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Blog Everyday Thriving General Wellbeing Practices

Eco-diving, Mindfulness, and the Art of Buoyancy in Daily Living

As a diver, I am captivated by the underwater world’s wonder, beauty, and diverse range of life. However, with this fascination comes the responsibility to experience the underwater realm in a way that respects and preserves its delicate ecosystems. This has led me to adopt the principles of eco-diving, mindfulness, and buoyancy, which have not only transformed my diving experiences but also profoundly impacted my daily life.

I now view everyday life as a journey filled with challenges, choices, and opportunities for growth. Amidst the hustle and bustle, I have found unexpected inspiration and guidance. The principles of eco-diving, which focus on minimizing our impact on the environment, have taught me to be more mindful of my actions and their consequences. Mindfulness, which involves being present at the moment and observing my thoughts and emotions without judgment, has helped me develop a greater sense of self-awareness and emotional regulation. The concept of buoyancy, which refers to the ability to control one’s depth and movement underwater, has taught me the importance of balance and adaptability in all aspects of life.

Here are some nuggets of wisdom I have learned along the way that I feel are worth sharing:

As I navigate the aisles of grocery stores or scroll through online shopping platforms, I am often reminded of the impact of my choices on the environment. Inspired by eco-diving, I have begun to prioritize sustainability in my purchases. Opting for reusable products over single-use plastics, choosing items with minimal packaging, and supporting eco-conscious brands have become small yet meaningful steps toward reducing my ecological footprint. While seemingly insignificant, these choices collectively contribute to a more sustainable lifestyle that aligns with my values and commitment to protecting the planet.

Amid busy schedules and never-ending to-do lists, it has become crucial to have moments of mindfulness to maintain my mental well-being. Drawing inspiration from my experiences underwater, where every breath serves as a reminder to stay present in the moment, I am trying to incorporate mindfulness practices into my daily routine. Whether it is taking a moment to fully appreciate the aroma of my morning coffee, enjoying a brief walk to appreciate the beauty of nature, or doing breathing exercises before bed, these moments of stillness help me to stay grounded in the present and provide a sense of tranquility amidst the chaos of life.

Although I do not get to go diving very often, my passion for marine conservation goes beyond just exploring the ocean’s depths. After seeing the positive impact of community-driven initiatives while eco-diving, I have actively sought opportunities to contribute to local conservation efforts. This has included participating in beach clean-ups, volunteering with environmental organizations, and promoting sustainable practices within my community as much as possible. Through these experiences, I have realized the power of collective action in preserving our planet. They have allowed me to make a more significant impact and given me a sense of connection and purpose that goes beyond myself.

In a world that can often feel chaotic and overwhelming, it has become a constant pursuit to master the art of buoyancy, both underwater and in daily life. As I adjust my buoyancy to maintain stability in the water, I have learned to navigate life’s ups and downs with resilience and adaptability. Trying to prioritize self-care, setting boundaries, and embracing imperfection have become invaluable tools to maintain balance amidst life’s challenges. While the journey towards equilibrium may be ongoing, each moment of grace and resilience serves as a reminder of the inherent strength within myself.

Despite the demands of modern life, I have made a conscious effort to reconnect with nature in meaningful ways. I take leisurely walks and pause to admire the beauty of the sky. These moments of communion with the natural world nourish my soul and replenish my spirit. The awe inspires me, and the wonder I experience underwater has helped me appreciate the intricate beauty of the world around me and the profound interconnectedness of all living beings.

As I continue to learn and navigate the complexities of consumer culture, I have become increasingly mindful of my consumption habits and their impact on the planet. Drawing from the principles of buoyancy control, which emphasize awareness of one’s surroundings, I have cultivated a more conscious approach to shopping and consumption. Whether reducing waste, opting for sustainable alternatives, or supporting local artisans and businesses, each choice reflects my commitment to being a responsible steward of the Earth’s resources.

One of the most important lessons I learned from my experiences underwater is the power of community and collaboration in bringing about positive change. Last year, I went on a solo dive trip with the Coral Reef & Rainforest Conservation Project (CRCP). I witnessed firsthand how eco-divers work together to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems. Since then, I have been actively seeking opportunities to collaborate with like-minded individuals and organizations in my community. Whether joining forces for environmental advocacy, volunteering for conservation projects, or simply sharing ideas and resources, these collaborative efforts remind me of our collective strength in shaping a more sustainable future.

The principles of eco-diving, mindfulness, and buoyancy can guide us toward a more conscious, connected, and compassionate existence in our daily lives. These timeless truths can help us navigate the complexities of modern living and find solace and inspiration. Embracing the journey with an open heart and a sense of wonder can lead us to a more fulfilling life. As a diver, I have learned valuable lessons by adopting these principles, becoming a more responsible and balanced individual who strives to positively impact the environment and the people around me.

References:

https://biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/sustainability/live_more_sustainably.html
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/3-ways-help-consumers-make-more-sustainable-choices
https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/how-to-be-more-eco-friendly
https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/resource-efficiency/what-we-do/sustainable-lifestyles
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-mindful-consumption-why-cultivate-restful-world-khan-bhaduri
https://coralreefandrainforestconservationproject.org/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698923002783
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815020200

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Blog Wellbeing Practices

Living The Way Of The Force: Fostering Mindfulness As Taught By Star Wars

Qui-Gon: “Do not center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan.
Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs.”

Obi-Wan: “But Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future.”

Qui-Gon: “But not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, young Padawan.”

*** 


Spoiler warning: This article contains references from scenes in the Star Wars movie franchise. Reader discretion is advised as these references may be spoilers for those who have yet to watch the movies.

The Force has always been an enigmatic, mysterious concept in the Star Wars universe harnessed by both Jedi and Sith alike that fuels their abilities and lightsabers; and has been thought of as an “invisible energy” that ties every being in the universe together. In order for The Force to be harnessed, one must look insightfully into themselves to find a balance between the light and the dark parts within; to attune oneself into the present moment; and expand one’s awareness of thoughts, emotions, and sensations, allowing them to simply “just be” without judgment  and letting go of them when need be.

The ways in which Star Wars’ The Force has been described and harnessed by its users can often be interpreted as a fantastical analog to the present-day concept and experience of mindfulness, a way of doing things and living life that has been practiced and used in different therapies (especially those of the Cognitive-Behavioral family of therapies such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) to help people live meaningful lives while acknowledging and tolerating suffering as an essential human condition, and accepting and enacting change within ourselves and with others.

It is a well-known fact that Star Wars hugely borrows a multitude of motifs and themes from different cultures and spiritualities. The nature of The Force and much of the Jedi way of life borrows their motifs from the spirituality of Zen Buddhism (“Zen”, for short)— not a religion or ideology, but a way of living and the manner by which a person thinks or does things mindfully. The Jedi Code, the code that guides the way of Jedi life and their morals, is closely inspired by The Four Noble Truths of Zen Buddhism.  These Noble Truths were taught by The Buddha himself and dissects upon the nature of suffering, how we may transcend beyond that suffering, and how we may live meaningful lives despite suffering: The First Truth, The Reality of Suffering; The Second Truth, The Cause of Suffering; The Third Truth, The End of Suffering; and the Fourth Truth, The Eightfold Path Leads to Nirvana (or simply called “enlightenment” or “awakening”,  freedom from suffering).

Zen considers suffering as a fundamental condition of humanity through The First Truth, where life is not without physical and mental suffering, and emotional stress. We simply cannot live perfect lives and run from suffering.  The Second Truth teaches us that suffering is not random at all, and comes from the attachment to desires, our moving goalposts— our should haves, would haves, and shouldn’t haves— and our pursuit of and hanging on to impermanent, fleeting pleasures. In this pursuit and effort to satisfy and hold on to our desires and material wants that are essentially impermanent, these desires and material wants are destined to be lost that would in turn, lead to our disappointment, regret and pain. We see this in the example of Anakin Skywalker, who would later become the infamous Darth Vader after he is consumed with his fears. He becomes extremely attached to Padme Amidala, and encounters a vision of her dying in the future. Consumed by the future and his fear of losing her, he seeks to become more powerful by heeding his Dark Side, allowing himself to be overridden by his emotions in an effort to prevent his fears. Out of his fear of losing who it was that he was most attached to, he stopped at nothing to attempt to prevent that from happening— even if he must upturn the galaxy and harm the innocent. 

***

Yoda: “Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.”

Anakin: “I will not let these visions come true, Master Yoda.” 

Yoda: “Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force… [Extreme] Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.”

Anakin: “What must I do, Master Yoda?”

Yoda: “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose”

***

But if life is not without suffering, and that it is a fundamental, inevitable condition of humanity, how then, can we be freed from it? The Third Noble Truth answers this, as supported by Master Yoda’s wisdom above: by letting go. In order to alleviate the effect of suffering on our lives, we must first remember its source: attachment to impermanent desires and material wants. While it is perfectly human to desire and want, it is the tenacious chase over often-unrealistic desires and wants that we cannot fulfill as well as with the fear of losing already-attained pleasures that fills us with pain. We often mistakenly illusion ourselves that it is want and desire that holds on to us in a vice grip. We are conditioned that we must absolutely “get that job”, “own that big house”, “have a complete family”, or “make it big” in life. While these are ideal, can contribute to a meaningful life, and would be amazing to all have in our very own lives, we find that the world is never ideal. When despite our best efforts and resources we languish still chasing after these—perhaps, we can take a pause and discern with our wisdom if these goals still work for us realistically. Zen teaches us that it is we who clutch over these wants and desires— that we are indeed empowered to decide to loosen our own grip over them and ultimately let go of things that no longer work for us.  

