Have I got SAD – or do I need to slow down?

Lucy Hyde on 13 October 2023

Carved stone face in a wall with hills behind

What is Seasonal Affective Disorder – and do you have it?

How do you feel when the days start getting shorter? Do you experience a building dread of dark mornings, where you struggle to drag yourself out of bed? Do you look forward to being able to coorie in under a blanket when it’s gloomy outside? Or perhaps it’s not the lack of light that you find difficult, but the weather – not being able to soak up the sun like a solar panel prompts anxiety that your battery is going to run low.

Seasonal Affective Disorder – what does it mean?

SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is a term used for feeling depressed, low in motivation and lacking in energy at certain times of the year. ‘Winter-pattern SAD’ is when people begin to experience symptoms in autumn and through winter, but some people also experience mood changes (anxiety, agitation) in spring and summer – ‘summer-pattern SAD’ – although this is less common.

The jury is still out on what exactly causes SAD – there are a number of factors indicated, including melatonin levels and vitamin D. People with a family history of depression are more likely to experience it. For some people, these changes in mood can be really debilitating, meaning that they experience severe symptoms of depression for almost half the year, so it can have a huge impact on their enjoyment of life.

Trees at the edge of water with mountains behind

Being human in the world

I’m absolutely not denying the reality of people’s experiences, or to suggest that you shouldn’t seek support for managing symptoms of depression, fatigue and social avoidance or anxiety. But for most of us, when we notice some changes in how we feel at different times of year, I wonder how helpful it really is to casually adopt a ‘disorder’ label.

I also wonder how much SAD is a product of a modern society that has evolved to a point where we need to ignore our bodies’ natural tendencies, in order to see ourselves as ‘operating productively’. The period where industrial and post-industrial society developed is the blink of an eye when compared to the timescale over which human animals evolve, and perhaps our bodies are struggling to catch up with the expectations of capitalism. Doing more than we have energy or capacity for (whatever the reason) ultimately leads to burnout and exhaustion – often manifesting as depression or anxiety.

The urge to see ourselves as somehow ‘other’ from the natural world has contributed to an inability to truly acknowledge the destructive impact humans have had on the world as a whole. Life as humans have come to live it in the 20th and 21st centuries has encouraged us to suppress our natural responses to the changes in the world around us – including regular, seasonal changes – to the extent that when we notice that we’re feeling differently, we try and make it ‘wrong’.

‘Disorder’ or natural response?

Following this line of thought, I wonder if there is a healthier, more compassionate approach to changes in mood and energy levels related to the shift into autumn and winter. Rather than asking ourselves ‘how can I feel more like I do in the summer?’ perhaps we can ask instead:

  • How can I be more understanding of my changes in mood or energy?
  • Where can I look for opportunities to live in the way that my whole self needs?
  • What do I need in order to take care of myself so that I can be ‘well enough’ in the world as it currently is?

Let’s explore these questions a little bit more.

rowing boat at the edge of sea with mountains behind

Bringing a compassionate understanding to our responses to seasonal change

The phrase ‘the natural world’ tends to be used to denote something separate from humans, and all human-created things. But human beings are animals, and it doesn’t serve us well to think that we don’t have the same basic needs as other mammals – eating, resting, mating, etc. We are still part of an ecosystem, although we collectively tend to try and distance ourselves from the rest of the world in an attempt to avoid the pain of acknowledging our destructive behaviours towards it.

In the Global North, until only a few hundred years ago, humans lived in a way that was much more responsive to the seasons. Our survival depended on us having a closer relationship with the land that fed us. Of necessity we needed to be much more active at certain times of year to produce, gather and store the food that would keep us going through the months of scarcity. While humans didn’t hibernate like some creatures (that are able to slow their body rates down in winter), the pace of life would have been slower over darker, winter months, where there was less to do on the land. Depending on food stores, there might be less food to provide energy for activity. I have a friend who works in a physical, seasonal job, who refers to the depths of winter as ‘plumping-up season’.

I also wonder how much we allow ourselves to live with the fluctuating energy levels that develop as part of the ageing process. Our bodies evolved to fulfil different roles at different life stages, and historically women wouldn’t expect to live for decades after our ability to procreate ceased. I’ve noticed that post-menopause, I tend to naturally want to be less active in the winter months. It’s difficult to know how much of this is connected to the changes in my body and energy levels, and how much is because I have learned to better tune into my body’s needs rather than overruling them.

Would you describe yourself with the words ‘I like to keep busy’? If so – have you ever thought about what that ‘liking’ is about? Many of us use busyness or activity as a coping mechanism – it distracts us and helps us avoid feelings. If we’re not being active we may start to feel anxious, and attach this anxiety to a ‘problem’ that we can then get busy trying to fix. If this rings true for you, then any natural slowing-down tendencies you may experience during winter months might feel a bit scary, because allowing yourself more space brings the potential for anxiety.

carved stone face in front of hills

Living in the way that our bodies need

I’m fortunate to have moved myself to a career that allows me some freedom to dictate my working pattern through self-employment. In recent years I’ve come to realise that I have less energy towards the end of the year. I need to bear in mind, when planning ahead, that setting myself goals for the last quarter is unhelpful – I don’t achieve them and I end up feeling I’ve failed or ‘not tried hard enough’. I can structure my appointments so that most days I can squeeze in a quick dip in the sea, which particularly works for me in the winter as it gives me an intense burst of ‘outsideness’ when I may not feel motivated to go for a long walk.

Not everyone can dictate their working pattern or life to this extent; even if you recognise that your body would prefer you to have a different structure to your day, this may not be possible due to the requirements of your job or employer. However, most people have at least some autonomy to tweak aspects of day to day life – if they can allow themselves to recognise the value of prioritising their needs.

Ask yourself whether you really want to be more active or energetic in winter. Is that about your needs, or does it have the words ‘I should’ attached to it? Is it influenced by what you imagine others think or do; have you been affected by what you perceive as societal norms, or the ‘living my best life’ impact of social media? Most of us are influenced by these factors to some extent, even if we like to tell ourselves ‘I don’t care what others think’.

Modern society as lived in many countries is focused on productivity to a degree that is unhealthy for the planet and for us, creating a myth that economic growth is desirable and feeding fears of scarcity. It benefits the world when we do less, as well as allowing us to recover – and to save money. If you feel the urge to shop to ‘cheer yourself up’, try pausing for a moment and checking in with your inner self what need you might be trying to meet. How you might turn towards that part of you with kindness rather than trying to distract yourself from it by looking for external stimulation.

Wind-blown pine tree at the edge of sea

Taking care of ourselves ‘well enough’

We’re living, breathing creatures and how we feel changes depending on what’s going on around us, and the events and stresses that we’re subject to in our lives. That includes weather, daylight hours, temperature. Telling ourselves that we can carry on operating at the same capacity whatever happens around us, and to us, is a denial of reality and longer term isn’t good for us.

However, in order to carrying on living in society it’s necessary to accept that the modern world isn’t currently responsive to the needs of most of the world’s inhabitants (of all species). My ‘perfect world’ might not be the one I currently live in, and it’s important to recognise that, and allow myself to feel the grief of it, but I also have to find a balance that is ‘good enough’ for me to keep living in the world as it is.

I think of this as a little bit like the experience of being autistic in a world where the neurotypical experience is privileged. Autistic people shouldn’t have to do all the work to adapt to a society that often doesn’t work for them, but until society itself evolves to be more accessible and accepting to all, the choice for autistic people can sometimes be (unfairly) adapt or withdraw.

Swimmers in a grey sea below a rainbow

What might help develop self-compassion?

I use a Focusing practice to regularly check in to what I need. Although having a routine helps me, it can sometimes mean that I shut myself off from noticing when I need to slow down. I (try to) accept that I might not always know what I need, and that this will change from day to day – and perhaps more importantly, I give myself a break if I realise I’ve overdone it or made the ‘wrong’ choice. Learning to listen to what your whole self needs – rather than to the internal parent or inner critic that’s very good at telling you what you ‘should’ be doing – can be truly healing.

Treatments that are recommended for SAD are worth considering, but pay attention to what feels right for you, rather than trying to convince your body that it’s not really winter. For example, generally I’m an early riser and structure my work to suit this. For a few months of the year, though, my body would really like to wake later but it’s not practical for me to chop and change appointments. I use an alarm-clock-light that gets gradually brighter to simulate sunrise, which helps, but I also accept that I feel more sluggish in these few months of dark mornings, so I have lower expectations of what I’ll achieve.

But what if SAD really fits my experience?

If you experience severe depression as a result of changing seasons, you’ll probably find it helpful to investigate this with the help of a counsellor or psychotherapist. People severely affected by SAD are more likely to have depression, bipolar or SAD in their family history. This is as likely to indicate inherited emotional dysregulation (patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour are often passed down through families) as a ‘genetic tendency’. There’s a good chance that, with the support of an empathic other, you can make changes that will help you feel better (and perhaps interrupt the generational cycle too).

