3 Mindfulness skills

That everyone can benefit from. On happier I have been taking the course 7 Happier Habits. Yesterday when I could, I watched the video on savoring moments. Which, to a DBT Facilitator, sounded like mindfulness. Mindfulness is learning to stay in the moment, to not think about yesterday, a month ago or even living in the past. The past is over. Some people like to look ahead, that’s fine, but don’t forget to stay in the moment.  Here’s a lovely quote that I always enjoy: Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present. ~ Bill Keane

I asked my friends on Happier if they wanted a few skills that I teach, and the answer was a yes. I’m quite passionate about teaching and sharing DBT skills, I truly believe that everyone can benefit from these skills. 😀

Exercise 1- Mindfulness walk.
You get to get out and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine on this one. And that’s part of the exercise.
Go outside, and just stand there for a moment. Close your eyes, and feel. What do you feel? What do you hear? What do you smell?
And then you go for a walk, but here’s the thing, you might not know that there is a correct way to walk. A lot of people don’t. You should walk heel to toe. And for the first couple of times, you really need to focus on that. Heel to toe, heel to toe. After you have reached your halfway point, stop, close your eyes, and ask yourself again, what do you feel, what do you hear, what do you smell, and how do I feel?  Take a few cleansing breathes, in through your nose, using your diaphragm, and then exhale slowly out through your mouth. Go back to walking and when you reach the end, it’s time to ask yourself; how do I feel now? Do you feel better, less stressed, not as many aches and pains. What do you notice? Smells, warmth, breezes?
I have my people write down how they felt before, aches, stress, issues, and then afterwards we update with how they feel now. I watch as they are walking and help to gently correct them. You have to stay in the present to stay focused on walking correctly.

Exercise 2- mmmm the chocolate kiss meditation
I personally like this one, as it uses all five senses. So all of your senses are present in the moment. For this you need, one, well okay, maybe two hershey’s kisses.  We start with a foil wrapped kiss, and start to imagine how it’s going to look, smell and feel. How is it going to taste? Then we slowly unwrap our kisses, and inhale the scent of the chocolate, touch it or slide it gently between your fingers, how does it feel? This next bit is a little tricky, especially for chocoholics. LOL 😀 Place the kiss on your tongue, do not eat it, do not suck on it, just let it sit there, and melt on it’s own.  And, how does this make you feel, how does it feel, what can you smell? Then okay, you get to take a small sliver of it, using a tooth you scrape down the piece on your tongue. And then you are finally allowed to suck on that one little sliver of chocolate. Also keep letting the chocolate melt in your mouth. While you’re doing this, think about how the chocolate came to be. Yep, we’re going a bit in the past, can you see the cacao bean in the field, can you imagine the rain, the sun that helped that bean come to be your chocolate? Imagine the people that farmed and raised that bean, then pulled it to be transported. Those people that are transporting it to the factory, the workers in the factory, transforming beans into chocolate, and the whole trip it goes through to become one little hershey’s kiss. Wow! That’s a lot of work for one kiss. 🙂 By now the chocolate should have melted in your mouth. It has right? You didn’t chew it? LOL yeah, why I said it might take two kisses. 😉  So now you’ve got this melted chocolate in your mouth, how does it feel, how do you feel, what have you been thinking of??? Were you thinking of the trip this little bean came to be a piece of chocolate in your mouth. See we can visit the past and yet still be present in the future. That’s the goal of this exercise, we can visit the past but not stay there. If you were there, you’d be missing this lovely melted kiss in your mouth! 🙂

Exercise 3- This is a bit Mindfulness and Distress Tolerance related, and if you do this with a friend, or your children, then we can add in Interpersonal Skills. If you do this exercise as part of Distress Tolerance, then we can add in Emotional Regulation. I love this exercise, and use it myself a lot! It is one of the few that I can use all four of the DBT skills at one time. So! what is this wonderful exercise?  You might like it, might not, but give it a try.

