I was going to write about why we associate Robins with Christmas.

Instead.

I've just added executive function teacher 🧠to my resilience-bolstering portfolio. Executive functions encompass a range of cognitive processes responsible for managing and controlling various mental tasks, including planning, organising, initiating tasks, managing time, shifting between activities, and regulating emotions. Strengthening executive functions can boost your capacity to tackle intricate tasks and make sound decisions. 

Here’s a tip ⬇️

Break Tasks into Smaller Steps:

Break down complex tasks into smaller, more manageable steps. This helps you organise your thoughts and makes the overall task less overwhelming.

If you’re looking for a clearer mind roadmap and less overwhelm, stress, and brain fog, I’ve got lots more executive function brain training tips, which I’ll share in these Friday updates.

Meanwhile, enjoy this week’s:

📓Random Diablogs from Random Dialoguists

⚡How To Get The Most Out of Therapy by Mia Price at Actualise

We all have stuff at our core that’s holding us back that we’re not consciously aware of, but conscious exploration of that stuff is what will make the world a better place for yourself but also everyone around you.

I’ve found this works especially well:

• Do the groundwork before your therapy sessions 

• Take them half-opened “pandoras boxes” (subconscious patterns/loops) .. they can help you close them 🔁 

• It’s really nice! 

What do you mean?

The negative emotions you experience are emotional patterns, that stem from subconscious thought loops, that have emerged from a point in or over time through which they were established and enforced, either by intensity or repetition.

• Now your subconscious has lodged this lesson in place and the negative emotion that arises from it.

• Then imagine you’re subconscious won’t tell you what they are because it thinks if you were to experience it consciously it would be “fatal”, thus “they’re unconscious” patterns -  you can’t blame the subconscious, it’s job is to protect you.

• Obviously, the subconscious isn’t an entity with wants, nor would it really be fatal if you could actually dig up the root cause of these unconscious patterns 

• on the contrary!!

How (The Practical Bit)

Sit in a quiet place by yourself, have your eyes open or closed but do nothing. Just be. 

Observe what stuff comes to the surface (feelings/thoughts), over time you’ll learn to recognise the stuff, then explore that stuff by asking questions. Have a dialogue with yourself, create two reference points so that thinking (the bouncing back and forth of ideas) takes place and conclusions/realisations can be reached.

Note down what comes up and the thinking that surrounds it. Don’t force yourself to close the loop or resolve it - that’ll just create unnecessary resistance.

Simply take those trains of thought with you to your therapy sessions so you can explore them with your therapist and hopefully rationalise/close the loop/pattern for good 😊 then repeat.

⚡️Mushrooms As Medicine and Nutrition - How to Grow Younger Series Part 7 by Yvette Masure | Health is Wealth 🌱

I heard myself saying to a friend “Everything can change for the better, in a breath!”

Somewhat shocked at myself, I wrote it down,  to share, and consider for myself too.

Is it true? Can it be? 

I do avoid endless ‘positive’ banter ‘ in the main. I like a good ‘chew’ on topics. Though a philosopher at heart. 

But it is. 

Everything seems to depend on the dynamics we share, and also what we hold in our thoughts. We are inter-related and self-perpetuating, at the same time. So what is a breath? 

A good out-breath and ‘moan’ goes a long way, yes, perhaps. A release of sorts one could say. Yes. However a deep breath, mindfully performed, really does go further. 

Yes. We need to get through the long darker Winter days ahead now. Personally, I love the silhouetted treescapes, each tree so individual in its nakedness. Though not so keen on the grey, wet or indeed cold. 

Fresh blue mornings however are one of the joys of Winter, for me, I now find. After years of living in more tropical climes. 

Four seasons are such a plus! 

It must be said.

Yes it’s true.

We can change any thought, and consequently feeling, that we have, with a concentrated breath, long and deep. 

Sounds too easy. 

It’s not. It’s a fact. 

It also helps us live longer in as much as we exercise our diaphragm: the largest muscle in our body. 

It expands and contracts as we breathe deeply in and out and massages our internal organs. 

The lungs and heart above it, the liver, stomach, and spleen beneath..and the frequency travels to all the organs therein. 

An internal self-massage. From a conscious, mindful, breathful. No less! 

Breathe from your guts below the navel, up through the diaphragm, up to your head, from deep in your mind’s eye too. Then exhale with your mind’s eye travelling down to the bottom of your feet.

Connect yourself to Earth. 

It calms and invigorates the mind, and body. And it’s free. 

Connect with Mother Earth: always there for us to walk upon. Remember that. Breathing with awareness is a respect for life itself.

Just a moment..a breath…can change a life. 

Yes, let’s grow younger.

Revitalise yourself. 

Thank you for your comments.

We are now also writing on LinkedIn and Instagram.

🍄💚🌱

Breath. Live. Life.💚🌱

#Wabisabi🙏

⚡What Do We Know… | Seeing The Way with Ian Moncrieff MacMillan | 👀

We squeeze creativity out of kids by educating them about the past, the known, but not to wonder about the unknown, the curious, the "this doesn't make sense"...

And the truly gifted who somehow notice the gaps where something is missing.

Facts and figures and logical deductions are all useful, but everything gets jumbled up when we discover it makes more sense that space is curved and that time doesn't run at the same speed everywhere...nor do we even know what gravity is, though we can feel it and measure it.

⚡️The Artist Living in the Shadows | Jason 🎨

The great thing about a Christmas party for the self-employed is that you don’t have to buy anyone else a drink.

🔚And Finally

🎣And a Bit More Finally

Any thoughts on a caption? “Express YourElf?”

Until next Friday at 6:08 am (ish).

Thanks as always for your contributions.

Jane ❤️
what’s the topic, issue or subject that you feel passionate about and want to share?

🎫Events

• Tuesday 9th January 10am to noon - 🐝Guildford Buzz » BOOK

• Wednesday 10th January, 8 pm to 9 pm 📣Random Dialogues #25 online 6 speakers, 6 minutes each, 60 minutes. INFO

• Saturday 13th January 4.30pm to 5.30pm - 💥January Energiser at Burpham Yurt 5 SPACES LEFT

• Monday 15th January, 8.30 pm to 8.48 pm 🎨FREE Canva for Beginners on Zoom » CREATE WITH ME

• Energiser Hours » HERE

With thanks to Laura Cavaliere for this lovely shout out ❤️

And to Ian for sending me a book: “Think Like A Genius” by Todd Siler - to notice what's missing, and imagine what could be.