While it’s increasingly accepted that there’s no evidence for the ‘chemical imbalance in the brain’ theory of depression, antidepressants can still be helpful for dialling down strong emotions to a point where you can begin to tackle the issues underlying them. There are other self-help suggestions for SAD here .

I don’t believe it’s helpful to assume that changing moods or energy levels are a ‘disorder’. Arguably it could be disordered thinking to believe that we should continue to function in the same way all year round, unless we live in a part of the world that doesn’t have significant seasonal changes.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if were not balanced by sadness.

Carl Jung

If you find it difficult to tune into what your body is telling you that you need, or if you find it scary or uncomfortable to sit with strong emotions, you may find it helpful to learn Inner Relationship Focusing, which is a self-help practice that supports development of a compassionate attitude towards parts of yourself that you usually ignore. Please get in touch if you’d like to learn more about it, or watch the video on this page.

cloud in valley below mountain and blue sky

Further resources

What is Focusing?

Lucy Hyde on 9 November 2022

Focusing was developed in the 1960s by Eugene Gendlin when he was researching why some people were able to sustain a more lasting change from psychotherapy than others. He found that those who made more sustained changes had a natural ability to check within themselves for an inner felt sense of a situation or difficulty, and to use that felt sense to intuitively find a way forward. Gendlin developed a process in order that those people who don’t have this natural ability, could be taught to develop it.

Focusing is…………

  • A tool for supporting self-compassion
  • A self-help exercise
  • A way of life

Focusing is all of these – and more.

Image by Tolu Bamwo on Nappy

My own experience is of a history of getting stuck in my head, trying to think my way out of an uncomfortable situation or experience – believing that if only I could figure out the right solution, I’d stop feeling so distressed / uncomfortable / anxious. This resulted in lots of overthinking, rumination and self-criticism for not being able to get it right. Focusing has helped me develop another, much gentler way of managing difficult thoughts and feelings, which means that even when I get triggered back into old patterns of overthinking, I’m better able to recognise what’s happening and to move through it more quickly.

For me it’s been nothing short of life-changing, which is why I decided to complete the training to teach other people this wonderful skill.

How Focusing can help

Many of us learn at an early age to suppress feelings, or to be frightened of strong emotions. This can be a result of experiences of feeling unsafe in childhood, may have been modelled to us by our parents, or may have been part of the conditioning of the society or culture we grew up in – there are lots of possible reasons. Over time this can lead to us being afraid of our feelings – you might be afraid that if you let yourself feel, you’ll be overwhelmed by your emotions, like opening Pandora’s Box. In some cases we become so skilled at not allowing our feelings that we’re not even sure what we feel.

Even if they’re buried deep, those feelings don’t go away, and can often manifest themselves in other ways, including physical symptoms, poor immune response, anxiety, stress symptoms, or erratic moods.

Focusing with a skilled companion, you can learn to acknowledge, first of all, that there is something there that wants attention. You can begin to listen to what those suppressed parts of you want to say – while keeping a safe distance. Doing this with a supportive teacher helps you be alongside thoughts or feelings, rather than be overwhelmed by them. You can recognise that the feelings are part of you – they’re not all of you. With practice, you can learn to build relationships with those inner parts of you, and the intense feelings will ease as those denied voices realise that, actually, they don’t need to shout so loud to be heard.

Sculpture by Matt Baker

How does Focusing compare to mindfulness or meditation?

There are similarities between all three practices. They all aim to bring the attention inside the body, and to remain in the experience of the present moment.

However, often with meditation and mindfulness, the intention is to not get ‘caught up’ in thoughts or feelings, but to let them pass. With Focusing we bring interested curiosity to a thought, feeling or sensation. We might enquire what it’s like, what it might be connected to, and we want to stay with it in a friendly way. With this curiosity more can arise and stuck feelings can shift.

Is Focusing a type of guided visualisation exercise?

Some people will have a lot of visual imagery when they’re Focusing, but some people will have body sensations, or thoughts, or memories (and lots of people have a mixture). In my own process, I often find I start with a body feeling and then images can also come later. My role is to support people to allow images or other experiences to arise, and to find ways of describing the experience. In that process, where these ‘parts’ are attended to by trying to describe ‘just what they’re like’, images may develop into other images, or emotions, or memories.

When someone is new to Focusing, I’ll make suggestions, like ‘perhaps you could sense if there’s an emotional quality to this image’, or ‘if it feels helpful, perhaps you could check if there’s something this part is wanting’, to support a dialogue or relationship with these inner experiences.  As people become more experienced with Focusing, they’ll often learn what’s helpful for them, e.g. whether they like having suggestions or .

Should I choose Focusing or counselling?

Focusing is not therapy, although it does, of course, have therapeutic benefits. If you come to me for Focusing sessions, you’ll be learning a self-help practice, which you can also do on your own, and if you decide to take it further, you could develop Focusing partnerships with other people who are learning Focusing. The role of the teacher or companion in Focusing is to support you (sometimes via suggestions) to follow your own direction. You don’t need to give me any history, unless you want to, as we will be dealing with your present-moment experience in sessions, even though this experience will most often be influenced by past events.

Because Focusing has become an integral part of who I am, it is also an element of my counselling process. For example, I may suggest a pause within a session, to check inside, to allow some space for feelings to emerge. I sometimes also offer some Focusing teaching within counselling sessions, if I think that it may be helpful to tune in to some feeling or experience that seems difficult to put into words.

If you have a clear goal of what you want to change in your life or behaviour, it may be that counselling is more appropriate than Focusing. If you’re not sure what you want, it could be that Focusing might help you get a clearer idea of your steps forward. If you want to develop a better relationship with yourself, Focusing and counselling could both help with this.

I suggest that, if you want to try Focusing, we plan in 3 sessions initially. My reason for this is that, for some people, it can seem a bizarre and unusual way of relating to themselves, and the unfamiliar can be uncomfortable. Committing to a few sessions means that you give yourself a better chance of moving through this discomfort, where something in you might be tempted to shy away after the initial experience. Also, we’ll take some time during the first session, for some preparation before the guided exercise, and some feedback afterwards, whereas a greater proportion of the second and third sessions can be dedicated to the experience of you being with yourself.

What happens in a Focusing session?

I’ll ask you to close your eyes (or look down if you prefer), and then lead you into your body with a body-scan or check-in, then use gentle suggestions to see what’s there wanting your attention, or to check in with a particular issue that you want to look at.

You describe to me what you experience and I reflect that back to you. I may make suggestions to help you to begin gently to build a relationship with what comes up. We’re not attempting to analyse or interpret – although part of you may want to, in which case I’ll encourage you to acknowledge that aspect of you, too.

Image: Ben White on Unsplash

I’ll give you a time signal that we’re coming to the end, and I’ll suggest you take some time to thank whatever has shown up, then encourage you to come back to the room and open your eyes.

If you want you can talk about what happened in the session, and you can ask for my feedback if you think that would feel helpful.

What is Focusing most useful for?

Anxiety

I’ve found Focusing particularly helpful with clients who have high levels of anxiety, who often feel compelled to keep busy at all times and/or to focus their energies on trying to keep others happy. Anxiety can provoke over-thinking, ruminating thoughts, and compulsive behaviours as a way of filling up any empty space which might otherwise be occupied by strong feelings. With Focusing we can turn towards those feelings that are provoked if you don’t keep busy, and you’ll discover that anxiety is something that you don’t need to react to or ignore. When you acknowledge the anxiety, and turn a compassionate and curious attitude to what may be underlying it, the intensity of the feelings will lessen and become easier to tolerate. 

Trauma

Focusing can be a wonderful way of soothing the parts of you that are easily triggered due to past traumatic experiences – without having to go into the story of the trauma. This means it can be equally useful if you experience triggering or fight/flight/freeze reactions, even if you don’t think you’ve been subject to traumatic events. Because of the Focusing principle of being alongside your experience – as an observer, or witness – rather than being in it, you can get a little bit of distance from your emotions. We work with your in-the-moment, embodied present, and having the experience of being able to be in relationship with your traumatised parts can be profoundly healing at a whole-body level.

Inner critic

Focusing treats the critical voice as a part of you – not all of you. By using Focusing to build a relationship, you can develop understanding of how that inner critic has your best interests at heart – even if it doesn’t feel like it. The inner critic tends to develop as a protective device (based on some kind of childhood belief that if it works you hard enough you’ll be loved / you won’t be abandoned), and by your responding to it with compassion, it will learn over time that it doesn’t need to push you as hard.

Pre-therapy sessions

As mentioned above, Gendlin developed the Focusing process to support people to get more out of their therapy. I believe that developing your skills of listening to all parts of you, can be helpful as a precursor to counselling sessions – whether with me or another therapist.

Focusing for therapists

Focusing is a great resource for counsellors and therapists to help them manage their own thoughts and feelings stimulated during sessions with clients. Some counsellors find it difficult, sometimes, to engage with their own personal therapy, because a sense of competition or fear of being judged by their therapist can hamper their ability to be honest during sessions. The emphasis in Focusing is on developing the client’s relationship with themselves, more so than their relationship with the Focusing teacher. I don’t need to know any history or events and I don’t need to know what a particular feeling, memory etc, is connected to, in order to support your process, which means that Focusing may be experienced as a safer space than counselling at times. In addition, because I don’t need to know about the content, I can offer Focusing to people that I have existing relationships with, in a way that I would never do with counselling.

