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Thrive with Simon English, Cardiff (2026)

27/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple - Post 15

Over the past few weeks we have shared some elements of The Thrive Programme.

If you are one of the people who has been impatiently awaiting each new post; reading it several times; taking the time to digest the content and apply it to your life, you will already be experiencing better mental health than you were a few weeks ago. Furthermore, you’ll have a clear knowledge and understanding of WHY you are feeling better, and you’ll be excited that you're learning a skillset that you can continue to benefit from over the coming weeks, months and years. You might have had a few ‘aha moments’ or be feeling optimistic for the first time in a while. Some people say they feel liberated once they start thriving.

It may be that you have read some of the posts and taken interest, but not put them into practice. If this is you – take heart, this is still a start. But, don’t be disappointed or dismissive if nothing has changed for you yet. The Thrive Programme is NOT a magic wand: reading the posts alone is not enough to change things. Thriving is a 'doing thing’ - it requires daily effort. Don’t stop here.

So, what’s next?

Know that you’re in the right place. No matter how long you’ve struggled, The Thrive Programme has helped people just like you to change their lives by improving their mental health.

You can go back and reread the posts as many times as you need to. But, don’t stop there: you need to put things into practice. This does feel strange, we know: but that’s essential to progress. If you need a little help there are some options for you:

If you’d like to do the full Thrive Programme, you can start TODAY. Visit our website to buy a manual, or to get referred to a licensed Thrive Programme Consultant (TC) who can't wait to support you through the whole programme, offering personalised support, accountability and encouragement. Your consultant not only wants to help you overcome any current difficulties, but will also encourage you to use your new skills and self-awareness to COMPLETELY change your life. We love to hear stories of things people go on to do once they’re thriving; the dreams that came true, the new directions their lives take and the fun they’re having.

And, for those of you who are still sceptical that mental health IS something that is predictable, understandable and changeable, know this: Your mental health really matters to us and doubt is not unusual. If you think ‘this couldn’t work for me’ or ‘I can never overcome [depression]’ or ‘I will always suffer from [OCD]’, take a step back and consider where your beliefs about mental health have come from. WE know The Thrive Programme can work for you; but you need to accept this for yourself, otherwise why would you make the necessary efforts to get results?

Society perpetuates both myths and ignorance that might have led you to believe that you are stuck with your mental health and it can’t be changed: you shouldn’t believe everything you are told!

Remember: a belief is just a belief - it’s not something fixed, it’s not something you were born with, it's not an impenetrable fortress - it’s just a belief, and a belief is just a thought you keep thinking…

Let’s look at a MASSIVE belief millions of you held, that you completely changed in minutes… (Remember the balloon metaphor in Post 5? 🎈)

The vast majority of you reading this will probably have held a huge belief in… Santa Claus. OK, it was a long time ago, but those of us who did believe, REALLY did believe. You’d have bet your life on ‘it' being real. And yet one day, someone presents you with the tiniest bit of evidence suggesting the story isn’t true, and you switch, you go straight from ‘completely believing’, to ‘completely disbelieving’, in just a few seconds.

Your older brother, or one of the kids from school told you the story wasn’t true, and that it was your parents who bought the presents, your cat who drank the milk you left out for the reindeer, and your dad who ate the mice pies you left out for Santa. To make matters worse, they probably also pointed out that you lived in a flat, and didn’t have a chimney for Santa to climb down..

The point is, you were able to change a massive belief, in just a few moments. Think what you could do with other beliefs that you currently hold...

We are telling you this because the truth about mental health is sometimes hidden or distorted – to our dismay. Some press and pharmaceutical giants and long-time sufferers of mental health problems even have a vested interest in manipulating your view of mental health, which is why you might be clinging to a belief that YOU are stuck with this, or that these post seem too simple to be effective. But, mental health isn’t complicated: you’ve just not been told this before.

