What a wonderful start to the new year, which will be markedly different to the slow considered energy of last year's water Snake. Some say the year augers plenty of adventures, energy and unexpected romance! 

I hope it brings what ever you most wish for, and that you enjoy the energetic change of this new moon.

Find your Chinese Year Animal sign below, remembering that the Chinese Solar year begins on 4th February so if you were born between 1st January and 4th February, yours is the preceding calendar year.

In this 4 minute video from HuffPost Healthy Living, French ex-molecular biologist turned Buddhist monk, confidante of HH The Dalai Lama, and "happiest person in the world" explains the difference between empathy and compassion. 

Whilst empathy required feeling the pain of others, and was not sustainable, compassion activated a different area of his brain under fMRI scanning, and could be practiced for far longer without any distress.

This knowledge is important as we think about how to improve compassionate caregiving, in our Health Service, in caring professions and in society.

We now know that compassion is linked to positive emotions. During the research with Tania Singer at the Max Planck Institute, it became clear that the phenomenon we think of as burn out is due to "empathy fatigue", rather than "compassionate fatigue". Matthieu says "In fact, compassion far from leading to distress and discouragement strengthens our fortitude, our inner balance and our courageous determination to help those who suffer. In essence, from our point of view, love and compassion do not wear out. Rather they help to overcome empathic distress.


Click to Link  http://huff.to/19VQupN

In this 27 minute video, Kristin Neff outlines the three components of Self-Compassion (Neff, 2003):

• Notice that you are suffering, with kindness rather than harsh self-judgement
  
• Recognising that suffering is part of common humanity, we are not alone in this experience
• Using Mindfulness to see things clearly, as they are, no more and no less.

Feeling is believing
Before going into the extensive scientific research basis for Self-Compassion, she gets us to try powerful gestures which demonstrate the experience of self compassion and the felt sense in the body. Do try these for yourself as you watch, it's so compelling.

What are some reasons for developing a Self-compassion practice? 
Self-compassion is negatively linked to depression, rumination, anxiety, stress, perfectionism, shame and negative body image. Conversely it's linked to well-being states including happiness, connection, confidence, optimism and life satisfaction.

You can take Kristin's Self-Compassion Test on her website:
http://www.self-compassion.org/test-your-self-compassion-level.html

Laughing, performing an act of kindness, and keeping a gratitude journal all boost happiness and take minimal time.

This article has links to interesting studies that support the claims for happiness boosting activities - enjoy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/07/boost-happiness_n_4532848.html

“Creative cocoons” are pauses during the working day when employees are not interrupted. What a great idea, and very likely to increase productivity during "non-cocoon" time!

“They don’t have to answer email, they don’t have to answer the phone, they can just get that one thing done that’s going to make them feel good at the end of the day.” - Daniel Goleman

http://www.listener.co.nz/lifestyle/psychology/what-your-email-response-time-says-about-you/

The Guardian have a great resource in their Small Business Network, with many informative and encouraging articles for people navigating their way in commerce. I've learned a lot about all things small-businessey, from SEO to marketing. 

And rather excitingly they have featured me in a piece on cashflow. Click below to see my 15 seconds of fame!
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/jan/20/showcase-cashflow-clearspace-coaching

Just fifteen minutes of mindfulness meditation can improve your decision making

Christian Jarrett's article for the BPS Research Digest blog discusses research from Andrew Hafenbrack and colleagues  who "claim that just fifteen minutes practice at mindfulness meditation reduces people's vulnerability to the sunk-cost bias - our usual tendency to persist with lost causes because of what we've already invested." 

Read Christian's blog report here http://bit.ly/1f2NsOd

If you want to explore self-compassion techniques to help you manage difficult times better, this evening event at The School of Life will be great.



We all feel overwhelmed from time to time, and it's great to know there are things we can easily do to help ourselves stay calm, online and realistic. Instead of habitual responses of anxiety, rumination and self-criticism.



Dr Chris Irons is a great speaker and a trainer and practitioner of Compassion Focused Therapy.



The event is at The School of Life in Central London on Monday 3rd March, starting at 19:00. Cost £30.



You can get tickets here:

http://bit.ly/1hCWEez

Original article:  http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/12/26/1321664111.full.pdf
Data:  http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2013/12/26/1321664111.DCSupplemental/pnas.201321664SI.pdf

Ok, so we know that emotions are produced in the body, as a result of our thinking brain stimulating hormone production. So it's not surprising that the body has a measurable response. 

What I like about this study is this image of the self-reported sensations that participants experienced in response to the stimuli. Also, they looked at so called 'non-basic' emotions, such as anxiety, love, pride and shame. Love looks like the warmest place to be! And just look at the burning cheek areas of shame and it's deactivated legs, also shared strongly in sadness, depression and anxiety. Such familiar feelings for all of us at some level.

There were 5 experimental conditions and 701 participants were asked to colour two silhouettes of human bodies depending on increases and decreases in their internal bodily activation response to emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions. 

The researchers state that "Different emotions were consistently associated with statistically separable bodily sensation maps across experiments." The body mapping results showed concordance across participants from Western Europe and East Asia, suggesting cultural universality of these very human emotional experiences - no surprise there!

