Month: June 2020

A = Acceptance – 10 Keys to Happier Living: Christine Hamilton, HWBI Ninja

Posted on by hwbinspiration

Some practical self-care steps for living in the “New Normal” by applying Acceptance and Commitment Theory (ACT).

I was drawn to an on-line lecture covering the practical steps I, and others, could consider putting into practice in order to personally deal more effectively with the unprecedented challenges of “Lockdown” and other Covid impacts. Dr Russ Harris, a key proponent of ACT, has produced an acronym – FACE COVID to help us remember what we can do when we become suddenly aware of excessive anxiety within ourselves or others. (In such times it is, of course, an entirely rational reaction to feel concern and anxiety).

When I first heard about ACT, I thought it sounded a bit “hippyish” which was both appealing and, I thought, impractical for busy modern lives- “who realistically has time to mindful?”.  And I wondered if “Acceptance” was just another word for “let yourself off the hook of striving for high performance” i.e. it was for wimps. I have subsequently realised that ACT offers the potential for me and my coachees to accept our humanity and to commit to moving towards more meaningful lives. I found the webinar, presented by Associate Professor Nuno Ferreira, of Nicosia University, insightful and it energised me to share his and Russ Harris’ work.  So I’ve outlined a definition of ACT and the steps advocated and you can make your own mind up.
( I have listed additional links and resources should anyone want to read more about the origins and evidence around ACT).

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a coaching and therapy approach which encourages people to make progress through the development of psychological flexibility.  It  invites people to: open up to unpleasant feelings; to learn not to overreact to them or to  try to eliminate them (by overindulging in unhealthy/unproductive behaviours); to learn not to avoid situations where such feelings are invoked; and instead to embrace their thoughts and feelings rather than fighting or feeling guilty for them.  The approach combines mindfulness skills with the practice of self-acceptance.   It helps people to be present with, and accept, what life brings them and to planfully “move toward valued behaviours”.

FACE COVID

 F = Focus on what you can control                      C = Committed action

A = Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings  O = Opening up 

C = Come back into your body                               V = Values

E = Engage in what you are doing                         I = Identify resources

                                                                                         D = Disinfect Distance

The Overall key is indeed to Focus on:

  • What you can actually control? 
  • How you can choose to behave?     Right here, right now ? 
  • And when anxiety gets too much? When you can’t stop worrying? When things just feel so out of control? What actions you can take?
FACE COVID StepsDownload

Notes and references

Steven C. Hayes developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 1982 in order to create a mixed approach which integrates both cognitive and behavioural therapy. 

A leading author and teacher of ACT is Dr Russ Harris see https://www.actmindfully.com.au/ and his 5 minute video on FACE COVID https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmvNCdpHUYM

HWBInspiration co-founders, Su & Claire, are grateful to our Associate HWBI Ninjas for sharing their knowledge, skill and insights.

E = Emotion – 10 Keys to Happier Living

Posted on by hwbinspiration

This blog, written by HWBI Ninja Lou, explores how positive thinking, being aware of our emotions so that we can think differently can boost our resilience and wellbeing.

The benefits of positive thinking 

Have you ever noticed that despite facing some really big challenges, some people always seem to see the positives?  My Mum has always said to me and my sister “try to see the positives in everything”, I have always admired her glass half full outlook.  If I am being honest, I don’t think I have always shared this approach and over the last 12-14 weeks, my glass has been a bit depleted.  So I thought as a way to help me understand why and to see if there is anything I can do about it, I would revisit the benefits of being glass half full and if there is a way I can top up my depleted glass! 

Looking at situations in a positive light when they are not ideal is a good trait. Positive thinking is a mental attitude in which you expect good and favourable results, it doesn’t mean you bury your head in the sand and ignore problems but approach unpleasant situations productively.   