The truth is, anyone can thrive, if they are willing to master the skills and self-awareness. Thriving requires you to build a strong sense of power and control and think positive, powerful thoughts. At The Thrive Programme, our stock-in-trade is helping people build great mental health using these skills: we see lives changed every day and yours could be next. It’s proven. It’s quick. It’s revolutionary.

For those of us who are thriving, we feel passionately that you can experience it too.

So, if you’ve got an urge to change, take action today.

Share your story, get in touch, oh and drop us a message in the comments if you’d like a .pdf booklet of the posts.

The Thrive Programme Team

PS Sorry if you didn’t know about the Santa thing 😬

24/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple - Post 14

When you need to hit RESET🚨

On Wednesday we talked about a STRESSOMETER and how when you learn to gauge your stress levels and actively manage your thinking, you can keep yourself calm and in control. (Remember how powerfully you react to the pressures and hurdles in life determines your level of stress?)

But what if it all goes Pete Tong, what do you do then?

Well then you need to hit the Reset button🚨

If you’ve got yourself stressed, angry, upset or anxious, you can reset to a much calmer emotional state quite easily and quickly, by following these three steps:

When it is safe to do so:

✴️ Recognise - that you have got yourself stressed, and that your ’stressometer needle’ is in the red

✴️ Realise - that you have created this state by the way in which you have reacted to events - even though you might not know HOW you’ve achieved this right at this moment

✴️ Reset - your breathing, thinking and attitude

Breathing: focus for a few moments on your breathing - it’s likely you’re breathing quite fast - and start to take back control of it; start to slow it down. It might feel like you are trying to slow down a runaway horse, but that’s fine… just pull back on the reins and tell yourself ‘woah there’, or just ‘calm down’ - if you’re not into horses!

Thinking: people panic, create stress, get anxious or angry because of the way they have reacted to something… their thinking has changed, and so has their emotional response. If you are in one of the states mentioned above, then its very likely you are thinking either in a ‘catastrophic’ or ‘black and white’ way, and you need to start thinking in a calmer, more in-control way. So, keep telling yourself 'everything is alright', that no matter what happened ‘you will cope’ and ‘it will be ok’. This will calm down your thinking, and help you regain perspective.

Attitude: when people feel powerful, they are much less likely to create fear, anxiety or stress. So if you have an attitude of ‘I can do this’, ‘I can beat this’ and/or ‘I can cope with this’, you will find it much easier to manage your breathing and thinking. The point is: don’t just think these things or just say these things, REALLY believe that you can, create a powerful attitude and you WILL find it much easier to manage your reactions to the events and pressures of modern life. The very act that you realise you have created the state in the first place is incredibly empowering… if you created it, then you can un-create it.

If you want to know how powerful you feel about life generally, take our beliefs quiz… just message us/comment below with ‘yes please’.

Have a great weekend.

23/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple Post 13

How well are you managing your stress levels? 🤯

Following on from our recent discussions about phobias, fears and anxieties not happening ’to you’ - but rather being created by the way in which we respond to events and situations in life - today we are going to talk about stress.

If it helps, imagine stress as what you experience in the moment, and anxiety as the stress you create about something in the future or the past.

Either way they are both created by the way in which you are REACTING TO events, rather than by the events themselves. (Some people love a dog, other people have a phobia of the same dog - it cannot be that the dog is genuinely terrifying, or we’d all feel terrified…).

Being frightened and running away from something GENUINELY THREATENING is a really important reaction to have, however if we are trained to be over-sensitive to perceived threats and we don’t believe we’d cope well in a certain situation, we’re going to react with stress and anxiety because we perceive the threat as genuine. This is why people with phobias react to non-threatening situations as if they were real… they ARE real to the sufferer.

If your general stress level is quite high, it stands to reason that you're more likely to ‘go into the red’ more quickly than someone who’s general stress level is quite low.

