Building Emotional Resources And Self Confidence

Building Emotional Resources and Self Confidence Hello and welcome to this Building Emotional Resources and Self Confidence E Motion Download. E Motion Downloads are based on the Human Givens approach to emotional healing and mental health – the newest and most radical school of psychology in 40 years. This rapidly expanding approach is UK based and dates just from the mid 1990s. The E Motion audio series can complement your Human Givens therapy but can also be used as part of a stand alone self help programme. I am Andrew Richardson and a director of the London Human Givens Centre in the UK. In this download you will learn of the three main areas where our resources and capacities can most easily be strengthened and how to do so. All of these relate in one form or other to how we use or misuse our emotions. And as a consequence of the work that you do in this audio download, you will be more able to get your essential needs met and so live a more balanced life. You will also become more self confident – without really noticing that you are …. and without really trying. Please ensure that when listening to the rest of this download that you are not operating machinery or driving or engaging in any other activity which requires your concentration.

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Second track At the end of the day, the most important resource that you can develop to build self confidence is to be more in control of and aware of your emotions - so that you can use them properly. Have these wonderful gifts – of sadness and anger and worry and fear and disappointment and guilt and determination and joy and satisfaction - working for you. Learn to tame and befriend the tiger of your emotions ….. and then ride the tiger in the direction that your deep intelligence knows is the way that you should go. Your emotions are your greatest gift to get your essential needs met and also the route to make the changes in your life that you yearn for - and so build self confidence. The first thing to do is to access calmer emotional states and gain greater awareness of your emotions and what they could be communicating to you – taming the tiger. The second step is to spring clean – to uncover and refurnish the emotional patterns and triggers - befriending the tiger. And the third is to use the energy of your emotions through your imagination of better futures to move you in the direction that is right for you – riding the tiger. And so first of all - tame the tiger of your high and uncontrollable emotions And the clue is not to tackle this head on. Just as you might buy a gift for someone to disarm or to flatter and cajole rather than come right out with it, so you can begin by being kinder to your whole self. After all, your emotions manifest somewhere or other in your body. For some of us, a strong emotion might be a fear or a spreading tension that is located in our belly. For others it is tightness in our jaw or chest and for others, emotions manifest as a lightness or heaviness inside our head or on our shoulders or arms or legs.

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And so to be kinder to your body is to treat your emotions as you would an honoured guest who came to your house. What small steps you could take to look after yourself just a little better? What might your body need now to gain sustenance? You could eat just a little healthier – because you know it is good for you. Take some raw or nearly raw vegetables; spend time cooking good meals with natural ingredients and cut down heavily processed foods; drink water or juice. These are just small things. Or take a little more exercise. What could you do today or tomorrow? Walk somewhere new rather than take a car. Visit a park or a lake or a river or a pond or a stream or just take time to walk down the street. If you have gym membership or sports membership, then make use of it but in a different way. And what do I mean by this? - Well go at a different time of the day or week with new people and build a different expectation of what might you might experience there. And find small pleasures – think about them and anticipate and plan deliciously. Laughing, meeting new people, doing something different with old friends, really enjoying a TV programme or a treat. Take some time over the planning and cogitating and implementing of these little treats. You could be creating little bits of ceremony and specialness.

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And as you do these kinds of things and imagine doing these kinds of things you are doing something different and you can wonder to yourself why it will help you. And what might you notice after a day or two of being kinder to yourself. Well you could notice an openness to relax or fully engage your mind in something that is important to you at that moment. And you might find that you are sleeping better or feeling just a little healthier and have just a little bit more energy. And the more times you listen to this download the more you will notice that you are beginning to be seeing your situation differently and beginning to appreciate your intrinsic gifts and capabilities. So, as you sit back or lie back and notice feelings that could be feelings of relaxation, think about what it is in your life that you are most proud of. It could be your children (if you have them) or a relationship or an achievement or a skill you have developed or something residing in a special memory. What are your qualifications – as a graduate or a teacher or in business or a profession or as a mother or a friend or a father or a gardener or a handyman? And do you have a piece of paper that states your qualification or does your qualification come from your experience of life. It doesn’t really matter. What have you enjoyed in your life even it was a long time ago – such as holidays – walking, relaxing, and exploring with friends or strangers, laughing, dancing, sightseeing?