Thinking positive and being glass half full leads to experiencing positive emotions like joy and contentment which broaden your mind to possibilities and can lead to:

  • Improved self-esteem
  • Improved life satisfaction
  • Increased wellbeing
  • Increased problem-solving ability
  • Help you be better able to cope with difficult life events

Glass half empty – “It’s not the things in themselves which trouble us, but the opinions we hold about these things” Epictetus. 

Our thoughts are vital to our wellbeing, they help us make sense of the world and influence how we feel and behave.  One of the most useful things that I learnt about during cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was the impact of thought distortions.  I now help others become aware of thought distortions in themselves and others through delivering Mental Health First Aid Training.  

We all have familiar thought patterns – thinking habits and beliefs systems which have been shaped by our life experiences.  Thinking distortions are unhelpful thinking patterns, they can lead to distressing feelings and prompt behaviours which can maintain the distressing feeling.  We can be more prone to these types of thoughts when we are feeling upset, anxious or low (for example over the last 14 weeks since lockdown).  Learning to recognise and challenge thinking distortions can help reduce the difficult emotions that they cause or maintain.  Some common thinking distortions include:

  • Overgeneralising – making general negative conclusions based on one example or incident i.e. burning dinner once and deciding you’re terrible at cooking based on one example.
  • All or nothing thinking – Thinking in extremes or extreme possibilities and neglecting the more likely middle ground i.e. stumbling over a few words in a presentation and then thinking the whole thing was a mess.
  • Jumping to a conclusion – making a judgement and assuming its right with little or no evidence or facts to back it up i.e. waving to a friend you see across the street who doesn’t wave back at you and assuming they are upset with you when they may not have seen you.
  • Labelling – rating yourself or others with labels based on a situation or incident i.e. labelling yourself a failure when you burn the dinner.
  • Negative filter – seeing only the bad in something or dwelling on negative events instead of positive ones and or explaining away positives for no reason or down to luck i.e. not being successful in an interview focussing on not getting the job instead of giving yourself credit for coming so far in the recruitment process.

CBT helped me to recognise, challenge and address my own thinking distortions.  It is important to recognise the ones you struggle with before you can effectively change them.  Positive Psychology has a great resource that describes cognitive distortions to help you decide ones that you may be dealing with and ways to challenge them.  

Glass half full 

Martin Seligman suggests that we can learn how to become more optimistic and train ourselves to see the world in a more useful way.  He adapted Albert Ellis’s ABC model of adversity, belief and consequence and added disruption and energisation creating the ABCDE model.

  • A = antecedent (i.e. the situation that triggers the response)
  • B = beliefs (out thoughts/interpretation of the situation/event)
  • C = consequences (the way we feel or behave)
  • D = disruption (effort to argue and dispute beliefs)
  • E = energisation (outcome or effects from redirecting your thoughts)

We tend to blame A (the antecedent) for C (the consequence) whilst it is B (our beliefs) that make us feel the way we do. Once we can see this, we can then dispute the way we are looking at a situation.  Disputing our beliefs can help us see the situation in a new light and change the way we feel.  

So how can we put this into practice?  

During the next few adverse events, you face in daily life, listen to your beliefs, observe the consequences and dispute your beliefs. Try recording this. Once you have done you can go through the process in your head. Below is an example which may resonate with a few people:

Adversity

You arranged a meeting online and couldn’t quite get the technology working at the start of the meeting

Belief 

I am rubbish at using online meeting technology, I won’t use it again

Consequence

You turn down invites to other online meetings for fear of the technology getting the better of you and you miss out on important social time with family and friends

Disruption 

I haven’t had much experience of using online meeting technology

The technology is new

Others also had some technical difficulties too

After the first 5 minutes, the meeting went well

There are 4 ways to make your disruptions convincing:

  • Evidence – show the negative beliefs are factually incorrect – most are overreactions. What is the evidence for this belief?
  • Alternatives – are there different ways to look at the problem which are less damaging to yourself, focus on changeable causes i.e. I was tired and specific or its only one time this has happened?
  • Implications – de-catastrophize, even if you struggled with the technology it’s not impacting on the rest of your life
  • Usefulness – question the usefulness of your belief  

Energisation 

Consider how you feel now you have challenged your beliefs.