Imagine a ’stress-o-meter’, with a dial numbered 1 to 10. 1 is completely relaxed, 10 is ‘in the red’ and very stressed. Where are you right now? 🙂😕😩🤯

Most people have a level that they can get to and yet still stay relatively calm and in control…. If they can stay below this number, they’ll prevent themselves from getting really stressed or anxious. Whereas if they go above this number, they’ll get stressed very quickly AND begin to lose their perspective.

Remember the last time you had a row with someone? Remember that you said some things that - at the time - seemed absolutely truthful, real and accurate?

Remember the next day when you looked back and thought ‘omg did I really say that!?’

That's perspective: the more stressed you get (the more your stress level nears ’10’ on the stress-o-meter) the less perspective you have, due to the amount of emotion you are generating. Above a certain level you’ll begin to generate emotion - and hence lose perspective - very quickly. We call this a blip.

Once you are in a blip, it can take quite some time to get out of it…

So recognising your various stressometer levels is REALLY helpful, as you can then do something about them.

Remember: you have two levels you need to know about: your ’normal’ level, and your ’sh**s about to hit the fan’ level.

Between now and Friday you want to work out (on a scale of 1 to 10) what your two levels are. On Friday we’ll show you how to reset your stress, and get your level back down to ’normal’.

If you’d like a copy of our actual stressometer (get the whole family to mark their levels on it and stick it on the fridge) just reply below with ‘yes please’ in the comments section.

See you on Friday for the last post in this series: ‘hitting the reset button’

20/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple - Post 12

‘Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me’

🤬 Remember that?

As you grow up, you realise that’s hardly true and that words can cut deeper than any knife.

However, today, we’re talking about the power of words: Not to harm, but to shape our thoughts and feelings.

If you read our post last Wednesday, you know we don’t experience ‘reality’, we experience our interpretation of reality: first, the event, then your reaction to the event (based on your Sense of Power and Control), then your emotion.

Well, what if the words we say to others or we think to or about ourselves are dramatic, or even catastrophic?

Words provide a window into our thinking and our beliefs. This can be a virtuous cycle: positive words affect our thinking and our positive thinking affects our words. The opposite, of course, is also true.

Listen to the things you say and the way you say them👂

“I’m starving” 😱

This is said in homes and offices all around the country, but, STARVING? Are you really starving?? You’re peckish at best 🙂

A sunny day and suddenly everyone is “boiling”. Really? Even if it’s just a turn of phrase, it has an impact - one likely to cause distress and anxiety 🥵

Our language is evocative; paints powerful pictures in our minds and can create some very strong emotions.

You might be used to saying things like, “That made me feel…” or “Luckily, I….”

NOTHING ‘makes you feel’ anything. YOU make yourself feel things: in that split second between something happening and you ‘feeling’ something, you have a thought. It’s those thoughts that create your feelings: understanding and accepting this is fundamental to thriving. So, X happened and I made myself feel Y.

If you speak and think in negative words you will lower your mood, anticipate negative outcomes, make yourself stressed, reduce your self-esteem, increase your social anxiety, and contribute to your feelings of powerlessness.

If you use and think in positive words you will feel powerful, anticipate positive outcomes, create less stress, increase your self-esteem, reduce your social anxiety and contribute to you feeling a more internal Sense of Power and Control.

If you look at your FREE Thrive Quotient report, you can see the areas in your life where you feel powerful (high SPACE score) and areas you still need to build up. Listen to the things you say and notice how your language changes. (Message us if you’d like to take your THRIVE PROGRAMME ASSESSMENT and receive your report!) 😃

See you Wednesday 🙂

17/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple Post- 11

Self-esteem is such an important element of good mental health, but for some people their self-esteem is very low ⚠️

Maybe you’re surprised to read that self-esteem is an important part of good mental health?

Let’s be clear what ‘self-esteem’ means. It’s simple: self-esteem is what YOU currently think and feel about YOU.

