Explore, Understand and Learn to
Deal with Stress & Anxiety

with Kevin Solon of The Harmony Group

Phone 01 / 2100390  or info@theharmonygroup.org

This One Day Course is aimed at people with no previous knowledge of Stress & Anxiety Management but who feel that they would like to start to gain control of negative stress or anxiety in their life.

Course Content

This course is designed to equip the participant in recognising the many different causes of stress and anxiety, how they are stressing themselves, and learn practical and effective techniques to assist in coping with these issues including relaxation techniques.

Noticing what happens to you and how you react when you are under pressure is also an important area, as is the switch from being under pressure to being stressed or anxious.

You will learn how to pre-empt stress building up and how to set boundaries with other people who may be a factor in your stress. Other areas covered are the use of  Goal Setting and Fun & Recreation as further ways of reducing stress and anxiety.

During the course our emphasis is on making the information easily understood and practical. We believe limiting the number of participants to a maximum of 12 makes for a more individual experience.

Venue:

Jesuit Conference Centre, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin 6.
Bus Service: 11, 11A, 11B, 48A and 44.
View Milltown Park in a larger map

Course Dates

Saturday 26th February2011   (9.00am – 4.30pm)

Course Cost:

€125.00 per person.

Facilitator:

Kevin Solon Dip CH, Dip LBC, MPNLP, TFT, MIICHP, MLBCAI

Kevin Solon is a Psychotherapist and Life Coach who has many years experience in the area of Stress and Anxiety Management. This experience has been gained through working with clients on a one-to-one basis as well as leading courses for individuals, schools and companies.

Booking Form

As places are limited to 12 per course early booking is advisable.

To register please complete the form below and return with a payment of €125.00 made payable to Kevin Solon, ‘The Harmony Group’.

Our address is 14/16 Main Street, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.    info@theharmonygroup.org

Click here to download a printable booking form:

Stress & Anxiety Workshop Booking Form (Feb 2011)

JOSH RITTER. That is someone I am going to listen to in 2009, I was completely devoid of any thoughts about the New Year when I heard him on the Ryan Tubridy Show, where he was an engaging interviewee in that intelligent manner you often find with songwriters, Josh had spent a lot of the year touring with Joan Baez, and I was immediately jealous. I remembered how furious I was with myself for not join­ing the crowd outside the White House on Obama elec­tion night Joan got out of her hotel bed and went in her dressing gown. I was a few blocks away and had another glass of wine. Very stupid.

Then he talked about Paul McCartney and how good an album Ram is, and I agreed  wholeheartedly that the way Macca could record an album exactly the way he felt like doing it was refreshing. Next, he mentioned Dylan, and by then, if he were a woman I would have phoned him a pro­posal. But all this was on the back of a wonderful song of his own that opened the item.

It is called Empty Heart and contains a bit of lost love, a bit of regret, some friends and a lot of hope. There has been some drinking over the year, and maybe too much at times, as it sounds like there was some escaping to do. And then there was the wonderful sentiment of each chorus which went “Don’t let me into this year with an empty heart,” and each time I heard it repeated it sunk in more. Here, I thought, is a New Year’s Resolution worthy of the name.

Each year, after Christmas, we have a few days to think and it seems inevitable that we take stock. We decide to do more of this and less of that, next year. Our intentions are good, but by mid-January we are back on the same old merry-go-round and have completely forgotten all of our supposed improvements and that is what I found so attrac­tive about Ritter’s song. It is not about doing more, being nice to people or smoking fewer cigarettes. It is about an attitude to everything that will affect everything. It is about taking on life fully and not letting it get you down.

With each passing year, it gets easier to think about how much time is wasted in self-absorption, self-pity and half-baked attention and effort. With every year on the clock, I hear more people saying that life isn’t a rehearsal. This included the religious one for whom the afterlife becomes a touch less reliable with each grey hair.

