A space for reflection

This post is about places that may help us feel good. For me, there are certain places where I feel a sense of calm and wellbeing - special places.

My usual photo here is an example of one of my favourite places, where I feel this sense of wellbeing - a great place to walk around; to sit and read for a while; to feel a connection with the natural world; to reflect...

This place is in a busy city and perhaps those who live in such a place may feel more need than others for a green tranquil space - however small. However, maybe we all have a need of a space of some kind to reflect on things.

This is a different location but also on the edge of a busy city. The wonderful scent of the azaleas at this time of year adds another dimension to a very visual scene. A great environment to practise mindfulness.

These are two very concrete examples of a space for reflection. We may not need a physical environment like this in order to be reflective, but certainly it can encourage that more relaxed and creative state of mind.

Do you have examples of special places you visit that help you get in touch with a more relaxed and meditative state of mind? I would be really interested in hearing about other people's examples.

 

Lin Travis Counselling Services 

Wellbeing - mental keep fit.

My practice includes 'wellbeing' as well as counselling services. There may be people who don't feel counselling is appropriate for them; however perhaps they would like to have an opportunity to focus on their wellbeing. You could think of it a bit like going to the gym. You exercise in order to improve your physical wellbeing. There may also be things you could do for your psychological wellbeing too.

Mindfulness can be something that might appeal to those looking for some kind of training for their minds. These mindfulness techniques and ideas can help with mental wellbeing and maybe improving concentration, helping manage stress and reducing levels of anxiety. It can also help you feel better physically.

The mind can affect our physical health in so many ways from an upset stomach, a bad back, headaches, insomnia, reduced resistance to infections... and so on. So wouldn't you want to keep fit mentally as well as physically? I'm not saying that mental wellbeing is a cure all but it can certainly make a difference, be beneficial, just as working on our physical fitness can be beneficial. Isn't that worthwhile?

It doesn't have to be about mindfulness. There could be particular things you would like to focus on that are not working as well in your life as you would wish. It can be a kind of life coaching. The difference here between wellbeing and counselling, as I'm presenting it, is that counselling deals with emotions in depth. It needs to have a regular structure generally to be effective and feel safe. Wellbeing is more focused on the practical side of things and as such does not necessarily need such a regular regime to be safe and effective help.

What both wellbeing and counselling services can provide is a space to explore and work on your concerns in a safe and creative way. As a counsellor, I feel that it is worthwhile offering both services, giving people the opportunity to find the approach best suited to them.

Lin Travis Counselling Services

Anxiety, mindfulness & purple elephants with pink spots on.

General anxiety can be difficult to shift. Thoughts can go round and round and give us no peace. We may feel unable to relax enough to get a good night's sleep; but not alert enough in the day to focus. It can be a vicious cycle.

One way of tackling this however is through mindfulness practice. It can help give us some distance from these difficult thoughts. This is not to say that I think we should avoid our thoughts or try to suppress them. They tend to have a way of either not going away or coming back to bite us somehow. If I say 'don't think of a purple elephant with pink spots', what is the first thing that comes into your mind? The chances are that it's a purple elephant with pink spots!

Rather than forcing thoughts to appear or not, mindfulness helps you gain control of your thoughts in a more healthy and gentle way. In the elephant example, you might allow the thought of a purple elephant to come in to your mind and then let it fade away of its own accord, neither forcing nor trying to stop the process.

Another example would be to imagine that your mind is the clear blue sky, and your thoughts are like clouds going across it. You can't stop them appearing or disappearing, but you know they will go of their own accord.

The problem with our own thoughts, as opposed to clouds or purple elephants, is that we worry about them. In fact we worry about worrying! This in itself raises our level of anxiety. Perhaps we worry about worrying as we think there might be something wrong with us.Why are we worrying like this? Other people don't seem to get like this ...Actually though it is very common, easily done, a vicious cycle. A cycle however that can be broken.

Mindfulness practices have helped many people with these problems. Being practices means that in order for them to help you have to practise rather than just think about them. If you're stuck with nagging thoughts though, it can be a relief to be able to focus on things beyond these thoughts.

How about going for a brisk walk at lunchtime, just five or ten minutes round the block? Focus on your body and how it feels as you take each step. If your mind wanders to your thoughts again, just gently bring it back to the sensations in your body as you walk. If you did this each day, you would be beginning to train yourself in a new and mindful way that could help you tackle your level of anxiety.

Lin Travis Counselling Services

Be mindful...have a cup of tea.

There are so many ways of being mindful but often it's the simple things that are the most effective. One of my favourites is 'have a cup of tea'.

The idea is to focus totally on what you are doing - the complete opposite of multi-tasking! Pour the tea into your favourite cup, notice the colour, the warmth of the cup in your hands, the weight of the cup. Sip it slowly and notice how the tea tastes and feels in your mouth.  Enjoy each sip and concentrate on just that.

If you find your mind wandering, then notice that this is happening. Then gently bring your attention back to the cup of tea. That's it!

It's that easy and that difficult. Generally we do several things at once and our minds flit about - planning, (or is it worrying about), the future and looking back on, (or fretting about), the past. The cup of tea gives you something physical to focus on and it only takes a few minutes of your time.

It may seem difficult to keep your mind focused but think of it as a kind of mind training. If you went to the gym for the first time, you wouldn't expect to perform as well as if you'd been training for a while.

