Beyond the...next chapter8/3/2022 Time for my next non-fiction! The editor has finished, and the cover designer is working away. Would you like to win a free copy of a first edition? If so, use the link below to sign up for alerts. http://eepurl.com/gD41jr Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue 
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Why mindfulness and meditation helps7/5/2022 As a psychotherapist, I can get pushback when I suggest mindfulness and meditation. This is especially so when I suggest breathing exercises to my clients. 'Is that it?' they would say to me. 'I have been breathing my whole life, why do I need to set aside time to do more breathing?'. I must admit, when my own therapist suggested mindfulness and meditation, almost twenty years ago (before I became a therapist), I had the same reaction. The good news is that we now have the research to support what might once have seemed like smoke and mirrors. Studies show that levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) reduce after a course of mindfulness and meditation (including breathing exercises). It only takes a handful of minutes to do, so why not make this part of your morning ritual, so you can wake up to better mental health. I have some free mindfulness and meditation exercises on my website, so why not start with these? I hope you find this useful. According to Stanford Neuroscientist Dr Andrew Huberman, meditation and breathing exercises can help people to teach their nervous systems "to be comfortable in uncomfortable states" (Dr Andrew Huberman), putting their brain in an optimal state to function. The trouble is, so many say they don't have time to do this. However, research shows that the recommended 'dose' for meditation/breathing exercises is just 13 minutes a day. Check out Dr Huberman's fascinating video here. Too often we find an excuse to avoid making any changes, and the most common excuse is ‘I don’t have the time’. Stop procrastinating and use the new day for a new way of being. You can do this by getting up 10 minutes earlier than usual, and using that extra time to follow these ten steps - 1. Find a quiet corner of your home (even the bathroom!) 2. Use that quiet corner to settle your attention to each breath as it comes in through your nose, and out through your lips 3. Adopt a sense of curiosity to each breath, and just notice it. 4. Don’t feel you need to change the natural rhythm, you are simply using each breath as an anchor to the present moment 5. If your mind starts to wander, that is okay, just bring it back to your breathing. 6. If you notice strong emotions rising up, just acknowledge them, and return your focus to your breathing. 7. The more you can gain a sense of distance from your thoughts and emotions, the more choice you will have over how to respond to them 8. As you notice each breath you will start to calm your mind and body, and thus helps to reduce the cortisol levels in your body (the stress hormone). 9. Studies show that the long-term build up of cortisol is responsible for heart disease, weight gain, high blood pressure, and a greater risk of a stroke. 10. Repeat this process as many times as you need, so you fill the whole of that extra 10 minutes you have given yourself. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue  Beyond the reach of words - Trauma7/1/2022 We register trauma in our body before we find the words to express it. In the words of Bessel van der Kolk, we understand trauma to be a “speechless horror”. If we can register trauma in our body, we can learn to heal through the use of our body. We can learn to sense safety, and we can distinguish the past trauma from present reality. At first, this might seem scary. Our body might once have been a place of danger, shame, or bewilderment. But in time, with the help of an experienced therapist, we can learn to trust those internal cues that help us to become regulated again. When a therapist helps us to learn about our body, we learn about our triune brain. We learn that we have the neocortex (cognitive), mammalian (emotional), and reptilian (sensorimotor or body) brain, and this can help us to learn why we think, feel and act as we do. With this deeper level of knowledge, we can learn to regulate our responses to triggers in our environment, whether that is the sound of a slammed door or the face of an angry colleague. When we learn about our body with a therapist, we also understand that our responses are a matter of survival or protection, not a matter of dysfunction or weakness. Shame or pathology has no part in a trauma-informed approach. With the right help, it is possible to get Beyond the Blue of your trauma. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue  Highlights from the book tour6/30/2022 Psychotherapist and author Chris Warren-Dickins takes you Beyond the Blue of the male label, and beyond the blue of depression, anxiety, relationship conflict, and trauma. For a healthier society for all. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue
