Blog Articles

Stronger Than You Think

May 5, 2022 by Patrea O'Donoghue

^{Patrea completing her second Spartan race – May 2021}

We all ‘know’ that exercise is important. However, as we get older, exercise becomes even more important.

If you are a woman over 50 (or of any age for that matter), weight-bearing exercise (eg strength exercises) becomes even more important (for maintaining muscle strength and bone density). I watched my mother’s physical strength decline over a number of decades – and sadly die a year ago in 2021. She was never much of a fan for sweating – so wasn’t much of a fan for exercise. In her last weeks, she was no longer able to get up from a chair unassisted. In her last weeks, I found myself at times literally having to support her full weight to and from her bed (those little wheelie walkers aren’t much good for getting in and around tight spaces, and definitely not for someone who is in that last transition stage of life).

I realised that even though I was fit and could manage the task, I needed to get stronger – much stronger if I was to be useful in those types of situations. I wanted to have the strength for two people. Fortunately, I did have the strength and could assist but I knew then that I could do with being a lot stronger. Sadly, I know many who faced with a similar situation, would not have been up to assist in that way.

Side note: Later in 2021 I took up going to a gym that emphasized building strength with weights. I thought perfect! Here’s the side note: this week we did a dead lift challenge. I thought I did pretty well lifting 70kg – a PB for me! This this morning, I saw a video in our group of one of the ladies dead lifting 142kg!! I guess I have a long way to go in my strength building. LOL! Ok she was younger and I’m a slighter build but still, I know I have more in me 😊

Physically, exercise has many important benefits. However, many people don’t acknowledge the psychological and mental well-being benefits that come from undertaking new physical challenges. Becoming stronger as we age is empowering. As part of a program I was doing in 2021, we had to do a Spartan Race – it’s an obstacle course race, that involves mud, height, lots of grip strength, and lots of burpees.

Leading up the Spartan race, I knew I had to build up my upper body strength for most of the obstacles. After a really badly broken wrist (with a bit of CRPS thrown in for good measure) and shoulder injury from a fall in 2017, training for Spartan alerted me to a few little gremlins in my mind. Falling was an obvious one given my 2017 incident. Then one day I heard myself saying “I can’t do chin ups” – not just once, but a few times.

Well, knowing what I know, once I’d picked up on this unhelpful thought sneeking in, I asked myself, “well, what can you do? And let’s start with that”. So I started my shoulder strength training with assisted chin ups – starting with just one. Some months later I was doing monkey bars at the gym – a challenge that seemed inconceivable a few years earlier. Entering in for the Spartan race made me train differently (eg more upper body workouts and much more leg strength work, too) and do things that definitely got me out of my comfort zone. And as a bonus it helped me straighten our a few mental gremlins too! Oh and there’s the whole mud thing too!

Overcoming obstacles in the physical realm of Spartan races (or other Obstacle Course Races) is symbolic in reminding us that we can find a way over, under, around or straight through any obstacle we face in life. And the mind is going to play a big role in exploring ways to overcome those obstacles!! Life requires training for the very real challenges we face. Obstacle course races – or other forms of endurance events – provide a great training ground to be able to face those challenges inner and outer challenges.

With time, you then begin to realise that you can find a way through to the other side of life’s challenges, no matter how insurmountable they seem at first. We can endure more than we think; more often it’s our mind that wants to throw in the towel way earlier than our body would otherwise give out. The thing is, we just don’t often put that to the test, and for some, especially not as often as we add a few more years to the age tally.

We realise that little voice in our head that says, “I can’t”, or “it’s too hard”, that wants to take it easy, doesn’t have to run the show. We begin to realise we are capable of more than we’ve been doing. By taking on physically challenging exercise, such as for obstacle course races, distance running, or weights training, we can see the progress we’re making by lifting heavier and doing more reps. And we realise that it feels good to feel strong and be capable. And it’s not bad for the ego to get a little leaner and fit more comfortably into our clothes!

And if you find yourself eating more healthily to support being able to do these endurance events, getting leaner, stronger, and fitter, all the better! And you’ll probably sleep better, too 🙂

Seeing my beautiful mother’s strength fade (she was very capable in her day – and had 5 children under the age of 6, which is no small feat), has certainly given me motivation to not only maintain my fitness and health, but to do the work to get stronger so that I can reap the benefits of many more healthy years.

