Wellbeing principles and practices

I could have written a list of things to do each day such as regular exercise or not drinking coffee late in the day, etcetera. We know them well and they assist with mental wellbeing a great deal. I wanted to bring you fresh and innovative tasks to my practitioner table. I utilise them in my everyday life. I hope you can too.

An important message

It isn’t what happens to us or what someone says to us, or how much stress we experience that matters. It is how we perceive those things. How we react and respond to them. Because that is what we can learn to change. We have no control over our external world.

As Gabor Mate says ‘It all goes down in the mind.’

1. acceptance

Sit down somewhere quiet and comfortable. Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Open your eyes and look around your environment. Be present with it whilst remaining aware of your breathing. Focus your attention on the fact that you have no control of your external environment; of other people’s opinions and expectations of you. We can spend time and energy focusing on or trying to control these things. And this can cause us to be stressed and anxious or to worry unduly.

Accept what you cannot control and let it go as you breathe out.

2. awareness

Be aware that your value as a person should not be conditional upon what you do or don’t achieve or what you buy or become in life. Your sense of self-worth will fluctuate like the weather if you rely on things that happen outside of yourself to validate who you are. And you will always be looking for the reassurance that you are enough in everything you do. Return to your comfy chair and breathe as before. Think about all that makes up you – your story, your imperfections. Learn to love and accept it all. This place of rest needs to be your home base.

3. compassion

Be compassionate towards the parts of yourself that you aren’t particularly fond of. This means bringing those aspects forward into the present. Acknowledge them. Own them. And do it with kindness and compassion. Acceptance doesn’t just happen. Our journey in life, no matter how short or how long, will contain experiences where we don’t particularly like ourselves. But those moments are part of us. Awareness, compassion and loving acceptance is key. Breathe it in.

4. connection

Connecting to yourself is vital to mental and emotional wellbeing. As I explained a little above, children change and adapt to their environments for different reasons. The most important thing that happens to us is that we lose the connection to ourself along the way. By this I mean we move away from our gut feelings. We find it hard to know what is right for us. So we look to our external world for those answers. Use your breath again and place one hand on your heart when you are relaxed. Allow yourself to feel this soft connection to yourself. Let it expand with each breath. This is great to do at the beginning and at the end of each day.

5. check-in

Check in by first being aware of your stress triggers and how you have learned to switch-off to stress – in other words, your coping mechanisms. Stress is a normal part of life. However, we adopt patterns of negative behaviour in response to what we consider to be stress-provoking situations. For example, you might be someone who responds by not looking after their health. You ‘push through’. You may even drive yourself harder. Start noticing your responses to situations and to people. When you feel overwhelmed, overloaded, or what you consider stressed-out, pause, close your eyes and breathe. Ask yourself what triggered your response. Connect. Enjoy the calming effect this has on your wellbeing. Checking-in with yourself in this way can become automatic. Our brains are pattern-finding machines. Without new behaviours, the brain will reach for the old ones in response to our environments.

6. notice

Notice how you talk to yourself. On any given day, you are probably more self-critical than self-supportive. You might compare yourself to others and then the little monkey in your head starts critically chattering away. Or, you over-analyse conversations. When we are stressed, our negative self-talk can get out-of-hand. Choose one person in your life. Observe the conversations you have with yourself when you are with them and after you leave. Replacing negative self-talk with positive, compassionate thoughts takes time. When you start noticing your inner critic, you can choose alternative thoughts. Write some down and carry them with you during the day. Sometimes, I visualise myself as a goalkeeper in a soccer match. When old negative thoughts appear, I see them as the ball. As the goalkeeper, I intend to stop the ball from reaching the net. As keeper of my negative self-talk, I let that ball fly straight into the net. I don’t catch it! It feels great.

7. boundaries

Boundaries are many and varied. Boundaries (or lack thereof) can be about anything – from our intimate relationships to our work. I want to talk about the relationship we have with ‘time’ because I believe that it causes a great deal of unwanted stress. Everything you read these days instructs you on how to utilise your time. How to make different kinds of to-do lists. We are all obsessed in some way or another with ‘time’. We get up earlier hoping to achieve personal contentment before work. We stay up later, squeezing every inch out of our day. Or, we lie awake at night, worrying about what we haven’t done. Find that quiet spot, sit down and breathe slowly. Feel the connection. Accept that you will never, ever complete to-do lists. It is about doing what is of value to us. Sure, we have to work. We have to look after our children. But, we can choose to disconnect from the obsession with lists and time. Find what you value and do that first. Be present with it – and with everything you do.

And read Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Bukreman. Now, I make what Oliver calls a Done list. I love it.