20 Activities to Develop Mindfulness and Self Awareness

You. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation. We are continuing the Journey to Recovery series. And today we're going to be talking about mindfulness. Now, this is the mindfulness overview, because you could do hours and hours and hours on mindfulness, but today we're just going to do an hour. We're going to differentiate between mindlessness and mindfulness, understand where mindlessness comes from, define mindfulness, explore ways it can help in reducing emotional and physical distress, improve sleep, improve relationships. And explore activities that help people become truly aware of their feelings, wants, and needs. And develop skills that will help them observe, describe, and participate in the moment. So let's start with mindlessness, because that's where most of us are. We're on autopilot a lot of the time. We just kind of get up, we go with the flow. You know, I got up this morning, I grabbed my phone off the charger, I went upstairs, I made my coffee. You know, I did what I always do without thinking about it, not saying, you know, what do I want? What do I need? That sort of thing. It's just. It was what I do. I was on autopilot. And that's okay. It's efficient sometimes. But it also causes us to neglect or to miss cues that could let us know about vulnerabilities or issues that may be coming up. So examples of mindlessness that I think most of us have experienced getting home and just totally not remembering the drive. You know, you knew you were in the car, but you don't remember each turn that you took. I grew up in Florida, and I went to the University of Florida, and my dad always lived in South Florida. And driving down to South Florida, it's flat. It is flat and straight. And so you can kind of get this highway hypnosis thing going on, it's what they call it, and zone out while you're driving. And you won't even remember large portions of it, which is not good. So that's one example. Eating without realizing it. Or when you're not hungry. Have you ever gone into the kitchen, gotten a bowl full of food or something, and gone to sit down on the couch and just started eating? And then set. Realized, you know what? I'm not really even hungry. Or have intense feelings or relapses come from out of the blue? A lot of times, clients will. And my grandmother was one of the people who would do this. She would get on medication and she would get stabilized and she feel good. And then once she felt good, it was. It was almost like, she thought it was like a cold. And once she was cured, then she could go back to doing whatever she used to do and everything would be fine. So she would DC her medications and start doing whatever she wanted to do. And guess what? She'd become symptomatic again. So it's important for clients to be aware of what they're doing. One of the things that I do in class is have them speculate or retroactively look, and we're going to talk in a few minutes about how to do that. At prior relapses, times where they were asymptomatic, and then they woke up one morning and all of a sudden they were depressed or their anxiety over the course of a week went from virtually nothing to they felt like they were crawling out of their skin. What happened during that period of time? A lot of times, clients will have stopped living a healthy lifestyle in one way or another, and. Or they're suppressing stuff. So then all that stuff builds up like a pressure cooker. But each client is different. Mindfulness helps people identify their relapse warning signs and any relapse triggers. So how did we learn to be mindless? And I love Alice in Wonderland. If you've been in other classes, I use a lot of movies and things to help clients explore concepts in a little bit less threatening ways. Another one of my favorite ones is Pinocchio. But we're going to talk about Alice in Wonderland today. Oh, and the wizard of Oz. Okay. We learned mindlessness because when we were growing up, we would ask questions, and sometimes we would get. Because I said so. When I supervised a facility in Florida, that was one of the things that would just make my skin crawl. If my staff told clients that they needed to do this because it was the rules or because I said so, I'm like, no, we have rules for a reason. Policies and procedures are in place, and if you don't know the reason, you need to learn the reason. Because just telling somebody to do it because I said so doesn't work for me. Another reason we learn to be mindless is because we get the message that we're supposed to suck it up. Don't feel. Just do. You're having a bad day, you wake up, you're sick. You know, you really want to call in sick, but you just. You suck it up, and you go into the office and you do it anyway. You're not supposed to feel. You're just supposed to keep on that autopilot and keep that conveyor belt running. Nobody cares Ignore it. Which can communicate to us. Don't trust, you know, if you communicate your feelings, you know, and this happens a lot with people who experience emotional dysregulation. They communicate their feelings, they communicate their needs, and those needs are minimized. Or they're told that, you know, it's not important, or they're being drama queens or whatever. Then it's important to recognize that they got the message that they're not supposed to trust themselves or trust that other people will be there for them. Mindlessness also happens when we do it, just because it's what everybody else is doing. Everybody else is eating dinner. Might as well eat dinner. I don't know if I'm hungry or not, but it's six o'. Clock. It's what we're supposed to do. Eat dinner teaches us not to think, not to pay attention. And finally, my white rabbit. Hurry, hurry, hurry. There's no time to feel. Remember he used to say, I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. Well, that's kind of mindful mindlessness at its apex. So Alice in Wonderland, and we're not going to go through it in depth here, you can watch the movie and pull some themes from it, but obviously there's a lot of mindlessness that goes into Alice's adventures because she sees a cookie, it says, eat me. She says, okay, I'll eat you. She doesn't think about the consequences. She sees another bottle, she drinks it, and then she can experience something else that she didn't expect. So instead, especially after the first time when she ate the cookie, and I don't remember if she grew or she shrank, but either