What will motivate you to do the work now, to become stronger as you age, to reap the benefits of being healthier? I’m a registered Sport & Exercise Psychologist and have done two Spartan sprint races (approx. 5kms) in my 50s over the last 18months, never having done a Spartan before. My third Spartan event is coming up in October 2022. Want to join me? Got a few Gremlins you need to iron out? Get in touch!

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Giving up

May 5, 2022 by Patrea O'Donoghue

English is a funny language at times – sometimes in a humorous way, and sometimes in that strange kind of way. I find it interesting how we can have the same word or phrase, yet in different contexts, it can mean entirely different things. In a recent conversation, the term, ‘giving up’ stood out for me. This led me to ponder the different ways this phrase can be used.

As I see it there are three main ways of looking at ‘giving up’. The first way: there’s giving up, as in throwing in the towel. “I quit. That’s it! I’m not doing this anymore.” This way of giving up comes from a place of defeat and pain. A place of hopelessness and helplessness. There’s a feeling of disempowerment. There’s probably a lot of frustration accompanying this form of giving up. It’s essentially saying, “I can’t handle this anymore; I don’t want to do this anymore.” Very visible examples of this are athletes who hit the wall and physically just can’t go on. If they were a car, it’s as if their gas tank literally hit empty and the car just went kaput. And then there’s the rest of us mere mortals, that at times feel we just can’t go on – we’ve hit our breaking point. And like the athlete or the car, we too go kaput.

Then there’s a second way of ‘giving up’, as in I’m choosing to no longer partake in this thing or habit. I’m giving up this aspect of my life because I choose to, because it no longer serves me. This way of giving up comes from a place of conviction. There’s a feeling of empowerment and personal strength. There’s a sense of certainty and commitment that there must be a path towards a better version of you and that the path you’re on now, isn’t it! It makes you feel a sense of being in control, and that generates a sense of belief in yourself – especially when you follow through on your commitment.

I don’t recall who first said this, but I’ve heard it said that the fastest way to change is to stop doing what isn’t working. Hmmm, makes a lot of sense. Stopping doing something, because it’s not or no longer working for you, means giving up that particular thing.

We can drill down a little further on this perspective of giving up. We can look at this type of giving up something in an empowering way or a disempowering way. This is empowering: “I’m choosing to better my life by giving up this habit”, such as giving up sugar to lose weight or to become healthier. When I’m choosing, I’m having agency over this decision and pathway. I get to determine my chosen path and that’s self-affirming and energizing. However, we could be on the path to giving up something, yet feel disempowered because we’re doing it because we feel we have to, not because we want to. This is disempowering: “I’m being told that if I don’t give up cigarettes, I’ll develop all sorts of health problems” such as chronic inflammation, which can lead to all sorts of chronic illnesses that likely will shorten your life. (Note: I don’t smoke, nor have I ever been a smoker, and I certainly hope that if you do smoke, you are planning on ‘giving up’ soon 😊 . Your lungs and life will thank you for it!)

When it comes down to change, we are best off looking at what is within our control. Usually, that boils down to what is the object of our attention, how we think about what we’re thinking about, and then what we go on to do. Usually, that boils down to our thoughts and actions (for those of you wondering ‘hey, Patrea, what about our emotions? Well, for most of us the majority of the time, our emotions are the result of our thoughts and actions. Develop healthier patterns of thinking and doing, and your feelings will likely follow.). As the Serenity Prayer says,

“Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change what I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference”.

When we shift how we look at things, from ‘I have to do this’ to ‘I want to do this’, we shift from being disempowered to empowered.

The Serenity Prayer, also helps us see a third way of ‘giving up’. This way of ‘giving up’ is akin to a form of surrender – giving up the struggle and surrendering to a higher power. Now, I know this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, though for some of you this may resonate. We could see this as being guided by our intuition instead of trying to force something to happen. Joseph Campbell, writer and professor of mythology and religion, describes it poetically, “when you are on the right path, invisible hands will come to your aid”. In his famously long interview series with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell elaborates on this by saying,

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be”.

So the next time you’re contemplating giving up something, choose the empowering pathway of looking at this choice to give up and change for the better and reap the rewards. Perhaps you’ll choose the path of surrender and be guided by invisible hands – all power to you! If there’s a need to change some aspect of your life, choose the fastest path to change, and give up the struggle and what’s not working.

If you know there’s something that you could do with ‘giving up’ and need some assistance to do so, take the first step and see where doors might open for you to make the change you’re wanting.

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A Lesson in Hope – The Tattooist of Auschwitz

July 29, 2021 by Patrea O'Donoghue Leave a Comment

A Lesson in Hope – The Tattooist of Auschwitz

In the middle of the year, within a relatively short space of time, I had two people say to me, “I think you’d like the book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz”. Within two weeks of the second mention of that book, I saw that book – at my mother-in-law’s place. Well, when something pops up multiple times on my radar, I figure I need to take note. So, I knew it was time to read this book! Fortunately, my mother-in-law was happy for me to take it home for a read.

Well, it is quite the story! The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the interviews between the author, Heather Morris, and an elderly man, Lale. Lale was born Ludwig Eisenberg, who, during his time in Auschwitz, had the role of Tätowierer. As you would expect of a story about Auschwitz, much of it is truly horrendous. There was the complete obliteration of human rights, deprivation of food and liberties, the inhumanity of brutality and cruelty, callous dehumanisation, endless uncertainty, and of course death – lots of death. The mind shudders to think how someone could even conceive of such an idea, let alone give it the light of day.

However, what was unexpected was the story of enduring hope (and there’s also an unexpected yet beautiful love story, too). I knew as I was reading that the main character, Lale, must have survived since he had lived to tell his story to the author. However, as his SS minder had said, he must have been a cat because he just seemed to have so many lives. So many times, he was so close to death. Each time, he survived.

Back to the story of hope. Lale and his fellow train companions had no idea what was awaiting them at the end of their journey. Pause for a moment as you consider that this was a time of no smartphones and no instantaneous access to news of the world. Outside these remote camps, it wasn’t widely known what fate awaited those who were destined to arrive. When Lale arrived, it was in the early days of the concentration camps. At the time he entered Auschwitz, Lale fairly quickly sensed this was not going to be over any time soon. Lale was multi-lingual and as he walked through the open iron gates he looked up to read the sign Arbeit Macht Frei, ‘work will make you free’. As his first day in this living hell draws to a close, he makes a commitment to himself, “I will live to leave this place. I will walk out a free man.

Lale held onto that commitment and the vision that he would walk out of that place, see his family again, get married, have children, and have a good life no matter what his current circumstances. His sense of hope – that vision he held onto so clearly – for a better future was remarkable given the horrendous conditions he endured for over three years. Each day with the uncertainty of not knowing what would happen nor how long he would be there, he shone a light to his vision of a better future. He was a very resourceful young man. In his later life, he knew that his story had to be shared so that this never happens again.

The science of hope, pioneered at The University of Kansas by Rick Snyder and his graduate student Shane Lopez, has three main components:

i. Goal – a vision of a future that is better than our present.
ii. Agency – belief in ourselves that we can make that better future a reality.
iii. Pathways – that we are willing to take as many pathways as required to make that a
better reality.

If plan A hits a brick wall, then move onto plan B. Lale was a master at working multiple pathways!! We can conveniently think of those three steps by the acronym they form: GAP. Hope is about closing the gap between our current reality and that vision we see of our better future.

Holding onto hope no matter what, for however long it takes, is a key to getting through difficult and uncertain times. Lale had hope in abundance – in every chapter of his life in Auschwitz. As the author wrote in the postscript, “Lale lived his life by the motto: ‘If you wake up in the morning, it is a good day.”

If you are reading this, it is a good day! How can you close the gap and build a little more hope into your life, today?

➨ Click here for course info

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Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Hope, Lale Sokolov, Lesson of Hope, Patrea O'Donoghue, The Tattooist of Auschwitz

My two core fundamentals to Mindful Living

July 23, 2021 by Patrea O'Donoghue 2 Comments

My two core fundamentals to Mindful Living

Earlier this year, my life got rocked to the core. My beautiful mother went from being pretty independent to having two falls (she’d never had a fall and these were just one week apart), two hospital stays, then subsequently died in late February.

I now understand from a very visceral sense how grief can hit hard.

It was super hard.

Apart from having to organize a covid-restriction-imposed funeral to channel my energy-zapped focus, two things above all else helped ground me during that haze:

1. My mindfulness practice

…and

2. My daily exercise

I was back on my meditation stool and back at the gym the morning after my mother died. From my work and all I’ve learned, I knew just how important it was to stick to a routine in tough times. Two quotes stood out for me… Phil Stutz: “the worse you feel, the more you need to commit to your protocol” (aka morning routine) and notable child Psychologist, Haim Ginott, “When a person is drowning, it is not a good time to teach him to swim”.