It’s not about other people’s opinion. It’s about YOUR OPINION of you but you might be basing your opinion on what you believe others may think of you!

People with low self-esteem think unfavourably of themselves and people with high self-esteem…. Well, they think the opposite.

YOU can have high self-esteem and it’s well-worth your while to invest time and effort into creating this for yourself. Starting now. Having low self-esteem affects your mental health which is reason enough to learn more about it, yes?

Self-esteem is not fixed, and it’s not inherited or caused by what happens to you in life. Read that again: it’s radical and it’s a surprise to some people.

Sure, if you enjoy a flurry of success you will find it easier to enjoy self-esteem, but success does not dictate self-esteem. This is why there are so many miserable millionaires: no amount of cash in the bank or status symbols will ever be enough to improve low self-esteem. They may hope that the next luxury mansion or superyacht or gorgeous spouse will be enough to make them feel secure and positive.

But high self esteem remains elusive until they realise self-esteem is generated INSIDE your head (by YOU) and not by your bank balance and status.

People with high self-esteem think positive, charitable, generous thoughts about themselves. Call this ‘self-love’ or ‘ego’ if you like, it doesn’t matter: the end goal is increasing self-esteem.

You know you can choose how you think, and - if you’ve been following this series - hopefully you’ll be starting to make different choices about the thoughts you allow into your mind. Remember, you can choose how you think and that includes making a choice about the WAY YOU THINK ABOUT YOURSELF.

Imagine self-esteem as a rechargeable battery - your self-esteem battery 🔋 You need to keep charge (positive thoughts towards/about yourself) flowing into the battery, or the battery will run low. You need to be actively putting charge into your battery - especially during stressful times such as these 🔌

To put charge into your battery, we use an excellent technique we call ‘Processing the Positives’. This may sound too simple to be effective, but trust us: it works. Processing the positives is easy to personalise and it’s rooted in positive psychology and the science of gratitude.

The really good news? You can start today.

Processing the positives is straightforward.

Action: Every day you need to list ten positive things about yourself and your life, and spend some time thinking about each of them in a powerful, positive way.

When you’re new to this, and especially if you’re a perfectionist, it can be quite a challenge. Your brain is simply not used to the task and some resistance is to be expected. This doesn’t mean you can’t; it merely means you need to put a little more persistent effort into it. Trust the process: it gets easier.

Immediately after you’ve read this, open your notebook or the notes page in your phone and start to write. ONLY write the positives; don’t let yourself cheat by thinking ‘yes, but…’

e.g. I made tea for my partner 🔋

NOT: I made tea for my partner but I added too much milk

I enjoyed sitting in the garden 🔋
NOT: I enjoyed sitting in the garden but I should have been doing chores

If you don’t know where to start – and some people with low self-esteem struggle to get started – think of a negative and flip it to a positive.

For example:

‘I’m too weak and spindly' could be changed to ‘I have the opportunity to fall in love with exercise and develop some new eating habits over the next few weeks’ or ‘My body is healthy and strong’🔋

‘I’m heartbroken after my separation’ can be changed to ‘I have an opportunity for personal space and new connections as I recover from the relationship’🔋

It is important to have ten things on your list. Keep it somewhere you can refer to it regularly, and that you make time each day where you can spend time concentrating on processing your positives. Some people use their phone, others prefer to think in ink and use their journal or post it notes. The important thing is to find what works for you, and enjoy the process.

‘Processing’ means reflecting on how good you felt at the time; how your thought or care or contribution is a good reflection on you; how you were ‘in the moment’ or focusing your thoughts and attention on positive things.

Whenever you catch yourself feeling down or your battery needs a boost, get out your list and spend some time thinking through each item. If you’re really struggling, set a timer on your phone and reread your positives every hour. This helps to re-energise your thinking and help you change habits of old.

