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One Word, Many Meanings
As humans, we are meaning-makers.
All day long, without even trying, we interpret the sounds, sights and sensations around us. A door closes. A text goes unanswered. Someone sighs in a meeting. We instinctively decide what it means.
And here’s the fascinating part: the meanings we create are often completely different from the meanings created by the person standing right next to us.
What one person hears as a door closing, another hears as someone leaving without saying goodbye.
Same sound. Different story.
The meanings we attach to events and objects shape our beliefs. They help to form them. They also reinforce them. We tend to look for evidence to support what we already believe — and we find it. Our brains are very good at that.
If I believe I’m not valued, I will notice every slight.
If I believe people can’t be trusted, I will collect proof.
If I believe I always get it wrong, I will find the mistakes.
But here’s where things get interesting.
When we pause and recognise that there may be another way to see something — when we allow ourselves to take a different perspective, to reframe a situation — something shifts. We move out of our problem-saturated space. Solutions become more visible. The grip of patterns like anxiety can loosen.
Not because we’re pretending everything is fine.
But because we’re widening the lens.
This week’s creative prompt is “tissue.”
When the word first came to me, I thought of coloured tissue paper — the kind you glue into bright collages. Then I thought about the tissues that make up our bodies — connective, protective, holding everything together. And then, of course, the humble box of tissues on my desk, ready for noses, faces and tears.
One word.
So many meanings.
The simple act of exploring how to depict tissue, use tissue, create something from tissue — it sparks possibility. It reminds me that meaning is flexible.
Now imagine applying that flexibility to your life.
Someone is rude to you. You could decide it means they don’t like you. That story might feel familiar. Maybe even convincing.
But what would someone else watching the encounter see?
Would they notice the person clutching their head with a headache?
Would they see the stress in their shoulders?
Could the sharpness in their tone be a sign of pain rather than dislike?
We rarely know the full story.
Reframing doesn’t mean excusing poor behaviour. It doesn’t mean abandoning boundaries. It simply means allowing for the possibility that our first interpretation isn’t the only one available.
And that small shift — from certainty to curiosity — can change everything.
Creativity isn’t only about art supplies and prompts. It’s also about how we interpret the world around us. When we loosen our grip on a single meaning, we create space. Space for compassion. Space for solutions. Space for calm.
So this week, play with “tissue” if you feel inclined. See what it evokes. Notice how many meanings it can hold.
And then gently ask yourself:
Where in my life might there be another meaning waiting to be discovered?
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence.
If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
When You Feel Stuck: Rewiring Patterns Through Awareness and Creativity
Clients often come to see me when they feel stuck. That sense of being stuck shows up differently for everyone, but it tends to share some common threads: feeling unable to change, struggling to move out of patterns that are harmful—or at the very least, not helpful.
At the core of so many of these experiences is the belief that we can’t change. This belief often develops through a kind of mis-wiring along the way. When we start to believe that we can’t shift our perception, change our patterns, or even let go of certain thoughts, it usually comes from the mistaken idea that we have no control over our thoughts and feelings.
One of the most effective ways to reconnect with our capacity to change is to test it out—and create proof for ourselves that change is possible. A simple task I often suggest is choosing what you will notice each day.
If you feel stuck in a negative mindset, you might intentionally notice three positive things during the day. If anxiety feels like a constant companion, you might look for three moments when anxiety isn’t present. That could be a feeling of contentment, delight, or feeling valued—whatever fits. When you deliberately set out to notice something, you’re far more likely to see it than when you tell yourself it never happens.
So, what can you set out to see today?
Another way to support our ability to change is by engaging the brain creatively. This week, I’m adding the prompt ‘water’ to the #navigatingcreativity program. How might you explore this creatively? Will you write a poem, draw a picture, take a photo, create a water scene, or even sculpt using water?
The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Enjoy the process—and take a moment to admire whatever you create.
About the Author
Theresa is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist based in Canberra, working with clients both in person and online through her practice, Navigating Calm. She helps people create lasting positive change by breaking free from unhelpful patterns and reconnecting with calm, clarity, and confidence.
If you’re ready to take the next step towards lasting change in your life, get in touch today to book an appointment.
An Invitation to Adapt, Create and Change
Regular creative practice increases our brain’s ability to change and enhances our mental health.
Lift Your Gaze: A Simple Strategy to Calm Anxiety and Interrupt Overwhelm
When anxiety strikes, it often feels like it takes over everything—your mind, your body, even your breath. It can be like falling into a well-rehearsed script that your body and brain know all too well. But what if you could interrupt that script with a simple, physical shift?
