We have enjoyed the privilege over many years of professional service, to be able to identify underlying patterns of limiting beliefs that a person may not be directly aware is negatively affecting them.
Read moreGuidelight Leadership Forum Wrap Up for 2015
Guidelight's half day Leadership Forum finished with smiles all round, both for host Peter Doyle ( pictured) and for our keynote presenter Alec Morgan (pictured in floppy hat below).
As a former Managing Director of a 200+ staff team, Alec shared with our Forum participants a frank and fearless discussion about how his focus on being centred and authentic has been buffeted by the winds of change and challenge in the past few years.
Into 2016 we will continue to host our regular Leadership Forum series, available for any interested person to attend who values developing their personal power and potential as a leader.
Leaders who attend our forums come from a range of different workplaces and community organisations.
Equally some of our participants attend as valued individuals without any specific connection to a workplace role at this point in their lives.
To ensure you receive our optional quarterly Leadership Forum Invitations and Agendas into 2016, please sign up for our free quarterly email newsletters.
Our newsletters will provide all the details if you choose to get involved with us in one, two, three or all four of our scheduled half day Leadership Forums during 2016.
We warmly encourage you to join us and step into your next level of potential."
Wellbeing at Work
Wellbeing at Work is becoming a major focus for employers as they strive to reduce stress levels and improve mental health for their employees.
Read more6 Steps to a Healthier Lifestyle
As part of Psychology Week, the Australian Psychological Society has produced an infograph with 6 Steps to a Healthier Lifestyle. This includes tips to assist you make the change to a healthier lifestyle. Guidelight is committed to creating healthier workplaces and provides various programs to assist the health and wellbeing of employers and their employees. Our range of services include:-
If you would like more information, contact Guidelight 07 5527 0123
6 Steps to a Healthier Lifestyle
Understanding and Managing Stress
Understanding and Managing Stress can be easier if you have the right tools and also if you are aware of the different types of stress one can experience. Guidelight is pleased to be supporting National Psychology Week. As long established members of the Australian Psychological Society ( APS ) we are proud of the ( APS ) series of tips and video resources on stress, well-being and healthier lifestyles that we have selected as resources for people to easily peruse via a link on our website.
Below is a copy, for your reference, of a Stress Tip Sheet, provided by the Australian Psychological Society. It details the different types of stress, symptoms and how to manage everyday stress.
Understanding & Managing Stress
Tips for Managing Stress
Stress and how we manage it is one of the most common problems we face in our lives today. Feeling overloaded, overwhelmed, tense and worried can impact our lifestyle and affect our well-being. Guidelight is pleased to be supporting National Psychology Week. As long established members of the Australian Psychological Society ( APS ) we are proud of the ( APS ) series of tips and video resources on stress, well-being and healthier lifestyles.
Tips for Managing Stress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKY6YrKamqM
The APS has provided Tips on Managing Stress which include:-
- Identifying warning signs
- Identifying triggers
- Establishing routines
- Looking after your health
- Noticing 'self-talk'
- Spending time with people who care
- Relaxation
For more detailed information on these tips go to Australian Psychological Society Tips for Managing Stress
Guidelight also provides Interactive Stress Management Workshops
If you are experiencing stress and finding it difficult to manage, contact Guidelight to arrange a confidential appointment with one of our caring psychologists. 07 5527 0123
Good response for Mental Health Week
Thank you to the many clients, associates and friends of Guidelight, who kindly took the time to respond to and support our social media release recently - highlighting National Mental Health Week ! In particular it is very heartening to see that our articles and strategies about building up “mental fitness” & physical well-being rituals for people at work received such a great response from our business readers in the early part of October.
People who are interested in delving deeper into our ideas drawn from the field of advanced positive psychology, might like to subscribe to our complimentary periodic newsletter.
Utilising our knowledge of advanced positive psychology, coupled with powerful physical and nutritional routines, we are proud to champion an integrated approach that ensures your mental and physical fitness is powerfully aligned, revitalised and enhanced !
Simply go to our website www.guidelight.com.au and hit the subscribe button with your details.
