I used to write this section in our monthly Inspired Minds newsletter, but we figured it would be easier to read online, and all our blog subscribers would enjoy reading it too. At least I hope you do Read June’s Inspired Minds newsletter here.

Mark

Charity begins at home – so look after yourself!

Henry sighed and said he was ‘utterly exhausted’ and had ‘no energy’. He went on to tell me that he slept an average of 5 hours a night, smoked 40 cigarettes a day, consumed up to 10 strong cups of coffee at work, got no exercise, skipped meals, compensated for that with sugary snacks, never drank water but consumed alcohol like prohibition had just lifted.

He was overweight, had bags under his eyes and wheezed heavily. After listening to his story of woe, I looked Henry square in the eye and said: “I disagree. You have amazing energy… for a man who treats his own body so abysmally! If I smoked, drank, slept, eat and avoided physical activity like you do, I don’t think I’d have had the strength to crawl in here today!”

This got his attention. Curiously, he had put his exhaustion down entirely to his workload. I suggested that the body is, in essence, the ‘vehicle of life’ – but if it breaks down you can’t really get a new one.

Henry is not alone, of course. Millions of us take more care of our cars, our gardens and even our pets than we do of our own bodies. The Take care of yourself download uses a potent combination of hypnosis, metaphor and common sense to encourage a true respect for the body, inspiring a compulsion to care for it and give it what it needs. After all, if you were given a rare and precious flower to protect, you’d need to water and tend it, ensure that it got sufficient sunlight and nutrients, and so on. How much more precious is your own body?

Drop the bad habits and get some good ones

Henry certainly needed this new mindset. He also needed to Break bad habits – another new download. The mind and body easily start to run along rather mechanical lines through habit. Anything we do a lot starts to ‘feel natural’ pretty soon. So it can come to feel ‘natural’ to

•    get too little sleep
•    ingest poison through smoking
•    never relax
•    eat junk

Think of the weirdest behaviour you can possibly imagine… (I won’t even tell you what I just imagined!). Now the fact is, if you did that behaviour every day, no matter how bizarre it is, pretty soon it would feel normal and natural to you.

Pump up the positivity

Breaking bad habits means replacing them with better ones. Of course, having a positive attitude is vital to becoming fitter and healthier, as well as helping in overcoming the many kinds of obstacles that life can present.

Our new Positive attitude session explores the psychology of positivity. Positive people have a sense of setbacks as (temporary) valuable feedback rather than indicators of inherent weakness and failure. They tend to see the bigger picture and take pride in their resilience when those around them weaken. The new session is a training tool to instil positivity in those who feel more pessimistic than they would really like.

I last saw Henry unexpectedly in the street about three years ago. He was looking trim, upbeat, clear skinned and about a decade younger than I remembered him. He winked at me and said: “The old vehicle is still running very nicely!”

Mark’s Tip for the Top

Well, my personal favourite for June is… Cure affluenza. This session drew its inspiration from Oliver James’ fascinating book Affluenza (Vermilion, 2007). Of course it’s important to have the ‘basics’ – and even some luxuries – but there soon comes a cut-off point where getting more adds nothing to happiness but a lot to debt, anxiety and waste.  I think we can all learn to do with less for the good of ourselves and the planet. Me included.