Instant Inspiration
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Gael's Latest Newsletter
June is almost here. But would you believe it! I am looking out at threatening grey clouds and trees blowing wildly in decidedly chilly winds. 
Inwardly, I can sense disappointment and resentment welling up. Summoning up all my psychological might I try to force them back down. I know this surge of negative emotion has the power to suffocate my motivation and I truly want to embrace and enjoy my life here in London. So I try to focus my attention back onto the screen of my computer. But my mind’s eye won’t let me. It constantly confronts me with images of the bright blue skies, golden sands and bustling outdoor social life of the place where I spend the other half of my life on the Costa de La Luz in southern Spain.
Now, my feelings turn to anger .. . anger at myself. A familiar inner voice is now shouting in my head:
“Stop moaning …. get on with it….snap out of it .. you’re lucky to have two homes …. some people never get to walk on a beach ever …. you’re acting like a spoilt brat… the grass is always greener on the other side for you ….where’s your gratitude and appreciation for what you’ve got.”
Phew! At last the penny drops. This kind of self-talk is one of the warning signals I teach people in anger training sessions so I recognise it immediately. Now I know what I need to do!
I must stop trying to ignore and fight back at my troublesome feelings. Instead, I must deal positively and constructively with them. I must acknowledge and express my disappointment and anger with this dreary summer weather. Even more importantly I need to do the same for my sense of loss at missing my friends and my home in Spain.  I will do this by taking a short break and applying some emotional healing treatment to myself. After doing this I know that the self-sabotage will stop and my black mood will quickly lift.
So why after all these years am I still prone to these attacks from my negative inner demons?
The simple answer is: “…. because I am just as human as anyone else!”
I am not blessed with any supernatural power that can stop my auto-emotional system from producing bad feelings at inconvenient times. Neither can I stop my brain scanning my unconscious mind to find matching negative beliefs, attitudes and thoughts and force them into my consciousness. These emotional responses were hard-wired into my brain by experiences as a young child and unless I sign up for a total brainwash I am stuck with them.
But what can I do once I realise the black clouds have triggered my negative default response to disappointment and loss?
Firstly, I can use learned relaxation and visualisation techniques to switch off my auto-pilot response. Secondly, I can then move into the driving seat of my emotional system myself. Because I have now known so much about effective emotional healing, I can confidently drive myself along a more positive road to recovery. It is no longer inevitable that I will descend downwards into one of those dark depressive moods that plagued my early adulthood.
This knowledge about how to manage emotional hurt has transformed my life. I have become an essentially happy person instead of being someone who is at heart sad, pessimistic and laden with stress and anger. Because I am a therapist by trade I have been able to help many hundreds of others transform themselves as well. In my new book, ‘The Emotional Healing Strategy’ (published on June 5th by Penguin). I show how, by taking 5 or 7 simple steps, you can heal from not just the little everyday emotional disappointments and losses, but also recover from much more major emotional setbacks such as divorce, redundancy and bereavement.
If you would like to hear the more sophisticated answer to the question of why I had problems with emotional healing myself, take a look at this article about my life and ‘The Emotional Healing Strategy’ in The Sunday Mail’s YOU magazine ( May 25th 2008 issue).
To see the early reviews of 'The Emotional Healing Strategy' click here.
To order a copy of ‘The Emotional Healing Strategy’ click here.
…and to see those blue skies of the Costa de La Luz yourself, why not treat yourself to one of my week-end Reflect and Recharge courses.
Have an enjoyable Summer wherever you are
Gael
Podcasts
The Psychological Workout series of podcasts
The following 3 Podcasts were originally made as tapes. Gael has had many, many requests over the last few years for these to be recorded onto CDs. Now she has taken an even more progressive leap forward and had them re-recorded so that you can listen on your computer or ipod.
Each podcast is a psychological workout so you will find that there are interactive exericises. This will ensure that you will be actively involved as you listen. This interaction will make your learning much more effective. They can be used over and over again to give yourself a boost when you are going through a difficult patch or have some daunting challenge to face.
As they were originally made as tapes, you will sometimes hear Gael refer to side one (the first half of the podcast) and side two (the second half).
Do you need help with improving self confidence?
The Super Confidence Workout
Podcast length: 62mins | Download size: 45mb
This podcast will help you to learn about the 8 specific components of Super Confidence. You will be helped to develop these by doing some Affirmation exercises.
In the second half of the podcast you will be talked through a powerful creative visualisation. This particular exercise has already given many hundreds of people confidence boosts and helped them perform better in a whole variety of situations. You can play it the night before any challenging event such as giving a presentation, doing an exam, attending an interview or having a nerve-racking but essential conversation either at work or in your personal life.
You can purchase The Super Confidence Workout podcast for just £5 by clicking on the button below:
Do you need help with anger management?
The Anger Control Workout
Podcast length: 65mins | Download size: 45mb
This is a psychological workout to help you control anger and use your frustration positively. The first half is a programme of interactive exercises to help you feel and express justified anger in a way which does not harm yourself or others. It will be very beneficial to anyone who gets depressed due their repressed anger.There are guidelines on how to recognise and anger management techiniques which will help you to replace aggressive and passive styles of expressing your frustration and anger.
The second half of the podcast (side 2 of the original tape) will prepare you for any situation where you think you may become angry. It will help you to keep your feelings under control, diffuse tension and use the energy of your anger constructively.
In its life as a tape many hundreds of people were helped by this workout. Some had problems expressing their anger and would just swallow their feelings. So it proved very helpful to people who tended to become depressed or physically tense and ill as a result.
Others who have had anger issues such as expressing their anger too readily or too aggressively, have also found this tape very beneficial. This anger audio was used extensively by the prison service and Gael has had many letters of thanks from prisoners who had previously found it hard controlling anger.
You can purchase this anger management programme for just £5 by clicking on the button below:
Do you want an extra boost of optimism and positive thinking to get you motivated?
The Positive Power Workout
Podcast length: 77mins | Download size: 52mb
This is a psychological workout to beat the blues. It has been particularly helpful to people who are prone to depression. It has also proved to be very helpful to others who are normally quite upbeat but have become stuck in a negative thinking rut as a result of a difficult setback. So it is an ideal programme for someone who, for example, has become dispirited because they have had an overly long search for a new job or a new partner in love.
Research has shown that you are much more likely to find what you are looking for if you think positively. But sometimes this is hard to do when you have had repeated failures or are very anxious. You can use the last half of this podast as a mind and mood re-programmer. You will be taken into a state of deep relaxation and then you will listen to a stream of uplifting and inspirational quotes.
You can purchase The Positive Power Workout podcast for just £5 by clicking on the button below:
Free Confident Networking Podcasts
Gael, together with her husband Stuart made a series of 10 minute podcasts for the pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca who have kindly given us permission to make these publicly available. They can be downloaded free of charge. The first two feature Gael and the third features Stuart who is the co-author of 'Confident Networking'.
Click on the links below to play a podcast, or right-click on a link to download (select 'save target as'):
 What is Networking?
Networking in Action
The Expert Networker
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