More threads by Daniel E.

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator
A Kindle book that is currently free:

Mindful Framing: Transform your Anxiety into Vital Energy

Do you have ANXIETY or STRESS?​

Learn HOW to TRANSFORM them into VITAL ENERGY... with JUST 15 MINUTES in the morning

ANXIETY AND STRESS are epidemic in today’s fast-paced world. In response, many turn to meditation and related practices with limited long-term success.

Oscar Segurado, MD, PhD, understands why. Meditation worked well for thousands of years, but can’t counter the effects of life in the twenty-first century. Instead, you need a new approach to control anxiety, especially given the proven connection between stress and serious diseases, including cancer, caused by a dysfunctional immune system.

A mere fifteen minutes of mindful framing in the morning creates a solid mental framework for the rest of the day. You are the screenwriter and director of a lifestyle movie leading to a calm mind, healthy relationships and a vigorous body.

It’s a modern world. We need a modern way to transform anxiety into vital energy. Segurado offers the way: mindful framing.

Five steps towards a NEW FRAME OF MIND​

  1. Recognize your TRIGGERS OF ANXIETY while riding an imaginary bus
  2. Leverage your FIVE SENSES while experiencing virtual sensations
  3. Connect with MOTHER NATURE while traveling through a fictional landscape
  4. Harmonize your EMOTIONS with those of others while watching a symbolic "emotional tree"
  5. Invigorate your immune system while exploring your ORGANISM with your "mind's eye"

 
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Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

Try these suggestions for creating a work environment that supports good health and posture.
  1. Set a timer and get up every 30 minutes. Take a walking meeting, stand or exercise during a conference call, or hand-deliver a message when you would normally email it.
  2. Ask a colleague to take a picture of you at your workstation and check to see if it supports well-aligned posture (eyes looking straight, neck not bent, forearms parallel to the floor, low back in its natural curve). If not, talk to your human resources contact for help if needed.
  3. Follow the 20/20/20 rule. Every 20 minutes, give your eyes a 20-second break by focusing on something at least 20 feet away.
  4. Create a standing workstation!
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

When you feel like giving up just find one thing in the near future to look forward to. It can be the smallest thing, just find something. Then repeat as many times as needed. -- J.D.
 
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Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

While plans aren’t in and of themselves bad, and they can certainly help lend direction to life, equally, I found it was generally in my best interest to leave things wide open to possibility, and here’s why:

1. Planning tends to solidify life, and life is simply not meant to be frozen solid.
Clichéd as it may sound, life is a lot like water, and making plans is like placing a whole lot of logs and rocks and other obstructions in life’s way—it clogs up the current. Plans create resistance, and life is usually best when not resisted.

2. When you’re looking for a specific outcome, you’re often not looking at anything else.
A whole world of fantastic prospects could be surrounding you, but when you have on what I like to call the “focus-blinders,” all you can see is what you think you want, and nothing more.

3. This one’s sort of an addendum to number two: We might miss out on opportunities.
For the most part, people are inclined to think they’ll recognize opportunity when it comes knocking, but it’s been my experience that opportunity comes in all shapes and sizes, and it might easily be missed (or severely delayed) if we’re expecting it to look a certain way.

4. This last one might be the most important, and it’s that over-planning can cause us to overthink and end up second-guessing or compromising ourselves, as well as our values and goals.
I’ve learned the hard way (on more than one occasion) that having a plan and sticking to it like glue can be a fast path to rock bottom.
 
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Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator
Emotional flexibility is the ability to respond to life’s challenges with an appropriate level of emotion, and then to recover as these situations change. A flexible emotional system is perhaps the single most important feature of psychological health. Fortunately, the flexibility of your emotional system isn’t fixed—it’s plastic. And you can enhance the flexibility of your emotional system if you work at it.

The goal of this workbook is to teach you skills to increase your emotional flexibility. With a more resilient emotional system, you’ll feel less anxious and sad, and better able to bounce back from the ups and downs of life.