This is an ongoing process that you may need to repeat and remind yourself of as I have through writing this blog, however, if you use these steps when facing a challenge eventually it becomes easier to challenge negative thoughts and approach challenges with greater optimism.  

HWBInspiration co-founders, Su & Claire, are grateful to our Associate HWBI Ninjas for sharing their knowledge, skill and insights.

R = Resilience – 10 Keys to Happier Living

R = Resilience – 10 Keys to Happier Living

Posted on by hwbinspiration

This blog, written by our HWBI Ninja Lou, focuses on how we can boost our resilience and attend to our health and wellbeing. She also draws attention to team resilience ….. we are more likely to be resilient together after all.

Psychologists define resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress. As much as it involves “bouncing back” from difficult experiences it can also involve personal growth. “Becoming more resilient not only helps us to get through difficult circumstances it also empowers you to grow and even improve your life along the way” (American Psychological Association).

There are many definitions of Resilience. I recently watched a webinar by the Association of Executive Coaching in partnership with Resilience Engine. They talked about resilience as our adaptability and a measure of resilience as our capacity for change. Robertson and Cooper describe resilience as a combination of personal characteristics and skills “The characteristics which are associated with higher levels of resilience are inherent in our personalities, however, resilience skills can be used to help us adapt our natural style and tendencies”. So, resilience skills can be learned and developed.  

So how can we measure our resilience? 

There are some really useful tools freely available to help you to measure and understand your resilience. They  typically explore 5 common themes including:

  • Self-control
  • Adaptability
  • Optimism
  • Self-sufficiency
  • Persistence

The Resilience Engine offers their Resilience Check – In tool which provides you with your resilience level in relation to their Resilience Dynamic and some top resilience enablers. The Resilience Dynamic details 3 levels of Resilience: Breakdown, Break-Even and Breakthrough.  

Robertsoncooper offers their i-resilience tool which provides you with a detailed report which covers their 4 key components of resilience which are: Confidence, Purposefulness, Adaptability and Social Support. Tools and resources focussed on these four areas for building resilience are available on the i-resilience portal.

So how can we build our resilience?

The College of Wellbeing offers great tools and tips:

The boat and water mapping tool is a simple and effective tool for mapping factors that influence our resilience. By identifying the negative and positive influences on our resilience we can develop ways to reduce the negative and strengthen the positive.  

The SSRI toolkit offers a framework for identifying the tools that we already have available to build our resilience. It is based on the concept that the choices we make and actions we take can have a natural anti-depressant effect. SSRI in this model stands for :

  • Strategies i.e. practical things we can do i.e. meditation or attention to diet and exercise
  • Strengths i.e. what you can draw upon internally in yourself i.e. courage and determination
  • Resources i.e. where can you seek external support i.e. friends and support groups
  • Insights i.e. can you look at things differently to help you move forward? i

Everyday Health offers an Everyday Health Assessment which provides you with a resilience score and 9 attributes that can help you develop to become your most resilient self which has been adapted from Dr Sood’s model of resilience. The attributes include internal factors i.e. skills we have or have learned and can better develop such as self-control and self-confidence and external factors such as personal relationship, purpose and meaning and communities and social support.

There are also some really useful guides for building resilience in the era of COVID 19.

An article in Psychology today suggests that acceptance (Hayes et al 2011), self-compassion (Neff 2015) and gratitude (Wood et al 2010) are approaches that can help face challenging times.  The author suggests:

  • Be open – accept thoughts and feelings instead or of trying to suppress or change them “this doesn’t mean resignation to these thoughts and feelings but recognising that we have those experiences and seeing them for what they are (a thought is just that while a feeling is just that)”
  • Be aware – being fully present in the moment instead of being caught up in our thoughts and feelings. One way to help with this is to take time and focus on breathing while noticing one thing with each sense
  • Be engaged and active – take time to consider what’s important and take action to bring what’s important closer to you
  • Be self-compassionate – be kind to yourself as opposed to judging ourselves “ask yourself what a caring friend or family member might say” next time you find yourself saying critical things to yourself
  • Practice gratitude – trying out approaches to gratitude such as journaling about things that you are grateful for can serve as a beacon of hope.  

