Tag: Self-compassion

Self care at year end

The final month of 2021 has arrived and the rush to year’s end is gathering pace. It is a time of heightened demands on our time this month as we attempt to finalise projects and tasks to ensure we start the new year with a clean slate, as we make arrangements for the festive season or attend festivities to mark having made it through a tough year. And this is before we get to Christmas day (if you celebrate this event) or New Year’s Eve!!

For some, this festive holiday season can generate a range of emotions or trigger levels of mental distress arising from shared family histories or non-existent celebrations or gatherings. It can be an unsafe occasion, a time of amplified anxiety, depression, sadness, or loneliness.

Here’s a few tips to keep you safe and help you navigate the demands and challenges of this busy month.

Pace yourself
As we move towards the holiday season, friends and colleagues are keen to catch up before year’s end, employees are pushing to have projects finalised, family members are eager to confirm plans for events, and parties abound. The list goes on. The pace in December can be relentless – if you let it.

Remember you have a choice in how much you take on this month. Conserving your energy is important and you don’t have to cram everything in as there is another year awaiting beyond December 30. Pace yourself and decide which activities truly need your immediate attention, and those that can be moved forward into 2022.

Celebrate with care
The festive season can be a time of overindulgence – too much food, excess alcohol, late nights and little sleep, work Christmas parties, family get togethers, new year’s revelries, and many social gatherings. For some of us who have not long emerged from lockdown, the temptation to go overboard and frenetically socialise is great.

However, all this socialising can have an impact on your physical and mental health if taken too far. The human body has a great capacity to rejuvenate and bounce back. Yet sometime we can ignore the signs of overload at our own peril. Celebrate with care and consider that your body can be overburdened by too much of a good time.

Practice kindness and be patience
Given the increased demands placed on us it is easy to become impatient and irritable, causing us to act in ways that are less than ideal towards others. We’ve all snapped at family gathering as our buttons have been pushed, often by the very people who installed them. Or at sales assistants who are doing their best to help us select festive gifts. It’s not a great look and usually leaves you feeling like a bit of a fool.

Keep in mind that you are not the only one feeling overwhelmed. We are all juggling opposing stresses. Contemplate the power of patience as it provides an opportunity to slow down a little. Count to ten if that helps – over and over if necessary. Bear in mind that kindness trumps irritability every time.

And don’t forget to check in on your friends and those who find this a particularly vulnerable season.

Bring joy
A question to ask yourself is how you can bring joy to the festive season. The COVID pandemic, and the restrictions implemented to keep us safe, have wearied us all. The connecting thread that has provided the most comfort in amongst all this has been our social networks. Reduced time with our friends, family, work colleagues, and partners has brought a heightened appreciation for their role in our lives. We have much to be grateful for and many people, including our health and essential workers, to thank.

Being around a grump or those who are downbeat is no fun at the best of times. And this year it is particularly undesirable. Think about how you can be joyful and show your love to those around you, how you can enhance their lives as we celebrate having made it to the end of 2021.

Take time for yourself
Amongst all this activity it is important to make time for yourself. We’ve all been called upon to exercise atypical flexibility as we’ve navigated our rapidly changing world. Use the festive season as an opportunity to slow down once the major festive celebrations and family commitments are over. Set aside moments to kick back and relax, to draw breath and reflect on what you have learnt over the year that was, and to dream a little about the year to come.

Me – I’ve got my reading pile in place and plan to settle in for stints with my head buried in a book, because as many of you know I’m a big reader and books are my thing (some would say my addiction, but I beg to differ!!). So let me share some of my favourite novels for 2021:

Still Life by Sarah Winman
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Enjoy and let me know your top reads for 2021. Always happy to hear a good book recommendation. And finally, thanks to my wonderful colleagues Reed and Polly, and to those of you I’ve had the privilege to work with in 2021.

To you all – have a safe and wonderful festive season and a very happy new year.

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This article first appeared on the Mannaz Journal site.

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About the Author: Julie Regan

Julie is a professional transition coach, working with people in career transition and those exploring and developing their artistic and creative practice. She is the Director of Creative Coaching Options and brings over 20 years’ experience working in the creative arts and coaching space. Julie is also a writer and film enthusiast.

Changing Times & Staying Safe

There are a number of words that sum up the human experience over 2020 and 2021. The one that stands out for me, particularly at present, is safe. More than ever we are called upon to keep ourselves, our families and communities, our work places and environments safe.