Guidelight Expands Range Of Services For Individuals & Families
As the pace of life quickens for many in our community, individuals and families and some of the previous building block certainties in life seem to become less stable or predictable, it is not surprising that an increasing number of clients choose to seek our professional guidance for themselves and loved ones.
Guidelight expands range of services for Individuals & Families
Guidelight recently announced securing another talented psychologist, Roz, into our team and you can read more about Roz in our Guidelight Team section of our website. In this brief article we would like to put into context four of the reasons we have identified, that everyday members of our community our increasingly seeking to utilise our services.
- Some of us have allowed the intricacies of technology to become so complex in our life, that what was once a simple task, has become labyrinth like over engineered process. ( The tail is wagging the dog ).
- Some of us have lost the ability or desire to regularly have face to face conversations ( As opposed to mislabelling a text message as the same as conversation )
- Some of us have forgotten about how to focus on being content and happy with what I have accomplished now, rather than fighting to get that next step ahead.
- Some of us have lost the ability to focus on peace of mind as an internal process, not automatically controlled by events that happen around us. ( Like watching less disaster and crisis drama by not turning on the TV for extended periods ).
Any or all of these factors can unsettle individuals and impact upon family dynamics in a draining sense of cumulative challenges. Two decades into our journey of providing confidential tools and strategies to help people think and feel at their best, we are delighted to be continually learning new ways to assist.
Guidelight Welcomes New Psychologist to the Team
An important focus of our practice is to provide quality psychology services to individuals and families. These valued clients typically book in to see us for a number of confidential one hour consultation sessions, where we provide selected tools, strategies and techniques to deliver the ideal outcome, uniquely tailored for each person.
To maintain the quality of our work helping people gain consistent positive outcomes over the past twenty years operating in our community, we are very selective in recruiting the right professional staff to join us as team members.
Accordingly we are delighted to announce that Ms. Roz Erdelyi, a widely experienced Psychologist has recently joined our team and is available immediately for client consultations in our Southport office. Please enjoy reading a little bit more about Roz in the following paragraphs where she highlights aspects of her warm and supportive professional style.
“I am very excited to be joining the Guidelight Psychology practice, I’m passionate about utilising positive psychology techniques to assist my clients to overcome adversity. I believe that empowering my clients to face the challenges of life in an adaptive manner, assists them to develop emotional resilience and a reliance and belief in one’s own abilities to cope – in doing so, further developing confidence, self esteem and positive life outcomes.
I respect each and every client’s individual differences and assist people to clarify their own personal values (without judgment) as a helpful basis for developing future life and treatment direction.
I have worked with clients from diverse social, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and am devoted to providing a confidential and respectful environment free from judgment, in which my clients can obtain the therapeutic outcomes they seek, regardless of their circumstances or personal history. “
Mental Health Week
Mental Health Week is 4th October to 10 October.
At Guidelight Psychology we are pleased to promote the awareness of Mental Health Week and endorse the range of easy to implement suggestions for your consideration in this website http://mhw.waamh.org.au/get-involved/workplace
It is our view of course that "Creating Healthier Workplaces" is a continuous process week in week out, underpinned by skilling people to utilise regular rituals to ensure the new positive behaviours become automatic habits.
Lunchbox Workshop Series
Even if your workplace is not yet ready to engage an integrated program with us, consider the power of commencing with our lunchbox workshop series as a powerful initial beginning. In just a series of four, one hour, once per week lunchtime seminars with a small group of staff, significant skills development will occur in the areas of positive mental health strategies and advanced stress management techniques.
For more information contact us on 07 5527 0123.
Staff Health and Well-Being Lunch Time Workshop Series
As a manager, are you concerned about Staff Health and Well-Being?
Recently, Guidelight introduced our Staff Health & Well-Being Lunch Time Workshops and are achieving great results.
Do you and your staff suffer from:-
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High stress levels?
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Feel overwhelmed?
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Underperforming at work and at home?
Workplaces in the Brisbane CBD who wish to ensure that reduced stress levels and a good mental health focus are maintained for their staff are benefiting from our flexible one hour workshop series.
Typically we meet with between 6 to 15 people participating in a group together over a light lunch in their own workplace to learn about powerful tools from the fields of positive psychology and nutritional health.
