’t strictly psychological; there is a clear and quantifiable change in how our bodies function,” said Harvard University professor Rudolph Tanzi.

“Meditation is one of the ways to engage in restorative activities that may provide relief for our immune systems, easing the day-to-day stress of a body constantly trying to protect itself. The prediction is that this would then lead to healthier aging.”

SEEING RESULTS Ironically, choosing a retreat can engender overwhelm. What type?

How long? Which program? Dr Green believes future retreat attendees need to consider three factors: time, cost and purpose. “Some (retreats) can run from half a day to 10 days to much longer. Consider how much time you can realistically take out from work and family commitments.” Cost-wise, Dr Green says there is a retreat for everyone. “From very minimal cost to very expensive, particularly if you intend to travel overseas. There are a lot of health retreats on offer in Asia.” Cost and time may be essential, but purpose is the key to change. Dr Green urges people to make sure

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there is a good match between the aims of the retreat and their purpose for attending. “Are you keen to focus mostly on getting the foundations of physical health right before delving into psychological or are you doing well physically but not emotionally?”

Retreat facilitator and Unleash Learning founder William DeJean (PhD) agrees, and says professional guidance is also important. “Many thought leaders argue that by being in community, a person can go deeper into their own exploration of who they are,” says Dr DeJean. “A retreat, if facilitated with trained professionals, can create the conditions for this to happen.”

So what makes a good retreat?

Dr Green says there are a few hallmarks to look for. First, she advises matching the retreat to your needs. “(This) does require that you have done your homework prior to booking in – or perhaps start with a brief retreat before committing to a longer term one.” A good retreat will have clear objectives, provide people with psychological support both during and after the retreat, and include follow-up communication – especially if the retreat has included behavioural change.

FOR SLEEP ENAHANCEMENT Retreat Name: Soneva Kiri Yogic Sleep Main Objectives: Yoga, sleep enhancement, coaching, spa and relaxation Facilitators: Yogic Sleep program conducted by staff and inhouse experts Location/s: Koh Kood, Thailand Cost: From $9,825pp twin share for 7 nights (including the Yogic Sleep program, full board and return private transfers) Time: Retreat open all year round

Soneva Kiri Yogic Sleep

Shreyas Silent Retreat FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH & WELLBEING Retreat name: Flourishing Retreats Objectives: These retreats are designed to foster inner health and wellbeing through a positive psychology framework. Guidance around the concepts of core life values, strengths and inspirational vision is provided. Activities are delivered in a circle to support inclusivity.

Facilitators: Dr Suzy Green (The Positivity Institute) and Dr William DeJean (Unleash Learning) Location: Sydney, Melbourne and the Hunter Valley (Golden Door) Cost: Aus $225.00 + GST Time: Half-day retreats in June and November

FOR MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS Retreat Name: Shreyas Silent Retreat Main Objectives: Meditation, mindfulness, introspection, stress management, nutrition Facilitators: Silent Retreat or ‘Mouna’ immersion conducted by staff and in-house experts Location/s: Bangalore, India Cost: From $2,740pp twin share for 7 nights (including the Silent Retreat program, full board and return private transfers) Time: Low Season: 1 April–30 September, High Season: 1 October–31 March For more retreat inspiration, visit healthandfitnesstravel.com.au

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YOGA, PILATES & GYM

New premium active wear brand designed in Sydney, crafted with luxuriously soft technical fabricsb

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[ DISCOVERY ]

PEAK EXPERIENCE As you consider your new year goals, let your mind wander beyond what seems possible. Whether you’re travelling alone or with family, these travel experiences are ripe for creating ‘pinch me’ moments and lifelong memories.

WORDS: REBECCA LONG

T

he beauty of the Aurora Borealis, or the exhilarating view from the top of the Eiffel Tower – the experience of complete awe is unmistakable and incomparable. Life suddenly seems richer, clearer and more meaningful.

The effect of such jaw-dropping experiences on happiness and life satisfaction has been documented in research linking less-ordinary experiences to greater wellbeing.

