Mind Cards – a daily dose of mindfulness

I received a belated Christmas present at the weekend; the order had been delayed and therefore hadn’t arrived when I last met up with the giver.

The gift was a box of Mind Cards. These cards are designed to help you become more mindful of your thoughts and feelings, giving you the tools needed to focus on the present at and spread positivity and self-care throughout your life.

By introducing positive habits into your everyday routine, the Mind Cards will help you create the happiest and healthiest life for you.

They are a set of 45 cards split into five categories: ritual; journal; kindness; gratitude and reflections, offering a different task for the day to set you on track to a more fulfilling and present way of life.

The instructions were to shuffle the deck, combining the five categories. Each day select a card at random and take the action stated on the card. When a journal or reflections card is chosen, take the time to acknowledge how the quote or quotations applies to your life in the present moment. Keep the answers in a notebook or journal to allow yourself to reflect on how your responses change over time.

So, I have shuffled the deck and my first card says to take 10 undistracted minutes to answer the following question in your journal with regard to your life in this present moment: “What is your life motto”?

At the present time my life motto revolves around my desire for self-growth and self-awareness, developing a more elegant and feminine outlook and making financial plans for the next five years to work towards early retirement. Trying to distil that into one phrase that encapsulates all of it the only phrase I can think of is “Building Better”: building a better me, building a better financial situation, building better opportunities, building a better future. That’s not to say that I am not good enough, or I don’t have financial security or opportunities, but that I have space to grow in all those areas.

I am working my way through self-growth and awareness, as you already know. I have enough financial security to retire now if I wanted to, but there’s no harm in putting some more aside now whilst I can, to ensure that in five years’ time, I can retire more comfortably, considering I am still a long time off being able to collect state pensions, and even some of the work-based pensions. It might be prudent to consolidate some of the pension pots I have and make additional voluntary contributions whilst I have some spare funds at the of each month. But I don’t want to tie my finances up so tightly that I can enjoy spending now. I want to enjoy holidays, the luxury of having my own car, the opportunities to attend events that I want to and buy the things I think will support my elegance and femininity development.

What would your lift motto be and why?

Meditation and Mindfullness – there’s an app for that

The benefits of daily meditation have been widely documented in scientific journals, but according to Bryan Lindenberger only a small fraction of adults actually do it regularly, despite the health and wellbeing advantages.

As with most things these days there are apps that you can download that help, can be personalised to your particular mental wellbeing goals. Some apps track your wellbeing progress and can adapt to your changing circumstances. Meditation has been noted to have helped millions of people to overcome depression, relieve stress, sleep better, develop mindfulness, reduce anxiety and increase focus.

If you’re new to the whole thing, some apps offer guided meditation, helping you through the techniques of basic relaxation, breathing and mindfulness exercises. There are free apps you can download from your app store whilst others have limited free content before they start to charge for deeply personalised approaches.

Lindenberger evaluated some of the main apps that are available:

Headspace – makes your happiness its goal, leading you through mindfulness, resilience and happiness.

Calm – the most popular app for meditation, sleep and relaxation, designed for beginners and advanced users.

Insight Timer – teaches self-love through guided and unguided sessions. With 100,000 meditation and music tracks it has the largest free content, but you can pay for offline sessions.

Balance: Medication and Sleep – our moods change all the time and this app promises to adjust with you. Each day you answer questions that allow the app to choose the right meditation for your mood.

Ten Percent Happier – This was number one in the New York Times meditation guide. This app is for the beginner and helps with stress relief and finding focus.

Breethe – includes meditations, hypnotherapy, nature sounds, masterclasses and more. You can set morning alarms and reminders too. Ideal for those new to mindfulness and meditation.

MyLife Meditation – mostly free, offers guided deep breathing and meditations focusing on relieving stress, with a series on eating and journaling.

Aura – designed for the busy. Meditations can last all night, or as little as three minutes, including life coaching, hypnosis and bedtime stories.

Buddhify – a low single cost app for beginners, with a colour wheel to help choose your meditation intuitively.

Healthy Minds Program – 100% free with decades of research to back it up, to help you gain focus, improve resilience, reduce stress and stay motivated.

Medito – also 100% beginner and intermediate courses specifically dedicated to stress, work-life balance, sleep and stories.

Meditation by Soothing Pod – totally free, no subscription with calming stories, soothing music, and nature sounds.

Mesmerize – for the more visual person with hypnotic images and calming music to guide you to peace and relaxation.