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And what are your passions and that which draws you to them? Sometimes these can be very clear for you – a love of nature and the outdoors ….a certain kind of music or activity such as fixing things or discovering how things work, Are there ideas and readings that have entranced you. Some have a sense of connection to something bigger than themselves – this is what could be called the heart of spirituality. Or you may have to search a little. Is there a story or experience from your childhood which still touches you and may have influenced you ever since? What did you enjoy at school? And if you think about the activities and careers we engage in. Well I like to see this in terms of four quadrants. So imagine yourself standing in a the centre and you can look and move in any direction you choose to – as in a circle. Well in one direction there is activity and business and achieving things and markets and money and buzz and excitement And in the next quadrant there is learning and discovering and knowledge and books and being curious and entranced, And right next door there is a sense of teaching and communicating and the excitement of sharing and entrancing others with what has entranced you. And in the next quadrant you ae helping and caring and healing and protecting, And then in the last quadrant (before you return back to the first) there is creativity – painting, composing writing, exploring and making a statement and metaphor for who you are and how you see things.

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And what work you have done and been paid for or given of yourself as a gift. Have you opened yourself to trust or love or to have been loved? Stay with whatever is good that comes up for you – however small it seems or surprising or familiar. And what are you doing as you focus on the good and memorable? Well you are building up a bank account of good and useful memories and emotions. And the amazing thing is that you can draw on these good emotions and as you do, know that they never run down and they just grow and grow and grow. And what are the qualities that you have that you like the most about yourself or have helped you the most. Because we all have qualities or virtues – which is a wonderful word - and we know it if we just allow ourselves to. And I have known people who are amazed with what comes up for them. There can be kindness, honesty, determination, creativity , being able to care, a sense of fun, of wit, of gentleness of justice and loyalty and community. And whatever you are finding for yourself now is also adding to that pool of memories and positive emotions that you have already banked and which you can use whenever you wish. And as your mind begins to see parts of your daily life differently – not fixed but something you can change ….. and discover what you could do even today that would change something, you could have a sense of dominoes beginning to fall – one after another that will take you to places that you had scarcely dreamt about just a few minutes ago.

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And all of sudden or perhaps just slowly it will dawn on you that you are beginning to befriend the tiger of your emotions. You may now choose to stay deeply relaxed and go onto the next track or just come back to the room gently and feel alert and awake. Count down to yourself down from 5 to 1 if you decide to do this now.

Third Track There is a story I would like to tell you. And so settle back in that chair or wherever or stay settled with your eyes closing or closed and begin to be aware of how it is to look forward to a story or a meeting of friends or that treat you promised yourself or a different and better future ….. and you may already be relaxing just a little bit more. There was an old man who lived with his wife on the edge of a town a long time ago and it was his custom to walk into the town each morning to have a coffee in the square. Now on this particular morning as he walked along the familiar path into the town he happened to glance down and noticed something glistening in front of him. He stooped down and picked up an old coin. The coin was not of the country he lived in and he thought perhaps it might be from the country that neighboured his. Anyway he picked it up and walked on. Now as he was sitting down in the café and enjoying the warm sun, a stranger sat down beside him. He was in a hurry and having to leave the country quickly and was desperate for coins he could use at his destination in the neighbouring country. And he took the coin from our old man and in exchange gave him three silver coins.

