Mykey Robinson's Blog, page 2

Seeking 10 Amazon Reviewers for My New Book

I’m looking for 10 Amazon reviewers to give honest feedback and reviews for my new book, Cheaper Than Therapy.  If you’re interested, please email me: Mykey $at$mykeyrobinson.com.

What You’ll Need to Do:

Read the book by 3rd October, do the excercises if you can.

Write a one page review (at least 400 words)

Upload your review on Amazon.com by 5th October.

That’s pretty much it.  Looking forward to hearing feedback from those fledgling Amazon Reviewers among you.

Mykey

Amazon Reviewers

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Why Men Ignore Their Problems – Overcoming Anxiety

Men often ignore the difficult issues they face in the hope that they will go away – but the only things that actually disappear if they’re consistently ignored are your teeth.  By the time a man gets to looking for a solution, he’s been brought to his knees by it.  That’s the problem with us men – if we can tolerate a problem, we usually will.  And we’ll only focus on overcoming anxiety when we can no longer live with it.

This guy has clearly been ignoring good dental hygiene practices.

Take Roy, for example.  The first time it happened he thought it was a heart attack, but at 29, he didn’t think it was possible.  He was driving along, and then suddenly he was doubled over in pain, barely pulling over before he was completely overwhelmed by it.  That was his first panic attack.  And he’s had many since then.  The thing is, panic attacks are the result of a buildup of emotional issues that we haven’t resolved, or learned to process in healthy ways.

Panic attacks, PTSD, OCD and GAD are all symptoms of a deeper issues, and are an involuntary way of us finding ways to cope with emotions that we aren’t dealing with.

Fear is specific, anxiety is fear that we haven’t been able to put a name to.  When we repress them, it’s going to come out sooner or later, in the same way that if we drop toxic waste at the bottom of a lake, we’ll have as long as it takes for the barrels to rust through.  Panic attacks are when the lids come off, and the waste spews everywhere it was never meant to go.

Most men will avoid talking about their fears most of the time.  Until they have to… Panic attacks usually have physical, emotional, and intellectual consequences.  For example, someone may be afraid of driving in certain conditions – say on icy roads.  When they’re forced to drive in these conditions, they may break out in extreme sweats or pain.  Intellectually, they’ll do everything within their power to maintain control of a situation.  Often lying beneath this, you will find past painful experience or loss simmering beneath.

Pretty much the only way of overcoming anxiety and panic attacks is to work through them.  Which is why I wrote my latest book, Cheaper Than Therapy .  If you’re grappling with these issues, perhaps you should check it out.  It’s released on October 7th, and you’ll be able to buy it for $1 for the first week.

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cruise link

Cruise Link

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Lots of Big News On My New Book

There’s been lots going on in the lead up to the launch of my new book, “Cheaper Than Therapy”.

Official Launch Date

We have an official launch date for the book.  Things have been put back as the book has been having a thorough copy edit.  Although it’s slowed the process down a little, we’re sure it’s going to result in a far superior read, and we’re very excited about what our editor is working on.

Launch Party

As a result, the official launch date has been pushed back to the 27th of September.  We’re hoping to have a launch party for it, so expect an invite in the next few weeks, all welcome.

If you have any ideas for a good location (needs to be free), or themes/activities for the night, do let me know.

Book Groups

With the book groups beginning Monday (West) and Thursday (East) in the first week of October.  We’re planning a new, improved group based on feedback from the first one.  We’re looking at running the West group somewhere between South Kensington and Mayfair, and the East group around Canada Waters.

Both will be run in a pub, starting around 7pm.  The idea is that you come along with your book, and work through the content and exercises with another person using a technique called “Co-counselling”.  It will be run over seven weeks – the first being an introduction, and the next six running through the content.

An average night is broken into three parts.

7-7.30: Socialized, dinner if required

7.30 – 8.15: Discuss chapters read that week in a group context

8.15 – 9.30: Co-counselling, break into pairs and take it in turns to share from the exercise questions.

