This week, to attain, maintain, or regain my sense of wellbeing...
...I will practice using the pause points from strategy No. 78 to reflect on what my automatic tendency is at the moment and brainstorm alternative responses. This week is about building and tapping into my awareness of the many response options that are really available to me from moment to moment.
When I notice shifts in my thoughts or mood, I will pause myself to breathe as I did with strategy 78 and then ask myself two questions:
What is my instinctive response in this moment? i.e. Right now I want to...(argue, scream, run away, hide, drink, hurt myself)
What are the available alternatives? i.e. Think of a kind of expression, support, distraction, engagement/problem-solving or self-soothing.
This week, I am going to become aware of the unhelpful responses I want to change and the kinds of alternatives I could possibly learn. As I do this, I will be strengthening the habit of pausing as a first response to distressing emotion as well as learning the practice of considering a wide range of strategies. Often it is the sense that we do not have many or any options available to us that causes distress. So this week, I will be practicing the art of expanding my perception of the options available to me.
It will probably help to use a notebook to record my reflections in, because after some time I will be able to look back on what my consistent instinctive responses have been, get a really good picture of what it is that I am working to change and expand my perspective of how many options are available to me in each moment.
If I am finding it difficult to think of alternative response options on my own, I will practice referring to The Coping Kete or my own Personal Coping Kete to reflect on different options.
If ever I find my self-talk becoming critical about my way of being in the world, I will be able to soothe myself by reminding myself of how I am evolving myself and feel satisfied that I am taking positive steps in my life.
Once I am used to pausing to explore my thoughts, I will add this to my Personal Coping Kete as something to do during moments of distress.
Tag Archives: Self-talk
No. 79: Using the Pause to Explore
No. 76: Remembering Boundaries
This week to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… 
…I will practice putting boundaries between other people’ s responses and myself. So often, I can find myself upset or anxious about the way in which other people like my family and friends respond to me. It is so easy to believe that negative reactions or unwanted responses from others are a result of something about me, some flaw or failing or lack of worth. This can lead me down a spiral of negative thoughts, unpleasant physical responses and distressing emotion. This week, when other people respond negatively to me, I will practice saying to myself “That response is about them, not about me. We all have our own sets of issues and idiosyncrasies. Right now in this moment, I am also responding to my own set of issues and unique preferences.” I will then mindfully move my attention to something else. I will try to observe how thinking this way affects my perception of things. This week I will practice acknowledging that we each have a different make-up and we do not need to like the same things or have the same attitudes and values. When someone responds to me in an unwanted way, I will remind myself of this insight. This way, I will not feel the need to take on too much responsibility for the way things work out or the responses other people give me. This week, I am here living my life, having my responses and I am allowing other people to be here living their lives, having their responses to it. Once I am comfortable thinking this way, I will add ‘ remembering the boundaries between us’ to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of soothing the sting out of distressing interpersonal situations. To extend this exercise, if I need to, I might think through some of the other, non-personalised reasons that the person responded the way they did, as is described in strategy No. 65.
…I will practice putting boundaries between other people’ s responses and myself. So often, I can find myself upset or anxious about the way in which other people like my family and friends respond to me. It is so easy to believe that negative reactions or unwanted responses from others are a result of something about me, some flaw or failing or lack of worth. This can lead me down a spiral of negative thoughts, unpleasant physical responses and distressing emotion. This week, when other people respond negatively to me, I will practice saying to myself “That response is about them, not about me. We all have our own sets of issues and idiosyncrasies. Right now in this moment, I am also responding to my own set of issues and unique preferences.” I will then mindfully move my attention to something else. I will try to observe how thinking this way affects my perception of things. This week I will practice acknowledging that we each have a different make-up and we do not need to like the same things or have the same attitudes and values. When someone responds to me in an unwanted way, I will remind myself of this insight. This way, I will not feel the need to take on too much responsibility for the way things work out or the responses other people give me. This week, I am here living my life, having my responses and I am allowing other people to be here living their lives, having their responses to it. Once I am comfortable thinking this way, I will add ‘ remembering the boundaries between us’ to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of soothing the sting out of distressing interpersonal situations. To extend this exercise, if I need to, I might think through some of the other, non-personalised reasons that the person responded the way they did, as is described in strategy No. 65.
No. 75: Putting My Wants in the Present
This week, to attain, maintain, or regain my wellbeing...
When I find myself wanting or wishing things to be different, I will practice imagining I already have it. This strategy comes from the Buddhist philosophy that "whatever I say to the universe, the universe will respond with only one answer - yes." When we focus on our wanting, our thoughts, moods, and actions will often match that, and we can find ourselves thinking and doing things that perpetuate the wanting rather than doing and thinking things that achieve our goals and bring our yearnings to fruition. According to Buddhism, our thoughts, words and actions are the tools with which we create our realities and when we focus on expressing our state of wanting, that is what we push out into our reality, not what we actually want. So, this week I will experiment with using my self-talk and my imagination to 'push out' the object of my desires into reality, rather than 'pushing out' my wanting.
Step One: When I find myself wanting or wishing things were different, I will change my thought commands and statements to imagine myself in that state now. Instead of saying to myself "I want..." or "I wish..." I will say to myself "I have..." or "I am..." or "I will be...". So for example, instead of "I wish I was in love" I will say to myself "I am going to be in love."
Step Two: I will then imagine what it will feel like to have that which I want. I will let myself feel those feelings, not the feeling of wanting it, but the feeling of actually having it. I will put myself in those feelings in advance. The mind knows no difference between imagination and reality. I am already having the experience that I want to have, I know what it feels like and sounds like and looks like within me. I will stay with those feelings no matter what, I won't let external conditions tell me otherwise.
Life is happening through me. Life is not happening to me.
I will start out with the little moment-to-moment wishes for different interactions and things like that. Once I am comfortable putting my wants into the present I am seeking with everyday things, I will add this to my Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for dealing with distress. When I notice myself feeling distressed, I will tune into what it is I want and use my imagination and self-talk to put myself in that moment now.
No. 52: Radical Acceptance
This week to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing...
...practice radical acceptance. Acceptance is "The action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered." Radical Acceptance is "seeing exactly what is [even the really bad things] and just accepting the fact of its existence."
**This week I consent to receive life on its own terms.**
By practicing Radical Acceptance, you give up on fighting reality. You accept what is and what isn't. It doesn't mean you become passive and give up on changing the things you can change.It's actually a lot easier to take action to address things when we are able to accept that they are there, even if we don't like or want them to be that way.
Useful self-talk statements you can use to practice this attitude shift include...
"I don't like it but it's just the way it is."
"I don't want it but it's what I've got right now."
"I can't change what has happened."
"This is the way things are at the moment."
"It's okay to feel this way, I'm only human."
"I'm not going to waste my time fighting with myself about this."
"I can't change what they want to do - other people make their own choices."
"That didn't go the way I hoped."
Once you are used to using radical acceptance with the everyday stuff, will add it to your Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for soothing unwanted thoughts and feelings.
*Note: Radical acceptance is a concept popularized by mindfulness and the concept of radical acceptance in the mental health community with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).*
No. 27: Finding a Kernel Worth Carrying
This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing...
...practice finding a useful lesson in your daily experiences, particularly things that are distressing, stressful or downright regrettable. This exercise is about reminding yourself of two things: firstly, you can create the meaning of the things in your life, and secondly, mistakes are a necessary part of evolving.
Often we dwell on the aspects of experience that could have been better and increase our own distress. Instead of doing that, you can learn something about the strengths you want to develop, how other people see things and how to cope. You will create meanings that boost you up or strengthen you for the future instead of ones that pull you down. Simply being able to survive some things is a lesson about your own resilience, which will serve you well into the future.
This is about accepting the things that you can and cannot change and making sure that what you carry with you from your experiences is something worth carrying.
Learn to do this by taking some time out to either write in a journal or think about something positive you can take away from the experiences you had each day. You could also talk through the experience and what to take from it with a therapist, trusted friend or whanau member.
This contemplation is a respectful time in which you are your own kind-hearted teacher.
Once you are comfortable thinking about the meaningful, useful lessons you can take from daily situations, add it to your Personal Coping Kete as a strategy for coping with the things that go wrong in your life.
No. 19 Normal is Just a Setting on the Washing Machine
This week, in order to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellness, in times of stress or distress...
I will give myself compassion by normalising whatever is happening for me right now. I will remind myself that whatever I am experiencing is normal for someone who is sensitive.
I will practice saying things to myself like "It's normal to feel this way when..." or "It's understandable that I'm having this reaction because..." or "This is a normal response to..."
By normalising my experience, I will be able to give myself the same compassion and understanding that I would give to someone else who was going through the same thing.
Once I am comfortable normalising my experiences, I will add this strategy to my Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
No. 10 – Permission to be Fully Human
This week, in order to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… I will have realistic expectations of myself and give myself permission to be average. By giving myself permission to be average this week, I free myself from the pressures of trying to be perfect or trying to appear like I’ve got everything together. I will tell myself things like “Today I only need to do what I can do. What I can do is enough.” This week it will be okay to make mistakes and say silly things occasionally, to not know what is happening, to need to ask questions and to feel distressing emotions. If I notice I am worrying about those things, I will remind myself “I only need to do what I can do. What I can do is enough.” Often times it is our negative judgement of our own experiences and the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve our high expectations that creates and/or intensifies our experiences of stress and distress. This week, I give myself permission to be fully human, rather than an idealised version of myself. My mistakes are learning experiences that will strengthen me, not distressing experiences to regret and avoid. Once I have experienced a whole week of being average and nothing terrible happening as I consequence, I will add ‘Give Myself Permission to Be Human’ to my Personal Coping Kete. When I notice that I am feeling stressed, pressed or distressed, I will remind myself that all I need to do is survive the current moment.
I will have realistic expectations of myself and give myself permission to be average. By giving myself permission to be average this week, I free myself from the pressures of trying to be perfect or trying to appear like I’ve got everything together. I will tell myself things like “Today I only need to do what I can do. What I can do is enough.” This week it will be okay to make mistakes and say silly things occasionally, to not know what is happening, to need to ask questions and to feel distressing emotions. If I notice I am worrying about those things, I will remind myself “I only need to do what I can do. What I can do is enough.” Often times it is our negative judgement of our own experiences and the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve our high expectations that creates and/or intensifies our experiences of stress and distress. This week, I give myself permission to be fully human, rather than an idealised version of myself. My mistakes are learning experiences that will strengthen me, not distressing experiences to regret and avoid. Once I have experienced a whole week of being average and nothing terrible happening as I consequence, I will add ‘Give Myself Permission to Be Human’ to my Personal Coping Kete. When I notice that I am feeling stressed, pressed or distressed, I will remind myself that all I need to do is survive the current moment.
No. 8 – Supportive Self-Talk
This week in order to attain, maintain or regain wellness… I will practice giving myself encouragement when I notice shifts in my mood or energy level, as I would encourage a dearly loved friend, who I truly believed in, “it’ll be okay, you can handle this.” By speaking to myself with respect, support and reassurance, I will practice valuing and nurturing myself. In the moment, I will be providing myself with the possibility that things could turn out as I would like and reminding myself of the probability that whatever happens, I will be able to get through it. Once I am comfortable with encouraging myself through smaller moments of pressure, I will add ‘Supportive Self-Talk’ to my Personal Coping Kete as a self-soothing strategy in times of stress and distress as a reminder to talk myself through the tough stuff too.
I will practice giving myself encouragement when I notice shifts in my mood or energy level, as I would encourage a dearly loved friend, who I truly believed in, “it’ll be okay, you can handle this.” By speaking to myself with respect, support and reassurance, I will practice valuing and nurturing myself. In the moment, I will be providing myself with the possibility that things could turn out as I would like and reminding myself of the probability that whatever happens, I will be able to get through it. Once I am comfortable with encouraging myself through smaller moments of pressure, I will add ‘Supportive Self-Talk’ to my Personal Coping Kete as a self-soothing strategy in times of stress and distress as a reminder to talk myself through the tough stuff too.
