SIMPLE, SENSIBLE, SCIENTIFICALLY SUPPORTED SELF HELP
The Real Secret is a different kind of self help. We debunk the empty promises of so many books and DVDs and bring you a simple, sensible approach to real life fulfillment. We don't believe you can achieve happiness, or anything else, by simply wishing for, thinking about or visualising it. Our book - and this blog - takes only the best of what really works and turns it into a positive, practical 12-step programme that will enable you to take control of your life and raise your happiness levels.
* Learn Happiness Habits from Positive Psychology * Tame your Fear with Cutting Edge Neuroscience * Control your Time and Money like an Entrepreneur * Build Better Relationships through one Tested Technique
The Real Secret is simple, sensible, scientifically supported self help
by Lucy McCarraher & Annabel Shaw
12/29/2010
Beware celebrity science fiction
12/19/2010
What More Is There To Say About The Weather?
"Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having."
Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary
Kelvin Throop III
"Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation."
Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)
"Money is the opposite of the weather. Nobody talks about it, but everybody does something about it. "
Rebecca Johnson, Vogue
Managing Stress Over The Festive Season
12/17/2010
More Scientific Support for The Real Secret Programme
This article from NPR supports Step 6 of The Real Secret - "Mind Stretching":
"There are plenty of ways to relieve stress — exercise, a long soak in a hot bath, or even a massage. But believe it or not, something you're doing right now, probably without even thinking about it, is a proven stress reliever: breathing.
"As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it's been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system — and maybe even the expression of genes.
"Mladen Golubic, a physician in the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Integrative Medicine, says that breathing can have a profound impact on our physiology and our health.
"You can influence asthma; you can influence chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; you can influence heart failure," Golubic says. "There are studies that show that people who practice breathing exercises and have those conditions — they benefit."
"He's talking about modern science, but these techniques are not new. In India, breath work called pranayama is a regular part of yoga practice. Yoga practitioners have used pranayama, which literally means control of the life force, as a tool for affecting both the mind and body for thousands of years.
"Take A Breath
"Judi Bar teaches yoga to patients with chronic diseases at the Cleveland Clinic. Bar uses yoga and modifications of traditional yoga breathing exercises as a way to help them manage their pain and disease....
Read the rest of this article on http://www.npr.org/2010/12/06/131734718/just-breathe-body-has-a-built-in-stress-reliever
12/16/2010
Whack Around The Head
I started reading this book with my objective, coaching head on: what could I learn from it to add to my own toolkit; what insights into other people's lives would I gain? And then it came - the eponymous whack around the head, and forcefully reminded me that I too need to stay in touch with my own purpose, passion and power; regain the balance of ethos, pathos and logos which Sharon Eden appropriately updates from Aristotle.
This book is aimed primarily at corporate employees, at any organisational level, and gives an inspiring account of how those who find themselves "living dead" can reawaken, or discover for the first time, what makes the job they do have meaning, excitement and energy. The style is punchy and idiosyncratic, with neat and easily do-able exercises, archetypal stories and coaching case studies sprinkled throughout. The author's evident purpose, passion and power forces the reader to look themselves in the eye and challenges them to break out of their self-constructed and restrictive box.
The tricks we all use to evade our powerful selves are revealed as mere schticks, gremlins and trances. By the end of this engaging and entertaining book, any reader should be sufficiently enthused to embrace their sword of change and ride off into a glorious sunset with Sir Lancelot.
If you know that life has more to offer than seems possible with your current work, this is the book for you. Not only does it encourage everyone to look ahead to more and better things, but to make the most of what they have now - and find fulfillment in carrying out even the most basic job with purpose, passion and power.
Lucy
12/10/2010
HOW TO KEEP YOURSELF SAFE IN A CROWDED WORLD
I am careful about getting irritated because I learnt early on not to wage war with the outside world on inconsequential things such as getting upset when things outside of my control go wrong or when people are rude, and, instead, I now turn my attention inward to myself. This simple shift of attention has changed how I experience my life. I am more content - and a whole lot more tolerant. My feelings are more precious to me now - not to be wasted on irritation and annoyance. I now keep my anger and frustration for more important things, like cruelty.
So how do I stop myself getting annoyed by everyday irritations? This is what I do:
- When an irritating event occurs I stop and breathe
- I pay attention to how I am feeling and what I am thinking. This allows me to recognise how my old habits work so that they now no longer control me. I am aware of myself.
- I then think of the people I love the most and I pour this love onto my irritation much as you would put balm on a physical wound.
- I repeat these steps every time I face a difficulty
Posted by Annabel.
12/09/2010
BRIGHTON UP MY DAY
I had an important appointment today which meant taking the bus from the centre of Brighton. Normally this trip would take twenty minutes. It took me forty-five minutes there, and over an hour back. Why? Well today was the day that the government was voting on student fees and Brighton has been at the forefront of student protest. Most of our students were in London, but there remained a vocal small crowd left at home. These students were quite young - still at school probably - but they had managed to stop the traffic.
Annabel
WISHING YOU'D DONE THINGS DIFFERENTLY
Martin Seligman, author of ‘Learned Optimism’, advocates, as I do, that we take responsibility for our own happiness. But that doesn’t mean that we have to take responsibility for absolutely everything that happens to us. The point of owning up to temporary failure is that we can change. We don’t see the failure as permanent – I am stupid. It’s all my fault. It won’t be – ever. If your son or daughter drops out of university, it’s easy to see that as a parental failure. I didn’t instill enough self-discipline in him or her. That’s nonsense. The reality will be that your student offspring was bored with the course and made his or her own decision to leave.
12/07/2010
The Real Secret on Kindle
We have lift off!
The first edition of THE REAL SECRET is out - on Amazon Kindle .
I've just downloaded my copy and it's looking great. Cheaper than the hard copy will be (available in about a week) - at £7.28, it's all there, from the Praise for The Real Secret (most of which we posted below), through the Introduction, How The Real Secret Works and the 12 Steps.
Kindles are quite addictive; more so than books because of the new technology. You just want to keep pressing the "page turn" button, just because you can. Then when you're reading a real book, you keep pressing the right hand side and waiting for the text to move on. I've had to turn mine off to stop reading my own book, which I know pretty much off by heart, so why would I bother?
If you don't have a Kindle (and I'd thoroughly recommend you ask for one for Christmas - they are brilliant!), and you have to wait another week or so to order your hard copy of THE REAL SECRET (which looks great too, of course), you can go to the website in the meantime - www.therealsecret.net; or follow us on Twitter - ; or "like" The Real Secret on Facebook - .
If you do read THE REAL SECRET on Kindle, please do post a review on Amazon - and give us your comments here, too.
Back to the Kindle.
Cheers for now,
Lucy
Let's Make Christmas Simple!
Every year when December arrives many of us start to feel excited about Christmas. Children especially. For adults the excitement of Christmas also means a lot of hard work needs to be done. Tree, cards, food, presents, clothes, parties; the list is endless and the cost is high. So too is the stress.