November 20, 2013 by Maggie Currie

My seminar – what a blast!

On Monday of this week I held a free seminar all about how to have a stress free Christmas. The people who attended enjoyed it, found it interesting and gave me some wonderful feedback.

I was quite nervous, as I so wanted to get across my main message about having ‘the conversation’ with people to let them know what you are planning for you Christmas, whether that is being at home with your partner, going away to an hotel, inviting people to come to you for Christmas Day but to bring a plate of delicious food with them to add to the plates being brought by others to make a wonderful buffet for everyone.

There were, of course, some people who said they were going to attend who then couldn’t. So the audience was quite small. I started on time and made a mistake straight away. I had been chewing some gum to keep my mouth moist and completely forgot to take it out before beginning my talk. So there I was, trying not to chew away, but of course not succeeding.

I went through how people can cook whatever they would like for Christmas dinner. That could be roast turkey with all the trimmings or shepherds pie or sausage and mash. Whatever it is that makes you happy.

I mentioned how we learn much our behaviour at Christmas from our parents. How conditioning may not be intentional but how it works very well. How your extended family may not want to be dragged away from their newly opened presents to come to you for Christmas, but don’t know how to tell you for fear of offending you.

I told the audience how the subconscious mind stores all your habits and all the stuff we use every day without even thinking. How we drive our cars without giving a second conscious thought to the process.

The fact that the fear of doing something is often so much worse than actually doing it. And how to combat those fears. How our ‘chatterbox’ runs our lives by constantly telling us how we can’t do this, or that.

I gave examples of my own fears and how I overcame them.

To do lists can be very, very long, and I gave some ideas of how to delegate, dump or simplify the to do list to reduce stress. How my friend had decided a couple of years ago to spend her Christmas day on her own, reading and watching television. How she didn’t want the traditional Christmas dinner and cooked herself poached eggs on toast and loved it.

I gave suggestions of how to spread the cost of present buying over the year, or getting good deals online. How people could volunteer to help out the Salvation Army on Christmas Day if they found themselves to be alone but really didn’t want to be.

There was of course lots more, and it all went down very well indeed I thought. Below is some of the feedback I received:

“Helpful. Made a list as went along. Has made me determined to face some tough decisions.”

“Very helpful. Thank you.”

“I really enjoyed this. I had a stressful day at work today, and a lot of what you said made me think about this situation and I can use a lot of it.”

“Useful advice re ‘The Conversation’. Topic that everyone can relate to and has experienced.”

“Some useful tips on how to prepare for Christmas. Thank you.”

‘I really enjoyed last night, it all made sense, I plan to have the conversation at the weekend.’

I am planning to record the seminar as an audio file with the slides for those people who couldn’t make it and who would still like to listen. Let me know if you would like to download it for yourself.

Maggie Currie

Creedence – Confidence for You

International Confidence Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author

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October 6, 2013 by Maggie Currie

Relationship anxiety

Relationship anxiety is very destructive, as you know. If you don’t learn how to get rid of anxiety in your relationship, it leads into a very devastating downward spiral:

Suspiciousness
Worrying about your partner not loving you, or not caring as much as you do
Thoughts of them being unfaithful.
Many more self-destructive thoughts and emotions.

And of course, all of these will fuel your relationship anxiety.

In order to learn how to get rid of anxiety in your relationship, take the following steps:

Ask your partner for reassurance. When you find yourself becoming suspicious in your relationship, try to remember that it is probably being fueled by your anxiety. You may be able to get some relief from your relationship anxiety by asking your partner for occasional reassurance. They will be happy to give this if they are patient and understanding of your anxiety.

This kind of support may well be very helpful to you. Ask a trusted friend who is prepared to give you an honest answer if there might be some real reason for you to feel this way. But even when you get that real information, it may not help alleviate your relationship anxiety. You will have to work on that yourself. Perhaps your worry is that you feel that you are too “needy” in your relationship.

For instance, do you need constant reassurance and want your partner to regularly prove that things are really okay? This will inevitably put pressure on you and your partner and will add to the relationship anxiety.

I got married when I was 19 years old and discovered after about six months that I had made a terrible mistake. I was under a lot of pressure from my parents to stay in the marriage as it was not ‘the done thing’ to separate or divorce. In their opinion, I was far too young to know what I was doing. I believed them as I knew nothing different and so tried to make the marriage work.

Inevitably the pressure of trying to make it work instead of figuring out how to get rid of anxiety in my relationship made me very unhappy and anxious indeed. I stuck at it for twelve years until I couldn’t take it any longer and I made the decision to leave, take the children, and strike out on my own. I realised eventually that it wasn’t normal to be unhappy and anxious in a relationship. A hard lesson to learn. That was the right decision for me, and the anxiety was lifted almost as if a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders.

If any of this is resonating with you, then you will need to find ways to cope with your anxiety and learn to rely more on yourself for feeling better – taking the pressure off your partner. This will allow you to become more self-sufficient, even in your anxiety. Give yourself permission to reassure yourself instead of turning to your partner for comfort each time you are anxious. Find ways to learn to think more positively. Try being grateful for what you have.

teenage depression - teen woman sitting thinking

When you are anxious you can create all kinds of ideas in your imagination that appear so intolerable that you feel compelled to take impulsive and totally misguided actions. You will find yourself:

Jumping to conclusions
Making decisions that are destined to fail
Behaving in a totally childish manner, sulking and demanding attention.
Look for solutions that will relieve your relationship anxiety and won’t result in increasing your problems further.
When you are anxious your partner will be anxious too. It becomes a vicious circle and the anxiety is fed constantly.

Learning to trust your intuition is an important part of reducing your anxiety. So, slow down, think through anything you are considering doing and follow your intuition. Make the effort to stop listening to that nagging voice that is telling you something is wrong. It is very likely when you slow down and think rationally that you will find a much better solution for you and your relationship. In this way, you can successfully get rid of anxiety in your relationship.

If you need help with any of the above, contact me.

I am helping people to become the very best version of themselves and would love to work with you.

Maggie Currie