Some of Ritter’s lyrics sound like a lost love affair has knocked the stuffing out of him. Like the rest of us, the easiest way to deal with that is to drink too much, or too often, or both, instead of giv­ing it a decent burial, having a good look at yourself in the mirror and getting on with things. I am always reminded of whoever it was that said that most of us are as happy or as unhappy as we decide to be.

Thankfully, I had a fairly happy 2008 and don’t have a lot to complain about. There were a lot of things that were worth being on the planet to enjoy. I will be approaching January with a very hopeful heart as, having been in the US to enjoy Obama’s election, I am not going to miss the inau­guration. If anyone spots Joan Baez, please give me a ring. Now there is a heart that does­n’t have much time for empty.

So if I have one resolution for ‘09 it is to approach it with a fuller heart. And to give a wide berth to anyone who doesn’t have the same approach because they just suck the life out of you. That, and to buy a few Josh Ritter albums.

John Masterson is a doctor of psychology

First published in December 2008

Explore, Understand and Learn to
Deal with Stress & Anxiety

with The Harmony Group

Phone 01 / 2100390

This One Day Course is aimed at people with no previous knowledge of Stress & Anxiety Management but who feel that they would like to start to gain control of negative stress in their life.

Course Content

This course is designed to equip the participant in recognising the many different causes of stress and anxiety, how they are stressing themselves, and learn practical and effective techniques to assist in coping with these issues including relaxation techniques.

Noticing what happens to you and how you react when you are under pressure is also an important area, as is the switch from being under pressure to being stressed or anxious.

You will learn how to pre-empt stress building up and how to set boundaries with other people who may be a factor in your stress. Other areas covered are the use of  Goal Setting and Fun & Recreation as further ways of reducing stress and anxiety.

During the course our emphasis is on making the information easily understood and practical. We believe limiting the number of participants to a maximum of 12 makes for a more individual experience.

Venue

Jesuit Conference Centre, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin 6.
Bus Service: 11, 11A, 11B, 48A and 44.
View Milltown Park in a larger map

Course Dates

Saturday 27th November 2010   (9.00am – 4.30pm)

Course Cost

€125.00 per person.

Facilitator

Kevin Solon

Kevin Solon is a Psychotherapist and Life Coach who has many years experience in the area of Stress and Anxiety Management. This experience has been gained through working with clients on a one-to-one basis as well as leading courses for individuals, schools and companies.

Booking Form

As places are limited to 12 per course early booking is advisable.

To register please complete the form below and return with a payment of €125.00 made payable to Kevin Solon, ‘The Harmony Group’.

Our address is 14/16 Main Street, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.    info@theharmonygroup.org

Click here to download a printable booking form:

Stress & Anxiety Workshop Booking Form (Nov 2010)

Please contact us at info@theharmonygroup.org (or phone 01-2100390) for further information.

I pride myself on being flexible. If arrangements change, I don’t so much as flinch and just switch every­thing around.

Current affairs television, where I put in a few years in the Today Tonight era, was a good training ground. It was commonplace to go to work expecting to travel to Cork and next thing be on the way to the airport because a bomb had gone off in London. I remember checking in for a flight home at Heathrow to be told the office had just been on and wanted us to go to Rome because the Irish fans couldn’t get tickets for a World Cup match. Off we went. It was commonplace for the important story you had been working on to become irrele­vant and be cut in half. Or worse, end up in the bin.

I saw the perfect paper­weight recently. It was a piece of granite with “Nothing is set in stone” carved in it. Being flexible, I also expect similar effortless change from those around me, at work and at play. People who don’t cope well with the apple cart being upset regularly will not fare well in any part of the media.

I have said before that when I am a bit stressed, I get short with people. I can usual­ly spot it and control it. It also happens when I am appre­hensive — and that is not spot­ted as easily. Recently, I was in the throes of getting a lot of loose ends tied up before going on a 2,000-mile bike trip when it dawned on me that I must be a bit scared. It wasn’t that I expected to break down or anything, but just that I knew that if I did it would be beside that house where the larger woman traps truck drivers. And I noticed that I wasn’t just being ratty with people. I was also going mad when plans changed. My flexibility was turning to cement.