One surprisingly powerful way to do just that is this: lift your gaze above the horizon.
Yes, something as small as where you direct your eyes can help change how you feel in the moment. This simple movement is more than a mindfulness trick. It’s grounded in principles from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a therapeutic approach that explores how our thoughts, behaviours, and body language all interconnect.
Let me explain why it works—and how you can use it.
How Anxiety Becomes a Pattern
When we feel anxious or overwhelmed, it’s often because our mind has recognised a familiar trigger and set off a series of automatic responses. These might include shallow breathing, racing thoughts, tension in the chest or shoulders, and a visual focus that drops downward—towards the ground, our feet, or a blank stare inward.
Over time, this becomes a well-trodden neural pathway. Your brain learns that when X happens, we react with Y. You don’t have to think about it anymore—your system just goes there.
But here’s the empowering part: we can interrupt that pattern.
The Power of Physiology
NLP recognises that how we use our body shapes how we feel. The link between physiology and emotion isn’t one-way. It’s a feedback loop. That means if you change your posture, your breath, or even where your eyes are looking, you can send a different signal back to your brain—and that signal can help break the anxiety cycle.
Lifting your gaze is one of those “pattern interrupts.”
Think about the last time you were deep in anxious thought. Chances are your vision narrowed or dropped. Now imagine doing the opposite:
- Raise your eyes.
- Look up and out—ideally above the horizon.
- Take in a broader view of your surroundings.
This action cues your nervous system that you’re safe, aware, and not under immediate threat. It’s not just symbolic—it changes the actual feedback your brain receives.
What Happens When You Look Up?
In NLP, looking upwards is often associated with visual processing, which typically engages the part of the brain used for imagination and creativity. In contrast, looking down tends to lead us inward, often into the emotional (kinaesthetic) or critical (internal dialogue) states that feed overwhelm.
By changing your eye direction, you disrupt the emotional momentum. You step out of the trance of anxiety and into a more neutral—or even resourceful—state.
A Simple Practice to Try
You can use this technique anytime, anywhere. Here’s how:
- Pause – When you notice anxiety creeping in, or your thoughts racing, stop for a moment.
- Breathe – Take a slow breath in through your nose, and exhale fully.
- Lift Your Gaze – Gently raise your eyes above the horizon. Look at a tree, the sky, a point on the wall—something neutral or calming.
- Stay Present – Allow yourself to really see your surroundings. Let your awareness widen. Notice details without judgement.
- Notice the Shift – You may feel an immediate difference. The thoughts might slow. Your chest may feel less tight. There’s space again.
Why This Matters
Clients I work with often describe anxiety as something that “just happens” to them. But part of our work together is about recognising that we can shift our experience. Not by force or suppression, but by using tools like this one to interrupt old patterns.
Lifting your gaze is one small move in a bigger toolbox. It’s not about pretending everything is fine. It’s about giving your brain and body a new message—one that creates a circuit breaker for the spiral.
Ready to Change the Way You Relate to Anxiety?
This is just one of the many tools I share with clients who are learning to respond differently to anxiety and overwhelm. Hypnotherapy and strategic psychotherapy can help you not only manage symptoms, but unlearn the patterns that keep you stuck—so you can create new ones that support calm, confidence, and clarity.
If you’d like support interrupting your own anxious patterns and finding a better way forward, I offer a free 20-minute consultation. You can book online here.
Quick Body Scan: A Simple Path to Calm
The concept of ‘body scan’ is a simple but effective tool that can help you to connect with the present and calm your mind. When used effectively it can amount to a form of meditation, but it is so convenient and easy to do that we can use it in many situations where we might not normally think that meditation will work.
When your mind is in overdrive, overwhelm, or over-anything, having a simple technique to reconnect yourself with the present and move past your feeling of ‘stuckness’ is useful. This is often referred to as ‘grounding’, and can help to calm and clear your mind. The body scan technique may help you to do this.
The simple goal of scanning your body in this exercise is to focus on the physical sensations throughout the body, bringing awareness to the present moment. The purpose of body scanning is not to change or improve any feeling, but instead to simply notice the sensations. It is a technique that doesn’t require any additional tools as it uses your most accessible tool, your own body.
What is body scan?
You might think of a body scan as a mental X-ray slowly traveling up or down your body, observing each part of your body as you go. Some people include the concept of isometric exercises, which involves imagining tensing and releasing each muscle group as you scan it. This can add another dimension to the exercise and help to shift it into a truly meditative state.
I have included two different versions here – the first is the ‘quick, on-the-go’ version that you can use anywhere, anytime to bring yourself back to a grounded state. The second is the more detailed version for meditation and relaxing. Let me know if you use either or both and how you find them!
