Do You Struggle to Accept Kindness? How to Let it into Your Heart

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What do you do when someone offers you a compliment? How are you with praise, appreciation and expressions of pride? I hope you are able to receive these offers of love and validation with grace, taking them into your heart so they nourish and replenish your spirit. But I suspect that, for many of you, it’s not so simple. You may feel a little embarrassed and bat them away: ‘Oh, that’s nice of you, but anyone could have done it.’

You may even squirm, finding praise deeply uncomfortable. I have some clients who actually wince when I say something nice to them! This confused me for a long time, until we addressed the problem directly and I began to understand why it’s so hard for some of us to take in the good. Here are two of the things my clients taught me about why compliments and praise can evoke such negative reactions.

It jars with a critical sense of self

Sadly, many of my clients have a highly negative sense of self. They think they are somehow defective, dislikeable or in some other way uniquely weird, different or lesser beings. This has been hard-wired into their brains through repetition, over many years. They have spent so long thinking critically and negatively about themselves that these ways of thinking have developed quick, direct neural pathways – this makes it habitual and all too easy to think they are stupid, weak or pathetic. Heartbreaking but true.

So when I tell them how proud I am of them for managing a tough homework task like standing up to their verbally abusive boss, or finally saying no to their boundary-disrespecting family, I am offering them what’s known as a ‘corrective emotional experience’ – something unfamiliar and the opposite of what they are used to. Because many of my clients were never praised or lifted up as children. They were attacked, shot down and invalidated, over and over again. So parts of them learned to believe these unkind, untrue messages, until those parts held beliefs that they were stupid, weak or pathetic.

For these people, my offer of love and respect has nowhere to land. It doesn’t compute in their brains. So I have to find more creative ways of offering it, perhaps titrating my level of warmth and validation so it is just enough, just the right amount and can sneak through their defences, allowing just a little warmth or the unfamiliar sense of being seen and accepted for who they are, which they so badly need but struggle to take in.

trauma makes them suspicious

People who experience a great deal of trauma in their childhoods develop protective parts of themselves which are hypervigilant, wary and mistrustful. They have good reason to be this way – caregivers hurt, abused and betrayed them, so it was highly adaptive to be mistrustful around these people. I always say that if you are growing up in a dangerous, hurtful, threatening environment, it’s a great idea to be mistrustful. Thank god for those protective parts, because they probably kept my clients as safe as they could have been, despite the verbal, emotional and sometimes physical grenades that were lobbed at them on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, these parts can also make my work tricky, because developing ‘earned secure attachment’ is a key healing ingredient in therapy. It’s also a fundamental part of the integrative trauma therapy approach I have developed, because all the research shows that the relationship between therapist and client is the most important part of any effective therapy. These protectors make connecting with my clients tricky, so a lot of patient, painstaking work is necessary to help them see that I have no intention of hurting or taking advantage of them, like their caregivers did.

The brilliant Dr Janina Fisher, a trailblazer in the trauma-therapy field, once said that if you have been profoundly hurt by those closest to you, all the things we therapists think are helpful – trust, connection, feeling either positive or negative emotions, focusing on your breath or becoming mindful of somatic symptoms – feel threatening and unsafe. So when I tell someone, ‘I know you worry that everyone finds you weird and annoying. But you seem like a really nice, kind person to me,’ those protectors scent danger and can get spiky, dismissive or shutdown in return. I’m trying to offer an – honest, heartfelt – corrective emotional experience and it makes them angry, passive-aggressive or dissociated and numb. Not ideal.

The practice: Taking in treasure

Another thing I learned from my clients is a practice I developed to help with this very problem. It’s called The Treasure Chest and you can listen to it on Insight Timer by clicking the button below. This offers a concrete strategy to help you stop pushing away praise, compliments or other good things that come your way. Because these are little pieces of treasure. A kind word or warm comment can be deeply healing, if you learn to take them in.

An accumulation of these small offerings of kindness will, in time, help those protective parts relax. And whether you are at the milder or more severe end of the trauma spectrum, learning to tell a different story about yourself is crucial. How does it serve you to tell that critical, self-denigrating narrative, over and over? Far better to make the story of you something kind, compassionate and understanding. And taking in these little pieces of treasure will help you do that, because other people – especially those who know and love you – see the real you. Flawed and messy, like all humans, but also unique and wonderful, in so many ways.

I hope the practice helps – my clients seem to love it, so I very much hope you do too.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Struggling with Upsetting News? A Sense of Perspective Will Help

Image by Sean Oulashin/Unsplash

I went to see Gladiator 2 at the weekend. It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea – a bit too much blood and gore for my taste – but I went with my son, Ben, so getting to hang out with him is always such a pleasure. And alongside all the sweaty torsos, sandals and swordplay, I found something strangely and unexpectedly comforting about the movie. It got me thinking about human history and all the tumultuous times we have been through, as a species. And how living in ancient Rome would have been much worse, scarier and harder for the vast majority of the population than being alive now.

If you, like me, are feeling a bit freaked out by the state of the world right now, we need all the help we can get. The seismic US election result, which made half the population happy but the other half – and much of the rest of the world – deeply anxious and uncertain about what comes next. War, that most pointless and awful of human creations, raging in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and many other places not deemed worthy of the media’s attention. The rise of populist strongmen, around the world. Climate change, which is really scary. It’s already bad and will, I’m afraid, get worse over time.

I know many of you struggle with anxiety, so this post is not meant to make you more anxious! It’s just important to face reality, even if it’s scary and hard, as anxiety and avoidance are always intertwined – and avoiding scary things just makes them scarier, unfortunately. So, rather than hiding in a cupboard, here are three things that are helping me right now and will, I hope, help you feel a bit less bothered about the state of the world:

Develop a sense of perspective

One of the great gifts, but also curses, of our hi-tech age is that we can now access 24/7 news about anywhere in the world. This is very new, and very hard, for our hunter-gatherer-evolved brains to cope with. If there is a flood in Pakistan or train crash in Peru, we will know about it almost instantly. That means our highly threat-focused brains are in a constant state of alert, as if the threat might affect us or our loved ones. This is also, of course, how both mainstream and social media work – they scare, upset and outrage us so we keep reading, clicking and scrolling. This is built in to platforms like Facebook or Twitter. It’s not a bug. It is a deliberate and highly successful strategy.

I’m not going to offer advice about quitting social media, there is plenty of that available already. I’m just pointing out that, although we do face some very real and serious challenges right now, we are also made to feel as if everything is awful, all the time, and there is nothing much we can do about it except keep reading, clicking and scrolling. Instead, try to have a sense of perspective.

For example, something that often confuses me is when I hear people say we are ‘harming the planet’ with all our short-sighted human behaviour. That’s just not possible – the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and has experienced every kind of wild meterological and climactic change you can imagine – inconceivably vast volcanic eruptions that filled the atmosphere with noxious gases and dust, causing conditions that were deeply hostile to life; or Snowball Earth, when the whole planet was encased in a thick layer of ice on two occasions, the worst being around 600-700 million years ago. Scientists think this ice age lasted for millions of years. Somehow, life hung on – it has existed on this planet for four billion years and will exist long after humans do.

Of course, the fact that the planet has been through climate change before does not mean this, industry/human-powered cycle of change is not real. It very much is – and I am passionate about doing all we can to slow the course of climate change. And we can do this, the science tells us that, if we all stop eating so much meat, flying, driving polluting vehicles, pressure corporations and governments to act with more urgency, and all the other things we can to protect this miraculous, beautiful planet for ourselves, our children and grandchildren.

Enough with the doom-scrolling

In the run-up to the US election I was devouring everything I could find online about the race, as if somehow just knowing everything could magically influence the result. Since the result, which was not what I hoped for, I have taken a big step back from the news. I de-politicised my Instagram feed, for example, because I just don’t need a blow by blow of every scary thing that will be happening over the next four years. I also have stopped hopping from news site to news site, because it’s just too much for my frazzled brain right now.

That’s not to say we should just tune out or give up. Absolutely not. It’s vital to do all we can, about climate change and the natural world, social and racial justice, the welfare of immigrants and refugees, LGBTQ rights, abortion and women’s health, democracy – all the hard-won, precious things that are under threat right now. I have spoken often in these posts of taking compassionate action, when we feel anxious, upset or overwhelmed. That means marching, organising, writing to your elected officials, signing petitions, boycotting the worst corporations, and donating to charities/non-profits who are doing incredible things every day – you can donate to one of my favourites, the WWF, right now by clicking the button below.

