My Quest

19 hours ago

🤔 Have you heard of ‘learned helplessness’? (I know, awful term…). If so, I bet you’ve only heard half the story. And it’s the 2nd half that’s *vital*:

Seligman, now known for Positive Psychology, used experiments electrocuting dogs (I know…) to evidence ‘learned helplessness’:

Priming:
Group 1: Do nothing
Group 2: Restrain dogs. Give inescapable electric shocks.

Experiment:
Group 1: put 🐶 in cage. Give electric shock. Dog learns to move to stop pain. *Action is effective*. Repeat x60, dog still takes action. Open cage door, dog leaves cage.

Group 2: put 🐶 (who’s already learned they can’t escape pain) in cage. Shock. Dog is distressed but does NOT move. Repeat x60, still takes NO action. Endures pain. Open cage door, does NOT leave cage. Thus establishing learned helplessness

Have you ‘learned’:
❌ You’re wrong no matter what you do
❌ There’s no point trying
❌ You’re always being told off, criticised, undermined
❌ No matter what you do or how you do it, your environment (including people) will inflict pain upon you?

As with animals, so with humans, studies show, with this abrasion of hope and agency:
1. motivation to respond decreases
2. even when actions are successful there is a *difficulty in learning* our action *works*
3. anxiety & depression increase

That’s the 1st part. Here’s the *vital* 2nd:

🔐 For the dogs to re-learn to take action, the researchers had to actively *hold their paws* and *move their limbs* away from pain, so they had the lived, embodied, experience of their action being effective.

🤝 Hand by hand 🐾 paw by paw. 👣 step by step. Out of the cage 🕊

So if ✨YOU✨ are struggling, this might be what’s going on. And if you need a hand, that’s 👏 normal 👏 natural 👏 and a path to healing and proper empowerment 👏

Eve Parmiter, Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapist. ... See MoreSee Less

My Quest

2 days ago

‘Stop waiting for that “one day” and make happen whatever you want. You just never know what is possible’ – Suzanne Fergus, Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapist

2020 was a year that nobody planned for. Many individual stories have arisen from this collective shared global experience and this is my story. During 2020, I finally ticked off a major dream from my bucket list. We all have dreams and goals that mean the world to us and somehow, they get put off until there’s more time. But there just never seems to be enough time and our dream gets pushed further into that mystical “one day” future time. That was the same for me.

On the 31st August 2008, my life was turned upside down, literally! I was out cycling and coming towards the end of the training ride, I came off my bike. I do not remember to this day what exactly happened, but it had started to rain, and my wheel just slipped over a metal grate on the road. I was not hit by a car, but my head banged on the concrete road. Thankfully, I was wearing a helmet, if I wasn’t well, I wouldn’t be here today. It was a massive turning point in my life, I could not go to work for almost a year and when I did return, I was only able to work for a couple of hours and I had to go home again.

I had a skull fracture, half of my face was paralysed, I could not hear properly and had terrible headaches. It was scary but thankfully following a slow recovery where I wasn’t even able to read or watch tv, (imagine how bored I was) I eventually made a fully recovery. Thankfully I have had no long-term side effects other than it taking me 7 years to get back up on a bicycle again. The one thing that not being able to watch tv or read did was to give me lots of time to think. I was told I was extremely lucky, that if I did not have a helmet, I would not be alive. Those words hit me hard. I remember thinking I am not ready to die, I have so many things that I want to do.

I started to really dig into my soul and ask some deep questions about my life’s purpose, about what really motivates me. The answer I kept coming back to was making a difference to others especially in relation to learning. It’s a powerful drive inside and one of my goals was to write a book for students. I did a lot of research to really understand what makes successful studying. I interviewed students and I wanted to write a book for students, something useful that would make a difference. Not another academic book to sit on a shelf!

And I finished and published the book, Study Smarter: A lecturer’s inside guide to boost your grades in 2020. My biggest learning with my dream was if not now, when?

That’s what 2020 has taught me, stop waiting for that “one day” and make happen whatever you want. You just never know what is possible…… ... See MoreSee Less

My Quest

5 days ago

Timeline Photos ... See MoreSee Less