In a study at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, psychological scientists found that moments of awe changed participants’ subjective experience of time by slowing it down, helping to bring attention to the present moment, in turn making life feel more satisfying.

The notion of experiences contributing more to happiness than possessions isn’t new.

“Dating as early as David Hume and through Tibor Scitovsky and many others, the sentiment has been that individuals will be happier if they

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spend their money on experiences (theatre, concerts, and holidays) as opposed to material purchases (fancy cars, bigger houses, and gadgets),” wrote the authors of another study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

They found that emotional intensity decreases more quickly after material purchases than experiential ones. “Given a good probability of a positive experience, our research echoes past research in suggesting that money is well spent on vacations, concerts, amusement parks, and restaurants over comparably priced objects and trinkets.”

A 2003 paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology supports the case for investing in travel..

“We found that people receive more enduring pleasure and satisfaction from investing in life experiences than material possessions,” said professor of

psychology Leaf Van Boven, who reviewed a series of surveys and experiments spanning several years.

He suggested three possible reasons that experiential purchases – those made with the primary intention of acquiring a life experience – make people happier than material purchases.

According to Van Boven, experiences bring more joy than material goods because they are more open to positive reinterpretations, are a more meaningful part of one’s identity, and contribute more to successful social relationships.

Experiences are more open to positive reinterpretation, because they tend to be associated more with deeper personal meanings, whereas possessions are always ‘out there’ and separate from who we are, according to Van Boven.

“For example, if you go on a hiking trip, and the weather is terrible, you might not view it as a pleasurable experience in the here and now,” he said. “Instead, you may view it as a challenge, and over time remember

INDIA TRIP: Treasures of Northern India (with Mumbai) DURATION: 14 days Price: From $4,827 PEAK EXPERIENCE: Visiting the Taj Mahal at sunrise and the turban tying class From navigating twisting lanes of crowded bazaars to the breathtaking scene of the Taj Mahal at sunrise, this is an immersive showcase of modern and historical India. A rickshaw ride is the perfect way to see Old Delhi, where you can learn about the daily lives of the street children and visit the Red Fort – the most opulent palace of the Mughai Empire. The adjacent colourful market with its enlivening morning buzz reflects the city’s energy and was once Delhi’s commercial epicentre. Visit Jama Masjid, one of the largest mosques in India before free time to relax or explore.

A contender for peak experience is a visit to the spectacular Taj Mahal the positive aspects of the experience more than the negative aspects. With material things you can’t do this, because they are what they are.”

Van Boven said another factor is that experiences are a more meaningful part of one’s identity.

“Our culture highly values accomplishing goals and challenging oneself. We strongly value accomplishments,” Van Boven said. “Also, experiences tend to be associated more with deeper personal meanings than possessions.”

Finally, Van Boven suggests that experiences are more pleasurable to talk about and they more effectively foster successful social relationships, which are closely associated with happiness, he said.

“We often share stories about experiences because they’re more fun to talk about than material possessions. They are simply more entertaining,” Van Boven said.

Sorted into three main trip styles to suit every guest, Trafalgar’s (trafalgar.com/aus) guided holidays are made for sharing – with enviable experiences that invite independentminded wanderers into experiences other travellers can only dream of.

Think ‘Be My Guest’ experiences (where locals share their livelihoods and culture on working farms and vineyards), ‘stays with stories’ (with accommodations chosen for their special connection to the culture, history or location), and ‘hidden treasures’ (exclusive experiences hand-picked by Trafalgar’s Travel Directors and Local Specialists, who reside in the city/town you’re in).

Whether you’re wanting to go beyond the surface of a destination, after an exclusive experience that you wouldn’t be able to have on your own, are a history buff or dream of floating down the Nile, we’ve found an adventure tailored to make for a meaningful experience you won’t forget.

at sunrise when its marble exterior reflects rose and golden tints.

