Wanderings

I've recently started a course of NLP. In the past when my demons have resurfaced I've always visited my GP who, although he is one of the better doctors I've had over the years, will always suggest upping the dose of my meds as a 'short term measure' while calm returns to my mind. It works but I've always thought there had to be a better way.

NLP is a way of modifying your mental behaviour. It aims to reprogramme the way you think of yourself so that you look more at the positives and less at the negatives. This seems ideal for someone like me, whom a psychiatrist once described as a 'catastrophist', meaning that in any given situation, my first thought always tends to be 'what is the worst thing that can happen?' so I worry and stress over what might go wrong, rather than what might go right.

Exercise has been shown to help depressives a great deal by releasing the body's own natural endorphins and thereby enhancing the mood. Being 38, a drinker, a smoker and a lazy bastard, my first promise to myself was that I'll start taking exercise. Not running marathons or dragging my saggy arse up steep inclines, more stiff walks through the beautiful countryside I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by. We're having a splendid autumn here in the UK. Although it is well into October, the leaves are only just beginning to turn yellow and fall, the sun has been shining brilliantly and it has been unseasonably warm. Late this afternoon I laced up my DMs and set off for my weekend constitutional. Through the village, across the green and along the Thames. Then across the playing fields of Eton and thence home, refreshed, relaxed and feeling as if I have achieved something positive.

Autumn has to be my favourite season, especially when it stays warm. There are just so many colours, so many smells, so much calm. And of course there are conkers everywhere. Whose mind isn't taken back to the school yard when the conkers start to drop? Making holes with your compass, trying to thread your shoe laces through the woefully inadequate hole, bruised knuckles, the pain and pleasure of winning and losing. I had a winning conker at middle school one year (about 1978?), shaped like a Brazil nut it went unbeaten throughout September until it met its inevitable nemesis. This was in the form of a conker that, to be honest looked like one of those tiny meteorites you just occasionally see, a little ball of rough iron. But you'd not make a hole in a lump of iron with a school compass so it must have been legitimate. Now of course conkers is an endangered pastime. Aren't kids hardy enough to take a few knocks? Isn't it part of the process of growing up to find out for yourself what hurts and what doesn't? It's all very sad.

As for the NLP, it is all going well so far. I'm slightly concerned that my lack of fury has effected and reduced the vitriolic writing I so enjoy, but no doubt it won't be long before Bliar or Bush says or does something which winds my spleen up into a code red. Or before I find a new, constructive way of gaining the same effect. Mellow Phylos will try to keep you entertained until then.