Quick on-the-go version
When to use:
– When you need to calm your mind, distract yourself from unhelpful thoughts, or break a thought pattern and create room for a new one.
Where to use:
– anywhere you can take a few moments to focus on yourself and your body safely
How to use:
- Be aware of your surroundings. Take note of where you are and what is in your surroundings. If you can move to a place to sit or stand safely out of the way, then this is ideal.
- Breathe. Take a deep cleansing breath, to centre yourself. If you can do a round or two of box breathing, do this. Whether you close your eyes or not is up to you.
- Choose where to start. I recommend beginning at the feet and moving up through your body, but you might like to start at your head and move down – it is your choice where you begin. Focus on the first spot as you continue breathing slowly and deeply.
- Be aware. Open your awareness to the sensations attached to that part of your body, and notice how it feels. You might imagine the sensation of tensing and releasing that part of your body and notice how that feels. You could spend 10 seconds or 60 seconds focused on that part of your body – it is up to you.
- Release. Release your awareness of that part of your body and move it to your next area of focus.
- Moving through the exercise. Continue the exercise along, up or down your body in a way that makes sense to you, whether you move from bottom to top, top to bottom or up one side and down the other.
- Breathe. When you reach the point that you are feeling calm and able to move to the next strategy, activity or part of your day, repeat a deep, cleansing breath (or another round of box breathing) to help continue to the calm.
Body scan as meditation.
When to use:
- When you want to create a calm state before you start the day, or when you are ending the day.
- When you need to calm your mind, distract yourself from unhelpful thoughts, break a thought pattern and create room for a new one.
- When you are looking to meditate and clear your mind.
Where to use:
– anywhere you can safely sit or lie calmly for 10 minutes or more, uninterrupted and comfortably, with your eyes closed.
How to use:
- Get comfortable. Lie down or sit in a position that allows you to stretch your limbs easily.
- Focus. Close your eyes and begin focusing on your breath. Notice the sensation of your breath filling and leaving your lungs as you inhale and exhale. You could do a few rounds of box breathing to start the process.
- Choose where to start. I recommend beginning at the feet and moving up through your body, but you might like to start at your head and move down – it is your choice where you begin. Focus on the first spot as you continue breathing slowly and deeply. In choosing the part of your body to focus on you might choose to be as detailed or as general as suits you. For example, you might choose to think of your toes as a whole, or to focus on each toe individually.
- Be aware. Open your awareness to the sensations attached to that part of your body, and notice how it feels. You might imagine the sensation of tensing and releasing that part of your body and notice how that feels. You might choose to actually tense and release that part of your body. You could spend 10 seconds or 60 seconds focused on that part of your body – it is up to you.
- Release. Slowly release your mental awareness of that specific part of your body and redirect it to your next area of focus. Some people find it helpful to imagine releasing one body part as they breathe out and moving on to the next as they breathe in.
- Move along. Continue the exercise along, up or down your body in a way that makes sense to you, whether you move from top to bottom or up one side and down the other.
- Note drifting thoughts. As you continue to scan your body, note when your thoughts drift. This will probably happen more than once, so don’t worry. You haven’t failed and can easily get your thoughts back on track. Just gently return your awareness to where you left off scanning.
- Return. When you have completed the scan of your body, allow yourself to slowly release your focus and bring your attention back to your surroundings.
Final Thoughts
Body scanning is a simple yet powerful technique that helps bring awareness to the present moment, offering a sense of calm and clarity. Whether you use it as a quick reset during the day or as part of a longer meditation practice, it can be a valuable tool for breaking unhelpful thought patterns and creating space for a more relaxed and focused mind. Try incorporating it into your routine and see how it helps you feel more grounded and at ease. If you want to watch a video explaining how it works, you will find one here.
How to Use Box Breathing to Calm Your Mind
How many times when you are feeling stressed do you hear someone say ‘just breathe’? If you are like me your automatic response might be ‘I AM breathing!!!’ However, different patterns of breathing can impact you in ways that aren’t always obvious at first! Box Breathing is a tool you can use anytime, anywhere, to lower your stress, connect with your calm, and break the patterns of overwhelm. It is portable, convenient and practical!
Why does breathing help us to calm our body and mind?
When we are stressed we tend to tense up, take shallow breaths, lift our shoulders, tense our muscles slightly, and start the unhelpful thought patterns that disconnect our logical brain from our emotional brain. This can activate the part of our brain that creates a fight or flight response. By slowing our breathing, focusing on deeper breaths, and counting at the same time, we can shift from that automatic pattern of tension and stress and connect with our parasympathetic nervous system. This means that we may reconnect with our logic, and give ourselves time to think of different strategies to help manage the situation. The very fact that we are counting creates a mini-meditation and a break from the whirling thoughts in our mind.
