The brain, in many ways, doesn’t distinguish real from imaginary. Take a simple example of stress. Your brain responds to a stressful situation by releasing stress hormones. But your brain also releases the stress hormones when you remember a past stressful event or even when you vividly imagine one.
I’m often asked what the ‘right’ visualisation is for certain conditions. The truth is, there’s not ‘the’ right visualisation, just the one that’s right for you. So long as what you’re imagining is wellness, then you’re doing it right.
There’s no correct way to write a book. I’ve been asked dozens of times about how to best write a book. If you ask 10 authors how they do it, you’ll get several different answers.
I’ve talked a lot about benefits of kindness in other articles. For example, I’ve talked about the impact of kindness on mental health, through how kindness feels as well as how it induces changes in brain regions, plus how kindness impacts the heart, immune system...
A simple awareness of the power of self-correction generates a feeling of hope. And that hope shifts the centre of gravity away from seeking solutions in other places, and into yourself.
I’ve had a few hypnotherapy sessions recently. A friend is training in solution focused hypnotherapy and is using me as one of his test subjects. I’m loving it and already feeling the benefits.
I spent a day earlier in the week at a primary school where I was talking to young children about the importance of kindness. It was a school outside Glasgow, Scotland, on the invitation of my friend, John – aka Mr McLellan. The school has a dedicated ASD unit.
I spent some time in New York City last weekend. I’m writing a series of pieces for Psychologies Magazine called ‘The Kindness Conversation’ where I basically have, well, conversations about kindness. In New York, I had my kindness conversation with Cynthia Germanotta, mother of Lady Gaga.