Our world is changing faster than ever before. Daily, as the pandemic rages, we are required to absorb and adapt to the restrictions brought about by the ever evolving nature of the virus and remain vigilant to the need to remain safe and protected.

Remaining safe is not just a physical need; it is also a psychological one.

The impact of this pandemic is causing varying levels of mental distress in our society as we adapt to life without the usual support structures for our mental wellbeing – social and physical engagement, personal freedoms to make choices about how and with whom we spend our time, opportunities to move freely within our suburbs, cities, states or between countries. The need for psychological safety, and the sense of security this brings, is presently high on the agenda.

Psychological safety was first defined as ‘a group phenomenon that reduces interpersonal risk’ (Schein & Bennis, 1965) in the 1960s. Dr Amy Edmondson went on to broaden the concept to include several additional factors. “Psychological safety, in large parts, depends on others: when one feels psychologically safe, he or she relies on others who will continue to trust him or her, even if an error arises. Additionally, psychological safety spans very narrow temporal boundaries. It covers interactions between individuals in the short-term when one interacts with another in a particular manner. It describes an interpersonal sense of safety that emerges over a short period of time for a given group of people.” (Drinka, 2018)

The majority of theories around psychological safety pertains to workplace teams and groups, and how to create environments that enable people to make mistakes, take risks, feel secure enough to share their ideas and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.

It is about creating a space where people feel secure in their relationships with others, with the group, to reduce the negative emotions causing anxiety and a sense of overwhelm. Edmondson identified three core leadership behaviours to support psychological safety in teams: frame work as a learning problem, acknowledge your own fallibility, and model curiosity and ask questions (Psychological safety, 2021).

With the challenges posed by the pandemic, we need to ensure we foster psychological safety and security in our currently restricted human interactions, to reduce any anxiety such interactions may bring, and to support each other as best we can at this time.

Here’s my take on Edmondson’s behaviours as a way of dealing with the change we are experiencing:

Frame the current situation as a learning opportunity

Over the last year and a half we’ve all been required to amend our behaviour, think and do things differently, and adapt to changed circumstances. Take this time to reflect on how you’ve responded and adjusted, how you’ve tried different things, how you’ve changed your mindset. Review what has and hasn’t worked – on whatever level you chose – as you’ve adapted. It is an opportunity to learn about yourself and how you may wish to do things differently going forward. Share these learnings with your friends who no doubt will have some gems of their own.

Acknowledge your own vulnerability

We are living in astonishing times. We’ve pivoted into different ways of working, socialising, thinking, just being. Constant lockdowns make it hard to plan, affecting our sense of control, often resulting in feelings of frustration and overwhelm. The need for answers and certainty is running high. Remember, there is no perfect way to deal with the crisis. It is important to acknowledge your vulnerability and allow yourself to not have all the answers. Focus on what you can control and reach out to friends, family, and support services if you need help. You are not alone in this.

Model curiosity and ask questions

Try to stay curious about our current social reality. I don’t mean bombard yourself with news feeds. Rather, reach outside yourself and become a curious observer of the changes occurring around you. How is your neighbourhood adapting and evolving, how are social interactions playing out during lockdown, how are you engaging differently with the world? Ask questions of your friends, family, work colleagues about their experience and provide the space for them to share their observations. Create some psychological safety for all at this time.

Please don’t hesitate get in touch if the above resonates with you in light of your own situation.

REFERENCES:

Drinka, Ginevra A. O. (2018) Coaching for learning agility: The importance of leader behavior, learning goal orientation, and psychological safety. PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 2018 https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D82531CV/download

Psychological safety – History, concept and application. Psychological safety website https://www.psychsafety.co.uk/about-psychological-safety/ Accessed 26 August 2021

Schein, Edgar H (1993). How Can Organizations Learn Faster? The Challenge of Entering the Green Room. MIT Sloan Management Review, January 15, 1993 https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-can-organizations-learn-faster-the-challenge-of-entering-the-green-room/

Schein, Edgar H and Bennis, Warren G. (1965). Personal and organizational change through group methods: the laboratory approach. Wiley, New York.

About the Author: Julie Regan

What I learned in lockdown

One film I occasionally watch when it pops up on television or a streaming service is Ground Hog Day. In the film, Bill Murray (Phil Connors in the movie) navigates being caught in a repetitive time loop of a day that goes wrong, a day where he could have made better choices, been a better person. Finally, after some self-indulgent behaviour, Bill gets it and realises that if he changes he can get himself out of this loop, this constantly repeating day. It is a film that makes me laugh. At least it did until I got caught up in my own repeating loop of lockdowns in Sydney.

Admittedly, like many, I don’t have control over all that is happening in my world at present. As we enter into further restrictions, varying depending on which local government area or state you live in, it is hard not feel a little disheartened. Generally, it is important to maintain and enhance positive emotions for our wellbeing. Living in lockdown, it is even more essential to prioritise positivity.

“Prioritising positivity means designing and/or organising your daily life to maximise the experience of positive emotions. Research has shown that people who put themselves in situations or contexts where they are likely to experience a range of positive emotions are more likely to feel happier and experience fewer depressive symptoms. Another form of prioritising positivity is known as “pleasant event scheduling”, such a playing with pets” (Green, 2019).

So coming back to the film, I took a lesson from Bill and looked at what I’ve learnt from my lockdown experiences – what kept me buoyant, what bad habits I could ditch, and what I can do this time around that has been proven to increase positivity. Here is some of what has helped me and I hope may help you.

Keep moving

Feeling sluggish in lockdown is not unusual. Remaining inside in line with imposed health restrictions, devoid of our normal opportunities to exercise, it is easy to become inactive. Hours at home either at your work computer, or on the couch binging on your latest favourite series, can certainly bring the energy level down.

Weeks without my regular swimming practice doesn’t help my wellbeing; I need a regular physical exercise routine to keep me moving, to get some oxygen into my blood stream. I set aside time each day to walk, walk, walk to take up my sixty minutes out-of-the-house exercise allocation. Not only am I feeling better and having my curiosity sparked, I am getting to know my neighbourhood better and enjoying the various architectural and horticultural gems I discover along the way. Dog walkers will totally understand this experience.

If you are unable to leave the house, check out online exercise or yoga classes – there are plenty of them available. And remember, exercise has many of the same benefits for depression or anxiety as medication.

Stay connected

Many of us are presently at home with partners and family, or indeed living alone, and removed from the contact with our regular social circles, with our friends and extended family members. We are social animals and as such have a need for connection. Nurturing positive relationships with others is important for our wellbeing.

During lockdown, I find it helpful to do regular check-ins with my friends and close contacts. I get to know how they are travelling, what their particular challenges are, and what strategies they are employing to deal with our restricted lifestyle. And the check-ins let me to share my experiences and broadens my currently limited horizons.

Making regular contact lightens the load of isolation. It grants us an opportunity to reminisce and savour the joys of life, have a laugh, and overall, to increase our positivity.

Choose your news and limit it

I am a news fanatic and like to follow what’s happening in different parts of the world, in different social and political spheres. Over the last lockdowns, and early into this one, I found myself watching and listening to too much television and radio news updates. Often the same statistics and stories about the pandemic endlessly repeated. A COVID news loop.

My partner finally said to me, “Enough, you’re not doing yourself any favours with all this news. You’re just heightening your anxiety.” So I cut back, limited my news intake, and returned to my ‘to be read’ book pile. I got back to doing something I love – reading.

If you’ve been consumed by the news and/or social media, introduce some “pleasant event scheduling”. Return to doing other things that bring you joy – cooking, knitting, gardening, painting, listening to music, the list goes on – to enhance your positivity.

Such a move ensures you have more to discuss with others when you do your regular check-ins. Remember, there was a time pre-COVID when we engaged in broader topics of conversation!

Use your time productively

At my house, there are many tasks awaiting my attention – an overstuffed cupboard that requires clearing, numerous book piles that need sorting into some sort of yet-to-be-determined order, my yearly tax return, a garden shed full of unknown surprises – I could go on. You get the picture and I’m sure you could match me one-for-one.

These lockdown restrictions have provided an opportunity for us to take time to do long-standing tasks or activities. Not so they become chores, rather that they become achievements of time well spent during the pandemic. A COVID bonus if your like. For me last year it was tackling a neglected garden and reinvigorating my back yard.

This is a chance to set a plan to use your time beneficially and have something positive to look forward to – and back on – as time well spent in lockdown.

Be kind to yourself and others

Last, but not least, be kind. Kindness boosts our levels of wellbeing and has a positive impact on self and others. There is much uncertainty swirling around us at the moment and it is easy to get caught up in the vortex. Maybe you’re late on a deadline, or forgot to undertake a particular task, or get cranky when someone doesn’t call you back – all perfectly understandable with so many things competing for our attention as we adapt to the ‘new normal’. Nonetheless it is a good time to lower your expectations a little and relax. After all, in life’s big picture do these things really matter?