I knew I was “drowning”. The first two weeks after my mother died, it was like being in a time-warp, and going through quick-sand. I knew I had to draw on my life-raft. My life-raft was my morning routine of mindfulness meditation and exercise. I’m super glad that I had that routine firmly in place long before I really needed it. And it has come in handy in the past on a number of occasions.

BTW that morning after, I wasn’t exactly wanting to do these things. But I knew that I had to – it was going to be the only way to get through this and out the other side. I knew it was that important to just show up.

How about you? Do you know what your grounding habits are? And do you work with them regularly? Or do you think you’ll be scrambling to put a life-raft in place when you really need one? In other words, are you going to wing it? Or are you going to be prepared for the inevitable curveball that life is going to throw you?

If you want to develop a mindfulness practiceyou can contact me to get started:

Phone 0410 264 224 | patrea@positivepsychologystrategies.com.au

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Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Brisbane psychologist, exercise, mindful living, Positive Psychology

What’s all natural, costs nothing, and boosts your well-being?

July 22, 2021 by Patrea O'Donoghue Leave a Comment

What’s all natural, costs nothing, and boosts your well-being?

So would you take that pill?

This is a quote from American psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, The Coddling of the American Mind, and The Happiness Hypothesis.

Knowing that, if meditation came in the form of a pill, would you take it? Surely the answer is obvious: if it was as easy as taking a pill, of course, you would take it! However, meditation does require just a little more effort. But the payback is huge!

The good news is that mindfulness can be both a form of meditation and a way of living. Mindfulness as a way of living is about being mindful of our thoughts, words, and actions helping us to truly live in the present. As a form of meditation, mindfulness does require training – the practices are simple though not necessarily easy.

Combining both mindfulness as a meditation practice and as a way of living, can yield a lot of the benefits that Jonathan Haidt outlines above. Making mindful decisions moment to moment day in day out.

So, what’s all-natural, cost nothing, and boost your well-being? – Mindfulness meditation

If you want to develop a mindfulness practice you can contact me to get started:

Phone 0410 264 224 | patrea@positivepsychologystrategies.com.au

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Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Brisbane psychologist, CoachPatrea, Executive Coach, healthy living, Leadership, Mindfulness, PositivePsychology, Psychologist in Brisbane, wellbeing

The impact of one simple change of getting sugar out of my diet

July 21, 2021 by Patrea O'Donoghue 9 Comments

The impact of one simple change of getting sugar out of my diet

In 2011, I watched my partner lose a few kilos – initially 2kgs, ultimately about 10kgs.

For a man in his late 40s, he had a six-pack! I was a happy woman 🙂 Anyway, all he did was make one change to what he ate – just one – and the weight seemingly just melted off him. He had signed up for one of those gym challenges. He was most inspired by what the dietitian had to say. In particular, a book she referenced, Sweet Poison, by David Gillespie.

The one change he made to what he ate was to cut out all added sugar from his diet. Nothing else!

Inspired by his weight loss and body transformation, a few months later, I decided to give it a go. I committed to giving sugar the flick. I wasn’t a big sugar junkie, but I was someone who had a little bit regularly. Well, the day I decided to start my sugar-free eating, was the day I realized that the little amount I’d been drip-feeding myself all that time, had made me into a sugar addict!

Yikes! The first meal I went without the sugar treat to finish off my meal was the moment I knew what it was like to be hooked to a substance – hook, line, and sinker. This legal substance had a total hold on me. It was like my mind, taste buds, and body were all in cahoots screaming, “oh no, you’re not finished yet. You know you want it; it’s just over there. Go get it!”. It was such a vivid visceral experience – fascinating but tough.

I managed to refrain from giving in to the sirens’ calls for a fix of ‘sweet poison’ that meal.

But I realized that to succeed at getting sugar out of my system and my diet, not just for one meal but for many to come, was going to be an exercise in living consciously. To succeed in that, I was going to have to draw on all my training as a psychologist.

Mindfulness was the primary tool of choice for me. I knew that if I didn’t react to the experience, and could just mentally step back from it, then it would pass – just as the classic saying goes, “this too shall pass”. By this stage, I had been a mindfulness practitioner for nearly 5 years, and had been running mindfulness groups for nearly 3 years. However, this was going to be my first application of mindfulness to a physical change I was choosing to make in my life.

Well, the first two weeks were quite the challenge, like walking up a steep mountain that just never seems to end! I was going through sugar withdrawal symptoms for an ‘addiction’ that I didn’t know I had just a little while earlier.