The opulence that defines India’s traditional architecture is just as dazzling in Jaipur (‘the pink city’), the capital of the colourful state of Rajasthan. It makes a stunning contrast with the next stop, New Delhi, which was designed and built by the British and is flecked with wide boulevards, green parks and gardens and borrows some pomp from its founders. Stop at the Palace of Winds, a spectacular five storied wonder constructed to enable the ladies of the royal household, to watch the life and processions of the city unseen from the outside. Among optional activities are turban tying (turbans are a sartorial staple in Rajasthan) or Kite Flying (a popular pastime in Jaipur). During your visit you’ll have the opportunity to learn about India not as a tourist, but a welcome guest – think meeting the head of a noble family in Narlai and visiting a Dhobi Ghat in Mumbai, where the adventure concludes (at least formally).

JAPAN TRIP: Splendours of Japan DURATION: 9 days PRICE: From $4,486 PEAK EXPERIENCE: Spectacular views of Mt Fuji from the Kachikachiyama Ropeway cable car and being kitted out by a ‘kimono dresser’ From the paradoxical modernity and palpable cultural history of Tokyo to being styled in a kimono and the awesome sight of Mt Fuji from a cable car, this Japan trip reflects Japan’s deft navigation of new and old; human-made and pristine.

Beginning in the capital Tokyo – a pulsing metropolis punctuated by ultra-modern buildings and temples dating from as early as the year 628 – the trip continues to listed UNESCO World Heritage Site Oshino Hakkai, a small rural village in the Fuji Five Lakes district, where eight natural spring water ponds are fed by melted snow from Mt Fuji and

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create moving artworks as the landscape’s reflection dances on the clear water. Possibly the most spectacular aspect is the 2,300m ascent of Mt Fuji by road and ride on the Kachikachiyama Ropeway cable car, which is a fitting front-row seat for the sight of Mt Fuji and Lake Kawaguchiko. The journey through the Japanese Alps to the hillside town of Takayama is truly breathtaking.

Step back in time during a visit to the peaceful mountain village and UNESCO designated site of Gokayama and visit a family in one of the famous Gassho-zukuri wooden houses. Observe local artisans making washi paper and try making your own before refuelling with regional cuisine ahead of a walk in the Edo style streets of the Old Town.

Continue the history trail in Kanazawa, where you can discover the secrets of gold leaf painting during a visit with one of Trafalgar’s ‘local specialists’. Visit the famous gardens of Kenrokuen, which showcase cherry blossoms in springtime, and stroll through the Omicho market for an insider’s view of everyday life in a busy coastal town.

Among the trip’s highlights, and one of Trafalgar’s exclusive ‘Be My Guest’ experiences, is lunch at a traditional ryokan built in 1932 by master craftsmen for the uncle of the current Japanese Emperor, Akihito. Similarly enlightening is the historic city of Kyoto, which feels like another world.

See elusive Geisha-in-training dart down laneways and take in a traditional Japanese puppet performance and a ‘Ryurei style’ tea ceremony. Like other Trafalgar trips, there is enough flexibility to breakaway and explore, without the stress of planning, as everything is organised for you including accommodation and most restaurants (which have been expertly selected).

LIMA TRIP: In the Footsteps of the Incas DURATION: 10 days PRICE: From $5,284 PEAK EXPERIENCE: Having your trek blessed in a traditional ceremony by a Shaman and exploring Machu Picchu From the clouds of the Andes to the birthplace of the sun, this trek through Peru’s Altiplano and the famous floating Uros Islands traces the rich traditions and ancient past of the Incas and their ancestors – a celebration of chicha toasts, bold colours and hilltop fortresses. On the way to the Sacred Valley, you’ll encounter a Shaman, who will perform a Pago a la Tierra (Payment to Mother Earth) ceremony, intended to bless your trip. Then share a farm-to-table lunch with locals as part of the ‘be my guest’ program before watching a traditional dance with Peruvian Paso horses.

The Vistadome train provides panoramic views of the valley and mountains as you travel towards Machu Picchu via the Inca stronghold of Ollantaytambo.