By way of concrete example, a recently completed Lunch Time Series was held for the motivated administration team of 10 staff members at Scottish Pacific Finance. Across four consecutive Tuesday lunch hours we met in their offices to engage in a relaxed and powerful learning process that built high levels of trust and camaraderie among the participants.
Furthermore by utilising their individual workbooks, each staff member gained expanded skill sets around the “ Shrinking Your Worries” approach and physical, emotional and intellectual strategies to reduce stress and improve positive mental health focus in all aspects of their lives.
Evaluation ratings at the end of this program by the participants were consistently in the very good to excellent range.
Even more exciting was the increased energy, positive thinking and workplace harmony that flowed from completing this flexibly designed luncheon series. T
Talk to us soon about how we can smoothly design a Health and Well-Being lunch time workshop series specifically shaped to meet the needs of your own workplace.
Read more about the Workplace Programs Guidelight offers http://creatinghealthierworkplaces.com.au/staff-training-workshops
How to Rewire Your Brain
Over the years, a lot of our clients start working with us labouring under an initial misperception. They believe that an old and painful pattern of thinking has become so deeply ingrained that it is part of their identity. Accordingly they mistakenly assume they will have to struggle indefinitely to ever feel confident to move past that limiting belief created from a past experience in their life.
Fortunately, in the Guidelight world of positive psychology, this false assumption will quickly evaporate. A client can be gently coached to reignite more confident and solution focused ways of seeing their world.
This powerful personal transformation is in part accomplished by literally rewiring aspects of the neural pathways in our brains. By learning to change the patterns of how we think, we physiologically change the functioning of our brains and accordingly positively change aspects of our identity and step into the world seeing more joy, fun and vitality around us.
Please enjoy this excellent two minute videoclip on the “Neuroplasticity of our Brains” to see how straightforward this process can be.
https://youtu.be/ELpfYCZa87g?list=PLGXzCM5c78jTXIA8jc3bqY7TAySb-pSqO
Innovative Staff Learning & Development Day
Congratulations to the 29 creative thinking team members from Brisbane based IT company Eyecon Pty. Ltd. Some of the participants are pictured here celebrating and strategizing with organisational psychologist Peter Doyle last Friday, as people enjoy an opportunity to focus on advanced communication and relationship building strategies while also relaxing barefoot on a lawn bowling green as one part of the day long workshop process.
It is valuable to be reminded that to inspire and develop the potential of your staff team, it can be useful to leave the office conference rooms and engage integrated outdoor physical pursuits as part of an embedded workshop process.
Fun in the sun can be one of the ingredients that helps sharpen mind, body and spirit among work colleagues within a learning and development framework that allows Guidelight Pty. Ltd to facilitate the engagement of rigorous positive psychology skills while people are at the same time, laughing, smiling and relaxed.
Eyecon Staff Development Day
Relationship Building – Important Strategies for Home life & Work life Success
It is not uncommon for each of us to become complacent and sometimes take for granted the interactions we have with significant other people in our busy lives. Although we may intellectually understand the importance of seeing the world through another person’s eyes, often our clients identify that ( upon mindful reflection in the consultation room ) they have typically defaulted to responding to others as if on autopilot. As an encouraging reminder, listed below are some excellent areas to focus upon, when we are looking to improve the quality and depth of our interactions with significant people in our personal and professional lives.
Enjoy describing situations that you perceive differently from the other person without injecting blame or judgement or criticism of them into your conversation. This will result in the other person not needing to become defensive or feel threatened, meaning they are much more likely to process your perspective and give you an open response.
Relationship Building - Strategies
Feelings
Explain the feelings that have been generated for you by that particular situation, without expecting/assuming that the other person must feel the same way about this situation as you do.
Focus
Focus on solutions and positive steps that you and the other person can collaborate upon and create together into the future, rather than struggling to make the other person adapt/conform to your own perspective.
Explore
Explore the positive consequences and verbalise the benefits for you and the other people involved in implementing the solutions your open conversation with them has generated. You may also want to articulate the negative consequences in not adopting collaborative solutions and the risk of staying stuck in an old negative mindset or pattern together.