Those withdrawal symptoms from sugar seemed super intense AND relentless! I was committed so I stayed the distance, and as I did, I observed the waves – more like tsunamis in those first two weeks – of cravings rising up in my mind and body, with every lunch and dinner.

Once I got through those first two weeks, it was as if I turned a corner. Going into the second two weeks, I noticed a subtle but distinct change in the cravings. They were there, most definitely, but not as intense nor as long-lasting. I continued. And I was encouraged because the scales had begun to change.

After four weeks, I could honestly say that I was no longer hooked. I still had cravings at the end of my meals, but it was more like a little toddler wanting some attention – totally manageable.

I acknowledged those cravings, and then they’d go away. By the end of that first month, applying my focused mindfulness training, the cravings would sometimes be gone in just a few breaths. Whilst I have not been 100% sugar-free in the 10 years since, I have drastically cut back on my sugar intake.

There’s about 10kg less of me now than when I embarked on culling the sweet poison from my diet. Whilst not all 10kgs were to do with sugar (see below), I’m certain that like compound interest on financial investments, there will be compound interest benefits to my health as a result of that one change. And mindfulness helped make that change happen.

Note: I dropped 5kg due to sugar. The other 5kg have come off going plant-based (ie vegan since 2018), and I now train differently at the gym doing more HIIT. Once again, mindfulness played a role in making these changes happen 🙂

If you want to develop a mindfulness practice you can contact me to get started:

Phone 0410 264 224 | patrea@positivepsychologystrategies.com.au

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Top 10 Big Ideas – Optimized Wisdom Distilled (Email Series)

February 11, 2021 by Patrea O'Donoghue 4 Comments

Top 10 Big Ideas – Optimized Wisdom Distilled (Email Series) from my Coach Training Program

I spent the better part of 2020 participating in an intensive Coach Training program that focused on core wisdom (from ancient wisdom and modern science) and life’s fundamentals. As part of the program, we all had to participate in an obstacle course race. The obstacles in these races symbolize our commitment to what we’ve learned: to finding a way over, under, around or through any challenge we face in life.

I thought I was reasonably fit for a person my age; participating in an obstacle course race showed me that I’ve still got a long way to go!! By the end of the course, I had continued to tweak what I eat, I trained differently at the gym, lost a few kgs (burpees will do that!!), and got a whole lot fitter and stronger! And prompted by my active participation in this course, I’ve also improved my sleep, do a daily journal, and now consistently meditate in the mornings!

I’ve distilled the best of what I extracted (best for me) from my ten months of training into my Top 10 Big Ideas. Here’s the overview of my Top 10 Big Ideas (+ 1 bonus idea) – Email Series. On the other hand, I have also made a separate Youtube Videos abou this Top 10 Big Ideas which you can watch here.

Click the links to read the emails for
Top 10 Big Ideas – Optimized Wisdom Distilled

Big Idea #1 – Start with the End in Mind

Big Idea #2 – Close the Gap

Big Idea #3 – What I can be, be

Big Idea #4 – Step forward into Growth – not back into safety

Big Idea #5 – Finish What I Start

Big Idea #6 – Right Why

Big Idea #7 – Protocol is Primary

Big Idea #8 – W.I.N (What’s Important Now)

Big Idea #9 – Oscillate with the natural rhythm of the body

Big Idea #10 – There is no “THE” way

Big Idea #11 – Bring back the boon!

Which of these big ideas resonates with you? Share what resonates with you by writing a comment – I’d love it if you would.

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Top 10 Big Ideas – Optimized Wisdom Distilled from Coach Training Program (Video Series)

January 22, 2021 by Patrea O'Donoghue 2 Comments

By: Patrea O’Donoghue – Psychologist

I thought I was reasonably fit for a person my age; participating in an obstacle course race showed me that I’ve still got a long way to go!! By the end of the course, I had continued to tweak what I eat, I trained differently at the gym, lost a few kgs (burpees will do that!!), and got a whole lot fitter and stronger! And prompted by my active participation in this course, I’ve also improved my sleep, do a daily journal, and now consistently meditate in the mornings!

I’ve distilled the best of what I extracted (best for me) from my ten months of training into my Top 10 Big Ideas. Here’s the overview of my Top 10 Big Ideas (+ 1 bonus idea). I like to share with my clients what I learn (from research papers, books, and professional training courses) and this video is no different – you’re getting the best of what I learned over the course of 2020. Note: I did this video as part of the final ‘assessment’ for the course. It was never intended for ‘publication’ however, I figure it’s a bit of fun – so enjoy this single-take video in all its raw glory!!