A Guide to Wellbeing: From the Inside Out

A GUIDE TO

WELLBEING

from the inside out

Hazel Boylan

A GUIDE TO WELLBEING from the inside out

978-1-912328-42-0

Copyright © Hazel Boylan 2019

http://www.HazelBoylan.com

All intellectual property rights including copyright, design right and publishing rights rest with the author, Hazel Boylan. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored or transmitted in any way without written permission of the author. Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. The rights for images used remain with the originator. Published in Ireland by Orla Kelly Publishing.

Orla Kelly Publishing,

27 Kilbrody, Mount Oval,

Rochestown, Cork.

Disclaimer

This book has been written for self-care and educational purposes. The author is not offering it as a substitute for professional and qualified health, nutritional or lifestyle advice. It does not offer any guarantees and assumes no liability of any kind in respect to the accuracy or completeness of its contents. The author shall not be held liable or responsible to any person or entity with regard to issues of mental, physical or general health or wellbeing. Nor to any consequential physical, mental or general health issues alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by the information or content of this book.

A GUIDE TO WELLBEING from the inside out

by Hazel Boylan

To Ger

and

Pierre, Michaela (RIP), Ruby, Robyn, Tadhg and Ellie

Acknowledgements

A very special and heartfelt appreciation to Val Freeman in her role as beta-reader and sounding-board, while keeping me on track with grammatical and stylistic guidance. Her steer on expressing ideas more sensitively made a significant difference to this book.

Also to Brona Donnelly for her thorough appraisal and feedback – many thanks.

Gratitude to Rachel Donnelly (no relation to Brona) for editorial guidance in helping to bring coherence to early drafts.

My heartfelt thanks to Longtable Writers Brian Grehan, Paddy Hayes, Cole Jennings, Sandra MacCowen, Seán O’Hara, Yvonne Sheerin and Valerie Wade for their valuable and ever-insightful feedback on the many chapters.

To Susie Shelmerdine, author of Your EFT Business, for allowing me to reproduce a case study. And to the clients whose names and

details have been changed for reasons of privacy, but whose stories appear in these pages.

Contents

Disclaimer

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Section 1 The Brain

1 Brain

2 Brain Health

Section 2 Relationships

3 Assertiveness

4 Personal Boundaries

5 Communicating and Influencing

6 Anger and Trauma

7 DIY Life Coaching

Section 3 Mind

8 The Learning Process

9 Change Starts with the Mind

10 Comfort Zones and Effectiveness

11 Motivation

12 Reality

13 Science and Mind

14 Healthcare under the Microscope

15 The Energy Body

16 Emotional Freedom Technique

17 Getting Down to Tapping

18 Matrix Reimprinting

Section 4 Spirituality

19 Body and Soul

About the Author

Please Review this Book

Recommended TED Talks and YouTube Videos

Bibliography

Endnotes

Introduction

This is a self-help book. Its intention is to provide information that will shine a light on wellbeing as a process, introduce new ways to grow in potential and feel comfortable while doing so. My belief, and the premise underlying the topics addressed in each chapter, is the indisputable fact of the mind-body connection, and our ability to influence it. Meaning that our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and attitudes positively or negatively affect how we show up in our lives. If this is an unfamiliar concept, then this book might be just what you need.

Readers of books in the self-help genre usually end up doing one of two things: going out and buying another after they’ve finished the last, or getting off their butts and their untapped potential with the intention of changing and flourishing. All of the millions of words carry more or less the same message: how to move from where you are to where you want to be. A thousand roadmaps. A thousand destinations. A thousand ways to get there. Some are practical guides. Some promote a specific methodology. Some are more persuasive than others.

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) was the second World President of Mensa¹ who broke the mould when he said something like, ‘There’s no use trying to change human nature. It’s been the same for a very long time. Instead, go after the tools. New tools make new practices. Better tools make better practices.’ In today’s world, these tools are not the steam engine or chain saw, but information: the Internet, books, new thinking, new science, understanding brain processes and complementary healing methods.

Regard this book as a tool. Some of the concepts you may find hard to believe, challenging or downright controversial. All have been well-tested by practitioners in their fields, medical and other professionals who have discovered new paradigms in health and wellbeing.

Wellbeingi isn’t about feeling happy, or having enough money, or being your ideal weight. A GUIDE TO WELLBEING from the inside out uses the model suggested by Daniel Siegel’s Triangle of Well-being, incorporating brain function, the mind’s psychological and emotional terrain, and the importance of relationships, not in isolation, but as interdependent parts. Wellbeing is ‘wholebeing’, living in balance and harmony. This triangle informs the structure of the book, with chapters organised into Section 1 Brain, Section 2 Mind, and Section 3 Relationships.

Already I can hear some of you ask, ‘But what about Spirituality? Where does it fit in?’ Take a triangle, and in your mind turn it into a 3D pyramid. Integrating the three aspects of whole-brain functioning to form the apex takes us into the realm of spirituality or transcendence. Section 4 is Spirituality.