Three years ago today, at the United Nations discussing gender-affirming healthcare. We still have work to do #healthcare #unitednations 🏳️⚧️ Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue  Opening Pride Ridgewood, NJ6/11/2022 I had the honor of being invited by the Mayor to speak at Ridgewood's Pride. In case you didn't get a chance to hear my speech, here it is. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue Thank you, Dorit Kemsley6/7/2022 Thank you to @doritkemsley for discussing eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) (in particular, R-TEP), an 'A' level of treatment for trauma (World Health Organisation). As Peter Levine once put it, ‘trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods’. Every working day in my psychotherapy practice I help people with the use of EMDR. You might have seen Prince Harry talking about it to Oprah, and I was overjoyed to see someone who is male labeled speaking out about psychotherapy, trauma, and EMDR. I hope this encourages more people who are male labeled to seek help, and get the right type of help. Find out more about how you can get beyond the blue of trauma, and beyond the blue of the male label. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue  A panel discussion about my book Beyond the Blue. The male label serves as a significant obstacle to adequate mental healthcare. Untreated depression, anxiety, and trauma poses a risk to all of us. Let me know what you think. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue Spring forward with confidence4/17/2022 Spring is already a season of uncertainty (I tried to arrange an outdoor playdate yesterday, and I experienced all seasons in one day!), but for the last two years we have been experiencing an unprecedented level of uncertainty. We have had to adapt to a pandemic, and various strains of COVID, and there has been a lingering threat of a world war. No matter how much uncertainty exists in world affairs, you can create a sense of stability within yourself. I hope some of these blog posts and links to resources help you to do that. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond the Blue, and LGBTQ+ advocate #beyondtheblue #beyondthebluebook Burnout3/16/2022 More and more people are experiencing burnout. I do not need to point to the contributing factors, you just have to turn on the news, but I do need to point out the significance of burnout to the way your brain functions. You can recognize burnout via a whole range of symptoms, and these are just some for you to think about: An apathy for the things that you once cared about, a sense of exhaustion, and an overall negative outlook. Why you should care about burnout There is a worrying trend amongst some to wear burnout as a badge of honor. They confuse the terms ‘grit and resilience’ with ‘burnout’, and so they shut off the warning signs that tell you that you need to rest. Eventually, you will cause harm to your mind and body, and ultimately this has a negative impact on all the things that you hold dear. Burnout should be taken more seriously because research shows that it can thin the gray matter of your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain that is responsible for important functions such as reasoning and decision-making), and it can enlarge the amygdala (the brain’s alarm system). As a result, our alarm system goes into overdrive, sensing threat when there is none, and we are less able to mediate this heightened state with cool, calming reason. When our amygdala is in overdrive, this activates the sympathetic nervous system, our ‘fight-or-flight’ response, and this can lead to excess production of cortisol (the stress hormone). There is plenty of research to show the health implications for excessive cortisol levels, including increased blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. What you can do Any attempts to calm the amygdala will help to reduce burnout. This can be tackled on a couple of different fronts – your body, by activating your parasympathetic nervous system (your natural rest and digest state), and your thought process, by challenging the short-circuited thought patterns that lead to these heightened states of stress. In terms of your parasympathetic nervous system, you can activate this through various different methods, including simple breathing exercises or calming visualizations. I have set out some exercises on this page, so try each and start to repeat (on a daily basis) the ones you enjoy. In terms of your short-circuited thought patterns, try to watch for assumptions or beliefs that might trigger the amygdala. For example, you have been working late and you see your boss talking to HR. By assuming that they are talking about you, you are personalizing the situations and jumping to conclusions. They could be talking about a whole range of issues other than you. You are also catastrophizing, because even if they are talking about you, you are assuming it will lead to something bad, such as losing your job. You need to calm your mind by looking for evidence against this, such as a recent positive performance review, or the fact that the Great Resignation has left companies currently desperate to keep their employees. A key component to all of this is to adopt a compassionate tone to your self-talk. Throughout my years as a psychotherapist, I have found this to be one of the most underrated factors in recovery from burnout. When we judge ourselves, we end up feeling even more alienated, and this serves to worsen the symptoms of burnout. The first step to recovery is to recognize how much pressure we have been experiencing, and adopt a kind, compassionate voice, talking to ourselves as if we were talking to a young child. When we can direct compassion inwards, we are in a better position to then direct that compassion outwards, and learn to connect with, and help, other people. There is no better antidote to the cynicism and apathy that burnout can create than recognizing some sort of good that we have thrown out into this challenging world. Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC Psychotherapist, author of Beyond Your Confines and Beyond the Blue  Chris
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