Worry – Negative Imagined Reality

‘A lot of the time our thinking is ‘imagined reality’. For many people this imagined reality is more negative than positive, and can become more real than reality itself!’ Kim Knight

Many, even most, people are not aware that they ‘worry’. They ‘think’ their ‘thinking habit’ (worry) is normal… when actually the mind is not designed to do nearly as much thinking as they ‘think’ is ‘normal’!

Our mind (or head brain) is a tool to be used, if and when we need to, for certain functions, such as coming up with creative solutions, analysing data, making meaning of information, and when we don’t need to use it, it’s meant to be ‘quiet’ – sort of ‘offline’.

I used to be the biggest worry-wart ever. I never knew I was ‘over-thinking’, and that I didn’t need to. I also never knew that it is possible to stop worrying, even if circumstances in our life are not going the way we want them to go. In other words, even if life on the outside is not looking to great, we can control how we feel on the inside, which in turn affects and improves the circumstances on the outside! This means we have much more control over our life than we may previously have thought!

I also didn’t know that worry is a mental habit, rather than an emotion, which needs curbing asap if we want to feel happy and healthy.

Is it real or is it just all in your mind?

Worry is ‘mentally rehearsing what we don’t want to happen’, without even realizing (most of the time) that we’re even doing so!

According to research, we have 60,000 – 70,000 thoughts a day. That’s a lot!

So how aware are you of these 60,000 thoughts?

• Could you count them if you tried?
• What goes on in your mind?
• Are your thoughts positive?
• Negative? Happy? Sad? Angry?
• Churning? Making you sick to your stomach?

 Is your mind mostly focused on positive outcomes and scenarios inside your head, which make you feel uplifted, peaceful, free, at ease, happy?

Or does your mind dwell on ‘worst-case-scenarios’ of what could go wrong, the worst thing that could happen, the terrible things your friends might say to you, fear of what your Mother thinks of you, fear of what your boss or colleagues might say to you, what your bank manager might tell you…?

A lot of the time our thinking can be ‘imagined reality’ – and for many people this imagined reality is more negative than positive, and can become even more real than reality!

Actions have consequences

This imagined reality, even though it’s in your head, is going to have consequences, for a number of reasons:

• Negative thinking leads to negative emotions like doubt, fear, anger, sadness, panic and more.
• Thoughts create feelings and feelings create thoughts. Negative feelings are not pleasant and beget more negative feelings in a vicious, downward spiral. This, as you are going to see, has negative consequences in your body.
• Thoughts are real and create reality because ‘energy follows thought’. Just because you cannot ‘see’ your thoughts does not not make them real. (People experiencing NDE’s (near death experiences) have described how they actually can see their thoughts as ‘thought forms in the ethers. Annie Besant and CW Leadbeater explain the structure of thought forms in detail in their book ‘Thoughtforms’)
• We live in a world which is ruled by universal laws. One of those laws is the law of ’cause and effect’ which means that actions have consequences. Thoughts are a form of ‘action in the mind’. What you think can become real.
• Negative thoughts and feelings create a change in our physical chemistry. ie, they change our cells, hormones, tissue and organ function. Quite literally.

From my personal experience, the two biggest reasons to stop negative thinking (worry, worst-case-scenario thinking, imagined reality etc), is because:

1. Thoughts can become reality (so do you really want all those fearful thoughts to become real?)
2. Negative thoughts create a cocktail of toxic hormones and secretions inside your body, which can lead to sickness

This is not some flowery hype. This is real. Negative emotions and negative thoughts create toxic chemicals in your body. I cover this in depth in my ‘Smile your way to Inner Peace’ meditation series, where you learn how to dissolve toxic emotions from the internal organs.

Emotions and Organs

Yes, emotions get stuck in the organs, and affect the physiological, biological functioning of those organs!

In particular worry affects the stomach, spleen and pancreas, which according to Chinese medicine work together as a unit. This is why we say things like ‘I was sick with worry’ or ‘my stomach was tied up in knots’.

When we worry our Qi (life force / energy) gets tied up in knots, which stops the stomach functioning in a normal, healthy way. This can lead to digestive issues such as IBS, poor digestion, poor metabolism, nausea, even vomiting. It almost always leads to anxiety, which is a combination of a mental, emotional and physiological state.

So the habit of worry affects our mind (thinking), emotions (feelings) and body (physiology).

• So why do we worry?
• Why do we over-think?
• Why do we dwell on what we don’t want rather than what we do want?
• Why do we spend so much time on imagined reality in our head, re-hashing conversations which did happen, or imagining conversations which might happen (but probably won’t)?

