My personal mindfulness teacher - my toddler

I'm very lucky to have spent almost every waking moment of the last two years with someone who is almost always in the present moment - my daughter. I have learned so much from her about experiencing the present especially over the last year when she has been able to take a more active part in exploring the world around her. I like to think of her as my personal mindfulness teacher.

Babies and toddlers love sensory play - experiencing different textures, sights, sounds and if mummy doesn't whip the item away quickly enough, tastes. When she plays with sand she explores how it feels squeezed in her hand, falling through her fingers, burying her toes and it is so interesting to join in with her - to notice the coolness of the sand, how it moves when poured from a cup, the feel of it falling between my fingers. Simply getting in touch with my senses like this can help me stay present for the rest of the afternoon.

She pays attention to sounds so much more than I do - it makes me realise how many sounds I tune out of everyday life. Not long ago, whenever we went out for walks she would constantly shout "pigeon" or "crow" when each one did a call and she still lets me know every time a plane flies over our house. She does the same with sights when we are exploring outside - she'll point out stones, leaves, insects, animals, birds and so much more. All the little details in life which I tend to tune out, she delights in.

Now that her vocabulary is developing further and she's able to make more specific demands, she is great at encouraging me to join her in play. Today, after helping her make paint handprints, she insisted that it was my turn to make a "splat". I don't like getting messy, so the idea of covering my hand in paint really didn't appeal but I'm glad I let those passengers on my bus and chose to have a turn anyway. My daughter loved painting my hand and I took the chance to be fully present - to notice the cold, slippery texture of the paint on my hand and drop any judgements about the experience. 

In several ACT mindfulness practices it is suggested to approach your experience like a curious scientist - I have been trying to look at it like a curious toddler, with that sense of wonder and fascination they naturally have towards all new things. I'm sure that there's still a lot more to learn by just slowing down and following my toddler's lead and I look forward to spending more time being present with her.

When happiness comes and sits on your shoulder.

Yesterday I had two moments where I noticed that I felt the feeling of happiness. The first was while I was sitting, watching my toddler peel and consume a clementine after lunch and the second was while I was watching my toddler splash in puddles in the deepening twilight after having taken the bin out together. Feeling the cool wind on my face, breathing the crisp autumnal air and watching the glee of my toddler, it's easy to see why I would feel contentment in that moment, but if I could replicate those exact same conditions tomorrow, would I feel the same? Maybe, but maybe not.

We can't control what feelings we have - doing something which was enjoyable one day won't necessarily be as enjoyable another day. We need to let go of the idea of chasing feelings because there are no guarantees when it comes to your feelings. There are plenty of times I have watched my toddler eat a clementine which haven't stirred any happy feelings and times when I've watched her jump in puddles while only feeling frustrated at the messy splashes on her clothes. 

Instead of chasing feelings, turn to your values. For example, doing exercise sometimes makes you feel great afterwards but if you only do exercise in order to feel great then if you just feel exhausted or sad afterwards you will be less motivated the next time. If instead, you have a value of good health to follow then you can choose to exercise regardless of the feelings it creates. If you do feel great afterwards then you can enjoy the nice bonus.

It is very easy to get caught up chasing feelings like happiness - doing things because it should make you happy. If these things don't leave you feeling happy you might wonder if there's something wrong with you or be left with a feeling of disappointment. 

It reminds me of the quote: 

"Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."

Yesterday I simply got on with my day - preparing meals, playing with my toddler, taking the bin out and happiness came and sat on my shoulder. I didn't have to do anything grand or unusual but still found happiness in the everyday.

Grieving - my story and application of ACT

The following is a piece about my personal experiences of grief after the loss of my friend and ACT mentor. It is only because of the self-observation skills I have built using ACT that I am even able to write about this. Everyone experiences grief differently and grieves differently depending on who it is that they lost. So you may find similarities with my experience or you may not and that's ok.

My grieving started with this thought: "F**k, f**k, f**k" repeated again and again. Not very eloquent, I know, but that's what it was. Meant as a more extreme and sweary form of "no, no, no" I realised I had, understandably, got into a struggle with my feelings. When I let go of that struggle, the tension building in my chest eased a bit, which was a nice bonus. The first thing I did was seek the support of my husband. I cried a lot that first night. I also fell back on an old agenda of control and ate a lot of cake, though it was like ash in my mouth. 

That night I was swamped with memories of my friend. I let myself experience them and cry as much as I needed but every time I felt myself going into denial I tried to drop the struggle. I tried to take a step back, getting into contact with the observing self and wondered why the mind bombards us with memories when we grieve. My guess (completely based on no science whatsoever) is that the mind is just trying to retrieve and show us all stored information about the person whom we have had an extremely distressed reaction about in an attempt to help us with the situation by providing all possible pertinent information. This can be excruciating, but imagining that my mind is doing it for a misguided reason along with getting into contact with the observing self took some of the sting out of it.