Give love & Kindness in abundance

As the media becomes increasingly skilful at pushing the buttons of your evolutionarily ancient, threat-focused ‘subcortical’ brain regions – the structures in your brain that fire up during the fight-flight-freeze response, and are laser-focused on protecting your tribe and territory, not remotely rational or well-adapted for 21st-century life – my suggestion is that we do the exact opposite. The world does not need any more fear, hatred, hostility or division. It needs our love. Our compassion. Our prosocial goodness. Small example, but I was on the Tube, coming home from the movie with Ben, and saw one man tapping another man’s knee, pointing out the wallet he had dropped on the floor. The other man beamed with gratitude and it was just so sweet, so wholesome – the best of humanity on show in that small gesture.

There is a wise Buddhist teaching: ‘Every human mind contains the seeds of Jesus Christ and the seeds of Hitler’. Meaning, our old, subcortical brain can be fired up into fear, hatred, othering, blaming all our complex problems on immigrants, or trans people, or those with views and values we dislike. But our new, quintessentially human cortical brain has other capacities: love, warmth, kindness, compassion, trust, hope, finding joy in giving and helping others. I know which seeds I would like to help flourish in my brain and I’m sure you do too.

Love, randomly and abundantly. Help others, because it feels so good to you and those you help – like the men on the Tube. Spread ripples of kindness and goodness that start with your friends, family, community or a non-profit close to your heart. And our ripples will meet these scary waves of anger and fear and, bit by bit, dilute them into something better, more positive and hopeful for the future.

I will leave you with another profound, oft-quoted saying, from Martin Luther King: ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.’

Love,

Dan ❤️

The World Needs Your Love & Compassion, Now More Than Ever

Image by Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash

This is a hard post to write. Part of me just wanted to hide under the duvet today. Regular readers will know that I very much wanted Kamala to be President, so the election result feels like a body blow. And there is no doubt that the next four years will be rough. From the plight of immigrants in the US, to protection of the natural world, the fight against climate change, respect for democracy, truth and the rule of law, it’s a dark day.

But I felt compelled to write, because another – much larger – part of me feels hopeful and determined. I keep thinking to myself about how precious life is, how fragile, and that this is my one and only life. I refuse to let anyone take four years of that precious life from me. In fact, I refuse to let them take even one day.

Of course, if your political views are aligned with mine, it’s perfectly natural to feel a whole host of hard, heavy feelings today. If you feel sad, scared, hurt or overwhelmed, let yourself feel whatever you are feeling. My heart goes out to you and my beloved readers in the US, especially, who will bear the brunt of whatever unfolds in that big, beautiful, complicated country. But also to those in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere, who will also fear the ramifications of this dreaded result.

The only answer is love

As I often write in these posts, we are evolutionarily primed to respond with anger, hatred and hostility when we feel fearful or threatened. But I refuse to do that. It’s not who I am or how I wish to live my life. Instead, I will respond with even more love. More compassion. More acceptance and goodwill toward my fellow man – even those who disagree with me, or make decisions that negatively impact others.

My inspiration in this, as in so many things, is the Dalai Lama, a man forced to flee Tibet by the Chinese invasion, who has lived in exile since 1959. He has lost everything and watched in anguish as his countrymen and women were imprisoned, tortured and traumatised. But I have heard him say that he refuses to hate his tormentors, because then they would truly win. He is determined to remain compassionate, even to those who have done his people such harm, because that is his deepest value – to treat all sentient beings with love, kindness and respect.

That means we love every person, every creature – all life, in my view, from the tiniest sapling in the forest to every one of the eight billion humans with whom we share this planet. Not just the ones we like and agree with, but all humans, even the ones whose views seem ugly and hard to fathom. The Dalai Lama also teaches that we all seek happiness and to avoid suffering. There is no us and them, only us – we are all members of the same human family, stretching back millions of years to common ancestors, who walked out of Africa and populated the world.

So, whatever darkness unfolds over the next four years, let’s meet it with light. Hatred with love. Selfishness with altruism. Racism with respect. Othering with open-hearted welcome. I have a tattoo on my wrist which reads, be the light. It’s to remind me that, especially when times are hard and it looks like darkness is winning, it’s not enough to remember that there is light in the world too. We have to be the light, each of us in our own way.

Sending love and warmth especially to my US readers today, whether you are devastated or elated, red or blue, brokenhearted or bleary-eyed from celebration.

May you be happy.

May you be well.

May you be free from suffering.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Why is the World So Angry? And What Can We Do About it?

Image by Bob Dmyt from Pixabay

As I write this, I am nervously awaiting the results of tomorrow’s US presidential election. I must confess that I am glued to the news right now, because whoever is the next President will have a profound impact, not only on the US but around the world. It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I am very much rooting for Kamala Harris – if you’re a US citizen and read this before voting closes, please vote for her!

If she wins, she will be a remarkable leader, not only because she would be the first woman – and woman of colour – to hold that sacred office, but because of who she is as a person. Watch footage of her interacting with people as she criss-crosses that vast, beautiful country and her warmth, empathy and humanity shine through.

On the other side, of course, we have a person who seems motivated by anger and hatred, not kindness and compassion. But this post is not about Trump-bashing, it’s about the virus-like spread of anger, in the US and around the world. And the way we have seen anger, hatred and hostility becoming normalised in politics, as well as other spheres of public life.

In the UK, we have seen a parallel process since Trump’s first election success and the Brexit referendum in 2016, when my country essentially split in half around this highly emotive, deeply polarising issue. Ever since that (in my opinion, nationally self-destructive) result we have seen a steady erosion of basic civility and respect: in our politics, our schools and communities, as well as in mainstream and especially social media.

I long ago left Twitter because I was dismayed at the rudeness and hostility I encountered on a daily basis. I do post to social media (or rather my brilliant social media manager, Jaime, takes my words and does magical things with them) but I always try to stay positive. If anyone responds rudely I have a rule of never engaging in conflict or even debate, I just block and delete.

And that’s not because I am averse to debate, or intolerant of people disagreeing with me. It’s just because social media encourages polarised, emotional, right vs wrong communication, which is one reason for the wildfires of anger we see igniting all over the world in recent years.

Big tech profits from anger

One of the best books to explain the way that Big Tech companies not only tolerate, but actively encourage inflammatory posts, conflict and discord on their platforms is Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. He interviews key figures behind influential platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to find out why tech in general, and social media in particular, is so addictive.

Hari explains that tech companies had the brilliant idea of hiring the people who designed slot machines in Las Vegas, employing the same use of colour schemes, dopamine-inducing psychological rewards in the form of likes and shares, as well as other ingenious strategies to make sure we keep posting, liking, sharing and scrolling.

He also explains that social-media algorithms actively promote inflammatory content that will make users scared, angry and reactive, because that’s what keeps us glued to our phones. This cleverly taps into the biases inherent in the human brain, which has evolved to be threat-focused, keeping us fixated on anything that might be dangerous or threatening, to ourselves or loved ones.

As I often write in these posts, anger is usually a response to fear. So all those people shouting at each other on social media, or attacking neighbouring countries in the numerous horrific conflicts raging around the world, are fiercely motivated to protect themselves, their family, their tribe, their land… because they are scared. Scared people easily become angry, even violent people.

Let’s all take a breath

Whatever the result on November 5th, I am sending love and support to my many US readers. Whether you are red or blue, a Trump fan or Harris devotee, I care deeply about you and your family. I hope you are happy and well. You are human, like me, and you seek happiness for yourself and your loved ones. You don’t wish to suffer. This is the common humanity that unites us, so let’s all take a breath and remember that we are all one human family, whatever our political views.

The world needs a bit less anger right now, wouldn’t you agree? A bit more kindness. A little more perspective. A reminder that hatred, conflict and violence never solved anything. I profoundly believe in a better future for us all, because we live in an age of miracles. The same technology that can do so much harm can also be a remarkable, transformative force for good. After all, you are reading this right now because I can beam it from my computer in London to you, wherever you are in the world, in a few seconds. Isn’t that amazing? I think so.

And to my American friends, one more gentle nudge to go vote, get your friends and family to vote, knock on doors, donate, do whatever you can to help advocate for decency and preserve democracy in your wonderful country. Go to iwillvote.com to find out more about how to vote where you live.

Thank you – and please stay safe, as emotions will be running high up to and after polling day.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Why Childhood Trauma is in the Little Things too

Image by Oxana Lyashenko

When we think about childhood trauma, we often think of the worst things. And as a therapist who specialises in trauma healing, I work with many people who have experienced truly awful childhoods. Hearing their stories can be heartbreaking – and if you went through something like this, my heart goes out to you, as it may well have caused internal wounds that you are still struggling to heal.

