There are no perfect solutions to problems. No quick fixes or even lasting change techniques.

 Bold statements and I will be happy to be proved wrong.

Every day I get inundated with New therapeutic systems that I am told make quick and permanent lasting change and come accompanied by streams of testimonials all from people claiming to have been cured of their life long problems, often in one session.

As with advertising on the television, today I will be told that the perfect solution has arrived and works 99% of the time, but in a few months will be told the by the same company, that they have created a superior product to the old one that also works 99% and does what the first product said it did in the original testimonials.

 Does that mean that the original product didn’t really do all that it said? Does it mean that this is the final solution now to fix all our problems? I doubt it. Statistics have a great way of making something that rarely works any more than chance, appear to work 100% of the time!

 What I do know is that it leaves people more and more disillusioned about their own capabilities to make changes and what, if anything, really works.

 Fortunately, or unfortunately we never seem to lose hope. Always looking out for the next solution to our problems. We hang onto the marketing spiel, hoping that this time it will be different. A PayPal click later and we usually find it is not quite the miracle we had hoped for. In fact it’s rarely anything new, but just a rehashed version of the same stuff that didn’t work the first time around.

The more money and time I spend and the more I learn and work with clients regarding self-development work, I realize that there is not, as far as I can tell a simple lasting solution. One that in one sitting, we just walk away and never think about our issue ever again without doing some continual work to maintain the changes.

Those few that do manage to instantly change, are the lucky exception to the rule, rather than the norm that we are led to believe from the hype.

Of course change is subjective and hard to really prove. I have encountered a lot of people who profess that certain therapeutic interventions have worked for them but still seem to continue with the same behaviour patterns they displayed prior to therapy.

The only thing that has changed is their perception of their behaviour or problem rather than the disappearance of the problem or change of behaviour because they have changed their perception.

If changing our perception changes the problem and how we behave in the future then that is great. If changing our perception just changes how we interpret the same actions is it the result we want?

Again this will be contextual but it’s still a question to what is really perceived as having worked therapeutically.

If I used to think I was a Chicken, but after therapy no longer think I am, but when you see me next, find that I’m in the back yard pecking away at grubs and worms, but tell you I know longer think I’m a chicken, has therapy really worked?

I guess it would come down to whether, thinking I was a chicken was the problem as opposed to whether the problem was having a sore nose from all the pecking!

There are no perfect solutions to problems. No quick fixes or even lasting change techniques.

What I believe there is however, are problems that a perfect solution lives inside of for every individual.

Human beings although irrationally predictable come with many variables and to think that one solution fits all is madness. What works perfectly for one person is useless for another with exactly the same problem.

Moving off the solution and really understanding the problem, prioritizing the issues and getting someone to find enough intent and tangible reasons to change is what I believe moves a person to make the changes they want rather than one technique or one therapy or coaching style.

Off the peg solutions from magazines or cardboard cut-out techniques rarely work for us as a long term solution, especially in real life situations where theory continually falls down. 

Theory and reality rarely dance well together when people are involved it seems, and nothing is achieved without individual effort.

“Why do you want to be a Champion? Why are you training?
If your answer has a word like MAYBE in there, ‘MAYBE if I do weight training then, MAYBE I cold enter a body-building competition’, then sit down.  Because if you think this way you will always be a loser. You are never going to make it, because there can be NO MAYBES!
You have to get up and say, I WANT TO BE A CHAMPION, and I will do whatever it takes –  WHATEVER IT TAKES ! I will do it.
That’s the answer I want to hear from you. You have to be hungry, and then develop that hunger. You have to create a goal for yourself, whatever that maybe. 
If you can not see it and feel it, and if you do not believe it, who else will?”
Arnold Schwarzeneggar

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Today I had one of those days were I needed to shake those feelings that let you know the handbrakes on again. It’s often nothing major but can niggle away at you for days.

It’s one of those things that you just need to be able to call round a friend’s house for a coffee and say ‘I’m feeling like this today about……’

That friend today for me was someone who is often giving me credit in her posts, Miss Alex Tumulo.

It’s not that we necessarily are looking for someone to give us the answers but more that we can voice what we are thinking and hear it for the first time and respect their take on it.

Sometimes when we are attempting to make changes in our life it becomes very easy to become overwhelmed and start to doubt yourself and what you are attempting to do.

We can often get lost in our own thoughts, fears and self-doubts.

Sometimes what seems really clear one day seems a ridiculous idea he next and it’s often hard to keep on track and to remember why you wanted to make changes in the first place.

It’s easy to start too believe that the process of making changes doesn’t justify the end result especially when there is no certainty that anything will materialise or that its even really what you want, or more importantly, what you need.

At these times we often have a tendency to retreat or to try even harder to work it all out our selves, but often this just makes the problem worse by miring us in more self-analysis and doubt.

As counterintuitive as it may seem most change efforts end up reinforcing how a situation occurs.

However something that I recognise more and more, especially as I get older and people move away, settle down or in some cases pass away, is the importance of family and good friends.

It’s not always that we need answers to our problems, but more a place to feel we can go to have a trusting ear and an opinion we respect, even if at times it’s not always what we want to hear.

Often we take for granted those facilities that family and good friends grant us but one that I personally notice more and more.