Suffice to say, mindfully “letting go” can be easier said than done. It is not something we can do overnight. It is a habit, a process, a series of learned behaviors that we must cultivate over time and train ourselves that it all becomes easier in the long run. In the same vein, we look at when Master Yoda trains a young Luke Skywalker in Dagobah. Luke, being a new Force-user, attempts to Force-pull his crashed ship out from sinking in the swamps with little yield and readily gives up. Master Yoda admonishes him, “You must unlearn what you have learned. Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” Thereafter, Master Yoda shows what a lifetime (in his case, over eight hundred years) of practice of The Force, a lifetime of meditation and practice of The Jedi Code cultivates this ability in incremental steps. These incremental steps of practicing mindfulness and training our minds to let go more readily, when done daily, snowballs in weeks, to months, and to years of mastery. We then see Luke in the more recent The Last Jedi movie, now a Jedi Master as was once Yoda before him, with the ability to easily muster the power of his mind and The Force exponentially more than when he was first trained in Dagobah. We often stop ourselves short on our own journeys towards changing the way we think towards wellbeing, telling ourselves punitively, “I can’t change,” or that “I’ll always be like this”. To circle back on Master Yoda’s words: “Do, or do not.” Like Luke’s journey of mastering his own mind and The Force, we must start somewhere, anywhere and decide to take the first step, keeping one foot after the other day after day in training our own minds to be more mindful.

It then becomes a question of “how” we can cultivate a habit of readily and mindfully letting go of wants and desires that no longer serve us. This is where the Fourth Noble Truth of Zen comes in: The Eightfold Path. This Eightfold Path is a fundamental teaching in Buddhism that outlines the path towards the alleviation of suffering, consisting of eight interdependent and interconnected steps that guide us toward ethical conduct, mental discipline, and wisdom, ultimately leading us to health and well-being where we strike the balance between the extremes of self-indulgence and total self-denial (hence, The Eightfold Path also dubbed “The Middle Way”).  The Middle Way resonates powerfully with the canonical, alternate version to the original Jedi code (often criticized for having been written in an extremist perspective of only validating our “Light” sides) in newer Star Wars media, that establishes harmony with the Sith Code (which has also been written as an extremist perspective of only validating our “Dark” sides). In finding this synthesis with the Sith code, the existence of emotion is valued and heeded with peace, ignorance is forgiven and equipped with knowledge, passion is tempered by serenity, we find harmony with our chaos, and death or impermanence is accepted as a part of life. Hence, the balance between Light and Dark is struck, the duality of our persons and reality itself made meaningful and nuanced. 

***

Emotion, yet peace.

Ignorance, yet knowledge.

Passion, yet serenity.

Chaos, yet harmony.

Death, yet the Force.

An alternate version of The Jedi Code from the comic, Star Wars: Kanan 7th issue

***

Among these steps in The Middle Way  or The Eightfold Path is The Right Mindfulness in cultivating this balance over our “Light” and “Dark” sides. What is mindfulness, exactly? Mindfulness has to do with the quality of awareness or the quality of presence one brings to daily living. In her Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Manual, psychologist and Zen practitioner Marsha Linehan (2014) defines mindfulness as “a set of skills, a practice of intentional observing, describing, and participating in ‘what is’ nonjudgementally, without attachment in the moment, and with effectiveness”. Mindfulness as a practice is the repeated effort of directing the mind back to awareness of the present moment; a repeated effort of letting go of judgements and letting go of attachment to current thoughts, emotions, sensations, activities, events, or life situations.  To better understand mindfulness, we talk about “what” it is and “how” it is done. 

On “what” mindfulness is, it is:

  1. Observing. It is attending to events, emotions, and behaviors without necessarily trying to put a stop to them when they’re uncomfortable or painful, or trying to prolong them when they’re pleasant. It is allowing yourself to experience and tolerate with awareness, in the moment, whatever is happening, rather than leaving a situation  or trying to put an end or prolong an emotion. It also includes the ability to discern whether an event, an emotion or behavior is coming up and being able to decide to step back and let go if need be. 
  2. Describing. It is applying verbal labels to internal and external events that we’re able to exercise effective communication with others so that they may understand us, and allows us to recognize the happenings in our internal worlds— our thoughts, emotions, and sensations— so that when they’re recognized, we are then able to decide how to treat with them. 
  3. Participating. It is the ability to participate with our attention and being able to enter oneself completely into the goings-on and events of the current moment, without completely separating from them. 

On “how” mindfulness is done, we would think about how we can mindfully observe, describe, and participate:

  1. Nonjudgementally. It is quite human to judge, to evaluate things and events such as emotions or thoughts as “good” or “bad”. Instead, what mindfulness encourages us to do is to take a nonevaluative approach, wherein we drop our judgements of things and events as either falling in the binary of “worthwhile” and “worthless”; and rather see things happening as simply, outcomes or consequences of behaviors and events. Because of this shift in understanding, we learn to see that when these behaviors and events cause destructiveness and suffering upon oneself and/or others, we can uphold the space to decide on changing these behaviors or events. 
  2. One-Mindfully. This is about focusing the mind and awareness in the current moment’s activity, rather than splitting attention among several activities or between a current activity and thinking about something else in auto-pilot mode. Often, we’re distracted by thoughts and images of the past, worries about the future, relentless and punishing thoughts about our problems and our negative moods; that we forget to live in the present moment for what it is. When doing things one-mindfully, we focus our attention on one task at a time, engaging in it with alertness, awareness, and wakefulness.
  3. Effectively. Being mindful entails focusing on what works, rather than what is “right” versus “wrong”, or “fair” versus “unfair”. Being effective means allowing yourself to let go of the need to be or feel “right”. This determination to be “right” can in itself, be self-defeating, unrealistic, and sometimes harmful. However, we must strike a balance between validating our own perceptions, judgements, and decisions as “right” to an extreme, and giving in extremely such that we invalidate ourselves completely. 

An exemplary example of mindfulness being illustrated in the Star Wars franchise is when Rey meets Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, coming forward under his tutelage and asking him about the true nature of The Force. She has very little idea of what harnessing The Force means, and so, he invites her to meditate and experience it for what it is. During this mindfulness exercise that he invites her to do, a meditative practice, she closes her eyes and attunes her full attention to what exists around her in the present moment— things often taken for granted when our attention is stuck thinking about the past and the future. Rey, during this meditative scene, perceives the world around her, accompanied by a visual montage that shows us that we can focus our attention to even the smallest and simplest of external things and events (such as the grass, the sunlight, the sound of the waves and creatures around her), and that doing so cultivates our ability to become mindful. 

***

Luke: Sit here, legs crossed [tapping to a rock]. The force is not a power you have. It’s not about lifting rocks. It’s the energy between all things, a tension, a balance, that binds the universe together. Close your eyes. Breathe. Just breathe. Reach out with your feelings. What do you see?

Rey: The island. Life. Death and decay, that feeds new life. Warmth. Cold. Peace, and violence. 

Luke: And between it all…?

Rey: …balance. Energy. A Force.

Luke: And inside you…?

Rey: Inside me, that same force.

***

When Luke invites her to look inward, Rey finds that she can also be mindful of her internal workings, an awareness of both her Light and Dark, her hopes and fears. As she sits in meditation, she’s slowly led by her mind into her dark place. The emotions of anger and fear are ushered into her consciousness as dark imagery overwhelms her. She doesn’t resist the Darkness within her, but still acknowledges it; rather than to turn a blind eye to it and deny its existence. At times, our Dark side exists and resurfaces, simply mechanisms that have protected us in the past hard-wired overtime. Like Rey, we can see our Dark sides as what they are, see them eye-to-eye, acknowledge them and discern what it is they are telling us. In the words of Master Luke, “It offered you something you needed.” 

While The Force doesn’t exist in our galaxy, we can still learn from how The Jedi use it to guide their lives. We can use these lessons about the Force as a gateway to studying mindfulness and putting practices into action.

Ready to live The Jedi Way and practice mindfulness in your everyday life? Here are some mindfulness practices that you can do:

In the words of Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn, he reminds us, “Remember, concentrate on the moment. Feel, don’t think. Use your instincts.” He reminds a young Anakin before his podrace to be present in the current moment, to free his mind from distractions and overthinking. 

Practice

  • Choose one activity that you do daily. It could be preparing or eating a meal, drinking your favourite beverage, listening to music, taking a walk outside or doing an exercise.
  • For five minutes, use your senses— touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing— and focusing your full attention to notice the sensations around you, whether it be the temperature of your beverage, how the soles of your feet touch the ground as you walk, or the the flavor of what you’re eating. 
  • When you notice your mind wander to anything else that is not in the present moment, acknowledge the distraction briefly, and redirect your attention to the activity that you are doing and the sensations that come with it. 

Just like Jedi Masters who equip their Padawans (or students) with the practice of The Force, there are people in our lives that have helped us and made us who we are, supporting us along the way to become better and towards living a more meaningful life. For these things and people, we learn to count them as gifts that we may have taken for granted and only realize to give thanks when we pause. Remembering the people and things we are thankful for can help our minds mindfully attune to the positive things in our life.

Practice:

  • Select any blank notebook as your gratitude journal. You may also use a document on a computer, or an app on your phone. 
  • Either just after you wake or right before bed, write down the date and at least three things or people you are grateful to have in your life, and write a sentence (or two) about why they make you feel this way. Your gratitude can be for something big or small. 
  • Occasionally look back through the journal and notice how much you have been grateful for. When you can, thank the people who have played a part in what you’re grateful for!

In a moment of redemption in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren converses with the memory of his father, Han Solo, and voices out about his struggle to let go of his extreme anger, that which fuels his Dark Side, “I know what I have to do [to let go], but  I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” To which his memory of his father replies to him, “You do.” In the same way, when we feel extremes of emotion, we feel like we have no control over them and are gripped by them. Mindfulness enables us to acknowledge our extreme waves of emotion and allow us to ride them until they tide over, tolerating them until we return to equilibrium. 

Practice:

  • Whenever you think of an uncomfortable emotion, pause and notice it. Acknowledge what you are thinking (i.e. “I’m thinking that I’m not good enough”, “I’m having the thought that I might make a mistake.”) or what you’re feeling (i.e. “I don’t feel confident” or “I noticed I’m feeling anxious.)
  • As you notice your feelings, observe everything about it. How does your body react to it? What are the sensations you’re feeling? Perhaps you feel tension in your jaw, or your back muscles, or that you’re breathing much more quicker. Also notice how long you’re lingering on the thought or emotion. 
  • Ask yourself, “What are my feelings telling me? What is it that my body needs?” Perhaps it is to re-evaluate what we are doing, or to take a break and rest, or to advocate for ourselves and our needs.  
  • Remind yourself that feelings are temporary and will dissipate in due time, or can be likened like a wave that gets smaller as it reaches the shore. You may remind yourself, “This feeling will pass.” while stepping back and practicing techniques that help your body reach equilibrium (see: body scan and mindful breathing below).