But experts in the trauma field increasingly understand that smaller, less obviously hurtful experiences can also be traumatic for children. Dr Francine Shapiro, founder of EMDR, calls these ‘little t’ traumas, which she argues be just as problematic as ‘big T’ traumas like being in a car crash, or on a battlefield. What does this mean in reality? Here are some common little t traumas:

• Being bullied, at home or in school

• Witnessing domestic violence in your family

• Being invalidated, unsupported or belittled by your parents

• Experiencing racism, or any other kind of prejudice

• Being neurodivergent in a school designed for neurotypical kids

• Having a sibling who is clearly loved and cherished more than you

• One of your parents abusing substances on a regular basis

• Losing a parent, or another beloved family member, suddenly and traumatically

• Being forced to move home, or school, often throughout your childhood

Your developing brain

One of the reasons experiences like these are so impactful on children is that, when you are small, your brain and the rest of your nervous system is still developing. For example, in small children the right hemisphere of the brain is dominant, with the left hemisphere developing later in childhood. And the right hemisphere is (broadly, although as with everything in the brain it’s more complex than this!) focused on emotion, with the left hemisphere specialising in language, detail and rational thinking. This is one reason small children are so emotional, because they lack the brain structure needed to self-soothe, or understand their experience in a rational way. Little kids just feel, deeply and overwhelmingly, whatever they are experiencing.

If you are a parent, or have kids in your life for any other reason, you will know exactly what I mean. Children feel their emotions – anger, hurt and sadness, or joy and excitement – in a beautifully rich and profound way. Also in a deeply somatic way – watch a toddler having a tantrum, face screwed up, kicking their legs and pounding their little fists to see what this looks like. Feeling intense and and frustration is a whole-body experience for them. They also struggle to make sense of what’s happening, to give it context or make meaning of it, because their developing brain just doesn’t have the neural architecture to do this yet.

Changing the story of your life

This is why trauma-informed therapy can help you make sense of what happened to you, using your high-powered, fully developed adult brain to tell a new story about your traumatic childhood experiences. For example, if you were bullied at school, your adult brain can understand that this was not a sign of weakness or some other character flaw on your part – it was all about the bullies, unhappy kids trying to gain some sense of power and control by taunting their more sensitive classmate. If your parents favoured a sibling over you, your mature brain can see that this is just bad parenting – it’s Parenting 101 to love all your kids equally, to make them feel cherished and valued, so had nothing to do with your likeability or lovability as a child.

And this is one reason I write these posts – sharing key ideas with you from the worlds of psychology and psychotherapy, to help you make sense of painful life experiences and tell a new, more hopeful and self-compassionate story about your life. This is step one of the healing process, alongside learning coping skills to help regulate your nervous system, process traumatic memories and build healing, compassionate relationships with the hurt parts of you. There are many trauma-informed therapies that can help with this process, including sensorimotor psychotherapy, trauma-informed stabilisation treatment, EMDR, schema therapy and internal family systems.

I hope that helps – and please do find a good trauma-informed therapist if you are struggling with the impact of childhood trauma. You may also enjoy this practice I created for Insight Timer – The Story of You: How to Build Self-Compassion. Click on the button below to listen to it now.

Love,

Dan ❤️

What I Have Learned from 30 Years of Studying Psychology

Image by Jr Korpa

As a psychotherapist, I have spent over 30 years learning about mental health, psychology and psychotherapy. During that time I have taken a deep dive into a number of therapy models, including:

• Cognitive behaviour therapy

• Compassion-based therapies like compassion-focused therapy and mindful self-compassion

• Parts-based, transpersonal therapies like psychosynthesis

• Trauma therapies, especially Janina Fisher’s trauma-informed stabilisation treatment

• Somatic therapies like polyvagal theory and somatic experiencing

• Schema therapy

• Internal family systems

• Mindfulness-based therapies such as MBSR and MBCT, as well as Buddhist psychology

I now integrate the best of these powerful, highly effective models into a unified treatment approach with my clients. Here are some of the key principles of my approach.

trauma-informed therapy

As someone who specialises in helping people with the impact of childhood trauma, I have come to understand that trauma is at the root of most psychological problems, such as depression, chronic stress or anxiety, eating disorders, addiction and substance abuse, low self-esteem and relationship difficulties. I am currently writing a book about healing trauma which will take readers on a step-by step guide to using an integrative approach to heal the wounds of a painful childhood.

After decades of research, including the groundbreaking Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, we now understand that most of the psychological problems people struggle with have their roots in trauma or neglect in childhood. These may be single-incident traumas like a car crash or natural disaster, but are more likely to be complex trauma, such as bullying in the home or at school; experiencing any kind of abuse; having a parent with substance-abuse or mental-health problems; being harshly criticised, feeling unloved or unvalued on a regular basis; growing up in a high-conflict home, or witnessing domestic violence; experiencing poverty, homelessness or frequent upheavals in childhood; experiencing any kind of discrimination, especially racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia.

Whatever you may be struggling with, it’s likely that childhood trauma or neglect is the root cause of your problems. And this needs addressing, which means you need a trauma-informed approach. Linked to this is a thorough understanding of the nervous system, as trauma dysregulates your nervous system and other systems in the body. So it’s helpful to understand that through the lens of somatic approaches like polyvagal theory or Peter Levine’s somatic experiencing. I have created a wide range of breathwork, meditation and guided-imagery practices for my Insight Timer collection, many of which will help you calm, soothe and regulate your nervous system. And these approaches form the foundation of therapy, before we move on to trauma processing.

an attachment-based approach

Most of the trauma we experience as children is relational, meaning we are hurt by those who are supposed to love, protect and care for us. Very sadly, most abuse happens within the family, despite the scare stories of ‘stranger danger’ published in the media. And more subtle forms of emotional neglect can be extremely painful for children, such as having a parent who is chronically depressed, so – through no fault of their own – struggles to attune to your needs in the way all children require to develop a healthy mind and body.

A core need for all children is secure attachment with their caregivers – feeling safe, protected, loved and cherished by their parents, or other key family members if they are raising the child. This secure attachment in childhood translates to a secure attachment style, which we know around 50 per cent of adults possess. The other half of the population are mostly either anxious or avoidant, both of which create problems in forming healthy, nourishing relationships.

If you have an insecure attachment style – like most people seeking therapy – you need an attachment-based therapy, which will help you learn to feel safer and more secure in relationships, bit by bit. Schema therapy is the gold standard of this approach to therapy, so I integrate all the richness, wisdom and practical tools from this model into my work.

a parts-based model

One of the major revolutions in psychotherapy began in the late 1980s, when a number of parts-based therapy models were developed. These include schema therapy, internal family systems, Janina Fisher’s approach, Gestalt therapy and many others. My approach is also a parts-based, because it’s clear from a neurobiological understanding of the brain that your mind, and mine, is formed of a number of parts – this is known as ‘multiplicity of self’. It means that you have parts, like the Inner Critic or Inner Child, who either hold painful beliefs, memories and experiences from difficult times in your life, or work to keep those hurt young parts safe.

My work with clients draws especially on internal family systems, because it’s a warm, compassionate approach to healing these hurt and hardworking parts. But I strongly believe that no one model of therapy holds all the answers, so its better to draw from a wide range of models, creating a bespoke treatment for each individual client. I have found this to be the most powerful way to heal trauma with my therapy clients and have taught this approach to many other mental-health professionals, in my supervision and wider teaching.

Compassion at its heart

Finally, my approach involves a strong emphasis on learning self-compassion, because this is perhaps the most important skill you can learn – and especially if you experienced childhood trauma. Most of my clients are highly self-critical, with negative and self-lacerating beliefs about not being good enough, being dislikable or unlovable. None of these things are true, but are unhelpful ways of thinking about themselves they learned as a child – what are called ‘schemas’ in schema therapy.

Any effective therapy involves learning a new story about your life, one which is kind, compassionate and realistic, rather than highly negative and demeaning. Learning to think differently about yourself is a key part of any good therapy – and learning to be self-compassionate is an antidote to the noxious and harmful ways of thinking you developed as a child.

If you would like to know more about my approach to therapy, do sign up for my newsletter using the form below – you will get to read my latest blog posts, which are enjoyed by half a million people a year. You will also be the first to hear about my new courses, webinars and workshops, as well as my new book, when it is published in 2026. Also check out my Insight Timer collection, for a wide range of practices, most of which are free or donation-based.

I hope you find the help you are looking for from me or the many brilliant therapists and teachers globally, all of whom are dedicated to helping heal people struggling with the legacy of trauma. As I always tell my clients: Whatever you have been through in your life, it is never too much and never too late to heal.

Love ❤️

Dan

How to Embrace Change, Even if it’s Scary

How are you with change? Some people love it, finding new relationships and experiences exciting and invigorating. Others find change a bit scary, unsettling or discombobulating, preferring familiar places and comfortable routines. I think I have parts of me who like both – I am excited to learn new things all the time, enjoying the feeling of having my mind stretched and preconceptions challenged. But in other ways, I like things to be comfortable and familiar. I enjoy going to my favourite restaurants, drinking the same smoothie every day after the gym, watching beloved movies over and over.