By the early hours of the morning I decided it was time to try and get some sleep, so I used the Defusion technique of leaves on a stream - every time a memory surfaced I placed it on a leaf to float away down the stream. This was quite intensive with the sheer amount of thoughts popping up but eventually the combination of Defusion and exhaustion managed to get me to sleep.

The next day I can only really describe as emotionally drowning. I carried on with my day as much as possible - I still had my toddler to look after, but the tv was doing a lot of babysitting that day. I had to ask for help to prepare food for myself because the moment I looked in the fridge to decide what meal to make I was simply repulsed by the idea of anything. I know from experience that when I'm in this state I will be able to force myself to eat if food is put in front of me and often feel somewhat better for doing so. I tried to ensure that I was willing to feel my feelings as much as possible and accept that this emotional storm had to take its course, taking heart that it would eventually pass.

The next days were filled with moments of normality, where I almost forgot my grief followed by gut punching sadness when it was remembered. I reached out to a friend and we both talked about our memories of Ross, what a great man he was and how he impacted both our lives. This conversation was incredibly helpful to me and even though it was painful at times, I felt a great sense of relief afterwards.

On the Friday and Saturday I felt a strange sense of disconnection - I was unable to cry and had a tense stress feeling in my stomach throughout the day. I didn't notice any psychological struggles going on, so as best as I could I tried to allow that feeling to be there. On the Saturday night I saw an older man walking past and angrily thought "why do you get to live to old age and Ross doesn't?" And with that thought the dam burst and I was able to cry again and the tension in my body eased. I'm not proud of that thought but at least it served a purpose in the progress of my grief.

I also wrote a tribute to my friend that week as a way of trying to express what he meant to me and to help me process what I was feeling. I intended only to publish it if I felt like it, safe in the knowledge that I could keep it to myself if I I wished to.

Time dilation

One thing I noticed in the first week of grieving was that time seemed to go a lot slower than normal. My parents-in-law had been staying the weekend the news broke and were to come back the next weekend, leaving Monday night and returning Thursday night. My mother-in-law commented that they were coming back so soon that it would feel like they never left. Usually, that would be the case, but I noticed this time that I felt like those three days were a solid week in length. I also met a friend on the Wednesday and the time between then and the following Monday when I saw him again at the funeral felt like at least two weeks. My days weren't particularly different from before so I can only assume that it was the grief that changed my perception of time passing.

Music

I've been listening to music a lot more than usual, especially when I'm in the car. I have chosen music that I find uplifting but that doesn't have such levity that it conflicts with my emotional state. I've avoided any melancholy songs which might further lower my mood. I was concerned at first that I was using music as a distraction to help me avoid my emotions but discovered that listening to music was actually helping me to open up to my feelings. In the quiet state I achieved while driving and listening, I found myself able to connect with how I was feeling in that moment. This became the most likely point I would be able to cry (not advisable while driving) other than the quiet time before falling asleep.

Sleep

Though I've managed to get myself to sleep ok most nights by using the leaves on the stream mindfulness exercise I've found the quality of my sleep has been quite bad. Lots of dreaming and restlessness. Unfortunately this sets me up for a poor start the next day and compounds the misery a bit but I think it will settle back to normal soon. Doesn't help that my toddler has a cold and wakes me 3-5 times a night too.

Discovering values

I have realised that these kind of life events can be an excellent opportunity to discover some values which had previously eluded us. Any regrets that arise about the person you have lost may indicate a value that you weren't following. See if you can work out any hidden values and then think how you can apply them to your future actions with others. It is too late to change your interactions with the person you lost but let their last gift to you be guidance for your future.

Two weeks on

Now I am more or less getting back to normal. I still get on average 2-3 moments of sadness each day but they are gradually decreasing in frequency and length. I try to make sure that I am willing to feel these as much as possible. My mind surprised me by on several occasions trying to convince me that I was mistaken and my friend was just still on sick leave. Thanks mind but that's not true.

The effectiveness of ACT

What has really bowled me over the last few weeks is how much the various ACT skills have helped me cope with this grief. My previous loss, 4 years before I started using ACT, made me very ill for a long time. The skill I found most essential for my grief was being willing to feel my emotions and drop the struggle with them. When we struggle with our feelings of grief and try to deny them and push them away we can cause ourselves a great deal of suffering. This kind of sadness can be frightening but opening yourself up to it means that you need only experience the original pain and not the additional pain brought on by pushing those feelings away. 

Defusion was another very helpful skill - when my thoughts were pulling me in too deep it was useful to be able to defuse from them. 

I also often used the observing self as a safe space to view my experience from.

Contacting the present moment was essential to help me drop anchor in my emotional storm - I tended to use mindfulness of the breath and notice 5 things to do this.

In my view, how well I have been able to cope with this grief, especially considering I am not even on antidepressants right now, is a testament to how amazing the ACT approach is. More than ever, I am sure of the value and potency of ACT and am greatly motivated to continue practicing it in my own life and teaching it to others.

