Three Deep Breaths

The tagline of my blog says ‘Take control, feel better’  and I thought it was high time I explained that a little.

I’m in the process of learning how to let go of trying to predict all possible outcomes of new situations, and how to be a little more comfortable when sitting with uncertainty, and it’s a challenge.  But even as I am trying to learn that, I have realized that I do have some control in every situation – at the very least, I can control my own reactions and I can choose how to behave.

That’s what my tagline is about.  Trying to accept the level of control you have and learning to work with that.

With two kids, a marriage,  a freelance career, a huge volunteer position and all sorts of other commitments, it can feel as if I am being swept through my days, reacting rather than planning, and letting chaos swirl around me.  

It doesn’t feel good and I want to feel good. 

I enjoy all of my commitments and I have freely chosen them, so I want to do a god job and I want to have as much fun as possible while I complete them.  So that’s why I practice a lot of the things I will be talking about here.:  

• I meditate to slow things down, get my brain in the right mode and learn to be more mindful.
• I plan my weeks as much as I can, so I can manage my time effectively.*
• I exercise so I have more energy.
• I have as many routines as I can get away with so the day has a nice rhythm, and I don’t have to make unnecessary decisions.**
• I have a short list of things to do every day (write for 10minutes, do 5 yoga poses, meditate for 2+ minutes) so no matter what else happens, I accomplish that much.

So the control in the tagline refers to dealing with this moment, to making this moment better,  to sweeping your day along rather than getting swept along by it. 

It doesn’t mean asserting a iron will over everything.  It means putting yourself back in charge of your day, your time, and your life, as much as possible.

*This can be a real challenge for stay-at-home parents, when you have to constantly respond to your kids’ needs and your time is so flexible (does it matter if you make that call now or in an hour?),  it can feel easier to just stumble along rather than creating a schedule that needs to change over and over.  But I’ve got a few ideas to help with that.  All in good time.

** If you always do x before y, you never have to decide what to do first.  It sounds foolish to worry about a decision like that, but when you have a routine and those decisions are removed, it really is easier – one less thing to think about.

Christine | Three Deep Breaths | 03 31st, 2009 | No Comments »

Visualization can be a very useful tool to relieve stress, improve performance, and create a positive outcome scenario.  Athletes use it to ‘practice’ perfect form,  sales people use it to get over nervousness about cold calls, and stressed out people can use it to bring about relaxed feelings or to rehearse potentially difficult situations and reduce their stress.

I will be introducing some specific visualization practices in a few days, but for right now I am just going to talk about visualization in general.

I’ve always had trouble with it.  I just don’t have the power to see myself in my mind’s eye.  I don’t know if that is because I am more of a word-oriented person or if I haven’t honed the skills to visualize in that way.

But, like I usually do when I can’t do something, I read up on it.  And not only did I discover that a rich description (no problem!) that you repeat over and over can serve a similar purpose, but thanks to Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization I discovered a way to put myself into my mind’s eye.

Now when I visualize something, I write a rich description first, and then I use Gawain’s suggestion:  I visualize the situation around me and instead of trying to see the whole thing like a movie, watching myself, I visualize it like I was there.  I am seeing the richly described location through my eyes, I can feel the textures and fabrics, I can hear the noises,  and I can see my hands doing the actions I am trying to practice.

This is different than trying to picture my whole body in the scene, because unless I am in front of a full length mirror, I rarely see myself that way.  But I always see my hands doing things, and I feel things like blowing air upwards so my hair puffs out of my eyes, so I can more easily imagine doing things if I create a scenario where I watch my hands, or feel that common action.

That’s what I suggested for a friend of mine who was having trouble with stress at work last year.  She was juggling so many projects with so many details that she was bringing her work home with her, in her head.  Here’s the basic scenario that I created for her:

I suggested that she imagine herself doing the usual things she does when leaving work, except before she stepped out of her office she was to imagine picking up a heavy stack of binders that contained all the notes, mental and physical, that she had made on each project.  I told her to think about how heavy they were, to think about how her arms would ache from holding them, how she would rest her chin on them to hold them in place while she walked.

Then, when she stepped out of her office, she was to imagine she was in a long corridor that had appeared between her door and the door outside, and that the walls of that corridor contained a number of small alcoves, the perfect size for a binder.  As she came to the first alcove, she was to shift the weight of the binders to one arm, and use the wall to support them so she could take the top binder off the pile and place it in the alcove.  When she did that, a label would appear above the alcove so she could identify what binder it contained when she came back for it.

I told her to repeat that for however many binders she imagined she needed.  And then when all her binders were safely stored, she was to imagine stretching her arms, or rolling her shoulders to relax from the effort of carrying the binders and then walk out the front door, relaxed, knowing she could pick up where she left off when she returned to work.

Of course, she had to fill in the details herself, what her office looked like, what she was wearing, the sounds of her shoes on the floor, what her office smells like, so she could visualize it more fully, make it more real.  But the scenario helped because she had a concrete, if imaginary, way of putting down the burdens of work before she went home.  And she didn’t have to be able visualize her whole self to do it.

  I’m going to have lots of visualization advice on this site over the next while, but if you need something more I offer a paid service for custom visualizations - click on the ‘Services’ link above.