Coloring!!! Yes, coloring. If you fancy yourself an artist than this is fun. Take a piece of paper and draw something, than grab some crayons, or colored pencils. I don’t want you to use paints at this time. Not starting out, plus there is a reason to use crayons and pencils if someone else  is with you. 😉 Or print something out to color from online, there are a number of sites that have free coloring pages to print out and use. I know, I’ve used them for my people! 😀

And then color! Don’t worry if you go out of the lines, or you are coloring say, Tinkerbelle and you want to color her as a red head and wearing a purple outfit. Go For it! If you’re by yourself, and you thoughts start wandering off, gently nudge yourself back to what you’re doing. Take the time to slowly color your picture, focus on what you are doing, and if you want to get more creative and draw in the background go for it! What are you thinking? What are you feeling? How is your stress level now?
If you have a friend or family member-kids doing this with you. Well then you get to talk, and this is where the interpersonal communication comes in to play. It’s really difficult to stay mad at someone while you’re coloring. I’ve had two people that were annoyed with each other,  have to color on the same page with only one pack of crayons. They have to speak to each other, and then they start giggling, and what do you know, they aren’t annoyed with each other any longer. Parents, your children love you, and would love to spend time with you. Color with them. It’s not an expensive hobby, and it doesn’t take all that much to do: You, them, a coloring book, crayons, pad of paper. Some of my best memories are from the time my parents did this with me. And they never told me I had to color such and such in the correct way.  When this exercise is over compare how you feel now, to when you started, what changed?

Link to my favorite coloring site: Crayola

And what I might be coloring later. 😀
I mentioned Tinkerbelle and now I’m thinking she would look cute in a halloween themed palette. 😀

Oh I’m always curious, if you do print and color her, I’d love to see your work. Seriously!!! 😀

 A giggle! my colored pencils at work. I don’t know if you can read it, but on the package I’ve put: Please do NOT remove from office.

Hawaiian Roller coaster Ride

Getting into the Hawaiian spirit for the company picnic today!

Calendar day; September 25, 2014

Thursday, the 25th of September, 2014 is the 268th day in 2014 and in the 39th calendar week.

General Events:

International Ataxia Awareness Day
September 25, 2014 in the World

The “International Ataxia Awareness Day” is an international effort from ataxia organizations around the world to dedicate September 25 as International Ataxia Awareness Day. Each participating country, state, or individual may have a specific plan for this event.

The goal of IAAD is for every individual to participate in some activity, creating awareness about ataxia. You could share something you know about ataxia with one other person who has never heard of it, educate a group of people by speaking at a school or civic group, contact the media, or raise financial support. International Ataxia Awareness Day has grown over the years, and more ideas keep coming in.

International Ataxia Awareness Day: http://internaf.org/Friends/aadarticle.html

Where is International Ataxia Awareness Day?
Worldwide

World Pharmacists Day
September 25, 2014 in the World

As designated by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Council several years ago at the FIP Congress in Istanbul, 25 September marks the annual World Pharmacists Day. For this day, FIP is encouraging the world’s pharmacists to organise activities that promote and advocate for the role of the pharmacist in improving health in every corner of the world.

This year’s theme is: “Access to pharmacists is access to health”

For many years, FIP has recognized that access to medicines is a major issue in many parts of the world and pharmacists play a key role throughout the whole supply chain towards improving access to medicines.

Where is World Pharmacists Day?
Worldwide

National Psychotherapy Day
September 25, 2014 in the USA

National Psychotherapy Day, a day where clinicians, clients, and therapy advocates unite to promote the profession, fight stigma, educate the public, and draw attention to the needs of community mental health.