A more recent article from June in  Science Direct  discusses the urgent need for a focus on resilience during the coronavirus pandemic as “resilience is pivotal to cope with stress and vital to stay in balance”. The authors emphasise that stress and anxiety are normal reactions to the pandemic and stress reactions may include changes in concentration, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, reduced productivity and interpersonal conflict. In addition to the threat of the virus, the quarantine measures increase the stress-related symptoms. To help adapt to the mental health effects they refer to several useful pieces of advice from the resilience literature including:

  • Promoting social connectedness as loneliness and social isolation is what makes the crisis different compared to many others
  • Planning routine day to day activities and promoting self-care
  • Increased attention to exercise and nutrition
  • Regular media breaks
  • Help people feel in control (one of the findings in stress and resilience research is that the higher the controllability of a stress situation is, the better individuals cope with the situation) for example measures people can take to reduce risk of infection and minimise the spread of disease.

Finally AOD who are experts in team based working have collated  some really great resources around team working and resilience. 

Over the past 12 weeks, I have found myself consciously and unconsciously adopting some of these practices, however reading about them to write this blog has been a useful reminder of how I can take back some control over my reaction to the multitude of emotions I have experienced and continue to feel during the pandemic. I hope that you find some of this useful too.  

Note the photo I have used for this blog is a photo I took early January of a Hellebore in my garden.  It  summed up to me how resilient they must be to be able to produce these gorgeous flowers through winter!

HWBInspiration co-founders, Su & Claire, are grateful to our Associate HWBI Ninjas for sharing their knowledge, skill and insights.

D = Direction: Embracing goal setting for purpose, meaning and motivation

D = Direction: Embracing goal setting for purpose, meaning and motivation

Posted on by hwbinspiration

This blog, written by our co-founder Su, explores how setting meaningful goals can boost our health and wellbeing. This is one in a series exploring The 10 Keys to Happier Living.

It would be fair to say that in my formative years, into my 20’s and 30’s I didn’t consciously or intentionally set specific life, career, financial or wellbeing goals.  Looking back, I can see that I pretty much ‘went with the flow’.  Any successes or achievements I put down as being ‘in the right place at the right time’ or ‘being lucky’.  And I put failures down as ‘life lessons’ to learn from.  I consider myself fortunate in many ways as I:

  • Received a good education at a comprehensive school – some similarities with Grange Hill
  • Had a happy childhood – I spent a lot of time in Ireland in summer holidays, or weekends with extended family as both parents worked full time.  It gave me a sense of independence at an early age and probably contributed to my rebellious streak.
  • Have a strong network of family and friends – not without sadness, loss and upset yet I can reflect on the fact that there are ‘no family feuds’, big fallouts.  We all get along and support each other.
  • Enjoy my job role, proud that I trained to be a nurse as it has stood me in good stead for all the job roles that I have had during my working life.
  • Have an amazing life partner that has seen me in through highs and lows, put up with my quirks.

And yet up until my 40’s I didn’t get the whole ‘setting goals’ thing at a personal level.  At the time, in my line of work as a coach and facilitator, I could see the importance of them, but this ‘goal setting’ thing applied to everyone else, not to me personally as…. Let’s face it, they can be a bit boring.  Then there were a series of events in my mid 40’s that changed all that:

