The Workshop

Downloads - Video and Workbook

Take the Quiz

What's your Congnitive Fusion level? How much do you buy into your thoughts, worry, obsess about thoughts and in general, go down the rabbit hole of your thoughts?

Take the Quiz and find out!
The scale is between 7 and 49, where a score of 7 means your mind is as flexible as it gets, and 49 means you live paying extreme attention to your thoughts, loosing the ability to enjoy the moment and focus on what truly matters the most.

Downloads- The Midmaps

The Challenge

Every day, for a not clear yet number of days, we will do two things:

#1 - increase our awareness around which toxic beliefs are the most present in our mind, day in and day out.

We will do so by spending 2 minutes, 1 to 3 times a day, observing our flow of thoughts. Take note of any one-line statements and evaluations (eg "life is unfair" - "what a shitty day" - "I'm so useless") and specify whether the statement/evaluation is attached to an emotion or bodily sensation.

As the days go by, you will notice that some statements are reoccurring. Some may come less regularly, but are attached to oeverwhelming emotions.

Exercise your ability to just observe your thoughts, as if they are clouds in the sky, or leaves flowing away on the surface of a cheerful river.

Notice whether some of your thoughts are utterly ridicolous or random.

#2 - each day starting tomorrow, we will try a different defusion technique per day

You will find them all overhere, together with a video if I shared one.

Defisusion techniques are meant to weaken the network our mind has built, and strip words of their power to throw us into emotional overwhelm whenever they show up in our thoughts.

Defusion Technique #1 - The Orango method

I love this one.

It saved me from my worst Toxic Belief, the one that controlled them all "I am wrong".

How it works:

1 - Choose a short one-line statement or a single word.

2 - In a place where you are alone and undisturbed, repeat the short sentence/word as fast as you can, OUT LOUD, for several minutes. 

3 - Pay attention to whether the sentence/word morphs into something else, especially if it's funny. 

When you are done, focus on whether the sentence/word still has the same power over you. If something funny has come up, bring it up the next time this belief will surface... 

My "I am wrong" turned into the word Orango. For months I would smile or internally laugh any time I thought that belief... instead of feeling flawed... believing it... and going into a downward spiral of "oh why?".
Eventually, I just stopped thinking it. The spell was broken.

Defusion Technique #2 - The Mickey Mouse voice

Say your toxic belief aloud in a different voice. It could be low pitch, high pitch, or the voice of some funny character.

I once made my mother talk looking and sounding like Sponge Bob. The trigger disappeared immediately, and it became one of those memory to keep 😀
This exercise is not necessarily to change how you feel about the thought or belief, but to realize that these are - indeed - are just thoughts: what you do with them is up to you, not just up to your hell-inducing word network.

In my case, it also took away some power to that thought, as it came with a clear image of my mother speaking those words. And a world of associations with it :zany_face:

Defusion Technique #3 - Bad News Radio

Imagine your negative mind is a radio station, and say in a station’s announcement voice “this is bad news radio! We are here 24/7. Remember. All bad news. All the time. That’s bad news radio!

Flash. [your name] is not enough. She thinks she is not as good as she needs to be! More news in 1 hour”.

Report whatever shows up.

This definitely took away the edge for me and I even got curious on what my mind would come up with for Bad News Radio broadcast. I was even looking forward to it, and it made me smile every time :woman-shrugging:

Defusion Technique #4 - Finding Direction

This is a bit less fun, and more than a bit harder.

And yet, these are 3 fundamental questions to ask yourself when you notice you are believing your thoughts/beliefs:
1- how did believing this worked for me in the past? What did it bring to in my life?”
2- what is believing this going to bring me in my present and future? Is this what I truly want?
Which brings to...
3- can I simply accept this thought is painful, and let go of the struggle with it?

For number 3, you can imagine your belief on a battlefield with different parties fighting against each other. The believers and not believers.

You are in the middle of the battlefield.

Imagine walking away. Imagine going to sit on a peaceful hill instead, one from which you can appreciate the immensity of the universe and your own inner world, knowing they are both constantly expanding.

Because you can. Your mind can. You and your mind can do pretty much anything. For real.

Defusion Technique #5 - The power of your senses

Our sense of smell can do wonders in modulating our mood, mostly because it bypasses many areas of our brain and is directly connected to the amygdala.
This means: the right smell can pull us out of meh moods, lack of motivation, or unhelpful thinking processes.

Some smells are generally used to soothe and calm (like lavender), while others to activate and cheer (like lemon and orange).
Some smells might be peculiar to you and elicit deep relaxation (for me it's the smell of a pine tree wood, even better right after rain).

A good source for such sniffing experiences is pure essential oils. I usually keep Lemon handy and sprinkle lavender on the mattresses every once in a while.
What smell is peculiar to you?

Our sense of hearing can do wonders as well.
Some songs have the superpower to cheer us up, each and every time. Especially when you hear them with a good quality headset.

I have a playlist with songs that actually crack my heart open: I use it anytime I feel stuck on a feeling of dread/overwhelm/dissatisfaction I cannot put my finger on.
I have a specific song that reminds me "I am light" and that "I am not the things my family did" and "I am not the voices in my head".
What are the songs you bring in your heart? This is the time to create your modd-shifting playlists, if you don't already have them.

Defusion Technique #6 - The worst case scenario

This technique regularly helps me get out of down spirals of worry and anxious/fearful thinking.
For example, I was very worried and scared about my weekend on the mountains with friends. I didn’t know what my fibromyalgia would allow me and what not. I didn’t want to be perceived as weak and lazy (labels that took me years to shed off from childhood) or to “slow everyone down”. Lots of toxic beliefs I'm aware of at play here, and at the same time many parts feeling fear and apprehension.

I thought about the worst case scenario: the way up is way over my limit, many parts feel overwhelmed and start to internally scream, my hips hurt, I feel helpless and overwhelmed.
I asked my parts how they could support me in such a scenario, and together we came up with a plan that made us ALL feel GOOD.

I decided to ask in advance for instructions in how to reach the hut, so that I could do it on my own pace without feeling I’m forcing the others to go at a slow pace. I consciously choose to take it as an opportunity to check with my parts and listen to my body and adapt on the way up. The anxiety went significantly down, and I just had to defuse some random thoughts here and there, knowing my parts and I had a plan we all felt good with. When the day came, I was calm and relaxed. All parts were present and supportive. It was way easier than I thought it would be (often enough, reality IS way easier than we make it in our mind) and we all felt proud and empowered afterwards.