The Juxtaposition of Celebrating Death and Birth

On Monday I said goodbye to my friend and mentor at his funeral. Those who knew him celebrated his life by sharing memories and tears with one another. It was beautiful and it was heartbreaking. We spoke of all he had achieved in life and what legacy he had left us. The next day was my daughter's 2nd birthday and we celebrated her life thus far, remembering the joyous changes she wrought in our lives and hoping for a rich, fulfilling future for her.

Having these two events occur in quick succession, one can't help but make comparisons. With a birthday there isn't the same heartache as with a funeral - the difficult thoughts of never seeing your friend again, the struggle with the fact that they deserved so much more time. But the celebration of their life feels very similar: how lucky we feel to have had that person be a part of our lives and commemorating their achievements to this point (even if those achievements, in the case of my toddler, are just learning to walk and talk). Instead of sadness at their passing we may feel worries for their future: "will I be a good enough mum to guide you through?" "How can I protect you from hardships in life when you are no longer under my care 24/7?" "I dearly hope that life will be kind to you." And these thoughts can carry their own special kind of pain.

The similarities I see make me realise the importance of the present moment - we may look backwards, we may look forwards, but the now is all we have. Let's make the most of it.

A tribute to my friend

Today an incredible man was laid to rest and the world is all the poorer for the loss of such a wonderful human being.

Ross Chernin was the clinical psychologist who first introduced me to ACT. He also wrote the ACT course I currently teach and I had the pleasure of teaching alongside him over 2 years.

He was a great proponent of ACT - not only using it in his work, teaching it to other professionals and bringing it to The Recovery College but also using it in his own life. He very much embodied the ACT philosophy in his everyday life and swore by how much it helped him personally.

Though I can never say for sure and as melodramatic though it may sound, the way my life was going before I met him, I suspect he may well have saved my life. I hate the irony of that - someone who so very much deserved a rich, fulfilling and long life saving the life of someone who desperately wanted to lose her own.

He was such a patient teacher - he spent hours going over every detail of the slides and exercises I was going to present in ACT on Life until I felt confident with the material and he always welcomed any ideas for changes and improvements. He saw in me an aptitude for ACT and helped me to make it flourish. He always believed in me even when I was so full of doubts. He gently encouraged me to push my boundaries but assured me he was always there to support me if I got stuck. He was always full of praise for my efforts even when I felt I had done poorly.

There was a wonderful cadence to his voice when he guided a mindfulness exercise, so much so that he would frequently warn the class about his soporific voice before starting. Every time he acted out the tug-of-war metaphor with a volunteer from the class it was so powerful that it never failed to bring a tear to my eye. But when I told him how good the metaphor was he would always be surprised and downplay it. I don't think he truly knew how great he was at what he did. His skill at using and teaching ACT was superb but he was far too modest and humble to ever realise it.

His enthusiasm for ACT and for life were infectious and I couldn't help feeling more positive in my outlook after each time I taught alongside him. He truly lead by example, using all the techniques he taught in his own life. I had a huge amount of respect for him and his profession.

When someone passes away it is natural for us to try and deify them, focusing on all the good they did and ignoring any bad, but even before his death I idolised him - he did so much to help others while being so open about his own struggles. He was so human, with the various faults and weaknesses that come from being human but he acknowledged them and was open about them and was always striving to improve himself.

I saw first hand how he helped so many people with a variety of mental health conditions, but these were just a handful of the lives he must have touched in his work. He had so much more to give to the world and it is so tragic and unfair that his life has ended at such a young age. Even in his final weeks he was planning to come back to work for short periods because his vocation was clearly a very important value to him and despite all the horrible symptoms he must have been experiencing he still wanted to carry on helping others. Many lesser people would have shut down and given up under those circumstances but through all that he still held on to his values and fully embraced the ACT ethos.

Ross, I hope you knew what a profound effect you had on my life and how dearly I will miss you. I was so very lucky to have known you and will never forget you. Rest in peace my friend.

If you would like to make a donation to The Brain Tumour Charity on Ross' behalf and for all those still battling this terrible illness then please follow this link to the JustGiving page set up in his memory. Make a donation.

Grieving: Funeral Fears

This week my ACT mentor and friend Ross passed away - so you can expect a fair amount of posts over the coming weeks about experincing grief.

The funeral is coming up soon and I have chosen to go because it is in line with my values and I think he would have liked me to go too (well, a friend assured me that would be the case at least.) However, I am struggling with the fear of what emotions might be induced at the funeral. I often wouldn't see him for months at a time and so I fear that despite all the grief I have already experienced this last week that maybe the reality of it has not truly hit me yet and likely will do so at the funeral. If that happens I will likely feel very vulnerable and the idea of being in that state while surrounded by strangers makes me very fearful. Thankfully I have a good friend for support who will also be there and support in place for when I come home.