The Jedi practice being attuned to the sensations of their body, with their body to keep them in fighting fit form in protection of the innocent. With this attention to the state of their body and cultivating a more in-touch relationship with it,  we are more able to notice the way our body reacts to certain events and emotions, and when we’ve acknowledged these, we are signaled to listen to what it is we need to care for ourselves. 

Practice: 

  • Sit down on a chair in your most relaxed position. Take deep breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth slowly to center yourself. You may close your eyes or open them— whatever is most comfortable for you. 
  • Starting with your left foot, scan every part of your body— each toe, each joint— with your mind. The speed at which you scan depends on how much time you have, but the slower, the better. 
  • As you scan, note any sensations you feel, without focusing on why you might feel them. You may also sense nothing more than your internal systems doing their thing. That’s okay.
  • After you’ve scanned your body from your toes to your scalp, expand your awareness to your body as a whole. Focus on your breath, and gently open your eyes if they were closed, and bring yourself back in to the present. 

As Master Luke trains Rey in harnessing The Force, he instructs her to, “Breathe. Just breathe.” While breathing is an automatic thing that our body does, we forget that it is something readily accessible to us to focus our minds on, with concentration and attention that helps us build our ability to become more mindful. Mindful breathing can help us concentrate and center ourselves in moments of emotional distraction and turmoil. Taking a moment for a few, deep, calming, oxygenating breaths can be useful before, during, and after situations that may be stressful to bring us back to balance. 

Practice:

  • Sit with your back supported in a comfortable chair and your feet on the floor. Place your hand on your stomach. Close your eyes. 
  • Breathe in through your nose in four counts, feeling your stomach instead of your chest rise.
  • For the next four counts, hold the breath in your lungs, then for the next four counts, exhale through your mouth with pursed lips. Feel your stomach deflate slowly as you exhale. 
  • As you’ve completely exhaled, count to four before taking an inhale once more.
  • Repeat at least three more cycles of this. Notice the sensation of the air going through your nose, through the back of your throat and into your lungs. Notice as well the rising and falling of your hands on your stomach, keeping your attention to the act of breathing. 
  • Should your mind start to wander, notice it wandering and acknowledge the distraction, gently bringing back your attention to your breath each time. 

Throughout the earlier movies (original and prequel trilogy) and media of the Star Wars franchise, The Force was thought to only be an ability that could only be accessed by a few gifted individuals who were taken to train under the Jedi or the Sith. In the newer movies (sequel trilogy), this is re-written. Luke teaches Rey under his tutelage in the sequel trilogy’s The Last Jedi that The Force is not a superpower, it is an energy that she can harness and has no owner; it moves freely within and among the beings of the universe. The Force belongs to every being. It is no longer about genetics (or midi-chlorian count), no longer about intelligence. It is simply anyone’s ability to notice without judgment, exactly like mindfulness. It is simply an ability that can be honed in due time when practiced. Like a muscle trained to lift in increasing incremental amounts, we, too— regardless of background, of stature, of origin— can train our own minds to become more mindful.  Luke’s messages are powerful, in the same way that we are empowered knowing our thoughts, feelings, and impulses are simply material that flows within us and do not define us.

And like every Padawan in the quest of seeking mastery of The Force under a Jedi Master; we too, can seek help to empower ourselves in strengthening our capacity for mindfulness, either through reading books or articles, watching videos or documentaries, attending workshops and seminars, and enlisting the help of a trained mental health professional to help us train ourselves to become mindful in daily practice. With commitment to making it a habit like how the Jedi practice meditation daily, and allowing ourselves to acknowledge both our Light and Dark sides, we, too, can harness The Force, the mindfulness to overcome the challenges that we face in our lives while making it meaningful. May The Force be with you! 

Sources:

  • Feichtinger, C. (2014). Space Buddhism: the adoption of Buddhist motifs in Star Wars. Contemporary Buddhism, 15(1), 28-43.
  • Friedberg, R. D., & Rozmid, E. V. (Eds.). (2022). Creative CBT with Youth: Clinical Applications Using Humor, Play, Superheroes, and Improvisation. Springer Nature.
  • Fuyu, & Fuyu. (2023, April 11). What is the Eightfold Path? | Zen-Buddhism.net. Zen Buddhism | SIMPLE WISDOM FOR HAPPY LIVING. https://www.zen-buddhism.net/what-is-the-eightfold-path/
  • Hayes, S. C., & Hofmann, S. G. (Eds.). (2018). Process-based CBT: The science and core clinical competencies of cognitive behavioral therapy. New Harbinger Publications.
  • Linehan, M. M. (2014). DBT Skills Training: manual. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB18848503
  • Ratcliffe, A. (2020). The Jedi Mind: Secrets from the Force for Balance and Peace. Chronicle Books.
  • The Human Condition. (2021, June 11). An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. https://thehumancondition.com/an-introduction-to-zen-buddhism/
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To hear and be heard: ideas for meaningful conversations for nurturing life

The month of September is celebrated globally as Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. To learn more about suicide and how we can support each-other, see this article. If you need to talk to someone or if you are in need of urgent help, please proceed to the nearest hospital emergency room, or proceed to the end of this article for the contact numbers of various local 24/7 crisis lines.

Stereotypes aside, as an organization providing psychological care, We Thrive’s work admittedly has a lot to do with conversations. It is something we take for granted, not always realizing that this very peculiar human capacity is one of the building blocks of human civilization (Crystal et al., 2023). Conversations are also one of the building blocks of human life: as psychologist Lucy Foulkes puts it, when conversations “allow us to learn something important about ourselves, about the other person, or about the world” (Foulkes, 2021), truly remarkable things happen. Such conversations, when they are “meaningful”, can turn even otherwise mundane chatter (what we label “small talk”) into subtle gateways for deeper interactions (Macquire, 2023). They make possible the flourishing of all those aspects of being human: sensing and holding our emotions (Lieberman et al., 2007), articulating the various aspects of the self (McLean and Morrison-Cohen, 2013), developing new behaviors and perspectives (Albright et al., 2016), relieving and easing painful experiences (Kardas, Kumar, and Epley, 2021), making sense of life as a whole (Tarbi et al., 2021), and much more. Speech of this kind has a literal healing effect, hence the well-earned stereotypical predominance of “talk therapy” methods in clinical psychological practice (Lindberg, 2023).  As social beings, as author Arthur Dobrin puts it: “With conversation, we find a place where we belong” (Dobrin, 2011).

In our ongoing observance of Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, we want to offer some practical points for reflection for having meaningful conversations, particularly those you want to check in on and support through difficult experiences.

The look and feel of a meaningful conversation

The main feature of a meaningful conversation is the experience of being “heard” — an experience which is, without exaggeration, “one of the most basic, yet potent needs we have as social beings” (Fowler, 2022). Most of us know from personal experience how painful not being heard can be, and how influential it can affect our own ability to hear others. Not being heard can have many precipitating factors: maybe there are basic differences in communication style (Khiron Clinic, 2021); or maybe the capacities of one or both people in the conversation to hold big or uncomfortable feelings are limited (Brosch, 2015). It could be some other factor, like adverse childhood experiences (Zlate, 2020), which are not within our present control. Whatever the case, when we are not heard, some of our most fundamental needs — the needs to feel that “we are taken seriously, that our ideas and feelings are acknowledged, and that we have something to share” (Nichols, 1995) — cannot be met.

So how do we get to meaningful conversations where we feel taken seriously, acknowledged, and feel that what we share has value? We may be tempted to offer advice right away or resort to offering affirmation.

But “problem-solving” is not the same as “hearing”, and our impulse to give instructions or shoo away difficult feelings with aspirations of pleasantness, while usually very well-intentioned, may not reflect the other person’s true needs. This is what is often meant by “toxic positivity”: when the resolution to be quote-unquote “happy” is not grounded in the present reality which might demand more emotional complexity.

So having said that, what does “hearing” actually look like? Thankfully, a few scholars have looked into this. In a series of studies, the concept of being “heard” — described by the authors succinctly as “a key variable of our time”, given our modern propensities for distractions — was operationalized according to five components (Roos, Postmes, and Koudenburg, 2021). Here, we will present how these were understood and some points for reflection to guide how we apply these to making our conversations truly meaningful. 

  1. Recognizing our “voice”. This is about “being able to express myself freely, that is, being able to say what I want to say.” In meaningful conversations, there must be that sense that, while some social filters might be appropriate in any given situation, we are able to say what we think or feel without fear of being criticized, demeaned, or thought poorly of. It is the sense that, right or wrong aside, what we say is welcomed.

Reflection: In our conversations, do we offer a sense of security that allows the other person to say what they need to say, and that we are willing and able to welcome what they say — even if they’re about something difficult and uncertain?

  1. Receiving “attention”. This is about feeling that the other person “focused their attention on what I said”. In meaningful conversations, there is a conscious effort to home in on the details, verbal or otherwise. It is the sense that what we say merits curiosity, and that there is a richness in what is being said that is worth patiently drawing out.

Reflection: In our conversations, do we offer expressions of interest that communicate to the other person that what they have to say is important, and that we really want to understand them?

  1. Receiving “empathy”. This is the perception that “the other tried to take my perspective and emotionally understand me.” In meaningful conversations, the affective contents of what we say — not just the words, but the conditions that led us to say what we say — are appreciated. It is the sense that the other person is resonating with us at a level that is deeper than the dictionary definitions of our statements, and that we are allowed to speak with more vulnerability, confident that, at the minimum, our vulnerability will be cared for.

Reflection: In our conversations, does our presence invite the other person to let their guard down, even a little, so that what they say communicates more truthfully what their hearts dictate? (At least to the extent possible, given the circumstance. Emotions are complex, after all!)

  1. Receiving “respect”. This is the feeling that the other person “valued what I said (my voice) and me as a person”. In meaningful conversations, while all human activity is prone to human errors of misunderstanding, we are taken and honored as we are. It is the sense that whatever prejudices there may be are set aside — or at least owned up to, honestly — and that the interaction is grounded in a commitment to the fact that we are human beings deserving of compassion.