These times will be flexible depending on group requirements, stay tuned as it’s going to be an exciting time.  If you want to get involved, email me: mykey@mykeyrobinson.com

Book Trailer Shoots

We’re shooting a number of book trailers on Sunday 25th August in South Kensington.  If you want to come along, we may have need of one or two more helpers.

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A Great New Story on Forgiveness

Just wanted to share this great story on forgiveness, as there has been alot of controversy on the way the story was reported.  The BBC removed all references to God, and in doing so, heavily altered the facts of the story.  The comments she made went completely unreported.

In a eulogy at his funeral Mrs Greaves said she had decided to forgive the two men as it was what her husband would have wanted:

“It has to be a daily act of saying ‘I place them in your hands, God’, so that I don’t have to worry about them, I don’t have to hate them. After the massive shock and heartbreak, this was probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to do, to go down the path of forgiving them.

“It has been a wonderful release that I have not had the burden of hatred towards them. I have to do it every day so I don’t lapse. It is not an easy journey to look two men in the face who have killed the person you love most in the world and hang onto that.

“When you are sitting there in court and you see them and you are heartbroken at what they have done to you, they have taken from you the person who is still your soulmate, it is very difficult to sit there and continue to forgive them and want to forgive them.”

“One thing I have comforted myself with is that the God I believe in had a son who was beaten as Alan was beaten. The God I believe in had a son who was resurrected as I believe Alan will be resurrected to be with God.”

Speaking at her Church the Sunday after Alan died she told this story:

“In the midst of our deep grief, I was sitting in the [hospital] waiting room and a lady came in, and it irritated me, because I wanted to be by myself.

“And I suddenly looked at her and thought, ‘she’s grieving like me’. And so I went over to her, and I said ‘what’s wrong?’ And she said ‘My husband’s got a brain tumour’.

“And I said ‘how are you feeling about that?’

“And she said ‘I don’t believe in a God at all that could allow this to happen’.

“And God gave to me a wonderful moment, when I was able to say that ‘I believe in a God because at Christmas time he sent us a saviour and he can be your saviour too through all of the grief you’re going through’.

“Later on she got her results for her husband and it was a benign tumour and she came to me and she hugged me. And she said ‘I’ll leave this place thinking about the fact that there’s a saviour of this world’.

“And for me that was a great joy in the midst of my pain, because Alan only died a few hours later.”

Here is an interesting commentary on the story as it develops:

http://godandpoliticsuk.org/2013/07/1...

 

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Brendon Gets His Life Back on Track: First Podcast Episode

Listen to short interviews with experts and success stories of real people who have learned how to forgive.  Giving you the motivation to begin the process.

Brendon forgives 2013-05-28 mp3

Subscribe to the Cheaper Than Therapy Podcast, and select a specific episode.

Please comment below.

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Book Giveaway 1 & Kickstarter Campaign

So now the book is firmly in the editing process, I can turn my hand to starting the marketing ball rolling.  I am loathe to do it as I believe a good book should sell itself, but I want to include people who are really enthusiastic about it and get the message out there.  With that in mind, I’m working on a couple of ideas that hopefully you’ll want to get involved, and maybe even tell your friends.

Book Giveaway Campaign 1

I am hoping to do a book giveaway on Goodreads, possibly even as early as today.  If you don’t know what it is, it’s essentially Facebook for book geeks (of which I am one).  It’s really easy to sign up, I’ll let you know when the competition has started both on Facebook, and Goodreads.  I’m thinking I’ll offer 5 books at this point, and possibly 5 from the next run I do.

Kickstarter Campaign

I have always loved the idea of kickstarter, and how amazing they are at getting some cool stuff into production.  With that in mind, I think it’ll be helpful with Cheaper Than Therapy – to give people the opportunity to get in early and grab themselves a copy of the book, and support my vision if they want to.  There will be lots of options available to support us with.  Just hammering out the final details, so stay tuned on that.  I’ll update the post as soon as I have them up and running.  here’ll also be a number of other things that will be rolling out over the coming weeks, so keep checking in.

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CTT Book Club News, Fund Raising, Copy Editing, All Systems Go!

 There have been a number of exciting things taking place over the last little while.