Once you arrive at this UNESCO

ITALY TRIP: Piedmont and the Italian Lakes DURATION: 7 days PRICE: From $2,246 PEAK EXPERIENCE: Piedmontese cuisine and a stay at the Monstero Cheraso Somaschi Hotel, a beautifully restored 17th century monastery with views of Piedmon’s dramatic mountain landscape The country that coined the phrase ‘la dolce vita’, meaning ‘the good life’, lives up to its promise, bestowing its accomplishments in gastronomy and culture with a contagious dose of passion.

It’s impossible not to be caught up in each wonderful moment during this immersion in Italian culture. From the fashion mecca

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World Heritage Site, explore the stunning ruins of this once-great fortress with a local specialist.

We recommend taking the option of learning to prepare Peruvian ceviche with the hotel’s head chef before dinner.

On return to Machu Picchu, learn about the natural dyeing techniques used by native weavers, a specialty of the trip and kick off a free evening with a visit to a local chicheria to learn about the Andes’ favourite drink, chicha.

While the fusion of the rich local culture and vibrant nightlife is intoxicating, spare a thought for morning, when you’ll join a local specialist visiting an impressive site of ruins towering over Cusco and visit the cathedral, a stunning example of colonial architecture that was completed in 1694 after over 100 years of construction.

While the journey is anchored by architecture, local design also features in artisan shops and craft workshops dotting the cobblestone streets of bohemian San Blas, where Incan Walls serve as a backdrop to a fascinating lesson on Peru’s history, geography and culture with a respected anthropologist.

Milan, go off the beaten track to Cherasco and Baveno to really feel this country’s pulse.

Trafalgar’s links to the Piedmont region mean a truly immersive experience including a stay at the Monstero Cheraso Somaschi Hotel, a beautifully restored 17th century monastery with stunning views of Piedmon’s dramatic mountain landscape and delicious Piedmontese cuisine (no wonder they call it a ‘hidden journey’). A sensory adventure, the experience pairs arresting vistas – think walled cities and pristine northern lakes – with the exhilarating aromas and flavours of the countryside and local specialities of white truffles, fruity red wine, and Turin’s decadent Bicerin hot chocolate.

DAY 2 • PARIS EXPLORER Eiffel Tower, France

2018 IT’S YOUR TIME

To skip the line and dance in front of the Eiffel Tower

EARLYBIRDS ON SALE NOW Call 1800 002 007 See your travel agent Visit trafalgar.com/muse

*Conditions apply. See website for full details.

[ DISCOVERY ]

SKIN PSYCHOLOGY If your skin flares in times of pressure or resists topical treatments, stress or hidden psychological issues may be to blame. We explore the emerging mind-body field of psychodermatology.

T

reating the physical problems stemming from a skin condition is only just scratching the surface.

Psychologist Jacqui Manning (thefriendlypsychologist. com.au) says skin ailments often cause psychological distress.

“Common psychological problems associated with all kinds of skin diseases include feelings of stress, anxiety, anger, depression, shame, social isolation, low self-esteem and embarrassment. Skin conditions can also affect one’s personal, professional and social life,” she says.

In a paradoxical conundrum, such skin conditions are likely to induce stress in the sufferer, which actually has the propensity to worsen the skin condition.

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“Stress is closely linked to our skin as it reflects our internal state,” says Manning.

Increasingly, studies show that stress – even the run-of-the-mill, day-to-day variety – can trigger or heighten skin problems, from small breakouts and inflammations to more serious, chronic conditions such as psoriasis and eczema.

As hard evidence accumulates, a growing cadre of doctors – some even identifying themselves as psychodermatologists – are combining traditional skin treatments with psychotherapy, hypnosis and meditation. An acupuncturist and a biofeedback therapist are part of the Yardley,

Pennsylvania, practice of Richard Fried, MD, PhD, a dermatologist and clinical psychologist. A massage therapist and a psychiatrist are on staff in the office of New York City dermatologist David Colbert, MD, who says he sees patients every day with stress-induced skin problems.