My friends and family tease me about this, knowing how much I like these well-grooved, familiar patterns of life. But my wife, Laura, and I are now embarking on a major new adventure – moving to the country. It’s exciting, as we have been on the brink of this move so many times over the years. We are finally going for it, with a range of push factors meaning it’s time to leave our cosy little flat in north London; and various pull factors drawing us to the lush countryside of East Sussex.

So if you’re more on the change-avoidant side, here are three things I have learned from this unsettling-but-exciting process of moving house, which you may find helpful too…

Feel the fear and do it anyway

In the classic self-help book by Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision Into Confidence and Action, readers were encouraged to confront their fears, rather than letting them run their lives. Almost 40 years on, this remains good advice – if we let worry and anxiety control us, we would never do anything new or difficult and stay in a narrow comfort zone where everything was predictable and familiar.

It’s helpful to remember that, for all humans, uncertainty is anxiety-provoking, as is feeling out of control. This is why we constantly seek certainty and try to be in control of everything, even though this is clearly not feasible. One of the Buddha’s great insights was that we try to be in control of everything, which is impossible, so this search for control only creates more suffering – in this case stress, frustration and anxiety. I don’t know how it’s going to be living in a small town in East Sussex. I hope it will be enjoyable, that our lives there will find a new rhythm, that we will meet kind, like-minded people. But I have to embrace the uncertainty around that, accept the loss of control I have in my familiar environment, otherwise I will inevitably suffer.

Life is constantly changing, whether we like it or not

Another of the Buddha’s profound insights was that we seek safety, certainty and comfort by wanting things to stay the same. We don’t want to age, so we spend a fortune on anti-ageing products or cosmetic treatments in a desperate attempt to slow an inexorable process. We can no more fight growing older than we can control the tides. Western science now backs up the Buddha’s 2,500-year-old wisdom, helping us understand that everything, from the atomic level on up, is in a state of flux and change.

The more I accept that I am growing older – and that my life goes through stages, different relationships, homes, phases of my career – the calmer and more content I will be. Counterintuitively, accepting change makes us far more comfortable with it. Fighting change over which we have no power only causes suffering.

How might this apply in your life? Do you find yourself clinging on tightly to things that are, in actuality, beyond your control? How are you with ageing? Do you fight or embrace it? This is not to say that we should passively accept our fate and never try to grow or change, or resist destructive forces like climate change or injustice. But the old AA saying applies, that we should try to change what we can and accept what we can’t. Otherwise we inevitably suffer.

There are cycles and seasons to Life

Laura says she thinks in 10-year cycles of her life, which I think is characteristically wise. We have lived in this flat for around 10 years. And we lived in the last one for about 10 years before that. So maybe this next stage will last around a decade, then we can try something else, maybe somewhere else. And this is how life goes, no? We have the big, meta seasons of life: childhood, young adulthood, middle and old age. Other cultures knew this and people lived their lives accordingly. There were rituals, stories, rhythms to life. This shared understanding helped make ageing easier, as it was a communally shared flow, not an individual struggle.

What are the cycles of your life? Are they clear? This might be a good journalling exercise, to look back at your life in decades and think where you lived, who your friends/partners were in these different life stages, your values and goals, hopes and dreams. It’s interesting to see these change through life, even the things we thought were profoundly important to us or a bedrock of our existence when we were younger.

For example, I used to have a deep, burning desire to be a novelist. I even wrote three (unpublished!) novels when I was younger, had an agent and was on the cusp of becoming a published author, but it didn’t work out. Although that was painful at the time, I now see that this was how I learned to write – through the process of writing. This led to a first career in journalism and later as a psychotherapist who writes extensively, including posts like this one. I don’t think I will ever write another novel and I’m fine with that. Different life stage. Different season.

So as we start the somewhat gruelling process of packing boxes, clearing 10 years of unloved and unwanted stuff from our loft and all the other mundanity of buying and selling a property, although parts of me are nervous about all this change, most of me is excited, ready. It’s time for a new season – one which will, I hope, make us both happy. In the peace and tranquillity of the countryside. Watch this space to find out how it goes!

The practice

Whenever you feel anxious or stressed about change, it’s always helpful to breathe your way through it. This will calm and soothe your nervous system, giving you a little more mindfulness and non-reactive space in which to make a calmer, clearer decision. You can try one of my breathwork practices on Insight Timer, Ease Your Stress with Colour Breathing, which you can listen to now by clicking on the button below. I hope it helps.

Love,

Dan ❤️

To Find Greater Inner Peace, Let Go of Hate

Image by Mattia Faloretti

I have long been interested in Buddhism, both personally and professionally, because the Buddha’s teachings offer such a rich, deep seam of wisdom, knowledge, love and compassion. And you can draw on that wisdom even if, like me, you are not a religious person. It seems clear that the Buddha was a real person, living in northern India around 2,500 years ago. He was a teacher, psychologist and healer, who laid out a system of thought and principles for living that offered freedom from suffering – which all humans naturally seek, Buddhist or not.

Despite my longstanding interest, having been raised as an atheist, it’s hard for me to fully immerse myself in Buddhism. I don’t believe in the afterlife, heaven and hell, reincarnation or many of the more esoteric practices that some schools of Buddhism embrace. One of the best descriptions for my particular spiritual path is that I’m a ‘Buddhist atheist’, a term coined by the former monk and brilliant teacher Stephen Batchelor (if you haven’t read his books, I strongly recommend them – his Confession of a Buddhist Atheist is a great place to start).

But I do try to live my life according to the five Buddhist precepts, which are:

1. Not killing (anything at all, which is why most Buddhists are vegetarian).

2. Not stealing (anything from committing major fraud to avoiding paying tax).

3. Not misusing sex (having affairs, using pornography, being sexually inappopriate in any way).

4. Not engaging in false speech (not lying, essentially).

5. Not indulging in intoxicants (not drinking alcohol or taking drugs that lead to ‘heedless behaviour’, meaning saying or doing something you would not do when mindful and sober).

These deceptively simple guidelines are incredibly helpful if you are trying to live an ethical life, and be a force for good in the world. One of the many reasons I like Buddhism is that these precepts are guidelines, not commandments – it’s a good idea to follow them, but if you make a mistake there’s no need to beat yourself up. The Buddha would definitely not want that.

Try letting go of hate

We live in a world where hatred and anger seem to proliferate, from the many awful wars raging across the globe to the rise of the far right, hating, demonising and othering refugees and people of colour, the LGBQT community and anyone who seems somehow different to them. As I elaborated in a recent post about the far-right riots in the UK this summer, this fear gets ruthlessly exploited by unscrupulous politicians and other bad actors. On my less-optimistic days, I despair about the levels of anger and fear we see around the world.

But there is a small, positive act you can take, today, both to help yourself and create a ripple of positivity in your family, community, society and the world. And that is to delete the word ‘hate’ from your vocabulary. I did this a few years ago and it really seemed to help. As I adopted the five precepts and thought deeply about how I operated in the world, I started noticing how often I thought or said I hated things. Those unscrupulous politicians. Traffic. People who hurt animals. Racism. Violence. Bullying.

Just a constant stream of micro-hatreds throughout the day. Often in my own head, so the only person I was hurting was myself. The Buddha called hatred a ‘poison of the mind’. Such a powerful phrase, because if you think about what’s going on inside when you are hating, it really feels that way, doesn’t it? Hatred is a corrosive emotion that feels bitter, hostile, dividing the world into people or things that are good, lovable, to be embraced and approved of; and people or things that are bad, wrong, to be rejected and hated.

I really got what the Buddha meant, on a deep level, so I just stopped using the word hate, in my thoughts and speech. And I felt a little lighter. A bit less angry, frustrated and tense. With less of a tendency to see everything through binary lenses of good vs bad, like vs dislike. Even far-right politicians – who are definitely not my favourite people – are just scared. Scared of change, of losing power and control, of the beautiful and unstoppable forces of multiculturalism, progress and change. They know the world is changing and they really, really don’t like that, because it makes them feel powerless and frightened. So they use hate as a way to feel powerful again.

The practice

If you would like to stem the flow of poison in your mind, try changing your language today. Another simple change is to stop using any bad names about yourself, like stupid, weak, useless or failure. This is another poison, which constantly saps your self-esteem and self-worth. You are none of those things – you are a complex, beautiful, multifaceted human being doing the best you can to navigate this tricky thing we call life.

You have strengths and weaknesses, good days and bad, areas in which you thrive and others where you struggle. Just like me – and the eight billion other humans with whom we share the planet. Let go of hating others, but also let go of hating yourself. You don’t deserve it. In fact, as the Burmese monk Mahasi Sayadaw says, ‘A person who deserves more love and affection than one’s own self, in any place or anywhere, cannot be found.’

