One Step Away from Rage
And exciting NEW book club news ...
EXCITING NEWS!
Natasha Lester and I are teaming up to host a monthly online book club, hosted in a private Facebook group, with interactive book club chats happening via Facebook Live and Instagram Live
Each month we will introduce a different book that we have absolutely loved as well as interviewing the author behind it. We will let you know the book for the month in advance so you will have plenty of time to read it and have any questions ready for the author.
The theme for the book club is HISTORY – AND OTHER BEAUTIFUL AND FASCINATING THINGS. We will be focusing on historical fiction with strong female leads, but we will sometimes veer slightly off course if tempted by an exotic location, fabulous fashion, or a super intriguing mystery.
Click here to follow Natasha Lester on Facebook and IG.
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Natasha also has a fantastic newsletter I highly recommend:
One Step Away From Rage
Last month as part of my Emboldened book tour, I participated in a podcast with the wonderful Kimberly Wilson of Tranquility du Jour. We discussed how we had both noticed that these days people seem to be ‘Just one step away from rage’, I’ll include a link to our chat next week for you when it goes live.
We had witnessed people suddenly going from zero to one hundred in terms of anger in relatively benign situations like waiting in line for a bus or grocery shopping. In stores, signs now warn that abusive customers will not be served, and while waiting on hold for utilities and insurance companies, recorded messages remind us that customer service officers should be treated with respect and that irate customers will have their calls terminated.
The offenders of all this abuse are not thugs with bulging biceps and large square heads. They are ordinary, everyday people. When did we get so furious - and why? Are we living in an age where people feel entitled to be rude and good manners have gone out the door? There are a number of theories for the rise in aggression, but I subscribe to the simplest one: Everyone is feeling highly stressed – and when we are stressed, we don’t act like our best selves. The logical part of our brain shuts down and our irrational, heightened emotions take over.
The human brain and body are designed for short bursts of stress (like being chased by a bear) and should then return to a natural state of homeostasis fairly quickly once the danger has passed. But in modern society ‘the danger’ never passes. The constant news cycle, crowded cities and traffic, artificial light, 24-hour connection, materialism and even the abundance of choice that comes with day-to-day living means that our brains are continually in a state of stress. What was once adaptive has become maladaptive and as a result, high levels of adrenalin and cortisol are constantly circulating in our bloodstreams, keeping us in a state of alertness as if we were surrounded by bears in the forest all day long.
Because of this, small annoyances, delays or inconveniences suddenly appear overwhelming and even life-threatening, and we find ourselves in a state of over-reaction.
If this is how you are feeling, I can offer some helpful suggestions. A few years ago, I went through a highly traumatic event that left me with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). Because CPTSD is more neurological than it is psychological, to heal myself I paid close attention to the health of my brain. Even now that CPTSD is far behind me, I keep up the simple habits below because I know they help me negotiate life in a way that is fun and stimulating rather than overwhelming and exhausting. They also help me reap the advantages of technology and downplay the harms.
MEDITATE
This is a game-changer. Meditation can calm our brainwaves even better than sleep. A lot of people claim that they can’t meditate and that gardening, walking or crocheting is their form of meditation. But that’s because many people see meditation only as a relaxation practice whereas it’s actually a life mastery practice.
Meditation must be learned like any skill, and it can be very uncomfortable at first as our thoughts jump all over the place. But the truth is, they are jumping around like that all day and creating confusion subconsciously, and it’s only in meditation that we can become aware of them and detach from them. It took me a year to see any progress with meditation, but I persisted with it because CPTSD was making my life miserable, and I knew that medication or cognitive therapies wouldn’t cure it.
There is something about meditating regularly that makes practitioners feel whole and connected to something larger than themselves. Now instead of being triggered or having panic attacks, I frequently experience ‘joy attacks’ – sudden, random feelings of complete bliss that come out of nowhere and for no apparent reason.
WAKE UP WISELY
What do our mobile phones and social media have in common with drones, money and psychology? All those things can benefit us if used correctly. But used unwisely, they can cause our demise.
These days, most of us use our mobile phones as our alarm clocks. There is nothing wrong with that; it’s what happens immediately afterwards that is the problem. After turning off the alarm and checking the time, a staggering 80-90% of people immediately go to their email, social media or read the news within the first fifteen minutes of waking up (When our subconscious minds are most vulnerable). This puts our brains into reaction mode and gives us a sense of being at the mercy of our environment.
To avoid this, I have cultivated the habit of having a book under my phone. It might be a motivational book, it might be a book on a hobby I love, or it might even be a book of poetry. But straight after checking the time on my phone, I cuddle and greet my cats and then I read a page of the book I have set aside for the morning. This not only stops the urge to scroll but connects me to the life I want to live. As a result, I go about my day with a sense of intention (and therefore a degree of self-control). I look at the news, my social media and my email later on in the morning when I can make clear decisions about what I want to focus on and make my social media interactions enjoyable and purposeful. If you are an early morning phone scroller, I guarantee changing this habit alone will create an enormous shift in your happiness and a sense of having control over your life.
ELEVATE YOUR BRAIN INPUT
Our brains are exactly like our bodies. The quality of what we feed them will affect their health. Because our brain has a negative bias towards bad news (It pays attention to it because it must learn how to keep us safe) we can get addicted to watching negative news stories.
I rib some of my girlfriends about their taste in trashy reality TV shows – which they swear helps them ‘relax’ - while I myself have stayed up too late because I got entranced by some true crime show where a serial killer chopped up and ate his victims. It’s obvious that watching human beings at their worst couldn’t possibly relax us. When you find yourself reaching for the TV remote or scrolling through true crime Facebook posts, turn away and reach for a book instead.
Reading is one of the best things we can do for our brains – it improves memory function and decreases the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s as we age.
Reading also enhances the connectivity in the brain, reduces stress, promotes relaxation, and improves sleep. All of this means that we are far more likely to be in a good mood on a regular basis, rather than a bad one.
I hope you will try out the above suggestions and see how well they work for you! Here’s to a happier, more peaceful – and patient – society!
My book, Emboldened: On Finding the Fire to Keep Going When All Seems Lost is available now:
For more buying options please see my website
When Belinda met Anna
Many of you know the wonderful Anna Loder, Sydney bookselling and event personality and champion of Australian writers. We first met in 2019 when I did an event at her iconic café and bookshop in Cronulla for my novel The Invitation, but I was unaware until that evening that she and I had been travelling parallel lives.
My Books in Chronological Order
UPCOMING EVENTS
SYDNEY
❦ WEDNESDAY, July 26th
Sutherland Library In Conversation with Anna Loder
❦ THURSDAY, AUGUST 10th
Hornsby Library Belinda Alexandra in Conversation with Michaela Kalowski
❦ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30th
Belinda Alexandra In Conversation with Lynne Allister of Dymocks Rouse Hill
Thank you for reading, if those ideas were helpful, then please keep an eye out next week for my last post for Winter about the amazing benefits of reading.
Until then be kind to yourself,
Love Belinda XX
Looking forward to our book club! It's going to be so much fun.
And I confess to being guilty of looking at my phone within about 5 minutes of getting up. I'm going to try poetry instead!