I find it hard to describe exactly what Focusing is, in a way that really conveys its essence! The best way to really understand it is to try it for yourself. If it sounds like something you’d be interested in – please get in touch with me.

Further reading and resources

What is Focusing? – The International Focusing Institute

What is Focusing? – the British Focusing Association

Eugene Gendlin talks about Focusing

Get a feel for Focusing via this video:

Therapy journeys

Lucy Hyde on 5 August 2022

Often, some of the most vivid memories of a journey are when we’re not moving. Pausing to catch your breath as you climb a mountain, and taking the opportunity to look all around, to enjoy the view from where you are, right now.

I’m at one of those pauses, I think. I’m at the point of completing my Focusing Practitioner Training almost three years after I started this particular journey, and, as I gradually absorb that reality, it’s prompted me to reflect on the way in which my development (or growth, or expansion – there isn’t really a single word that captures it) as a therapist has happened in a number of phases. Inextricably intertwined with that professional development has been the personal growth that comes with those shifts and changes.

Learning to be human

The first shift was as I did my Counselling Skills Certificate, begun in 2010. For various reasons, that certificate course – often run over 6 or 7 months or less – took almost a year to complete. I learned during that time that I could do this work even if I didn’t feel completely confident in myself and didn’t believe that I was ‘fixed’ – no, more than that, I began to believe that I might actually be good at it even I wasn’t always completely tranquil mentally myself. I also learned that counselling and therapy could be a way to help me understand myself, rather than just a means to emergency-fix something that was broken.

Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS on Pexels.com

I needed all that time, to discover and internalise that belief. If I had done a 2-day workshop (provided by the organisation I then went on to train with as an alternative to the certificate course), I don’t think I’d have got there. In fact, I’m not sure how I would have reached the point of applying for a diploma course, without the time spent with my Certificate course-mates, the trust built with them and my trainer, the months of counselling alongside, that gave me space to figure out the meaning, for me personally, of what I was reading, learning and practising in those modules.

Learning how to be a therapist

The second phase was as I did my four years of TA training – my Diploma in Counselling with Transactional Analysis, followed by a further year of training (insurance policy for the possibility that I might want to progress to an analyst qualification later on). During the weekend workshops, and through the various essays, transcript analyses and case studies that were required to complete each year, I gained models and tools to help me understand myself – and to help me understand and think about others, including the clients I began to work with through my voluntary placement.

As I learned and became comfortable with particular models or theories (Transactional Analysis loves a diagram!) I began to share them with my clients, too. And those years of training supported my growth in confidence, not least through practice – the repeated sessions with clients that got me used to being a counsellor and believing I was a counsellor. To those placement clients, I was a counsellor from the very first session, which helped me believe it too. Although I learned to think about psychotherapy in the training room, I learned more about actually being a therapist from working with real people.

Image georg-arthur-pflueger-unsplash

Learning to be me

Moving on to the third phase: this shift has occurred over the last year or two, as I’ve been completing my Focusing Practitioner Certification training. Focusing is a practice that was developed in the 1960s by Gene Gendlin, to help clients, for whom it didn’t come naturally to pause and check inside themselves for a bodily felt sense of their issues, to learn how to do so – in order to get a more lasting benefit from psychotherapy then doing it all in the head. (You can read more about Focusing, which can be used both in therapy and as a stand-alone exercise or practice, in this blog.

My Focusing experience started while I was in TA training but I’ve increasingly committed to it over the last 4 or 5 years, commencing my practitioner training nearly 3 years ago. This phase has been about me learning to use myself more in my counselling work, becoming more comfortable in my counselling skin. It has been a letting-go of some what I took on during my TA training, including the ideas I’d formed about what is required to be a Good Therapist. The Venn diagram balloons of ‘me as a person’ and ‘me as a therapist’ have a much greater overlap now.

These changes and more, came about through my own personal practice of Focusing, my own therapy with a Focusing-oriented counsellor, and the gradual introduction of Focusing into my own practice with clients. That all needed time.

A slower pace

I don’t believe any of these phases could have happened any more quickly. Focusing Practitioner training typically takes one and a half to two years; I took three. I could have embarked on it as soon as I finished my core psychotherapy training, but I’m not sure I’d have got to this place, where I am now, any sooner. Each development hasn’t simply been about workshops, training, reading, CPD hours; it’s required me to gradually incorporate what I learn into me, an evolution that’s taken place through my whole mind-and-body self.

Image Jon Gerrard

Recognising that, in itself, is a significant sign of a change in me. Most of my life, I’ve been driven by the belief that I need to get on with things quickly, that achievements are better the faster they happen. The realisation that this pace, including the times when I’ve

paused for breath

paused to notice my surroundings

paused to re-calibrate in the middle of something

….that this pace has been right, exactly right, for me, is powerful. I’ve meandered off down cul-de-sacs, I’ve taken radical changes of direction, and they’ve contributed too.

Journeying with clients

All this has prompted me to notice that the same is true for the journey of any client who comes looking for therapy – and how important it is to have those pauses in the journey. The pauses give you a chance to notice how far you’ve come, to notice what’s changed, they help you realise the things that you now know about yourself that you didn’t – that you can’t now un-know. Equally important, the pauses give you a chance to consider what direction you want to head in, from where you are now.

Just because you had a particular goal in mind when you first looked for a counsellor, it doesn’t mean that that same goal applies now, where you are, in your current place.

Sometimes a client will ask me the ‘right’ way to approach a problem, or they’ll ask what I normally tell people in their situation. I often say, I don’t have an answer to give, because everyone is on their own journey, and sometimes all you can do is pause for a breather and check – Where am I? Where have I come from? What direction do I want to go next?

And the journey doesn’t take place in isolation – we’re affected and changed by what we see and experience. The first stage of my counselling training journey was in the aftermath of my mum’s death from cancer, and in the midst of the threat of redundancy and subsequent driven hard work and determination, with my colleagues, as we fought to make our section of a big national charity, Leuchie House, succeed as an independent organisation.

My dad died during the second phase, and I also discovered a new love – coastal rowing – that changed my sense of who I was (no longer the girly swot who never got picked for teams). The third stage began alongside the terrifying and exciting experience of living abroad, out of work, with limited language skills. Crucially, the clients, colleagues, the people I’ve worked with through all these stages, have played a part too. These experiences, and more, were woven through the journey, woven into me.

The way forward

I have some vague ideas of where I might want to go next – for example, thoughts about the work I do outdoors with clients and how we might allow the environment to take more of a role in that. These are hill-tops glimpsed between veils of cloud. For the moment, pausing where I am, reflecting on the last miles and not pushing on too quickly, is just the right place to be.

Perhaps YOU could pause and reflect on your own journey. You might be surprised what you notice.

What I learned about myself from wild camping (and how I wasn’t anxious)

Lucy Hyde on 15 October 2021

At the end of September I took a solo trip walking and wild camping. In this blog I share my reflections on what it taught me, and the value of doing something new to learn about yourself.

Lone camping was a first for me. I’ve done plenty of walking alone, and I’ve camped with my partner occasionally, but I decided to do this 2-night trip, because the notion came to me one sleepless night, and I wanted to see if I could.

I was excited about the prospect of being in my own company for 48 hours. This feels like quite a new thing for me; traditionally I’ve sought out the company of others and am quite gregarious. But I’ve come to understand recently that partly, that’s because I didn’t like being left alone with my own thoughts, that being around other people was a way of keeping busy. AND (thanks to the lockdown experience) I realised that actually time alone is needed recovery time, as my people-pleaser aspect tends to be on alert when I’m around other people – I’m always trying a little bit harder.

Don’t get me wrong – I still enjoy spending time in company. But the idea of not having to think of anyone else – and in fact, being unreachable through circumstance (i.e. no phone signal) rather than avoidance – had an appeal. No one was going to expect anything of me for the whole of that time. I was going into country I’d not walked before. It was going to just be me, and my food for 3 days, and my ‘home’ for 2 nights, and the hills, and the birds. Writing this now, the idea of it seems exciting all over again!

Lucy Hyde walking therapy

And the reality?

Lucy Hyde walk and talk counselling

Yeah, there were some moments when I was really happy to be in the middle of nowhere with the ravens, where I was excited to think “I’m doing it!” These mostly coincided with sunny bright weather and feeling confident having successfully put the tent up (or having successfully stowed it away).

There was some swearing– when I snapped a tent pole, and at the steady increase of the rain just as I arrived at camp.

There were NO moments when I thought “I wish I wasn’t here” or even “I wish I had someone else here”. (Though there might have been, had I snapped the tent pole when I was putting it up in the rain, rather than when I was taking it down on my last morning.)