I hope that helps. And that you have a blessed day.

Love,

Dan ❤️

How to Respond to the UK’s Riots? Meet Hate with Compassion

I have been watching with great sadness, shock and disbelief as the far-right have rioted in towns and cities across the UK over the last week. Today they will hold a rally near me, at a service helping immigrants in Finchley, which will no doubt descend into violence and chaos.

This violence breaks my heart in so many ways. As the descendant of Jewish immigrants – who fled persecution in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and found sanctuary in England – I know all too well the fear of being othered, attacked and persecuted that refugees across the UK must be feeling right now. This was so acute for my grandparents, who lived through the horrors of World War II, working for a Jewish charity helping those who fled Hitler’s terrible reign from across Europe. They, like most of us, would have believed that we had evolved beyond poisons of the mind like hatred and racism – and they lived in Finchley, so would be horrified to see this ugliness so close to their door.

These poor refugees, who have escaped horrendous conditions and oppressive regimes in countries like Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan, thinking they had found safety here only to be terrorised again. My heart goes out to them and I feel nothing but love and compassion for them and their children.

It’s also heartbreaking to see all this violence and hatred erupt in my country. And it’s hard to know how to respond, because the more primitive parts of our brains fire up when under threat and we too feel hatred and fury, wanting to demonise the rioters and seeking harsh punishment for them. And, of course, they should be punished – by the legal system, which they will be, as our new prime minister has made very clear.

But I also take this Martin Luther King quote to heart, knowing that if we respond with anger and hatred, nothing will ever be solved. Hatred begets hatred. Violence begets violence. Instead, I think we need to address the fear these men must feel, on some deep level. They feel threatened and scared – and this fear is easily manipulated by nihilistic politicians and other bad actors online. And their fear becomes anger and hatred, directed at ‘them’, who they think will take their jobs, harm their families, become the dominant culture.

But these refugees are just humans, like you and me. All they want is to live in peace, send their kids to school, work hard and pay taxes and contribute to their new community and society. And of course we need immigration – our NHS could not run without immigrant workers, for example, nor could our farms or transport networks – so we need to help people understand that. Let’s do everything we can to counter all this hate and misinformation with love, compassion – and firm boundaries, because of course it’s never OK to terrorise innocent people.  

If you would like to take compassionate action right now, I recommend donating to Refugee Action, who are on the ground helping those affected by these terrible events. You can donate now using the button below.

And if these events are making you feel anxious and unsafe – especially if you are a person of colour, an immigrant, Muslim or Jewish like me – sending you all my love and warm thoughts,

Dan ❤️

Stuck for Summer Holiday Reading? Try These Superb Self-Help Books

Image by Angello Pro

If you’re lucky enough to have a summer holiday – and I very much hope you are – it offers many pleasurable changes from everyday life. No frazzling commute, boring meetings or stressful emails. Just that most precious of commodities: time. Days unfolding slowly as you move slowly from breakfast to beach, beach to lunch, lunch to beach, and so on. Dolce far niente, as the Italians say – the sweetness of doing nothing.

Amidst all this slothful bliss, one of my favourite things to do on holiday is read a book or two. I tend to read novels, as the holidays are the only time I’m not reading psychology books, but I might pack a self-help book or two just to mix things up. If you’re about to start packing and are stuck for holiday reading, here are my top three self-help books of all time…

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, by Dr Elaine Aron

I remember so clearly reading this for the first time, mouth agape, feeling like Dr Aron had written it just for me. Her groundbreaking theory that around 20 per cent of the population are Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs), with exquisitely sensitive nervous systems, was life-changing for me. I had always known I was more sensitive than most people, but realising I was an HSP was deeply validating and helpful.

I especially like the way Dr Aron explains that being highly sensitive is just a neutral genetic trait, like having blue or brown eyes, blond or black hair. It’s neither good nor bad. But it does make life a real struggle, because it means you are far more affected by the noisy, busy, overly stimulating world than non-HSPs. I am very sensitive to bright lights, loud noises, crowds and strong smells. As a youth, I thought this was a sign of weakness, that I just needed to man up and – as I was told a million times – stop being so sensitive.

This book has been part of a long journey in embracing my sensitivity and realising that it also brings great gifts – of empathy, insight and the ability to attune to other humans. I couldn’t be a therapist without these gifts, so would never give up my sensitivity, despite the challenges it brings. I have recommended this book to so many clients, because I realised that most of my clients were also HSPs. They love it and I think you will too.

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness, by Dr Richard Schwartz

Regular readers of my blog won’t be surprised to see this one included. As an Internal Family Systems Therapist, I devour everything I can about this incredible model. But this book is my favourite because it explains IFS in straightforward language, and makes it incredibly easy to understand. It can be a tough model to explain, or sell to sceptical clients, so I often direct them to read this before we begin IFS therapy.

If you’re new to IFS, this is a great place to start. You will learn all about the different parts of us – both young, hurt parts and their protectors – as well as the existence of Self, a wise, loving resource we all possess, even if it gets hidden if we struggle with our mental health. Dr Schwartz is such a wonderful human being – he really embodies Self-energy, teaching and writing with wisdom, compassion and, above all, great humility. His warmth and deep insights really shine through in No Bad Parts – I hope you enjoy it and that it’s the start of a long, healing journey with IFS.

The Good Life and How to Live it: Lessons from the World’s Longest Study on Happiness, by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz

I saved the best one to last – this is my favourite self-help book of all time. It’s so warm, moving and uplifting I just can’t recommend it highly enough. Written by the programme directors of the 80-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development, this book is brimming with insights about what it takes to lead a happy, fulfilling life. The study alone is remarkable – it began by enlisting 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 and has run ever since, expanding all the time to include 456 inner-city Boston residents, as well as 1,300 of the men’s offspring. It is the world’s longest-running study on human happiness.

I won’t give you all the study’s findings here, but the biggest takeaway is that of the many things you can do to lead a happy life, creating warm, supportive, loving relationships is the most important. The men, whose lives were pored over in regular interviews and questionnaires, reported that loving relationships were more important than money, status or success. And their wives and children backed this up.

The authors report all this data in a light, accessible way, including moving and inspiring stories of the men who found happiness and those who struggled. It’s just a lovely book, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I may even pack a copy to re-read on holiday!

Whatever you are doing this summer, I hope you find it nourishing and manage to recharge your battery. I think mine is on around 3 per cent right now! Have a great summer and look out for my next post in September.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Allowing Yourself to Rest is an Act of Self-Compassion

Image by Austin Schmid

I must confess, I’m not very good at resting. And in some ways, that’s a good thing. I have some extremely hard-working, driven, determined parts who have helped me achieve quite a bit in my career. Building a busy therapy practice over the past 14 years, training in a number of trauma-informed models, teaching meditation, writing, supervising other therapists and all the other things I love to do – those pedal-to-the-metal parts helped bring to fruition.

As I often say to my clients, working hard, being ambitious, having high standards for what you produce: these are all good things. The problem for them – and for me – is when hard work tips into a relentless, hamster-wheel existence, when work comes to completely dominate your life. And when those standards ratchet up from merely high to perfectionistic. When you feel like nothing is ever quite good enough, that you could always do more or try harder. When it’s difficult to feel any satisfaction or sense of accomplishment, no matter how much you achieve, because you’re straight on to the next goal.

The biggest downside of all this overworking is becoming exhausted, because the parts of you that drive you so hard may not know you’re human. With an all-too-human body and mind and nervous system, which all need to just, stop, sometimes. If this sounds familiar to you, I’m guessing you might also suffer from various physical ailments, like tension headaches, IBS, skin complaints, musculoskeletal problems and chronic fatigue. These are all ways for our body to communicate to us that we need to stop, rest, recharge. Otherwise, we risk burnout – or a much more serious illness, which is, sadly, common for those who charge relentlessly ahead, oblivious to their body’s increasingly urgent warnings.

It’s not your fault

For those readers in industrialised nations like the UK or US, it’s important to remember that our inability to rest is not just a personal problem – and certainly not your fault. We live in countries with capitalist economies and co-evolved cultures that esteem hard work, rewarding long hours both financially and with approving language like ‘grinding’ or having a ‘side hustle’. The rise of online working means we can now work anywhere, any time – it’s well documented that many workers now struggle to switch off, responding to emails and other messages from early morning to late at night, as well as at weekends.

And none of this is an accident, of course. Big corporations recruit and highly value employees willing to work long hours, soak up unhealthy levels of stress and give 24/7 commitment to the corporate cause. That’s why so many of my clients have worked in sectors like banking or law, where a relentless work ethic is the minimum expectation, causing untenable levels of stress and anxiety which lead them to my door.

