Engage Aotearoa

Tag Archives: Mindfulness Practice

No. 104: Connecting with Interests & Skills

July 6, 2012 3:59 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping KeteI will practice connecting with my interests and developing my skills by joining some kind of community course. Most community centres offer cheap community classes on topics ranging from cooking and clothing alterations to ballroom dancing, yoga and martial arts. This week I will spend time exploring my options and finding a first class to try. It could take a few tries before I find a class that suits me. I will use my local telephone directory, The Community Resources Directory, web searches and local noticeboards to get a picture of what is available in my community. I might also talk to the people around me about what is out there and whether they recommend anything. As I move through my day I will remember that I am exploring my interests and am well on my way along the path towards a more enjoyable life. Any points of dissatisfaction are simply the areas that are still works in progress. It might be hard for me to get myself along so I might ask a friend, family member or other supporter if they want to come with me. That might also be a nice way to strengthen a relationship I have been wanting to build. Once I have found a hobby-course that I enjoy and I have become familiar with the activity I have been learning, I will add the activity to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of engaging with my skills and interests to shift my mood when I am distressed. * * * Today’ s post marks two full years of The Coping Kete in its online form. The Coping Kete book is coming soon.
Posted in: Engagement ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , ,

No. 103: Mindfulness of My Senses

June 28, 2012 10:12 am ⋅ 
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing...


I will practice mindfulness of my five senses. I will take moments throughout the day to pause and notice what I can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

I will practice being fully present with each sense, one at a time. For example, I might spend a few minutes just listening to the sounds around me, or really looking at the colors and shapes in my environment.

Whenever my thoughts intrude, I will just notice and describe them to myself without judgement and return my attention to my senses. 

By practicing mindfulness of my senses, I will be able to ground myself in the present moment and take a break from distressing thoughts and feelings.

Once I am comfortable with this practice, I will add Mindfulness of My Senses to my Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
Posted in: Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged:

No. 101: Stretching Distraction

June 16, 2012 10:55 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…I will practice stretching to distract myself from the present moment and lift my energy. Once a day I will spend a few minutes doing some basic yoga stretches. As I do them I will practice mindfully focusing my attention on the movements I am making and the way they feel in my body. I will practice letting thoughts of the day pass through my mind as I observe them and bring my mind back to my stretches.\r

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  1. Neck Roll: Standing up, relax your shoulders, drop your head forward to rest your chin on your chest. Slowly roll your head to rest your right ear on your right shoulder, pause, return to centre then slowly roll your head to rest your left ear on your left shoulder, pause, return to centre. Repeat.

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  2. Shoulder and Arm Rotation: Stretch your arms out to the side and imagine you are pushing apart two walls. Repeat three times. Keeping the arms at shoulder level, rotate the shoulders forwards and then backwards. Repeat three times. Slowly drop arms to the side and observe the sensation produced in your body.

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  3. Swaying Tree pose: Standing with your feet at hip-width, reach your arms above your head, clasp your hands together, exhale and lean gently to the left. Inhale and come back to centre. Then exhale and lean to the right. Repeat.

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  4. Cat Pose: Kneel on all fours with hands shoulder distance apart and your knees the same distance apart. Exhale while arching your back up and looking down at your belly. Hold for a few seconds. Inhale as you arch your back down and lift your head.

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\r Once I am familiar with doing stretches as part of my ordinary day, I will add them to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of distracting myself from distressing moments and times of stress and tension. When I notice I am feeling tense, I can take myself away from present company for a moment and practice my stretches.

Posted in: Mindful Distraction ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , ,

No. 92: The Art of Appreciation

April 13, 2012 10:31 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping KeteI will practice tuning my attention into positively charged events every day by writing down three things I appreciate, enjoy, feel grateful for, or am glad to see in the world. Later, when I need to self-soothe, I will find it easier to balance negative automatic thoughts or expectations about the world around me. During the day I will try to notice things as they happen and note them to myself for later. I might have to go searching for things to record for a while – it is quite an art to see the good stuff sometimes! Each evening I will write down the date and the list of three things for that day. Once I have been doing it for a while and have a good list, when I find myself feeling negative about the world around me I will be able to read through the list and balance it out with some of the things I appreciate and feel good about. As I read the list, I will remember to myself what it was about each thing that I liked, what I saw in it. Eventually I’ ll get good at just remembering these positive balancing points by themselves. When times are tough I will be able to shine the light of my attention onto a bit proof that it’ s not all bad out there. I let the wanted and unwanted parts of the world exist side by side without letting one cancel the other out. If/when I find a good way to make this work for me, I will note a reminder down about it on a piece of paper and add it to my Personal Coping Kete.
Posted in: Engagement, Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , ,

No. 89: Draw an Object

March 23, 2012 8:09 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete… I will practice drawing objects around me as a way of refocusing my attention away from unhelpful thoughts and giving myself a break. If I notice myself getting stressed or distressed I will take a couple of moments to sketch an object in my immediate surroundings. It could be a pen on my desk or a plant on the windowsill or anything at all. I can draw it any way I want and it doesn’ t matter whether my drawing even looks like the object at all. The point is to focus my attention on something else for a while. I could also just spend some time each day drawing as a way to get some down-time. In preparation I’ ll make sure I have a notebook and a pencil on hand. Once I am familiar with drawing objects in my surroundings as a way of capturing my attention, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for mindfully distracting myself from distress.
Posted in: Mindful Distraction ⋅ Tagged: , , , , ,

