PLC Blog – Page 4 – Plentiful Life Counselling Blog

Breathing Space is a necessary part of life

There has been extensive research into the impacts of stress on our physical and emotional health. It can cause our cells in our bodies to age faster.

There has also been extensive research into the benefits of taking time out to rest and relax.

But what exactly is rest and relaxation?

How do you overcome the subliminal messaging that you are wasting time if you aren’t achieving something, or ticking off something on your to do list?

How do you allow space in your life to just be, not do?

Seeing Breathing Space as Essential

It is time to stop seeing allowing breathing space as something you have to earn, or that is lazy or indulgent. It is time to realise that breathing space is a basic human need.

To have true breathing space you have to allow your brain to rest. The human brain is not designed to handle constant activity. Constant activity is detrimental to brain health. It also stifles creativity.

Spending time on the computer or on your phone does not rest your brain. In fact research has shown it can increase anxiety and depression.

In a busy day even 10 minutes of brain rest is helpful.

What Are The Benefits of Giving Your Brain a Rest?

Research has shown you focus better on tasks after a short brain rest.

Short breaks can also increase your energy levels and reduce feelings of fatigue.

Giving yourself breathing space also increases your creativity.

When your brain is overloaded it is tired and stressed. Irritability is more common as is also a reduction in compassion for self and others.

How Do You Allow Breathing Space Into Your Life?

• Focus on ‘nothing’

• Start small and work up to longer breathing space

• When in doubt, lie down.

To expand on this:

By focusing on ‘nothing’ you are actually practising mindfulness. In mindfulness you are not actually clearing your mind. This is a common misconception and leads many people to feel they have failed at meditation.

What you are doing is shifting your focus. Instead of your attention darting from one thing to another, you are instead focusing on one thing – your breathe. This focus on your breath is very relaxing. It sends a signal to your brain that you are safe and allows your brain to rest.

When thoughts enter your mind you just acknowledge them and don’t engage with them. It is like sitting in a waiting room. Other people come in and you notice they are there, but you do not talk to them. That is what you do with thoughts. You notice they are there, but you don’t engage with them.

Walking Meditation

Mindfulness can take many forms. In this blog I am talking about walking mindfulness meditation.

This involves a focus on walking. You pay attention to your breath and your feet as you put one foot down, then another. You can stop every so often to just notice what is around you and allow your focus to shift to those things. Then you can go back to noticing your breath and feet as you put one foot down.

You can do this anywhere, but it is best done outside on the ground. This adds the positive impact of nature into your breathing space activity.

Would you like to know more?

If you live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia I run a Friday morning (7am) walking meditation group. We meet at Mooloolaba Surf Club at 7am and walk and meditate on the beach for an hour. This allows mindfulness to be combined with the breathing space effect of nature.

If you would like to know more about the Friday morning group, please contact me on nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to know more but cannot make my walking group, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au to arrange an appointment.

If you would like to learn even more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

The Importance of Reading to Your Child About Death

Did you know that the fairy tales, in their gory original form date back a number of centuries to the time when people lived in isolated communities in a time before telephone, radio, television and other technology was developed.

In those far off days storytellers travelled from town to town and people took them in so that they could hear stories. When the storyteller stayed in the house the entire household would sit around the fire to hear the stories the storyteller told.

Old Fairy Tales Were Not Sanitised

These stories were not sanitised Disney Style stories. They were like the real Brothers Grimm stories. Full of darkness, death, murder, ghosts, evil beings and abandonment. The children in the family would sit, cuddled in someone’s lap and hear these stories.

Yes the stories were frightening, but the children always had a secure, safe adult there to help them process it. These stories taught them about scary things they would likely encounter in life. But they taught them in a safe way.

Fairy Tales Prepared Children For Future Living

When the children were older and did encounter scary things, they knew they were okay because the scary things were linked to older hearing of stories and the experience of facing those things with a safe adult there.

These children, sitting in a comforting adult lap were co-regulating with the adult. Co-regulation is how children learn to self regulate. Co regulation is how children learn to deal effectively and resiliently with the scary things of life.

Invisible Death

In this world where death is hidden in hospitals and rarely happens in the community there is a need for children to learn about death in a safe space. Just as children in centuries gone by learned about scary things in the supportive lap of an adult.

