Tag Archives: Creative Expression

No. 115: Noticing My Small Contributions to Others

October 13, 2012 7:54 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete

… I will actively recall times I have been kind, giving or friendly towards other people and practice noticing the good bits about myself. Each morning or the night before I will jot down a few times I can remember myself being good to others, they could be recent, historical or a mix of both. Then I will practice reminding myself of these small contributions to others throughout the day. As I move through the day during the week, I will take moments to pause and mentally run through my list of past examples as a reminder of my good intentions and value to those around me. This week, I will practice noticing the positive effects I have on others and in so doing, I will practice building my sense of self-worth and valuing even my smallest contributions. If I notice my mind wandering onto times when I have not had a positive effect on others, I will notice those thoughts and compassionately bring my mind back to the exercise of recalling interactions in which I have been kind, caring, friendly, supportive or helpful to another person. I am more than my mistakes. Once I am familiar with the task of remembering and noticing my past and current positive contributions on a daily basis, I will add this to my Personal Coping Kete as a self-soothing strategy for times of distress when I notice I am devaluing myself and my place in my community.

Posted in: Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: creative expression, relaxation techniques, self-care, Stress Management

No. 112: Build My Willpower Muscles

September 14, 2012 12:02 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellness… Coping Kete

…I will practice changing my automatic responses by working on doing small, unimportant things differently on a daily basis. I will first choose something really basic like doing something different from my norm when I arrive home each day or trying to always lift my coffee mug with the opposite hand. Then as I move through my week, I will practice checking myself and switching my cup to the other hand. I will practice being understanding with my self-talk when I forget to do the small thing differently or find it uncomfortable or difficult. In this way I will slowly get used to seeing myself as someone who can do small things differently and use my willpower to resist a habit. This might help me to feel better about attempting to change something bigger and more important to me, such as reducing alcohol intake or changing my daily routine. Once I am comfortable with interrupting a small habit and replacing it with something different, I will add ‘ Use my Willpower Muscles’ to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for shifting my attention and energies to small habits and automatic responses that I am able to change. I might need to think a bit about what my automatic responses have been before I am able to choose one small thing to work on changing. I will remind myself of my previous experience with changing something small and how I was able to do it in the end.

Posted in: Engagement ⋅ Tagged: creative expression, humor, mindfulness practice, perspective, Stress Management

No. 111: Make Someone a Card

August 31, 2012 5:09 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

This week, to attain, maintain, or regain my sense of wellbeing…

…I will practice turning my attention to something positive by taking time in my week to make a card for someone I am grateful to for something and deliver or post it to them. I will schedule a time later in the week to make the card, so I have plenty of time to get organised. For the next little while, I will think over the people and things that I am grateful for until I think of a person I want to acknowledge and make a card for. It could be for something big, something small, something recent, or something from a long time ago. It doesn’ t really matter, but if this kind of thing makes me nervous, I could pick something small, like a recent favour from a friend. Once I have thought of someone, I will start getting ready to get creative. I will want to find some card or paper to make it out of and design my own image for the front – I could draw something or cut pictures out of magazines or print something off a computer – but I won’ t buy the card, this week’ s strategy is also about using my creativity. Finally, I will write a short thank-you message on the inside, letting them know I appreciate what they have added to my life. I might need to spend a little while drafting what I want to say on some scrap paper. No matter what is happening in my day this week, I will find time each day to think about or work on making my card to someone I am thankful for. It is much harder to do these things when we feel low, so I might do it in little bursts, bringing my attention mindfully back to the card and where I am up to with it, whenever I am able. This week, I am practicing the art of emphasising the good stuff. It’ s not a skill that comes naturally to all of us, and modern life isn’ t set up to help us remember to notice and highlight the things we are grateful for. Making a thank-you card means I will practice turning my attention towards positive memories as well as get a chance to practice letting myself be creative. By sending the card, I am learning another way of sending positive vibes out into the lives of others. These are all things I could feel good about. Once I have gotten comfortable being aware of the things I am grateful for and making a card for someone at any old time, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of balancing my attention when life seems to be throwing all the hard stuff my way. When I notice I am finding things distressing on a regular basis, I will spend some time thinking of things I am grateful for, making a card to acknowledge one, and sending it to the person. Each time I notice myself getting pessimistic, I will bring my thoughts back to my card and the meaning behind it to help balance my thoughts and remember that it isn’ t all bad, all the time.