way, and then she was devastated. You would think that she wouldn't just mindlessly ingest something else afterwards, but she does. So this also goes to impulsivity. Sometimes when clients are stressed out, and I mean, Alice was stressed out, she wanted to get back home and all that kind of stuff. They may do things that are impulsive in order to try to make the pain go away or in order to try to achieve their goal, they just start, you know, frantically trying to do something. So we want to look at impulsivity. Alice also talks about identity crises. You know, who is she? Things are not as they appear to be all the time, which is, you know, when we're mindless, we just take things on face value. When we're mindful, we can step back and go, okay, let's look at the big picture. Time punishes by standing still. So paying attention to what's going on in the moment so you don't get stuck in the quicksand. There are elements of hopelessness and helplessness. Always looking for something better can lead to trouble. So a lot of these are very useful themes to talk about. Not only mindfulness, but also recovery and understanding your behaviors. And with mindfulness, we're helping people learn how to pause, stop, look at what's going on, think before acting so they become more purposeful in their actions. Mindfulness promotes awareness in the present moment. We want people to stop, look, listen, feel, and interpret. So instead of just going on autopilot, they take a moment to really get all the facts and all the information about what what is going on inside them as well as what is going on around them. As a little side note, y' all know that I'm really partial to temperament and things like that. Introverts often find it easier to be aware of what's going on inside them and more difficult to understand other people, while extroverts often find it easy to read the crowd, but are much more difficult to tune in to what's going on inside them. So mindfulness helps both introverts and extroverts, but helping them recognize what they have more difficulty tuning into is important. Mindfulness helps us transition from reacting to proactively acting. Instead of this knee jerk thing, they're thinking ahead of time. What is the next step I need to do to help me achieve my goals? So one of the retrospective activities we do, I encourage clients, I say, look back over your day yesterday. Had you been mindful, what vulnerabilities could you have prevented? What stressful events could you have prevented? And if you'd been aware of your vulnerabilities, how might you have conducted your day differently? And I give the example of a day where I went to work and I was really tired and my kid was sick, he had an ear infection, he was at home. You know, I felt guilty about leaving him at home with the sitter. So I had some stuff going on. I had some vulnerabilities there. I was exhausted, I had some guilt. I was having difficulty concentrating because I was worried about him. So those are vulnerabilities. But I just kind of sucked it up. And I said, you know what? I got to go to work. I've got meetings today, I got to do this. Could I have prevented those vulnerabilities? No. In that particular case, no, I couldn't. Couldn't have stopped him from getting an ear infection. But being aware of those vulnerabilities, I probably could have prevented other stressful events that unfolded throughout the day because I was acting as if I was having an a game day and I was really on the C game day. So stressful events, people would come in and they ask me things and interrupt me and do things that normally wouldn't bother me, but that day it bothered me. So I could have shut my door. I could have called in sick. There are other things that I could have done. So if I would have been more mindful and recognized how much my guilt, anxiety and exhaustion were going to impact my day, I might have made better other choices. Mindfulness helps us make more efficient and effective use of energy by making the right decisions the first time. And you're going to see some references to the seven habits of highly effective people because they make so much sense. Begin with the end in mind. If we just act every time we get an urge or an impulse or a thought, that doesn't necessarily mean we're using our energy to go forward. It's like driving in a car and you're trying to get to downtown Nashville and you're driving on the interstate and you see an exit and you're like, take this exit. You know, it's not where you need to go. You're still, you know, five exits from where you need to go, but you get a wild hare. So you may not get to Nashville quite as quickly or effectively. So begin with the end in mind. Know where you're going. It encourages self awareness and compassion. Seek first to understand yourself than to understand others. If you understand that you're. Vulnerable that particular day, if you understand that you're stressed out, think about how that impacts other people. So if other people seem to be, you know, getting on your every last nerve and doing things that are going to annoy you, think about, is that them or is that you? So understanding that reciprocal nature between how you are in the moment and how your environment reacts to you, and vice versa. So mindfulness can help us be more aware and compassionate with ourselves and with others. It reduces inefficiency through planning and prioritizing. You think about what is the next step to improve the next moment. It helps people maintain awareness to prevent or mitigate discomfort. One of the things that I've talked to a lot of clients about is becoming mindful and doing those mindfulness. Mindfulness check ins at breakfast, lunch and dinner, at minimum to figure out what is it that I need right now. I'VE told you before that my husband's hypoglycemic, so he needs to be mindful of what's going on with him. Not necessarily when the last time he ate was, because if he ate crap, it's gonna, his blood sugar is gonna go wonky a lot sooner. But how he's feeling, he needs to maintain awareness of that in order to mitigate the fallout when his blood sugar gets low because he gets to be a great big cranky pants and he has difficulty concentrating and you know, it's fixable. So this helps him adjust those things. Some people are triggered by holidays and so if they maintain awareness of how they're doing and they know that, okay, you know, I'm starting to feel anxious or irritable and you know, it's probably because XYZ holiday is coming up, then they can do something about it instead of just getting progressively more uncomfortable. Mindfulness helps people balance and renew their resources, energy and health to create a sustainable, long term, effective lifestyle. Covey refers to this as sharpening the saw. So reminding clients that they need to focus on what they need right now. If you're trying to cut a log with a butter knife, it ain't going to do a lot of good. So a sharp saw or even cut a steak with a butter knife, it's a lot harder than a sharp knife. You want to make sure that you're sharp. You want to make sure that you're on your A game as much as possible, which means sometimes, all the time, making sure you take care of yourself. Because yes, you can work 16 hour days, 18 hour days and get things done, but are you doing it as efficiently as you would if you would have taken a break? And how many more mistakes are you making because you're tired, you're exhausted, you're, you know, whatever. Balancing and renewing resources also means helping people focus on what options they have to meet their needs in the present while still moving towards their future goals. We can't always get all of our needs met all of the time. That's just life. So what options do you have to meet your needs right now? Would you like to have a more powerful job that makes a lot more money for whatever reasons? Maybe, but that may not be in the cards right now. So what options do you have to meet whatever your financial or power needs are in the moment that will still help you move towards those promotions and raises. Anchored mindfulness. So I've talked about this before each meal, consider without judgment. And this is really hard for a Lot of clients, whether they're coming from a trauma history, which we know a lot of clients are, or they. They're coming from a history where they've experienced emotional dysregulation most of their life and, you know, been told to just kind of suck it up or they shouldn't feel some way, we're gonna throw all the shoulds and shouldn'ts out the door. Just consider without judgment. What is your mood and why? How do you feel physically and why? Because our mood is only one part. When we have a feeling, there is an emotional part of it that we label with a feeling word. But that feeling is also connected to physiological states. So how do you feel physically? If you say you are feeling anxious? Ok, how do you feel physically and why? Because sometimes you may feel anxious because your blood sugar is low. Sometimes you may feel depressed because you're exhausted. You didn't sleep last night. So before jumping to conclusions about what's going on, let's take in all the facts. Is your attitude positive, ambivalent, or negative? And why? You know, so emotions, physical, attitude, cognitive. How's your concentration? Do you have monkey mind? You know, if people have monkey mind, it's exhausting. But it can also point to some of the things that might be triggering what's going on. If they're worried about this and regretting this and grieving that, and they're just thinking about all these negative events in their life, then it may be contributing to their mood. What vulnerabilities are or will be present today and how can you mitigate them? And this is where I diverge a little bit from standard dbt, where we talk about sleep and nutrition and those things. Vulnerabilities, the way I explain it to my clients are any situation, any environment or. And that can include the people you're around, which could make you more likely to respond in a strong negative way. So if you have a co worker that you really don't get along with, or a family member, that is just difficult. If you know that there is going to be that person in your life, how can you prepare for that? You know, this comes up a lot around the holiday times when people are going to reunions and, you know, Thanksgiving dinner and that kind of stuff, okay, you know, you're gonna have to deal with Uncle Bob, and Uncle Bob just gets on your every last nerve. What can you do ahead of time to shore up your resources? So Uncle Bob doesn't bother you or at least doesn't bother you as much, and what can you do While you're there to mitigate that vulnerability. Like stay busy talking to Aunt Sally so you don't have to spend a lot of time with Uncle Bob. So talking about mitigating those vulnerabilities by getting plenty of rest, by focusing on happy things in your life, by recognizing that Thanksgiving dinner is only three hours and then you won't have to see Uncle Bob again for a year. Whatever it is for that person, encourage them to recognize that. So stressful events also count as vulnerabilities. Because when we're under stress, then we can knee jerk, react more strongly than other times. But being mindful, prepare for it. Have a game plan. Encourage clients after they go through this to ask themselves, you know, what do I need now to do now to improve the next moment? If they had a great morning and they're at lunch and they're doing this mindfulness scan and they're like, I've got a meeting, that's annoying, that's coming up. But other than that, okay, you know, so what do you need to do to improve the next moment? Probably not much at this point. You're getting fed, you're at work, things are going well, you're not anticipating any vulnerabilities. If, on the other hand, it had been a bad day or whatever, and they were at lunch and they did this, instead of being stuck in that bad day thinking to themselves, what can I do to improve the next moment? To kind of reset the day, if you will. So core mindfulness, and this comes straight from dbt. You have your reasonable mind. That is mind driven is a detective. It's kind of like a robot or a scientist, and provides logical responses. And I encourage people to find their own representation of the reasonable mind, whether it is a. Oh, I can't even think of the word right now, but a robot like Data on Star Trek, Next Generation, or just a computer or whatever it is that they see as being emotionless, logical. Next thing, next thing next. The emotional mind is heart driven. It provides responses based on emotional reactions. Fear, anger, sadness, even happiness. You know, when we're in our emotional mind, we're being driven by the neurotransmitters. If it's happiness, we're being driven by that dopamine going, let's do that again. If we're being driven by anxiety, we may be being propelled by cortisol and adrenaline, saying, we need to fight or flee. We're not thinking about what's going on, which is why they call it an adrenaline haze or tunnel vision. When people get Upset because they're not seeing the big picture. The wise mind combines information from the reasonable mind and the emotional mind to make the logical choice that will help the person be as happy as possible. Balancing their wants and needs with the best choice. There's not always a great answer. You know, sometimes it is the lesser of two evils. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is. But when you encourage people to use distress tolerance skills so they can think clearly, get out of that adrenaline haze, then they're going to be more in their wise mind and able to make the best choice for them at that point in time. And Android. That's what I was thinking, trying to think of for data. So the wise mind, how skills, how do you do it? Being non judgmental means just observing things as observable and measurable events. No feeling associated with them. It is what it is, having one mind, focusing on the task at hand and clearing your mind of everything else, taming that monkey mind. And it's really hard for clients to do this and I encourage them to be so compassionate with themselves because monkey mind a lot of times is your brain's way, your amygdala's way of saying, but don't forget, you need to protect yourself, be aware and reminding yourself unfortunately of negative events. But having that one mind. And if the monkey mind goes away, comes, comes around, just bring your attention back to the present moment and focus on that. If it keeps coming, the same thought keeps coming, coming. I encourage clients to write it down on a different piece of paper so it's not in their mind anymore, it's down here and they can come back and address it later and do what works. The wise mind helps you choose what's going to improve the next moment for you. So every person has different strategies that have worked for them and this is where I encourage them to come from. A solution focused perspective. What has worked for you in the past? You know, let's not start trying to bring in all of these new techniques. What has worked for you in the past? Okay. So you feel how you feel. It is what it is. You're going to focus on the task at hand to improve the next moment. That's how it goes. It sounds easy, it's not super easy. And I make sure to point that out to clients so they don't feel frustrated when they try to do it and they've got monkey mind and they're judgmental of themselves. When they're being judgmental of themselves. If they get stuck there and they have Difficulty with non judgmentalism. I ask them, who do you hear when you hear that judgment? When you hear the shoulds? Who told you the shoulds? Where did you learn this? Because those are often tapes that they have in their head or recordings, I should say. I guess nobody uses tapes anymore that probably need to be reprogrammed. All right, more what skills. Observe. Be a detective. Take in the whole situation. Too often when we've got adrenaline, we've got that tunnel vision. So encourage people to look at what's going on. What's the big picture? What might you be missing? And how might someone else perceive this situation? So if somebody's at work or at home and another person gives them a dirty look and they're like, oh, oh my gosh, I must have offended that person. Could be, could be that the person got offended by somebody else or, you know, stepped on attack or who knows, you know, but assuming that it's all about you. Doesn't take in the big picture, doesn't ask what else could have caused that person to give me a dirty look and how might someone else perceive this situation? And I always think about my best friend from college. She was just the eternal optimist. And I'm like, okay, how would Stephanie think about this? And generally it's very different than how I think about it. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to take her away. Describe as the next part, encourage clients to name their experiences. Exploring the emotional mind. You feel how you feel, and it's okay. Our feelings are there to protect us, to help us survive. Now sometimes they're a little overly sensitive. You know, our threat response system is a little hair trigger, so that can be worked on. But exploring it and just accepting, this is how I feel right now, it doesn't matter whether it's rational or logical, this is how I feel. And then participate by being actively involved in the moment, asking themselves, what can I do to improve the next moment? And what is the best choice of action based on my goals? And that is so important. It's not what's the best choice of action for my neighbor or for the other person in this group that may have clinical depression? It's what's the best choice of action for me based on my goals and my strengths. And yes, naming feelings does have a lot of power because once you name them, it's calling them out and then you can deal with them. Once you name the situation that is triggering that emotion, then you can figure out what to do about it. So one activity that we do in group a lot, in order because it's less threatening than having people necessarily share all of their own stuff right away. Practice observing, describing and participating. So I find clips from various TV shows where somebody gets upset. And I encourage everybody in the room to be a detective and take on, take in the whole situation, write notes, you know, we just watch it. And I want everybody to write notes about what they see, what is going on. And then I have them speculate about what the main character might be missing and how someone else might perceive this situation. And then I turn off the television and I say, okay, what's going on? And you know what? I can have a group of 12 people and 12 people will come up with different accounts of what was going on and why the person acted that way. And they also will have different ideas about what the main character might be missing, what else might be causing the upset. So it's interesting to let them look at that and then to encourage them through the week to, when they're watching television to practice this, describe, name the person's experience so you know, they've watched it, they've taken notes. I say, tell me about this person, this person's experience. This situation is threatening, this situation is rewarding. What is this situation to this person and how does this person