This came to a head as I waited at the airport to collect my sister and niece. Their early-morning flight had been delayed for two hours. I had a chock-a-block day lined up, and images of being stuck on the M50 had me fuming and pacing up and down like a caged lion won­dering how they could have been so stupid as to get that particular flight, etc etc.

I was in a tracksuit and had to get home for a shower before a meeting. Then absolutely had to get to Bray for a gizmo for a bike. And was having a lunch that I was looking forward to. Something had to go.

Then, to make matters worse, the phone rang, and a piece of work I had slotted in for later in the week was need­ed earlier. I wasn’t even polite. “Why couldn’t they have let me know earlier? Were they completely incompetent?” I might have only thought the second sentence rather than said it out loud.

I got a cup of coffee and sat down fuming. Then it all start­ed to fall into place. To hell with the M50. I could use the port tunnel and give them the car to get home. I could go to a meeting in a tracksuit. No one would bat an eyelid. Then get a taxi home to change and all would be well.

I noticed a woman organising stuff from a big notebook. “Could I have a few pages please? I am stuck here for a while,” She smiled a smile that would warm a room and by the time the plane arrived the back was broken on the rescheduled piece of work.

When the family finally emerged I was in the best of form and all hugs. Mind you, my niece does not think of me as a flexible friend. More like a walking wallet.

John Masterson is a doctor of psychology

First published in September ‘07

SUZIE Q is a passionate dog and loves me. She loves a few people, but I’m definitely in the top five.

She’s not a slut, but is very discriminating. I was chosen for my good behaviour. So when she sees me, she takes off and launches herself at me. If I’m not ready, she leaves me flat on my back. I then get five minutes of total attention, give five minutes back — and if I didn’t tell her to go away, she’d still be lying on her back wanting more.

Suzie Q is a little over a year old, and most of her brain is still puppy. In her short life, she has rejuvenated all around her — dogs, cats, hu­mans. Her playfulness is in­fectious. She doesn’t let you not take notice. And I wonder how long it is before that transition from unashamed puppy mentality to mature circumspect dog takes place.

All of the people who made an impression on me in 2006 had a bit of Suzie Q about them. There were passionate about people, or about what they were doing. And, more often than not, they had a smile on their faces. However, if they had a frown on, it was best to leave the postal district — because, as people who en­gaged with life to the full, someone was likely to feel their wrath. And maybe get an apology for going over the top.

As teenagers, we’re all full of hormones and passion. Our opinions are the most impor­tant in the world. Our soccer team or TV show is followed with fervour. Our slights are felt as real pain. Our loves are all-consuming. Life is intense and we know where we stand about most things.

Maturity makes us more reasonable. Add a bit of mile­age to that maturity and we become very boring indeed, unaffectedly going through the motions of life. If something good happens, we’re too cool to show excitement. If something bad happens, we just deal with it and move on. We go through life, rather than live it,

I met a few people in 2006 who made me sit up and take notice. One was going though a tough time—but had an atti­tude that would get a bunch of people up Everest and down the other side.

Another was at a stage where she just loved her job and had a list of things that she was setting out to achieve. Yet another was nearing the end of a very fulfilling project and wondering what to do next, knowing it would be something very different. All laughed a lot.

By contrast, I sat in a restaurant waiting to be served and wondered why nothing was happening when I spotted the waiter in a corner meditating. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but sure enough, there he was in some pretentious pose, absorbed in his inner be­ing — instead of feeding mine.

I don’t have anything much against meditation (some of my best friends do it), but I’m a bit fed up with the mad rush away from stress. Stress is part of life and the people who embrace it and deal with it tend to have richer lives.

For them the highs are high and the lows are low, but it is preferable to living in the medium-waveland. And re­member, you can’t make your­self an egglette without breaking oms.