Posted in: Engagement, Expression & Support, Mindful Distraction ⋅ Tagged: creative expression, Giving and Contributing, mindfulness practice, relaxation techniques, social connection, Stress Management, visual art

No. 100: Use Energy Lifting Words

June 9, 2012 4:17 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete

… I will practice using positive, inspiring words in my self-talk and my communications with others to help shift the mood of things. This week, I will become aware of the kinds of words I am using with myself and with others. Each time I notice what I am thinking, I will find a way to reframe it that allows me to use more positive words. Each time I notice the kinds of words I am using/want to use when talking to others, I will think of a way of inserting more positive words. It might help to first make a list of the kinds of energy-raising words I could use, such as inspired, peaceful, harmonious, content and enjoyment. So for example, instead of thinking or saying ‘ I feel awful right now,’ I might reframe things so I think or say ‘ I want to do something to inspire me’ instead. Sometimes just thinking about the positive concept can lift our energy. Using these words in our communication can help lift the energy of those around us and make the way we communicate our problems more effective. Once I am comfortable doing this as part of my regular day, I will add ‘ Reframe to use positively charged words’ into my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for self-soothing and/or expressing myself when I am stressed or distressed.

Posted in: Expression & Support, Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: breathing, Coping, creative expression, distraction, Meditation, self-care, Stress Management

No. 93: Embracing My Interdependence

April 20, 2012 12:17 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete

…I will live in an awareness of how we are designed to be interdependent, to need other people. We each have a mix of strengths and limitations; those things that I can’ t do or struggle with, someone else can do or finds easier. Together we are able to accomplish all of the things we need to do. I do not need to feel ashamed of my limitations, because we all have them. I was never meant to be able to do everything on my own. When I am in social situations I will identify what limitations the people around me might need help with and as far as I am able to, I will offer my support to them with that. I might say something like “Hey I notice you are finding x hard, is there any way I can help you out right now?” or simply encourage them in the way I think will be most helpful. I will also identify what limitations I need help with in this moment and let the people around me know. This might be something they know how to help me with or relate to. In this way, this week, I will practice talking about what I find hard and accessing support with it at the same time as offering my support to others. I will start first by practicing identifying these things to myself with my self-talk. I will practice seeing other people’ s behaviour and responses as being related to their own mixture of strengths and limitations, rather than being personal reactions to me or failings on their part. I will also practice accepting my own limitations rather than see them as something I have to be ashamed of, hide or overcome on my own. Once I am familiar with doing this, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a self-soothing strategy to use when I am stressed or distressed by other people. I will then move on to practice the next step: to express myself, then seek and give support for the limitations we all have. Once I am comfortable doing this in low-key situations I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as an Expression and Support strategy for coping with difficult social situations and other things that I find tricky. “We are not stand alone objects.” – Miriam Barr “We are like birds with one wing. We can only fly by embracing each other.” – Anonymous.

Posted in: Expression & Support, Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: breathing, creative expression, distraction, Meditation, physical activity, relaxation techniques, Stress Management

No. 88: Delaying My Response

March 16, 2012 11:19 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing…

…when I find I have something to say to someone, rather than rushing to express myself straight away, I will remind myself that I might feel differently later. I will resolve to turn my attentions to something else and see how I feel about it later on or the next day. I will then move onto completing my tasks for the day. When I return to think about the situation and assess how I feel, I will start off by thinking about what might have been happening for the other person at the time and how that might have influenced their behaviour. I will think about whether the way I thought about it at the time, still seems accurate or whether there might be another way of looking at things. I will think about whether I need to do or say anything now or at another time and what I could do or say, taking their perspective into account as well my own. Once I have become comfortable delaying everyday responses, I will add this strategy to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of dealing with distressing moments.

Posted in: Expression & Support, Mindful Distraction, Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: Coping, creative expression, perspective, social connection, Stress Management, time-out

No. 82: Valuing My Values

February 2, 2012 11:18 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellness… Coping Kete

…I will practice using self-talk to remind myself of the things I value and care about. In this way I will give myself regular reassurance that despite how things might sometimes turn out, I ultimately have positive intentions. I can relax and let my values guide me. To prepare myself to self-soothe like this when I am distressed by negative thoughts about myself, I will first spend some time, maybe with a pen and paper, to think about what my values are. I will ask myself, “what is it that I think is most important in life?” I will then practice regularly reminding myself “I am the kind of person who values…xyz… so no matter what happens out there, I am all right in here.” If I find that my distress stems from my doing things that don’ t sit well with what I value, then I will be able to move on to a more problem-solving based strategy to discover what I could change or how I could respond. This week, I will practice seeing the evidence of my self-worth in the values that I hold, the things I believe in and strive for. Once I am comfortable being aware of my values and trusting them to guide me, I will add this strategy to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of soothing feelings of distress.

Posted in: Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: Coping, creative expression, Mindfulness, physical activity, positive thinking

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Tag Archives: Creative Expression

No. 115: Noticing My Small Contributions to Others

No. 112: Build My Willpower Muscles

No. 100: Use Energy Lifting Words

No. 93: Embracing My Interdependence

No. 82: Valuing My Values

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