And there was, more than anything else, a lot of just-keeping-going and not particularly noticing how I felt at all. It surprised me how much ‘in-between’, neutral time there was, given that I had imagined that, with all that time alone, I’d be likely to get lost in my thoughts, or to get busy worrying. Yet I found myself taken up with being, with getting through it.

For example, a day’s walk on fairly good paths and gently hilly terrain felt more of a feat of endurance with a heavy pack than I’d bargained for. I found myself going more slowly, taking smaller steps. I was careful to eat regularly, yet often didn’t feel particularly hungry – instead I was focused on making sure I had the necessary fuel to make sure I was capable of putting my tent up at the end of the day. 

At some level, even though I wasn’t scared at the remoteness, I suppose I was aware of the reality of having to depend on me, of being careful of husbanding my strength, of not risking injury by sudden movements.

And this process, I guess, kept me very focused in the now, and that’s probably why there were very few points when I felt anxious. My anxiety is often linked to worrying about what I need to do, or anticipating problems (that may or may not arrive), or imagining or assuming what others think about me. Somehow, here, there was less space for worrying about the future: too much attention on ‘now’ (my shoulders hurt, how can I adjust my pack?) to leave room for anticipating problems; and no one around, or expecting anything of me, for me to worry about.

So what DID I learn from the experience?

A few things……..

Sometimes comparing your situation with others’ CAN actually be helpful.

This is not at all a maxim I normally believe in. Many times I’ve had a conversation with a client where we’re trying to undo their tendency to punish themselves because they think other people have it worse than them so they’re not allowed to find things tough. Yet in this situation I was doing something similar.

reading for inspiration

I was halfway through a book before I’d headed off to the hills – A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell (check it out – it’s quite the adventure story). It’s a biography of Virginia Hall, who was an Allied forces agent during World War II, who built up and coordinated units in the French resistance. She had a prosthesis following a leg amputation, and the tale of her having to escape through the Pyrenees in winter with insufficient clothing and food are astonishing.  Yet she survived, and even thrived, in gruelling conditions.

She came to mind when, 4 miles from the nearest available shelter, I‘d just pitched my tent in the pouring rain and had crawled into it, damp, trying to keep wet and dry stuff separate, and to get warm. In that moment I managed to make a little bit of space for the part of me that was finding it All A Bit Much and say “yeah, of course you’re finding this hard! You’ve not done it before”, and to remind myself that Virginia Hall had gone through way harder things and come out OK on the other side – and I would too.

What was important in this moment was my attitude towards myself. Instead of telling myself I wasn’t allowed to find it hard because my issues were too insignificant, I reminded myself that people can come through difficult times and still be OK, while also validating my reaction. (My Focusing practice helped with this – you can learn more about that process here.)

It’s OK to find something challenging even if you’re not the first person ever in the world to do it.

You wouldn’t think this was rocket science, but apparently it’s a lesson I need to keep on learning.

I’d borrowed the kit off a bike-packing friend, and I knew that ‘lots of people wild camp’. And that’s when the more unhelpful side of comparing myself with others kicked in. You know, comparing apples (people who are experienced) with pears (me, the novice). I realised, only when I was catching up with friends afterwards, that a part of me had assumed I wasn’t allowed to find my trip difficult at times.

Finding your path online therapy

When I was met with the Wow, that’s quite an undertaking – weren’t you frightened? I recalibrated that judgment of myself as somehow inadequate at not immediately being a comfortable camper. And even allowed myself a little glow of satisfaction that I hadn’t been frightened (well, not much).

On the upside, I can see, looking back, that my survival instinct actually prompted me, when feeling a bit low, to be compassionate towards myself and – in the moment – reassure the wearied bit of me that it was OK to find it a bit tough, so that the judgmental part didn’t take over.

Compartmentalising can make me miss the obvious.

The obvious being: carrying stuff is hard work. I know! Who could imagine?

What happened was: I looked at my route before setting off. My longest day’s walk was 11 or 12 miles. Quite a long way, but I knew it was within my capabilities, especially on good paths. I also packed up my rucsac, completely, a couple of days before going, so I could check everything fitted in, and put it on to see how heavy it was. Heavier than I’d usually carry on a day trip, but within my capabilities.

road to find yourself Lucy Hyde therapy

What I omitted to do was to put ‘long day’s walk’ and ‘heavy rucsac’ together. Oops. It didn’t take many miles before I was feeling that, in various parts of my body in turn. Somehow that principle I share with clients, of noticing when you’ve got more than one stressor in your life, cos the impact is greater, fell by the wayside…….which takes me onto my next discovery.

It’s surprising what you can do when you don’t have the option NOT to.

My walk was harder going than I’d estimated, AND it was also fine. By the time I’d realised the miscalculation of effort, I was well into the moors and would have had as far to go back as I did to continue. If my foot (or hip, or knee) was sore, the only thing I could do was adjust things slightly to see if that helped – and to carry on. And actually that knowledge stopped me focusing on the discomfort, and so I wasn’t as aware of pain.

This was a helpful learning for me. I really value listening to my body. But this experience flagged up that I can sometimes allow fear to stop me pushing myself  – in this case anxiety about damage to my body, and worry that I can’t do as much as I used to (probably linked ultimately to a fear of age and even death). It reminded me of the key role that the brain has in the way we experience physical pain (you can read more about the mental – emotional- physical connections of pain here ).

I discovered that I can control time!

sunshine beyond online counselling

When was the last time you did nothing? Like, literally, NOTHING? I honestly can’t remember, prior to this experience.

I’ve got much better at giving myself a break over the last decade or so. Gone (well, mostly gone) are the days when I would feel inadequate or a failure if I hadn’t been somewhere new or achieved a significant task on a weekend.  Now I let myself sit and read the weekend papers over breakfast for an hour or two, I potter, I lie on the sofa with a book for an hour.

But even though I don’t think of myself as ‘keeping busy’, actually doing nothing – that’s very unfamiliar. When I was camping, there was around 12 hours of darkness. I was in a tent I couldn’t sit up in. I had limited power and no signal on my phone. So I lay in my sleeping bag pretty much from 7pm to 7am, even though I wasn’t tired enough to sleep (and didn’t, much, even when I was).

And yet, most of that time, I wasn’t particularly bored. I was just, kind of………..there. Existing. Tuning in and out to the noises around me. Noticing my toes warming up in my sleeping bag. Wondering whether it was going to pish down again the next day.

It felt weird to be in that not-doing space.

Time behaves differently when you’re not doing. For many of us, that’s WHY we keep busy, right? We’re often scared of the empty space because we’re not sure what will creep into it. Empty space fosters anxiety, and over-thinking. We avoid it at all costs. The flipside of that is that we keep so busy that times passes quickly, the more so as we get older, and we end up feeling like we’re running out of it!

I felt like my two nights out were way longer than a weekend. So, perhaps a way of stopping time feeling like it’s going so quickly, is to stop ourselves – and just do nothing. How much time just disappears when you’re scrolling through social media, for example?

I’m not sure how easy I’ll find it to do nothing now I’m back home, surrounded by all the things that ‘need doing’, with my phone available to distract me. But I’m going to give it a go.

It’s good to do something new, even if it’s hard.

I feel like I gained a lot from this experience. That’s not consciously why I did it. I wasn’t on some mission of personal growth. And when it was challenging I thought “I don’t know if I’ll do this again”. But I learned some new stuff about myself because it was sometimes hard, and – as I told my therapist later – it feels like this experience is a little resource that’s sitting on my shoulder. I don’t know quite what to do with it yet, but I like that it’s there.

finding your way Lucy Hyde online counsellor

So…..would you take the plunge to do something new?

To be honest, I don’t recommend heading off on your own wild camping experience right now. Winter is coming (if you’re in the northern hemisphere) and nights are colder. But if there’s something you’ve thought you’d like to try but are a bit scared of, or not sure whether you’ll be good at it (hint: probably not, the very first time) I would really encourage you to give it a go.

Final tip:

if there IS something you have in mind – tell someone about it. In one step, this makes it more likely to happen. Getting to the point of telling someone is a move in itself – it can be scary, if you think ‘I can’t back out if I tell someone!’ – yet actually, that’s not true, is it? But if you tell someone you have a dream, it makes it a little bit more real.  It brings it closer. And then it’s more within your reach.

walking in the rain Lucy Hyde walk and talk

References and further info:

Book: A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

Pain: Not all in your head, it’s in your brain

Focusing and how it can help manage anxiety

Self-care: How to relax

Lucy Hyde on 3 May 2021

Lucy Hyde Therapy how to relax

I’m just back from a week’s leave.

I’m being strict with myself this year about taking regular and frequent breaks for self-care. It’s been an interesting and useful experience; because a bit of me thinks it’s ‘self-indulgent’, I’ve been challenging that thought by talking about it. Getting it out there helps counteract a tendency to feel ashamed about looking after myself.

Breaks = regular maintenance

So many people I encounter find it difficult to prioritise time off. This has been the case especially in the last year where the usual ‘reasons’ for taking leave, many of which are connected to other people – visits to family, plans arranged with others, booked holidays – have been unavailable, leading to many people realising belatedly that they haven’t taken a break for a loooong time.