I have Calm on my phone and have done some of the free, very short meditations whilst hiding out in the toilets at work, but most of it required payment, so I usually just use it to check in with how I’m feeling. My Fitbit also has a Relax mode which you can set to three or five minutes and breathe along in rhythm, which is supposed to help lower your heart rate. I’ve done the three minute one a few times, but honestly, just keep forgetting about it.

What apps do you use to help you stay calm, focussed, relaxed and motivated?

A different frame of mind

I think I’ve probably mentioned this before, but how we choose to respond to outside stimuli, pressures and events is entirely within our own undertaking. We can choose to get wound up by things, or we can choose to let it go.

My first day back at work this week was horrid. By the end of the day I was absolutely sure that the conversation when I got home was going to be around how much longer I would have to put up with this. C was his usual stoic self and confirmed my worst fear that I would have to stick it out for a few more years yet. Damn. I felt exhausted after just 1 day back in the office. I felt dejected. I felt well and truly fed up. This has a physical impact as well. I was unmotivated to do anything else and I stuffed my face with crisps and chocolate. I felt physically sick at the prospect of having to go back the next day and deal with it all, all over again.

Fast forward a few days and I’m in a much better frame of mind. The plans I put in place on Monday have had a positive result and things are looking ok for the coming week. I’ve also made the conscious observation, out loud to others, about what I am currently employed to do versus what I get dragged back in to, through necessity, but that I shouldn’t really, and the impact that is having both on trying to deliver what it is I’m supposed to be doing, but also providing the right kind of support to those in the department. A fuller conversation as to how that plays out is happening later this week.

My point being, my mind-set had changed. I had chosen to not allow the frustrations at the beginning of the week to overshadow the rest of the week. I packed that day away and moved on. I’m not pretending it was an easy transition. I still woke up on the Tuesday really not wanting to go to work.

According to the Mayo Clinic (https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950), whether you are a pessimist or an optimist can have an effect on your longer term mental health, but also has physical manifestations too. Being more positive doesn’t mean that you gloss over the difficult things but that by approaching them in a more positive way can be more productive. Making the best out of a bad situation. Thinking positively can improve life span, reduce depression and distress, provide greater resistance to colds and better psychological and physical wellbeing, cardiovascular health and general better coping skills.

By focusing on positive thinking we can identify areas of life that may need changing, stopping to check on our thinking and finding ways to put a positive spin on it. By being open to allowing yourself to have a laugh during difficult times can help you feel less stressed. Following a healthy lifestyle is often cited, and probably the one I do least of. Surrounding yourself with positivity will rub off on you and practicing positive self-talk will help you realise that you have a lot to be thankful for.

I’m heading to the end of this week with a much more positive outlook that I had at the beginning.

Making the most of time

No surprises but there are 24 hours in a day. How we spend them is our choice. Whether we spend them wisely is debatable. Some people profess to be really good at time management whilst others feel that there isn’t enough time to get everything done. Is time slipping away from us or are we wasting it?

The latest dossier in Psychologies Magazine goes into some detail about where commitment lies, understanding procrastination, understanding how we currently spend our time and prioritising what’s important. It offers some advice on timekeeping tips for the proverbial laters. Then comes the inevitable 10 question test to determine what stops you making the most of your time.

My results indicated the dominant trait of overthinking, putting hours into mulling over events, conversations, decisions and tasks. This leads to being overwhelmed and worry that others seem to be more productive. Others may be unaware the extent of the overthinking because the outward impression is one of calm. It suggests that I should schedule worry time and limit it to 15 minutes.

A close second was overcommitment, a difficulty in saying no to opportunity and helping others. But if that time does not align with core values it will undermine wellbeing. The challenge here is to find space in my life to connect with the people I love and nurture new connections. Resist the urge to fill all the time up.

Both easier said than done. Today for example. First day back at work after 2 weeks off. By midday I was already feeling that I’d had enough. I didn’t want to be there. By the end if the day I was starting to seriously consider my get out strategy. I had a meeting in the evening I had a zoom call which was fine, not anything stressful, just a bit of preplanned for something which may, or may not, be happening next week.

I’ll try and give tomorrow a fresh start and not worry about the things that I can’t do anything about. And it’ll be C’s birthday so I intend to spend the evening with him and not worrying about what else still needs to be done.

Sitting with adversity

I’ve just completed a free, online 6 week course in Demystifying Mindfulness course via Future Learn (www.furturelearn.com). The course covered the “science of mindfulness, how it works and why from a political, psychological and philosophical perspective”. Throughout the course were a series of Mindfulness Labs, opportunities to practice a meditation technique. Something not so long ago I would have said was nonsense. One of the ones that resonated with me most was the one on Sitting with Adversity.

