Monthly Archives: January 2015

The Spiral Stair

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Advanced Reset technique, Simple Reset for Adults

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When you want to institute a change in your life by changing your behavior, whether it is by actively taking something away, (i.e. less eating, less drinking, less time online), or by adding something, (more time at the gym, practicing meditation), an optimist’s perception, (“it’ll be no problem”), is represented by the following picture.

You just take the first step, and then climb ‘away’ from the initial starting point of your decision, until you you have moved far away from where you began.

For many people the optimist’s stairs lead to disappointment, as there is no way to understand the phenomena of ‘backsliding’, except as return to the beginning.

This next picture represents the way people who struggle to hold onto a change may experience life, as a set of steps that always return to the same point.

Climbing these stairs can bring feelings of cynicism, resentment, impotency, anxiety, paralysis, and the development of a pessimist’s attitude (“it’ll never work”) towards self change.

The final picture represents a third way of looking at life, as a set of stairs that spiral around a central point. The central axis in this set of stairs represents the central, ‘given’ aspects of a person’s character that are always there, no matter how far one may climb. On these stairs you are always you, just ‘further along’.

Setbacks, backsliding, and re-starts should be viewed as part of the process of solidifying change, and if you treat yourself with compassion in those moments of ‘not again…’, you will make it less difficult to take another step on the stairs. This is the realist’s attitude towards self-change.

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You won’t, without will

17 Saturday Jan 2015

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When you make the decision that you want to introduce something new that is ‘good for you’ into your life – will you be able to follow through? Your intent will work as the instigator of the process; but you’ll still need a method to help you integrate the new activity, to carry through and make real what has started as ‘just an idea’.

heavenJust because something may be good for you, like a particular diet, a fitness plan, a school course, or a stress reduction technique like the Simple Reset, does not mean that you will find a way to actually include it in your life.

Perceived value may have brought you to the initial decision to try something new, but the energy to carry on in this new direction is not a given, no matter how much you know that it would be good for you.

Though willpower is often thought of as an enviable psychological trait rooted in the invisible world of your mind, recent studies have shown it is governed by similar energetic processes that power your body’s other systems.

Early in the day, with proper rest, and nutrition, the maximum amount of your willpower will be available to you. However, as your day continues, and especially if you have made many decisions that involve compromises between ‘wants’, (i.e. I was nice to my friend/co-worker, though I really wanted to be angry, or, I didn’t take a second cookie at lunch), your willpower reserve drains like the energy in a battery.

Each time you made a choice or compromise of some sort during the day is the same as a ‘use’ of your battery. The more decisions, no matter how small, the more the battery drains.

A normally stressed day for most people sends them home with very little willpower left to concentrate on something new, like a meditation practice, a book, or a new eating regimen. This is why diets invariably fail at night, and the bag of snacks that you easily walk past at six, ends up in your hands at ten.

An interesting ‘trick’ to manage the inevitable drain of the willpower reserve, is to take the ‘decision’ making out of the daily process. Schedule your new activity at a time when you have willpower.

Want to practice a short, 3-minute stress reduction technique? Program your phone’s alarm to ring at a certain time during the day, and schedule your daily calendar so that you’ll be free at that time. The best times would be early in the day, immediately after coffee break or at the end of lunch.

If you wait till you ‘feel like it’, or until you ‘have time’, then you must rely on having enough willpower to make and hold onto the choice in the face of all distractions.

One time daily is enough to begin to build a lifetime health practice like the Simple Reset. Don’t wait till you have the time, till the evening, till all else is taken care of. Schedule it.

mountainFurther reading: Baumeister, R., & Tierney, J. (2011) Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. New York: Penguin Press.

As if, until actually.

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Thinking Self Defense for Adults

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signWant to learn an effective shortcut to making a lasting change in your self, your beliefs, behaviors, and the perceptions others have of you?

The traditional method involves an honest introspection of who you are and how you want to be different. Using this method, eventually the ‘outside’ you matches your inside attitudes and beliefs as you manage to change yourself, and eventually others will begin perceive you as you truly ‘are’. As an example, once you stop feeling shy, you will no longer appear shy to others, and they will treat you as though you are confident. This way can be described as ‘from the inside, out’.