When these thoughts and feelings come up the inevitable question gets asked - why not stay at home and avoid all that pain? If I avoided painful experiences that the funeral might bring up then I would be shrinking my life space and not being true to my values. It is important to me to show my respect and commemorate his life with others who knew him and the great things he did.

So I have resolved to go and in the meantime I am sitting with my fear when it appears and defusing any thoughts which accompany it. It is uncomfortable, but I know that if I struggle with it I will make the fear monster grow stronger. 

This is what I feel is best for me but if you are going through a similar situation then remember to do what works for you. Use your values to guide you and make sure you have the support you need in place. 

When I wrote this post and mentioned my fear of feeling vulnerable I remembered a YouTube video Ross often recommended and decided to rewatch it. It is incredibly relevant to what I am feeling now and once again it amazes me how he is still managing to impact my life even now. It is about the Power of Vulnerability, if you have a spare 20 minutes I highly recommend you watch it.

World Mental Health Day - raising awareness with golden cracks

In memory of Ross Chernin - he gave me the tools to help myself and for that I will be forever grateful.

1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 children will experience a mental health problem in a given year. In any given week 1 in 10 adults are suffering with depression. With such statistics it's hard to believe that we all talk so little about mental health and that there is still such stigma surrounding it.

It's time to stand up tall and let everyone know that I've had issues with my mental health and it's nothing to be ashamed of. This year, on World Mental Health Day, I am doing this by painting golden cracks on my face to imitate the Japanse art of Kintsugi.

Kintsugi, roughly translated as 'golden joinery', is a Zen tradition of repairing broken ceramics with a gold infused lacquer. It is a practice filled with respect for the item, rather than trying to hide the cracks, the gold lacquer makes a strong join while celebrating the damage endured along the way. In this way I want to proudly show that despite the many times that my mental health difficulties have broken me, I have taken great care to put myself back together again but that I also carry the history of those experiences with me and they are a part of who I am and make me, as a person, stronger and more beautiful than before.

By painting gold cracks on my skin I am showing others that I have experienced mental illness and also making the statement that I am not ashamed of it, I want to display it for all to see because it is a part of my history and a part of me. I want to let others know that they are not alone.

I hope that if this idea spreads well then we might be able to start showing each other that yes, I have experienced mental health issues too. You don't have to say anything more about it, but if you did want to, then it would be the perfect opportunity to start more open conversations about mental health and what we are all going through. I hope that one World Mental Health day in the future someone who is suffering from their own difficulties might open their Facebook feed and after seeing how many friends are wearing golden cracks that day, realise that they're not alone. I truly hope this encourages them to reach out.

For me, ACT is my gold infused lacquer, helping me join the pieces back together, stronger and more resilient than before and this blog is my way of showing off the beauty of those gold cracks to the world. Whatever tools you use to help you manage your illness I hope you will want to join in with me today and on future WMH days.

Please post your photos on the KUTA Facebook page and pass the idea on to your friends. If you have joined me today or in the future, then my heartfelt thanks. Before you go, please take a moment to look at some fundamental facts from the Mental Health Foundation in the slides below.

The mind demands to be heard

In the car today my toddler was saying "red car, red car, red car" again and again to me and it was only when I acknowledged her by saying "yes, there was a red car!" that she stopped saying it over and over.

This is a lot like dealing with our minds. When the mind comes up with a thought it demands to be heard - it will bring that thought up again and again no matter how much you try to ignore it. The best way to handle your mind is exactly the same as I handled my toddler - notice and acknowledge it. By acknowledging a thought you don't guarantee that it will stop straight away but it will pass in its own time and possibly more quickly than if you tried to ignore it. By ignoring it you are likely to get repeated occurrences of that thought until the mind feels like it has been heard. Acknowledging the thought doesn't mean you have to believe it or do what it says - it's simply noticing it's there and what it's saying. A simple "thanks mind" can help you defuse from the thought while acknowledging it.

When I acknowledged my toddler's thought about the red car she stopped repeating it over and over. However, just because you've acknowledged one thought doesn't mean the mind is finished with you, like my toddler, who after a short pause said, "orange car, orange car, orange car".

Finding purpose in pointless thoughts

Sometimes we have pointless thoughts pop up in our heads. Often these kind of thoughts pass quickly but sometimes they might linger and get you hooked up in them.

Yesterday I had one of those thoughts. On the weekend we had friends come to stay in our house with their children. The children were older than my daughter but she really loved playing with them. She copied everything they did and followed them everywhere they went. This thought came to mind and caught me in its net: "I wish I had children earlier so that my daughter could have an older brother or sister to play with like this." What a pointless thought! Nothing I do can change the past but I still managed to make myself feel bad that things weren't different.

By labelling the thought as pointless I had already done a shortened version of helpful questions for unhelpful thoughts but to be a little more kind to myself I asked if there was anything I could learn about myself from this thought? It confirmed for me that I wish to have more than one child and although my daughter won't ever have an older sibling to look up to, she could be that for another child if I do choose to have one in the future.