A GUIDE TO WELLBEING from the inside out illustrates the need to get our act together with conscious attention. It is about keeping multiple balls in the air in a controlled and practised way. Getting the disparate parts of our brain working as a team, ensuring the mind is house-trained in good and positive habits, that relationships are supportive, nurturing and fun, and committing to matters beyond ourselves in altruistic and spiritual ways are the threads that weave together the fabric of this book. When all are in balance, we are buoyant and resilient, and we thrive.

As a student of Psychology at Trinity College, Dublin, I undertook a project using a before-and-after model whereby hospital patients learned to improve heart rate and stress levels while attached to biofeedback equipment while using relaxation techniques. The purpose was to empower patients to self-manage pain or stress. My career since that time has dwelt much on how to engage our own resources to lead more meaningful and fulfilled lives using the empowered self.

This is an era when advances in quantum physics, neuroscience, technology, spirituality, complementary healing methods and psychology are merging. Touching on all of these, this book is a starting point for individuals to ask questions and discover new continents: to understand what lies behind old habits, thoughts and behaviours, one action, one disappointment, one failure or success at a time. In other words, it is a guide to assist the reader to discover new pathways to personal growth. An accredited STEPS to Excellence for Personal Success trainer for many years, trainees frequently asked me why the course I delivered was not available more widely. This book incorporates a wider range of personal development topics as an attempt to offer a taster of the growth potential we can tap into, with ideas for further exploration. Each chapter touches on a process I have used in some form or other; chapters are not exhaustive, but rather digestible introductions to ideas and techniques. A list of TED Talks intended to expand this information is available at the end of the book.

As the saying goes, there are many ways up the mountain: this book is one.

i - Siegel’s Triangle of Well-being is hyphenated. Elsewhere wellbeing is one word.

Section 1 The Brain

Parallels are frequently drawn between the brain and a computer. There are positives and negatives to this that are easy to understand, with some differences. A computer can be switched off, while switching off the brain is virtually impossible. To fix a computer requires new parts or new software. While new parts are not available for the brain, we can upgrade the software and hardware by changing our habitual thinking and behaviour patterns. Technologists can expand a computer memory by adding a card. The brain’s capacity to upgrade or downgrade is more subtle and happens consciously and unconsciously. What computers lack is imagination, the ability to interpret the world or come up with new ideas. Brains, by comparison, can create rainbows out of teardrops. Or instruments so amazing they can measure light or the heartbeat of a flea. Or spaceships that can orbit the moon and the stars and travel to other worlds.

This section looks at the structure of the brain and specific measures to keep it healthy.

1 Brain

‘The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.’ This quote from American theoretical physicist and populariser of science, Michio Kaku, puts into context the extraordinary and complex nature of this organ – the brain.

The non-stop activity of the organ inside our heads is fascinating and complex. This chapter will go some way toward explaining and simplifying some of its functions, and how we can use this information to our advantage. Some of the gains we make by being aware of brain function can be as quick as ‘add water and stir’. Others come more slowly as some of our behaviours were learned and embedded in ways we may believe are unchangeable, and therefore more difficult to shift. Behaviour and beliefs that are learned are second nature. Anything learned can be unlearned. With awareness and time, practice and persistence we can exercise choice to upgrade these and…voilà! transformation.

The job of our brain is to help us make sense of the world, to remember, learn, plan, concentrate and have a clear, active mind. On top of these thinking aspects, and all the things we have learned, are the vital brain functions we take for granted: breathing, heartbeat and digestive processes. For the purposes of this chapter, it is the thinking and learning parts of our brain on which we will focus.

The brain is not a single unit. It is made up of parts or sections, made up of neurons which vaguely resemble a tree. Dendrites and axons, like the branches and the roots of the tree, are the parts that transmit signals. The brain, containing billions of nerve cells, thus connects at more than 100 trillion points. Scientists call this dense, branching network a ‘neuron forest’.² Signals that form memories and thoughts move through an individual neuron and connect with others as tiny electrical charges. Connections in the forest form associations, which deliver our experience of the world. It is when these signals are interrupted through disease, tumour or acquired brain injury that memory loss or other disability occurs.

Every brain is different, even those of identical twins. The brain processes information according to programmes, rules, filters and associations learned through experience and upbringing. Previously understood to be a static organ that deteriorated with age, advances in brain science and neuroscience have radicalised our understanding of what goes on inside our heads.³

Microscopic changes and remapping of the brain – the forming and norming of structural and functional circuits through repetition – is down to the remarkable feature known as brain plasticity: its ability to grow, prune and change according to the experience and learning to which it is exposed. It is this exciting and relatively newly-understood feature, the brain’s plasticity, that is the platform for personal growth.