Reflection: In our conversations, does our approach show the other person that we accept and honor them as they are, however and whatever they may be?

  1. Experiencing “common ground”. This is the perception that we can “understand each other’s point of view”. In meaningful conversations, there is a kind of exchange that allows both people’s perspectives to be influenced in a constructive way, allowing not just greater understanding of the nuances of these differences, but a greater appreciation of how such differences can lead to the same goals of cultivating a more meaningful life. While there may be significant divergences in the way we come to our conclusions, these conclusions are ultimately grounded on a desire for the greatest good — and that our conception of the “good” can be deepened and strengthened by one-another.

Reflection: In our conversations, do we communicate an openness to hearing the other person’s views, and an openness for our own views to be positively influenced by them?

Being able to initiate and sustain such a potent human activity is one of our best means for promoting healing for ourselves and one-another. By cultivating these five components, we can be better placed to leverage the power of conversations to cultivate human flourishing both within and beyond our difficult experiences.

For mental health support services, email us at resilientteams@wethrivewellbeing.com or contact us to sign-up for sessions with our mental health clinicians.

If you need to talk to someone or if you are in need of urgent help, please proceed to the nearest hospital emergency room, or call these 24/7 crisis lines:

DOH-NCMH Hotline

0917-899-USAP (8727)

0966-351-4518

0908-639-2672

(02) 7-989-USAP (8727)

1553

Hopeline PH

0917-558-HOPE (4673)

0918-873-4673 (HOPE)

(02) 8-804-HOPE (4673)

2919

In Touch Crisis Line

0917-800-1123

0922-893-8944

(02) 8-8937603

References (in order of appearance):

  1. https://wethrivewellbeing.com/world-suicide-prevention-day-responding-to-suicide-with-resilience-and-compassion/ 
  2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/language 
  3. https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-have-more-meaningful-conversations 
  4. https://carolinemaguireauthor.com/how-to-make-small-talk/ 
  5. https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/talk-therapy#how-effective 
  6. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17576282/ 
  7. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15283488.2013.776498 
  8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5344154/ 
  9. https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspa0000281.pdf 
  10. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738399121003335 
  11. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/am-i-right/201112/conversation-makes-us-human 
  12. https://thedmcclinic.ie/blog-the-importance-of-being-heard/ 
  13. https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/listen-up-why-you-dont-feel-heard-in-your-relationship-0810154  
  14. https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/adverse-childhood-experiences-and-interpersonal-relationships 
  15. https://www.compassionate.center/docs/Why-listening-is-so-important.pdf 
https://psyarxiv.com/73jgn/
Categories
Blog Everyday Thriving Wellbeing Practices

Eating to enrich life: understanding and responding to emotional eating

In We Thrive, we work with people becoming their best selves by working with different aspects of who they are. There are the big-picture things: our sense of purpose, for example, which in Dr. Gabrielle Pfund’s research is composed of things such as how our future plans match our interests, how engaging we feel life is as a whole, and so on (Psychology Today, 2023). But there are also the big things when you zoom into that picture: the finer details of life, emerging from moment to moment, which compose the movements towards what we want life to be. These include the patterns of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, but also the things which give us the energy to, well, move. Specifically, we get this energy through food, “a fundamental human need that influences both physiological and emotional states” (Hamburg, Finkenauer, & Schuengel, 2014). Nutrition looks different from person to person, but generally speaking, the task of ascertaining life’s movement can be more difficult than it has to be when our bodies aren’t getting the food and drink it needs (MSD Manual, 2023). And as we’ve probably all experienced, those aforementioned patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior can lead us into patterns of eating that can deprive rather than enrich us. In this article, we will talk a bit about what such a pattern of eating is; how we might end up moving in this direction; and what we can do to direct, rather than be directed by, our eating habits.

What is “emotional eating”?

Eating is, as nutritionist Amelia R. Sherry puts it, “an intrinsically emotional experience” (Psychology Today, 2022). Hamburg, Finkenauer, & Schuengel expressed this intuition in concrete terms: “eating behavior goes beyond nutrition and alleviating hunger; family, friends, and cultural heritage shape individual food preferences” (Hamburg, Finkenauer, & Schuengel, 2014). All of life, both the pleasant and the unpleasant, is threaded with the experience of eating. So the term “emotional eating”, while widely used, does not necessarily give us the clearest idea, and might also give the wrong impression that eating in response to our feelings is necessarily a bad thing. Choosing to eat can be a perfectly reasonable way of grounding us, whether by supplementing our present positive emotional states, reliving a positive memory associated with certain foods, or dealing with the occasional difficulty (Rachael Hartley Nutrition, 2016).

The difference between “good” or “bad” emotional eating is in the word “choice”. Whether responding to our emotions by eating deprives or nourishes us depends on the intentions we have (or haven’t) set when we eat. Besides determining how nutrient-dense our diets are, how do we clarify our intentions with eating? Here are some helpful guide questions:

  • How aware are we of the reasons why we choose a particular food at a particular time?
  • Are we eating in a way that aligns with a particular goal we have, such as a health goal?
  • When faced with stressful situations, have we considered whether there may be better ways of coping or resolving these situations other than with food? 
  • To what extent do we actually savor or enjoy the food we are eating, when we do choose to eat at that moment?
  • As a whole, does our experience of eating delight us, or leave us with a lingering sense that something is not quite right?

What moves us towards “eating emotionally”?

“Emotional eating” is also known by at least two other names: “stress eating”, and “comfort eating”. These terms might be preferable, because it gives a better sense of the context in which these patterns of eating emerge. At the minimum, when people use the term “emotional eating”, they are generally referring to food intake as a means of grounding us when we feel overwhelmed, disrupted, or out-of-balance — in other words, eating as self-soothing (Psychology Today, 2023). If, while going through the guide questions, you realize that the intent of your emotional eating appears to be mostly about self-soothing, then you may be emotional eating in a way that might not be serving your best interests long-term. But this happens to almost everyone, and it is not necessarily about willpower. The research of Dr. Tatjana Van Strien found at least three determinants for emotional eating (van Strien, 2018):

  • Poor interoceptive awareness. This means a person has difficulty distinguishing feelings of hunger and satiety, which can lead to difficulties with determining whether one has eaten too little or too much. For example, this can be due to dietary factors such as regularly eating foods that are high in sugar, which can exacerbate hunger because of the rapid increases in blood glucose (Penaforte et al., 2013).
  • Poor emotion regulation strategies. This means, for example, that a person becomes over-reliant on a particular coping mechanism (in this case, food) to deal with stressful situations. It can also mean that emotional eating becomes the result of an inappropriate coping mechanism, such as when avoidance of stressful situations ultimately leads to more of the stress occurring later on, making one more likely to rely on emotional eating.
  • Disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Among other things, the HPA axis is responsible for regulating appetite. Under normal circumstances, the stress response would be a loss of appetite, but due to various factors (e.g. incredibly stressful experiences, childhood trauma, abuse, or other underlying health conditions affecting the HPA axis), this is reversed and the stress response instead leads to increased appetite.

Keeping these three in mind, we can reflect on a few more questions:

  • What might be causing your urge to eat at a particular time? Is it because of what or how you may be used to eating? 
  • What difficult or stressful situations are you currently experiencing that may be better served by something other than food?
  • Aside from providing nutrition or sustenance, in what ways has food been present in your life growing up? Did you have an abundance of food or a scarcity of it? 
  • When you think of food, what memories are usually associated with it? Were there certain negative and possibly intense experiences in your life which food used to help you get through?

How do we direct our eating?

Eating plays a vital role, not just in the maintenance of regular bodily functioning, but in our journey towards living a purpose-driven life. But eating can either deprive us or enrich us with the energies, both physiological and psychological, necessary to live out such a life. So how do we eat in a way that is more enriching? Depending on your answers to the questions mentioned earlier, co-authors Dr. Gia Marson and Dr. Danielle Keenan-Miller offers some ideas for how best you can set the direction for the way food moves your life (Psychology Today, 2023):

  • Acceptance. This means becoming more accepting of your body and how it reacts to food. This means less judgment, which often leads to guilt and shame, and more kindness, which can lead you to a better sense of how the food actually feels for you.
  • Awareness. This means tuning into the emotional nature of eating and noticing what kinds of emotions emerge alongside the desire to eat.
  • Avoid reacting impulsively. This means when difficult and negative emotions emerge, as they do in emotional eating, we take a pause rather than immediately reaching out to food as we have habituated ourselves. This will give you some room to consider how else you might be able to respond to these emotions.

For mental health support services, email us at resilientteams@wethrivewellbeing.com or sign-up for sessions with our mental health clinicians.

References:

  1. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-at-any-age/202305/what-gives-your-life-a-sense-of-purpose 
  2. https://www.msdmanuals.com/home/disorders-of-nutrition/overview-of-nutrition/overview-of-nutrition 
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3907771/ 
  4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/positive-food-parenting/202212/when-emotional-eating-can-be-normal-and-even-healthy 
  5. https://www.rachaelhartleynutrition.com/blog/2016/11/emotional-eating-is-okay 
  6. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-binge-eating-prevention-plan/202301/emotional-eating-is-all-about-emotions-or-is-it 
  7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5918520/ 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3627933/
Categories
Blog Everyday Thriving General Wellbeing Practices

Social Emotional Parenting for the Next Normal

The past three years of pandemic have been quite challenging for children and adults alike.  As students adjusted to online classes and distance learning modalities, parents adjusted to work from home settings where the lines between work and home were blurred in a sea of online meetings in shared spaces at home, while juggling work, parenting and multiple responsibilities.  Many parents were thrust into an extra role of being their children’s “home schooling teacher” – supervising their children’s learning, troubleshooting tech issues during online classes, being the videographer + editor for their children’s video recorded homework, picking up and submitting modules from school, on top of the stress of working from home, and coping with their own personal concerns – health, uncertainties in the midst of a pandemic. Parents had to grapple with their overwhelming worries and fluctuating emotions, as they tried to support their children’s academic and socio-emotional needs.  