So just like that I had found purpose in that pointless thought and I was ready to defuse from it and carry on. I do find that there is often purpose to the thoughts my mind brings up, even if it does so very ineloquently and requires a bit of digging to discover the core idea it might be trying to convey. A word of warning though, be careful that your reflection doesn't turn into rumination. If you find that you are getting dragged in deep and can't find any purpose then maybe it is just time to defuse from the thought and let it go. Everyone's mind is different and you may find that more often than not there is nothing to find in your pointless thoughts. Just do what works best for you.

Empathy

Empathy can be a very powerful thing - it allows us to connect with others on a deep and personal level but it can also cause us a lot of distress depending on the circumstances.

I'm proud to have been gifted with a high amount of empathy, overall I would rather have empathy in my life than not, despite the emotional harm it causes me on occasion. I have to actively observe and manage my empathy or it can send me into a spiral.

Yesterday was one of those days, a student in my class shared an extremely distressing situation she has been recently going through with her family and afterwards I realised I was carrying it very heavily for the rest of the day. I got wound up in imagining how I would feel if that had happened to me and my family and got myself very fused with those thoughts. I was close to tears about something that has never and may never happen to me.

While that empathy was useful when in conversation with that person it was no longer helpful to me in the hours afterwards. This was a great chance to practice some Defusion. I started with asking a few questions like "is this thought helpful to me right now?" Well, I thought, it is not helping me in this moment but it is trying to tell me something - these thoughts and feelings are telling me how much I don't want this situation to happen to me and my family. I then realised that despite this empathetic reaction having dragged me down it was actually an amazing gift, so I thanked my mind for trying to help me. That woman hadn't seen these events coming and can't change what has happened but I have been given the opportunity to plan ways to prevent a similar thing happening to me and my family. This thinking process effectively defused me from the thought - rather than thinking from that woman's perspective I was thinking from my own perspective again, planning and thinking ahead. I was left with a much healthier sympathy for what the other woman was going through rather than being haunted by it as if it were my own pain. I allowed that feeling to sit with me and pass in its own time while continuing to get on with my day.

So what was key in this example was first noticing that I was getting fused with my thoughts and then practicing some Defusion to give myself a bit of space from those thoughts. This gave me the opportunity to look at them more logically and see what I could gain from this experience. Finally I practiced some acceptance on the feelings and took action on my values by simple carrying on with my day as planned despite those thoughts and feelings.

Empathy is a wonderful gift but it is important to notice when it is time to Defuse and move on.

The effects of caffeine

Today I presented another session of ACT at the Recovery College. I always get a bit of anxiety and stress during these sessions but today the effect was particularly pronounced, to the extent that I was physically shaking every time I stood up to talk. I started to wonder why I was getting such extreme emotions today - I have presented the course many times before and not experienced such anxiety. Then I remembered, just before the session started I had taken some paracetamol for a headache, but the only paracetamol I had to hand contained caffeine. Caffeine has been shown to enhance the painkilling effects of paracetamol and is quite commonly combined with it in certain brands of painkillers. I'll admit that my headache was very much gone for the morning, however the adverse effects of the caffeine were particularly marked for me.

In my teens I used to consume a lot of caffeine in the form of soft drinks and then energy drinks at university and then coffee and tea in my 20s. I never thought it was causing a problem - I was very dependent on its effects to keep me feeling awake. I'm sure that a lot of my dependence on caffeine was probably built up as I tried to counter the tiredness that came with the depression I developed in those same years. It was part of my agenda of control - when feelings of tiredness popped up I would automatically try to avoid them with caffeine.

When I became pregnant with my daughter almost 3 years ago I gave up caffeine completely for the sake of the little foetus developing inside me (as well as giving up alcohol but that's another topic for another time). Though it was hard to give up (hideous headaches and urges) I found that I didn't really miss it all that much in the longer term. After birth and the majority of breastfeeding I started to reintroduce caffeine occasionally - a cola with a meal out, a cup of tea here and there but I started to notice the sensations which the caffeine induced in me. It wasn't instant, so it was easy to miss the connection between the drink consumed and the emotions felt. For me it was a particularly jittery stress or anxious feeling. I would feel like I couldn't sit still and that I needed to take action. I also found myself being far more aggressive and snappy with others and generally more emotionally volatile. I also felt a lot less able to cope with everyday things. I found that I couldn't tolerate the thought of doing any of the things I usually like to do when under the influence of caffeine (like read a book or watch a film).

A distinctive feature of these caffeine induced feelings was that they seemed to appear from nowhere, though I noticed that my mind was very quick to come up with explanations - dredging up old hurts or worrying at everything that could go wrong in the future. The other feature of these feelings was that they were very resistant to acceptance techniques - though it isn't the purpose of acceptance and you can never guarantee it, I usually find that allowing and expanding around a feeling eases it somewhat. When I use these techniques with a caffeine induced feeling the feeling remains just as intense until the timer runs out on the caffeine and it finally goes through my system.