I have listed in a previous blog some books that are good to read to/with children on the death of their pet. This is the link to that blog: How You And Your Child Can Say Goodbye To A Much Loved Pet – PLC Blog (plentifullifecounselling.com.au).

The Value of Reading Books About Death To Your Child

Reading books that feature grief and death are very helpful in equipping your child with skills to navigate such an emotional and dysregulating time.

Young children respond better to stories in books than conversations. There is a risk if you start talking to children that you can overload them with information. But do remember it is important to be truthful. If your child asks a question about death, answer as truthfully and age appropriately as you can.

Some Popular Books On Grief

Many people I know tell me they read Charlotte’s Web, or saw the original cartoon. This is probably suitable for a child around the age of 8.

Another book, that has also been made into a movie, is Bridge to Terabithia. That is more suitable for a child around the age of 10. If you don’t know the story, it deals with the death of a girl who drowns. It is challenging for children to be introduced to the concept of someone their age dying, but it is most likely a child that age has also realised they will die someday. With the support of an adult this book can be well managed.

You Can’t Shield Your Child From Death

You may balk at the idea of introducing your child to the concept of death but you need to. Death happens to all ages, often randomly and without warning.

You can’t shield your child from death.

Your child is going to meet people who have lost a parent or sibling, they are going to lose their own grandparents. They may even have pets, which means they will die as well.

Teaching Your Child How To Survive Grief

If you approach death in a sensitive but matter of fact way your child will learn that death is hard, but survivable. It is a child’s earliest experiences of death that govern how they will respond to death in their life.

The better you model healthy grieving and discussions around death, the better you child will manage when they face grief in life.

Death can be explored in books through humour, fantasy, ghost stories and particularly realism. The advantage of a book is that a child can read it and take away what they need at the time. Later they can read the book and take away more learnings. It is about what they can manage at the time.

Books Safely Teach About The Unpleasant Truths of Life

The old fairy stories contained many unpleasant truths. It was important then and it is important now for us to allow our children to learn of the existence of these unpleasant truths.

Just as centuries ago children listened to stories about hard things while held safe by a loving, safe adult, so children today can listen to stories about hard things and be held safe by a loving safe adult.

Books Offer A Different Reality

Books are places where a child can leave their reality and glimpse at another reality. Books can be an escape. They can be a place to learn. They can also be places where laughter and even sadness can be experienced. And they do this in a safe way.

If you child is in the position of grieving remember it is hard for a child to lose someone, especially a parent. Many children find it hard to manage. Everyone talks about their parents, and they are missing one. Some children won’t tell people their parent has died because they don’t want to be known as the child whose parent died.

Learning About Death In Safety

Giving your child the opportunity to learn about death while being held safely by you is vital.

If you find yourself struggling because of past grief to teach your child then counselling to process those residual feelings can be helpful.

Some Books You May Find Useful

The Invisible String by Patrice Karst
My Many Coloured Days by Dr Seuss
Tear Soup Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen
The Sound of the Sea by Jacqueline Harvey and Warren Crossett
It’s Just Different Now by Linda Espie
Why My Mummy? By Donna Penny

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your own grief difficulties or those of your children, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

You May Want It To Be But There Are No Stages To Grief

I understand the persistence of this belief. I remember Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model of the emotional journey of the dying being applied to grief and taught everywhere that this was what grief looked like.

I remember people 30 years later telling me I was in this stage or that stage when my mother died. All of it was rubbish. But I didn’t know that then.

20 odd years later I still have people enter my consulting room convinced that there is something wrong with them because they are still in pain and the denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance formula just isn’t working.

The Truth About Grief

The reality is that grief is different for everyone. There may be some similarities in emotions experienced by some people, but there is no formula to work through.

The biggest learning in grief is to be okay with the pain you experience. To be able to learn to be okay with those times when you can’t disguise your pain and you feel embarrassed because “you are not supposed to feel that way”.

Grief is painful. And it is messy. You are unlikely to experience anything worse than this in your lifetime.

What The Experts Have Discovered

Grief never ends. It stays with you for the rest of your life. What happens is that you learn how to live with that pain, how to grow your life around it.