How does Box Breathing work?
Box Breathing is called that because a box shape has 4 sides. (This technique is also known as square breathing, 4-4-4 breathing and other names for that reason!)
The process is that you:
1. Slowly breathe out over 4 seconds
2. Wait for 4 seconds
3. Slowly take a deep breath over 4 seconds
4. Hold that breath for 4 seconds
5. Repeat the process 1 – 3 times
Additional tips
To build your practice of box breathing you might also do one, some or all of these steps:
- Look for a quiet space to sit uninterrupted
- Close your eyes
- Place a hand on your chest to feel the breath rise and fall
- Practice 5 minutes of box-breathing each morning before you start your day
Summary
Box breathing is a tool that can be used to calm yourself down when experiencing moments of stress, anger, frustration or anxiety. It is also a technique that you can practice to enhance moments of calm, building your ability to use it for the times when you might need it. And if you prefer to learn by watching – here is a video of me explaining the technique! Youtube
Interrupt your Overthinking – ‘Blink VuMu’
Are you a prize winning overthinker? This is a helpful technique to interrupt that pattern when you identify that you are over-cooking a thought, or thought process. It is called ‘Blink VuMu’ not just because it is an usual name, but because the name is the pattern to follow (see the bolded letters as your clues!):
Step 1) Blink wildly for 5 seconds (count back from 5-1)
Step 2) Get curious – How am I doing this?
Step 3) Ask yourself the following questions
Q1) Is this Valid? YES/NO
Q2) Is this Useful? YES/NO
Q3) If not, what would be the Most Useful response I could offer right now?
• The value of this question set is that you can recognise that a reaction can be both valid and not useful.
• The first question allows you to say “YES” and validate your response. However, even as you do this, you have already stepped away and are analysing from a more dissociated position.
• The second question is more likely to get a “NO” response as you recognise the contextual value of your reaction.
• The third question starts you down a line of becoming more strategic and re-framing your thoughts, looking at it from different perspectives and breaking the pattern in a useful way.
As you practice this technique you are creating a new neural pathway, and a new habit, which will give you a more strategic outlook as you create your future. Give it a try!
3 steps to avoid taking on other people’s drama
As adults we often find ourselves dealing with friends, family or colleagues who are experiencing big feelings, emotions, or dramas. It can be hard to know how to show up and support them, without taking on the burden of their drama as your own. In supporting clients on how to approach this challenge I refer to one of the best tools I learnt during my parenting journey – emotion coaching. This technique is based on the work of Dr John Gottman and is a useful way to help your children learn to understand and regulate their emotions. It is a technique designed to validate your children’s feelings, to help them name their feelings and to be able to sit with uncomfortable feelings. (Gottman Institute)
As a therapist I have supported my clients to understand that the principals of emotion coaching can be used by to navigate many relationships, whether with their offspring (small or grown), friends, colleagues or acquaintances. A simple three step approach to support your friends without taking on their feelings is set out below.
3 steps to avoid taking on other people’s drama (with a bonus optional 4th step!)
1. Be curious
The first step in managing these emotional interactions as an adult is to use curiosity rather than ‘telling’. This means that instead of telling your friend that you can see that they are angry, you ask them if they are feeling angry. A great phrase for this is ‘I wonder if you are feeling……(insert the feeling you are observing.) By asking them in a curious way you are showing them that you are open to their answer, that you might not be correct, and that you care about them.
2. Validate
Once the other person has defined how they are feeling, the next step is validation. “ I can see how hard that must be”, “ that sounds tough’, or “those are difficult feelings to have”. Validation is about seeing the person’s experience. You aren’t agreeing with it, you aren’t judging it, you are just seeing it for what it is.
3. Let them sit with their feelings
And the final step can feel like you are doing nothing. It is the step where you let them sit with their feelings, offering your supportive presence, but not offering to solve the problem, carry the burden, or fix everything for them. (A good neutral sympathetic humming noise can be a great filler here.) This gives the person time to understand that you have heard them, and you understand their problem, and can see the effect it is having on them. Often this is enough to help the other person. When we step in to solve the problem we can take away their agency to solve the problem themselves.
4. Optional fourth step – ask what they need from you to help solve the problem.
If you feel that the person still needs more from you, then asking them what they need from you to help them, rather than telling them what you will do to solve the problem leaves them responsible for their feelings, but knowing that you are there to support them if possible.