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As luck would have it, a man at the next table had overhead this exchange and came over and said that he was a silversmith looking for silver to complete an urgent commission. And he would give the old man three gold pieces for those three silver pieces. As you can imagine, after the delight and surprise of this, our old friend was even happier relaxing in the square. But, there was more adventure for him as you will not be surprised to know. Another man rushed into the café in a state of distress saying that he was desperate for wealth that he could put in his pocket - gold coins would be best. So much so that he would exchange his warehouse full of blankets if he could find just three gold coins. And as he was waving the deeds of the warehouse in front of him, our old friend got up, went with the stranger to just beyond the edge of the square to inspect the warehouse and found himself, before he knew it, the proud owner of an amazing new facility. And before he could even begin to contemplate what this new situation might mean for him, a king’s representative rode into town – proclaiming that the country was at war and the king needed to buy provisions for his soldiers and horses – including blankets. The old man spoke up and after inspecting the warehouse, the king’s soldier gave the old man two bags of gold in exchange. It was time to go home and the man arose, placing the bags in his inside jacket pocket and walked happily back to his house. But he did not know that he was being followed – by a couple of ruffians that had seen everything that had happened that morning. And as he approached his house, with his wife waiting at the gate to greet him, these two scoundrels, jumped on him, threw him to the ground and took the gold. Luckily the old man was not seriously hurt and he stumbled up and to his wife. ‘How are you husband’ she asked with alarm ‘and what was it that those two men took from you?’

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‘Yes I am fine, my dear wife and those men – well they took nothing – just an old coin.’ When we are low or confused or stuck or angry or grieving we will have a fixed way of viewing our situation – which often will make the problem larger, more intractable or more permanent than it need be and keep us highly aroused. So change your point of view - like moving your chair to another part of the room so the view is different. It is amazing what you can do without actually trying that hard. The trick is to imagine a way to see what is dominating you – as either not so important or temporary in some way or that there is change underway and it is not fixed or that you are learning something from the experience. ‘Right now, I am still looking for a better way to study, to work, to meet people’ – you could say or ‘I am learning a lot and this will help me when I am ready.’ or ‘I have really done well so far and know I will continue to learn and move.’ or ‘When I think back a year ago so much has actually changed – it will be interesting to see what happens that is different over the next year.’ or ‘Now that I realise that change is always with me, it is a source of comfort in a strange kind of way. This too will pass.’’ or ‘Sometimes I find it easier to focus on the strong emotion and miss all the good that I have achieved.’ or ‘How would I be feeling, if I saw my situation differently and if I did see it this way, what else might change.’ Are you beginning to see aspects of your life differently or could you and by doing so, how would it be helping you in some way?

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And it is really helpful to see your current concerns and difficulties as the response to a stressor in your life and a situation where you are not getting an essential need met and so avoid at all cost the trap of blaming yourself. This is really important. Humans are unique in that they can be aware of their feelings and not just be them. And the emotions you don’t like and that you are instinctively pushing away (anxieties, rages, resentments, grieving) could be your mind/body’s communication that you need to take action to get an essential need met or you will continue to suffer. And your unconscious intelligence instinctively knows what your needs are and your unconscious normally communicates this by creating the emotion which is the energy or the motion and movement towards getting that need met. So embrace and welcome the emotion. Then give the emotion a name and ask whether this emotion is guiding you or not to getting your needs met or is dangerous and excessive and unhelpful. And be aware if you are blaming yourself for it – that you are mean or unlovable or unworthy or have anger issues – whatever that means and all that kind of stuff. Because, how will that help you? ‘When I think about it, it is not surprising that I feel like this – anybody would if they had been through what I have been through’ – you could say. I knew someone once who had been told as a child by her parents in all sorts of ways that she was useless and that no-one would ever want to help her. And so when she realised that her first husband was a bad man she blamed herself and when she found that her business was struggling she could not ask for help and that was her fault also. And it took her time to change this point of view – so that

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she could see her relationships with men as either helping her or not and working or not and that by opening to all the people who liked and responded to her, that she could have a business that made money and fulfilled her. We are can all see our situation differently and one thing that you can begin to do right now is to practice seeing those aspects of your present, past and future that you don’t like as different. Go to the bank and draw on your savings of good memories and strengths to help you. And practice this now. So remind yourself of a situation in your past – of an encounter perhaps that you would like to feel better about. Picture it now – really see it or feel it or just have a sense of it. What details are there for you? Is there a location or feelings or a narrative like a video clip. Now cut and paste. Change one thing about the experience – anything at all and allow yourself to feel differently about it – stronger, more protected, happier and more vibrant. And you could even now fast forward to another similar situation and change that or notice that as you recall it, that there is a softening of its own accord and it is just different And as you observe your emotions now – some strong or weak or positive or dissatisfied - as these emotions appear to you now, you can choose to take comfort from the knowledge of your innate and extensive capacities and resources – and they are emerging from their hiding places And as you do this you will be able to notice when the emotions you don’t want are stronger or weaker or absent and what are the thoughts or events or situations which trigger them..

