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committing to ourselves that we will take responsibility to tend to our wounds with compassion and dust ourselves off after a fall is essential if our resilience is not to be dependent on others doing that for us.
blocking behaviour.
The opposite of blocking emotion is to be curious about it. Move towards it. Observe and notice the whole experience,
Coming back to your values and the reason you are doing this thing will help you make a decision based on your best interests and the life you want to have, rather than basing that decision purely on the pain.
We become self-aware through self-reflection. Keeping journals, going to a therapist or talking to friends can all help us to reflect on ourselves and our experience in a way that enables us to learn more about who we are and why we do what we do. Self-acceptance involves listening to our own needs and meeting them. If we are not paying attention, we don’t always pick up on the signs.
Someone who has compassion is honest and kind, encouraging and supportive, and wants the best for you.
the things that give us that instant relief tend to keep us stuck in the long term.
Reassurance seeking
Get some distance Thoughts are not facts. They are guesses, stories, memories, ideas and theories. They are a construct offered to you by your brain as one potential explanation for the sensations you are experiencing right now. We know they are not facts because they are so heavily influenced by your physical state (hormones, blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, hydration, to name just a few), by each of your senses, and by your memories of past experience.
Another way to get distance from those thoughts, and my personal favourite, is to write them down. This is not exclusive to anxious thoughts. Any time that you want to get some distance and a new perspective on your emotional state or situation, write down everything you are thinking and feeling. Seeing what you have written on the page can be a powerful way to process and make sense of your experience from a bird’s-eye view.
Remember, compassion is not always the easy thing. It is not saying there is nothing to be scared of. It is the coach in your ear with a calm and firm voice that is encouraging you, supporting you, reminding you that you can and will move through this moment.
if I was coaching a friend through this, what would I say and how would I say it? The best kind of coach is not one who swoops in to rescue you, but one who is honest with you and encourages you to find the strength within yourself to move through difficult moments, so that you may discover your own strength.
‘Why is this so important to me? In a year from now, when I look back on this moment, what action or response would make me proud and grateful? What kind of person do I want to be in this situation? What do I want to stand for?’
when you feel those signs of stress as you start a presentation at work or in school, your body is helping you to perform at your best. In those situations, we don’t want complete calm and relaxation. We want to be alert and clear-thinking so that we can achieve whatever goal we are working on at the time.
Learning how to turn the dial down on that stress when we don’t need it and turn it up when we do need it is the foundation of healthy stress management.
When outbreaths are longer and more forceful than inbreaths, this slows the heart rate and calms the body. When the inbreaths are longer than the outbreaths, we become more alert and activated.
Research also shows that when we do focus on caring for others in times of stress it changes our brain chemistry in such a way that produces feelings of both hope and courage
Those who build their life on self-focused goals are more vulnerable to depression, anxiety and loneliness. Whereas those who structure their goals on something bigger than the self tend to feel more hopeful, grateful, inspired, excited and experience better wellbeing and life satisfaction (Crocker et al., 2009).
How does this effort or goal fit with my values? What kind of contribution do I want to make? What difference do I want to make to others with what I am doing? What do I want to stand for during this? What do my efforts mean to me?
Try to notice this activity that you do every day with the same curiosity as something that is brand new to you.
engage with that activity mindfully.
It is the process of noticing when your mind shifts its focus and intentionally choosing to redirect that focus back to the present moment.
the chances of being born are one in 400 trillion.
Goals founded in contribution rather than competition helps us to stay motivated and persevere under stress.
When statements make it clear what needs to be focused on, they give us direction. Alred (2016) suggests starting with a ‘how to’ statement, then vividly describing what happens when the process is right, and thirdly conjuring up the emotional state that matches your intention.
we can reframe the sensations of stress to the feeling of determination,
We all have a limited capacity for attention, and when we need to perform under stressful conditions we need to take full control of that spotlight and focus on what is going to help us face the challenge.
Sometimes we are not happy because we are human and life is difficult a lot of the time.
happy moments are just one flower in a very large bouquet. You can’t have one without the other. Emotions come as a whole bunch.
Values are a set of ideas about how you want to live your life, the kind of person you want to be and the principles you want to stand for.
lifelong learning and personal growth.
Among the top five regrets of the dying is ‘I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends’ (Ware, 2012).
the anxiously attached partner can practise creating a sense of safeness independently from their partner by building their sense of self and learning to soothe themselves.