If you want a resolution for 2007, here is what I suggest. Burn all those books that tell you how to keep calm. Go for something that includes stress as part of the package.

You might laugh out loud. And if you get angry, go for it. But don’t do too much dam­age to those in the vicinity. Check now and again to see if you have a pulse. And if it’s not throbbing, do something about it.

John Masterson is a doctor of psychology

First published in Dec ‘06.

I wear a watch with big Roman numerals. I am a good time keeper, but I don’t need to know to the sec­ond what time it is. Digital watches always strike me as cheap, crass, useless and ugly. I remember the days when the weather forecast was a lot more inaccurate than the worst watch. I liked never be­ing sure what the next day would bring. I used to think that Americans were ob­sessed with the weather on television until I noticed the important difference be­tween their weather and ours: they got it right.

Sadly, we have caught up, and now to look at the internet last thing at night to see what is in store. Do this for a few days and watch what it does to your head. If sun is promised, I go to bed happy. If it says wind or cold, I couldn’t care less. But if rain is on the way, I go to bed miserable, wake up miserable and see little point in life until it has passed.

George Hook often begins his radio programme with “the happiness index” and whether it is going up or down. It always makes me wonder if there is any more to it than rain, or no rain.

There are times I feel like shouting at the radio and telling George that I feel bloody great and was happy that way until he made me think about it.

Then I think about whatever specifically was keeping my spirits up, and before long I am smiling and absent-minded again until I have to slam on the brakes to avoid becoming intimate with the car in front.

George does remind me of one thing: happiness is big business. We all feel we are en­titled to more than our share of it. In a recent survey, 80 per cent of Americans said that they wake up happy; I always feel fairly good when I am in the US of A. Probably related to their happiness is that, in the same survey, 79 percent of people described themselves as optimistic.

Perhaps one key to my better-than-average happiness is that I avoid “glass half empty” people, I do my best to prune them from my life. These are the people who can see all the down sides of winning the Lotto, or going out with Julia Roberts, when I would prefer to become acquainted with the problems associated with such events in my own good time and in my own good way.

Show them a Ferrari and they will go on about the price of petrol.

Most of us think that win­ning the lottery would make us happy but, oddly, once you have enough money to be comfortable, having more does not have as much effect as people think.

Being removed from pov­erty does have a major effect. If the unemployed single man becomes the employed mar­ried man, you can rest assured his life will be rosier. Sadly, the rush of buying the car of your dreams wears off quickly. And it always im­presses the wrong people. Buy a top-of-the-range car and the women that you want to im­press don’t even notice. Just as the woman who spends an arm and a leg on fashion gets “ohs” and “ahs^w from her fe­male friends while the average male doesn’t even remem­ber the colour. Benefits gained from retail therapy are fairly temporary.

Recently, I asked several people what were the things in life that made them really happy. Once they started to give the question real thought, they ended up iden­tifying the very things that re­searchers across the world find. What makes most people most happy are other people — friends, children, parents, lovers, relations, even the peo­ple they work with.

Doing things and commu­nicating with other people forms the social glue that keeps the smile on our faces and the spring in our step. Happiness is the hum of com­munication and conversation and of the ‘I must tell her about…’ moments. It comes from being with people with whom we share a kind of shorthand.

And if you find you cannot get on with your friends, lov­ers and acquaintances, then do the one thing guaranteed to bring you love, enjoyment, satisfaction and one-to-one communication of a high or­der: get a dog.

John Masterson is a doctor of psychology

First published in Nov 2006

I find it hard to think of my mother without also thinking of my father. They were pretty much a double act. In a long marriage, they spent only a few days apart. And when they were together, they talked to each other a lot

I think they liked talking to each other more than they liked talking to anyone else, and this has always stuck in my head as the most impor­tant glue in a marriage, or any relationship. Not only did they talk, I believe they actually listened as well.