feel? And then we talk about that. And yes, talking through the assumptions about how somebody's feeling based on their non verbals, based on their known history, based why do you think this person feels that way? What tells you that they feel that way? And then encourage them to be actively involved in the moment and speculate about what this character could do to improve the next moment and what the best choice of action is based on their goals. Obviously it's easier to do this with some sort of a series that most people in the room have seen. So they've got some background on the character. But you can do it in a lot of other situations, things that get in the way of observing adrenaline, anger, fear, any of those fight or flight emotions. So helping people develop distress tolerance skills and focused breathing so they can get their heart rate down, they can get back into that calming area where they're not flooded with adrenaline. And cortisol is the first step. Because when you are stressed, when your body is in that fight, flee, freeze or just forget about it mode, you're not thinking as broadly as you would be when the adrenaline has cleared, when you're in your wise mind. So encourage them to develop distress tolerance skills that can help them ride that wave. The Wave of emotion that usually comes in and goes out in about 20 minutes or less, as long as you're not feeding it. And we talk about how to feed emotions. And one of the things we start with is talking about how to feed positive emotions. When you're having a good day, how do you feed it? How do you keep that emotion hanging around? You think about what happened during the day, you do more things that are like it. You tell other people about what happened during the day. We'll make a list of those things and I'll write them up on the board and then I'll go, okay, when you're having a bad day, how do you feed those emotions? I'm like, same way. So when you notice that you're doing these things, you're dwelling on these emotions, you're relating it to other similar times and getting yourself even more amped up, you know, that's feeding that emotion. So what can you do to tolerate the distress and sort of distract yourself to get you through until you can get into your wise mind? Focused breathing is one of the first things that I have them do, because if they are actually focusing on their breathing, you know, four in, hold for four, out for four, then they're not likely going to be thinking about the rest because they have to count, you know, count in 1, 2, 3, 4, hold for four. And that can help the negativity bias. If people are just. They're observing and all they see is the negative, you know, all they see is the danger. And this is not uncommon for people, especially people with trauma histories. So it's important to recognize that some people, when they are looking at situations, they are going to see the danger in them. So encouraging them gradually to when they're feel when they're observing, to also try to look at what else was going on that might have been positive, to focus on hardiness. And that's commitment, control and challenge. What things are you committed to in your life? You know, this thing right here, okay, it may be going to crap right now, but what other things are you committed to in your life that are really going okay? And most of us can step back and go, well, you know, my kids are healthy, you know, I've got a roof over my head, whatever. They can identify a few things that are important to them. And that helps a lot with getting out of that negativity area. Gratitude and dialectics. Another thing that can get in the way of observing is people's schemas. If they expect a situation to be a certain way because of prior experiences, good or bad, then they may anticipate and interpret the current situation in that way. So using cognitive processing therapy, asking them to look for the facts for and against their belief about this situation, asking them to identify whether it's emotional or factual reasoning they're using, asking them to identify whether they're confusing a high probability and a low probability event. Those are my three big ones that I fall back on when we're talking about schemas and then when we talk about trauma. Trauma can get in the way of observing because the situation in the present may have aspects that are similar to something that happened in the past. Well, if somebody was traumatized, if they were victimized in the past, you know, what is similar right now that is, you know, triggering this response and making it difficult to observe, but also what is different? You know, you may be older now, you may be stronger, you may be bigger, you may be safer, you may be, you know, whatever it is, but what are the differences now? And, you know, that's a very psychodynamic approach to it, but helping them recognize how strong they are and what their safety is in the present moment. Things that get in the way of describing being on autopilot. Like I said, I could drive from uf all the way to my daddy's house and probably not tell you much. In the intervening years, I've learned a lot more. When I was out on my run today, the cutest little fat groundhog, I guess I startled him, and he just went sprinting across the grass. And I had to stop because I was laughing so hard as he ran, because he's just this big old tub of lard running across the grass. He was adorable, but I was not on autopilot. And so many things you miss when you're on autopilot. Lack of words is another thing that can get in the way of describing. And one of the things that I love to do with this one, and not all groups are good with it, but a lot of them have been good with it, is the rhythm around the circle. And that's what I call it. I don't know what else to call it. But you remember when you were kids and you used to do that rhythmic thing where you happy, excited, glad. I can't even do it right now. But each person says a word that relates to a emotion. So we'll start out with happy, because that's one of those, you know, generic words. And then every person after that around the circle has to come up with another synonym for happiness. And it encourages people to think and it can be fun and it can be funny, but it also gets people engaged. Cognitive distortions can get in the way of describing if people are personalizing something, if they're thinking in all or none terms of jumping to conclusions, just going on what information they have most