This is to acknowledge that parents pour out their time and effort, their heart, mind and soul into raising their children: It is never easy – during pre-pandemic, pandemic, and “next normal” times – the range of emotions both parents and children face in these disruptions and transitions shifts from day to day, sometimes hour to hour.

After these past three years of lockdowns, quarantines and limited movements, we are all finally taking steps forward in this “next normal”.   Students are returning to full face to face or hybrid (face to face + online) learning modes.  Parents can breathe a bit easier with our “homeschooling” load lightened, although we may have some concerns or fears about the adjustments our children have to go through – “This will increase my child’s exposure to Covid and other viruses.”; “After these years of being stuck at home, will my child be able to re-adjust to interacting with other kids again?”; “After all these years of online classes, are there learning gaps in my child’s education?  Can they readapt again to regular in-person classes?”  These fears are valid and understandable.  As parents, you can process these fears when you tap into your social and emotional skills, and you can also model these skills for your children to use as they navigate this transition.

According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), “social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.”

We can learn, and practice social emotional knowledge, attitudes, skills and strategies together with our children. This can pave the way for positive life experiences, with many benefits to practicing social emotional learning (SEL) – improved performance in school and work, better management of emotional distress, fostering healthy relationships with one’s self and others.

Being a parent is a journey of self-discovery – we come face to face with our own emotions, beliefs, strengths and weaknesses as we raise our children.  By recognizing and acknowledging how thoughts, feelings and actions are interconnected in a healthy way, within ourselves, and within our own children – – this guides us in the way we make decisions, and helps our children to develop more insights into their internal experiences and external actions.    When we encourage our children to share about their day, and actively listen to them, children will open up to share their feelings and thoughts.  When they encounter some awkwardness as they move from online interactions with friends to face-to-face interactions, we can support them by teaching them to use “I” statements as they identify feelings (“I felt shy when I met my classmates again.” ; “I felt weird seeing a big classroom filled with people again, I miss being by myself in a quiet room” ; “I felt happy to see all my friends and to talk with them after these years of just chatting or video calls online.”).  

You can encourage them to share about their feelings by opening up the conversations with some “kumustahan” questions: “Would you like to share about how school has been today?”; “Would you like to talk about how your day went today?”.  This approach will help them to understand and unpack what feeling excited, happy, worried or sad is about, and they are better able to manage their emotions.  We can also encourage them to engage in activities that promote self-reflection – such as journaling or sharing the highs and lows of their day – “What is one thing you are thankful for today?  What is one thing that you felt could have been better today?”. The more our children discover their sense of self, the more this nurtures their self-esteem.

Understanding the interrelations of feelings, thoughts and actions can lead parents and children to regulating these through self-management.  During changes and transitions, there will be a lot of mixed emotions that our children may go through. When our children are feeling overwhelmed and emotionally upset (dysregulated), we can try practicing co-regulation with them.  Co-regulation, sometimes called mutual regulation,  involves a parent or caregiver stepping in to help a child to identify, manage and process their intense emotions.  When a child’s emotions are fueled by high energies, we avoid matching their high energy, and try to do emotional modeling – we model the calm behavior we would like to see in our child, by using a warm, soothing tone of voice, instead of mirroring their upset emotions.  

We can share emotional regulation strategies with them – such as relaxation breathing exercises, mindfulness exercises – quiet time, focusing on the present moment, muscle relaxation, body scan, five senses exercise, using the “feelings wheel” (a tool used to help us define specific emotions we are feeling – for kids age 4-11), and for teens and adults).  We can also use mobile apps: Headspace and Insight Timer have a number of tracks that can help you and your child practice mindful breathing. These emotional regulation strategies help children and adults regain control when they’re feeling upset or overwhelmed.  

We take note that what works for us as adults may not always work for our children.  We need to match the emotional regulation strategy with the needs and developmental age and stage of our child.  It might be hard to get a 2-3 year old toddler to do meditation, but maybe we can try practicing mindfulness of the 5 senses with them: “What do you see?  What do you hear? What do you smell?  What do you taste? What do you feel in your hands? in your feet? How does your body feel right now?”. By understanding one’s emotional triggers, more impulse control can be practiced. Practicing these self-management skills can help us and our children to evaluate our decisions and actions in challenging situations.  We can ask our children to share about their concerns, or problems they may be experiencing – we can also encourage them to think of possible solutions to their problems, the pros and cons, as well as the impact of these on people they deal with day to day.  

When parents assess their goals, social situation, and foster understanding of self, they are able to develop responsible decision making skills, which leads to positive choices. Our actions as parents have an impact on our children; children are very observant and they can pick up on our behavior.  When we are mindful of the modeling they see in us, and in our pro-active choices, our children develop an innate sense of taking ownership of choices they make. Sometimes, our children may approach us and ask us – “Mom / Ma / Dad / Pa, what would you do in this situation?”  While our tendency as parents oftentimes is to give them advice on what to do, we can consider pausing for a while and giving them the space to come up with their own decision.  

The “stop light approach” can be helpful here – Red = stop and pause, Yellow = take a breath, Green = think through the options and make your decision. “I hear you have this situation right now – what are the things that need to be worked out? What options or choices do you have right now? How do you think you can help in this situation?”. This nurtures in them the ability to take some time to slow down, think through different options, consider the consequences of their actions, and make decisions based on positive values, empathy and fairness.  This empowers our children to make responsible choices that consider their well-being and the well-being of others. 

We live in communities, cultures, and societies, and we share this social setting with our children.  With a return to in-person school settings, they develop a keen awareness of the need to build relationships and strong friendships.  Part of our community fabric includes weaving an understanding of various races, genders, cultures, ages, religions – cultivating in our children a respectful approach towards differences, and empathic understanding of the world we live in today.  When students return to in-person classes, they will be sharing stories of their pandemic experiences with their classmates, and while there are many common experiences, they may have to confront different realities and socio-economic difficulties that many people endured.  

As your child shares with you these stories, this can be a conversation prompt to promote perspective taking: “How do you think that felt like for your friend?”, to promote showing concern for others’ feelings: “You sound happy to know your friend felt excited to be with classmates again.”, to promote empathy and compassion: “You feel sad when you heard about your friend’s troubles.”.  This can also open exploration of opportunities for serving the community in their own small ways, and doing their part in creating healthy, safe and positive spaces in the community.

Seclusion from their friends and classmates during the pandemic can take its toll on our children, as they ease back into being with friends, we can support them by checking-in daily on how they are coping with this resumption of in-person interactions, and actively listening to their concerns, worries and feelings.   

We can nurture open communication by being fully present and paying full attention to our children when they are talking with us – this will help them feel that we care about what they have to say, and make them feel heard and understood.  “I hear that you enjoyed school time today.” or “I hear that you felt sad today.” are some sample responses of how to apply listening skills that encourage our children to share more openly with us. This helps  us to better understand their thoughts, feelings and experiences. Nurturing this open communication with our children can create that space where they are able to process relationships and friendships – enhance cooperation, fairness, kindness, and helpfulness towards others, develop empathic listening, manage opposing views and conflicts, and recognize and regulate emotions.  This strengthens our relationships in the family, maintains healthy friendships in the school, and deepens their sense of community.  

Although this “next normal” is still full of uncertainty – and we can expect that there will be bumps, twists and turns this transition brings, we can lean on these social emotional skills to help us respond to the call of these ever-changing times. By opening up our emotions, thoughts, and incorporating social emotional learning into our daily practice, with intentionality, we model these skills that our children will gain through observation and active engagement; this empowers them to establish self-awareness, emotional regulation, empathy, positive communication in their interactions with others.  We continue to build their resilience, and to create a nurturing environment that supports their growth, development, and well-being throughout the different stages and challenges that life brings.

SOURCES:

Categories
Blog Thrive at Work Wellbeing Practices

Help at Work: Identifying workplace stress and the support you need

In We Thrive, we understand work as vital to the whole person. In the course of work, we learn to “regulate” by meeting challenges and its accompanying pressures head-on; to “relate” by working together with different people with different histories and perspectives; and to “reflect towards wise action” by considering how our work aligns with what is truly important to us. When pursued with mindfulness and compassion, work helps us grow not just in our careers but in our ability to live out lives as well-rounded human beings.

But of course, work has its issues.

Despite the lessons which the COVID-19 pandemic should have taught us about self-care and self-compassion, we remain tangled with a work ethic that prioritizes “productivity” at the expense of everything else. Unfortunately, this work ethic also bred a resistance to, and even fear of, seeking help, so used are we to the idea of “toughing it out”.

Despite increasing visibility of the importance of mental health, we are still uncertain about how this might play out within companies and industries. And on the level of the individual, we are still working  out, in the aftermath of a global health crisis, something as basic as what constitutes a legitimate need for assistance.

Here, we will look at one way to think about the kind of pressure you experience in the workplace, and the kind of help that you (and your workplace) may consider. Throughout this discussion, we will also be directed by this question: “Is my work nurturing my growth, or impeding it?”

Defining the pressure you need help for

There are sources of pressure, or “stress”, that are common across organizations and industries. The finer details may differ across fields, but these can be categorized into two broad categories:

  1. Work content, which are the various tasks involved and its accompanying costs in time, effort, and expertise. Some potential stressors under this category can include inappropriate workloads, where there may be too much or too little demands; the meaningfulness of the work, or the extent to which the job is aligned with the person’s values or sense of purpose; and autonomy, or the extent to which a person can exercise control over the work they do.
  2. Work context, which are the environmental and socio-cultural aspects of the job. These can include thing like the nature of relationships between colleagues, which can vary in levels of support, transparency, and general good humor; organizational culture, which can refer to policy structures and management styles that buttress the organization; and the sense of belonging within the larger work community, which refers to the extent to which a person might feel included or excluded from one’s peers or the extent to which one feels that their presence and contributions are actually valued. (WHO, 2020; Mental Help, 2015)

The response to these stressors is unique to each person, dependent not just on how intense or persistent the stressful experience is, but also on a person’s particular condition. A stressful event that might be considered “mild” for one person, which may improve functioning, might be “severe” to another, and disrupt functioning (Yaribeygi et al., 2017). But how do we tell the difference? We can do this by using two distinct categories of stress: “eustress” and “distress”.