It’s helpful to remember that humans are not designed to live this way. As I’m often writing in these posts, millions of years of human evolution designed us for a hunter-gatherer way of life (how every human on the planet lived until the Agricultural Revolution, just 10,000 years ago), with short bursts of intense activity (hunting, climbing trees for fruit or honey, scaring off hungry predators) followed by long periods of complete rest. We are designed to be either completely on – flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, muscles pumping, pushing our bodies to their limit – or completely off – blood rich with oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins, digesting a meal, sleeping, singing and telling stories around a fire.

Rest = Self-compassion

Every system in your brain and body needs rest. You’re like an iPhone, designed to give maximum output for only so long before you need recharging. We can also think about giving yourself a much-needed rest as an act of self-compassion. Because another thing I always tell my clients is that their health and wellbeing need to move much higher up their list of priorities. If you have ever been seriously ill you will understand that if you don’t have your health, nothing else really matters. No amount of money, accolades or professional achievements can compensate for being so grindingly exhausted you can barely climb a flight of stairs. Or the vision-blurring, nausea-making suffering of severe tension headaches, day after day. Or the severe bloating and discomfort that come with IBS.

Your body and brain are the most precious, miraculous, beautiful things. Treat them with care and they will help you live a rich, meaningful, flourishing life. Take them for granted and, I’m afraid, life may be a bit more difficult, especially as you grow older – take that from a grey-bearded 56-year-old! Your health becomes a much more precious commodity as you age, because you realise both how valuable and fragile it can be.

So, let’s make a deal. Next month is August, when many of us take time off to rest and recharge. I have decided to take two whole weeks off this year, to see my friends and family, spend time with my lovely wife and son, journey to some wild places and breathe clean, fresh air while hiking through Nature. If this hard-working therapist can carve out that time, could you? I know for many of you that won’t be easy – you may well have family commitments, childcare worries over the summer, financial pressures or a whole host of other reasons rest is elusive.

But we can build short periods of rest into even the busiest day. Even on days I am back to back with clients, I always meditate and do some exercise before the busy-ness begins. I also try to take a walk at lunchtime and build in other short IFS or self-compassion practices throughout the day. Could you? I hope so – because you are a wondrous, unique being. There has never been anyone quite like you in millions of years of human history and there never will be. Value yourself enough to rest – let’s both give it a try and see how we get on.

The practice this week is my Sleep Meditation: Deeply Relaxing Body Scan. As the name suggests, it’s designed to help you sleep, but will also aid rest and relaxation whenever you need it. Try it now by clicking on the button below – I very much hope it helps.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Are You a Therapist Looking to Learn Internal Family Systems?

Image by Komsan Jitarmat

If you are a mental-health professional – psychotherapist, psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor – interested in Internal Family Systems therapy, one of the best ways to learn this highly experiential model is to have some IFS therapy. As a Level 3-trained Internal Family Systems Therapist, I have opened up a few spaces in my online private practice for clinicians interested in learning this groundbreaking model from the inside out.

You may be completely new to IFS or have done some training in the model. I am happy to work either long or short-term, if there is a particular problem you would like help with. I’m also a highly experienced supervisor, drawing on a range of trauma-informed, parts-based models, so I can also help with consultations if you would like to view stuck points or countertransference issues through the lens of parts and internal systems – your own or your client’s.

If you are a clinician and would like to experience IFS therapy with me, email me at dan@danroberts.com

Warmly,

Dan

Harnessing the Healing Power of Self-Energy

Image by Daniel Mirlea

How do you feel on your best day? When everything just seems to flow, you feel calm and steady, dealing with life’s stressors without getting blown off course. A day when you feel – perhaps unusually, if you struggle with your mental health – that life is good. It may not be a whole day, of course, but even a good hour. An hour where you feel calm, wise and compassionate. Where you are glad simply to be alive.

This state of calm, grounded, authentic aliveness, is one we all aspire to. It’s why you’re reading this post, right now. It may be why you engage in therapy, read self-help books or meditate. When you taste it you want more, because it just feels so good. But it’s also elusive – very few humans feel this way all the time, unless they are enlightened. The Dalai Lama seems to embody this energy every time I watch him speak, but he wakes up at 3am and meditates for two hours every day, which is perhaps too much dedication for most of us!

If you struggle with your mental health in any way, and especially if you have experienced trauma, feeling this way even fleetingly may seem even more out of reach. If so, I’m sorry – it’s incredibly hard to live that way. But I also have good news, even if this calm, grounded state feels impossible to attain right now. Internal family systems (IFS) teaches us that everyone has an inner resource they can learn to access, with a little help. In IFS this resource is called your Self, and the energy this Self generates is known as Self-energy.

The idea of Self is not a new one

Although IFS was created by Dr Richard Schwartz in the 1980s, this notion of an inner resource is not new. In fact, every religious tradition has a similar idea, even if it has different names. As an atheist, I have long struggled with that notion, but the tradition I am most drawn to is Buddhism, which calls this inner resource Buddha Nature. You could also think of a life force, both in Nature and inside all living beings, which has an innate drive to health. The same force that heals your cuts, regenerates your cells, cleanses toxins from your bloodstream and removes viruses before they make you sick could be seen as Self-energy.

The only difference is that this energy is psychological, healing your trauma, wounds from the past and, through an IFS lens, your hurt young parts, who carry all of that old, unprocessed hurt. Self-energy is the only resource in you that can heal your hurt parts, or the ones who sometimes go to extreme lengths to protect them from further hurt. This is the arc of IFS therapy – and in fact of all therapies, whether that’s the overt goal or not.

The thing is that, as Dr Schwartz says, until you experience this for yourself it’s all just words. So I would encourage you to try the meditation below, or one of my other IFS practices on Insight Timer. You will also find meditations by Dr Schwartz there, as well as other leading IFS practitioners. Give them a try and see what you think. I hope you will enjoy them – and that you will be able to start accessing more and more Self-energy in your day-to-day life.

And if you would like a taste of Self-energy right now, try my Insight Timer practice, Accessing Healing Self-Energy, by clicking on the button below.

Love,

Dan ❤️

Are You in the Washing Machine of Confusion?

Image by Jeremy Sallee

So, I’m writing a book. Or, to be more accurate, I was writing a book and now have a whole host of options – a veritable library of potential books – whizzing through my mind. For reasons too complex to go into here, I started writing a self-help book, had a potential publishing deal on offer and had the book all mapped out from first chapter to last, but it didn’t work out. So now I have to figure out what to do next. Do I write that book? Some other version of it? Or one of the many other books I would love to write, some of which have been slowly gestating in my head for years now.

It’s confusing. And hard to choose the right path, as whichever book I eventually choose will take intense focus, a great deal of hard work and creativity – and probably a year of my life. It’s not a decision I want to take lightly. So for now, I am very much not writing a book. I am, as (my wife) Laura and I call it, in the Washing Machine of Confusion.

What’s that? Well, it’s a metaphor which viscerally describes the discombobulating, confusing and decidedly uncomfortable sensation of having to sit with not-knowing, not-deciding, not-being-certain about the road ahead. Definitely not fun, but sometimes it’s the best place to be.

Why humans hate uncertainty

The reason we both find the Washing Machine so uncomfortable is that, like most other humans, we don’t love uncertainty. I think, as with so much of what goes on in our brains, the reason for that goes back millions of years, when the architecture of the human brain was being shaped by evolution. And for most of that time, we lived in hard, hazardous environments, where other creatures/humans were trying to kill us, food was often scarce and even minor medical problems could be fatal.

So for our ancestors, being uncertain, unsure, feeling in some way out of control, all felt dangerous, because they were. If you didn’t know what lay around that bend in the path, it might be a hungry leopard. If you couldn’t tell whether that squiggle on the ground was a stick or a snake, you might tread too close and get bitten. And that would be the end of you.

Life was so hard, and so precarious, that you would want to be damn sure of as much in your environment as you possibly could. And so our fear of uncertainty was born. Which is why uncertainty makes you anxious, while being certain makes you feel safe. And feeling out of control can be horrible – especially if you’re prone to worry and anxiety – while being (or, rather, imagining that you are) 100% in control helps you feel calm and secure.

Why the washing machine is bad/good

The Buddha taught that this is how human brains operate – they seek certainty, try to be in control all the time, for the above reasons. But he also taught that this is how we create suffering, because you can’t be certain and in control all the time. It’s an illusion – like the idea of perfection. Doesn’t exist, except in the human mind. The more we try to chase after or cling on to it, or think that’s the only way we can feel calm and safe, the more anxious and stressed we become.

