Let’s Start at the Beginning…
The connection between noticing yourself and healing is a critical first step.
Self-connection is defined by three components:
• Awareness of oneself
• Acceptance of oneself based on that awareness
• Alignment of behavior based on one’s awareness of self.
Tools for Sharpening Self-Awareness
Look the harder moments in the eye.
What emotions are coming up for you?
How is your body responding?
What thoughts are spinning in your mind? What action do you feel compelled to take? Do you know what you need?
What do you want to be different?
Learning from The Storm
Learn to recognize the early warning signs:
• Familiarity with body sensations that accompany distress
• Habits you engage in when you are upset.
• Stories that resurface in your thinking
Pay attention to what happens for you through an emotional “Storm”
Practice letting things end and noticing how they reconstruct again.
Tools for Sharpening Self-Awareness
Get to know your triggers.
Places?
Dates?
People?
Topics of conversation?
Experiences?
Finding Calm The Power of Breath
• Paying attention to breath can be a powerful ANCHOR to the present moment.
• Notice breath leaving the nostrils, chest rising and falling, the break between the wave of inhalation and exhalation.
• Box breathing
• 4 – 7 – 8 method
Finding Calm The Power of Touch
• Focus on the physical sensation of touch to activate your parasympathetic nervous system
• Notice the texture of your clothing or run your hands/feet on something rough or smooth.
• Rock your feet toe to heel to engage the muscles in your feet and notice the ground/grass
• Wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a tight hug, stay and breathe
• Sway or rock your body and notice the change in weight, rhythm of the movement
See it. Catch it. Stop auto-pilot reactions.
• Shining a light on your inner world creates a neurological pause.
• Gives you the capacity to make a choice.
• Shift from unhealthy or unhelpful habits to a choice that responds to your need.
Get to Know You. Write (or Talk) it out
• Talking with a trusted friend can help us untangle our worry in an organic way.
• Getting thoughts out of our head helps us balance fear and worry and find perspective.
• Identifying questions can direct conversations with a medical team, boss or loved one.
• Starting point for challenging worry and fear or “finding more truths”
Listen in New Ways
Journaling can be a way to better understand your THOUGHT → FEELING connection.
Try these prompts:
• What emotion(s) and I trying to avoid?
• Why am I trying to hide from this emotion?
• What is preventing me for addressing this feeling?
Exercise Healthy Thinking: Separate from
the
Thought
Most of the time we live in a state of automatically believing what we think to be true.
When you recognize a distressing thought can you pull away from it a bit to see it differently?
• Say the thought out loud.
• Start with “I am having the thought…”
• Add “I notice I am having the thought…”
Notice Thought Traps
• Catastrophizing
• Shoulds (must or ought)
• Assumptions
• Jumping to conclusions
• Personalizing
• Filtering
• All or nothing
• Over-generalizing (always, never, everything, nothing)
• Control fallacy
Exercise Healthy Thinking Bucket
Your Thoughts
Our thoughts can travel all over time and space!
Noticing if a thought is past, present or future oriented can help you find where you have control.
* Past Thoughts
* Present Thoughts – where you can do something
* Future Thoughts – save for “Future Self”
Exercise Healthy Thinking: Balance Your
Thinking
Negative thoughts can feel critical, foreboding or judgmental. Balance your thinking. Make room for opposite thoughts in your mind.
• For every negative/upsetting thought can you list FIVE value or uplifting thoughts?
Exercise Healthy Thinking: Soften the blow
When you “catch” an upsetting thought ask yourself…
• “Would I say this outloud?”
• “Would I say this to a child?
• “Would I let someone speak to my child in this way?”
Sometimes imaging someone else’s face if they heard our thinking can make a difference.
Build Connections
• You are not alone.
• Stress can cause some people to withdraw (flight) and isolate.
• Make an effort to engage with others.
• Find the audience you need today.
• Medical Professionals
• Friends & Family
• Cancer Survivor Peers
Be Gentle With Yourself
• Remember your feelings will likely change day to day.
• Try not to ignore your need to share your worries, fears and questions.
• Often talking with others helps you work through concerns or uncertainties in a natural way.
• Allow yourself the range of emotions. There are not good or bad feelings.
• Understanding yourself takes time. Consider this to be an ongoing dialogue with yourself.