There are reasons for this, which I explain in my free training video ‘How to be worry free’ which you can catch at the bottom of this page.

In this training I explain:

• Why worry isn’t an emotion (as most people think)
• The 2 main causes of worry
• How and when the worry habit is set up
• Why worry is connected to what happens to us in childhood
• How we can learn to stop the worry habit
• and much more

You can also check out my ‘Worry-Free-Me’ online program which teaches you how to stop worrying in 30 days.

For a full list of online DIY transformation health programs see kimknighthealth.mykajabi.com

Toxic people – do you know how to deal with them?

When we have a backlog of emotions like fear, grief, disappointment, anger, sadness and frustration inside of us, it literally changes the biochemical make up of our cells, and it changes how we feel, think and act the world. We become toxic!

I was reminded this week of what it’s like to experience and have to deal with ‘toxic’ people.

Unfortunately this is a far-too common experience for many of us.

For a long time I did not recognize the signs of a toxic person. This was because I grew up in a family where it was ‘the norm’ to be dumped on by one particular family member. I just got used to being put down, critisized, judged and humiliated and never thought it could be any different.

Unfortunately if we experience such behaviour in childhood we can grow up into adulthood tolerating this kind of behaviour and thinking it’s the norm and ‘we just have to put up with it’.

I can assure you nothing could be further from the truth. It’s never OK to tolerate nasty behaviour from others.

So how do you know if you have a ‘toxic’ person on your hands, and how do you manage them?

First of all let’s define a toxic person and understand why they are the way they are.

A TOXIC PERSON DEFINED

A toxic person will often or usually have a very negative outlook on life, and this will be demonstrated by the words that come out of their mouth, and their actions.

If you say something ‘positive’ they will turn it into a negative. They will put you down, demean, critisize, be sarcastic, judgemental, mean, cruel, unkind and more. They may have an ‘acid’ tongue (and I’ll explain the literal meaning of this in a moment).

For example, you come home with a joyous piece of news, you’re feeling really great, and you just want to share your joy. They immediately belittle, put down or ignore what you have to say, crushing your happiness in a second.

They always seem to be in a bad mood, they have nothing good to say. They are just plain miserable, inside and out.

SO WHY ARE TOXIC PEOPLE TOXIC?

As I mentioned above, toxic people have an ‘acid tongue’. This is literally because they are over-acidic inside at a biochemical level! If you were to get a PH thermometer and pop it in their mouth, it would show high on the acidity scale, and as humans we are meant to have a more alkaline balance.

So why are they so physically and emotionally acidic?

Because of the acid emotions they still have stored inside them!

When we have a backlog of emotions like fear, grief, disappointment, anger, sadness and frustration inside of us, it literally changes the biochemical make up of our cells, and it changes how we feel, think and act in the world! We become physically and emotionally toxic!

So why are all these stored emotions stuck in their body?

Because they have not had the opportunity to heal themselves from the pain they experienced growing up, from the toxic environment around them. Deep inside they are in pain.

And so the hurt and anger that is still inside seeps out onto others.  And sometimes it just splurges out, a pseudo ‘vomiting’ of toxicity onto others.

And what’s really hiding underneath this behaviour?

A deep cry for love and attention. 

As humans we have a deep need for love and affection, and if these needs are not met during the early formative years of life (0-7 years), we will continue to try and get them met in adulthood, but if we are completely unconscious to the back log of stored unhappiness inside of us, it will come out by unconsciously dumping the pain on others.

Dumping and projecting our pain onto others is the universes’ way of trying to get our attention to the fact that we ourselves are not happy.

But the problem is, until we see ourselves we cannot see any of the meaning in all of this. And so we project our unhappiness onto others, blaming the outside world for our own unhappiness, and it’s all happening unconsciously…. until it becomes conscious and we become self aware.

It’s essential to understand that no matter how much another person is hurting or is unconscious about their feelings, they do not have the right to take it out on someone else. This is verbal and emotional abuse.

So how do I know all this to be true?

Because I was one of those people that ‘dumped’ my anger onto others. I had no idea at the time I was doing it. I had no idea I had years of trauma and stored hurt inside of me. I had no idea this was why I sulked and was sullen as a child, or why I often felt impatient and intolerant with others. I had no idea this was why I would get angry at the smallest thing or shout at people down the phone for no reason!