Encourage
Finally, go out of your way to choose words of affirmation, praise and encouragement for the other person in your communication. This could mean that rather than highlighting a handful of matters that did not go so well with each other, you instead put a joyful highlight under one particular aspect of the relationship that is going well and build upon this as the focus.
Eating Well To Nurture Your Mind & Body
Increasingly in working to assist our clients with the best of mental health, we selectively invite people to also enjoy a consultation with our “Food Coach”. The physical health and vitality benefits of learning to choose a better diet are of course obvious to most people. However, some of us are less aware of how much the psychological happiness, stability of moods and positive motivational aspects of our lives are shaped by the right types of foods we regularly choose to digest.
[bctt tweet="So Spring into fresh in-season produce to nurture your body and your mind !"]
Living in Queensland means that we have a fantastic variety most of the year of many varieties of both fruits and vegetables.
Did you know?
Fruits and vegetables start to lose nutrients immediately after they are harvested, so the freshest produce is the best produce. It also tastes better and is better for the environment.
So it makes sense to shop for in-season foods for you and your family, the other benefit is that it will be cheaper when in season. We have all seen the prices of fruit and vegetables fluctuate throughout the year, so buying when bountiful will give you the freshest, tastiest, most nutritious and leave you with money in your pocket. It is often quicker too if you are in the supermarket you will notice that most “specials” (in season) are grouped together at the front of the store.
Did you know?
Frozen peas will often have a higher nutritional value than the fresh peas in the supermarket.
When you shop for fresh fruit and vegetables ask:
- Where the produce has come from?
- Is it local?
- How far has it travelled to be in store?
Farmers markets are a great shopping alternative as produce is picked fresh by the farmer and sold directly to the consumer (no sitting on the supermarket shelves for days after days of travel to first the warehouse then to the store).
So what’s in/or coming into season NOW?
Apples, citrus fruits, papaya, paw paw, pineapple, avocado, tomatoes, silverbeet, spinach, artichokes, bok choy, asparagus, green beans, cabbage, cauliflower, leek, pumpkin, beetroot.
Spring Salsa Recipe
Chop: avocado, tomatoes, finely chopped red onion or shallots, squeeze of lime or lemon, fresh herbs if you have some (basil, coriander or parsley). Salt and pepper to taste.
Mix all ingredients together.
Use as;
Topping on sourdough toast (great breakfast choice)
Filling in an omelette
Accompaniment (for fish, chicken or steak)
Entertaining (serve as a dip with rice crackers)
Wrap it (wholegrain wrap for lunch/dinner, add protein of choice and fresh spinach)
Is Your Attention Under Siege?
In their recently released book One Moment Please; It’s Time to Pay Attention, authors Martina Sheehan & Susan Pearse wisely remind us to step back from the all consuming, task driven busyness, of our working lives and instead remember that deep happiness is found in moments of clear and open attention. May I invite you to stop for a moment, please read their selected comments in the three paragraphs below and consider whether you might like some focussed professional guidance to get back on track too – like so many of our valued, but initially frazzled clients?
“We became concerned that attention has become one of the most threatened resources on the planet. More information, more access, more choice, more change, more uncertainty, more expectation, more noise, more distraction, more, more, more…Attention is fragile and limited, and when you’re surrounded by an endless selection of things just itching to steal a piece, it becomes overwhelming, almost sickening. In fact it is making us sick.
Stress, anxiety, loneliness, guilt, confusion and disappointment are the symptoms, and an empty life is the result. It’s ironic that living in a world with so much to offer has left us feeling like we have less, rather than more. But it’s clear that the things we are adding to life are just pushing out those things that make life worth living.
We live in a world of contradictions. We care about happiness, but spend time dwelling on worries and frustrations. We care about our loved ones, but allow our to-do list to come before spending time with them. We care about our friends, but only half listen when they tell us what’s going on in their lives. We care about living a life of meaning, but fill the space for deep reflection with busy activity.