No. 86: Doing What I Can Do

March 3, 2012 11:04 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete… When I encounter a problem, I will turn my attention towards something I can accomplish to improve the moment. To begin with, I will make a list of all of the big and small things I have been wanting to get done around the house and/or my workplace. I will break all of the big items on my list down into smaller parts so that in the end my list is a list of easy to achieve tasks. When I find myself worrying about something I cannot change or predict, I will take out my list and begin working on one of the tasks I can do something about. As I am doing the task I will focus my awareness on what I am doing in the current moment by noticing when my mind wanders onto the distressing thoughts and observing and describing my current surroundings and actions to myself to centre myself on the task at hand. This week, I will respond to problems by doing something else that is positive for my life. Once I have gotten used to focusing on what I can do during times of low stress, I will add this to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for distraction and engagement during times of distress and unwanted emotion.
Posted in: Engagement, Mindful Distraction ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , ,

No. 84: Naming Things

February 17, 2012 4:57 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…I will practice calmly naming my thoughts and feelings to the people I interact with. Instead of trying to ‘ show’ people how I feel and what I think in indirect ways, I will practice letting people know directly and respectfully with words. This week, whenever I notice I am having an emotional response to something, whether pleasant or unpleasant, I will practice saying to the people I am with, ‘ I notice myself feeling/thinking x,y,z when you say/do x,y,z.’ Depending on the what I am expressing and who I am with, sometimes I might need to wait for or create a private moment to express myself fully. But this week I will practice naming what I can, when I can. So if it isn’ t the right moment to talk about something at the time, but I have more to say on the matter, I can practice naming that to the person I am with – “I have some more thoughts about this and would like to talk to you about it privately sometime.” By naming positive thoughts and feelings to the people I am with I share and multiple the positive experiences I am having. By naming distressing thoughts and feelings to the people I am with I can reduce the physical signs of distress and access support, comfort and alternative perspectives. This week I will practice naming both sides of my experience to others. Often, saying something out loud to another person is just the thing we need to take the sting out of a bad moment or remember a meaningful one. If I find this kind of thing difficult or anxiety producing, I will start out really small with naming only positive reactions to people I am familiar with and then slowly expand out from there. As I move through the week, I will reflect on what happens within me when I name my experiences and what happens around me when I name my experiences. I will use the insights gained from my reflection, to help me adapt the way I name things to others in different situations. Once I am comfortable naming everyday thoughts to other people, I will add this to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for expressing myself when feeling pressed, stressed or distressed.
Posted in: Expression & Support ⋅ Tagged: , , , , ,

No. 83: Riding the Wave

February 10, 2012 10:28 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…When I notice shifts in the way I feel, I will stop, take a deep breath and acknowledge that even though they are distressing and unpleasant, I can survive them. I will say to myself “I am riding the wave of emotions” and I will keep breathing. If I can, I will name what I am feeling and thinking to myself. And I will keep breathing. It is okay to feel what I feel. Feelings always fluctuate and change, it’ s impossible to experience one feeling non-stop, so I can also trust that what I feel in this moment will change. Feelings come and go, rise and fall, like waves as my attention shifts throughout the day. As I stop and breathe in, I will breathe into an awareness of the feelings and when I breathe out, I will pretend to exhale the feelings with the air – as if I am releasing them. As I am doing this I will remind myself, “I am going to get through this, I am riding the wave of my emotions.” By riding the wave instead of running from the tide, I will get through this. There is an excellent video resource for this well-known mindfulness technique on the DBT Self-Help Website. If I find it hard to do mindfulness by myself at first, this website has excellent videos that you can practice with until you are familiar enough with the exercise to do it independently. Once I am familiar with mindfully thinking about my emotions in this way, I will add Riding The Wave to my Personal Coping Kete to help me get through moments of distress.
Posted in: Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , ,

No. 80: Observing Myself as Part of Nature

January 19, 2012 8:43 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…I will practice mindful distraction by going outside and observing myself as part of nature. This week, the first thing I will do once I have woken up in the morning and gotten dressed, is to take a moment to go outside where I can see at least some aspect of the natural world. For the next few minutes I will let whatever concerns I might have for the coming day fade into the distance where I can catch them up later if I still need to. I will focus my awareness on the way the clouds and air move, the way the plant-life grows, the way water flows or settles – everything falling into its shape. As I make myself aware of these elements of nature, I will notice myself standing or sitting there, as part of this environment. Here I am, connected to the world. Doing this regularly, when I am not distressed, will help me make strong associations with the strategy so it is easier to do it when I need it. It’ s also just a pretty nice way to start the day. In preparation for when I need to distract myself from unnecessary distress, once a day, I will…\r

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence….You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” [From The Desiderata, Max Ehrmann, 1927]

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Once I am comfortable doing this task as part of a regular day, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for mindfully distracting myself from distressing emotions and unwanted thoughts.

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Posted in: Engagement, Mindful Distraction ⋅ Tagged: , , , , ,

No 71: Requesting Assistance

November 17, 2011 2:08 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…I will give myself the support I need to get through difficult things by practicing the art of seeking help. When I find myself feeling stressed or pressed, I will approach someone either in person, over the phone or in an instant message to let them know what is happening and ask for their help – either support, advice or practical assistance. If they are unavailable, I will go to someone else. This week, when I feel something distressing, I will name the feeling and request assistance with it. So this week, I will practice saying things like “I am feeling stressed out right now, can you help me through it?” and “I’ m feeling upset about something, can you talk to me about it?” and “I’ m feeling worried right now, can you help distract me?” In this way, I will get skilled at seeking support when I need it and allowing others to help me through. Notice that these small expressions don’ t require the other person to actually solve the problem for you, but to stand beside you through the experience. People are often overwhelmed when they are asked to solve a problem, but they can find it much easier to stand with someone. Their presence and ability to listen is all that is needed. I will practice with everyday situations that don’ t involve a lot of high emotion first. Once I am used to seeking support with everyday things, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for dealing with distress.
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