Time to give yourself, and others, a break and employ kindness instead of criticism. Because deep down you know we are all really just doing our best in these strange and extraordinary times.

And if all else fails, just watch a movie – but maybe not Ground Hog Day. Stay safe and strong and reach out if you need support.

REFERENCES:

Green, Suzy (2019). The Positivity Prescription. Sydney: Dr. Suzy Green

About the Author: Julie Regan

Letting go

In January I started a six month course in Narrative Coaching with Dr David Drake, a leading specialist in this field. Narrative Coaching is based on the concept “that stories are at the core of what makes us human“, and is aimed at supporting people in a safe and structured coaching environment to share their stories, to experiment and imagine new ones, and to embody and bring these new stories into being. It is a powerful way to assist people to change.

As a continuous learner I love nothing more than the challenge of new concepts, discovering new ideas, and appreciating what a diverse and wonderful world it is that we live in. I also enjoy observing and experiencing how my learning teaches me new and different ways to live, to work with people to bring their ideas to life.

Before we started David sent us a four powerful prompts to help us prepare for the course, to get us in the right frame of mind for the forthcoming immersive learning experience. The questions were framed to encourage us to reflect on our lives, who we are in the world, what has lead us into coaching, how we work with and listen to our coachees; all important and reflective questions.

Which assumptions, habits, stories or outdated practices could you let go of in order to free yourself to work more powerfully as a coach?

The most powerful and challenging of the four questions was the one above. It was followed up with a discussion on self-limiting beliefs in our first live session. Reflecting on this question and the discussion I came to the realisation I was indeed holding myself back; that some of my assumptions, habits and stories, self limiting beliefs – around being a successful writer, a successful coach, of being the best person I know I can be – were on a continuous re-wind loop. A loop keeping me stuck just spinning my wheels.

It was a liberating realisation because it highlighted things I can let go of – mainly beliefs and old stories not grounded in current reality – and made me aware that I am standing in my own way by hanging onto these things. Importantly, it reminded me that things do not have to be this way; I can let go and move forward and that is perfectly OK.

I am still pondering the question and looking forward to discovering what else I can let go of in the coming months. What about you? Anything that is holding you back, no longer serving you, that can be released?

Drake, David B. (2018) Narrative Coaching: the definitive guide to bringing new stories to life. CNC Press, California

Try a little tenderness

Creating of any kind takes you on many wonderful adventures and fills you with such excitement that you want to immediately jump into a new or existing project and just keep going, powering on. Days when ideas flow easily and you know that this is the right path for you.

Equally there can be times when you are filled with self-doubt, paralysed with feelings of inadequacy, unable to come up with the right words or ideas for your project. Times of confusion, frustration, self-loathing, periods when you question why you are dedicating your time to being a creative in whatever forms that takes.

One thing that helps get me through such times and subsequent challenges is practicing self-compassion – the art of being kind to me, of treating myself as I would a valued and close friend when they are having a hard time.

“Self-compassion is extending compassion to one’s self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering.”

Dr Kristin Neff [1] at the University of Texas at Austin, a world-renowned expert is this area, breaks self-compassion into three main components:
1. Self-kindness – looking after yourself and refraining from self criticism when experiencing challenges and personal shortcomings.

2. Common humanity – understanding that you are not the only one experiencing such feelings or undergoing a challenging time, that suffering and personal failure is part of being human; and

3. Mindfulness – getting in touch with your thoughts and emotions, learning to understand yourself, and then not “over-identifying” or suppressing these states.

Dr Neff has developed both a scale by which to measure self-compassion, and a series of exercises and meditations [2] to bring more of it into our lives. Tara Brach’s short meditation is also helpful. [3]

The things I find most helpful when being kind to myself whilst creating are to:

 Change my language – words have an impact so I take notice of my language and stop using harsh words when I speak about myself to others, when I speak to myself.

 Challenge my inner critic – notice when I am being self-critical – the words, the tone, the key phrases – and reframe the observations to be supportive rather than critical of my endeavours.

 Meditate – and calm myself down, get in touch with my thoughts and feelings, and get myself back on track.

 Accept – that I am not perfect, not always “on” with my ideas generation, my concentration, and my commitment to the task at hand.

 Stop pushing – for the creative process to move faster and to accept that it has it’s own timeframe; it cannot be rushed.

Developing and practising self-compassion has been helpful because it has allowed me to increase my self-belief, to become my own “backing band”. I have stopped worrying about getting things right immediately, learnt to trust that I have the resources and that eventually everything will be OK once I re-align myself. Importantly I know a lot more about myself, always a good thing, and how and why I create – or not!!!