The shortcut method involves acting on the outside the way you want to perceive yourself on the inside. Moving confidently leads to others reacting to you as if you were confident, leading to confidence. This way can be described as from ‘the outside, in’.

The outside in method is particularly effective when used to change how one communicates through body language and movement.

A six-week course in how to walk as though you shouldn’t be messed with has been shown to have a longer lasting effect on predator’s perceptions of vulnerability in potential victims than a six-week course in self-defense. (Book, Costello and Camiller 2013)

This maybe is because a six week course in self defense is not of long enough duration to change a person’s deep perceptions of their own ability to defend themselves, where as just learning to change one’s walking style doesn’t require a fundamental change in who one thinks they are.

You walk ‘as if’, not as ‘really are’.

In the following short clip a group of students are practicing stride lengthening in our Thinking Self Defense training.

Walk this way

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Thinking Self Defense for Adults

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streetLike the hunting lions described in our previous post, There are Lions out there, human social predators rely on their eyes to give them cues on choosing a potential victim.

An individual’s manner of moving can influence the perceptions of observers. Studies have shown that movement cues can reveal aspects of personality, life satisfaction, and sexual orientation. Body language is also symptomatic of an individual’s level of vulnerability – indicating dominance or submissiveness, powerfulness, self-confidence, vulnerability to assault, and history of physical and psychological injury.

As this applies to self-defense, research has directly tied specific movement cues found within an individual’s manner of walking to the likelihood of being victimized through assault.

If your way of walking includes the following ways of moving, you are likely to be seen as more vulnerable to attack.

Short strides
Lifting or shuffling steps
Constrained (tight) shoulder and arm movement
Constrained hip movement
Hesitant or slow pace
Confusion or distraction
Impaired walk (by injury or clothing)
 

However, if your way of walking includes the following ways of moving, you will be seen as less vulnerable to attack.

Lengthened stride
Swinging foot placement
Swinging arm movement
Unconstrained torso/hip movement
Direct pace
Attentive
Unimpaired (full body) movement

In a study by Book, Costello and Camiller (2013) this second set of movement cues is found to be effective in conveying a perception of assertion and less vulnerability to a group of criminals who were serving time for crimes involving physical assault.

Like animals in ‘nature’, human social predators seek signs that signal vulnerability in a potential target in order to increase the likelihood of a successful attack. Movement cues that signal you are less vulnerable, mean you are less likely to be a potential victim.

We teach these easily learned movement cues in our workshop Thinking Self Defense as an essential element of the second level of the three level pyramid described in the post: The Pyramid of Self Defense

Sources and further reading:
Book, Costello, Camiller (2013)
Grayson & Stein, 1981
Gunns, Johnston, & Hudson, 2002
Sakaguchi & Hasegawa, 2006

There are Lions out there

01 Thursday Jan 2015

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Imagine you are a lion, crouching in the grass, hungry, and watching a herd of potential prey; what exactly would you be looking for as you choose your victim? Why one, and not another?

You want success, and the least amount of effort, for the maximum gain. No fight where you could possibly be hurt, no long exhausting chase, and no crowd of others to intervene.

As a predator, you’re attuned to movement cues that broadcast an individual’s strength or vulnerability, even as it stays within the herd.

 Some move in a fluid way that promises a fight, or a long and possibly fruitless chase. Others gather in groups, and you know not to charge into a ring of antlers. You wait and scan, knowing your prey will send a message through its movement.

lionIn the herd there are always a few that look hesitant, unsure, constrained, maybe injured, or old, or just not alert to the potential in your presence. You’ll wait for one of those to fall behind, or separate itself from its companions, making it your obvious choice. Then you move.

We call it ‘Nature’, the world of predators and prey. It is also our world.

In our cultural evolution we have moved beyond the life of hunter and hunted, yet in the DNA of our own nature, the deep past remains. Today’s human predators still rely on the ancient skill of reading non-verbal cues that can reveal assertiveness and strength, or vulnerability to victimization.

 There is a language to movement, and you are telling others about yourself every time you move. Learning the basic ‘tells’ that communicate “don’t mess with me”, is one of the most effective means of keeping yourself safe.

walkingIn our workshop Thinking Self Defense we teach the basic movements that help keep you safe.

Read more in our next Post