A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

We’ve all heard it takes 30 days to create a habit. How we relate to those first 30 days may make all the difference. Today I have the privilege of bringing you Ariane de Bonvoisin, author of The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Making Any Change Easier.

Ariane is also CEO and founder of first30days.com, an organization developed to help people transition through any change, whether it’s career, health, lifestyle, relocation, or personal relationship changes. She has been named MSN’s Life Change Expert and her advice is sought by thousands around the country.

Today Ariane is going to talk to us about why it’s so hard for people to make sustained changes in life, and what we can do about it.

Elisha: Your book seems to have references to mindfulness in it, the act of being present to our everyday lives while putting aside our lenses of judgment; getting in touch with the direct experience of the present moment. How do you see the first 30 days from a mindful perspective?

Ariane: Change is always an opportunity to pause, go inside, listen to our ‘inner microphone’ and be in the present. Our lives get so busy, we live based on routines, we never really ‘think’ we don’t want to change. So when change does happen, either by courageous choice or from life circumstances, it is asking us to be honest with what is, and also what is not working for us and our lives.

Mindfulness is about being totally aware of what our mind is feeding us during change. Usually its one of a few dominant disempowering programs: Disapproval, comparison, and perfection are the main ones. The mind is going to feed us the usual ‘change demons’, classic emotions that show up as well to the ‘change party’– fear, doubt, blame, shame, guilt and impatience. Being mindful during change is started by being aware. Aware of what emotion is getting your attention, welcoming it up, asking for its message and letting it be rather than resisting or escaping it.

Moments of change also happen to help us let go of the need for control. Control of knowing an outcome, of how we can speed things up, get out of the void, or this period of uncertainty, the unknown. Being mindful during change is simply about staying with the shakiness. From all change, something good happens. Life is on our side if we just let it be and surrender to it. It knows the way.

Elisha: In your book you mention an important practice of creating a change resume. Can you sum up for us what this is and why it’s important in helping us making real change?

Ariane: One of the 9 principles of change that I discuss in the book,  is what I call “The Change Muscle.” People who are good at change know they are resilient, strong and can get through anything. Many of us will say things like, “I am bad at change, I hate change, I resist change,” when the truth is very different.

We have all gone through dozens of changes we have never acknowledged ourselves for — divorce, loss of a loved one, graduation, starting a job, losing weight, handling a health diagnosis, buying a home, moving, having a baby, forgiving someone etc. We are focused on our professional resume when really who you are is a combination of all the changes you’ve ever made, faced and witnessed.

So I ask people to take a blank piece of paper and start writing these down….soon enough, your page will be filled with changes. Next I ask that you write down the good thing that came from each of these changes so you bring back into your conscious mind the connection between life changes and good things emerging, despite the difficulty at the time. Finally, I have people make a list of what the main thing was that helped them through — was it a person, a belief, their faith, getting healthy, time, doing things for others…?

This exercise helps people get their power back. You’re the person that got through all this, so today, even though the change you’re going through now may be new, something you’ve never faced, you are not showing up without any ‘tools,’ experiences, beliefs, ways that you have handled change in the past. You know what helped you.

Elisha: On Mondays I cite a quote or poem and explore it’s relevance to our everyday life. One post called 5 Quotes that Can Change Your Life listed 5 quotes from your book that I found particularly interesting. What are 5 of your favorite quotes from your book?

Ariane:

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” ~ Gloria Steinem

“The single most important decision any of us ever have to make is whether to believe we live in a friendly universe,” ~Albert Einstein

“Hidden in any misfortune is good fortune.” ~Tao Te Ching

“When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time,” ~Byron Katie

“Be patient towards all that is unsolved within your heart, and try to love the questions themselves…” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Sometimes I just think of a question, or challenge and just open the book and read the quote that’s on the page. It’s a great way to use the book once you’ve read it.

Elisha: If you were sitting across the table from someone who was having real difficulty with making change, what advice would you give him or her to help make sustained change?

Ariane: I’d identify what the belief, excuse, story or emotion that is in the way and really shine a light on that, get it out of the shadows — what’s being resisted — and get to the root of that. The time before a change/decision is always much harder than the actual decision itself.

People aren’t changed or helped by information, but by inspiration, so I get them in touch with WHY they want to make this change. The why is the fuel, not the ‘how’ or ‘by when.’  Why do you want to leave a job, why do you want to pursue this dream, why do you want to loose the weight, etc.

I’d want to know who was on their ‘change support team.’  We somehow always feel alone when we are going through change and the truth is we all get through a change because of other people being there, and believing we can make that change.  And it’s often not your closest friends or family by the way. If they don’t have someone, I’d get them on our site where we have thousands going through the same change.

Finally, I’d get them to take the first step towards any positive sustained change, which is to take care of themselves, their health. It’s the SEED of all change (Sleep, Eating well, Exercising and Drinking water). When you feel healthy, in your body, you get out of your head, your self esteem rises, your power returns, you are moving these emotions through your body, you feel strong. Change happens through the body, the heart, not in the head.

Wow, thank you so much for your wisdom Ariane.

To the readers: As always please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

Recently, a new report came out in the Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine that stated that engaging in bad habits such as excessive drinking (more than 3 drinks/day), smoking, not exercising (2 hours/week) or eating our veggies and fruit can age us by 12 years. Well, it’s not really news that being unkind to our bodies over time can lead to an unhealthy state. However, here is a little anecdote that is interesting and might explain how it we can seem aged by 12 years.

