Wellness Wednesdays

Positive affirmations     In previous posts, I have talked about the power of thought in triggering emotional and stress responses.  Mindfulness  approaches teach us that we have the power to control our thoughts, through first of all bringing our attention to them, secondly acknowledging that unhelpful thoughts are not reality, and thirdly through meditation, learning to let go of unhelpful thoughts and focusing on the reality of what is happening in the present moment.      Positive affirmations are another tool that we can use to benefit our mental health. A positive affirmation is a powerful, positive statement or judgment believed to be true. We make unconscious affirmations constantly throughout the day, and they will not always be positive. These can become limiting beliefs and these thoughts are exactly what we are trying to address through a mindfulness approach.     Positive affirmations are a powerful way to begin to shift these li...

This week my colleague Eilleen Cunningham has written a piece on regrets and a fabulous book by Matt Haig called  The Midnight Library . No regrets? I have always recognised that regretting things in life that w e do (or don’t do) is wasted energy. However, knowing it (logically) and actually stopping it are two different things. As humans we have this wonderful ability to be conscious, not only of the present moment but also to be able to reflect on past memories and actions. Wondering how our lives might be different ‘if only…’ may be a source of relief, amusement or frustration. Even the smallest decision we made years ago may have created our life as we know it today. For example, I can still remember the split-second decision to buy a local paper from a street vendor twenty-five years ago in which I found a tiny advert for a job which then led to another job then another, meeting people who are still my good friends now and influencing my house moves. As well as being able to ...

You may be feeling a bit flat this week with the announcement of the new COVID lockdown restrictions. I must admit I was feeling a bit uninspired to write this today, but my Social Policy colleague Eileen Cunningham inspired me this morning with starting up her daily gratitude posts on Facebook. This is something that she did during lockdown earlier in the year; she shared daily thoughts of gratitude about aspects of her life, often simple things like a walk or a meal or a positive experience in work. This really helped her to feel positive during a testing time. The power of gratitude is well documented and research evidence suggests that it has a positive impact on mental health.      So what is gratitude? It can be lots of things – an emotion, an attitude, a moral virtue, a habit, a personality trait or a coping response. From a psychological perspective, gratitude involves having a distinctive view of the world; i t’s about focusing on and appreciating what we have ra...

This week I am sharing a brilliant book called  The Compassionate Mind Workbook . A step-by-step guide to developing your compassionate self.  This is book is written by our very own Dr Elaine Beaumont, a Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Salford.        The workbook is a step-by-step guide to Compassion Focused Therapy, in which the chapters build your understanding of yourself, the skills that give rise to a compassionate mind, and ways to work with whatever difficulties you're struggling with in life. The exercises (e.g. using imagery to cultivate compassion, creating a calm and peaceful place in the mind, compassionate letter writing, compassionate thinking, mindfulness, creating a compassionate team that can help the individual face fears and distress), prompts, audios and case stories in this book provide an understandable and practical way to develop compassion. This is potentially important because there is increasing evidence t...

"The Work"     When I first began my wellness journey about six years ago, mindfulness taught me that through meditation, I could separate my thoughts from reality. I discovered that I could notice thoughts as they entered my mind, observe them and let them go. This was completely revolutionary to me - how could my thoughts not be ‘me’? I create them, surely! Mindfulness is about recognising that yes, we create our thoughts, but our mind does this on autopilot as we go about our daily lives. If you are experiencing a negative situation, you might find that your mind throws up similar situations from your past in attempt to ‘solve the problem’. This can make you feel worse, and so the mind throws up more negative thoughts and so on. Mindfulness is about recognising unhelpful thoughts and letting them go before they become consuming.  Practicing mindfulness meditation is not surprisingly, great for your mental health (apps  Calm  &  Headspace  are a ...