Enjoy this time focusing on the positive things about you and your life. Lots of thrivers continue this process even after they’ve completed the Thrive Programme course. We regularly receive photos of people’s houses decorated with ‘positives’: for example, in the kitchen so they’re easy to see when you’re making lunch or brewing a cup of tea; or around the bathroom mirror so you can process the positives when you brush your teeth in the morning.

HOW and WHERE you opt to process the positives is not the important factor. The important factor is that you CHOOSE TO DO IT.

Commit to this habit, updating your list every day with one or two positives, and within a couple of weeks you can expect to have much higher self-esteem, regardless of your starting point.

Why not start your list with the fact you’re reading these posts and that you’re helping yourself take control of your mental health?

See you Monday 🙂

16/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple - Post 10

Every emotion you experience is BRAND NEW - it’s your choice how you feel!

In order to truly take control of your life and learn to thrive, there are a couple of concepts that - for some people - can be difficult to get your head around.

We’re going to talk about one of them today: the fact that we don’t store emotions.

We don’t store emotions! 🍾❌

This can be a hard fact to grasp because it flies in the face of: everything you’ve ever been told by a therapist, anything you’ve ever read in a self-help book, and what you probably believe to be true based on your life-experiences to date.

On top of all that, the English language is littered with expressions that suggest we do have bottled up emotions… the phrase ‘bottled up emotions’ being one of them! The belief that you are going through life with lots of stored, repressed, bottled up emotions, and that these emotions are holding you back in some way, stopping you from living life to the full, somehow trapping you in your past… well, it’s just not true.

Your emotions are a reaction TO something, some event, thought or experience.

You first have the event, then you have your reaction to the event (based on your Sense of Power and Control), then you have your emotion - your experience of the event.

It's as simple as 1,2,3. First, the event. Second, your reaction. Third, your experience.

Let’s look at an example…

You’re walking around town and a dog appears in front of you and barks at you (1) Now, if you love dogs, your reaction (2) is likely to be surprise and pleasure, and therefore your emotion/experience (3) will be a nice, happy feeling. However, if don’t feel comfortable around dogs, number (1) will be exactly the same for you, however your (2) is likely to be surprise and fear, making your experience (3) to be very unpleasant, with your heart beating fast, and you feeling very anxious. You WEREN’T anxious because you came across a barking dog, but because when you came across a barking dog you processed the experience in a powerless way, and you CREATED fear and anxiety.

Imagine you are 80 years old, and you have had a phobia of dogs since you were bitten by a dog, at the age of ten. You’ve had this phobia for 70 years. Every time you’ve seen, heard, or even read about a dog - for the last 70 years - you’ve reacted to the event with fear, anxiety and panic.

What’s causing your phobia today? 70 years ago you created a powerful belief about dogs - they are scary, unpredictable and dangerous - and you have been thinking the same way ever since!

It is your belief that creates your experience - how powerful and confident you feel around dogs. Bearing in mind a belief is just a thought you keep thinking, stop thinking the same thoughts about dogs, and your phobia is no more.

In the same vein:

✴️ Sad movies don’t make us cry

Bad drivers (and politicians!) don’t make us angry
✴️ Our favourite band splitting up doesn’t make us depressed

✴️ Seeing a friend doesn’t make us happy

✴️ Remembering being bullied at school doesn’t make you sad

It's the way in which we respond to these events that dictates how we are going to feel. If we react in a powerful way, believing we can cope with whatever life throws at us, we react entirely differently.

We create emotions in the moment - right now - they are not bubbling up, coming to the surface or being released: they are being created, brand new, right now, by the way in which you are responding to an event or situation in life, and you can change them!

So, take control, stop blaming your past - or your present - for how you feel about something.

Take responsibility for your emotions: change the way you think, and you’ll change the way you feel.