Give this approach a try, and see how it feels and what the impact is. It might take a bit of practice to change from offering a solution straight away, but with time you can make this your default response and still maintain your connections with friends without carrying their burden on top of your own. Let me know how it works for you!
Does Anxiety give us magical powers?
A client recently commented that she was reluctant to talk about the good things that could happen as it could ‘jinx it’. My response to her was ‘Wow – let’s talk about your magical powers! If you can stop something good happening by talking about it, can you make something good happen by talking about it too? Or are your magical powers only limited to stopping the good stuff in life?’
She of course laughed and said that she doesn’t have magical powers but understood the point that I was making. If what we say and don’t say could impact our future negatively, why can’t it also impact our future positively? The reality is that when we have a well-trodden anxiety response we look at the future through the lens of all the things that can go wrong, and we forget to also look for the things that can go well. When we are looking for the things that can go wrong, we subconsciously look for evidence to support our expectation. When we expect things to go badly we see the missed parking spot as a sign that we don’t deserve good things, or the rainy day as a sign that the universe is against us. We see a person walking slowly in front of us as deliberately trying to make us late, and the neighbours playing loud music as them trying to stop us from enjoying our TV show.
If we look for the good in each day and reframe our thoughts, we start to look for the evidence to support the expectation that good things happen. The missed parking spot becomes a chance to find another spot that is closer to where we are going, the rain is an excuse to break out our favourite umbrella or be grateful for the garden being watered. The person walking slowly is a chance to smile at them as we walk past, or to be grateful that we are healthy enough to walk faster than them. The loud music next door can be an excuse for a dance party in the kitchen, or to knock on the neighbour’s door to have a chat. Saying that ‘good things will happen today’ can change our whole demeanour so that we are looking for good things to support our statement.
Using our magical powers for good and setting ourselves up to find the moments of joy in each day is a powerful way to reframe our thinking and improve our mental health. How can you reframe your day today?
3 Steps to Interrupt Anxiety
Interrupting Anxiety: 3 Simple Steps to Change Your Response
Anxiety can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to control your life. By learning to interrupt the anxious process and changing your response, you can regain a sense of control and calm. In this post, we’ll explore three simple yet effective steps you can take to shift your perspective and manage anxiety.
Step 1: Look Up
When anxiety strikes, it’s common to feel trapped in a cycle of negative thoughts and worries. One way to break free from this cycle is by changing the ‘how’ that you are using to generate that anxious feeling. Simply looking up can help shift your response from the overthinking and create space for a different response.
Try this:
- When you notice feelings of anxiety creeping in, take a moment to lift your gaze upward.
- Focus on something above eye level, whether it’s the sky, a tree, or a ceiling.
- Notice how this simple act of looking up helps to expand your field of vision and brings a sense of openness and perspective.
By looking up, you’re signaling to your brain that it’s time to break free from the patterns of anxious thinking and see what else is possible.
Step 2: Drop Your Shoulders
Anxiety responses often manifest physically, leading to tension and tightness in the body. Dropping your shoulders is a simple yet effective way to release some of this tension and change the pattern of anxiety.
Here’s how to do it:
- Take a deep breath in, allowing your shoulders to rise towards your ears.
- As you exhale, consciously relax your shoulders, letting them drop down away from your ears.
- Repeat this process several times, focusing on the sensation of tension melting away with each breath.
By dropping your shoulders, you’re sending a signal to your body that it’s safe to relax and let go of the physical manifestations of anxiety.
Step 3: Wiggle your toes
When we have an anxious response, we follow a pattern we have learned over many years. Creating interruptions to that pattern sends signals to our brain that we can respond in a different way. Moving a part of our body that isn’t usually part of the pattern of response can interrupt this pattern and promote a sense of calm and ease.
Try the following:
- Take a moment to breathe in, then as you breathe out, wiggle your toes, one at a time.
- Consciously wiggle each toe, focusing on moving it back and forth, independently of the other toes.
- As you work your way through each toe on each foot, notice where your thoughts are going.
By wiggling your toes, you’re encouraging your body to shift out of the pattern you associate with anxiety and towards a more relaxed and balanced state. By focusing on each toe individually you are interrupting the repetitive nature of your thoughts, and clearing your mind to create space for a different response.
Managing anxiety doesn’t have to be complicated. By incorporating these three simple steps into your routine – looking up, dropping your shoulders, and wiggling your toes – you can interrupt your anxiety pattern and change your response to stressors. Small changes can have a big impact, and with practice, you can change your patterns of response and work to create new, and more helpful, patterns.