It’s taken years of emotional clearing work to clear away much of this backlog, and there’s still some left! But at least when I feel emotions now, and have the urge to ‘dump’ on someone I have the self-awareness to know it’s MY stuff, not someone else’s. I can now refrain from taking it out on others, and instead own my feelings, process them myself, and then have more self-compassion for the little girl inside who never got the love she desperately wanted and needed from her parents. And if I do ever find the old toxic energy seeping out onto others, I front up, own up and apologize, which in turn heals my own heart.

And this is what we all have to do, especially if we have this backlog of emotions. We have to take full responsibility for our feelings and learn how to heal ourselves.

Because the thing is, only WE can change our life and change how we feel. And all the power to do so is inside of us, we just have to know how.

We teach people how to treat us

SO HOW TO DEAL WITH TOXIC PEOPLE?

So, coming back to how do we deal with people when they are toxic, and unconsciously dumping all their hurt and pain on us?

It’s essential to understand that no matter how much another person is hurting or is unconscious about their feelings, they do not have the right to take it out on someone else. This is verbal and emotional abuse.

You will know when someone has not treated you right because your heart and gut brains will tell you so. You will cringe inside, feel ‘gutted’ (gut brain) and ‘hurt’ (heart brain). This is your body intelligence telling you it doesn’t feel right and it’s not OK. This is your internal emotional self defence system at work. (By the way, I have videos on Youtube about the 3 brains).

Now it’s up to you to do something about it, because no-one else can. It’s up to you to put a stop to such behaviour. And in the words of Dr Phil “we teach people how to treat us”.

So it’s up to us to learn how to put up clear boundaries and say ‘no’. It’s up to us to learn how to express our feelings honestly so that toxic emotions don’t build up inside of us. We have to learn it’s OK and necessary to meet our own needs. We have to learn we have a right to be happy and stand up for our self.

Teaching people how to be assertive and self-confident is something I spend a lot of time doing with clients. Learning how to be self-empowered is one of the most important and valuable lessons we can and must learn. And in every case so far, anyone I have worked with who has a chronic illness (eg chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, IBS etc) has a backlog of old hurts and emotional pains inside which need clearing).

You are not here to be anyone’s emotional punching bag. 

So next time you have a toxic person in your life dump on you, know that it doesn’t have to be this way. You are not here to be someone else’s emotional punching bag so that they don’t have to deal with their own unhappiness. (Unless you choose to do so. It’s really up to you!)

So have you had enough of this behaviour? Do you want a different way?

If you want to know how to say no, how to speak your truth, how to put a stop to toxic people in your life, this is exactly what I love helping people do.

Do join me in one of my online self help or live training programs. Because I want to help you be the happiest person you can be, and deserve to be.

And here’s a handy tip I’ve learned from 12 years of helping people put a stop to toxic partners, children, parents, friends, bosses, colleagues….

When we change our behaviour towards these people, they change their behaviour towards us, because they can no longer play the game! It works I can assure you, but often we are the ones who have to take the first step, or nothing will change.

And another tip – they become happier once a healthier emotional environment is established!

I will be going into more detail on this on my ‘Stop Bullies Now’ program (coming soon – keep an eye on my website or if you are signed up on any of my free programs you will get notification!).

Or you may wish to join my ‘Stop Depression Now’ program which also teaches how to identify and clear the backlog of emotions which build up to become ‘de-pression’.

Until then, stay strong and don’t put up with toxic people in your life! You are not here to be someone else’s emotional punch bag.

Kim

The Kiwi Health Detective

www.kimknighthealth.com

Image courtesy of www.stockunlimited.com 

Digital Healthcare is Coming. Are you Ready?

“Understanding what causes illness and knowing how to self-manage symptoms is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves”. Kim Knight

This week at the Cloud in Health Symposium in Auckland, we were given a glimpse of the future of IT-driven healthcare for New Zealand.

Three themes stood out:

1. New Zealand is moving to a VIRTUAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM where more and more patient visits are conducted remotely via remote devices or distance consultations, with a goal, according to Dr Damian Tomic, of “40% of all contact with patients being virtual by Dec 2017”.
2. We are moving to PEOPLE POWERED HEALTHCARE where the healthcare system will encourage and teach patients to take greater responsibility for their health.
3. FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGIES will allow for revolutionary inside-the-body monitoring of vital body signs, for example, by injecting micro cameras inside the body to remotely monitor symptoms

PEOPLE POWERED HEALTHCARE

For years my clinical practice has been about advocating ‘people-powered healthcare’, where clients learns self-mastery over their well being through private coaching or online self-help health programs. Understanding what causes illness and knowing how to self-manage symptoms is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. So I was glad to hear that this is the vision for the future of healthcare from some of our top medical minds.

