Settle in and discover how Modern Psychology can enhance your life. Articles to bring new insights around managing stress, mindset and life's challenges.
Jon Kabat-Zinn was the first to cleanse mindfulness of its Buddhist roots and use it as a tool to help manage stress in a Boston clinic, which was part of University of Massachusetts Medical School. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) - an 8-week program teaching outpatients how to change their relationship with pain after medicine had done all it could, was born.
Read More“I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
When starting my first garden, I couldn’t get the old spade to make a dent in the ground.
Each jab into the hard-core earth jarred my shoulder. No yielding.
I found the spade rusting under a pile of ‘one-day-useful’ junk in the back shed. Someone’s warrior garden tool.
A few more sharp jabs, angling the spade the way I saw my father do, and a splinter of soil cracked.
I looked at the spade. And it at me.
One of us wasn’t cut out for this job.
Read MoreVirginia Satir (1916–88) was a family therapist with an eye for seeing what those she worked with couldn’t.
In her work with families, Satir categorised 5 types of behaviour she noticed people defaulting to. These behavioural defaults emerged in times of discomfort — around arguments or moments of emotional charge.
In this article, we’re looking at one category: the placater. You may see yourself here. Or not.
How a person acts during times of high emotion says much about his or her emotional adjustment and emotional intelligence — their EQ (emotional intelligence quotient).
Read MoreBeing top of the class used to be a predictor of success. Along with your IQ — a they offered a passport to … anything you wanted.
That was then.
These days your school record and IQ score are as good a predictor of success as your hair colour is.
In fact, having a high IQ slows many down. Keeping the ‘must-learn-more’ loop of academia alive. Not so smart.
Read MoreIf Your Life Sucked Yesterday; It Will Again Today Unless …
“Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own …” — Epictetus.
No one ethically knows the outcome of a game. We cannot make someone love us. We cannot dictate the weather.
The only control any of us has is around 3 things:
That’s what learning is. Opening a door, one leading from an ordinary world to a journey unknown. They’re rarely smooth. I’ve taken them before. It will challenge me. Sometimes drag me through fire. At other times I’ll feel as if drowning. It's the path to a more successful life.
And every step of the way will open another opportunity. Another view. Yet one closed, if I hadn’t turned the handle.
Without seeking, nothing is found.
Read MoreReaching goals can bring out our best and worst. The thrill of leaning into a goal needs weighing against the angst of making slow progress. It can be a stressful business.
And while 75–90% of all visits to doctors are stress related (estimation), it’s time to take onboard these 7 ideas:
Read MoreCompliance is a costly mistake bred into education systems. It’s where masses of young people first learn group-think, permission-seeking and how to fit-in.
Those who don’t follow the rules are treated harshly, ostracized from the group or ‘managed’ through a process of fear designed to ignite the reptilian brain and destroy individuality.
Breaking out of this mindset can be a challenge. Because on one hand we’ve got the reptilian brain monitoring personal ‘safety’ and releasing fear when out of its comfort zone. And on the other hand the social rules of ‘compliance’ creating invisible boundaries of a pre-ordained life.
Read MoreMost big ideas begin with a notion. A simple ‘what-if’. What happens next determines whether their embryonic state matures or gets buried under another to-do list.
… What if you could take that embryonic notion and place it an environment that guarantees its tiny beating heart enough oxygen for it to expand and grow?
These 7 proven steps show you how:
Read MoreThe School of Modern Psychology gives you the tools to better manage anxiety, chronic stress and depression so you can live authentically and with resilience so you turn up in your relationships in a healthy way.
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Being highly sensitive is a gift, and a super power - especially in a relationship and experience anxiety or have an anxious attachment style.