Usually throughout a meditation the participant is encouraged to let go of thoughts and feelings and concentrate on breath or sounds. In this particular one though we were actively encouraged to invite a difficult situation, thought or feeling and to acknowledge its existence, to sit alongside it, before considering “each in breath a new beginning and each out breath a letting go”.

So many situations to choose from. I may well have to come back to this meditation several times to get through them all. However, at the end of the 15 minutes or so, I felt much calmer about the situation I had been thinking about. I chose to lessen its hold over me and consider what was within my personal means of being able to do about it. In the end, I chose to let it be what it will be.

Even coming to terms with that simple statement of letting something be what it will be and making a conscious decision to not let it affect me in the way it had been, was enough to lighten to load.

I have done several short courses via Future Learn and would thoroughly recommend it as a way of broadening horizons and dipping into something before deciding whether or not its something you want to pursue further.

Analysis Paralysis

I’m doing an online course in mindfulness and wellbeing at the moment and have been fortunate to spend all of the day going through the next module, which has been discussing, amongst other things, the merits of whether mindfulness teachers need to be qualified or regulated in some way, and whether attending an 8 week intensive mindfulness course is sufficient for someone to set themselves up as a mindfulness teacher. Don’t panic, I’m not going to be opening up a clinic any time soon.

Being scientifically objective about mindfulness is difficult in that it is difficult to measure one person’s experiences against another’s. We all come pre-programmed with inbuilt prejudices and life experiences that cause us to be open or judgemental about ideas. We all have unconscious biases that impact our opinion as to whether a therapy has been helpful or not.

Connection to a teacher is important. Without a rapport and mutual understanding student and teacher may not settle into a place of trust. People attend mindfulness based stress relief (MBSR) or mindfulness cognitive behavioural therapy (MCBT) for a multitude of reasons, but it is important to recognise that many of them do so because they have been referred as part of a treatment therapy for depression or stress/anxiety, trauma or PTSD. However, even those of us who are seemingly quite resilient and able to cope with most things could end up being triggered by regressing into something that we had long ago put away, dealt with, coped with or moved on from, as part of mindfulness practice.

Is someone who has been on an 8 week course sufficiently qualified and experienced enough to handle that?

If I were in the situation of needing support to such a level, I would be wanting to find out more about the person delivering the sessions. In a business environment we are taught to use the PESTLE analysis tool to investigate the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental aspect of a business before investing or setting up a new business. If I were looking for a teacher who was going to be helping me explore the deeper parts of my brain, and help me find ways to cope and recover I would want to know that the teacher had done those same sorts of analysis on the subject of mindfulness and not just got a certificate of attendance.

The holy trinity

Its by no coincidence that my blog site is called Bells, Bakes & Bettering Myself. Today I got to do all three. The holy trinity. The hatrick. Whatever you want to call it.

This morning was spent with friends and family in Ringing Room, the virtual #bellringing platform. A group of us from Essex, North Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire were able to ring together, have a good natter and make some progress in our learning. Bells part 1. Tick.

Early afternoon was taken up by decorating a cake for me and hublet for valentines day. Now, I need to fess up and admit that I didn’t actually make the cake, I only decorated it. A fantastic website called Sweet Success Cakes https://cccbr.org.uk/2021/02/10/the-survival-and-recovery-toolbox-issue-3/ can ship you ready make cakes in any size and different shapes and flavours you like. I’d already decided that I’m going to make myself a cake for my birthday next week and was looking at the site for some inspiration. They were offering 4 x 4 inch cakes, chocolate, red velvet, lemon and plain for £10. No brainer. Therefore, I decided that I would use one for valentines day, 2 for my birthday and have an extra tall cake and the other one for his birthday. I’ll have a rethink when it comes to our anniversary. All of these dates happen within a month of each other. The cakes can be frozen and defrosted when you need them so that’s handy. Cake done, although I suppose not technically baking but… Bakes. Tick.

Then came a meeting with some members of the Central Council and The Big Ideas Company, an organisation we’ve worked with before on major #bellringing projects. We were kicking around some new ideas for regenerating ringing when we can return post Covid. Bells part 2. Tick.

Then there was a little slot available until dinnertime to do a bit of research. I’m currently doing a free online course about mindfulness and wellbeing. See yesterday’s blog for how that went. The course does require you to do some independent learning so I was having a look about for scholarly articles on the science of mindfulness. Turns out there’s quite a few. I’ve pulled off a few that I think might be interesting. Bettering Myself. Tick.

Bells, Bakes and Bettering Myself. Does what it says on the tin.