Psychological Support

Anxiety is an alert response from our nervous system which has its physical (palpitations, chest tightness…), cognitive (catastrophic thoughts, obsessive thoughts…) and behavioral (avoidance strategies, reassurance…) manifestations. It can be useful since it alerts us to work for future events. For example, if I have an exam or a date, anxiety (in normal levels) moves us to prepare the exam, study or freshen up for the date. Also, it can be information that something in our environment is not benefiting us (for example, toxic relationships, or unhealthy habits). Anxiety comes from fear, although they are not the same thing. Fear is a response to an actual real or imagined danger; anxiety is a response to a future real or imagined danger. These dangers are linked to our learning history (past experiences), our circumstances, our attachment style, our emotion regulation strategies … Anxiety can increase and limit us when we believe what it says and do avoidance strategies (such as not going to the date, procrastinating, over-studying to control the situation, avoiding feeling it by constant distraction…). It’s like trying to push a balloon underwater; when you manage to push it down, it pops up even stronger. Suppression coping has a strong relation with health problems. Also, believing it’s dangerous and interpreting its manifestations as something intolerable and negative will increase its intensity. Acceptance of anxiety (which is not overthinking it, avoiding it or been driven by it) is fundamental to start feeling much more in peace. Having resources such as breathing exercises, meditation, grounding exercises can help us feel more secure. Understanding is also key, here there is an example of a self-registration to start knowing our triggers (external events or internal events such as thoughts), our reactions (behaviors, thoughts…) and their consequences. This pamphlet will let you identify the different manifestations of anxiety, the stimuli to which it’s associated and an essential way to cope with it – Acceptance. In this hub you have other pamphlets explaining specific breathing and meditation techniques and others with which you can start detecting and working on those beliefs and thoughts that don’t give you peace. I hope you can educate yourself with this resources, start digging a bit into yourself and soothing what requires your attention.

Psychology has always focused on why people become depressed, anxious, and experience unpleasant emotions and illnesses. However, in the past decade, there has been a rise in Positive Psychology, which focuses on and studies the positive aspects of human beings.

As Buddhism says, most suffering in human beings comes from the desire to have what we don’t possess.

I know some people might be sceptical of Positive Psychology, although I would like to remind you that it doesn’t invalidate unpleasant emotions. If we want a full picture of a moment, a situation, or an experience, Positive Psychology doesn’t deny the rotten trees in the picture or the sick birds within it — but instead tries to focus on the bright sun that shines through the trees and the fresh green grass that shelters the birds.

Our attention, memory, and reasoning are deeply connected to our emotions and thoughts. Therefore, when we are sad, we have easier access to sad memories, we pay more attention to negative events happening in our lives, and we are flooded with sad thoughts. Everything is connected.

Our mind follows two major principles: what I pay more attention to becomes more important to me, and what is important to me today will likely remain important tomorrow. Therefore, as humans, we can fall into cycles in which we pay excessive attention to aspects that don’t benefit us (e.g., comparison, self-blaming thoughts, other people’s opinions of us…). Our mind believes these things are important (because we are giving them so much attention) and reminds us about them whenever it can.

However, understanding the mind gives us the opportunity to train it differently — by fostering positive emotions. We have a wide range of positive emotions (pride, satisfaction, peace, love…). Gratitude has been one of the most studied among them.

Gratitude is a worldview focused on noticing the positive in life. Fostering gratitude increases life satisfaction, mood, and well-being. In the pamphlet, you will find many examples of types of gratitude and ways to cultivate it.

I know it can be frustrating when we’re not feeling our best and someone tells us to “focus on the positive.” But that’s not what this is about. It’s healthy to give space to emotional pain and to allow ourselves to feel what we are feeling. The point is more about seeing the whole picture and practice to notice the beauty within it. Just like our muscles — the more we train them, the stronger they become.

„Maybe the amount of extraordinary things that happen in your life depends on what you notice.”
— Anonymous

Hope you see something beautiful in your day,
Vicent

FIRST: Emotions are phenomena that guide us. They have diferent manifestations: in our physiological reactions (what i feel: heart rate, muscle tension/relaxation, etc.), cognitive manifestations (what i think: our type of thoughts, what do we recall or memeber…), and behavioral manifestations (what i do: running away, freezing, approaching others…). We have emotions thanks to our ancestors. From an evolutionary perspective, fear and anger protected us from possible dangers such as animals or disguts for example, from poisonous food. Emotions are transitory and impermanent phenomena. We are not our emotions, we just experience them. As a mountain which experiences rain, sun, leafs falling… Here you can find the typical messages that emotions bring us. They normally try to communicate us important things for us. Let’s just try to listen to them, with consciousness, curiosity, openess and no judgement. I hope this pamphlet gives you some clarity. Vicent SECOND: PAMPHLET IN PDF THIRD: (IMPORTANT: IN POEM FORMAT) ” The human being is a guest house where every morning someone new arrives: joy, sadness, meanness, a fleeting awareness— they all come as unexpected visitors. Welcome them and greet them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows that violently sweep through your house, stripping it of all its furniture, treat every guest with the respect they deserve, for they may be clearing space for new delights. Receive with a smile, at the door, dark thoughts, shame, and malice, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each one has been sent as a guide from beyond.” Yalalad-Din Muhammad Rumi. Mistic Poet.