It’s also easy all except that that’s just what friends do, but I think we sometimes forget what a privilege it is to have good friends that are there for us.

It’s easy to get caught up with the day to day stuff and especially the things we still haven’t got and forget to acknowledge the important things.

I also noticed today how easy it  is to say thanks, but often seems insignificantly, especially if its simple a texted’ thanks’ and smiley face combo when these friends follow up to check you got what you needed from the coffee and chat!

Hence the reason for the message now!

Anyway food for thought next time you are shooting the breeze with a good friend.

In part 3 we looked at the case of the twins Debbie and Trudy and the fact that it seemed as though events in Debbie s adult life had made changes to her genes, that made her more vulnerable to depression.

But how can we prove this?

With the 30 twins studied, one of each whom suffered depression, it was discovered in every case that there were 5 – 6 different genes especially in the area of the brain known as the hippocampus that we know is important in anxiety and depression and where we know a lot of emotions are.

We only know this now with the huge advances in technology.

It has been well known that negative things like a death can trigger depression, but what scientists now believe is that these events can actually change the behavior of our genes.

The presupposition is that if they can be changed one way, maybe they can be changed the other for a positive result.

We used to say we cannot change our genes but we now know that there are many mechanisms that switch them on and off and we are beginning to re-gain control over our genes.

Michael Meany, a neuroscientist who has been studying genes and personality for 10 years at the Quebec brain bank, set out to identify where anxiety lies in the brain.

By studying the maternal care of rats, they realised that the off spring of mothers who licked there pups 2-3 times more had a much more modest response to stress.

It seems that the more licks influences the genes that protect the rats from stress and anxiety in adulthood.

Something had been modified in the rat’s brain by its life experience.

The other interesting thing is that the off spring of low linking mothers also became low licking mothers, and so the cycle goes on.

This is detectable in the Hippocampus. Molecules that control the stress response, where more dense in the off spring of high licking mothers than in the low licking off spring, which meant they had more receptors to handle stress.

The brains of human adults that had suffered extreme anxiety showed the same changes as the rats.

Because of the information gathered for each of the human brains evidence supported the fact that these adults also suffered low maternal care.

The conclusion to Horizons Investigation was within Molesys result day that would reveal whether we can personally take responsibility and actually, physically change the way we seethe world.

His wife previously mentioned his demeanor had changed for the better over the course of the experiment.

Despite having a very busy and stressful work schedule he also said that he had been sleeping better than he had in 10 years.

Was it coincidence?

The machines would give concrete evidence.

The first thing was to check his cerebral Asymmetry while resting.

Seven weeks ago, at the start of the experiment Molesy had three times more activity in the right hemisphere than the left, which is a strict indicator for pessimism.

Also with the CBM his recognition of angry faces was much quicker in brain time than for smiling faces.

After the 7 weeks of mindfulness training his right hand activity in the right region of the brain had dropped by 50%.

In the CBM his reaction times to smiling faces was also much quicker.

With training his brain this way, it was beginning to grow create a definite optimistic structure.

This is incredible evidence of the plasticity of our brains and genetic makeup and how by doing certain things such as Mindfulness and CBM we can make massive differences to our personalities and to the world we perceive.

The second technique looked at to accompany the CBM was meditation, or a word that people are tending to use now, Mindfulness.

The idea of Mindfulness is by training the mind to be more present, our minds we learn to wander less, which will make us less stressed and less likely to go down the habitual paths of stress and anxiety.

Former Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe believes that 10-20 minutes a day is enough to make a big psychological and physiological difference. With the huge advances in technology and the use of brain scanners, neuroscientists are beginning to agree.

But if it’s so easy why isn’t everybody doing it?

Andy Puddicombe explains that like all things the idea is easy, but the application like anything such as losing weight or going to the gym for example, takes daily, consistent work.

So how long do we need to train our brains to notice a significant change?

Seven to eight weeks was the challenge for Molesy to make changes to his brain patterns.

So where does the tendency to be more Negative or Positive come from?

It is currently believed we are a combination of the genes we have inherited and the events we have experienced through our lives.

Although there is lots of still vague theories about how personality comes about, cutting edge science is coming up with some exciting stuff.

At St Thomas’ hospital in London, Dr Tim Spectre who has been studying twins for 20 years has come up with some fascinating new evidence.

He believes that our personality is 50:50 genetic and environmental.

However what studies are now turning to is how twins who share the same DNA and environmental upbringing do, later in life end up so different.

Debby and Trudy are twins taking part in a study compiled of 30 twins.

Both of them grew up in the same environment and had the same friends for 20 years. They are both spookily similar.

The big difference is that Debby has clinical depression.

Tim Spectre studies at St Thomas’ recognised that something must have happened to their DNA.

Our genes are not fixed. As we age our genes are constantly changing and some are being switched on and off.

Science is being to think our genes are actually reflecting things like our environment and the lives we have led like a marker, or life lines.

Epigenetics, which is the study of genes, is considered one of the most exciting developments in modern medicine.

Science is proving that life events can actually change our genetic makeup.

It seems that in the case of Debbie, events in her adult life had made changes to her genes, that made her more vulnerable to depression.

But how does that help us? Find out in Part 4 how Epigenetics is proving that are genes are not as fixed as we once thought and that we really can change our DNA.