Online therapy to help you relax

I feel a sense  of responsibility to look after myself because of my work with clients; I use myself in my work, I owe it to my clients to offer value for money, and I’m less effective when I’m less healthy or emotionally unwell. This makes it ‘easier’ for me to take time off out of a sense of duty. I’m a people-pleaser who worries about getting it wrong, and changing that is an ongoing, slow process. In the meantime, if ‘duty of self-care’ encourages me to take time off, then I make the most of the result, without worrying too much about the impetus!

Exactly halfway through my leave I felt I had to make a significant decision – ‘how best to use my week off’. Essentially, having had the opportunity the day before to meet up with family for the first time in nearly 6 months, my attention up until then had been focused on that; and indeed, it WAS a highlight – being able to spend a few hours together eating, and walking, outside, filled me up. But after that, I had empty days in front of me and a sense of responsibility to not ‘waste’ them.

Of course, reality-checking after the event, I realise that the idea of a ‘right’ choice was a myth, and it was being faced with the emptiness of unplanned time that felt disorientating.

Lucy Hyde walk and talk counselling

I was talking to someone a few days later who said they experienced a similar sense of pressure at weekends:

“During the week I’m just busy with work and eating and sleeping and recovering, then at the weekend I feel I have to make the most of it and often I end up not enjoying my time off because of thinking how else I could be spending it, and it’s almost a relief when Monday comes and I just slot back in to automatic work pattern.”

I’ve heard people say they need a week off just to get used to being on holiday, to let go of the feeling they should be ‘doing’, after which they can start actually enjoying it. But sometimes we only have a week, or a few days (or a weekend).

And it can spiral into self-criticism too; for example I felt anxious about how to use my time off, then felt guilty for being bothered by such a first-world problem – ‘poor me, I’ve got a break’. It can sometimes take me a while to pull back, to recognise that yes, I am fortunate, and no, feeling guilty about it doesn’t make one jot of difference to people worse off than me, any more than enjoying it would.

How to deal with the fear of getting it wrong

For me, learning to tolerate the thought or feeling, rather than distracting myself from it by getting busy, has helped. I recognise it for what it is, a thought generated by my perfectionist tendencies, rather than an actual real-life risk. Being able to sit with it for a time helps it feel less urgent.

Lucy Hyde walk and talk therapist

A few other things that I’ve found are useful:

1. Using my Focusing practice to sense bodily what I need.

You can read more about Focusing here. ‘Clearing a space’ was a particularly useful exercise in my week off. Once I had settled inside myself I used the question ‘what’s stopping me feeling really fine right now?’, seeing what appeared, acknowledging it and putting it aside. This is particularly helpful when there’s a few practical problems or life events that take up mental space. You can read about clearing a space here .

2. Giving myself options.

Sometimes checking within myself for what I need can bring an urge to hide away or retreat. While hibernating is OK, I know from previous experience that connecting to the world by getting outside, getting moving, or being with people is often better at getting me ‘unstuck’, even if it feels like an effort initially. Sometimes it helps to give myself options – ‘How do I feel about X? or Y?’ – and seeing what my gut response is. If I have a week off, making just one plan for something I usually enjoy takes some of the pressure off figuring it out.

3. Remembering that there’s no ONE right answer.

The reality is that whatever I feel I need, it has to fit in with life. Yes, it might sound great to be able to always follow my sense of what I need at any moment, but realistically it’ll be dependent on time, resources, other people, etc. So finding something that’s, say 60 – 70% good-enough self-care right now, rather than looking for the perfect answer, is fine. Good enough for now IS actually, sometimes, the perfect answer. I was talking to a friend who said:

“I had a few things I really wanted to do, things I like doing, but I felt like going back to bed. And when I was sitting in bed, I was thinking ‘Oh, I’m not doing x, y and z.’ And I had to remind myself that I WAS doing something else that I needed, by just being. But it took effort to do that.”

Lucy Hyde online counsellor

4. Noticing when I’m content.

When I can notice that I’m enjoying the moment, that’s really bloody useful. Because if I can do more of it (right now) then it’s fulfilling a need. That happened to me when I was sitting in the sun reading a book and – having finished my coffee – I thought ‘This is really nice. Oh, actually, I can carry on sitting here!’ It sounds so obvious, but it can be tricky to catch yourself at these moments – particularly if your pattern is that you can only do the thing that you LIKE once you’ve finished the task that you don’t (and it can lead you to NEVER getting round to the thing that you like).

5. Finding a balance.

On my week off, Covid restrictions at last allowed travel round Scotland. There was a temptation to rush around the place seeing people, to recharge my social battery. But one thing I’ve learned in recent years is that although I need people, I also need solitude.  Someone told me recently:

“I’ve learned I need to consciously rest more to actively counteract those stress hormones…..I love lying cosied up with a book……and when I feel a bit sluggish or melancholy from that quiet time I know it’s time for a little activity”.

Most of us live such busy lives of doing that it’s no wonder we find it difficult to change gear and slow down. It’s also normal, as you get older, for transition from one thing to another to take longer – and that includes transition from one way of being to another.

It’s OK and normal for relaxing to not come naturally AND there are things that you can do to support yourself to let go a little. Although I’ve shared some of what works for me I’m really interested to hear if there are ideas or tips you have for how you help yourself relax.

The most important thing, I think, is that ANY relaxation is better than none. So if I can let go of ‘getting it right’ and allow it to be Just Good Enough For Now, that really helps. And if that letting go only lasts for half an hour, or a few moments, that’s OK, because that’s relaxation time I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Lucy Hyde therapist helping you relax
Photo: Jon Gerrard

If reading this has been useful, you might also like to check out my blogs on Focusing for anxiety, and tips for dealing with stress. And if you want to share any ideas, or would like to try working with me, please get in touch.

7 ways that reading books can improve your life

Lucy Hyde on 20 February 2021

7 ways that reading books can improve your life Lucy Hyde online therapist

We read to know we’re not alone

William Nicholson, ‘Shadowlands’

When I want to escape to another world, I do it through reading.  For that half-hour, I’m not in my own life anymore, I’m inhabiting a different world, where I really care deeply about the experience of someone else, where I feel their feelings, even becoming a different person. 

I believe reading can change your life in different ways.

Throughout history, education has literally changed people’s lives, and there is a political and humanitarian argument for literacy being a right for that reason. While I completely subscribe to that (after all, restricting educational access to males, or to white people, has been a way of subjugating different parts of societies in order to keep power in the hands of the few)- what I’m talking about here is at a more individual level.

I grew up with my nose in a book. We didn’t have a telly in my house, a fact that I was resentful of at various points in my childhood. (If you want to know how to nurture a child’s belief that they’re the odd one out or will never belong, deprive them of the ability to engage in playground conversations about last night’s Grange Hill episode – I used to watch TV round at my best friend’s house, but Grange Hill came on just at the time when I had to go home for my tea.)

Reading as therapy image-annie-spratt-unsplash
Image Annie Spratt on Unsplash

However, setting aside the injustices of my upbringing for a moment, what I did have plenty of was books. Apparently even before I learned to read, my parents would be woken up each morning by me calling from my cot “Light on and books!” I’m not sure I would describe reading as a favourite activity – it was, simply, an indelible part of my life.

When I grew up and left home for uni, then work, reading time was squeezed by the demands of adult life – and by my developing tendency to, at some level, believe that ‘unproductive’ time was self-indulgent. I wonder now if there’s some connection for me with reading being ‘lazy’ because it’s a sedentary activity. I still really enjoyed to read – but I wouldn’t let myself do it as much as I liked – I was always too busy.

I was well into my 30s when I started a bookgroup with a friend. Having to read a book a month, for that, encouraged me to make more time for reading. I think the logic probably went something like this: “Reading a book for bookgroup isn’t self-indulgent because I’m answerable to other people.” But I began to feel resentful that everything I was reading was chosen by others (we take it in turns to choose a book) and so that prompted me to carve out more time so that I could read what I wanted to read too. 

My time was often constrained, especially when I started psychotherapy training alongside work – and transferred my ‘shoulds’ about productive behaviour to the self-expectation of reading books by therapy experts. But at least personal therapy, and psychotherapy training, helped me to recognise what a strong ‘Critical Parent’ lived in me – telling me what I ‘should’ be doing – and I gradually started to allow myself to trust my instincts into what I wanted – or needed – once more. 

In recent years, reading has become a form of self-care, and I feel more connected to that little Lucy who liked to escape from the real world with a book.

One of the things I’ve appreciated about lockdown is that I’ve been able to indulge (that word again!) that love, because there’s not so much than I can do (regardless of whether I want to or not), and because so much of my work is screen-based, that looking at a page instead is a way of looking after myself physically as well as mentally.

The experience of recently ramping up my book-reading has prompted me to reflect on how I experience emotional benefits from it.

How is reading a form of self-care?