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And notice those good experiences as in your own time you slowly come back to a greater state of relaxed awakening in your room.

Fourth Track By being kinder to yourself in all kinds of ways you are learning to give your emotions a more comfortable place to inhabit. And you have begun to listen to what your emotions are saying and if you choose to, to change the emotions and their triggers. And then you can ride the tiger in the direction of where you want to go. To use your imagination in the service of meeting essential needs. In the Goal Setting to Rebalance your Life download you can learn a lot of what your unmet needs are and how to set the right goals and how to meet these.

And here are the essential Needs Safety …Autonomy

Wider connections Attention - both giving and receiving

That important person or people Status

Achievement Privacy Being

Stretched and Meaning

And you can set goals now from increasing self confidence ….. and control over your emotions and memories ….. and accessing the memories and emotions of your past that will help you. This is your savings account - unlimited and deep – more like an ocean really. The Sufis have a story of a bird that was kept in a cage. The bird was looked after well by her owner. He fed her and kept her warm and her cage was close by a large window so the bird had plenty of light during the long days while the

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owner went to work. But still she was trapped and every day, the bird could see other birds flying free across the sky. And the bird longed to join them. And then one day, the owner went to work leaving both the cage door and the window open. And very soon the bird gingerly hopped out of the cage and onto the window ledge. And from this vantage point, she could see so much more. She could see distant mountains and valleys and when the bird looked down she could see more of the hustle and bustle of what lay before her and all around her. There were so many other birds and people and all kinds of things. And the bird just stayed on the ledge - stupefied and amazed and dazed and stayed and stayed and stayed. And the bird was still there when her owner arrived home. So he locked the bird up back in her cage where she was again fed and looked after. You can move away from that ledge at just the pace you wish. And in fact you could just circle around for one day or a number of days knowing that the next day you would be free to go just a little bit further. So find a solvable problem – with a beginning, middle and clear end. Think about practical steps and problems you can hold in your hands. And as you recall your strengths and what you are proud of and your past pleasures and those qualifications (wherever they are from), are you feeling more confident about making that move? And unlike that bird you actually know now where you wish to go. See yourself meeting that achievable goal right now - armed and protected and supported by your strengths, knowing that your emotions and feelings are there to help you. Really see it. Who are you with, how are you walking and talking and presenting to the world. And as you do this, feel good about it. Build up that picture of how you are feeling – the satisfaction, the pleasure and control. What

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are you achieving? Building status ….connecting to friends and colleagues in new and satisfying ways.. . achieving something worthwhile …. Gaining a measure of control in some part of your life … building defenses to feel safer … Being private in your own space …. Getting close to someone …. Stretching yourself and noticing that you have more sense of meaning. Stronger and stronger is the feeling now, in your body … and expanding … filling you up. In a moment, I will count back down from 5 to 1 so that you can slowly begin to become alert and aware and return to the room. 5 – Begin to be aware of your body differently 4 – Gently returning to the hear and now 3 – Becoming more alert 2 – Getting ready to open those eyes 1 – Opening those eyes now And make sure that you are fully alert before driving or operating any machinery. I hope you found real value and insight from this Building Emotional Resources and Self Confidence Emotion Download audio session. And please listen to it again and again –so that it really sinks in. For more information visit londonhumangivens.com and from there you can access the official human given sites, including their useful and wide ranging publications. And Read the book Human Givens by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrell, the founders and still the main teachers of the Human Givens approach. Thank you

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