The metaphor of you being a passenger on your grief vehicle is a good one. This vehicle continues down the road and never stops. There is no timetable, destination and no end point.

Grief Is Not The Enemy

It is important to realise grief is not your enemy. It is the understandable and very normal reaction to the loss of something or someone in your life that you were deeply connected to.

Grief is your reaction to the loss of that attachment in your life and of its importance to you.

The Social And Not Social Aspects of Grief

There will be days when you crave human contact.

And there will be days when that is the last thing you want.

There will be days when close friends are what you want. And at those times you may want to talk about what you have lost and share your memories.

On those days you seek understanding Not Fixing.

You just want to be heard, and that may entail being heard again and again.

You Will Use Subconscious Strategies To Cope With Your Emotions

People have different strategies to help them cope.

Some will keep busy working, performing tasks, doing hobbies.

Others will seek the support and comfort of others experiencing grief.

Supporting the first person may involve helping them find tasks that bring fulfilment.

The second person may benefit from receiving support to attend a grief group.

The Solitary Path of Grief

No matter how you grieve you will find it is a solitary path with you the only one on that path. People who’s grief overlaps with yours may walk with you for a while where your grieving style overlaps, but will eventually walk on another path.

Others may accompany you for a while. Friends and others who can offer support. In time your journey may take you along more frequented routes where you can share your path with many other people. This is how grief works its way into being part of your life. It never goes, but it gets easier.

In short, Grief is a journey, not some destination at the end of several stages.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief journey, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Grief Is A Change You Didn’t Want

Heartbreak is there in grief.

This is because when a person you love dies you are heartbroken.

When a person you love leaves you and rejects you and continues to reject you, then you are heartbroken.

Which pain is worse?

The worst pain is the pain you are experiencing.

Heartbreak

Heartbreak is always present in grief. It is heartbreak at the loss of the future with that person, whether they are alive or dead. Now you must face a future you did not plan and may not even like.

Heartbreak can occur through other life events. Losing a job, not getting the job you really wanted, not getting into the university course you wanted, not getting the marks in an exam you wanted, losing out on the house you wanted to buy, losing the house you can no longer afford to pay the loan on, your car being stolen, your house broken into, the end of a relationship, losing your pet, losing your country.

The really important thing to remember is your pain is always worse for you. There is no comparison. Just because someone else is hurting, it doesn’t mean their pain is worse. Comparisons just can’t be made when it comes to grief.

Heartbreak is not logical

It is always important to remember that the act of making a comparison is one that uses your mind. But when you are heartbroken and suffering grief, those are emotions you are feeling. They are not logical, they are not of the mind. They are the emotions of heartbreak.

Be careful, because grief that isn’t attended to doesn’t just go away. It stays there, unattended, and trips you up when something reminds you of it.

Questions to ask yourself

Ask yourself the question. What heartbreak, what grief, what disappointments in your life have you not attended to?

Once you have the answer ask yourself. Why don’t you attend to it?

The answer is most likely that it is difficult, painful even, to confront that pain.

It is so easy to run from pain. Pain hurts.

The realness of emotional pain

Did you know that physical pain and emotional pain are registered in the same part of the brain?

All these years people’s emotional pain has been dismissed as being nothing, yet it is as painful as physical pain.

The metaphor of the Buffalo

Grief expert David Kessler uses the metaphor of a buffalo turning to face a storm and walk into it. The buffalo knows it will get through the storm faster if it does this. But humans try to stay away from the storm. They try to keep a metre or so away. This way they remain in the storm a long time.

Instead of facing the storm, humans stay close to it and try to numb themselves, try to move away, but not far away, or try to avoid any triggering memories. Humans may even run away.

Substituting One Emotion For Another

One way of avoiding the storm is to go to another emotion that feels more comfortable.

What emotions might that be?

The most common one to go after is anger.

If you explore what is under your anger you will often find it is sadness, grief or fear.

There is a very real fear that once you give in to the pain of grief you will never be able to stop crying.

But you will stop crying in time.

Self Compassion Is The Best Treatment

When you allow yourself to enter the storm and feel your emotions deeply. When you allow yourself to engage with the emotions, then you are caring for yourself. You are showing up for yourself. Allowing yourself to feel these emotions is the way you can be there for you. It is an opportunity to show self compassion.