National Psychotherapy Day Website: http://www.nationalpsychotherapyday.com/index.php

National Psychotherapy Day Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Psychotherapy-Day/190648471060882

Where is National Psychotherapy Day?
Nationwide USA

National One-Hit Wonder Day
September 25, 2014 in the USA

It’s what we’ve all been waiting for, a day to celebrate every artist who has conspired to give us one massively successful song….and the grand total of nothing since. One-Hit Wonder Day was established by music journalist Steve Rosen back in 1990 to pay tribute to those who have had their five minutes (or less) of fame and subsequently vanished, leaving us only a catchy (hopefully!) tune to remember them by.

From bizarre, middle-aged Spaniards Los Del Rio doing the ‘Macarena’, to beanie-hatted Daniel Powter singing about his ‘Bad Day’, via Lou Bega’s Mambo #5, the list of one-hit wonders is a long and varied one, so dig out your old record collection and see how many of these unfortunate souls are lurking there.

Then join us in sitting back, listening to their tunes and wondering what the heck these artists are doing now (apart from spending their massive royalty cheque).

Where is National One-Hit Wonder Day?
Nationwide USA

Comic Book Day
September 25, 2014 in the USA

National Comic Book Day takes place on September 25, 2014. A comic book, also called comic magazine or simply comic, is a publication, first popularized in the United States, of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by brief descriptive prose and written narrative, usually dialog contained in word balloons emblematic of the comics art form.

The first comic book appeared in the United States in 1933 and was a reprinting of earlier newspaper comic strips which had established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term comic book arose because the first book sold as a comic book reprinted humor comic strips. Despite their name, comic books are not necessarily humorous in tone, and feature stories in all genres.

Since the introduction of the comic book format in 1933 with the publication of Famous Funnies, the United States has produced the most titles, along with British comics and Japanese manga, in terms of quantity of titles. American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, the comic book industry rapidly expanded, and genres such as funny animals, westerns, romance and humor became popular.

Since the later 20th century, comic books have gained note as collectable items. Comic shops cater to fans, and particularly valuable issues have fetched in excess of a million dollars. Systems of grading comic books have emerged, and plastic bags and backing boards are available to maintain the comic books’ condition.

Where is National Comic Book Day?
Nationwide USA

Historical Events on 25th September:

1066 – The Battle of Stamford Bridge; an English army under King Harold Godwinson beat the invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold’s brother Tostig, who were both killed. Three weeks later Harold died fighting the Normans at Hastings.

1396 – Battle of Nicopolis: Sultan Bajezid I defeats Crusades armies

1513 – Vasco Nunez de Balboa is first European to see Pacific Ocean

1555 – Freedom of Religion in Augsburg

1639 – Suzuki Shosan, Samurai monk of Zen Buddhism, found awakening

1781 – -26] Joan Derks scatters “On the People of Netherlands” pamphlets

1820 – French Physicist Francois Arago announces electromagnetism in his discovery that a copper wire between the poles of a voltaic cell could laterally attract iron filings to itself

1878 – British physician Dr. Charles Drysdale warns against the use of tobacco in a letter to The Times newspaper in one of the earliest pubic health announcements on the dangers of smoking

1906 – In the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, in what is considered the birth of the Remote control.

1919 – President Woodrow Wilson is paralyzed by a stroke

1926 – Henry Ford announces 8 hour, 5-day work week

1939 – Versailles Peace Treaty forgot to include Andorra, so Andorra & Germany finally sign an official treaty ending WW I

1955 – The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.

1956 – First transatlantic telephone cable goes into operation (Newfoundland-Oban)

1960 – Chubby Checker’s “Twist” hits #1

1974 – Scientists first report that freon gases from aerosol sprays are destroying the ozone layer

1980 – The first congress of the Democratic Youth Organization of Afghanistan held in Kabul

1989 – Archaeologists open Titus of Rhine grave in Amsterdam

1996 – The last of the Magdalen Asylums closes in Ireland

Bonus!  click me! oooh click me!! 😀 

IOTD

And we’re having a luau themed company party today! Thought this was appropriate to meditate on today! Plus, I love ❤ Stitch!!!

Bonus image! 😀