  • Mental Health and Wellbeing – My mum developed a serious mental ill-health condition, to the point where whenever the phone rang, I would fear what had happened, what I could do if anything and how I would respond to support my dad.
  • Physical Health – I fractured my ankle, which meant that I was non-weight bearing for 4 months, I couldn’t physically go into work (good rehearsal for COVID19 as it was a form of self-isolation).  I still managed to work from home and have many a funny anecdote to share about how I adapted.
  • Grief and Bereavement – Just as I stopped using crutches, had my pins removed and was looking forward to returning to work, my dad died unexpectedly.  I hadn’t seen him for 5 months because of my fracture.  He had main carer responsibility and couldn’t really travel the 500 mile round trip.  Initially, I was able to hold it together and then 4 weeks after his death everything just seemed to fall apart.  I didn’t feel able to cope or do anything.  Work was now out of the question as I struggled to even do the basics of getting up, getting dressed, having any form of emotional containment.
  • Financial Health – Suddenly there was a need to survive on statutory sick pay.  This had a significant impact on household finances – double income down to single income.  And then the financial crash of 2010 hit and my job role was in jeopardy.  Clients stopped commissioning work, so there was minimal income into the company I worked for, so I had to make some decisions quickly.
  • Carer responsibility – Understandably, my mum was in her grieving process and in the early days, like me, seemed to be coping well and then her mental health deteriorated even further to a point where she needed intensive care and support.  We live 250 miles apart, what were we to do?

This was my unique experience; this doesn’t make me unique.

Like others, who face a series of life events that come together at the same time, I was faced with a sense of ‘sink or swim’. 

Working with my life partner, we went through absolutely everything from our finances, options I had for work, carer support for my mum, you name it… we were forensic.   He was, and is, an amazing support.  One of his key strengths is that he can see things clearly when I’m stuck ‘in it’ and has a talent for calmness and objectivity.  It wasn’t easy, but with clear goals, difficult choices and tenacity we turned things around. 

Looking back now, I find some comfort in a quote from the texts in Twilight of the Idols (1888) written by the great 19th Century philosopher, Fredrick Nietzsche, “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.”  In my case it was true, and I’m grateful for that.

The art of setting goals and creating a habit

Carver et al (2009) highlight that we have a natural tendency to be either more optimistic or more pessimistic.  We also know from the evidence that feeling good about the future, having a sense of purpose brings meaning and optimism to our lives. This, in turn, contributes to our sense of wellbeing.  Even when things aren’t going to plan, having goals that can be altered gives us a sense of control.  It’s also helpful to know that there are things that we can do to develop a more optimistic outlook without losing touch with reality.  What I’ve learnt is:

  • Goal setting doesn’t have to be boring, there are many benefits and advantages to having a set of goals to work towards.
  • Setting goals helps to trigger new behaviours, guides our focus and helps to sustain momentum.
  • Goals also help to align our focus and promote a sense of self-mastery.  We can’t manage what we don’t measure, so having a set of goals helps us to do that and more.

Actiononhappiness.com has great materials, tips and resources to help you, those close to you and those you work with to develop goals that are meaningful and motivating.  No goal is too small.

A demonstration of my habit in action – The ‘Tyranny’ of the Apple Watch

In 2017 I bought an Apple Watch; I like gadgets but wasn’t prepared for the impact that this little bit of kit would have on my health and wellbeing.  I was determined to improve my fitness levels.  By using the activity app has turned me from a ‘couch potato’ into someone with higher than average fitness levels (for my age), encouraged me to start running and to shift my generally healthy diet to one that is more plant-based.

During COVID19 month of May 2020, my Apple goal was to walk or run 239KM, approximately 7.7KM per day.  Under normal circumstances, I would have struggled with this due to my work patterns.  As I had to postpone other work goals, this became very motivating.  As a result, I used my one hour exercise each day to walk/run as far as I could in the time.  Not only did I achieve the target (smashed it), I also contributed to my wellbeing through connecting with nature, practising active mindfulness and appreciating those things that I perhaps I had taken for granted.

References

Carver, C.S., Scheier, M.F., Miller, C.J., Fulford, D. (2009). Optimism.  In S.J.Lopez & C.R. Snyder (Eds.) Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. NY: Oxford University Press cited www.actionforhappiness.org

HWBInspiration co-founders, Su & Claire, are grateful to our Associate HWBI Ninjas for sharing their knowledge, skill and insights.