available in the forefront of their mind, catastrophizing or confusing, high and low probability. So we want to ask clients, you know, why does it add to stress and what are the alternatives to, you know, these distortions that are going on? Why does it add distress when you personalize things? Why does it add to stress when you think in all or none terms? This is a whole group that you can do on. Actually multiple groups, you can do on cognitive distortions. Things that get in the way of participating is not knowing your destination. If you don't know what a rich and meaningful life is for you, you don't know what the next step is to get there. If you don't know what recovery looks like for you, you don't know what the step, next step is to get there. So it's important that clients clearly define their destination, their goals for their treatment, fear of rejection or inadequate social support. Encourage people to identify any significant others they have that can be there and can be accepting. When clients can't see alternatives to what's going on, you know, let's go back to describing or the situation that's going on. A lot of times it's helpful in group work because other people can suggest alternatives, but encouraging them if they're thinking in all or none terms. For example, having them identify any exceptions they can think of, no matter how small. You know, if they say that my roommate never washes his dishes, okay, well, let's look if there are any exceptions to that, like maybe he washes his dishes, if he knows that his mother's coming over or something, you know, those things are exceptions. So we can, we can look at some of those and then encourage them to start making plans to alter things if they personalize everything, encouraging them to look at the facts for and against the idea that it's about them. So really processing with them the alternate reasons why something may be happening other than their cognitively distorted reason. Fear of rejection. Help people identify significant others. Not everybody has a lot of them, and some people don't have any of them. So we do want to help them figure out where to reach out and establish this. Social support can be support groups, it can be church, it can be, you know, wherever they think they can find it. Fear of being wrong or that your needs are wrong. So again, going back to cognitive processing therapy, because people may not want to participate, they may not want to put themselves out there, they may not want to try because they're afraid if they try, they're just going to fall flat on their face. Lack of self efficacy and learned helplessness. If they think there's no point in trying because it's not going to do any good, they're probably not going to try. They're not going to participate. So encourage them to identify prior successes at doing anything and then set small smart goals. Some clients won't participate because they don't. They aren't aware of the tools that they have or tools that they could use. So they just don't even begin, you know, and I'm that way with woodworking and you know, using actual tools, I'm like, I have no idea how to cut a 45 degree angle. So it's important to help people identify tools that they have that they've used in the past, but also new tools that they can explore. Tool selection is one activity that we do. And I will put different dysphoric emotions around the room and I will have people go around and identify ways that they deal with that emotion in order to help people brainstorm different tools that they might be able to use. Depression. Some people just ain't got the energy. They are just so depressed they're having a hard time getting out of bed to bathe, let alone participate and improve the next moment. So we may need to start back a little ways and address fatigue and circadian rhythms in order to help them start rebalancing their neurotransmitters and maybe addressing apathy, you know, that lack of pleasure in anything. Encouraging them to do things that used to make them happy, little bit, or try to do them to see if they can get any sort of spark of happiness in there. Practice observing, describing and participating. Have clients look back over the week, ask them about one time they felt irritable, and practice the what skills. So again, have them observe, be a detective, take in the whole situation, figure out what was going on. What aspects might they be missing, you know, and that can be, they might be missing internal stuff like they were exhausted, or they might be missing external stuff like there was a lot of noise going on and it was, it was a really stressful moment. How might someone else have perceived this situation? Just kind of gives them a different perspective. Encourage them to describe and name their experiences. Then be actively involved in the moment. To improve the next moment based on their goals. Have clients define their long term goals. You know, sometimes you keep saying, choose the things that are going to get you closest to your long term goals. And clients are going, I don't know what they are. So ask them, what kind of person do you want to be? What values do you cherish? What people's experiences and things are important to you? For visual clients, they can make a collage if they want to. Encourage clients to do it in a way that's meaningful to them. Because once they identify their destination, then action becomes purposeful. It encourages them to become mindful in the present moment and act intentionally to use what limited energy they have to keep them moving forward towards their goals. So, for example, peanut butter is one of my weaknesses, and I can mindlessly eat peanut butter all day long, but if I want to stay in shape and still fit into my pants, then eating peanut butter does not necessarily get me towards my goals, or at least not eating an entire jar of peanut butter. So it's important for me to become mindful in the present moment. If I want peanut butter, okay, you know, have peanut butter, but don't sit there with a spoon in the jar for 30 minutes. That encourages me to act intentionally instead of reacting emotionally because I eat the peanut butter and it tastes really good. So that dopamine is flooding in going, let's do that some more, and I can make more effective choices. A shortcut question people can ask themselves, is this behavior or reaction going to get me closer to my long term goals? Or is it an autopilot response that kind of sidetracks everything