Dominant Brain Functions

The brain has many specialised systems that work across specific regions to help us talk, make sense of what we see, recognise objects and help solve problems. For reasons of simplicity, what follows is an introduction to how just some of these parts process information.

Just as we have two fully-functioning hands capable of all manner of motor coordination, yet default to the dominant hand for the majority of actions, so, too, do we have brain activity to which we default. To extend the analogy of hand dominance, we have the ability to write or brush our teeth with the non-dominant hand, but because it takes effort and concentration and a learning curve we may be too impatient to endure, it is often easier to give up and rely on the one that feels most comfortable. The dominant hand becomes so practiced that it can perform most things automatically. In the same way, our brain has become so practiced in the way it takes in and processes information, that we are convinced by the template of our own story.

Left and Right Brains

A good starting point is to understand the architecture of the brain and how it influences us.

The largest part of the brain, the cerebrum, is divided into two hemispheres, left and right. The illustration below shows a bird’s eye view of the brain with left and right hemispheres, which control the body’s motor activity: the left controls the right side of the body and the right controls the left side.

The architecture of the brain controlling opposite sides of the body means that trauma such as stroke or an acquired brain injury to the left brain will impair the right side of the body and vice versa.

Cross-section of brain showing left and right hemispheres

In addition, and more important for understanding ourselves, left and right brain functions are also quite distinct and are outlined below.

Even though there is ongoing communication between the hemispheres, as with handedness, brain dominance means that an individual has a natural preference for processing information using one side of the brain over the other. The right side is considered the intuitive, creative or spontaneous side, while the left is the logical, linear, structured side.

The left brain is the predominant hemisphere engaged through most of our years at school. This happens because the majority of schools regard the brain primarily as an information storage and retrieval system which rewards accurate recall, order, grammar, multiplication tables and facts. When a system focuses on the detail such as getting correct answers, bigger-picture thinking, curiosity and creativity are downgraded and we lose the ability to develop associations – a function of the right brain. The soft skills of confidence, motivating self and others, resilience, attitude, goal-setting, beliefs, creativity, managing change, self-esteem and self-management habits, the domain of the right brain, enjoy far less attention in the race for top marks.

The corpus callosum is a broad band of nerve fibres that link left and right hemispheres, allowing information, emotions and reason to mingle. Optimal learning occurs when both left and right brains share and balance function. When both halves are connected and integrated, we experience sound mental health and a sense of wellbeing.

Balanced functioning, in Buddhist thinking known as the ‘Middle Way’, is like a boat trip down a river. One bank, the left brain, is specific and rigid – it offers no soft landing. It is the territory of inflexibility and dictatorship. The opposite bank represents the absence of boundaries or structure. It is the territory of no boundaries, no structure and breakdown, creating an environment of chaos. The challenge for the boatman is to steer a middle course – not veering too close to either bank for fear of being overwhelmed by one extreme or the other.

Left and right brains working as a team are said to be horizontally integrated. If we are dominated by either one or the other, we are living in an emotional desert or in raging disorder. Integrating left and right hemispheres⁴ brings us back to the zone of effortlessness, and we are once more in the flow.

A real-life account of the structural breakdown of the brain can be found online. Brain scientist Dr Jill Bolte Taylor describes a research opportunity few in her profession would wish for: she had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down. She explains the parallel worlds of left and right brain functioning in her story, My Stroke of Insight, referenced in the TED Talks listed at the end.

Upstairs and Downstairs Brains

The cortex, the upstairs brain, is the newest part in evolutionary terms. It regards itself as the captain of the brain team because it has the power to know what we think, feel and do. Its purpose is to understand, use language, plan and express thoughts – higher-order thinking. When the upstairs brain is functioning well, we are more in control, think before we act and regulate our emotions. The upstairs brain is the orchestrator of healthy functioning.

Continually growing throughout childhood and into our twenties, the upstairs brain goes through a major remodel during adolescence.

The downstairs brain is the thumb and palm in the fist model, and is made up of different parts. It functions as the alarm system, our fight, flight or freeze survival mechanism, as well as acting as the storehouse of our emotions.

The downstairs brain is with us at birth and never leaves us. It is the part of our brain that keeps us breathing, keeps our heart beating, and keeps other basic systems – those we cannot do without – functioning.

The downstairs brain is the storehouse of emotion – the ones we take pleasure in such as love and passion, as well as the scary emotions we try to avoid: anger, fear, guilt and frustration, among others.

Let me be clear: there is nothing negative about strong emotions like anger. Emotions fulfil their purpose by providing us with vital information. It is how we deal with them that is critical. To recognise and express love or anger appropriately is a sign of emotional maturity, a healthy practice in the ongoing management of our lives and our relationships. It happens when the captain of the brain team is in charge, and when the brain is vertically integrated. If we inappropriately express or swallow corrosive emotions we fail ourselves and others. This is what gives anger, in particular, its bad press. There is more on anger in chapter 6.

When triggered to react