1. It can ease symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression

Reading a book that you can lose yourself in gives you a break from life. I don’t generally advocate distraction as a technique for managing anxiety or depression, as it can shore up a habit that if there are feelings that are too uncomfortable to deal with, they get ignored or suppressed, and however that might feel comfortable in the moment, those feelings don’t go away; they just get stored up.

Having said that, if you get into cycles of overthinking, ruminating, feeling anxious and trying to think your way out of it, interrupting that cycle can be helpful. The fight or flight hormones (that are running through your body as a result of some part of you panicking that it needs to do something to keep safe by ‘fixing a problem’) get a chance to dissipate. That allows your breathing to steady, your blood pressure to drop, your muscles to relax; there’s a physical as well as mental and emotional benefit.

Note – I’m recommending a book you can ‘lose yourself in’, that will allow you to switch off, so preferably one unrelated to the situation you’re worrying about or trying to fix. I know only too well that when my imposter syndrome kicks in, and part of me believes I’m not a good-enough therapist, I feel a pull to read ‘professional stuff’ – about techniques, or presenting problems or theory. That kind of reading has its place – but not here.

This is about taking care of your whole self, not about fixing the problem your busy brain is worrying away at.

self care through reading Lucy Hyde counselling
Image: Thought Catalog on Unsplash

2. It helps you make connections

There’s nothing like being immersed in another world to help me develop my empathy for what someone else, with a completely different life experience from me, might be feeling. The process of doing this by reading is different from that of watching a film because the brain engages and involves itself in a different way – for example, reading about riding a bike activates the parts of the brain that would be involved in riding a bike.

Even if you’ve never left your country or particular area of the world, you can visit other places through books and build your understanding, and that will help you connect to others – virtual travel broadening your mind. If you want a further stretch then reading in another language from that of your mother tongue can also help you shift your perspective, because the way that different languages behave shapes the way that people think.

Obviously this has potential to benefit others – if you meet people from different places and with different backgrounds from you, you’ve developed your intuition and empathy to respond to them – but there is also a benefit to you, because of the emotional experience of connecting more deeply.

You might make connections to experiences too, perhaps to something you didn’t notice you were missing. For example, I’m often drawn to books that are embedded in the landscape or nature and reading them benefits me in at least two ways; firstly, I get something of that experience of actually being in the place described, of feeling that awe or wonder or amazement; and secondly that they remind me to notice my environment when I’m outside, often at quite a small scale – they prompt me to rediscover the world around me and to really notice where I am right now, grounding me.

3. It improves your communication skills, helping you be heard and understood

Reading develops your language skills because it introduces you to different ways of expressing things you may experience around you, and to new vocabulary. Many languages – and certainly English – have a huge vocabulary providing potential for saying one thing in a myriad of very subtly different ways.

This isn’t just about ‘sounding more intelligent’(although I have had situations in my life where wielding words has helped me level a power dynamic) but also about being understood. If you can express yourself in different ways, it gives you more options when talking about difficult subjects, or when asking for what you want in your important relationships, and this can make a real difference to your ability to be clear about communicating your needs, setting boundaries and for saying No gently.  

4. It can build and deepen relationships

As mentioned earlier, reading can be a way of connecting to others, but there’s another way that reading can develop relationships – through sharing your reading experience. That became important to me in the last few years when I moved away from the UK to live elsewhere for a while, and then, a year after returning, found myself in a different kind of isolation because of Covid 19 stay-at-home restrictions!

The book group I’ve been a part of for 15 years has been a precious lifeline over the last 4 – a steady mooring rooted in my diary when I’ve felt adrift and isolated. We’ve continued to meet and talk and argue and laugh via webcam when we haven’t been able to do it in person. (Obviously this would apply to many other types of groups as well as reading ones.)

Reading together with others has encouraged me to try and explore other worlds that I might not have done (even while complaining about being made to read about the real life drama of a college American football team, for example). It has given a focus away from the other struggles of life for a few hours a week. It has brought the joy of connecting through shared experience.

Our book group is the best in the world, which helps. Though I may be a bit biased.

5. It’s an overt message to yourself that you matter

Pausing to read a book is a commitment to yourself that you are important and deserve this time. It’s just not possible to read a book ‘busily’. (Actually, one member of my bookgroup, realising that they weren’t going to get the book finished on time, decided to listen to the audiobook at 4 x normal speed. They arrived at the meeting in a wide-eyed manic state having got quite a different sense of the book from the rest of us, and they didn’t recommend it as a relaxing activity.)

It’s one of the most common things I hear when friends say ‘Oh, I love reading, but I just don’t have the time’. I used to say it myself – especially while studying, when I would make time to read neuroscience tomes, but not to pick up a fantasy novel.

No one else is going to make that time for you. If you think you don’t have the time to read because that’s not ‘productive time’ – think again. Think of the longer-term benefits of allowing yourself to take a break, to do something that you enjoy, something that relaxes you, that slows you down.

6. It can teach you how to be healthier and happier

Personally, I very rarely read self-help books. Anything with a title that seems to be saying ‘This book will change your life’ is a definite turn-off (note to self: don’t title this blog ‘reading this will change your life’).

Having said that, I do read books to educate and ‘improve’ myself. Like many other white people, over the last year I’ve been reading more literature by Black authors on addressing my privilege and unconscious racism, and of course, that hasn’t been comfortable. But without building my tolerance to that discomfort, I can’t engage in the antiracist behaviour required to mend that disconnect between ‘thinking I’m a good person’ and ignoring the benefits I enjoy by living in a white-centred society – i.e. I see it as enabling me to become more true to who I think I am.

Lots of people find self-help books useful, either because of the practical steps that they introduce to doing things differently, or even because – as mentioned above – picking up a book that promises to improve your life sends a little message to yourself that you matter.

If you’re attracted to self-help books, but find that they don’t seem to bring the change that you want, it might be useful to reflect on whether the subconscious message you’re directing at yourself  is ‘you’re not good enough and need to change’ rather than ‘I want you to be happier because you’re important’. See if reframing this shifts the sort of book you want to read!

7. It can take you on a voyage of self-discovery

In another form of self-help, I believe books can help you become more understanding of yourself and more aware of what you need. If you have a strong reaction when you read a book, taking some time to reflect on this can lead to you learning more about yourself.

What is it in this book that triggered that anger, or feeling of being overwhelmed with love, or despair, or feeling a bit lost, or defensive? Did something about one of the characters speak to something in you? Was it a sense of affinity that you felt with a particular event?

I sometimes find that a book that I didn’t feel I was particularly enjoying at the time of reading can stay with me for days or even weeks afterward, returning to my mind as if there’s some kind of message there that it has for me. I can be prompted to notice something that I’ve let go in my life, that feels missing or that I need more of, by my reaction to what I read. Even if I can’t pin my finger on exactly what it’s about, spending a little bit of time alongside that part in me that responds strongly feels therapeutic, as if it’s meeting a need of something that wants attention.

Reading tastes are so personal, and what some people find therapeutic, others may feel is just too much hard work. Here’s 7 books that do it for me in different ways.

Reading as self care Lucy Hyde online therapy

1. The stress-buster: ‘The Bear and the Nightingale ‘ by Katherine Arden

A book (or series – the Winternight trilogy) that I really lose myself in, this story has the flavour of a Russian folk tale, with a very strong young female main character – who is only too aware of her own vulnerability. A fantastic illustration of resilience, set in a wonderful magic realist sweeping fantasy.

2. The connection-builder: ‘The Shadow King ‘ by Maaza Mengiste

A book that has stuck with me long after reading, this novel is set during the real life events of the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia in 1935, and tells the story of the women who fought in that war. It pushed me to read more about Ethiopian history as I realised how little I knew of one of the world’s oldest civilisations, and how much my perceptions of a country had been influenced by growing up in the 80s amidst white Western media depictions of famine victims.  

Reading as self care Lucy Hyde online counsellor

3. The language-developer: ‘Growth of the Soil ‘ by Knut Hamsun

One of my all-time favourites…….a novel, but also a poem to the land, and humans’ relationship to it. Every time I read this book I’m reminded of what it is to be human, and how imaginary and transient many of my worries, fixations and anxieties are. Books like this give me a way to talk about and develop my understanding of what really matters to me at my core. This book is an antidote to social media life of the 21st century.

4. The great book group read: ‘Girl, Woman, Other ‘ by Bernardine Evaristo

This was almost unanimously popular (an unusual occurrence!) in my book group. Evaristo manages to succinctly capture on paper so many different lives, of mostly – though not entirely – Black British women. For me this was a fantastic combination of entertainment and exposure to lives different from mine, but also, in sharing our responses to the characters, and which ones we loved, a great book group read. 

Self care via reading Lucy Hyde counselling

5. The pure enjoyment gift-to-self: ‘The City We Became ‘ by NK Jemisin

For escaping into new worlds, NK Jemisin, a science fiction / fantasy writer I’ve only recently discovered, takes some beating. (As a Black woman, she also challenges stereotypes of what a sci-fi writer ‘looks like’.) This book is set in a New York that is – and isn’t – just like the real one, and as well as having some full-on sci-fi concepts that take some bending your head around, is chock-full of strong female characters.