The Inaugural CTT Book Club

I decided it was a good idea to get live feedback from people, and test the concept out on real people.  Good news is, it works.  We have been running in South Kensington for the last month or so. It’s already gone through a number of adjustments, and now we’re at a point where it’s running quite smoothly.

The first week was great, with an intro, and brief discussion, followed by plenty of banter on some lounges next to the Duke of Clarence near Gloucester Road Tube.  From there, the night runs pretty smoothly each week.

7-7.30 drinks and banter

It’s a great bunch of peeps.  And they’re a lot of fun.  Of course, as expected, it’s mostly girls who’ve turned up, and they’re awesome.  I’m going to blog about why I think this is in the near future.

7.30 – 8.15 Topic Discussion

Each week we talk about a chapter of the book.  Really enjoyable so far, I’ve been learning as much as anyone.  One of the best chats we had was about whether separating reconciliation and and forgiveness was possible, and how to do it.

8.15 – 9.00 Co-Counselling

We split into pairs and open up more about what we’re actually working through.  Of course, privacy and trust is an issue, but we’re at a point where we’re really getting somewhere.

I get people to do a short survey at the end, and we’re off home.

Kick Starter Campaign

So the good news is you will be able to pre-purchase a book before the launch.  I’ve finally decided to get a Kick Starter Campaign up and running.  Writing a book is more expensive than I thought, what with multiple edits, ads, purchasing ISBN’s etc.  The only way to really get it off the ground is to throw a bit of money at it.  And so many of my friends have been supportive, and keen to get their hands on a copy, I thought I’d let you sign up in advance.  You won’t have long to wait – we’re aiming for a launch party at the end of August.

The Countdown to Launch

It does seem that we’re not far away from getting it off the ground.  With 12 weeks left to go, Leonard Bernstein’s quote never seemed truer:

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not enough time”

It seems that I have both of these…

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Why I Started My Own Guerilla Garden

So I was camping in the common across the road from my house a few months ago, and decided I had to start gardening.  I’d never done it before.  I didn’t exactly know why, but I know it’s important.  There’s lessons I’ve learned (and are still to).  I live in an apartment, so I knew I’d have to guerilla garden (where you stick plants on unused land) if I was to grow the many tasty vegetables I wanted to.

The suburb I live is pretty posh, but has lots of commons, and I live across the road from a village green, so figured there was a good start.  I cleared a patch of land in the sun, surrounded it with a double hedge of bushes from the surrounding forest, and dumped half a ton of manure, chicken pellets and bone meal (for root growth).  I’m taking my gardening tips from here.

Here are my two trees I bought for £20 (a pear and plum), ready to plant.  The bottom pic is of my garden after I’d cleared it.

I have friends who’ve been teaching me, and it’s been a blast.  I’m off right after I finish typing this to plant my first crop.

It has so many upsides, I can’t believe it’s not something most people do.  And the stress release it gives me is outstanding.  When I’ve had a rough day writing, I go over to my little secret garden, hang out there for a few hours, and come back chirping like a sparrow.  My friend’s son was doing a stress monitoring test (he is some high profile exec, so his company was making sure he was healthy).  They did so for a couple of months.  The results came back and they asked him what he did between six and eight each evening. because there was a massive drop in stress levels during that time.  He told them that it was when he was in the garden.

I found this on TED.com, and realized that the world is doing it (when they’re doing it in LA, it must be cool).  This guy definitely has the vision.  I firmly believe that gardening will be something that we don’t just use for leisure, or to get people off the streets, but that we will depend upon to feed our families.  There is an economic storm coming, and substituting your income with grow your own veg will be something many of us will be forced to do.

 

[ted id=1685]

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Discovering How to Forgive Yourself

I met a man recently who was struggling to forgive himself.  He had made a big mistake in his marriage, and as a result he was separated from his family, and it was tearing him up on the inside, and wrecking his life on the outside.  His journey was having some very interesting, and positive side-effects though.  He was becoming what I would call “a seeker”.  If you’re grappling with how to forgive yourself, I’ve included an excerpt from my new book that deals with this question directly.  It is a book on how to forgive.  You are just one of the many parties that you need to forgive if you are navigate life well.  The book is called “Cheaper Than Therapy”.  You can find the link to buy the book on this website.  Either way, I hope that this helps you on your journey to processing how to forgive yourself.