Dr Damian Tomic, Clinical Director of Primary and Integrated Care Waikato DHB, is looking forward to a revolutionized healthcare system where “patients are kept healthy before they become patients, and are put at the centre of their healthcare, empowering them to manage their own health”.

Why the need for such radical change?

While in the USA one fifth of the GDP is spent on healthcare, in New Zealand the healthcare bill is equally the highest single item of government spending: 22% of tax revenue is used on the public healthcare system with a projected increase of 31% by 2060. Healthcare spending has now reached such an unsustainable level, the government is currently seeking private funding for healthcare. (New Zealand Healthcare Congress 2016) 

Darrin Hackett, Executive Director of Virtual Care and Innovation, Waikato DHB, clearly stated “we cannot survive if we deliver healthcare as we do today in 15… or 10… or even 5 years. With an ageing population which will hit 25% of the total population by 2030, we need alternative resources to humans”.

According to Hackett “consumer technology will drive the change”: the use of our personal mobile phones and mobile devices will be where and how we interact with our health professionals and monitor our health. Already in the USA, patients are sent health reminders and updates via wristbands which also ongoingly monitor vital signs.

Gabe Rijpma, Senior Director of Health and Social Services, Microsoft Asia, was straight to the point as he stated we have been operating a “sick care system” and it’s finally time to move to a ‘healthcare system’. With the volume of healthcare data doubling every 24 months, he stressed it’s critical we make greater use of technology to monitor and store information, in particular to manage the 3 core technological health industry disruptors of precision medicine, remote monitoring and auto managing of provisions.

VIRTUAL / AUGMENTED REALITY AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

“Ultimately we will learn that the greatest piece of technology we could ever wish for sits between our own ears”. 

People are about to discover that virtual and augmented reality are not just for teenage gamies or pokemon addicts! This is the stuff of Sci-fi films coming to life where micro-chipping is not just limited to your dog or cat.

Micro-cameras, the size of a grain of salt, can now be injected via syringe into tissues to monitor symptoms and vital signs, whilst ‘neural dust transceiver’ implants injected into the brain can send data to machines outside the body.

MS Hololens ‘mixed reality’ blends 3D holographic content into the physical world, allowing for interaction between digital content and the ‘real’ environment. Learning comes alive as flat illustrations turn into 3D images which medical students explore, alter, and examine from every angle.

The IBM ‘Watson’ technology uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data, allowing a super computer to assess and diagnose in seconds what might take a doctor days, months or even years.

ART OF HEALTH AT THE FOREFRONT OF CHANGE

“The key to the success of these new technologies does not just lie in the technology itself. It lies in our understanding of what really causes dis-ease, and how to solve it, even without technology”. 

I was excited to see how the therapies I and many of my colleagues offer, as well as their mode of delivery, are well up with the play. Whilst for the past 10 years many have scoffed or not even understood this level of healthcare, I sense things are about to change…

1. VIRTUAL HEALTHCARE – yes! Since 2009 I have been ‘seeing’ clients remotely worldwide  and since 2015 100% of client consultations are carried out via the internet. I have even given up my clinic space as a result of the demand for remote sessions, including for clients located in my home town.
2. PEOPLE POWERED HEALTHCARE – yes! Clients are taught exactly how to identify the meaning behind their symptoms, how symptoms are never random, and can be interpreted and cleared by understanding what causes ‘dis-ease’ and knowing how to restore inner peace of mind.
3. NEW TECHNOLOGIES – yes and no! Whilst I will never be putting micro chips into people, I am using new technology to deliver online programs to people worldwide. The scope of these online self-help education programs is doing one of the most important things needed right now for a real revolution in healthcare: teaching people what causes illness and showing them how to both prevent and recover from it just by taking care of their total well being. It’s exciting!

The key to the success of these new technologies does not just lie in the technology itself. It lies in our understanding of what really causes dis-ease, and how to solve it, even without technology.

As long as our self-awareness, expansion of consciousness and willingness to take greater responsibility for our own health keeps pace with the evolution of technology, we will make good progress. And ultimately we will learn that the greatest piece of technology we could ever wish for sits between our own ears.

About the Art of Health

Kim Knight is the Director of the Art of Health / Kim Knight Health. She specializes in showing people how to recover from chronic illness without medication or supplements, specializing in chronic fatigue and pain conditions. She will be sharing some of her client success stories using Telehealth at the HINZ Health Informatics conference in Auckland this year.