They were in love up to the last. She never tired of telling the story of how they parted for a year to make sure they were right for each other. I never saw the sense of it, but it worked for them. Apparently, he used to stand on Baggot Street Bridge hoping to catch a glimpse of her leaving work in the nearby hospital, where she was a nurse. I don’t think she ever caught him. Though I am sure someone must have, because he was about as discreet as I am.

I can remember lying awake in bed as a child and hearing them chatting downstairs. Or waking up and hearing them laughing in bed. They were about as connected as two human beings who still have their own lives could be. And they never tired of it. They shared a world view. They didn’t argue much. But they were quite happy to disagree, though usually, it was not about things of much significance. I could never imagine either of them saying, “I don’t want to discuss that any further.” The notion of giving the other the silent treatment would never have entered their heads.

Some of it must have rubbed off on me, as I am never happier that when I am having a good conversation with a woman. I concede that I am not always the best listener, but there are a few people I find it effortless to listen to, and those are the ones whose company I seek out. Frequently, it is not the subject matter of the conversation that keeps me engaged. It is the style or attitude that the person takes to things.

There are plenty of people who are interested in the same things as I am who would bore me stiff in five minutes. And there are others with whom I have little or nothing in common who keep me fascinated by the way they take on the world and make their own particular sense of it. To a woman, they are blessed with a sense of humour, usually a somewhat quirky one.

You can walk into any magazine shop and see thousands of articles about what to wear, what to weigh, what labels matter, how to have better sex, or more sex etc, etc, etc, all of which are supposed to play some essential part in the mating rituals of today. Anything to do with “the art of good conver­sation” would be remaindered, pronto.

People meet in nightclubs, where they cannot hear each other think. And they drink too much. Usually, people begin drinking to get rid of shyness. They want to pluck up the courage to have a conversation. And they can read magazines until the cows come home before they will find one that tells them that if you can’t hold a conversation with someone, you won’t have much of a relationship, even if you are as skinny as Posh Spice and have internalised the Kama Sutra. “The value of conversation for love”. That will fly off the shelves.

And yet, when the first attraction turns to something more, how often have you heard someone say, “He/she is so easy to talk to”? It seems to come as a surprise.

John Masterson is a doctor of psychology.

First published in March 2009.

Explore, Understand and Learn to
Deal with Stress & Anxiety

with The Harmony Group

Phone 01 / 2100390

This One Day Course is aimed at people with no previous knowledge of Stress & Anxiety Management but who feel that they would like to start to gain control of negative stress in their life.

Course Content

This course is designed to equip the participant in recognising the many different causes of stress and anxiety, how they are stressing themselves, and learn practical and effective techniques to assist in coping with these issues including relaxation techniques.

Noticing what happens to you and how you react when you are under pressure is also an important area, as is the switch from being under pressure to being stressed or anxious.

You will learn how to pre-empt stress building up and how to set boundaries with other people who may be a factor in your stress. Other areas covered are the use of Humour, Goal Setting and Fun & Recreation as further ways of reducing stress and anxiety.

During the course our emphasis is on making the information easily understood and practical. We believe limiting the number of participants to a maximum of 12 makes for a more individual experience.

Venue

Jesuit Conference Centre, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin 6.
Bus Service: 11, 11A, 11B, 48A and 44.
View Milltown Park in a larger map

Course Dates

Saturday 22nd May 2010

Course Cost

€125.00 per person.

Facilitator

Kevin Solon

Kevin Solon is a Psychotherapist and Life Coach who has many years experience in the area of Stress and Anxiety Management. This experience has been gained through working with clients on a one-to-one basis as well as leading courses for individuals, schools and companies.

Booking Form

As places are limited to 12 per course early booking is advisable.

To register please complete the form below and return with a payment of €125.00 made payable to Kevin Solon, ‘The Harmony Group’.

Our address is 14/16 Main Street, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.

Click here to download a printable booking form:

Stress & Anxiety Workshop Booking Form (May 2010)