I bet you have always heard the phrase: “You’re nervous? Just breathe,” and though it might sound cliché, there is science behind these practices; they can be powerful tools in your daily life.

When we are anxious, our breath might go faster, our muscles might tense, we might feel dizziness, etc. Our autonomic sympathetic system activates and with it, the fight or flight response, by which our body sends more oxygen to our muscles to fight, our pupils get bigger to detect dangers, our hands tighten as to get in a fight, and so on… Our body gets the message from the mind that there is some danger; therefore, it prepares for it.

Through meditation or breathing exercises, we create the opposite response by activating our parasympathetic nervous system, related to relaxation, safety, and digestion. Through our body, we can make our mind calm and serene. Frequently regulating our nervous system to a safe state is key to well-being.

Mindfulness means full attention. It has many forms. Mainly, mindfulness is practicing having full attention to the actual moment as it is, without judgment, with a beginner’s mindset (without the colour we put into things).

If we are walking, feeling our feet on the ground, actually observing what we are seeing, listening to who we are talking to (trying not to think about what we are going to say next)…

Formal meditation practices can be seen in two ways: paying attention to only one object (our breathing, our emotions, our thoughts, the sounds around us…) or having an open attention to whatever comes to mind (any of the previously mentioned objects). They are more deeply explained in the pamphlet.

Meditation trains us to understand our mind, build patience, and detach from our thoughts. It can sound a bit abstract, I know — let me explain. When you meditate, you start watching your thoughts, where your mind normally goes, you watch how you feel, how your body feels. There, you start seeing yourself as a mountain that experiences sun, rain, storms, leaves falling, flowers blooming… but not as all of them.

Practice is key, and without practice, there are no results. However, remember to abandon standards of excellence in your practice and accept your meditation experience however it is, honoring yourself for having practiced.

In contrast to meditation, breathing exercises are much more intentional, since you control the kind of breathing you are doing. During meditation, you let it be as it is. These can be helpful in different situations that trigger you more.

Practice, practice, practice.
As my meditation teacher said, an athlete needs 15,000 hours of training to become an athlete.
Self-responsibility is an act of self-love.

I hope you practice and feel safe,
Vicent

Vicent

Beliefs are the ideas we have about ourselves, about the world, and about the future. These are created in our childhood and adolescence and are mostly transmitted through our caregivers and our context in that moment (school, friends…). Our image (which is not just an image, it has an associated feeling) is created by the image we received; our caregivers were our mirror when we were growing. But it’s not only with our image — it’s also related to the image we have of every emotion. For example, if I was punished every time I was sad, now as an adult, when I am sad, I become ashamed or angry for feeling this way.

As we see, during our upbringing, our core beliefs and schemas are formed. However, this doesn’t mean that, as adults, we can’t restructure our beliefs.

Beliefs work like a telescope: they filter the information of the world and how we feel about the things in the world. For example, if I believe my town is ugly, I will certainly have more evidence that it is, since my attention is driven to the ugly things in my town which confirm my belief — which consequently will make my belief stronger.

As humans, we naturally have a confirmation bias, by which our mind is constantly searching for and paying attention to things that support our beliefs and, inversely, ignoring things that don’t. Therefore, if I think I don’t have good style, I will fix my attention on any negative comments about my style (if I receive them), or I will think people are looking at me because of my bad style (when in reality, people probably aren’t looking at me at all, or not because of my style).

Maladaptive core beliefs lead to cognitive distortions or unhelpful attributions. Cognitive distortions are different ways our mind can trick us. Naturally, our mind wants the easiest pathway, although this doesn’t always give us a realistic and healthy view of ourselves, others, and the world. You can check some of them in the pamphlet and point out which ones you fall into most frequently. For example, I used to fall a lot into emotional reasoning, where you believe what your mind says when you’re feeling a certain emotion. Now, I know that what I feel and think in a given moment doesn’t define the whole picture.

Attributions are also important when learning about beliefs. These are the answers to the question: Why do good and bad things happen to me and others? Attribution can lead us to depressive symptoms when they are maladaptive (for example, thinking that everything bad that happens to us is our fault — negative internal stable attribution — or that we can’t control the negative things that happen to us — negative external stable attribution).

They can also lead us to unhealthy relationships by interpreting that everything that happens is the other person’s fault (external stable attribution). Detecting our most common attribution style will help us evaluate whether it’s fair and healthy for ourselves and for those around us. This is a first step to building healthier self-esteem and relationships.

The principal focus of this educational pamphlet is to help you detect your beliefs, distortions, and attribution styles. This doesn’t mean they will disappear. But becoming more conscious of them is a very big step toward choosing (which means giving attention and belief to) alternative, healthier thoughts that will enhance your well-being.

And remember, repetition builds credibility, and credibility fosters well-being.

I hope this resource gives you some clarity.
Vicent