Read over the following progression from A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook a couple of times and take a moment to reflect on it:

1. Intention shapes our thoughts and words.

2. Thoughts and words mold our actions.

3. Thoughts, words, and actions shape our behaviors.

4. Behaviors sculpt our bodily expressions.

5. Bodily expressions fashion our character.

6. Our character hardens into what we look like.

You may be familiar with this line of thinking in the form of the saying that by the time people turn fifty, they get the face they deserve. In either case, this is an interesting insight into one of the many ways the mind directly affects the body.

And this goes on in a loop, meaning that a sluggish unhealthy body goes on to shape our mood and how we feel about ourselves and others around us. Procrastination can be a major issue.

Yes there is the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. However, when is the last time you gave more than cursory reflections on your intentions? Intentions are not meant to just be made on New Years or Birthdays. It’s important to re-mind ourselves of our intentions every day. Why?

It’s too easy to get drawn into the gravity of our environments, which reinforces sliding back into unhealthy habits that will eventually give us the “face we deserve.”

Here’s how to bring some mindfulness to this:

In considering this report and anecdote above, allow this to be a moment where to reflect on your intentions  — just for today  — in respect to being healthy. Bring yourself through the process of your intentions becoming words, then actions and notice what happens to your body and mind when performing those actions.

Lao Tzu said, “The longest journey begins with a single step.” Choose one thing today to be mindful of in respect to your health and well-being. Then re-mind yourself of the intention again tomorrow.

What’s it going to be for today?

As always, please share what comes up for you in respect to this practice. Your interaction below provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

Welcome to Monday’s Mindful Quote at the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. In an earlier blog I quoted Rumi’s Guesthouse poem in order to convey a radical aspiration of approaching instead of avoiding our difficult emotions. He says:

This being human is a guest-house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

However, it’s not always the difficult emotions we’re trying to avoid. Sometimes there’s a subtle, or not too subtle, aversion to the “positive” feelings like “love” or “joy” that come for life or success. Why might this be?

Well, one thing I’ve learned over time in my own life and as a Psychologist is that emotions aren’t so black and white. For example, anger doesn’t just come with anger alone; at times it comes with sadness or other emotions. We just have these words to help us better define emotions as we do with other things.

In this same vein, when we’re growing up we often have a natural love for our parents, but this can get mixed up with other uncomfortable emotions. If we grew up in a scary household perhaps love got mixed up with fear or if we grew up in a family of divorce, love may have been mixed with fear or the sadness or anger of separation or failure.

In other words, in order to feel love, we might also have to feel these uncomfortable emotions. So, acting in our best interest to avoid discomfort, some part of ourselves decided to keep the uncomfortable emotions at bay and at the same time keeps the love or joy at bay.

All kinds of tricks of the mind are deployed to have this work out. Perhaps we discount the positive and exaggerate the negative or maybe just go up in our heads and analyze over and over again to avoid the feelings.

Sometimes in welcoming a difficult emotion as a guest in our house, we can approach and explore the feeling that’s there with a kind attention. In doing this you may be amazed at what you find. It is in the act of embracing our wounds where we often find peace.

So today, as an experiment, notice your reactivity to discomfort and see if for a moment you can redefine that moment as a “choice point” where you can explore the feeling that is there. You may even choose to breathe into the physical feeling as if you were gently touching the wound as you might a wounded child or animal. Go ahead and serve it tea.

See what happens.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

Sometimes in order to really experience and embrace life, it’s important to acknowledge and embrace death. Our culture is riddled with a denial of and aversion to death. Actor and Filmmaker Woody Allen once said “I don’t mind dying as long as I don’t have to be there.”

What is this aversion and denial all about and how does it keep us entangled in our own neuroses?Many traditions actually have death meditations that have us cultivate an understanding of and appreciation for this impermanent life.

One such meditation, which stems from Buddhist traditions, has us go through 32 parts of the body that we might not normally consider and put each aside one by one. By the way, this can be done without any connection to Buddhism. These parts include:

Hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin
Flesh, sinews, bone, marrow, kidneys
Heart, liver, membranes, spleen, lungs
Bowels, intestines, gorge, dung, brain
Bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat
Tears, grease, snot, spittle, oil of the joints, urine

If there is an element of aversion or disgust arising in you after you read this, just notice that. It’s worth inquiring what exactly that’s about.

One of the aims of this blog is around cultivating insight into our habitual tendencies and getting curious about them. Why? Because we’re after breaking free from the confines of our minds to truly live the lives we want.

A big aversion for many people is death and so it’s worth getting curious about how that aversion affects us while we’re alive.

While many people do the practice above with the intention of stripping away ego, it can also be done to get us in touch with reality of this body and its true impermanent nature.

Why do this?

When we truly recognize that we are on this earth for a finite period of time and that we are more than our bodies, we can begin to see the true preciousness of this life. When we recognize the preciousness of life, we may not get caught up in all the small stuff that entangles us in our neuroses, exacerbating states of stress, anxiety, depression and more.

If you feel up to it, take a moment to picture yourself many years from now on your own deathbed looking back on today. What are you proud of and what would you have wished you would have done differently?

Now is your chance.

As always please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com