Working with “eu-stress”

The first category of stress is eustress: the kind of stress which motivates us to face challenges successfully, learn new skills and perspectives, and provides opportunities to direct their actions towards our goals and our values. (Albort-Morant et al., 2020).

Broadly speaking, while there is definitely pressure, there is vitality. This can look like the following:

  • You feel energized;
  • You feel more focused;
  • You feel confident you know what you’re doing (or at least you’re confident you can learn);
  • You are excited by what you do; and
  • You sense your productivity increasing (Shafir, 2020; Tocino-Smith, 2019).

The work may be more difficult, but the movement towards accomplishing the task elicits feelings of pleasure and a sense that one is both working well and working towards something worthwhile for themselves and for the organization.

In a phrase: eustress nurtures growth.

The help we might need here would be less about relieving pressure and more about maximizing it: how can we maximize this opportunity for growth?

In the workplace, this might mean strengthening the following areas:

  • Ensuring access to mentors or peers who can offer emotional support or concrete advice for effectively addressing a challenge;
  • Providing appropriate flexibility to accommodate people’s particular work needs, such as work schedules, deadlines, or work spaces;
  • Building relationships between employees that ensure that people are not afraid of making mistakes or speaking up about their needs;
  • Setting clear work expectations so people know exactly what they’re working towards; and so on (Peart, 2019).

Working with “di-stress”

The second general category of stress that you may (unfortunately) be more familiar with is called distress. This is the opposite of eustress: instead of motivation, energy, and a sense of purpose, there may instead be dissatisfaction, fatigue, and a lack of direction. In this situation, the strain has either fallen too short of, or more often has far surpassed, the person’s threshold. Too little stress leads to boredom, lethargy, and a propensity for catastrophizing challenges faced because there has been inadequate opportunity to learn ways to cope with and savor challenges (Szalavitz, 2011). Too much stress though and the system can be overwhelmed, unable to effectively keep up, leading to disruptions in basic life functions such as sleep and a whole host of diseases (LeBlanc and Marques, 2019).

Again speaking broadly, in contrast to eustress, distress can be understood as being sapped of vitality. This can look like the following:

In this scenario, greater attention needs to be placed on relieving the pressure and addressing the manifestations of the distress: how do we return to a condition conducive for growth?

Going back to the workplace, this might mean the following:

  • Ensure that any changes to job demands are made to ensure employees actually have the time and the opportunity to practice self-care; 
  • Address the actual sources of the distress at work, including but not limited to lack of career advancement, conflicting work demands, workloads and timelines that force employees to go over and beyond their supposed job schedules, inadequate salaries and benefits, and so on;
  • Provide mental health support is both available and accessible to employees; and
  • Ensure adequate support from mentors, management, and other peers (APA, 2018; CCOHS, 2023).

When do I (and my workplace) need more help?

Returning to our first question, we understand that growth is nurtured when there is both adequate pressure (“eustress”) and adequate rest. Considering the latter, we can ask ourselves whether we are getting the rest we need — and whether our workplaces allow us to engage in such without reprisal or penalty. One useful model for understanding “rest” comprehensively, in its active and passive forms, looks at seven different kinds:

  1. Physical Rest, such as sleep, good eating habits, and exercise;
  2. Mental Rest, such as engagement with non-work-related intellectually-stimulating activities such as reading and games;
  3. Spiritual Rest, such as activities which respond to your religious callings or other callings to a higher purpose, including prayer, charitable works, and so on;
  4. Emotional Rest, such as being able to express our emotions authentically in safe and compassionate environments;
  5. Sensory Rest, such as relieving ourselves from over-stimulation by keeping away our mobile and other computer devices;
  6. Social Rest, such as by engaging in pleasurable social activities or in pleasurable solitude; and
  7. Creative Rest, such as through different artistic endeavors (Skowron, 2022).

A rule of thumb is to check in with ourselves and if in the past two weeks that if we are either a) we are unable to get adequate rest or b) if our best efforts at getting adequate rest is insufficient to relieve our present experience of distress, then this would be a signal to start seeking help. Similarly, if an organization finds itself unable to adequately and promptly support their employees’ wellbeing needs needs for rest, then the organization itself may want to consider getting help as well.

As a final point, despite what our present culture of work tells us, seeking professional help is not a sign of weakness. Speaking to organizations, to seek help rather than to just allow our employees to “tough it out” is a sign not only of courage and strength, but a sign that we are truly taking mental health seriously — and that despite the pressures, our workplaces are places where people’s growth can be nurtured.

For mental health support services for organizations, email us at resilientteams@wethrivewellbeing.com or contact us to sign-up for sessions with our mental health clinicians. 

References:

  1. https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/ccupational-health-stress-at-the-workplace 
  2. https://www.mentalhelp.net/stress/types-of-stressors-eustress-vs-distress/ 
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7013452/ 
  4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579396/
  5. https://www.choosingtherapy.com/eustress-vs-distress/ 
  6. https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-eustress/ 
  7. https://hbr.org/2019/11/making-work-less-stressful-and-more-engaging-for-your-employees
  8. https://healthland.time.com/2011/12/20/the-goldilocks-principle-of-stress-too-little-is-almost-as-bad-as-too-much/ 
  9. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-handle-stress-at-work-2019041716436
  10. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/effects-of-working-too-much/
  11. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/work-related-stress#rpl-skip-link  
  12. https://www.apa.org/topics/healthy-workplaces/work-stress 
  13. https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/psychosocial/stress.html 
  14. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/a-different-kind-of-therapy/202212/the-7-kinds-of-rest-you-need-to-actually-feel-rejuvenated
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Navigating the Road to Healthy Boundaries

Have you ever driven a car? Driving is a useful yet rigorous skill to learn.

Similar to driving, setting healthy boundaries is a rewarding skill that can help us go places. We are the driver navigating our way through the busy district of interpersonal relationships. Learning to set healthy boundaries needs conscious effort, and it can make us feel a mixture of excitement and fear – like driving for the first time.

Following the rules

Since childhood, we have been taught to follow the rules: obey the elders, be agreeable to our peers, consider others’ feelings, and be mindful of how others view us. These rules usually remain with us until adulthood as we continue to defer to our parents, comply with our supervisors, and yield to our partners. More so, these rules help us maintain harmonious relationships with others.

The downside of rigidly following these rules is developing our fear of interpersonal conflicts. The need for belongingness and acceptance drives us to indulge others even with a heavy heart. Some demands
can make us feel uncomfortable, but we do them anyway to avoid the guilt and anxiety of saying no.

Sometimes people misinterpret the rules of social relationships. We become compliant instead of compromising to maintain “conflict-free” relationships. Giving in to the backseat drivers can be exhausting; we have to take the wheel ourselves.

Keeping safe distance

Being too close to other cars raises the chance of collision. The same goes with having little to no personal space. It may appear counterintuitive, but saying no to others can improve our relationships.

Boundaries are the limits we establish for ourselves on our participation in social activities to preserve our integrity. They make us feel comfortable genuinely expressing ourselves and still safe around others. They are not meant to keep people away but to provide us enough space to assert our needs, wants, and expectations of others.

Dr. Sheri Jacobson, a retired senior therapist and founder of Harley Therapy in the United Kingdom, listed the adverse effects of having poor boundaries. We become vulnerable to stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout. While we try to avoid interpersonal conflicts, we may still have bad relationships. Others can take advantage of us even unintentionally at times. Our frustration, resentment, and anger will eventually accumulate, and passive aggression may seem like the only way to stand up for ourselves. The worst case is losing our own identity as we prioritize others more than
ourselves.

Paying attention to the signs

As you journey through setting healthy boundaries, you need to look out for the signs of being a people pleaser. According to Nedra Glover Tawwab, a therapist and author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, poor
boundaries manifest in four ways:

1. Neglecting self-care

Whenever you accommodate others’ wishes, you give a part of yourself to them – your time, energy, and resources. A telltale sign of having poor boundaries is not having enough of these for your own. It is neither selfish nor inconsiderate to give yourself some space. Remember, you cannot run with your gas tank empty or battery drained. You have to take care of yourself first to take care of others.

2. Overwhelmed

People with poor boundaries feel overwhelmed most of the time as they tend to accept more tasks than they can manage. They constantly worry about fitting everything into their schedule. You need to know your limits and work only within your limits. Going beyond them results in exhaustion and burnout.

3. Resentment

People who are compelled to do something may feel annoyed. Worse, those taken for granted feel hurt, bitter, and angry. Resentment will pile up and negatively affects your relationships in the long run. The little things we used to enjoy doing for and with others start to feel like duties – boring and tiring. Note that relationships should not be a burden; instead, they should be one of your sources of happiness, hope, and support.

4. Avoidance

When you cannot assert yourself, you will likely respond to resentment by avoiding others. It is passive aggression to ignore or cut off people. Delaying responses and bailing out of trips are some avoidant strategies that can isolate you. These are not helpful because they do not convey to others why you evade them; hence, they will continue to ask you favors.

Map to healthy boundaries

When you recognize the warning signs, hit the break and take the route to setting healthy boundaries. Adapted from Tawwab, you can follow this roadmap:

1. Identify your boundaries

The first step in setting healthy boundaries is to know your wants, needs, and expectations. Observe yourself and reflect on your emotions and thoughts.

  • Do you want to do this?
  • Are youcomfortable doing that?
  • What do you need?
  • What do you expect others to do to you or for you?

Ask these questions to know more about yourself and your limits. Honesty is crucial in this step.

2. Communicate

People are not mind readers; you have to tell them our boundaries. More importantly, you must state them clearly and directly – not just signals of maybe’s or I-don’t-know’s. In doing so, others become aware of how you want to be treated. You may beat around the bush because you find confrontations agonizing, but indirectly communicating our boundaries can only be confusing.

3. Deal with the discomfort

Setting boundaries can initially elicit some discomfort. You may feel guilt for being “selfish” or “mean.” You may feel fear that your future interactions will be awkward. You may also worry about saying the right words in the right tone at the right time. However, practice can make it feel easy and natural. Remind yourself that you are setting boundaries for your wellbeing. Engage in other self-care activities as well to improve your mood while learning how to say no.