One party we cannot forget is ourselves in the forgiveness process.  The debts we owe ourselves fall into two categories: guilt and regret. 

Guilt: You did it, you were at fault.  Your actions wounded one or more people (this may include you).

Regret: You let it happen, you had the power to stop it, but you didn’t.  You could have prevented one or more people from getting hurt, but you did not (you may have been unaware or done it unintentionally).

Forgive Yourself

Discovering How to Forgive Yourself

Forgiving yourself can be the most difficult of all types of debts.  It takes discipline and focus to account for the deficit, and forgive it.  You can’t be lazy, or allow yourself concessions, as your heart will still pursue the debt if you give yourself a “staff discount”.

If you have hurt others, or yourself you may end up developing the same negative emotions, thoughts and behaviour of a victim.  One study noted this behaviour in people who hurt others, as they frequently exhibited feelings of sadness, shame and guilt.

Guilt and Shame aren’t mutually exclusive.  You can experience both together.

 

Guilt: “I’m Sorry For What I Did”

Even if you are a mass murderer, you will have some kind of code or standard that guides the way you operate.  In the Italian mafia, every gang operates according to a strict rule of “omerta” – a code of silence ensuring loyalty to family.  Even those with extremely flexible morals, have some kind of code they live by, however loose.  When your actions violate your code, you may experience guilt.  How aware of the guilt you are, and how you suppress it will differ depending on who you are.

Some people feel an intrusive sense of guilt.  Perhaps it was a religion, school or family member who used fear and guilt to scare you in order to make you conform to certain behaviours.  Morals is an old fashioned word, but most people have things they won’t do.

Guilt can be a cycle: 1) make a mistake, 2) experience guilt and shame, 3) experience remorse and sorrow, 4) return to previous agreement, 5) repeat.  It starts by doing something we said we wouldn’t, then feeling ashamed because of this.  We then make amends, determining to change our direction (repent), we “forgive and forget” the pain we felt when we were ashamed, and just as we start feeling good about ourselves, we do it again and start the cycle all over again.

It might be the impact your actions had on others.  It might be the way you handled your role as a father, mother, husband, or wife.  It might have been a single big moment that altered the rest of your life, or a whole lot of little moments that led to an outcome you really regretted.  We’ve all done things we’ve felt guilty about, it’s par for the course that you’re going to screw up.  The real question is how to deal with these let downs, and how do we keep “getting back on the horse”?  It has to begin by being fully accountable to ourselves.  Although our heads will automatically want to let ourselves off the hook, our hearts will not let this happen.  For complete forgiveness of debts to happen, we must listen to our hearts, not our heads

We can’t unsleep with someone, unmurder someone, or unslander someone.  What is done is done.  We may find that we do something – either calculated or in the heat of the moment (more often the latter) that we later regret, but which we cannot now change.  We shouldn’t try to explain it away with excuses.  Face the debt, fully account for it.  And then forgive it.

Regret: “I’m Sorry For What I Didn’t Do”

Regret is what we experience when something is not done, that should have been (and usually is) within our power to.  It may often involve other people or circumstances or that we could have stopped a negative outcome from occurring, but because we didn’t, people ended up getting hurt (including ourselves).  We may have been fully aware of the results of our actions.  Or we may have been completely unaware.

When we’re not aware that our actions were going to end in disaster, it’s common to say “if only I had done …”.  We replay it over and over again.  It’s okay to think this.  Whatever our heart feels owed, we should fully account for it, and then cancel the debt.

There is usually no way of having a second bite of the cherry when it comes to regret.  That doesn’t mean we have to carry them around as a chip on our shoulder for the rest of our life.  The reality is that every person makes mistakes.  Those who succeed learn from these mistakes constructively.  Neither guilt nor regret are constructive ways of learning from a mistake if we let them fester and hang around like a bad smell.

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