Engage Aotearoa

Tag Archives: Self-care

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. 100: Use Energy Lifting Words

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

No. 99: Normalising and Validating My Own Responses

June 1, 2012 12:50 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete… I will practice normalising and validating my own emotional responses and thoughts by regularly tuning my attention into what I am currently thinking and feeling and reassuring myself that these are normal responses, that make sense given my situation. Making sense, doesn’ t mean they are accurate or worthwhile hanging on to, but I am human and my thoughts and feelings are acceptable, even when I don’ t like them. “Whatever I am feeling is okay, I am where I need to be, I am still moving forward.” Sometimes we judge ourselves for our thoughts and feelings and this makes us feel worse and try to hide what is going on for us. Hiding things almost always makes them worse. This week, I do not need to hide my emotions and thoughts because I will remind myself that my emotions and thoughts are acceptable. I will start out by noticing and normalising only slight moods and negative thoughts. Once I am comfortable with letting myself know my slight moods and negative thoughts are normal and valid, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for comforting more extreme feelings of distress: Remembering I Have Normal, Valid Responses Like Everyone Else. When I can make sense of my experiences as valid, normal responses, I will be more empowered to express myself and get support.
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No. 95: Doing Something Else

May 5, 2012 11:14 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…I will practice doing something else to shift my mood when I need to improve the moment. To prepare myself, I will make a list of random activities that I am familiar with. For example things like baking, reading a book, walking around the block, washing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, doing a cross-word and making a card for someone are all pretty common activities that many people could do at almost any time. It is important these are activities I am familiar with as learning something new is incredibly difficult during times of stress and distress. When I notice myself getting stuck in an unhelpful mood or chain of thinking that I can’ t really do much about right now, I will practice doing the items on my list. I will focus my attention on the task at hand, noticing my movements, the space around, various sensations and my desired outcome. If worried or distressed thoughts find their way into my mind, I will notice and observe them there as I carry on with what I am doing. In this way I will practice connecting my attention with the world outside myself when my inner world is getting too intense, without pushing my internal reality away altogether. This week I remember that no matter how I feel, I can always compel my muscles to move. In this way I always have power over my circumstances. Once I have figured out which kinds of familiar activities help me to focus on something else when my emotions are not serving me well, I will add those activities to my Personal Coping Kete. When I am finding it hard to counter-act unwanted thoughts or express distressing moods, I can use these activities to distract myself until some of the heat has come out of them and I am able to look at the situation more objectively.
Posted in: Mindful Distraction ⋅ Tagged: , , , ,

No. 94: Moving to a New Space

April 27, 2012 12:34 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…I will practice mindfully distracting myself from stressful or distressing thoughts and feelings by moving to a different location and observing and describing my new location to myself. I might move to a different room, go outside or walk to a local park or anywhere that is different. I give myself permission to return to my distressing thoughts later, when I am feeling calmer, if I still want or need to. I will spend at least five minutes looking around me. Instead of focusing on my inner world, I will focus on my outside world. I will actively look around my new space and centre my thoughts on what is around me and where I am, rather than what I feel or think about myself, other people or my life. As my mind tries to come back to those things, I will gently return my thoughts to the space I am now in without judgement. I feel whatever I feel, right now I am here. If this kind of thing is unfamiliar to me, I will start by practicing this when I am not stressed or distressed. Once this starts to feel like a comfortable thing to do, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as something to try when I am needing to improve the moment.
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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. 90: Picturing my Supporters at my Back

March 30, 2012 9:40 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week to attain, regain or maintain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…when I am stressed, pressed or distressed, I will self-soothe by imagining my various support people standing encouragingly at my back, boosting me up. This might include my parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, therapist, key-worker or someone else, just all the people in my life who want me to do well and want me to feel better when I don’ t. I will make a list of some of these people before I try to practice imagining them standing supportively at my back, so I’ m not having to remember from scratch in the middle of a moment of distress. Some of the people might be in my daily life, but some might be more distant or less available, but they are still people in the world who want good things for me. It doesn’ t matter if I see them everyday or once every two years – they care for me and if they were here they would give me comfort. I will picture them sending me good vibes, saying comforting things and believing in me. No matter what is happening now, these people want good things for me. With them at my back, I know I don’ t need to cope with whatever life throws at me by myself. I will breathe and imagine my people are there quietly supporting me. If I find it particularly hard to think of people who fit the bill as supporters or I think I don’ t have ‘ enough’ of them, it might be that I need to spend some time finding some supporters for myself. But we don’ t need a huge number of supporters to get through, we really just need one or two people we can rely on when things get rough. Once I’ ve worked out how to get this strategy working for me, I will write it on a card and add it to my Personal Coping Kete, for future use.
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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. 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.
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No. 78: The Power of a Pause

January 5, 2012 2:02 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week to attain, maintain or regain my sense of well-being… Coping Kete…I will practice pausing as a first response to intense emotion. While this may not seem like it will change much, it is a vital step in my journey to being able to change the way I respond to my feelings. Each time I notice a shift in my emotion, I will pause myself by using self-talk to describe to myself what I am feeling in this moment. For example, when I notice I am feeling stressed out, I will pause and say to myself “I am feeling stressed out right now. It’ s time to pause.” I will take a couple of deep breaths and then carry on as I see fit. This week I am creating moments for myself between feeling and reacting. I can react however I wish, this week the focus is on creating the pause and giving myself encouragement to keep doing so. Each time I pause myself, I will congratulate myself for being able to take the pause. Even if all I do is say ‘ pause time’ in my head. It is not easy to pause oneself in the course of such an automatic reaction as an emotional response and it is important to acknowledge the achievement each time. This way I will reinforce the practice of pausing before responding to the way I feel and turn it into a habit. Later, I will be able to follow this strategy with other techniques that allow me to change the way I am feeling after the pause. This week though, I am going to practice the pause, which is like a platform for launching other strategies from. If this is difficult to begin with, I will practice on mild emotional experiences or I will practice pausing during times when I am not particularly feeling anything at all. Taking a week or so to do this can help us build up. Once I am comfortable with pausing and describing the situation and how I feel about it to myself, I will add this to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for engaging with the current moment to deal with distress.
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