So with my book dilemma, a part of me wants to just make a decision. Now! Just start writing! But my wise, mature, big-picture-seeing Self knows that’s not a good idea – and has led to poor decisions in the past. Instead, I need to sit in the Washing Machine, tolerate the discomfort of not knowing, let my unconscious work away at the various book ideas until my path becomes clear.

If you struggle with this – and find yourself in the Washing Machine right now – you might find the idea of taking a mindful pause helpful in making better, more considered decisions. Here’s a practice I created for Insight Timer on that very subject: Learn How to Take a Mindful Pause. You can access it using the button below.

I hope it helps – and that you find your way out of the Washing Machine soon.

Love ❤️

Dan

Why I Love Being a Meditation Teacher for Insight Timer

I am honoured to be a Featured Teacher on Insight Timer's home page for the upcoming week. I love this app and am so proud to be part of a global community of teachers, producing – mostly free – content for the 26 million meditators who use Insight Timer across the globe.

If you would like to try one of my breathwork practices, mindfulness, self-compassion or IFS meditations, or guided-imagery practices, check out my collection at: insighttimer.com/danrobertstherapy

Love ❤️

Dan

Let Your Heart Relish the Return of Spring

Image by Aaron Burden

Looking out of my study window, it’s a beautiful sunny morning. Birds sing. A few fluffy white clouds drift across the piercing blue sky. It’s still mid-February and I know we’re not quite there yet, but you can feel spring in your bones on a day like this. After a long, chilly winter, I think we’re all ready for the warm, light, hopeful days that are just around the corner.

It feels especially poignant for me, emerging from the fog of Covid after a grim couple of weeks. I feel, mostly, human again and am relishing the small, taken-for-granted pleasures of life. A whole night without coughing. Enjoying my morning coffee without it irritating my throat, leading to, you guessed it, more coughing. A short, gentle workout. So simple, yet blissful. Like my inner spring after two long weeks of winter.

Something I often work on with my clients is how to notice and appreciate the many joys of life, as well as the tough times. My recent post on gratitude offered some evidence-based ways to do that, but this one is about balance, allowing yourself to feel and experience whatever may be true for you, moment to moment. Good and bad, light and shade, winter and spring. It’s all part of the natural flow of your life.

The rainbow of emotions

One of my favourite metaphors for this experience of mindfulness, of aliveness, is the rainbow of emotions. So think of your emotions like a rainbow, ranging from dark colours on one side (sadness, hurt, fear, anger, grief, loneliness, shame) to light on the other (joy, love, excitement, pleasure, pride, satisfaction). In order to live a rich, meaningful human life we need to feel the full rainbow, from the dark stuff that no-one likes to the lighter shades we all prefer.

And what I notice in almost everyone I work with (as well as myself) is that the experience of trauma in childhood makes us overly focused on those dark shades. We may not like these painful emotions, but we spend a disproportionate amount of time feeling them, worrying and ruminating about painful experiences, laser-focused on everything that’s bad, problematic, hurtful or threatening in some way.

And this is normal, because trauma skews our thoughts, perceptions and emotional states. It dysregulates our nervous system, making us highly prone/sensitive to threat-focused emotions like anger and anxiety. It affects our memory systems, making it much easier to remember painful, destructive experiences and harder to recall – or feel – the many good things in our lives. And a central task of healing from trauma is to be more balanced – feeling, processing and healing from the bad stuff, of course, but also enjoying, thinking about and becoming more receptive to the good.

Enjoy your inner spring

To make this concrete, I have two tasks for you. First, please start a journal, if you don’t write one already. And in your journal I want you to note every sign of spring, wherever you are in the world (if you’re in the Southern hemisphere, this won’t work so well for you, so skip this one and go for the meditation practice, below). This could be species of birds returning to your garden or local green space. It might be dear little snowdrops peeking out of the frosty soil, crocuses, daffodils and other hardy souls braving the chilly mornings.

Notice the sun rising a little earlier each day, and setting a few minutes later. Feel the increasing warmth of sunlight on your skin, as the sun regains its life-giving power. One of the most joyful sights for those in the country is the arrival of lambs, bouncing and frolicking across the fields. If that’s you, drink in every delicious, life-affirming moment.

And as you notice and focus on every sign of spring, see if you can also notice a gradual uplift in your mood. Remember that, despite our increasingly high-tech, urban lives we are still animals, creatures of this Earth, responding to subtle changes in the seasons as much as the migrating birds or dormice emerging sleepily from their winter nests. Just as our mood naturally dips in winter, so it lifts in spring. Notice, maximise and enjoy that, as much as possible.

Task two is to try my Insight Timer practice – Taking in the Good: IFS Meditation. It’s all about gradually changing a negative mindset, choosing a positive self-belief, feeling and quality to embody and bring into your life.

I hope you enjoy it – sending you hopeful love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

Being Grateful for the Little Things Will Transform Your Mood

Image by Rosie Kerr

I thought I was one of the lucky ones. Since the start of the pandemic, I had never had Covid – not once. My wife and I had a certain smug glow, telling people, ‘Well we have never had it. Aren’t we lucky!’ And then, finally, those ingenious little microbes found a way in. We both got it, my wife a couple of days before me. And it hit us hard – last week was a write-off.

But this is not a post about Covid, or sickness. It’s about what comes next. Because as we emerge from a week of feverish coughing and spluttering, it’s like waking up after a long, dark night. And realising there was all this beauty, this wonder, right outside the whole time, we just couldn’t see it.

This skewed view of things is fundamental to being human. The Buddha taught that we walk around in a dream, seeing things not as they are, but as we imagine them to be. We think we are defective, not good enough, less than others, but none of this is true. We may think that other people are mean, or selfish, or untrustworthy, but most people are kind, decent and good.

And we may believe that the most important things in life are material – money, fancy car, big house – but none of those matter overly much, once we have enough to be comfortable. What matters is love, warm relationships, a life filled with meaning and purpose. None of those things can be bought.

How gratitude lifts your mood

Yesterday, I finally left the house and went for a walk through our neighbourhood. It was a cold, grey, windy February day. In another mood, I might have looked around and thought, ‘God, this is a grim day. Winter is just miserable – I cannot wait for spring.’ And (no-brainer question of the day) what would have happened to my mood? Of course, it would have worsened. The wonderful Aaron Beck, founder of cognitive therapy, taught us this back in the 60s – that thoughts trigger emotions, positive or negative.

But because I was emerging, blinking, from my forced confinement, instead I looked around and thought, ‘My God, how wonderful to see the world again!’ What a joy it was just to walk, putting one foot in front of the other, taking in all the sights and sounds of my beloved neighbourhood. And then to walk to my favourite coffee shop, where my brain fog had lifted sufficiently to let me read a book. And to drink coffee! My heart sang.

Again, it’s kind of obvious that where we place our attention, as well as the meaning we make of our experience, has a profound effect on our mood. The Buddha knew that. Beck knew it. Plato knew it. He said, ‘Reality is created by the mind. We can change our reality by changing our mind’.

Positive psychologists like Martin Seligman know it – which is why he taught the mood-enhancing power of using techniques like the Gratitude Letter. This doesn’t mean that you should adopt some kind of Pollyanna-ish, good-vibes-only positivity, pretending everything is fine all the time. Because it isn’t – the Buddha also taught that to live a human life is to experience inevitable pain like sickness, ageing and the loss of loved ones. But he explained that we turn pain into suffering through our thoughts, our interpretation of the world.

Instead, we need to turn towards and accept painful things (like a week-long struggle with Covid, for example!). But we can still be grateful for so much. Life is full of light, beauty, wonder, awe and delight, as much as it is sadness, pain, hurt and disappointment. Light and shade. Day and night. Joy and pain.

So do check out Seligman’s gratitude exercises. You can also try my Hardwiring Happiness Talk & Meditation on Insight Timer, which is designed to help you notice, feel and maximise positive experiences throughout your day.

I hope you enjoy it – and sending grateful love from London ❤️

Dan

Do You Ever Feel Stuck or Blocked in Your Life? If so, Try This

Image by Travis Saylor

Do you ever feel stuck? Are you plagued by procrastination? Do you find yourself full of good intentions, plans and goals but struggle to achieve any of them? These questions feel especially relevant in this first week of the new year, when we are all encouraged to come up with noble-sounding, life-changing resolutions, which often end up dusty and discarded a few weeks later.

And they feel especially relevant to me, because I have felt a bit blocked this week. I came back from my holiday feeling pretty well rested and batteries recharged. This is a quiet week, therapy-wise, as many of my clients have kids who are not yet back at school. So I thought to myself, ‘Great! The perfect week to write lots of blog posts, social-media content and get started on that Insight Timer course I have planned…’

And I have done some of those things but, honestly, it’s been a struggle. I have procrastinated, a lot. I’m currently reading a brilliant book – Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently, by Steve Silberman – so that has filled many of my quieter hours. It’s fascinating, and of course hugely beneficial for my work and understanding of neurodiversity, but it’s also a handy excuse to not be writing myself.