4. Follow through

Despite feeling some degree of discomfort, you have to commit to honoring your boundaries. Consistency is key. Show people that you take your boundaries seriously, and they should, too. Immediately speak up when others go overboard. Tell them how you feel about it and what you prefer them to do. Do not let anyone slide, as it only encourages others to continue disregarding your boundaries.

The roadmap may appear short and straightforward, but it can be a long and winding road. You may find yourself going in circles, and it is definitely okay. When this happens, pull up and refer to the map to find your way again. You can also ask a reliable friend to hop in for a while and help you stay on track.

Establishing healthy boundaries leads to an enjoyable life. You become true to yourself, and others learn to honor your decisions. You get the most out of your relationships because you are respected – by yourself and others.

Now that you know the rules, the signs, and the map, may you continue to share your adventures with others while enjoying some healthy space for yourself.

References:

American Psychological Association (n.d.) Boundary. APA Dictionary of Psychology.
https://dictionary.apa.org/boundary
Jacobson, S. (2015, March 24). The Psychological Cost of Never Saying No. Harley Therapy.
https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/saying-no.htm
Tawwab, N. G. (2021). What the Heck are Boundaries?. Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself. Penguin Random House LLC

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Blog Everyday Thriving General Thrive at Work Thrive in School Wellbeing Practices

Feeling ‘Sabaw’? Here’s the Science Behind it & 5Ways to Overcome it

If you’re a student or young adult, you must have reached a point of disorientation
from having too much schoolwork to do or too many work engagements to finish. If you’re a parent, you may have either heard your child saying “Sabaw na ‘ko,” as if they could no longer listen to whatever you were about to say, or you may have felt “sabaw” yourself with all the things that need to get done around the house. Thing is, all of us must have experienced being sabaw at least once in our lives, and probably multiple times when we stay in an environment where there is too much going on.

So, why does being sabaw happen?

Being sabaw, or what we call a ‘cognitive overload’, happens when our brain cannot adapt to the amount of information given (often an amount that is too much), or to the too many tasks that need to be done at once. As a result, processing information and performing tasks becomes more difficult, and at worst, not even possible.

No matter how keen a person may be, they have a limit to how much they can process in a given amount of time. Even the most intelligent of people can process only so much.


When it comes to being sabaw, some respond with frustration while some may even respond to it lightly with humor (e.g., Nako, sabaw ka na naman, friend!). Regardless of what you feel about being sabaw, it can be reassuring to know that you don’t always have to be held back by it. So, here are five ways to overcome it:

Five ways to overcome being sabaw:

1. Try to stay away from distractions.

In the time of social media, it is so easy to be swept by the urge to check your phone, go to social media and check out what is interesting to see. Chances are, you may not immediately feel sabaw after browsing through your phone but you may feel it as soon as you get back to your important task, especially if what you had just consumed was heavy or engaging information. Eliminate other sources of distracting information by going to a peaceful environment, whether it’s a specific room in the house or a coffee shop with few to no distractions, and turn off/ silence your phone. Lastly, bring your phone back as a reward for completing a task.

2. Do one thing at a time.

Contrary to popular opinion, multiple studies have shown that multitasking is not very beneficial—it actually makes us less efficient and more prone to errors. The negative impact of multitasking to folding laundry while watching TV or listening to music may not be as felt as when you write an email while listening to a meeting. The disadvantage of multitasking is more clearly seen when tasks become more complex. One study had found that heavy multitaskers (those who believe that multitasking helps them with their performance) actually performed worse in the activity of multitasking than those who like doing one thing at a time. This is because the multitaskers had more difficulty organizing their thoughts and were slower in switching from one task to another—essentially, multitaskers are more highly like get into a state of sabaw in the midst of accomplishing tasks. So, learn to set other things aside and try to focus your energy and effort on one thing at a time.

3. Take breaks and don’t do other work in those breaks.

If you have freed yourself from distractions and learned how to do things one at a time, you may still find yourself feeling sabaw if you overuse your brain for a prolonged amount of time. Hence, taking a break is helpful regardless of how simple or how complex a task is. It’s just that you’re more likely to get sabaw sooner when you solve a series of calculus equations within an hour as compared to reading a light novel within the same duration. You can do anything during your break as long as it is not work. Meanwhile, the length of breaks that you need may depend on various factors such as your current health state (e.g. whether or not you’ve had enough rest, sleep, and energy), the complexity of the task, and the urgency of finishing the task. But if everything is kept constant, taking a break of 15-20 minutes every after 50-90 minutes is considered beneficial and can keep you from being
sabaw. Going beyond 20 minutes, of course, will not make you even more sabaw although it may affect other important priorities in your activity such as momentum and productivity.

4. Plot a schedule and write notes for reminders of activities that you need to get back to.

Sometimes the list of things that you have to accomplish can get very overwhelming. Even if you try to take breaks, you still get overwhelmed and fear that you’d hit that state of sabaw soon. If that does happen, then that is likely a result of too much mental activity consumed by the worrying of other activities that haven’t even started yet. To help bring you at peace and certainty, try to plot a schedule for the set of activities that you need to get done and put them on paper or in a digital note. Relying too much on our working memory for reminders and specific details can sometimes be disadvantageous given that our brain can only take in information at a certain capacity. Unnecessary worry and stress may ease when you have realistic schedules and plans in place.

5. Withdraw from other commitments or other activities.

There are many aspects in our lives that demand our attention, may it be school, work, family, community, and relationships. But sometimes, they can lead us to overcommitment. The initial consequence of overcommitting can be feeling sabaw at first, then burnout after. If you have done tip #4 and still find yourself overwhelmed, it may be possible that your schedule of activities and/ or commitments may be unrealistic and too tiring for you. In that case, learn how to let go by saying no, turning over the responsibility to someone else, ask for help to relieve the responsibility from you, or a combination of all of those. Our brains can only handle so much that when we force things, we may end up accomplishing less commitments than what we had initially expected because of too many sabaw moments and burnout.

References:

Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability
Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching
Give me a break

Categories
Blog Everyday Thriving General Restorative Practices Wellbeing Practices

Tune In: How Music Fosters Wellbeing

“‘Cause when you get older, life gets colder
Sometimes I just wanna hit pause, but I’m afraid I’ll never press play again…”

Clara Benin

When was the last time you checked in with yourself and asked how you’re truly doing?

With all the demands that life throws at us, we may easily fall into the trap of mindlessness, juggling many things all at once without examining ourselves in the process; thereby, running the risk of wearing ourselves out in the long run. Add to it the culture we live in where busyness, overproductivity, and urgency are being glorified. Who has the luxury to be still a few minutes in a day when work pressures you to submit it now? Who even cares about how you feel when outputs have become implied measures of one’s worth? If we won’t make deliberate choices for our wellbeing, these can be detrimental to our health and our ability to flourish as we live this one precious life we’re gifted with.

Press Pause and Tune In

Think of the self like a musical instrument, say, for example, a guitar. It would be pointless to sing and be accompanied by it if the instrument is out of tune. In order to maximize the value and function of a guitar (and this goes with most instruments), it has to be set in proper tuning. Too much tightness could cause the strings to break. On the other end, when you don’t plan to use the guitar for quite some time, it’s best to loosen up the strings in order to prevent them from possibly breaking. 

The same goes for us, human beings. When we’re constantly exposed to stress and we’re unable to release the tension, it affects how we think, feel and relate with others in negative ways. Moreover, our bodies will eventually suffer and it may manifest as physical illnesses. In order to be at our optimal selves, we need to pause, tune ourselves, and acknowledge where we are at the moment with gentleness and self-compassion. 

Tuning ourselves may look different for each of us, just like getting quality sleep, eating healthy foods, ensuring that we’re regularly connected with the people we love and who support us, having a me-time, creating space to feel both pleasant and unpleasant emotions, being mindfully aware as thoughts and feelings come and go in the present moment. The last two may take time some practice in order to cultivate such awareness, but one tool has been helpful in making it happen— music.

Permission to feel

music

Who gave you permission to feel?

Music.

What seemed to be just a moment of mindless scrolling on Twitter ended up as an “aha!” moment that eventually led me to reflective mode, just like how you listen to a song for the first time, and it suddenly hits right in the feels. Familiar, isn’t it?

Whether as a listener or creator, one cannot deny the power of music in evoking emotions. We know from experience how music gives us the comfort we need when going through difficult times, the focus and energy boost in completing tasks, and even transporting us back into key events in our lives where we try to make meaning and reconstruct our own narrative. It serves a myriad of functions, most especially in enhancing our wellbeing.

Music and wellbeing

1. Music as a safe space for feelings

“Perhaps the therapeutic use of music allows people to
experience emotions safely… (Wilkinson, 2018).” Remember the moments you listened to music when you needed a good cry or you need to feel calm. Maybe the lyrics resonated with what you’re currently going through, which gives you a sense of comfort, the feeling of being held, and the validation that you’re not alone. Or, if you’re a musician and you’re trying to capture your feelings into melodies, the act of playing your instrument becomes cathartic for
you. A song is like a friend who provides that safe, grounding, and non-judgmental space that gives you permission to feel in that present moment. Joy, sadness, fear, anger, hope, love, awe— all emotions are welcome here. These “permission to feel” moments are important in maintaining our wellbeing since it allows us to acknowledge the complexities of our emotions which is key to emotion regulation, instead of running away or numbing them.

A qualitative study by Saarikallio (2010) explored music-related strategies of emotional self-regulation during adulthood and found that participants turn to music for:

  • happy mood maintenance
  • revival and relaxation especially when tired
  • strong sensations and powerful emotional experiences such as intense enjoyment, deep concentration and emotional involvement in music (e.g. being part of an opera production or watching a live concert)
  • diversion or distraction from unwanted thoughts and feelings
  • discharge and disclosure—that is, releasing and venting anger or sadness through music that expressed these emotions
  • mental work such as being able to face, contemplate and work through unsettling emotional experiences,
  • solace— acting like a comforting friend who understands and accepts you when you feel sad, melancholic or hopeless; and
  • ‘psyching up’— uplifting one’s mood and raisingone’s energy levels for an activity.