In 2006 the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York opened a psychodermatology clinic that offers therapies including mindfulness meditation and hypnosis. There’s even the Association for Psychocutaneous Medicine of North America, consisting of both dermatologists and psychologists, which had grown from five members to almost 100 from 1991 to 2006. “Some people are prescribed the latest cream, and their skin problem goes away,” says Ted Grossbart, PhD, an assistant clinical

TREATMENT SHEET professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School who specialises in skin disorders. “But sometimes that doesn’t happen. Now we’re recognising this other set of resources you can tap from within – which is terrific news.”

CHAIN REACTION Stress sets off several physiological reactions in the body that can affect the skin. It causes the release of hormones, like cortisol, that thicken hair follicle cells and increase oil production – the perfect recipe for acne. Stress can also trigger neuropeptides, chemicals unleashed from nerve endings in the skin that leave it red or itchy, and encourage T cells (the skin’s infection fighters) to overreact, making the skin turn over too quickly and flake or scale. Then there are the blood vessels: under stress they become more reactive, either clamping shut (so skin looks pale or sallow) or opening too widely (causing the skin to flush).

When you’re stressed, the skin’s repair mechanisms are compromised as well. In one study, scientists at Weill Medical College of Cornell University gave volunteers tiny wounds on their skin by applying and then ripping off pieces of tape, and then exposed the volunteers to a stressful situation: fake job interviews. Their skin took longer than usual to heal. “What’s really intriguing is that even relatively mild stress – in this study the subjects knew the interviews were fake – can affect the way your skin functions,” says Richard D. Granstein, MD, chief of dermatology at New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell.

There’s also evidence that stress can speed the onset of skin cancer – at least in mice. In a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology in December 2004, scientists at Johns Hopkins University showed that mice exposed to the scent of fox urine (the rodent equivalent of having a fight with your boss and getting a speeding ticket in the same afternoon) and UV light developed skin cancers in less than half the time it took for nonstressed mice exposed to the light.

While it can be a factor, inner turmoil is rarely the sole culprit behind misbehaving skin. “You can have all the stress in the world, and you won’t get psoriasis if you don’t have the genes for it,” says Grossbart. “And some people are just physiologically more hardwired to have their emotions trigger skin problems. The flip side is that those people are also more likely to be able to use psychological techniques to improve their skin’s condition.”

Some of the treatments recommended by psychodermatologists, such as meditation, acupuncture, psychotherapy, and massage, soothe the skin by decreasing the stress response through relaxation. “Studies show that when people utilise stress-reduction techniques, their skin misbehaves less often and less dramatically,” says Fried. In one study at the University of Massachusetts, psoriasis patients who listened to meditation tapes during their light therapy treatments reduced by half the amount of therapy needed to clear their symptoms.

Other treatments such as imaging, biofeedback, and hypnosis not only relax patients but teach them to control physiological factors such as body temperature and skin moisture. “Our bodies are more plugged into the pictures we have in our heads than into reality,” says Grossbart.

“If you hear the screen door slam and imagine it’s the wind, for example, you’re calm. If you imagine someone breaking in, you’re going to produce adrenaline. Since many skin conditions are sensitive to changes in temperature and moisture, you can learn to pick an image – swimming in an Olympic-size pool of cool yoghurt, say – that moves the skin in the right direction.” For the imagination to do its best work, patients must enter a state of focused concentration and repeat the exercise daily (a brief daydream or two won’t induce serious physiological change).

None of these doctors suggests rejecting traditional skin treatments altogether. “If you have acne that’s aggravated by stress, you will see improvement from stress-reduction techniques,” says Colbert. “But you also have bacteria under your skin, which will be hard to get rid of without a topical antibiotic.” Amy Wechsler, MD, one of only a handful of doctors in the US who is board certified in both dermatology and psychiatry, also recommends a combination of approaches. “You can’t just think your way to clear skin,” she says. “But when you’re using a treatment that should be working and it’s not, it sets off some bells: What else is going on here? In those cases, you can use these psychological techniques as adjunctive treatments.”