When some parts say yes, others no

This stuckness and procrastination is very familiar to me. Because, as I have learned over the years, I have one part – who I call the Hard Worker – that is relentlessly focused on getting stuff done. And he is amazing, because he has helped me achieve so much in my career. Everything I have done, any success I have had, is all down to him and his drive, energy and determination.

But there is a downside to this highly-energised part – he doesn’t get that I am human. So he keeps driving me, taking on more and more projects, working harder and with greater intensity, until I am teetering on the edge of burnout and have to take a big step back.

There is another part – who I call the Shutdown Part – who has the exact opposite job inside. When the Hard Worker has me hurtling towards exhaustion, this one just shuts me down. Sometimes I get sick, either with a bug or just feeling nauseous and wiped out. Sometimes he makes me feel down, with low energy and motivation. Other times I just can’t come up with yet another idea for my blog, Instagram post or guided meditation. I’m done.

Why integration is key

So if you are feeling any of those things right now, don’t despair. It’s probably someone inside telling you that it’s too much. You need a break. Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean we are all magically fizzing with energy and zest for life. The days are cold and dark and, really, we should all be hibernating, not rushing off to the gym/getting sober/losing 10lb/starting a new side-hustle.

Instead, the key is to integrate the wisdom of both sides of you – the pedal-to-the-metal side and the hide-under-the-duvet side. They both mean well and are trying to help, even if their method of helping isn’t always, well, very helpful. So integration is key, rather than lurching from one extreme to the other (as in yo-yo dieting, for example, or getting sober and then relapsing over and over again).

As I am often saying in these posts, parts-based therapy models like schema therapy or internal family systems teach us that rather than letting one part drive us, the key is to integrate them all, with you (calm, rational, loving, adult you – the Compassionate Self) in charge at all times.

So to put this more concretely, if your Compassionate Self is in charge, you might resolve to go to the gym twice a week, instead of every day. That is entirely doable and a resolution you can stick to. Or, instead of suddenly going from wolf-like carnivore to strict vegan, how about eating plant-based meals every other day? If you want to drink less, that’s a good idea – but moderation every week for the rest of the year is better than Dry January and then back to excessive boozing. These are all achievable and realistic goals, which means they are likely to last longer than February.

Integral to this kinder, gentler approach is learning to make more thoughtful, considered decisions. I notice that the decisions I make in haste are often not very helpful, in the long run, so it’s always best to slow down and choose more slowly and skilfully, when we can. In the mindfulness world this is called taking a ‘mindful pause’, which is why I developed this practice for Insight Timer – Learn How to Take a Mindful Pause.

I hope you enjoy it – and that you have a wonderful, mindful, fruitful year ahead.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

The Buddha Taught Us How to Avoid Turning Pain into Suffering

Image by Abhijeet Gourav

I turn 56 in a couple of months and, although there are many things I like about growing older, there are some definite drawbacks. Wrinkles, back pain and various minor health ailments – none of these are much fun. But the biggest drawback for me is the change in my sleep pattern. And especially my brain’s newfound trick of waking me up at 5am every day, for no apparent reason.

I really need my sleep. Eight hours every night would be good, but nine is probably my sleep sweet spot. Six hours, which I got last night, really doesn’t do it for me. I’m currently on my fourth coffee of the day, which helps, but is no substitute for a good night’s sleep.

My eyes feel kind of scratchy, everything is a bit of a struggle and it’s hard to escape the feeling that you’re dragging yourself through the day, waiting for that glorious moment when you can go back to bed and hope for a better slumber tonight. This is all a bit painful, especially because I understand the increasingly persuasive science around the importance of sleep for our mental and physical health.

Turning pain into suffering

Luckily, I know enough about Buddhist psychology to understand how not to turn this pain into suffering. This was one of the Buddha’s many great insights – he taught that human life is inherently painful. We all get older, every day. There is nothing we can do about that, however much we might dislike it or slather on anti-ageing potions to hold on to our youthful looks. And with age often comes illness. Again, there is a lot we can do to prevent that, but some illnesses will inevitably come with advancing years.

The biggest, scariest truth we all have to face is that one day this will all come to an end. This is the hardest thing that any human has to grapple with – we are not immortal and so our time on this planet is finite.

All of this brings pain in the form of stress, worry, anxiety, sadness and other difficult emotions. And this pain is inevitable, to a greater or lesser extent – we can’t get rid of or avoid it completely, however hard we try. But the Buddha also taught that we then turn this inevitable pain into avoidable suffering through the way we respond to the initial discomfort.

He famously used the metaphor of a first and second arrow to explain this to his followers. When we feel pain, it’s as if we are hit by an arrow – this hurts, of course. But when, for example, we feel loneliness as our ‘first-arrow’ pain, but then start thinking, ‘I can’t stand feeling lonely, it’s the worst feeling in the world,’ or, ‘God, I’m so lonely – and I always will be. I just know I will never find someone to love,’ we add the second arrow of suffering.

Just feeling the pain is enough

Knowing this, I have become much more skilled at not turning my first-arrow pain of tiredness into second-arrow suffering. I used to think, ‘Oh man, I am so tired. I just hate this. I know I will feel terrible all day, it will affect my work and I won’t be 100% in my sessions today, which means I am letting my clients down…’ and on it would go, until I felt thoroughly depressed, on top of the tiredness.

Now – today, for example – I just think, ‘Oh well, I’m just tired. It’s not the worst thing in the world. Many people are suffering greatly right now, so this isn’t that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.’ And… I just feel tired. No depression. No unpleasant rumination. I just get on with the day, which seems to go much better.

Now I’m not saying this is easy, especially if the pain you feel is far greater than my relatively mild tired-and-scratchy feeling. Struggling with the impact of trauma, being highly anxious and panicky, or deeply depressed, are clearly much worse and harder to manage. But the same principles do apply – if you can just feel the pain, whatever it is, without piling on a whole load more mental and emotional suffering, you will feel less anxious, less panicky, less depressed.

And if you are feeling some kind of emotional pain right now, this practice I recorded for Insight Timer might help: Soothing Painful Emotions with the Breath.

I hope you do find it helpful – sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

Why You May Have Experienced Trauma, Even if You Had a ‘Normal’ Childhood

Image by Jessica Voong

‘He didn’t see his childhood as unusual – it was the only one he had ever had.’ I read this line in a coffee shop earlier and it has really stayed with me. It was in a brilliant book, Why Therapy Works: Using Our Minds to Change Our Brains, by Louis Cozolino. It’s a bit dense, so probably more for the mental-health professionals reading this (or anyone else who enjoys dense psychology books!). But that line is so good – and speaks to something I see with my clients over and over again.

Because it doesn’t matter how bad your childhood was, what kinds of terrible things were happening – to you it’s normal, because that is all you know. Especially when you are young, before you have attended school, your house and family is your whole world. You might go to the park, or to other kids’ houses to play, but basically everything important that ever happens to you happens inside your family.

So even if your dad is drinking heavily, then shouting aggressively at your mum every night, that’s normal. Or if you grow up in poverty, feeling scared and hungry every day, that’s normal. If your parents clearly favour your sister over you and you know, in your bones, that they love her more than you, well that’s normal too.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that any of those things are OK, or right, or even normal by the standards of many other families. But it is normal for you, because that was all you knew then – and may still be normal for you now, until we work to reframe that story and help you realise it was neither good nor normal to grow up in that environment.

What children need to flourish

One of the central ideas in schema therapy is that of core needs. These are the developmental needs that all children have, whatever the culture or country they grow up in. These five needs are:

1. Love and a secure atachment

2. Safety and protection

3. Being valued as a unique human being

4. The ability to be spontaneous, play and express your emotions

5. Having boundaries and being taught right from wrong

It’s easy to see that the kids who are unlucky enough to grow up in traumatic, neglectful or abusive families are not getting these fundamental needs met. They probably don’t feel loved, safe or valued. Their emotions might be seen as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. And – a problem I see in many families today – they might have what we see as too much of a good thing. Meaning they are spoilt, allowed to say and do whatever they like without consequences. This is also a kind of neglect, because it produces unhappy children who will struggle to fit into society when they are older.

So, however ‘normal’ your childhood was, if these basic needs were not being met, it will have caused you problems as you became an adult. And it may well have been traumatic, even if it seemed normal on the outside, because being shouted at, bullied, devalued or ignored can all be traumatic for kids.

If any of this resonates for you, I’m very sorry you had a tough time growing up. But you may find this talk helpful, which I recorded for Insight Timer to help people tell a different, more compassionate story about their lives: The Story of You: How to Build Self-Compassion.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan