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Tag Archives: Stress Management

No. 14 – A Letter to The Past

September 29, 2010 6:52 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week in order to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellness Coping Kete I will use letter-writing as a means of private expression. If I find myself thinking over and over a past negative experience, I will write a letter to one of the people in the situation or my past self explaining how it was for me and airing any unfinished business. I will finish the letter by writing what I need now and what I can do for myself now. When I have written down everything I wanted to say but didn’t have the chance to, I will screw the letter up and throw it away as a symbolic gesture of moving on from things I cannot change. I will then turn my attention to one small thing I have been needing or wanting to get done. Whenever my thoughts turn back to the experience, I will remember what was at the heart of my letter and give myself empathy and compassion for what has distressed me. I will then remember that moment of releasing it and bring my thoughts back to the current moment by describing the immediate situation to myself. Often we need to let go more than once. If I find this engagement strategy helpful, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of expressing feelings about the past again later.
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No. 11 – Float for a Moment

September 8, 2010 6:40 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, in order to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellness… Coping Kete I will practice using visualisations to shift my moment. Each day I will take a minute to pay attention to taking deep, slow breaths while I briefly visualise myself floating on my back down a calm river. The sun is shining, but not too hotly. I am mindful of the way the sun feels on my closed eyelids and how the buoyant water feels flowing beneath me. I allow the river to take me where it will, sometimes moving faster and other times meandering slowly; I cannot push the water. I will spend just a minute holding this image, and the sensations it brings, in my mind. If my attention drifts onto other things, I will mentally drop the worries in the river and watch them flow away. I will then return to the situation at hand, with my centred and more accepting state of awareness. I will observe how I feel afterwards. Once I am familiar with doing this visualisation to shift my attention, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of soothing or distracting myself from anxiety, anger or low moods.
Posted in: Mindful Distraction, Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , ,

No. 10 – Permission to be Fully Human

September 1, 2010 5:50 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, in order to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete 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.
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No. 9 – A Body of Strengths

August 25, 2010 5:08 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, in order to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellness … Coping Kete I will remind myself of my strengths regularly throughout my day. If I find this difficult to do off the top of my head, I will prepare a written list in advance that I can pull from pocket or bag and read. I will add to this list as time goes on and I get better at identifying the positive attributes, qualities and skills that I possess. If I am unsure of my strengths and skills, I will ask people who know me to have a think about it and get back to me with what they think my positive qualities are. Once I am used to thinking about my positive qualities a bit, I will add ‘Remember I am a Body of Strengths’ to my Personal Coping Kete. By thinking about my strengths during moments of stress and distress, I will work to balance my thoughts, emotions and physical responses. Whenever I notice that my self-talk is full of put-downs, self-directed insults or pessimistic expectations I will start listing in my head the strengths and skills that I have shown in the past. It can help to do a few diaphragmatic breaths first, especially if you are really distressed. See Week 6 for instructions on how to learn diaphragmatic breathing. Once you’ve learned it, it’s a great complement to most strategies. www.engagenz.co.nz/wordpress/?tag=breathing-exercises
Posted in: Mindful Distraction, Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , ,

No. 6 – Practicing Proper Belly Breathing

August 4, 2010 8:04 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellness I will …

Spend 1 minute doing diaphragmatic breathing every morning.

Diaphragmatic breathing is a standard relaxation/breathing exercise where you:

  • Place one hand flat on your stomach and one on your chest.
  • Breathe in slowly through your nose (or pursed lips). With each in-breath, push your belly out and imagine pulling the air into the bottom of your belly.
  • As you breathe in watch your hands; the hand on your belly should rise more than the hand on your chest.
  • Pause briefly.
  • Breathe out slowly through pursed lips (as if silently whistling).
    • Your out-breath should be 2 times longer than your in-breath – though that is something to aim for over time.
  • Pause briefly.
  • Breathe in again and continue with the pattern of slow deep breaths in and slow, relaxed breaths out for 3-5 minutes. It might help you to do a count for each breath in and out (e.g. 2 seconds in and 4 seconds out).
  • You can do this without the hands if you wish, but it can help to ground things and focus on the out breath.

This exercise takes practice before it is useful. If I get hungry for air, I can try yawning or opening my mouth wide to relieve the sensation; it happens because the body is used to another breathing pattern and this is new.

Breathing is a way to control heart-rate and racing thoughts, reducing anxiety and panic and getting some space between feeling and responding.

Once I have become comfortable doing the breathing exercise every day, I will add ‘Standard Belly Breathing Relaxation’ to my Personal Coping Kete as a self-soothing or distraction strategy in times of stress or distress.

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No. 1 – A Mindful Moment Outside

June 30, 2010 10:39 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellness… Coping Kete Make a practice of taking a short 2-5 minute break from what you are doing to give yourself space to settle by going outside and being present with what is around you. Focus on any plant life around you, the various movements, the sky, the way the light is falling, the layers of sound around you, and the different sensations you feel. Notice what is close and what is in the distance. Slowly describe to yourself everything you see and sense. When you get distracted by thinking, notice that too, remind yourself that you are here in this place, in this moment and shift your awareness back to what is around you. After a few minutes, like this, simply return to whatever you were doing.
Once you are comfortable doing this, add ‘ A Mindful Moment Outside’ to your Personal Coping Kete to tune into your physical surroundings to self-soothe during times of stress and distress. You can politely excuse yourself from most situations to create a mindful moment and return to that moment in your mind later to visualise a bit of calm. Taking a break to self-soothe before we respond to difficult situations can allow us to choose our responses instead of acting on impulse.
This is the first of many, weekly coping strategies for people to experiment with in their journey to build their own personal coping tool kit for surviving the tough times and change the unhelpful patterns that keep them stuck. Find out more about The Coping Kete and how to use it here. Come back in a week for a new strategy.
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