Now that I've observed what caffeine does to me, I have chosen to avoid it on most occasions because the detriments outweigh the benefits for me. When I do choose to consume caffeine I do it fully informed about what the effects are likely to be for me. I now know, through mostly trial and error, plus careful self-observation, what level of tiredness I need to be feeling for caffeine to have a beneficial effect on me.

Now that I have realised what caffeine does to me, I wonder if the use of caffeine actually contributed and worsened my depression in the past. When considering my usage in terms of the agenda of control I have no doubt that it was shrinking my life space but also making things worse in a number of other ways. The volatility worsened my relationships, the dislike of doing things I used to like enhanced the same effect which came from depression, it likely made my sleep worse and caused me to ruminate unnecessarily in an attempt to explain what I was feeling.

Obviously my reaction to caffeine could be rare but I imagine it affects many people in ways they don't realise. I wonder if a lot of aggression and discontentment in the workplace could be in part caused by the normalised use of caffeine in the workplace. If you think that caffeine could be impacting your life then I highly recommend you make attempts to lessen your use of it and see if that makes a difference for you.

My idea for WMHD - Kintsugi Face Paint

This year, on World Mental Health Day I will paint golden lines on my face to give the appearance of cracks repaired with gold lacquer like in the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi. Let me tell you why.

Kintsugi, roughly translated as 'golden joinery', is a Zen tradition of repairing broken ceramics with a gold infused lacquer. Rather than trying to hide the cracks, the gold lacquer makes a strong and beautiful show of where the pieces were broken and rejoined. It is a practice filled with love and respect for the item being carefully restored while acknowledging and celebrating the damage it has endured along the way. In this way I want to show that despite the many times that my mental health difficulties have broken me, I am still proud to be whole and have taken great care to put myself back together again but that I also carry the history of those experiences with me and they are a part of who I am and make me, as a person, stronger and more beautiful than before.

By painting gold cracks on my skin I am showing others that I have experienced mental illness and also making the statement that I am not ashamed of it, I want to display it for all to see because it is a part of my history and a part of me. I want to let others know that they are not alone.

If you would like to, please join me on October 10th and post your pictures to the KUTA Facebook page. Please pass this idea on to all who you think might be interested and let's show the world that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of.

Feelings - when the other half goes out for the day.

My husband and I work from home, so I'm very used to us both being in the house at the same time. However, it doesn't mean we necessarily see each other much during the day - he works in his office and I look after our toddler. We might cross paths at mealtimes but that's about it, so I'm used to being on my own with our toddler.

Today my husband left to visit his parents - a 6 hour round trip excluding stops, so he's going to be away for a full day and I found all sorts of distressing feeling surfacing the moment he left. It's not that my day is going to be particularly different to usual but just knowing he is not in the building has left me feeling desperately lonely, with a sadness that brings me close to tears.

This is a great chance to practice acceptance. I started by using the observer self to view my own emotions and then did a bit of objectifying feelings - looking at where the feelings are in my body, what size and shape they are, what colour and texture and then moving on to allowing those feelings to be there, breathing into and from them and expanding space around them. They didn't go away, that's not the purpose of the exercise, but I knew that they would move on in their own time and in the meantime I've eased some of the tension I had been building up around them.

Why did all these feelings emerge today just from the idea of my husband being away from the house, despite it actually making little difference to my day? Well it's understandable if I consider how my husband is a safety net for me if things go wrong during the day, so that would be a very natural source of worry. Also, the mind doesn't like change to the routine it is comfortable with and there could be an element of the prehistoric mind warning against letting a member of my group leave. So it is very reasonable that these feelings arose, I have no control over what emotions appear, but thanks to some simple ACT tools they didn't end up ruining the rest of my day.

The Importance of Doing What's Meaningful to You

When I first started teaching ACT as a peer tutor at my local NHS Recovery College I admit that I wasn't sure it was for me. I had only been working on values for a few weeks at that point but I had a sense that it was a direction I wanted to head in - I wanted to take ACT further and push a few of my boundaries, so I volunteered. Looking back, I'm so glad I did.

Today I have just returned from a planning meeting for the next term and I feel so positive and on the right track. This feeling helps confirm that I'm doing something that's really meaningful to me (though isn't guaranteed to turn up when you do something important to you, it's a nice bonus). It has been no easy ride and I've had to overcome many internal barriers to get where I am now, but I feel that I have greatly expanded my life space.

It is really important to do things that are meaningful to you - what that is can be deeply personal and very different from person to person. It doesn't have to be anything big, what's important is that it matters to you.

Have you taken a look at your values recently? Is there anything you could work on today to take you in a valued direction and help make your life more meaningful?

Illness and how to trust our instincts.

Have you ever felt unwell but been unable to communicate it to others? Do you tend to doubt yourself and not trust your instincts? Me too...