6. The self-help aid: ‘Rewild Yourself ‘ by Simon Barnes

The closest I’ve got to self-help recently, Rewilding Yourself is a gentle book that brings you closer to nature. In a year when taking cruises to Alaska to see arctic wildlife hasn’t been an option (even for those who can bear to burn the fossil fuel to do it), this little book is a great introduction to becoming a small-scale David Attenborough in your own back garden or field.

self care with books Lucy Hyde therapy

7. The self-discovery tale: ‘The Left Hand of Darkness ‘ by Ursula Le Guin

Le Guin was an amazing writer – her Young Adult Earthsea books were a part of my growing up – and I recently discovered her adult fiction. I never read one of her books without being given pause for thought – about the assumptions we make about what is ‘normal’ or ‘real’ based on our experience, environment and upbringing. She deals with philosophical questions with a light touch. The Left Hand of Darkness – written in the 1960s – challenges concepts of sexuality and gender with a delicacy that is impressive 50 years later.

Finally…………………

If you think you don’t like reading – perhaps you just need to give yourself more of a chance. Start with something that fills your soul. Read a love story, or a children’s book. A graphic novel (I’ve just finished the fantastic ‘Persepolis ’ by Marjane Satrapi, which tells her early life story, as a girl growing up in the Iran of the 1970s and 80s). When I need the reading equivalent of curling up under a blanket and hiding from the world, I read Joan Aiken’s children’s books, even now. Reading takes practice – but the rewards are so worth it!

It’s cheap, too, especially if you’ve got a library that is operational at the moment, or by making use of charity shops, or Betterworldbooks – although it’s also great to support authors by paying full whack for their labour, when you can afford it.

Of course, reading isn’t the only way of taking care of yourself!  But it sure has benefits that can include learning more about yourself, giving yourself a break, connecting to others and building relationships.

If you’re a reader who struggles to prioritise time to read as much as you’d really really like to, I hope reading this may have helped you to recognise the longer-term benefits of doing what you love.

I’d love to hear what reading means to you, if you feel reading has a therapeutic benefit, and whether there are particular books you return to again and again.

And if reading isn’t enough, and you feel you could benefit from learning more about yourself through talking to someone, please get in touch here.

Books and wellbeing Lucy Hyde counsellor

References and further reading:

Reading V television

When I read in another language

Which language has the most words?

Listening to your inner child

Lucy Hyde on 4 February 2020

When is it OK for a therapist to talk about their pants? The answer is (I hope ?) right now!

Putting on my therapy pants!

My training was in Transactional Analysis. The ‘transaction’ is any interaction with another person, and one of the aspects that we ‘analyse’ is what ego state someone is in when they are interacting with someone else.

Too  much jargon? Sorry. But ‘ego states’ is really shorthand for describing a way of being that is related to past experiences – and I love this model because it’s really easy to understand.

nner child - Parent Adult Child model
Eric Berne’s ego state model (1961)

There are three ego states – Parent, Adult and Child. When you’re in Adult, you’re operating in the here and now; it’s a useful state for problem-solving and for managing day-to-day concerns.

Your Parent ego state is influenced by messages from your parents and other care-givers or important authority figures in your life. It’s the voice in your head that says “Don’t speak with your mouth full”, “Always put others before yourself” – and various other instructions and accepted wisdoms for getting on in life. Many of these help you get on and be accepted in society, but this voice can tip over into criticism and an internal voice that tells you you’re only OK if you’re keeping people happy, for example.

Your Parent can be nurturing as well, with messages like “You’ve overdone it this week, you’ll get overwhelmed if you see too many people” that can help you take care of yourself – but that can also tip over into “Don’t run! Don’t do anything spontaneous!”

Therapy - mother daughter relationship (Image 5540867 from Pixabay)
Image 5540867 from Pixabay

Then your Child. Your Child often adapts to the Parent by responding to critical messages, and sometimes rebels by behaving badly, for example eating or drinking too much.

But you also have a Free Child somewhere in there. And this is the part that gets excited when it snows………..or enjoys swimming in the sea……or doing some kind of fun or joyful activity. For some people, this little guy doesn’t often get a look-in. It has its roots in a very young you, before all that conditioning and learning how to behave, and its focus  is itself and what it wants. Selfish in a completely natural and positive way, it’s a vital part of your wellbeing!

Therapy for your inner child (image Amber Clay from Pixabay)
Image Amber Clay from Pixabay

“So what’s all this about your pants?”

(said nobody, as they’re relieved I’ve got off the topic).

WELL, I was reminded of the simple Parent Adult Child model the other day when I needed to buy some undies (long overdue because I hate shopping except when it’s for food). My internal conversation when I got into M&S went something like this:

? I need new pants. (Adult)

Which ones do I normally get?

? You won’t be able to bring them back. (Parent)

? Oh dear, I’d better make the right choice. (Adapted Child)

Why do they have to change anything ever? This is too hard!

? Look at these red stripey ones! (Free Child)

? These ones look right. But where are they made? Have they got plastic in them? (Adapted Child)

? Perhaps I should try and get ones that are comfortable for rowing in. (Nurturing Parent)

? I’d better get it right or it’s a waste of money if I can’t return them. (Adapted Child/Critical Parent)

? Why don’t I try them on, there’s a fitting room just here. (Adult)

? OK, so which are the most ethical and also comfortable and right for every possible occasion? (Parent)

? Look at the stripey ones! I WANT THE STRIPEY ONES! (Free Child)

Guess what? I bought the stripey ones. A daft illustration perhaps, but it gives a sense of how we can move between ego states from moment to moment – and it also shows how each state has their role to play.

Lucy Hyde therapist - inner child (Image Kalahari from Pixabay)
Image Kalahari from Pixabay

People often assume when they first learn about this model that they should be in Adult all of the time. We’re adults, right? But actually, the reality is that our Adult is often contaminated by the Parent or Child getting in on the act and having a little battle with each other out of awareness. If you find yourself using the word ‘should’, there’s a good chance that you’re in Parent mode.

Counselling - father and son relationship (image Lorraine Cormier from Pixabay)
Image Lorraine Cormier from Pixabay

In the dialogue above, the Parent was, at least some of the time, concerned that I was going to be comfy in my new pants. That would certainly have been my mum’s driving message when she was buying pants for me when I was little, which I guess equates to ‘be sensible’ in my head.

The Free Child was reminding me that joy in simple things – red stripes in this case – is OK.

So it’s not so much about it not being OK to be in our Parent or Child ego state, but it can be really helpful to increase our awareness of when we are being influenced by them – whether our response to something is based on the here and now or whether we’re being swayed by messages from our family history, or by beliefs of what keeps us safe from the imperfect logic we used to make sense of things in childhood.

One of my supervisors used to ask me – when I was feeling uncomfortable or unsettled about a choice I had to make “Are you making this decision from your Adult?” And that was really useful, because it would help me see that sometimes my decision-making was being influenced by a Parent-Child battle between ‘shoulds’ and beliefs of what I thought would ‘help people to like me’.  

Much of the work of therapy is often about integrating these ego states into our Adult so that they can bring their own wisdom, experience and sense of fun into our day to day experiencing. When I’m working with clients, I’ll sometimes suggest that they pay attention to what’s going on in their body, as often this can tell us something about what their Child is wanting, or is afraid of.

And every day when I get dressed I smile when I pull out a pair of stripey pants. ???

Lucy Hyde counsellor - inner child (image Dara Nilrothanak from Pixabay)
Image Dara Nilrothanak from Pixabay

Reference: Berne, E. Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy. New York, Grove Press 1961.

Changing behaviours – what I learned (part 2)

Lucy Hyde on 21 August 2019

Part 2: How to make changes

In the first part of this blog I talked about setting myself a challenge of using my bike every day for a week, in order to change my ‘transport habits’, and what I learned from that experiment. Now I’m going to explore what makes changing behaviour hard, and offer some tips that might help.

Why is it difficult to change behaviours?

Negative motivation: Take a moment to consider your own process when you plan to change something. Do you focus on the benefits? Or are there lots of ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ that come into play? Usually when I think about doing things differently, it goes something like “I shouldn’t be doing X” or “I need to be better at Y” and there’s quite a punitive quality about it.

How can I change my habits? - East Lothian counselling

As an article by David DiSalvo says “Negative emotion may trigger us to think about everything we’re not doing, or feel like we’re doing wrong, but it’s horrible fuel for making changes that stick.” We need to find positive reasons to want to make the change rather than chasing ourselves with a big stick.

Oversized targets: Another problem is that we often set our aims unrealistically high or have huge but vague targets. The classic one is gym membership – forking out hundreds of pounds in an effort to shame or punish ourselves into getting more exercise or getting fit. 3 spinning classes in the first week after New Year, yeah! we feel great with how well we’re doing – then something happens that interrupts that momentum, we have a week off and then beat ourselves up for failing at ‘change’.