Self compassion only works if you pay attention to your emotions.

To show self compassion you have to be able to accept that this horrible thing happened. You have to be allowed to feel sorry for yourself, for the pain you are experiencing and have experienced.

Our society tells us it is wrong to feel sorry for yourself. But that is wrong. It is not wrong to feel sorry for yourself. It is not wrong to feel for what you have been through. To acknowledge that what you have been through was horrible.

When others try to shut you down over this it is because they feel uncomfortable and don’t want to be exposed to that discomfort.

Beware The Failure To Own Your Problems

Refusing to be accountable for what you have done in your life and refusing to own your problems causes difficulties around feeling sorry for yourself.

If you feel sorry for yourself and get stuck in that place, constantly seeking those who will affirm your pain but never doing anything to get out of that pain, then you are failing to understand your own problems and find ways to resolve them.

The Importance of Being Seen

It is important to feel seen, to have your pain acknowledged. But sometimes you are the one who is going to see you, who will acknowledge your pain.

Being seen is empowering. Seeing yourself is as empowering as being seen by someone else.

Tara Brach PhD, a leading western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening, talks about the importance of putting your hand over your heart centre and saying “Ouch, that hurts” as a way to acknowledge the pain you are feeling and give yourself self compassion. Try it sometime, you will most likely find it helps a lot.

In Summary

The worst abandonment is when you abandon yourself

In your pain do not fail to acknowledge to yourself the pain you are in.

Don’t fail to show compassion to yourself.

Stop judging yourself, shaming yourself, criticising yourself, telling yourself you are bad or unworthy, failing to defend yourself.

Make sure you recognise your own pain. Remember “Ouch it hurts” is very important.

Sit with your pain and acknowledge it. Comfort yourself.

Advice To The Recently Bereaved

I often have recently bereaved people visit me. Their bereavement is so recent they haven’t even had the funeral yet. One of the things I tell them in that first session is to be kind to themselves, to be okay to not look after other people at the funeral. To let others care for them. To absent themselves from the post funeral get together if they need to. To cry, be unstable, not want to talk, not want to socialise, not look after others are all permissible and necessary self care actions.

Grief Forces Change

I model for the recently bereaved how to speak kindly to yourself, how to be caring and compassionate to yourself, how to be there for yourself.

It is scary to be placed in the position where you have to grow and change. But grief puts you there and there is only one way out and that is to walk through the storm.

You are going to have to learn the new way to be. You will not know it immediately, but you will learn over time and self compassion is your best ally in this learning.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief and heartbreak please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Surfing Your Emotions

Did you know that emotions rise up and then fade within 90 seconds if you can identify your internal experience, give the emotions a name and allow them to flow?

If you try to suppress your emotions, or pretend they are not happening then they last longer and feel a lot more powerful.

When you feel an emotion you need to go surfing.

Just as a surfer rides a wave you need to allow yourself to rise up on the crest of the emotion. You need to get uncomfortable. You need to listen to what that discomfort is telling you. If you try to fight it then it will get worse.

If you listen to that discomfort and follow that discomfort to find the need under the feelings you are experiencing then you will ride that wave to the end and emerge with the emotion in the past.

Sometimes it can be hard to sit with that discomfort. Maybe you have never learned to feel safe with the discomfort. Maybe you don’t know how to search for the need that underlies the emotions.

If you come to see me about emotions you are experiencing, I will always help you sit with those emotions and listen to the discomfort that is there. You can learn to do this and sometimes you need help to learn.

Anger, frustration and resentment are emotions that frequently trouble people. These emotions however are secondary emotions. They come on top of another emotion.

You could liken those emotions to an iceberg. What you see on the surface is the emotion of anger, frustration or resentment.

What is underneath the water is often sadness, pain, fear, disappointment and loss. These emotions have often been laid down in childhood when things happened that you couldn’t process properly either because you didn’t understand what had happened, or because you didn’t have the skills to process them.

Once you learn how to explore and identify your secondary emotions, you can start healing the primary emotions that you have carried around since childhood.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with managing your emotions, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

5 Actions to Help Process Your Grief

If you have been following my blogs for any length of time, you will have read that there is no right way to process your grief.