See you on Friday 🙂

13/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple - Post 9

What colour glasses are you wearing today? 🤓

Today is about the importance of attitude. Your attitude is your approach to life… the way you CHOOSE to see and process what is happening in your world

Everyone wears glasses every day - and here we’re not talking about the type you buy from Specsavers, we’re talking about your ‘attitude glasses’… the glasses that you put on this morning that will determine what sort of day you’ll have today.

Jeff Keller said, ‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way'.

We all know an eternal optimist: a Del Boy who bounds into the room with the smile on their face and makes everything feel good - ’this next year Rodney we’ll be millionaires’. Equally, we all know an eternal pessimist, a Victor Meldrew who complains at every opportunity and for whom nothing is good enough. (If you can't access UK TV, Google ‘Del Boy’ and ‘Victor Meldrew - you’ll see what we mean!)

Two different attitudes that have nothing to do with what’s going on and everything to do with how the person is CHOOSING to think, how they are CHOOSING to view the world, how they are CHOOSING to feel today.

Attitude extends beyond optimism and pessimism. It’s also about self-belief. If you have sessions with a Thrive Consultant, they’ll listen closely to the words you say, because language is a clear window into your thinking. Because power and control, choice and responsibility are key to your thriving, they will challenge you if they hear you say phrases like these:

I’ll try…

I hope to …

I might…

One day…

Eventually…

Those are wishy-washy and prevent you from thriving. Your friends and family may be accustomed to you using phrases like this. Why not? There’s nothing wrong with them in themselves, but we want more for you: you should want more for yourself.

Your INACTION has as much an impact on your future as your ACTION.

You’re just one thought away from changing your attitude. There’s NOTHING standing in your way.

Your attitude affects the way you see life, the way you think about life and the way you show up in life. It’s like putting on a pair of glasses. Some people wear ‘s**t-tinted glasses’ and see the worst in everything and everyone.

✴️ They don’t see the opportunities - but they do see the hazards.

✴️ They don’t see the sunshine - but they do see the shadows.

✴️ They are blind to the cheerleaders while they search for the naysayers.

✴️ They see threats, danger, and problems all around them.

Maybe this is you: have you been wearing s**t-tinted specs? Are you reading this thinking, ‘that sounds hard’ or ‘I could never think any differently?’

If so, take off your s**t-tinted specs and put on your Thrive glasses! Make the decision to start thinking differently and cultivating a new attitude for yourself. Look for the opportunities, the positives, the best things in any situation.

As you consciously change your attitude, your thinking will change. Alarm bells will go off and red flags will appear when you breathe a sigh of despair or desperation and this will remind you to take your s**t-tinted glasses OFF and think differently. If you hear those innocent-sounding words ‘I’ll try’ ‘I hope’ or ‘I might’ come from your mouth, you’ll chuckle to yourself as you realise it’s time to change your attitude AND your words and say something that reflects your true power and potential. ‘I can….’ ‘I will… ‘I can’t wait…’

Like everything in The Thrive Programme, mental health is simple – you just have to do the right things; think the right thoughts and remember that the power lies with you..

Why don’t you start right now by writing a list of ten positive things in - or about - your life?

Yes, we’re all in lockdown, yes we can’t see our friends, yes there is a toilet-roll shortage, and yes some of us will get ill and, sadly, some may even die.

BUT…. But what? Here is where you write your list…

This is a lady called Clare’s, from yesterday:

1. The sun is out

2. I have a loving partner

3. I have three beautiful, healthy kids

4. I have a roof over my head

5. There is food in the fridge (and wine!)

6. We have an amazing National Health Service

7. The top experts in the world are working on a cure for this bloody virus

8. Music

9. My dog makes me smile

10. I woke up today!

By consciously taking the time to sit down and think of these ten ‘positives’, Clare created her attitude towards the day. This positive, life-affirming, ‘thrivey’ attitude ensured she had a great day yesterday.

Write YOUR list, choose YOUR attitude: What sort of day do YOU want?