The last few days I have been feeling incredibly exhausted from the moment I wake, despite a good night's sleep. This tiredness then peaked in the afternoons where it took every bit of energy I had just to stay awake. I didn't know what was causing this and was starting to give myself a hard time for not managing to cope better with a bit of tiredness.

Today I was woken up by my darling toddler at 6am after a night of very little sleep for both of us and though I feel really tired, I feel so much more functional and able to cope than I have done the previous few days. This has made me realise in reflection that the tiredness I was experiencing was likely caused by my body fighting off a cold - I've been sneezing a lot and my husband experienced a similar bout of exhaustion last week. But without the standard indicators of a cold - a runny nose or a sore throat, it's hard to believe your own instincts that something is out of whack and very easy to fall into self-blame.

This got me thinking about how similar this is to the experiences of many people suffering mental illness - it's an invisible illness that may have no overt external signs but can have a huge impact on a person's ability to cope with everyday life. The tiredness I was experiencing was so hard to express to others and it is very easy for others to think that you're just hamming it up a bit (we all feel tired from time to time after all). It can be like this when you're trying to tell someone how depressed you feel - there are those people who seem to think that you're just feeling a bit sad and don't understand how debilitating it can be. Also, just like how I started to doubt that I was really that tired, when I used to be depressed I used to think that what I was feeling wasn't actually as bad as I thought it was, doubting my instincts and not seeking the help I needed.

I find that using mindfulness can be really useful for getting back in touch with your instincts and for being able to step back from your experiences and just observe them for what they are. From the observer standpoint it can be a lot easier to decide on a course of action. Sometimes we can become so wrapped up in our thoughts about an experience that we end up ignoring our initial impressions. Though don't forget, sometimes the mind can come up with some very useful suggestions - my mind reminded me that I haven't been getting much exercise recently and it was a reasonable idea that my exhaustion could have come from my lack of activity. In the end I just needed to ride it out and the reason became obvious on its own - a good dose of acceptance was needed for this.

If you're experiencing symptoms such as exhaustion for an extended period of time then please contact your doctor to rule out potential health complications.

Autumn Mindfulness

Autumn is in the air, so it's a great time to take a look at some mindfulness practice we can do in this beautiful season.

Colourful Leaves

Now is the season where leaves start to change colour from green to all shades of red, orange, yellow and brown. Look at the variety of colours in the trees and leaves on the ground. Take one leaf and look closely at it - observe the texture of the leaf, is it rough or smooth, how does it feel in your hands, is it warm or cool, is it all one colour or does the colour vary across the surface, are there spots and flecks, are the edges flat or curved?

Sweeping Leaves

This is a classic mindfulness practice. While sweeping leaves try to keep your attention on the feel and action of sweeping. It is common for our minds to wander during monotonous tasks so when you notice your mind has wandered just acknowledge it and gently bring your attention back to sweeping. Your mind may wander hundreds of times but just keep bringing it back. 

The Sounds of Autumn

Take a moment to listen to the sounds around you - the rustle of the wind through the leaves, the creak of the tree branches, the changing birdsong as birds start to migrate. It can be surprising how many sounds we miss when we're not actively listening.

The Leaf Stomp

This one I learned from my personal mindfulness tutor - my toddler. Stamp on every leaf in sight and delight in the sound and feel of the crunchy leaves beneath your feet. Kick the piles of leaves (as long as you're sure nothing is sleeping in there) and watch how they fall and settle back on the ground.

Autumn Memories

Take a deep breath and notice the slight smell of decay in the air as the leaves start turning to mulch to ready the soil for Spring's new growth. You may notice the smell of bonfire smoke at this time of year too. What other things can you smell? Our sense of smell can conjure up some strong memories - what are you reminded of? Halloween celebrations? Childhood memories of playing in the park? If you want to, spend some time with those memories, but if unpleasant memories are stirred then acknowledge them and allow them to pass in their own time. Don't forget to bring yourself back to the present moment when you're done - observing the sights, sounds and smells around you or by simply focusing on your own breath.

Corbyn's views on mental health

I was heartened by Jeremy Corbyn's answer to a question posed to him and Owen Smith about the mental health crisis this country is facing in the Victoria Derbyshire Labour Leadership debate the other day. I don't want to get too political in this blog but I feel that his answer demonstrated a real understanding of the challenges faced by those suffering mental health conditions and some good ideas for moving forward.

"We do face a mental health crisis in this country. One in four of us are going to face a crisis during our own lifetimes. We can do two things. One is change our language and change our approach and change our attitudes so that young people don’t suffer in silence and fear of talking about it, and sadly some even take their own lives as a result of it. We can do a lot in that respect."