Employing self-compassion is one nice way to support yourself when you are creating. Give it a try.

Coaching can assist you to explore ways to bring self-compassion into your creative life. Please get in touch if you would like to explore these ideas in more detail.

[1] Neff, K. D. (2003a). “The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion”. Self and Identity. 2 (3): 223–250

[2] Kristin Neff, Associate Professor Human Development and Culture, Educational Psychology Department, University of Texas Austin and author – www.self-compassion.org

{3] Tara Brach – meditation teacher, author and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC – www.tarabrach.com/meditation-the-rain-of-self-compassion/

Creativity rules!!!

As we move into a new age, a new way of thinking, creativity and innovation have become the ‘buzz’ words of the decade. We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.¹

Creativity means many things to different people and in different contexts. It involves bringing ideas to life, making the imagined real. It permeates our lives and affects how we live them. Definitions of creativity and creators vary. And creativity is not just for artist. It is for business people looking for a new way to close a sale; it is for engineers trying to solve a problem; it is for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.²Creativity is an essential part of being human and something that we all have the capacity to learn, or re-learn. As children creativity is something that comes naturally – just watch any child at play and observe how they engage their imagination. Often we have this creativity “knocked out” of us as we move through life’s aging stages where greater emphasis is placed upon logic and reason.

In his research during the 1950 and 60s Professor Roger W. Sperry discovered that the brain divides tasks into two main categories within the hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. The left hemispheres deals with tasks logically and analytically, with language and numbers, reasons sequentially. The right hemispheres reasons holistically, interprets nonverbal expression and emotions, deals with spatial awareness, recognises pattern or whole picture awareness, and imagines and daydreams.³Creativity stems from the right cerebral cortex, the “right brain” activity and in the Conceptual Age the tasks handled by this area of the brain will be valued as never before.

During his research Sperry observed that people trained in skills relying on one side of the brain as opposed to the other, formed dominant habits that favoured activities controlled by the favoured brain side, strengthening these activities and habits over time. However, “When people who are weak in one area were trained in that area by experts, they invariably increased their skills and strength in that given area, and, what’s more, simultaneously strengthened their performance in other areas.”⁴

In short, thinking from one part of your brain or another is really a function of habit. Like all habits thinking can be expanded to incorporate new experiences and elements, and to increase access to and use of the “other” non-dominant side of your brain. It’s best to be using your whole brain

Try the following activities to stimulate your brain, your thinking, to change some habits and expand your creativity:

 Give yourself permission – first off give yourself permission to “play”, to create, to tap into avenues for self-expression different from what you usually do; and permission to enjoy whatever happens as a result of this “play” time. Not everything has to be about an outcome.

 Sharpen your curiosity – take yourself on The Artist Date, “a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist.”⁵Go off and do what brings you fun, joy and stimulates your curiosity. Take a notebook and pen to record your imaginative thoughts along the way.

 Take a week off – from distractions that stop you from being creative. Turn off the television, stop reading the newspaper, leave the computer or phone off when you are at home. See what happens as your imagination flourishes.

 Create a Mind map rather than a list – when faced with tasks/challenges/finding solutions consider doing a mind-map rather than a written list. Draw up a map of all the ingredients and have fun accessing your right brain for ideas.

 Daydream or do nothing – both of these activities allow the unconscious to become conscious and the imagination to surface and flourish. To get you started sit back and think about the first time you created something and what that felt like. Let your mind drift from there. If asked to explain what you are up to just quote Steven Spielberg and say ”I dream for a living”.

 Visualise – a very powerful tool to enable you to open up your thinking. “In creative visualisation you use your imagination to create a clear image, idea, or feeling of something you wish to manifest.” So take a stack of magazines, choose a central image to represent your goal or theme and then cut out and paste images to support that image onto card. It is fun to do, very relaxing and can yield surprising results.

Whatever you choose to do – enjoy.

Coaching can assist you to change your thinking habits and stimulate your creativity. Please get in touch if would like to explore these ideas in more detail.

^[1] Pink, Daniel H., 2006, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainer Will Rule the Future, Riverhead Books, New York, p. 2
^[2] Tharp, Twyla, 2006, The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life, Simon & Schuster Paperback, New York, p.7
^[3] For an amazing story about on the difference between right and left brained thinking check out the following site: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
^[4] Buzan, Tony, 2005, The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps, Thorsons, London, p. 53
^[5] Cameron, Julia, 1994, The Artist’s Way, Pan Books, London, p.19