else? And when they're feeling stressed and they have this urge to do something, will that something get them closer to their long term goals? Or is it an autopilot response that that's probably going to not encourage clients to recognize? Head, heart and gut, honesty and mindfulness. Their head tells them the logical stuff. Their heart may tell them what they feel, you know, what would make their heart happy. And their gut is generally the one on the sidelines going, yeah, that's not a good idea, or I'm good with it. So the gut is the danger meter, so to speak. So encouraging people to identify their feelings, wants and needs in their head, heart and gut. Yeah, that's a lot. But if they're making a big decision, you know, they may need to break it down to all nine of these things. What does your head say about how you feel? How does your heart say you feel? And what is your gut saying about how you feel. Then how does your head, what does your head say about what you want? What does your heart say about what you want? And what does your gut say about what you want? And what does your head say about what you need? A lot of times the head is, you know, off on its own thing with needs here, and the head's like, oh, you don't need that, or whatever. What does your heart say you need and what does your gut say you need? So encouraging them to look at each one of those and if they're all in alignment, if their head, heart and gut say they feel, want and need this thing, then that thing is probably going to help them move closer to their goals. 5 minute focus. This is a beginning mindfulness activity to encourage people to practice observing. I used to do this with my class at uf. I would have them walk outside, but you can have clients go into a room, doesn't matter, five minutes. And write down everything that they see, smell, hear, feel and even think. So during that five minute time, you want them to be focusing on their environment. And then at the end of five minutes, talk about it. And you know, I would bring 30 people back into the room and inevitably there would be different things. I mean, a lot of overlap, but there would also be different things on people's lists based on what they were observing and what they were tuned into. Three minute thoughts. Practice observing your thoughts. Take three minutes and write down. Or if you can't write fast enough because your monkey mind is really working, record them on a voice recorder all of the thoughts you have for three minutes and then review that list or that recording. Identify how many thoughts were negative, how many were about the past, how many were about the future, how many were about the present, and how many were just plain irrelevant like my shoulder itches. That helps people understand and really start conceptualizing their monkey mind vulnerability checklist. Have them practice observing and describing what's going on. These are things that went unchecked can cause low grade stress, making you more vulnerable to stronger reactions. So one of the things I'll do is I'll put a bunch of cards in a dish and I will pass them around and on each card is written a different type of vulnerability. And I have people draw a card and identify why it might be a vulnerability for someone you know. Again, this is very, you know, not necessarily super personal, but so they can start identifying emotional, physical, social and environmental vulnerabilities. The ABCs basic REBT is a great observe and describe. Have people identify the activating event the consequences and then their beliefs that went into it. This is just, you know, Mindfulness 101, really identifying those automatic beliefs and becoming conscious and aware of them. Participate in the moment by disputing any beliefs that are not based in fact and evaluating their options and choosing the best one to improve the next moment. So, okay, you may dispute and you may figure out that, yeah, you know, anger is what I need to be feeling right now. What are my options to improve the next moment? You know, my urge may be to scream and put my fist through the wall. Probably not going to solve anything. So what are my options to deal with this anger? Colors of emotion participate by affecting the environment. Most colors evoke emotion in people because it reminds you of a memory. So ask people, what color do you feel? You know, I used to do this one with my kids a lot, and I would take one of those big boxes of crayons, and I would dump them in a bowl, and I would say, identify how you feel with this color. Do you feel brown? Do you feel yellow? Have people identify how different colors make them feel. So get poster boards with different colors on them and go, when you look at this, how do you feel now? You feel a little bit different if you walk in and the whole room is like chartreuse or something, as opposed to looking at a poster board. But it gives people an idea. Passionate colors and excited colors are generally, you know, bright reds, red tones, cheerful colors tend to be in the yellow family. Calming colors tend to be in the blue family. And depressed colors tend to be variations on black and gray. Now, this isn't always 100% true. I mean, periwinkle I find. Well, I guess I find periwinkle to be calming, too. But, you know, obviously, if you're looking at the color wheel, most colors are a blend of, you know, blue and yellow or red, because you have red. Yellow and blue are your primary colors. I've got this. Smells are another thing that triggers memories. So participate by infecting the environment, by increasing the happy smells in your environment. You can do scent stations, but you want to make sure you don't have somebody who is sensitive to scents if they are, you know, are. You can't do that kind of thing. But if they aren't, then you can have a lot of fun with this. I generally put either the wax tarts, or I'll take essential oils and I'll put them on a little piece of paper. But either one, put them in little baggies, little Ziploc bags. So we're not blending the smells throughout the whole room. And then I have people go around to different stations, smell what's in the bag, seal it back up, and then write down what emotion that made them feel and or what memory it triggered. And they just go around the room and there's, you know, generally like 10 or 15 stations and then we talk about it. Some of the things that you can do, you don't have to get expensive. You can look in your kitchen