Of course it doesn't have to be tea. It does help though to keep it quite simple. You can then observe yourself and how your mind reacts to this exercise. You can see how it wants to drift off into random thoughts or keeps returning to a particular worry. You have a chance to take a step back and observe your mind in action, gently returning it to the task in hand each time it wanders off.

Learning to focus your mind in this way can have both calming and energising effects - unlike multi-tasking...

Lin Travis Counselling Services

The black hole of depression and the light beyond it.

Depression can be debilitating. It can drain our energy and take away our enthusiasm.  When it is severe, it can feel like it has taken away even our hopes and dreams. It can be hard to think about anything good, anything positive. Depression can be so destructive..... Then someone comes along and asks 'why don't you just pull yourself together?'.....

It seems to me that the feeling at this level of depression has similarities with a black hole. I'm thinking about how light cannot exist in a black hole - not does not exist but cannot. It can feel as though the depression has somehow destroyed anything good or the ability to be aware of anything good.

These two things are quite different though. It may feel that nothing good exists any more. Perhaps though, it is that what we have temporarily lost is our ability to be in touch with the good. Just as light exists beyond a black hole, so a sense of the good may exist beyond the 'black hole' of depression but we feel unable to get in touch with it.

This may however gives some hope though. Abilities can change. If we can visualise ourselves in a black hole, then perhaps we can think about the possibility of there being light beyond it. In this sense, depression can be like tunnel vision and in finding a way to be able to take a step back, we may be able to see the light again, even if at first it is just a glimpse. We have broadened our perspective or at least seen light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel that mindfulness practice can help with this process of taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture. When we focus in and get tangled up with negative thoughts and feelings, our view may be restricted or tainted, and we do not get the full picture. Perhaps this is one reason that depression and loss are so often associated. We lose sight of the good and lose heart. I want to say though that I believe that the good stuff is still there but out of our view. This can be something to hang on to, and to give hope.

This idea of a black hole seems to put the good outside of ourselves and it may well feel like that. However while it may feel like that, perhaps the good stuff is closer than it seems. I would suggest that it is still within us but somehow obscured.

If it is obscured by the black hole of negativity, then perhaps processing the negative or difficult stuff can clear the way to seeing the good again. We can come to realise that the good stuff, the positive feelings and thoughts were still there all along. It was just that we had our 'black hole glasses' on, and they were distorting our view.

In times when we feel in a black hole, it can seem that that is how it 'really' is. We can then have the thought that 'We were kidding ourselves that life could be okay'. What I want to say is that it is the black hole feeling that causes us to think that there is nothing beyond it. We can get drawn into this, and our negative thoughts and feelings reinforced. It cons us into a distorted sense of how things really are, limiting our view and blocking out the light.

However, we are not our thoughts or our feelings. These can come and go, and we can be affected by them, but they are not us. If we can see ourselves as observers of our thoughts and our feelings rather than being consumed by them, we have begun to take that step back. We also can begin to understand why it is that we may feel so bad at times.

In seeing that the black hole as just a limited, and so distorted perspective, we can begin to move beyond and glimpse the light again. Describing hope as a light at the end of the tunnel seems to me very apt.

Lin Travis Counselling Services

Mindfulness and Counselling

I haven't had a go at blogging before, so it may take me a while to get the hang of it! I'm not brilliant at IT, but I wanted a space to chat about counselling and related issues. Right now I'm thinking about #mindfulness and how useful it can be in counselling, wellbeing... and life!



Stepping stones across the water

I feel that there are many ways in which mindfulness can be used to good effect. There are some useful CBT techniques for instance, but that doesn't necessarily tell the full story. Mindfulness has been around for thousands of years - it's certainly stood the test of time. People can use it in so many ways - to help relax, to improve focus and concentration, to meditate, to relieve stress, anxiety or depression. It can be used to help people with long term pain problems. It can be quite a powerful tool. You can see that I'm a fan!
I've used it myself personally for over forty years; and in recent years with clients / patients in therapy. It's not everyone's cup of tea but in my experience it has real therapeutic value both for those in distress and also to increase wellbeing.

There are many ways of learning to be more mindful. Perhaps the most important thing to say though is that it's not about doing it 'perfectly' but about having a go. You can read about it and think about it, but it's the actual doing that's the most important.Wrestling with what makes it difficult is being mindful.

In a way it's so simple and yet so difficult at the same time. Perhaps that sounds really vague. Here's an example...go for a short walk and try to focus on just walking, your body and how it feels, putting one foot in front of the other. You'll notice that your mind soon begins to wander. That's OK but just gently notice what thoughts come into your mind and then go back to focusing on the walking. That's it!

What that exercise does is to begin to train your mind to focus rather darting about - as minds usually do. It's a gentle kind of control not forced  In doing this you can learn to take a step back from your thoughts rather than getting tangled up in them as is so easily done.....Kind of coming out of tunnel vision and seeing the broader view. This can be very therapeutic.

Another way I find useful to approach mindfulness is through #gardening. Seeing the colours, smelling the scents, doing something physical can all help us focus in the present moment, How many people have found themselves 'lost' in the moment while pottering around the garden. We're involved in using our senses and that helps us keep in the present moment, rather than being bothered by the past or worrying about the future.

Just smelling a favourite flower or herb can have that effect - getting us out of our thoughts and aware of ourselves in our physical surroundings - the smell of honeysuckle after the rain, a favourite rose, a pot of jasmine on the windowsill. These are some of my own examples, others will have their own....what are yours?

By Lin Travis

www.lintravis.co.uk