by Charles Barnard
Family, friends, sweet treats, hot chocolate, a nice meal, laughter, songs, games, and of course the presents, these things often are representative of the fun and joy that is supposed to come with the holidays. For others, the imagery can be much different. Rushing from one home to another. Fighting with cousins, parents, siblings. Remembering the loss of a loved one. Feeling guilty because you couldn’t provide what you wanted. For many these are the images that directly conflict with all the “Hallmark” imagery of what the Christmas season is supposed to be.
Of course this is not a new feeling. Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 arguably decades before industrialization led to the commercialization of Christmas. Nevertheless, it depicts a lonely, miserly, and miserable soul who believes Christmas is humbug. Of course, that novel has a happy ending, but the main character nonetheless found no joy in Christmas. Now, nearly 180 years after Dickens wrote his classic tale, Christmas for many never brings the joy it is meant to bring.
Tragically, according to a Healthline survey over 60% of the people surveyed felt “some” stress during the holidays. It didn’t matter whether it was baby boomers (62%), Generation X (65%), or millennials (61% ). They all felt “some level of stress during the season.” Let’s be honest, some level of stress is a rather nebulous statement. Regardless, the idea that many struggle with stress and the negative emotions typically associated with stress during the holiday season should not come as a shock.
For many of you, it is your truth. Whether it is the holidays or simply life handing out its trials or tribulations the ability to deal with stress will go a long way toward determining how much joy and satisfaction and peace one feels. Dealing with stress in a healthy manner, whether it is “some stress” during the holidays or some stress during any period, is a function of your mindset.
In the NLP communication model diagram below, we see that our behavior is the manifestation of our internal representations, state, and physiology. Each of those influences the other. You can change your physiology and there by change your state and change your thinking (internal representations) or you can change your thinking and thereby change your state and your physiology. Notice what influence those components. The way your brain processes and interprets external events will determine you internal representations, state, and physiology. Your mindset will be what controls your internal representations or your thinking process.
Your brain cannot deal with all of the information being input through your five senses, so it has to filter that information and compartmentalize it. According to this model, your brain will do that using the structure of language, metaprograms, memories, decisions, time/space/matter/ energy (and in my opinion spirit). One of the metaprograms is whether you move toward reward or away from punishment. Another is whether you have an external or internal frame of reference. A third is if you sort by self or sort by others. A fourth is whether you are a matcher or mismatcher. The final one I will mention is if you are motivated primarily by possibility or necessity. Clearly these metaprograms will influence how you interpret an external event.
Within the domain of your memories and decisions are things like stored negative emotions, beliefs, and values which contribute to how you will structure meaning to the outside event. The filtering processes will typically do one or more of the following. They will distort, generalize, or delete information from that external event. Your inner map is not reality. We generally act as if it is reality, but it is not reality.
There are many therapeutic techniques to help you establish thinking processes that will give you understanding and more control over those internal filters. Which ones or how many of those filters can be changed is somewhat debatable, but there is no doubt people can learn to take control of their thinking and their physiologies to control their states and thus there behavior. It is important to understand that your thinking can produce chemicals in your body that are associated with the ends of the emotional spectrum – intense joy, and deep depression. The secretion of these chemicals is influenced by a number of factors including your diet, exercise, and thinking. Each of those you can control.
Before learning the skills necessary to control your thinking processes, one should consider clearing away the obstacles that may inhibit the development of those skills, attitudes, and habits. Those obstacles are generally stored negative emotions, limiting beliefs, and potential internal values or parts conflicts (one part of you values and wants success on the job while another part of you values and wants the comfort and security of being around family and those parts may interfere with achieving your expressed goals). While this process can be incredibly powerful, liberating, and lead to changes in behavior, it will not necessarily automatically lead to the changes in how your filters process information.
Controlling your thinking processes is a lifetime process. Learning the techniques to do that should be part of your education or training, but putting it into practice and mastering your mindset is a lifelong pursuit. Some of the techniques you can learn to use to become a master of your mindset are autosuggestion, anchoring, aroma therapy, meditation/prayer/mindfulness, aka chords, visualization, time-line therapy techniques, reframing techniques, visual squash, and reflective practices featuring the metamodel and cognitive behavior therapy questioning. Mastering these techniques and your ability to find joy in living requires habits.
The most powerful two habits you can develop are the morning and evening ritual. Those rituals should include time to
- do breath work and exercise, which has a tremendous influence on your physiology and emotions,
- use any of the above techniques to help manage your emotions,
- a planning routine where you plan out your day and regularly review and establish goals and steps for achieving those goals.
- time for personal growth and development.
In our breakthrough training the development of the habit is by far the most challenging aspect for people to follow through with. The breakthrough session itself is relative straight forward and when I do that with clients I can do that often in less than 10 hours. The habits on the other hand on average take 66 consecutive days to develop. You see why that is challenging and why we strongly encourage families (or teams) to do this together. It is also why we offer financial incentive for finishing the program in the allotted time. The habits are vital.
The remainder of our training curriculum will spend many weeks trying to teach you about and fully develop the positive character traits that not only help diminish the experience of stress in the first place but are also highly valued in building relationships. People are our greatest resource but also our greatest source of stress. While it is often reported that finances are major stress factor, and they are, I argue that the reason they are more often than not is the financial stresses are related to a feeling of worry about not being able to care for or do things for those we love and care about. Love, faith, faithfulness, family, and friendships are quite easy to associate with improving relationships and mastering those goes a long ways toward properly managing stress and finding more joy.
Your mindset regarding learning (mind) and body (well-being) also influence your relationships. Both of those mindsets contribute significantly to your self-image which in turn is a significant contributor to your ability to build strong interpersonal relationships. Those people who have low self-image have a greater challenge in building those relationships. The final piece of our mindset of a champion arch is the keystone or the human spirit or spirit of a champion. That piece brings everything full circle and reinforces and expands on some vital practices such a breath work, reflective and planning practices, as well as meditation or prayer. Learning how to do this things isn’t that difficult. Mastering them is also quite easy – practice doing them. The difficulty lies in the habit creation and the consistency in the practice. It is that habit formation that lies at the heart of mastering your mindset.
https://growthmimindsettrainingacademy.com/Success-Institutes-heart