See you on Wednesday 💪

11/04/2020

Mental Health Made Simple - Post 8

We’ve already discussed the fact that most people don’t have a very ‘Internal Sense of Power and Control’, that is, most people pay far more attention to factors and influences outside of themselves, than they do to their own inner strengths and abilities. What's more, they believe these EXTERNAL influences are significantly more powerful than their INTERNAL strengths.

This leads to people feeling quite powerless - especially around their emotional responses to these outside influences - which in turn creates a number of different effects, some of which you will have heard of, like 'social anxiety' and 'obedience to authority’.

Stanley Milgram set up the most famous ‘blind obedience study’ at Yale in 1963, to test how many volunteers would give (progressively worse!) electric shocks to people - just because an authority figure (a man in a white coat) told them to do so. The last click on the shock machine read ‘DEADLY SHOCK’, and yet despite this warning, two thirds of people turned the dial all the way round and shocked the other volunteers until they heard them yelp, and collapse to the ground with a thud (actually no-one was harmed during the experiment as actors were used and there were no real shocks happening).

This experiment has been replicated many times around the world and the results are consistent each time - about two thirds of people will give another person a major electric shock, just because they are told to by an authority figure.

What has this got to do with you ’thriving at home’? Well, it’s just an example of how susceptible people can be to external influences.

These external influences play havoc with our thinking, and we just end up responding to them in robotic fashion. We don’t THINK about how we are going to respond, we just respond.

What external influences are currently playing havoc with your thinking?

Well, the most damaging current external influences for many people are social media, the news and their friends/family (usually in that order)

✴️ How many times a day are you currently being told frightening and shocking news that leaves you fearful for your life?
✴️ How many times a day are friends messaging you/sending you ‘helpful’ videos and stories?
✴️ How many times a day do you tune into the news to hear terrible story after terrible story?

Each time you read, see or hear one of these stories or bulletins, you feel more deflated, more scared, more feeling out of control.

But what SHOULD you do?

You need to follow Govt. guidelines - Stay home and protect the NHS, but what can you do to protect your own sanity?

It’s not difficult: turn off the news, come off social media, stop talking to negative/catastrophic friends

If watching the news leaves you feeling panicky and anxious, STOP WATCHING IT! When you have a stronger Sense of Power and Control, the news will no longer automatically influence your thinking and will not leave you creating anxiety and fear in the way it might do at the moment.

Or, if one of your friends or family members is a real 'Debbie Downer', recognise that their negativity is a huge threat to your positivity as you start changing your thinking habits. By all means, talk to these people, but put additional effort into protecting yourself: anxiety is catching (so is positivity).

And, social media: something that absorbs your time and attracts your attention. Social media can be wonderful ONLY IF you actively monitor your intake and the impact it has on your thinking.

This is hard, by design: tech companies pay millions of dollars in their attempt to hijack your mind so YES it is hard to look away & even harder to switch off. The enticing use of images, dramatic language and likes are addictive. The media you watched is not innocently created for your entertainment, nor merely for information, but intentionally engineered to manipulate and control your mind.

This means it’s really hard to maintain control of your mind unless you switch everything off: this is not due to weakness on your part; but you will need to make a deliberate choice to take control, for your sake.

With all these things, you have the option to change your 'media diet'. Not necessarily for ever, but for now.

Rest assured that 'important news' will still reach you; social media will still be there and friends and family will want to spend MORE time with you once you’ve retrained your brain to think calm, powerful thoughts.

Remember, you have choices. You always have choices. Instead of watching news, why not watch comedy instead? If you always listen to the radio in the car, you could use this time for podcasts or an uplifting playlist. Instead of talking to an anxious friend, do a workout or tidy your sock drawer or take a cup of tea outside and enjoy the sunshine. Make it easy for yourself to think more positively.

If you want to THRIVE through these testing times, take our advice and act upon it!

Wishing you all a relaxing Easter weekend. We'll be back on Monday 🙂

Thrive with Simon English

27/04/2020

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Category

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm