Kate Strong's Blog

I’m reading an awesome book at the moment called The Happiness Trap by Dr Russ Harris, its mainly about ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy)

I wanted to talk about what he describes as Cognitive Fusion and Cognitive Defusion.

As Dr Harris describes it, ‘Cognitive fusion means that the thought and the thing it refers to – the story and the event – become blended. Thus, we react to words about a lemon as if a lemon is actually present; we react to words in a crime novel as if someone really is about to be murdered; we react to words like “Im useless” as if we actually are useless…….’

Research tells us that 80% of our thoughts are mostly negative.

We have alot of stories we tell ourselves chattering in our head all day, we have memories, fantasies, whats wrong, whats happening, what could happen, like a radio blaring in our heads all day.

With Cognitive Fusion we believe those thoughts as if they were fact.

The aim of Cognitive Defusion is to tell ourselves that alot of our thoughts are just mind chatter, not important and the trick is to only put energy into thoughts that hep us. Defusion tells us that thoughts can be unimportant, are just words, dont have any power, are not commands to be obeyed etc. Kind of like just having alot of junk in the attic.

One way to do this is to identify the story we are telling ourselves and say ‘Im having the thought that……..’ Im dumb, Im too fat, they hate me etc. Or saying ‘Oh theres that story I tell myself of……’ being a victim, he doesn’t love me, I won’t succeed etc. It defuses the thought instead of fusing with it or fighting it. It takes one step back and it loses its power so you can think what you really want to think.

What I’ve always struggled with, with other techniques is that being a psychic I rely on my thoughts and images in my head, and for me to say that alot of what im thinking is garbage could make me doubt my abilities. But I realised that with Cognitive Defusion its my choice about what I take notice of, afterall Im taking notice of what’s helpful. I tend to use this method when I catch myself with my usual self defeating thoughts that affect my behaviour.

So give it a go, see the change in energy and how your body relaxes after just one application.

What thought are you having?

I wanted to share a story from my life that embodied for me that the Universe has my back.

15 months ago my ex partner of 10 years told me out of the blue he was leaving me. Of course now I see that was all perfect but at the time I was devastated, he was the love of my life, but obviously I wasn’t for him.

Anyway, after having been in some kind of relationship for 25 years I was in shock about how I was going to survive on my own. I had spent most of my time raising our kids, and supporting my partners in their jobs. The way I had been raised. Make someone else’s life run smoother. Sounds simplistic but whatever I wanted to do professionally always felt like some little hobby I had.

He didn’t leave for 3 months which was hugely challenging, but not long before he left, an old friend out of the blue emailed me to tell me he had won first division in lotto, 1 million dollars, and wanted to show his gratitude to me for how he felt I had been a friend to him over the years, and asked me to let him know whatever I wanted.

Needless to say I cried for days about that. He saw me right to get up on my feet and was there just when I needed some kind of stability.

Whenever I’m scared and worried about how I’m going to manage, I remember how Rob was there when I needed an anchor.

Thanks Rob Browning

How have you experienced the Universe having your back?

One of the banes of my existance is empathy.

If I was being PC then I should say, its one of my biggest learning curves. And I’ve by no means mastered it at all.

The best book I’ve read on Empathy so far is 25 Ways to Fly In Spirit by Rose Rosetree, and she has another book out as well since this was written.

Empathy is just so natural to me. For whatever reason I developed it, it’s second nature to me. It works to my advantage during readings but I wish I could switch it off a bit better.

So what is empathy?

It’s when you can feel another person’s feelings. Or their physical aches and pains. You’re more aware of what’s going on for them than you are for yourself. It’s walking in their shoes.

We all have it to a cerain degree, expect for psychopaths, but for alot of sensitive people, we have it to the nth degree. We over empathise.

For instance we probably all know what it feels like when you walk into a house where the people have been arguing, you can cut the air with a knife. But for sensitive people its like we were the ones in that arguement. It’s happened in our body.

I feel it when people are sitting on their feelings and denying they’re feeling that way. I especially am sensitive to unexpressed anger, just brewing under the surface.

I was always sensitive as a child, but in my 40′s it’s got worse, it might be because I’ve spent alot of years fine tuning my psychic abilities so I’m more sensitive. And hormones lol

I have to work hard at staying centred and talking myself out of the feelings I get when I travel on certain roads. Alot of fear on some roads.

And there’s no way I can go into a crowd now. That’s way too much tangled energy for my sensitive nerve endings.

Something Rose Rosetree suggests in her book is that you do exercises to keep bringing you back to your own body. I have isolated how I do this, I can just even think of a person and often times I can feel what theyre feeling. As if there’s a window and every time I peek out it I go to that place of empathy. I just have to keep retraining myself not to look. Hard though because I work this way in my readings.

So are you empathic and what do you do to reign it in?

