Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness to Counter Anxiety and Depression
A 10 week webinar series commencing October 2014
Anxiety is a perfectly normal human emotion and without it we could not get out of bed in the morning.
We as people have highly developed anxiety traits because we are all descended from the people who survived the world of large roaming predators whom we competed with for survival.
So our ancestors were the ones that were the fastest up the tree or into the back of the cave while less anxious humanoids were consumed.
The fight- flight response is deeply embedded in our primal brain and it is hypervigilant for things waiting to kill us.
This is then laced with the most primal fear of all – fear of death. [and just quietly if anyone you know tells you they are not afraid of dying they are kidding themselves completely and the denial is just stronger in them – stand them on the edge of a cliff with your hand in the small of their back and see how at peace they are lol]
We are so afraid of death we pretend that it doesn’t exist [deep down where it actually matters] and while fear must be met and transcended, it therefore leaks into other things.
The combined result of this is that we can become very afraid of things that aren’t actually dangerous and once this starts it goes through this white anting kind of process in which it spreads out making you more and more anxious about more and more things!
This is highly destructive and becomes increasingly complicated as we then set up little rules and rituals to keep the anxiety at bay which of course only reinforces to us that there really must be something to be afraid of after all.
This series will take participants through the whole process of what anxiety and depression are, what triggers it, what it produces in us, how we behave in the face of that – which simply reinforces the whole process again.
In simple clearly understood processes you will learn about the physiology of what happens, non medicated ways to deal with it, how to recognize and interrupt the thoughts that generate it and how to modify your behavior in the face of it – all of which lead to a powerful possibility that you can live free of it!!
We will learn about our thoughts, the monkey chatter in our heads, the 50,000 thoughts that you have the same – every day ad nauseam, all of which chips away at your self esteem, your worth, your lovablity, and fills you with negative judgement about yourself and the world – both projected and intrajected.
You will learn about how to recognise those thoughts and how to challenge and ultimately delete them. You will learn about the plasticity of the brain and how powerfully you can rewrite your destiny with care and attention to what is going on.
You will learn how to interrupt the emotional response that follows these thoughts – the panic and sadness and self loathing that comes with them. Those feelings we have been conditioned to resist, thus locking ourselves into a cycle of futile avoidance and ritualised ways of not feeling anything. You will come to know your emotional body – not as something to fear but as something that informs you of your reality moment by moment. Not in a dammed up over the spillway kind of way, overwhelming you in their intensity – but as part of the river of life that you are, flowing smoothly and effectively.
You will learn to interrupt the behaviours and rituals that you have created over time to allay the anxiety but which have a paradoxical effect of making it worse. The more you try and protect your self from the anxiety by reassuring yourself, avoiding situations, doing little routines to ensure something does not go wrong – the more powerfully you are telling yourself that there is something to reassure your self against.
You will learn mindfulness from the Zen traditions and breath techniques to slow all things down and learn skills for dwelling in the body in the moment rather than in the mind in the past or the future!!
This series will commence on Monday evening the 18th March at 7.30pm for an hour and a half and will run for 10 weeks cost $25 per week during which you will learn many simple and effective tools for reclaiming power over your life.
the links to register for this amazing programme will be up soon