All people grieve differently. Yes, there are similarities in people’s experiences and I often write about them, but you still grieve differently to other people.

What To Do To Help Process Your Grief

Despite their being no right way to grieve, there are 5 things that are important to do to assist you with your grieving.

Name and feel your loss
It is important that you acknowledge your loss. You do this my naming it. After naming it you acknowledge it by allowing yourself to feel any emotions that come up because of that grief.
Be aware that, particularly in the early time of grief, you may not have any feelings. Feelings will come in time.
When they do, name them and allow yourself to experience them, even if that means you “fall apart”.
Seek the support of others
This is important. Friends and family can be a great support at this time. If you don’t have friends and family able to support you then a grief counselling can be helpful to engage with.
At some point in your grief, you may find it helpful to join a group of people who are grieving.
Don’t bottle up your emotions, allow yourself to express them.
There are many ways you can express your emotions. These include:
*Talking to others
*Writing
*Art – painting, drawing, collage, clay work and so on
*Journalling
*Finding activities that help give meaning to your grief
Look after yourself
You must give self care a high priority. If you don’t look after yourself, you will not be able to care for others. So make self care a priority – you deserve it.
Self care includes getting adequate rest, eating nutritionally balanced food, exercise, taking time out to go out with friends if you want, or to spend time alone. Having a massage may be your go to for self care. Or you may want to go fishing, watch a movie, walk in the park.
There are myriad ways to care for you.
Remember also that some says will be harder than others. When that happens, don’t despair, there will be good days too. In the meantime, give yourself extra care on those bad days.
Be patient
Grief is not something you get over in a matter of days. It takes time to grieve. A lot of time. Don’t be hard on yourself when things continue to upset you months or even years later. That is all perfectly normal.

A Final Action

One important thing I stress to people is that it is okay to be happy again. It is okay to have fun. It is okay to go out and enjoy yourself. It is okay for live to move on.

Moving on in life does not mean you did not love the one who your lost, you will always love and grieve for them, but you will do it as part of the life you continue to live.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with processing your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

10 ways to fit self-care into your day

Self-care is something you often hear people talking about. A whole industry has arisen around self-care. There is no shortage of retreats, classes, books, podcasts, YouTube videos and so on to help with that.

Self-care is important. It is not an option. Without self-care you are at risk of burnout and overwhelm. Self-care is essential for you to be able to function day to day, manage your work, and cope with unexpected crises.

Yet self-care remains something that many people know they need, but just can’t find the time, or money, to do.

But self-care does not have to involve large chunks of your time. It doesn’t have to look like a retreat, yoga class, hour at the gym, hour of anything.

Self-care also does not require money. You don’t have to go to retreats, classes, the gym. Self-care can be done without any expenditure.

Self-care can be small chunks of time. All those small chunks of time can build up and amount to a powerful amount of self-care. And that self-care can give you strength, resilience and confidence that equips you to resolve the challenges in life more easily.

When I teach mindfulness, a great self-care practice, I teach to spend 5 minutes a day being mindful.

I suggest that during the day, when waiting for things, you can also practice mindfulness. When at traffic lights, when waiting in a queue, while waiting for the kettle to boil, when waiting to pick your children up from school, these are all times you can fit in micro moments of self-care in the form of mindfulness.

Those tiny moments of self-care – time for yourself – can reset your mental state, boost your energy, alleviate stress and promote happiness.

10 things you can do for micro moments of self-care:

• 5 minute mindfulness. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Sit comfortably, allow your eyes to close or soften your focus. Breathe in deeply and slowly and let your breath out gently. Focus on the in and out breath. If any thoughts come into your mind, just acknowledge them and let them go. It is like someone coming into a waiting room, you notice they are there then you go back to what you were doing when they came in. At the end of the 5 minutes return to normal activities.
Practice this every day so that it becomes something you easily do.

• Make yourself a cup of tea/coffee/other warm drink. Sit somewhere away from your desk, somewhere where you will not be interrupted. Hold the cup in your hands. Feel its warmth. Breathe in the steam. Smell the drink. Take gentle sips. Savour them. When you are finished go back to your normal activities.