How can I change my habits? - East Lothian therapy

It becomes an all-or-nothing belief, and as ‘all’ is an unfeasibly large goal we pretty soon end up with nothing. The smaller the steps, the better, when it comes to making changes, because even small steps move you forward; there’s a better chance of small changes sticking; and ‘mony a mickle maks a muckle’ (translation for non-Scots: lots of little things add up to big things).

How can I change my habits? - counselling online

Life challenges: Let’s not ignore that there may be additional factors which we have no control over. Changing to a healthier lifestyle when you’re a lone parent struggling to make ends meet and are trying to hold down 3 jobs, or when you grew up in poverty and neglect, or when you’ve survived civil war and have arrived in the UK and are fighting for your right to stay…….the odds are stacked against you. The impact of the environment you’re in is sometimes ignored in the individual-centred world of psychotherapy. It’s important not to discount the role that society and inequality play in our having control over our lives.

Habits: We tend to think we can ‘just make’ a change – mind over matter, perhaps – rather than thinking about the factors that support that change or prevent it. Remember what I said in the first part of this blog about my biggest learning being to make it easy? We are creatures of routine and habit, so no matter how firm our intentions are, once we slip into the daily routine it’s difficult to remember those intentions.

How can I change my habits? - online therapy

This is where planning and using reminders or alarms come in. Telling people what we’re doing and asking for their support can help too – rather than trying to do it all alone in the hope that we can then suddenly explode like a new-born butterfly in all our radiant changedness.

Stages of change

Prochaska and DiClemente introduced the Stages of Change Model in the 1970s to help understanding of what happens during the process of change. The model splits change into six stages:

  • Stage 1: Precontemplation. At this point I am in denial about there being a problem, or about believing that I have control over my behaviour; “this is just how things are”. Sometimes people come to therapy at this point because they know something needs to change but they’re not sure what.
  • Stage 2: Contemplation. I’m aware that there are benefits to making a change – but I’m also aware of the costs, so I have conflicted emotions about changing. In order to gain the benefits, be they physical or emotional, something will need to be given up, and this in itself can mean that this stage lasts for a long time.
  • Stage 3: Preparation. I’m experimenting with doing things differently in small ways and gathering information about what I need in order to make the change. For change to be successful, this stage needs to be given time in order to find or build supports and decide on specific goals before throwing yourself into action.
How can I change my habits? - online therapis
  • Stage 4:  Action. I start direct action towards my goal. But did I spend enough time contemplating the change and preparing for it? Any positive steps taken at this point need to be reinforced by congratulation and reward to maintain the movement towards lasting change.
  • Stage 5: Maintenance. Having made changes, I’m avoiding reverting to former patterns of behaviour and continuing to reward myself for keeping up new ones. This stage takes time, and will be interwoven with…..
  • Stage 6: Relapse. Inevitably, I’m only human, and I relapse into previous behaviour. I’m pissed off and disappointed with myself. The key with relapse is to accept that it is inevitable and to use it to learn for next time – what triggered the relapse? What might help manage this trigger in future? This is a good opportunity to return to the preparation stage, especially if this was rushed through.

Is now the right time to make a change?

I’m very aware that it was relatively easy for me to try something different when I did; my circumstances at that time meant that I had some time to play around with – and so the last thing I want is for this to sound like I’m implying that changing behaviour is easy, or even that I’m particularly good at it! Context made it possible.

How can I change my habits? - phone counselling

So it’s important to notice what may be going on around you that makes changing behaviour difficult – environment, friends, a challenging personal situation, poverty. That’s part of the precontemplation and contemplation stages.

But it’s also important to be aware that there is never going to be a ‘perfect’ time to change behaviour. Perhaps you can look at the reality of the behavioural change that you want to make and see if it can be broken down into smaller, more achievable – more affordable, simpler, whatever – chunks. Preparation. Then do it – and remember that relapse is part of the deal.

Ten tips to help you make and maintain a behavioural change

1. Set small and specific goals
Tips to behavioural change - Lucy Hyde online therapist

Notice I say SMALL and specific. What’s small for one person may not be for another. My goal of using my bike every day was achievable for me that week because of circumstances. “I’m going to get more exercise” isn’t specific…… but rather than “I’m going to walk to and from work every day” you could start with “I’m going to get off the bus 5 minutes early and walk the rest of the way 3 times a week”.

2. Accept that you will relapse

Hold this in mind right at the start.

Tips to behavioural change - Lucy Hyde online counsellor

Being aware that, at some point, you will have a relapse in behaviour will enable you to be more forgiving of yourself when this happens, instead of thinking “I’m useless at this, I knew I’d never be able to do it”. Relapses help you learn what you could do differently next time.

3. Set times to review

Do you need to change the goals?

Tips to behavioural change - Lucy Hyde counsellor in Edinburgh

Make an appointment with yourself at the end of each week to check how you’ve done, and to notice what has been difficult. Maybe your goal was too big and you need to scale it down; succeeding with a small goal is more motivating than failing with a big one. You can always raise the bar later.

4. Consider how you’ll reward yourself
Tips to behavioural change - Lucy Hyde counsellor in East Lothian

Positive motivation for change is more successful than beating yourself up for failure, as mentioned earlier. Think of a reward that you’ll enjoy but that won’t conflict with your goals (i.e. don’t give yourself a junk food reward for eating healthily!) – buy yourself the book you wanted, go and see a film.

Make rewards part of your plan.

5. Plan and prepare
Tips to behavioural change - Lucy Hyde counselling in East Lothian

You might be seized with enthusiasm once you’ve decided to make a change, but planning and preparation give you the best opportunity to succeed, just like they do with DIY tasks!

What resources do you need to make this change? Who or what might support you? And what might get in your way – be obstacles or triggers? Is there anyone you need to avoid?

Take time to think about where you can look for help.

6. Accept that changing behaviour is hard!
Tips to behavioural change - Lucy Hyde therapy online

Most of us live by routines and habits – it’s normal and it makes life work because you don’t have to think about everything you do. But it means that we become wired to do things in a particular way, and that takes time to change.

When you notice what hasn’t gone well, try and catch yourself and reflect on a positive – rather than saying “I had an unhealthy snack two days this week” switch it to “I managed five days this week where I didn’t have an unhealthy snack”. 

7. Track and review your progress
Tips to behavioural change - counselling Lucy Hyde

Keep a journal, or a food diary, or use an app on your phone. It can help to express your frustrations, and keeping track of the positives will help you recover when things aren’t going so well.

8. Ask for support
Tips to behavioural change - counselling East Lothian

Remember you don’t have to do this alone!

Perhaps there’s someone else who might be interested in working towards the same goal and you could buddy up together. Or someone you know who might have skills or advice to offer. You might get in touch with a therapist if you need help understanding why you’re finding it difficult to make a change.

At the very least, sharing what you’re working towards means that your friend or partner can help, by encouraging you and giving you feedback when things are going well.

9. Reward yourself. ALWAYS.
Tips to behavioural change - East Lothian therapist

DON’T SKIP THE REWARDS!

If you’ve done well, take a moment to pat yourself on the back and acknowledge the achievement, even if it feels uncomfortable.

10. Be compassionate with yourself
Tips to behavioural change - Lucy Hyde therapy

Don’t make it harder than it already is. Think of how you might support someone else who is trying to change their behaviour.

Can you offer that support to yourself?

What am I doing differently since ‘The Bike Challenge’?

Today, as I write this blog, is the first day I’ve got clients in the new room that I’ve rented in Edinburgh, and I’m cycling in. I chose this room over another because of its proximity to good cycle routes avoiding busy roads – even though it’s further from a handy bus stop (Make It easy). I know I’ll be tired when I leave to come home, but I’m hoping I’ll appreciate a different experience from my usual bus ride (Don’t compare apples and pears). It’s raining right now but I’ve got a change of clothing and I’ve packed some calories to make sure I’ve got sufficient energy both for my clients and for the cycle home. And I’ve looked out the bike lights – which I may need to elastic-band to my handlebars (Don’t do this at home, kids) in case it’s dark when I return (Plan and prepare).

(NB: I wrote this over a month ago. As I publish it today, I can look back at a month’s worth of Wednesday cycles where I’ve enjoyed the processing time on the ride home after seeing clients.)

Tips to changing habits - counselling in East Lothian

I’m not using my bike every day. I need more practice to really embed it as part of my routine and I’m mindful that my attitude may change when winter weather arrives. But I’m incorporating cycling more into my professional decisions – like the room hire, or arranging meetings – and I’m now using it as a mode of transport more than the bus, which is a definite shift. Every time I use my bike to run a quick errand it gives me a little lift. So I’m pretty happy; and I’m going to reward myself with a new set of pedals, because those pesky toe clips still don’t fit properly!

I’ve included some links to other resources below. If there’s a change you’re wanting to make in your behaviour, and you’re finding it difficult to get started, please get in touch with me. There are many factors that contribute to the habits that we find ourselves in, and you may find it useful to explore what these factors may be, for you, in therapy. 

How to change your patterns of behaviour - Lucy Hyde therapy

References & resources

How to change behaviour

Stages of Change model

Why changing behaviour is hard

Social & societal factors in behavioural change