All the emotions triggered sensations in the head, which suggests physiological changes such as activation of facial musculature, skin temperature and tear secretion, as well as the changes experienced in the mind. There also appears to be an upward energy to approach-oriented emotions (ie. anger, happiness), and a decrease in activation in the lower limbs is seen in the avoidance-oriented ones (ie. depression, shame). 

It's interesting to speculate how we may perceive emotions in those with whom we are interacting, through facial expression, limb activation, temperature for instance, and how we tend to respond. In their discussion, the researchers wondered whether emotional perception and emotional contagion (when we inadvertently pick up another's feeling state as if it were our own) may involve automatic activation of the body's sensory response to emotion, which is then evaluated cognitively. They considered the idea that sensations may underlie our conscious emotional experience, looking for an answer to the chicken and egg question about whether the sensations cause the emotion or vice versa, and was unable to draw any firm conclusions. 

However, it's clear that somatic sensation and embodied experience are both critical in emotional processing, and this points to the effectiveness of body-centred interventions for regulating affect.

Two big hitters in the world of behavioural neuroscience on why we should be more playful at work, and why this is especially true for leaders!
http://bit.ly/1j8KPgC

http://www.emergingwomen.com/2014/01/power-practices-the-self-compassion-break-with-kristin-neff/

From the website of Andrew Cook, a cranio sacral therapist. I love this accessible description. Thanks, Andrew!

EMBODIMENT

This is a big topic, and one that is not so easy to translate into a medicalised model of the human body. It is about the relationship between what we call consciousness - something very difficult to define - and the physical body and our physical senses. Put simply, if the more embodied we become, then the following experiences become more regular features of our waking experience:

• our sense of connection through the body (so that it is experienced as continuous, strong and self-aligned) is increased
• our waking awarenes of the body's presence always occupies a proportion of our awareness - even when we are thinking or fully engaged with the outside world
• our ability to be in the present moment with our body and throughts and emotions is increased
• we have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of our own physical presence - which in turn is an important aspect of self-confidence
• body movement is fluid (as opposed to stiff or disjointed)
• we are aware of the environment we live in and how it affects us, and at the same time have an inner resilience which allows us to not be overwhelmed by this increased awareness
• the senses are brighter and more alert, and at the same time there is a greater sense of peace
• we inhabit the observer part of ourselves, and so are less driven by strong emotopns and thoughts
• we have a more direct and conscious connection to instincts, and are able to choose to use this information as and when appropriate

It takes a long time to arrive at all of this (and it's a lifes work), but even a small step along this route can yield big rewards. There is no chartable path along which any typical person or any individual person will progress in embodyment - there are so many variables, and it depends to some extent on where you started from, where you are now, and what your current goals are.

Any extroverts out there, wondering why some people don't get it? Here's a friendly word from themetapicture.com
http://bit.ly/1beBXn9
(Thanks to Khurshed for sharing)

Saturday 8th March 2014, 10:00-17:00 at The Barbican
Tickets for the full symposium, or for the film screening only available from The Barbican Centre

From Catherine Cox's website:
With its star-studded cast, Emma Thompson’s screenplay about the relationship between Effie Gray and John Ruskin is due to be released in the UK in March 2014.

Starring Julie Walters, Derek Jacobi, David Suchet, Dakota Fanning, Robbie Coltrane, Tom Sturridge, Greg Wise, James Fox, Claudia Cardinale and Emma Thompson herself, the film is a subtle but disturbing portrayal of developmental trauma, the failure of a man to follow the promptings of his anima and the rite of passage of a young woman.

Produced by Donald Rosenfeld, formerly of Merchant Ivory (Howards End, Remains of the Day), and more recently winner of the Palme d’Or for Terrence Malik’s film The Tree of Life (starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain), the film is exquisitely shot.

This unique event will bring together the worlds of psychoanalysis and film. Donald Rosenfeld (and hopefully some of the actors in the film) will be engaging with psychoanalysts on a number of the themes so elegantly portrayed in the film.

The event will include a viewing of the film, lunch at Gin Joint by Searcys and, we hope, an opportunity to meet Donald and  some of the actors.

Event organised by Catherine Cox and Graham Fuller in conjunction with the Barbican Centre, Sovereign Films, the Guild of Analytical Psychologists (G.A.P.) and the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP)

Another effect of veterans returning with untreated trauma.

Read the article here:

http://bit.ly/1c30dF8

This is the title of a great article by Laura K Kerr, PhD
Pubished on acestoohigh.com on 7th January 2014

A considered and thought provoking article on the legacy of trauma on a wider societal level, written from the viewpoint of an American trauma therapist. 

The writer makes a case for the increase in mental illness being the result of collective denial of the conditions that contribute to traumatic stress, and the lack of treatments to process unresolved trauma.

In my opinion Britain is on the same trajectory, and we can learn a lot from the trauma specialists in the US. Trauma is now everyone's problem, and society has a collective responsibility to alleviate this unspoken of destroyer of lives.

Read it here  http://acestoohigh.com/2014/01/07/want-to-reduce-mental-illness-address-trauma/

This is worth reading again and again ... http://huff.to/K8f4Hw

Now go and pay a colleague a genuine compliment... or ask how someone are they are feeling in a heartfelt way... or better still, find someone you know is having a hard time and see if they would like to have a chat