• Stand outside in the fresh air, preferably where you can see vegetation. If you can lean against a tree it is even better. Research has shown the calming effect of vegetation lowers blood pressure and helps regulate emotions.
If you can’t see vegetation then look up at the sky. Notice if there are clouds, birds, colours in the sky.
Doing this allows you to reset your mind and inject some calm into your day.

• On the way to work/doing chores take the time to notice the sky, to notice bird sounds, wind through the trees, water lapping, and so on. Look for things around you that are pleasing to look at and take a moment to acknowledge them. Even watching a happy dog smiling at its owner on its morning walk is pleasing for many people. Or seeing a small child excitedly skip along a footpath. There are myriad things you can notice if you look for them.

• Spend 5 minutes doing star jumps, running on the spot, stretches – any physical activity that you enjoy.

• Dance to a song you hear on the radio.

• Laugh at things you find funny.

• Hug a friend.

• Say hello to the person you buy your coffee from, or the cashier at the supermarket, or someone waiting for the bus with you. Admire a cute dog or a happy baby in a pram. Look for opportunities to interact with another person.

• Take the time to sit down and eat a meal. No rushing, no running off to attend to something. Just you and the meal. If you eat it with others enjoy their company. Just be there with your meal.

Set reminders on your phone and in your calendar to make those micro moments and make them count.

Self-care is about loving and honouring yourself. Remember, if you don’t take the time to care for yourself you are not going to be able to care for others.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with reducing your stress and improving your self-care, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Grief is shattered glass

A metaphor I sometimes use with people who are grieving is one of a shattered glass vase.

The vase hits the floor and explodes into numerous pieces ranging in size from large to miniscule.

Cleaning Up The Glass

Picking up the pieces of glass is fraught with danger. If you are not careful you can cut yourself on the jagged pieces of glass.

When cleaning up the glass it is usual to pick up the larger pieces first. These are the easiest to see, the ones least likely to cut your fingers.

So you attend to those big pieces first.

Focusing On The Large Pieces of Grief

When grieving, it is the big aspects of grief that are attended to first. You get them safely out of the way and all seems good.

But grief is very like that exploded glass vase. There are smaller pieces. You think you have removed them safely from the floor, but there are ones that get missed. They are tiny and hard to see.

You often find the tiny pieces of glass when you tread on them. They cut and they hurt.

Just When You Think It Is Safe To Walk Barefooted…

That is the nature of grief. You think everything is going well, and then you suddenly find yourself cut and hurt by an aspect of that grief you had not seen coming.

Embracing The Negatives in Life

Last year I read a book “Night Vision” by Mariana Alessandri. She challenges us to see the negatives in life, not as something to be banned by toxic positivity, but as something to embrace and learn from. These feelings are what teach us about ourselves, our strengths and resilience and our humanity. It is these negatives that affirm our humanity and connection to others.

In Alessandri’s book she wrote that grief puts us in touch with the basic fact that surviving hurts. Such a moving and enlightening sentence! Surviving hurts. It is a fact, not something to run from.

Being A Survivor Hurts

Just as stepping on a tiny piece of glass from the shattered vase hurts, so does being the survivor of loss.

Living hurts.

Surviving hurts.

And that is normal and perfectly okay.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Why Clearing Your Mind In Meditation Is Not Possible (And What To Do Instead)

When I teach people to practice mindfulness, the first hurdle I have to overcome is the common misconception that you have to empty your mind to meditate.

Despite me teaching that thoughts will come and just to let them be, the empty your mind belief can be very pervasive.

Emptying Your Mind Is Not How You Meditate

Frequently I will teach someone a simple mindfulness technique and the next time I see them they say they are struggling to empty their mind.

That is not how mindfulness meditation works.

Striving To Empty Your Mind Leads to Feeling a Failure When You Are Not

It is impossible to empty your mind and the effort to do that and the feeling of failure when that doesn’t happen is unhelpful.

In mindfulness, you focus on something and just allow other thoughts to be there without engaging with them.

The Waiting Room Analogy

I often describe it as sitting in a waiting room. Someone else walks in and you see them but you don’t talk to them. It is this way with thoughts. You see the thought is there and you even name it. But you don’t engage with it.

