Reframing

This is not a new technique by any means but is worth returning to. How we say things and what we focus on make a big difference to how we feel. How we feel can influence our confidence, relations with others and success.

Imagine you have just walked into a room. Someone is sitting there very angry. You can feel it and it isn't pleasant. Imagine that person is happy and smiling - welcoming you in. Feels very different.

How you feel has a big effect on your health as well, producing different hormonal responses in your body. We have this in our language. If we are grieving our heart is broken. If we are full of anger and rage we say we are full of bile. There are many expressions that show the physical effects of our emotions.

There are many ways to change how we feel like exercise, doing fun things, contact with friends. We can also change our thoughts to a great extent.

Try the following and see what it does for you:

Say you are learning something new and getting it wrong. You could say to yourself: I'll never be any good at this. How do you feel saying this to yourself? Not good.

Now change your statement to: Hey, I'm just learning. I'll soon have it mastered. Feels much better doesn't it?

Some tips on reframing are to change it to the positive, separate the activity from you as a person (you are not hopeless even if you make a mistake) & make sure there is possibility and optimism (take out words like never or always and put in a positive future or make the situation temporary on the way to something better).

Give it a go. If you notice a negative thought, write it down, reframe it and say this new thought, then compare how you felt before and after.

Breathing

There are lots of breathing techniques out there and they can be very useful. Here is one that works for panic and anxiety. It changes the mixes of gases in your lungs to help you calm down.

Firstly, don't be ashamed - most of us experience strong anxiety at some time in our lives. This technique is unobtrusive and may make life easier for you, though it isn't a substitute for working out the causes of anxiety and/or working on them.

It takes practice. Try and do it several times a day if you can, especially during stressful life periods.

Breathe in for the count of 1
Hold for 1
Breath out for 1
Hold for 1
Breathe in for the count of 2
Hold for 2
Breathe out for 2
Hold for 2 ......

Build up slowly so you can get to 10.

It only takes a few minutes.
You can do it at your desk or on the bus.
Maybe not while driving until it becomes automatic.

Anyway - give it a try and definitely let me know if you get some benefits.

Lovely Lorrikeets

This morning I had the most beautiful experience. I regularly feed lorrikeets on my balcony. I put a 'line' of honey on the railing and since they normally live in couples they come in two's. Then they start at each end of the line of honey.

Lorrikeets are nectar eaters and they look very funny with their long cylindrical tongues which sort of seem to have hairs sticking out. Sometimes they eat so fast they sneeze. I also have a bird bath for them so they can have a drink or stand in the middle and flap their wings to shower water over themselves (and sometimes over me if the window is open and I am sitting on the lounge). Then they roll over in the bird bath and that is very cute.

This morning I had put out some honey - hard not to as they get quite insistent. In fact these lorrikeets are well organised. They post a scout in the tree at the back of my flats very early in the morning. As soon as I get up this scout goes: eeeh eeeh eeeh ... and then others come swooping in to wait on the railings. If I don't respond quickly they start tapping at the windows with their beaks or peering through the scalloped edges of the blind.

So, there were two lorrikeets on either end of the honey line. I went out on my balcony and they both looked up. I told them how sweet they are and clucked at them - like Skippy - tsk tsk tsk. They answered together in the sweetest trills and then simultaneously went back to their eating.

My translation of their response being: yes we are beautiful and we deserve endless amounts of honey.

They really are a great joy.

Boxing at the PCYC

For some strange reason I decided to take up boxing. I did go to a boxercise type class at my local gymn last year and wanted to go back but never quite got up in time for the 6.15 am start on a Wednesday morning.

So, when a swimming friend told me the PCYC had great boxing trainers I decided to check it out. Last Friday night it was bucketing down and I nearly didn't go, but somehow I gave myself that little push and glad I did. I arrived soaked and a little nervous.

This place is so friendly and the exercise really good. Very soon I was sweating and enjoying sparring with experienced boxers. Even the really skilled are very happy to show you what to do and don't seem to mind at all that a beginner may not give them the workout they want.

Then the teacher, Arnel looked at me quizzically asking: how did you find this class? I wasn't sure why he was so puzzled, but when I looked around I saw only a couple of girls in the sea of men and these were younger women. Maybe I didn't look athletic or something.

Anyway, Arnel was very encouraging. He said they didn't do just punching, but also defence and you get very fit. I told him that's why I was there - to get very fit.

AND I love the authentic atmosphere: posters of Mohamed Ali and Ivanda Holyfield, a real ring, lots of punching bags and a whole room for skipping etc. You should see the skipping! It takes a lot of skill and is very aerobic.

A few years ago at the Sydney Film Festival I saw a documentary on Lucia Rijker. She is a dutch boxer who now lives in California. What a fantastic athlete. She is described as the most dangerous woman in the world pound for pound. A boxing trainer interviewed in that film was asked why would a woman do boxing? He said something that has stayed with me: in our society there are no real channels for women to express that sort of aggression and power. Boxing offers that.