Christine | One Foot in Front of the Other, Three Deep Breaths | 03 21st, 2009 | No Comments »

One of the (many, many) things I want to do with this blog is give parents, especially stay-at-home parents, some tools to help them when they feel overwhelmed by their children.

It happens, even to the best, most patient parents.  Children are not particularly reasonable creatures, what with the natural (and appropriate!) self-centredness they sport a lot of the time.  And sooner or later, things will reach a breaking point.  A kid will throw a tantrum, a parent will bark an order and then suddenly the day is cascading down like that pile of stuff you were hoping would balance for just one blessed minute on the edge of the table.

I have a trick that I do in that sort of circumstance, and it might help you too. 

Being a chatty sort of “let’s learn by example and explanation” parent, I’ll say, out loud, ‘Wow, things are getting crazy here, aren’t they?  Let’s stop before we all get too mad.”   Then, I wil crouch down to their level, give them a hug *and say, “let’s take a few deep breaths and loosen up a bit.”

That’s just the  my intro and something else might work better for you but here’s the important part:

Then we all stand up, and breathe in as we raise our arms over our heads.  Then we drop our arms down (sometimes with a boneless sort of wiggle) and while we breathe out we say a long silly-sounding word. My favourite is “hippopotamus”  but “rhinocerus” has good results too (if things are desperate and toilet humour isn’t big no-no at your place, you can even try saying poooooooop).

If you do this three times in a row, it gives everyone a chance to calm down and shakes the tension right out of the room.  And it gives you back the measure of control (in a sensible, non-control-freak way) that you need to make it through the next little while without losing it.

See, like I’ve said already, three deep breaths – makes almost everything feel better.

Now, I’m not trying to come across as some sort of Madonna-like, peace-perfect parent here.  I don’t manage this EVERY time, but every time I can do this it always helps.

*If you are so mad that you can’t bear to be touched, please know that that is okay.  You can feel however you feel, it’s your actions that have the impact, so if you need to move away to calm down before trying this, please do.  There’s enough parenting guilt out there, I’m not trying to create more.

Christine | Parenting, Three Deep Breaths | 03 20th, 2009 | No Comments »

I used to to think I was an utter failure at meditation (cue the sound of a thousand meditation teachers shaking their heads sadly) because I couldn’t keep my mind clear for any length of time.  But when I read some of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work I found out that I should be taking the word ‘practice’ in meditation practice more literally. 

Kabat-Zinn says (and I’m paraphrasing here) that it is okay to struggle with focus and to have to bring yourself back to the contemplative state over and over again.  You will find it easier sometimes and harder at other times, but there is no point in beating yourself up because thoughts occur to you while you sit in meditation. 

Minds generate thoughts, it’s their main work (I think he likens it to the ocean producing waves),  but you can learn not to get caught up in them.   But even if you do, bringing yourself back to a gentle focus on your breath (or whatever you have chosen to focus on) is part of the practice.

Aside from learning to accept thoughts as part of my practice, I have also learned to accept that I do not need to do a long practice in order to benefit from meditation.

For the last 45 days, I have done a short meditation (5 minutes or less) each day and it has made a big difference in my daily life.  I feel like I am a little more grounded and I have a little more patience to drawn on. 

A little more patience is a great thing when you have to help two kids navigate their days and I found mine on Youtube. 

Yes, in addition to videos of people behaving like idiots, Youtube has a huge selection of meditation videos.  Just search for the type or length of meditation you want to do, find a comfortable spot, and begin your practice.

I’ve even gotten away with meditating at my kitchen table, wearing earphones,  while my sons play in the living room.  Sure, it’s not ideal, and it’s probably not going to lead to enlightment, but I am not seeking enlightenment at the moment, I just want to quiet my mind a bit. 

Hopefully, the time will come when sitting for longer practices will be possible, but in the meantime, five minute practices are helping a lot.

Christine | One Foot in Front of the Other, Three Deep Breaths | 03 18th, 2009 | No Comments »

I won’t be launching this site officially for about two weeks but in case someone happens by:

Three Deep Breaths is about feeling better, a little at a time.  It will contain information, ideas and tricks that I happen upon as I explore meditation, mindfulness, visualization,  success literature, time management, positive psychology, good parenting and anything else that helps people make it through the day with less stress, less fuss and more fun.

I am not a therapist and I am not pretending to be one.  I am someone who reads a lot and who likes to make connections between things and I am sharing that information in the hope of helping someone who needs a little boost.

If you have ended up here because you are wound tight and you need a breather, I suggest taking that need literally.  In The Power of Full Engagement, authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz say that breathing in for three counts and out for six (and repeating a few times) will help you calm down and see your situation more clearly.  It works for me, and it can’t hurt to try it.

In for three,  1-2-3, out for 6, 1-2-3-4-5-6.  Go on, try it.

Of course, I suggest doing it at least three times.  Because three deep breaths make almost anything better.  Except for cracked ribs -  if that’s your issue, try breathing slowly and getting to a doctor, I’m not qualified to help you.  But you do have my sympathy, if that helps.

Christine | Three Deep Breaths | 03 18th, 2009 | No Comments »