An example of this would be that you are practising focusing on your breath. Suddenly the thought that you need to buy milk pops into your mind. You could engage with that thought and think about when you can do that, where you will buy it from, how you will get to the shop to buy it, how you will fit that in with other things you need to do, and then start worrying that the milk you want to buy may not be at the shop you have selected, so where would be a better place to buy it from?

Sound familiar?

Don’t Engage With The Milk, Try This Instead

An alternative is to notice that the thought of buying milk has popped into your consciousness but that you will worry about that when you are finished with your mindfulness practice. Then you go back to focusing on your breath.

That is how you practice not engaging with the thought.

A Good Way To Get Started

One usual way to start learning mindfulness is to focus on your breath. Just pay attention to the breath in and then the breath out.

If you are breathing in and out and paying attention to that breathing you may find your mind wanders to another thought. When that happens, don’t chastise yourself. Don’t be angry. Just gently and kindly acknowledge the thought and put it to one side. Then bring your attention back to your breathing.

How Often Should I Practice and For How Long?

Just practice this mindfulness technique for about 5 minutes every day. Focus on your in breath and out breath.

It can be helpful to say to yourself “I am breathing in” and “I am breathing out”.

Once you have said I am breathing in/out a few times you can breathe in “peace” and “breathe” out tension.

You can quickly scan your body for any areas of tension and breathe peace into them, and breathe the tension out.

How do you time your five minutes?

You can use the timer on your phone, a kitchen timer or you can use an app such as “Insight Timer” that allows you to set a 5 minute meditation that will make a sound at the end.

The Benefits of Mindfulness

Learning mindfulness is a great way to learn to understand what you are feeling. So many people arrive at adulthood unsure of what they are feeling. Childhood is often a time when children are taught by adults to override their feelings and children can grow mistrustful of what they are feeling.

In the rush of life it is easy to get in the habit of pushing feelings and body sensations aside. Then it becomes hard to identify what you are feeling. Mindfulness is an important way to reconnect with your feelings.

Mindfulness Helps You Understand What You Are Feeling

When you are struggling with challenges in life it can be hard understanding what you are feeling or even if you are feeling anything at all.

This is where mindfulness is helpful.

I find that teaching the people who come to see me how to be mindful is a great step to unravelling those difficulties in life that have brought them to see me.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with learning mindfulness and learning to understand your feelings and body sensations, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Moving into Aged Care – An Overlooked Grief for All the Family

One of the hardest things people have to do is to put their parents and other elderly relatives into aged care. It is usually a last resort decision made when their elderly parent has reached the point of being unable to care for themselves

There is a lot of emotional pain in making that decision.

The decision is one that carries a lot of guilt. “Shouldn’t I look after them?”

It is even harder if you have to make that decision and your parent is not wanting to go into aged care.

There is also the concern about the care your parent will receive in aged care. There is so much spoken about in the media around poor care and abuse of elderly aged care residents that it can feel like you are sending your parent to their death.

The Beginning of the End

Placing your parent in aged care also signals the beginning of the end. They have now entered the final stage of life. There is no being able to be living at home anymore.

This means that placing a relative in aged care is a source of grief. It is the end of many things.

• Having an independent parent

• Having a home to visit

• The anticipation of the end of their life (even if that may take a long time)

• Losing that close contact as other people take over their care and your ability to visit is now governed by the rules of the facility.

• Having to accept other people’s ideas about what is the best care for your parent.

The Experience of The Parent

On the flip side, the person going into aged care experiences myriad losses as well.

• Being independent

• Losing your home

• Losing pets

• Losing your freedom

• Losing contact with people you usually saw in the community

• Losing your sense of identity

The Need for Support for All

There is much that can be done to support both family and the individual in this situation.

For the family, the quality of care their family member receives has been shown to impact on how the family copes with the transition into aged care and the later death of their parent.

Being able to be involved in decisions around your parent’s care and being kept well informed about their health, options for care and being able to make choices.

For the parent there is a need for sensitivity and understanding from the staff. Good communication around the procedures of the facility and being given choices are also important. Attending to care needs in a timely manner is also important. Flexible visiting hours are also important for both family and the individual.

A pleasant homely environment, activities and opportunities to interact with others are also important for the parent.

Access to counselling support for the parent is important and it is sometimes helpful for the family to receive counselling support as well.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you and family members with the adjustment into aged care, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au