cabinet. Rosemary, vanilla, lavender, clove, basil, oregano, Any of the wax tarts. There's hundreds of them. Pine Sol cleaner, cinnamon, white ginger. I didn't finish this slide. Sometimes places like Yankee Candle or any Bath and Body Works will give you little samples or let you go in and spray your cotton balls or whatever for this activity so you have a wider range of aromas. But you don't have to go broke doing it, especially if you give them credit. Because if somebody likes a Yankee Candle smell or, you know, a Bath and Body Works smell, they may end up going there and purchasing it. So it's a win win. Relapse warning signs checklist Black swan. A black swan is an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. So relapses are often black swans. They don't come from out of the blue. It's important to remember that mindfulness helps people learn about themselves and their relapses from past experiences. And being aware of their swan status. How do they feel emotionally, physically, cognitively? What are their wants and what are their needs in the moment can really help people avoid relapse. The daisy chain. This is another one of my favorite activities. And you can do it for health or relapse sometimes or a lot of times. I like doing it for health. And you make. You remember when you were a kid and you used to cut construction paper into those little strips and then you would link them together and make this big daisy chain that you could hang up as an ornament or whatever. Same thing here, but on each strip you write something. If we're going to do health, that you do that helps improve your health. And we link them all together and then we start talking about relapse and we say, okay, when you relapse, what's the first thing to go? And if they say sleep, then I go over to the sleep channel chain and I'll tear it almost all the way through, but not completely. And then I say, okay, what's the next thing to go and you know, nutrition, whatever. And we start doing that and then they see where the chain started breaking down leading up to their last relapse. And I encourage them to then pull on the chain and guess what? It breaks. So that's to help them recognize that their recovery is only as strong as their weakest link. You can do it with relapse too. You can have them just write down triggers for their last relapse so they can see how it built up to the relapse. Encourage them to observe past remissions and describe triggers and events. Maintaining it. And develop a checklist of relapse warning signs and review it daily to prevent relapse. Encouraging clients to continue to take self care and remember relapse is emotional. It works with mood disorders as well as bipolar, schizophrenia and addiction. What we're talking about is maintaining a healthy recovery lifestyle. So encourage them to develop a recovery checklist. Encourage people to enhance their situation to be more like it is during remission periods. What was different when you were asymptomatic? And how can we make that happen now? And make sure everybody has a plan to deal with relapse triggers when they arise, because they will. You can also have people participate with a daily planner activity, spending five minutes each morning of being mindful how they feel, reviewing their relapse warning signs, their black swans. Identify all the things that need to happen or get done today. Go through the list and highlight the things that must get done. Because too often we say things need to get done. When it's I'd like to get to it. Like laundry most of the time that can be put off a day or so if it needs to be. Go through the list, highlight the ones that must get done and then identify anybody that can assist with the must do's or identify shortcuts you can take if needed. So my old boss hated to do laundry, so instead of doing it he would just go to Target and buy more clothes. Not that I'm recommending this, but there are sometimes shortcuts and then get going. You think about what you need, you make a plan and then you participate. You get going. Operating on autopilot causes people to push through until they've exhausted their resources or neglect to maintain a balance between work and life and recovery and stress and whatever. Mindfulness encourages people to constantly check their energy gauge to see what is requiring more attention and decide how to balance those demands. It can help reduce emotional and physical distress and pain because we know when we're in distress, our pain levels go up it can improve sleep by reducing cortisol and increasing serotonin and melatonin. It can improve relationships by being aware of our impact on others, others impact on us, and just being more sensitive and compassionate. Core Mindfulness is being able to observe, describe and participate in the present moment and integrate that information from the reasonable mind and the emotional mind to come up with solutions. In the wise mind, it helps you adjust your day to prevent upset if you are already vulnerable because we all have B days. Observe, describe and participate in order to choose your actions and thoughts that will help purposefully move people towards their long term goals. Mindfulness means taking time to think before you act, but stopping to think takes time, although it usually takes less time than making needless errors. Mindfulness means understanding each person understanding their own swan strengths, wants and needs and the what's or status, wants and needs and the what's, whys and hows of their vulnerabilities so they can make the best choice of action. Mindfulness is the first step for clients in emotion regulation and getting happy. There are other mindfulness resources out there. I really like these four from New Harbinger, the Mindfulness Workbook for ocd, Assessing Mindfulness and Acceptance Processes and Clients, Mindfulness and Acceptance for Addictive Behaviors and the Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction. I've got all four of those. Really like those four books. I saw that several of you were looking for activities for mindfulness for kids if you go to allceus.com YouTube I do have one video on mindfulness exercises for adolescents. It's not for children but for adolescents and you may be able to extrapolate from there. And I can't remember the book that that was based on. It was like it was either 50 or 100 mindfulness exercises for Adolescents that it's based on. So there are books out there for that too. All right. Are there any question.