Toolset Flashcards
Alleviating discomfort
Responsability transfer.
1) Sit comfortably or lie down, relax, and close your eyes
2) Take two or three deep breaths. As you inhale, imagine drawing clean air toward the top of your head. As you exhale, let that air whoosh through you, washing away all worries and concerns
3) pick an entity
4) imagine lifting the weight of your concerns and placing it on the shoulders of the entity. They are in charge now.
5) Visually lift everything off your shoulders and feel the difference.
Destigmatizing Discomfort
- Remember that uncomfortable emotions are normal and a legacy of our survival instincts. We all experience them from time to time.
- Dedramatize: this is a common part of human experience that happens every day.
- Think of others who’ve gone through this before, especially people you admire.
- See it as one burden shared by many. You are part of a community of human beings experiencing this one feeling at this very moment.
Neutralizing Negativity
A few techniques:
- Don’t assume your thoughts are accurate. Assume you are missing a lot of elements, many of which could be positive
- see your thoughts as graffiti on a wall or as little electrical impulse flickering around your brain
- Assign a label to your negative experience. Just naming it can help neutralizing it.
- Depersonalize the experience. Imagine you as a scientist observing a phenomenon. “I’m feeling ashamed” -> “There is shame being felt”.
- Imagine seeing yourself from afar.
- imagine your mental chatter as coming from a radio.
- Consider the worst case outcome. Realize that whatever it is, you’ll survive.
- Think of previous cases you felt like this, and clearly you survived.
Rewriting Reality
When you’re dealing with a difficult situation, sit down and write out a new reality on a piece of paper. Writing accesses different parts of the brain and affects our beliefs in ways that other modes of expression do not. It has been shown to be critical in changing a person’s mind and in making imagined stories feel more real.
Getting satisfaction
1) Think of one person in your life who has aggrieved you.
2) Take a blank page and write that person a letter saying anything and everything you wish you had ever told them.
3) When you’ve gotten absolutely everything off your mind and onto paper, put the letter aside.
4) Take a fresh sheet and write their response just the way you wish they would respond.
Creating Charismatic Mental States: Visualization
Great exercise to increase the amount of power you want to convey. Close your eyes for a minute. Relax. Remember a past experience when you felt absolutely triumphant. Hear the sounds in the room, the murmurs of approval, the swell of applause. See people’s smiles and expressions of warmth and admiration. Feel your feet on the ground and the congratulatory handshakes. Above all, experience your feelings, the warm glow of confidence rising within you. Guided imagery must be precise, vivid and detailed to be effective.
Gratitude exercises
Focus on the present. Sweep through your body to find three abilities you approve of. Appreciate them. Scan your environment. Look around and find three pleasant sights.
Use a third-person lens. Start to describe your life as if you were an outside observer and focus on all the positive aspects you can think of. Write about your job. Mention positive things that happened today and tasks you have already accomplished. Take the time to write down the narrative, as it is more effective than just thinking.
Imagine your own funeral in as much detail as possible.
Compassion exercise
To practice compassion for someone you know:
1. Imagine their past. Everyone you meet has story to tell, and that everyone has a few that would break your heart.
2. Imagine their present. Really try to put yourself in their shoes right now.
3. If you really need compassion dynamite, look at them and ask: What if this were their last day alive?
Self-compassion
List five ways you already care for yourself when you’re having a bad time.
Describe the Metta practice
Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and take two or three deep breaths. As you inhale, imagine drawing in masses of clean air toward the top of your head, then let it whoosh through you from head to toe as you exhale, washing all concerns away.
Think of any occasion in your life when you performed good deed. Focus on that memory.
Now think of one being who could have great affection for you.
Picture this being in your mind. Imagine their warmth, their kindness and compassion. See it in their eyes and face. Feel their warmth enveloping you.
See yourself through their eyes with warmth, kindness and compassion. Feel them giving you complete forgiveness for everything your inner critic says is wrong. You are absolutely forgiven, you have a clean slate.
Feel them giving you wholehearted acceptance. ‘You are perfect. At this stage of development you are perfect.
At this stage of growth, you are perfect.
At this stage of perfection, you are perfect.
With everything that’s in your head and heart, you are perfect.
With all your imperfections, you are perfect.
For this phase of growth, you are perfect.
You ae fully approved just the way you are, at this stage of development, right now.’
Using your body to change your mind.
First,adopt the body language of somebody who is utterly depressed. Without moving a muscle, try to feel truly excited.
Now do the opposite.
For confidence, assertiveness, and to be able to emanate gravitas, imagine playing the role of a military general. Wide stance, puff up the chest, broad shoulders, arms behind your back. Feel the effect of the posture internally.
For a boost in energy and warmth. Stand up, stretch your hands as high up as possible, inhale as much as you can, make the biggest smile you can and look upward. Hold for a second and then relax everything.