This really resonates with me because of the ignorance and fear I have witnessed from my own family members in the past, let alone various acquaintances through the years. If I hadn't grown up believing that my own difficulties were something to be ashamed of and to hide then perhaps I would have gotten the help I needed sooner. I hate to think of others in similar situations suffering in silence because of the small-minded attitudes of those around them. I often talk about the statistics in the ACT course I co-present and I'm sure I'll dedicate a post to them at some point in the near future. It is amazing to think that so many of us experience mental health difficulties at some point in our lives but there is still such stigma surrounding mental health. I would love to see a government working towards changing the way mental health is viewed in this country.

"Secondly, absolutely invest in good quality, immediate talking therapies and support for those going through a crisis. If you’ve gone through, or are in the midst of a crisis, and you go to your GP, and you say ‘I’m going through a mental health crisis’, a good GP would do something for you immediately. A less effective GP would, say, put you on a waiting list for talking therapy in a month’s time or seeing a psychiatrist in six weeks’ time or something like that. It’s got to be there and available and immediate."

This would be great to see in action. Throughout the years I have personally experienced the delays and waiting lists he speaks of here. When you need to speak to someone about mental health you need to speak to them right then, not at some point in the distant future. I know what a huge step asking for help can be to someone struggling with, in my case, depression and to be told that you won't be talking to someone for weeks or even months can be so disheartening. Obviously the funding has to be there to support it, but Corbyn's assertion of making these therapies available and immediate is very heartening and hopefully shows a potential of a brighter future for those in need of mental health services.

When disaster strikes - how I've changed.

Look what happened to my phone the other day - I wasn't holding it firmly and the cat, being too friendly for his own good, knocked it out of my hand. "So what?" I can hear you say. "Happens to people all the time." Indeed it does and my intent is not to moan about it but to share with you how my response to such an accident has changed since practicing ACT.

In the past this sort of accident would have knocked me for a hell of an emotional loop. I would have spent ages internally screaming at myself for being so stupid and clumsy. I would have called myself an idiot and all other manner of hurtful names. I would have shouted angrily at the cat and probably ignored him for days. I would have felt a burning fury at myself and got caught in a loop of trying to will it not to have happened with a kind of temple popping, breath-holding intensity. It would have brought up intense feelings of worrying and distress about money (regardless of how well or poor our finances are at the time). There would have been a lot of inconsolable crying. This cycle of emotion and hateful self-talk would have continued at varying intensity for several days minimum, if not weeks.

But all that didn't happen on this day and I think it really nicely demonstrates how far I've come and how much emotional resilience I've managed to build up through using ACT techniques. What actually happened is at first there was the inevitable string of expletives and then I could feel a surge of emotion coming my way so I called through to my husband for support (mainly to look after my daughter while I had what I thought would be a little break down). Once my daughter was safely being looked after I allowed myself to feel the feelings of frustration and sadness at breaking my phone and accepted that it was an accident which I can't change. I spoke to my husband about our finances and yes, this came at a really unfortunate time and I'll have to wait a few months until we have enough spare cash for a new phone. This brought up a very old and familiar story for me - the "we have no money" story which always brings along a host of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. I acknowledged it for what it was - just a story my mind was telling me and let it pass in its own time. The amazing thing was that the turnaround from the upsetting event to me getting back on as normal was under half an hour. I was prepared to get further waves of turmultuous thoughts and emotions about the phone later on - I was ready to defuse and accept - but very few even turned up and the ones that did I dealt with almost automatically. Defusion and acceptance can be quite a heavy going conscious effort when you are first practicing and I previously doubted that they could become automatic but it seems that I have actually managed to start retraining my brain in this way.

So I guess the point of this post is to say keep on practicing ACT in your daily life because it really is making a difference in the long term, even if you can't see the immediate effects right now, you may well see how far you've come further down the line.

The Mind - I Love...

     My mind surprised me today with a simple sentence out of the blue. It said “I love being a mummy.” What surprised me most is that this was the first time my mind had said this to me unprompted. I've been a mummy now for nearly two years and it has been amazing - there is no doubt in my mind, despite all the inevitable ups and downs, I absolutely do love being a mum. But my mind, doing what minds do, tends to always emphasise the negative. I've lost count of how many times my mind has told me that “I hate being a mummy”, “I don't want to be a mummy anymore”, “I'm a bad mother” etc. This is why it was such a pleasant shock to hear the opposite today.

     So why is this? Why does my mind always barrage me with negatives rather than bolster me with positives? Well it goes back to our 'stone-age minds’. Back in prehistory our minds evolved to be a very effective don't-get-killed device. It was useful for our ancestor’s minds to warn them of dangers - the stone-age man who is wary of potential predators when outside was far more likely to survive than the man whose mind always tells him “I love being outside”.

     Now, in the present day, our minds carry on this legacy in the form of negative commentary. That's why the mind far more often says things like “I hate being a mummy” than “I love being a mummy”. It's trying to ensure our safety by going on and on about things we find difficult, and being a parent is difficult, incredibly rewarding but at times so very difficult. 

     So next time your mind is giving you a hard time just thank it - “thanks mind” - it is just trying to do it's job after all!