I love Ghost Whisperer and Medium, the TV shows. It’s brought Mediumship into the mainstream and demystified alot about what a Medium can do. It’s brought Spiritualism out of the early 1900s with images of ectoplasm gushing forth out of a Trance Mediums mouth into the modern age.

But……

I ain’t no Melinda Gordon.

I don’t carry on wonderfully clear conversations with someone who has passed over or is earthbound like I’m talking to a friend in the room or someone on the end of a phone line.

Not so simple.

Spirit communicates via an energetic vibration. I feel like its a chunk of energy like a wave, comes in then leaves, comes in then leaves. And I have to interpret the energy via my senses.

Sometimes if the person who has passed on is a talker, I will hear them talking, or they give me a feeling, or an image.

I learned a long time ago that I just have to pass on the impressions I get and try not to interpret them.

First and foremost Mediumship is to prove evidence of survival of Spirit.

The number one question most people want to know is if their loved one’s ok. I don’t think Melinda Gordon has helped people in that respect trust that their loved ones are OK,having had to cross over so many spirits on her show.

I believe if you have the hit to have a mediumship reading then your loved one is guiding you in that direction too.

It takes alot of energy for Spirit to lower their vibration to come through, and for the Medium to raise their vibration to talk to Spirit. So that shows you how much your loved ones want to communicate with you.

And yes, they can hear you when you talk to them, its not like they have to be in the same room to hear you, but they know whats going on in your life.

Most Mediums I know practice Mental Mediumship. Where Spirit connects with them telepathically, rather than taking over their whole body to deliver a message. Its only on rare occasions that I will sense a Spirit around me. I learned a long time ago not to have Spirit hanging out in my house because it can feel like Grand Central Station and mess around with my energy.

Blow waking up like Melinda to Spirits hanging out in her house. I do get interference with my electricals though, especially my laptop when Im doing mediumship readings online. I have to tell Spirit to back their energy off a bit.

Alot of sensitive people experience Spirit more like Alison DuBois in Medium. Dreaming of Spirit. I have that too but mostly from people who have passed over that I know.

Ive only once seen a Spirit in broad daylight. Like he was flesh, he was dressed in Victorian dress, and I had asked to see Spirit. I also had to have one of my houses cleansed by some Ghostbusters because I had noises at night wooshing around my bedroom, sounding like fingernails on the blackboard. That was pretty scary and from that point on I knew not to dabble in the spirit world, but have a very healthy respect.

I’m currently writing a Mediumship 101 correspondence course so look out for that.

Ive just been listening to Wayne Dyers audio cd about The Power of Intention. He has some good points that have totally changed the way I see Free Will.

He says : “At any moment in time all spirit is concentrated at the point where you focus your own intention.

Therefore you can consolidate all creative energy at a given moment in time, this is called your Free Will at work.”

He says that Universal mind is in your divine mind AND your free will.

Isnt this what some of us call Co-creation?

This got me thinking.

I saw Free Will as this naughty child who was defying her parent, like a brat having a tantrum – I WANNA DO IT MY WAY!!!!

And after so long doing it on your own you give in and say to your parents, ok, I’ve had enough, let’s do it your way, as if I’ve been bad for trying it out my way, and it didn’t work.

I saw my part as somehow being misguided. Sure I want what I want, but if I could only let go and go with the flow about what the Universe wants for me, then I will be happy, on track, life would be easier.

I never saw my free will as being a part of the divine universe. It felt like if I applied my free will then I was treading water or swimming upstream and needed to let go so I could flow down stream.

In some teachings we are lead to believe that the Universe doesn’t have any impact on our free will, but unless you are totally egotistical or travelling a journey of darkness, how can it not?

Call it a paradox, or a dichotemy, but the two can co-exist simultaneously, finally I get what co-creating means.

It’s not all my way and being egotistical and hard work, or all the Universe’s way where I feel like a rudderless ship blown wherever tides and winds take me.

Just call me Captain, setting sail where I want to go but knowing I can use the winds to my advantage!!

Last night I read this article that prompted alot of thought in me. Too bad it was at 4am lol. It got me to think, on your journey do you see yourself as flawed and needing to heal the wounded parts as best you can, or do you see yourself as whole but cant quite see through your misperception?

A lighthouse image came to mind. Where the light is focused on one area at a time, but while focused on that one area, the other areas are in darkness.

It doesn’t mean they aren’t there because you can’t see them, does it?

So what if we are whole, but we just can’t see all of us because our focus isn’t on all of us.

So all the characteristics that you wish you were, but can’t see, you are those characateristics, you just haven’t shone your light and focus on those parts yet.

I don’t believe we can see characteristics, good and bad, in others, if they aren’t a part of ourselves. After all, life is all projection. What we see out there is what is in us.

So are you your own Lighthouse Keeper? Where are you shining your light? On the parts you know you have and you keep wishing they weren’t there?

How about moving that light around a bit and shining it on the other areas you haven’t acknowledged are there yet?