Calming Your Mind & Nurturing Your Body
A core part of our work for the past 20 years has been assisting individual clients with the tools of positive psychology and more recently including guidance for people on their nutritional well-being. The mind and body are self evidently connected. In a recent program, called “ Happy Body At Work “ delivered to people at work at Sydney University by physiotherapists, two thirds of participants had become much more aware of how physical things affected their mood. In our own Guidelight Psychology “ Creating Healthier Workplaces “ program we see significant growth in the self belief and ability of our clients to better cope with the stresses of their home life and workplace demands.
Check out our specialist website www.creatinghealthierworkplaces.com.au for more interesting background information on the power of these programs to positively transform a persons life and enhance business outcomes. A study by Medibank and KPMG estimated that across Australian workplaces, staff showing up to work feeling physically and/or mentally unwell cost our economy an estimated $34.1 billion per year.
Whether as a client on one of our workplace programs or as an individual seeing us privately, please remember that investing in tools to maintain your positive psychological and nutritional health is worth it – both for yourself and for your career.
Age Is Not A Barrier to Depression
So often we read about depression and in today's world it crosses all age groups. I recently read this article about Samantha Little who has written a book 'Into the Fog'. Samantha shares her story of depression and how at 17 years old was faced with this demon and not sure what to do.
Age is no barrier to depression and we need to be aware of not only how we feel but also how others are feeling. Your teenager may not just be going through the 'teen years' it could be much deeper than that. As a parent you need to be supportive and encourage open conversations.
If you feel that you or your family or friends need help be supportive and encourage them to contact a psychologist where they can talk freely and in a confidential environment.
Read more of Samantha's story here...http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/07/14/4273240.htm
The Psychological Importance of "Letting Go"
Across the range of interesting clients we appreciate being able to work with, we regularly encounter hard working individuals who are seeking to change old patterns of behaviour that are keeping them in a rut. Aspects of their life can feel stunted, or not well grounded, leading to restrictions in the level of joy, excitement and zest for life currently being experienced by that person. One form of powerful breakthrough to help people move out of that rut in their life is to explore the concept and feel the emotional shift associated with choosing to “ Let Go” !
This can be a challenging step if the person mistakenly assumes that letting go is a sign of weakness or capitulation or failure. Nothing could be further from the truth ! Appropriately letting go requires wisdom, courage and trust in yourself.
If this concept of wisely “Letting Go” of past limiting patterns or personal setbacks seems important to you at this point in your life, then please enjoy taking some moments to reflect on the following selected themes :
“To Let Go” does not mean to stop caring. It just means accepting I cannot do it for someone else.
“To Let Go” is not to try to change or blame another, it is to make the most of myself.
“To Let Go” is not to be protective, it is to permit others to face reality.
“To Let Go” is not to adjust everything to my desires but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
“To Let Go” is to fear less and love more.
If you are finding it difficult to let go, call Guidelight 07 5527 0123 to arrange a confidential appointment with one of our caring counsellors.
Reducing Stress & Enjoying Your Life More
Currently one in every six people in the Australian workforce spend more than 59 hours per week on work related duties. A pattern such as this, unchecked over a prolonged period of time is a concerning recipe for potential burnout, crisis, illness and fatigue. Over the course of a 12 month period we undertook a study to identify the major reasons people (who held any level of paid employment ) had chosen to make an initial appointment to consult with a Guidelight Psychologist.
In a previous blog article, I commented that as an overall average, 53% of clients initially seeking our professional guidance and assistance indicated the primary reason they were no longer thinking & feeling at their best, was because of problems they were encountering in their relationships with other selected people in their lives.
Another 23% of clients ( in that particular year of our study ) indicated the primary reason they were no longer thinking & feeling at their best, was because of problems they were encountering in managing the elevated levels of stress in their lives.
While it is concerning to see that in total more than three quarters ( 76% ) of people who we assisted were aware that work related stress and/or relationship issues were diminishing their quality of life, the good news is that it is very reassuring to recognise that you are not alone ( nor inadequate ) should you presently find yourself with diminished enjoyment of life because of elevated stress levels.
An even better piece of news is how effective the range of tools, strategies and techniques that we show clients how to expand upon, from within our field of positive psychology expertise, can rapidly renew and inspire a person to begin enjoying the best of their life again.
We look forward to talking with you in confidence soon, should you wish to learn more together.
Contact us for a confidential consultation on 07 5527 0123