2. Music helps us get “in the zone”

Being completely absorbed in an activity that you lose track of time is known as flow or commonly known as “in the zone”. This intense and focused concentration on the present moment can be achieved through the help of music. You  may recall a time that listening to an ambient or instrumental music helped you stay focused in finishing a task such as writing or studying for an exam. According to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (2014), the main proponent of the concept of flow:

“merely having music playing in the background does not evoke flow, but listening to music as the main activity so that attention can be focused on the music is an important precondition for getting into and staying in flow.”

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (2014)


The key then is to listen mindfully to the music. To practice, set aside at least five minutes to listen mindfully to a song of your choice (one that doesn’t have lyrics), sit with it and listen to all the elements used in the song, from the instruments used to how it’s arranged. As you cultivate mindful listening to the music, it increases your likelihood of getting into flow.

3. Music as a tool for enhancing social connections

There is no doubt that music is best enjoyed when it is experienced and shared with others— whether that could take in a form of singing together in a group (karaoke sessions), teaching another person on how to play an instrument, meeting strangers who have turned into friends in a concert of your favorite band, curating a playlist for your loved one and sharing it to them ‘cause that’s your love language, or being part of a fan group and interacting with the artist. Sometimes, when we’re having difficulty in articulating our thoughts and feelings to our friends, it helps to share instead a song that relates to our experience so that our friend would understand where we are. Koelsch (2013) reviews the social functions of music such as being able to increase contact, coordination and cooperation with others, engage in social cognition wherein the listener tries to understand the intent and message of the artist expressed in the song, participate in co-pathy (a social function of empathy), which all leads to social cohesion— satisfying our human need to belong.

Truly, music allows us to feel connected to all of humanity.  Music indeed is a gift to us, especially as we continue to take care of our wellbeing. May we practice tuning in to ourselves with the help of music, allowing it to take us to places of our souls that need some tending. And just “be”.

Sources:

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Blog Everyday Thriving Wellbeing Practices

Calm, Connect and Cultivate towards More Effective Parenting

As parents, we are fueled by what is best for our children. We want our children to
grow stable, well-adjusted and equipped with skills to survive, as well as thrive in life.

These lofty goals make parenting fulfilling and meaningful, and it is also no easy feat. There is the constant pressure to know how to provide and respond to the needs of our child at any given moment.
But let’s face it, we have moments when we wonder if what we’re doing is really what’s best for our children. We question our capacity to parent our children.

I can’t seem to pacify my child during a meltdown.

My child refuses to listen and follow what I say.

My teen doesn’t want to talk to me about anything.

I get so upset and angry with my child, it’s so frustrating.

In these situations, we usually try to manage our children’s behavior by using strong, hurtful words and punitive action.

If you don’t pack away your toys, no You Tube time this afternoon.

You’re going to get into a lot of trouble if you don’t finish your homework.

Stop acting like a baby, it’s not a big deal.

Because I said so.

We threaten, we bribe, we punish, we withdraw certain privileges in the hopes of getting our children to behave and comply. We become dismissive of our children. We take control of the situation with little
consideration or understanding what our kids might be going through.
Let’s take a moment to notice, if any of the scripts and strategies above have been effective or helpful in the long run? Most likely, no.
These may even serve to escalate the situation, to provide quick fixes until the unwanted behavior happens again, and to rupture relationships instead of our original parenting intention of long-lasting caring and raising our children well.

What can we as parents do?

What are more effective ways of dealing with children, especially during difficult and upsetting situations? What will work, what can be more helpful for parents and children to overcome tough moments

Dr. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson’s Whole Brain (2014) approach to parenting, offers a place to start. This perspective places emphasis on understanding the way the brain works and develops. The brain
shapes who we are and what we do. It has various components and functions that need to work together for us to achieve balance and integration.

Emphasis is further placed on how the brain’s capacity for integration is significantly shaped by experience.

The experiences and responses parents provide, lay the foundation for children’s development towards stability, independence and resilience. With appropriate supports, we help our children improve decision-making and problem-solving, have better control of their body and emotions and strengthen themselves and their relationships.

Are these not some of the very things we want for our children, to find success in various aspects of life and development?

The 3 C’s towards Effective Parenting

How can this be achieved?

The 3 C’s of Calm, Connect and Cultivate can serve as a quick guide.

Developing the skill and practice to Calm, Connect and Cultivate, underscore the importance of being attuned to our child in the middle of chaos and conflict. Developing regulation and co-regulation skills
can help improve the ways we relate with our children, especially during tough situations –when your child kicks, screams, refuses to listen, refuses to respond, when your child is inconsolable.

1. CALM

We cannot calm our child when we are not calm ourselves.

It truly is easier said than done, but it can be done with practice, patience and intention! Self-regulation can become our parent superpower when we are mindful of our current feelings and reactions during stressful situations, and aware of our own thoughts and beliefs about the behavior of our children.

When we learn how to self-soothe and bring about a state of calm, we create a space to recognize that difficult behaviors are cues which tell us that children are having a tough time. Children may experience
big feelings which they may not necessarily recognize or have the skills yet to deal with more effectively. So they act up and act all sorts of out of control. If we meet their frustration with our own, the situation escalates as emotions go unchecked and unvalidated, and behaviors become more difficult to manage.

Pause and take a breath

Taking a few moments to pause, breathing in and out allows us to calm
feelings and to step back from a triggering situation and potentially intense emotions. It also models behavior that we can cultivate in children when they are going through a tough time.

Self-affirming statements

Self-soothing statements can also be effective as it builds an awareness to one’s current state. Words of affirmation such as, “My feelings are valid,” or “I can’t control how I feel, and I can control how I respond,” or “I am doing my best at this moment,” convey messages that build
self-compassion and self-kindness. It affirms the intentionality of supporting and connecting with our children. There are a myriad of statements, and it is about choosing powerful statements that calms and build toughness too.

Self-soothing activities

There are many other ways to pause and self-soothe to prepare yourself to connect with your child. These depend on what works and what is available to you. Simple activities like taking a short walk, listening to music, playing with a pet, writing or drawing in a journal are some examples.

Think before you speak

Training oneself to take pause and being mindful of the words we say builds a practice of regulating the self and controlling impulses. Take pause to think if your words are helpful and supportive of your child, or if it conveys validation and support. Thinking before speaking implies taking pause and bring the calm in to make better decisions about what and how to communicate and connect.

Practicing these regularly not only during stressful times, strengthen the mind and the body to respond to difficult situations in a more mindful way. We become less reactive when we are calm. The ability to
self-regulate builds our patience to take pause and wait for our children to be ready to engage. Being calm and staying calm then allows us to connect.

2. CONNECT

The warm and responsive interactions between parents and children especially during moments of stress and chaos and conflict, are opportunities for children to learn to understand and modulate their thoughts, feelings and behavior. When a parent feels calm, connection with their children can follow as both parent and child strive to reach states of calm. A child learns to respond instead of react when the parent models this and teaches the child regulation skills, when the child is good and ready.

A parent who takes a non-reactive, non-threatening stance allows the child to feel seen and heard, to regain a sense of control to listen and to make more thoughtful decisions of responding and behaving more effectively.

Give affection

During a meltdown, a child is so overcome with emotion and can feel threatened and unsafe with the intensity of their feelings. A warm hug, gentle stroking of the hair or a soft back rub can give children a sensory experience to ground them in the present, a space to recognize difficulties currently encountered. This allows discovery of their ability to recover. A parent’s calm supportive presence even without words sends the message that you are there for your child when he or she needs you most.

Speak in a soothing, calm voice

Speaking in a low and slow voice similarly helps soothe a child, allowing the child to feel intense negative emotions, and to sit with the discomfort as you the parent hold a space of trust and comfort.

HALT

Staying with your child (while in a Calm state) allows you to assess the function of the behavior. Some of these functions include Hunger, Anger, Loneliness and Tiredness. Decoding the particular trigger and function of behavior facilitates a more appropriate response thereby building skills and character.

Actively listen to your child

This strategy involves mirroring what a child tells you and conveying back to your child the meaning as well as the content of what was said. This gives a child the sense that his or her feelings and thoughts are valid and that you the parent recognize these.

Validate and emphatize

Statements like, “Don’t worry about it,” or “Just relax,” or “You’re just tired,” may seem harmless but they are actually dismissive and serve to invalidate and minimize the experience and feelings of the child, without us noticing it. Similarly, statements like “Just do it again,” or Just stop crying, it’s not a big deal” gloss over the challenges that children are facing, indirectly telling them that it’s not okay to feel the way that they do in that moment.

Statements of validation and empathy that reflect what the child is feeling and going through, are empowering for a child and helps them be ready and open to engage and communicate further. When done successfully, this can open more spaces to connect and cultivate ways to teach and support children to respond to feelings and situations more mindfully.

There are many different ways of connecting with the child in times of chaos and distress, and it’s about finding which are most helpful for you as a parent, for your particular child and what response or strategy would be appropriate at the given moment.

3. CULTIVATE

The suggested strategies for calming and connecting outlined above can be helpful if it is cultivated. It is discovering and building practices to nurture and protect the parent-child relationship. Learning how to calm and connect will help ease the process of teaching children to be reflective, to learn skills and gain insight on themselves in relation to others, and to figure out how they can respond better to those around them. We cultivate practice to become more intentional in responding to our children – building nurturing relationships with them, inspired by connection and teaching with care and compassion.

It is also important to remember to cultivate practice in the everyday moments. Our lives are filled with the small day to day moments, that provide rich ground to parent our children most effectively. A gentle word, a comforting hug, and the many other ways we choose to nurture and connect with our children are opportunities to shape our relationship with them, and to equip them with skills that will help them live with kindness, intention and resilience.

References:

Rosanbalm, K. D., & Murray, D. W. (2018). Co-regulation from birth through young adulthood: A practice brief. Duke University, 1-10.

Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2014). No-drama discipline: The whole brain way to calm the chaos and nurture your child’s developing mind. Bantam Dell Publishing Group.

Siegel, E. D., & Bryson, T. P. (2011). The whole brain child: 12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child’s developing mind. Scribe Publications Pty Ltd.