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[ DISCOVERY ]

FACE FORECAST TRENDS OF 2018 I am always fascinated by the looks coming through from the European runways , but as a professional make-up artist, I need to translate these into everyday looks I can use on my clients.

Here’s what I recommend from the season’s hottest trends to incorporate into your new year beauty ritual.

ANTI-CONTOURING Forget trying to trick the light and find your face’s shadows. After seasons of heavy contouring, cheeks will be left to shine in a fresh-faced look with a reflective, dewy glow.

To achieve it, highlight to the high points of the face to draw attention there by creating definition – but beware of overdoing it.

GET THE LOOK

MEL VON STANKE Qualified Beauty Therapist & Professional Make-Up Artist, Owner of Vanity Makeup Bar & Lounge

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Two key steps to create this look is to layer.

Try a luminous primer like Becca First Light Priming Filter ($65), under your favourite lightweight foundation. This primer applies sheer violet luminance to enhance your skin tone and even out imperfections. Then use an illuminating highlighting powder with a soft, iridescent glow. An individualised veil for the skin in a soft, pearlised glow, Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed Highlighter ($60), is available in five shades.

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ROYAL FLUSH In a near ’80s revival, we are seeing a real fresh pop of colour on the cheeks. But unlike the sharp, straight application back in the days of Debbie Harry, now colour goes right on top of cheeks. This look translates best with fresh colours – pinks, roses, and peaches.

While runway trends were from sheer to vivid, overall, everything was softer with blurred edges and far more wearable. To avoid overdoing it, add colour slowly until you achieve the look you want. And if you are going for a bold, vibrant statement, you can always layer cream then powder. Otherwise, don’t be afraid to experiment with make-up. Lip stains are great to add under blush.

GET THE LOOK A bright blush (Becca Luminous Blush, $52) takes radiance to the next level, giving the perfect balance of colour and multidimensional light. Blended perfectly onto the apples of the cheeks is a fresh take this summer. I find it easiest to apply the blush with one brush and have a larger one on hand to blend it out with. The easiest way to find the apple of your cheek is to give yourself a cheesy smile in the mirror and up they pop.

As a stand-out spring summer addition to your blush collection, Inglot Face Blush ($23) comes in classic blush colours and has a rich, smooth, buildable formula.

musemag.com.au | muse magazine |

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[ DISCOVERY ]

STARRY EYES To translate one of the biggest trends seen on the European runways into an easy-to-wear option is to use a touch of metallic highlight on the inner corners of your eyes and create a halo across your top lip, bringing an elegant twist to a glittery trend. Mastering the look without appearing theatrical requires only one or two glitter pots as opposed to the classic smokey eye, which requires a whole palette.

Go high-impact with a pigmented glitter metallic swept across the whole lid or keep it simple with a dash of soft metal in the inner corners. It may look like it’s best left in your 20s, but it really is a very versatile trend.

GET THE LOOK For 2018’s metalic eye trend, experiment with INGLOT Body Sparkles ($30), to subtly incorporate the metalic trend in bronze, gold or silver.

Inglot AMC Pigment Pots from the Stardust Collection ($32), is a loose, highly pigmented powder that ranges from subtle to intense depending on application.

Turn any powder into an easy to apply, water-resistant liquid colour with Inglot Duraline ($26).

POP ART POUT Selecting the right colour and finish takes practice, but the difference between highquality lipstick that suits your skin tone and ill-suited, low-quality lipstick is obvious in the overall effect and staying power.

In terms of colour, anything goes this summer – so long as it’s not insipid. Think nods to the psychedelic ’70s and Warhol, from neon pink to pillar box red and orange sherbet. A practical way to integrate the trend into workday and evening looks is a bold, popping lip, which is right on trend.

Use your pout as a canvas and step outside your comfort zone.

GET THE LOOK MAC Amplified Lipstick in Morange ($36), is a creamy, opaque formula that covers lips in a single swipe and achieves a flawless finish.

MAC Pink Pigeon Matte, $36

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