~ Michael A. Tompkins, PhD, ABPP, author of The Anxiety and Depression Workbook: Simple, Effective CBT Techniques to Manage Moods and Feel Better Now

Free tools for the book
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator
Present Perfect: A Mindfulness ... - Google Books

Exercise: Humility Check

Whenever something goes "wrong" (meaning the way you supposed it would go), choose to shift from frustration to awe. Marvel at the bewildering, nuanced, multifaceted complexity of what is. Say to yourself, "Wow!" Instead of chastising yourself, allow that you made the best prediction you could about how reality would be, but you have obviously and understandably underestimated the mind-boggling complexity of it all. Perhaps you weren't aware of all the variables involved; maybe you didn't have enough computational sophistication to extrapolate the most likely trajectory of reality. How could have you known what you didn't know? If you had known what you didn't know, your predictions would have been different. It's time to factor in the new data, to update your assumptions, to revise your model, and to say "Wow!" (not "Damn!").
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

Just because something is simple doesn't make it easy. How do you quit smoking? You just stop smoking. We should just pull out of Iraq. There should be peace in the Middle East. People should stop hurting each other and start being nice. All of these are good ideas, but the devil is in the details.
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

"Many people with low self-esteem believe sadness is part of life and that you shouldn't try to get rid of it, while people with high self-esteem believe in doing something to feel better if they have a negative experience or get in a bad mood."

~ Jonathon Brown
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

Above all else, most research indicates that it is simply beneficial to live in a consistently neat and organized space. Any steps you take toward curating a healthy environment for yourself are well worth the effort. That’s one compelling reason to do a deep clean and donate unwanted items.
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

“I think what resilience doesn’t look like is toughening up, not crying, soldiering on, stiff upper lip,” says Hone. “It involves all emotions – it can involve anger and tears, lying in bed one day and saying: ‘I just can’t do this.’ It certainly can involve saying at the office: ‘Can someone help me on this project? Because right now, we’ve got this going on at home and that is consuming so much of my energy that I am definitely going to need some support on this.’ And that is not being weak – it is being realistic. It also involves being able to dial down your inner critic and showing yourself sufficient compassion to let yourself get through.”
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

Most of us do not realize that the majority of our supportive messages come from our internal thought processes rather than from external sources.
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator
This is intended for self-care for trauma and addiction therapists but can be helpful for anyone. I struck out the unrelated questions:


Comprehensive Self-Care Plan Worksheet

Instructions

Use the following questions to help you engage in a self-reflective process and develop your comprehensive self-care plan. Be specific and include strategies that are accessible, acceptable, and appropriate to your unique circumstances. Remember to evaluate and revise your plan regularly.

Physical

What are non-chemical things that help my body relax?

What supports my body to be healthy?

Psychological/Mental

What helps my mind relax?

What helps me see a bigger perspective?

What helps me break down big tasks into smaller steps?

What helps me counteract negative self-talk?

What helps me challenge negative beliefs?

What helps me build my theoretical understanding of trauma and addictions?

What helps me enhance my counseling/helping skills in working with traumatized clients?


What helps me become more self-reflective?

Emotional/Relational

What helps me feel grounded and able to tolerate strong feelings?

What helps me express my feelings in a healthy way?

Who helps me cope in positive ways and how do they help?

What helps me feel connected to others?

Who are at least three people I feel safe talking with about my reactions/feelings about clients?

How can I connect with those people on a regular basis?

Spiritual

What helps me find meaning in life?

What helps me feel hopeful?

What sustains me during difficult times?

What connects me to something greater?

© P. Burke, 2006. This worksheet may be freely copied as long as (a) author is credited, (b) no changes are made, and (c) it is not sold. Permission to reprint has been granted by the author, Patricia A. Burke.
 
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Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator

Research has found that having a backup plan might actually sabotage your efforts toward Plan A...

A backup plan can make you less excited about your main plan...It could also water down your motivation...
 

Daniel E.

daniel@psychlinks.ca
Administrator
The Talents of a Middle-Aged Brain - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

A lot of the myths we think of in terms of middle age, myths that I grew up with, turn out to be based on almost nothing. Things like the midlife crisis or the empty nest syndrome. We’re brought up to think we’ll enter middle age and it will be kind of gloomy. But as scientists look at real people, they find out the contrary. One study of men found that well-being peaked at age 65. Over and over they find that middle age, instead of being a time of depression and decline, is actually a time of being more optimistic overall.

---------------



During the 20th century, the midlife crisis became a fashionable means of describing feelings of disillusionment with work, disenchantment with relationships, detachment from family responsibilities, and the growing fear of personal death that began to haunt those beyond the age of forty.

Coined in 1965, the term 'midlife crisis' is often used as satire in popular culture, with numerous examples of stereotypical depictions of rebellion and infidelity. It has been a popular focus of research seeking to explain why and how middle age presents particular social, physiological and emotional challenges.

In this lecture, Professor Mark Jackson, winner of the 2018 Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal, explores a rich range of historical sources to argue that the midlife crisis emerged as a result of demographic changes, new biological accounts of ageing, and deepening anxieties about economic decline, political instability, rising level of divorce, and the impact of family breakdown on social cohesion.

Watch the Q&A here: https://youtu.be/q9erYW2KsUg
 
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