**I took this pic of the beautiful bush in my backyard!
While my nostalgia for the warm University of Miami always seems to creep up past normal levels when I am puttering around the chilly Rutgers campus, one of my favorite experiences correlates with this 45 minute commute to campus... visiting one of my favorite, hidden grocery stores/cafes that caters to the vegan, and now, to the raw vegan. Namaste is its name and delicious, cruelty free, vegan cuisine is its game! If you live near Rutgers University, give it a google.
After posting my last blog post on CrazySexyLife.com, one of the members/my beautiful friends asked me to elaborate on HOW exactly I live in the moment. She so eloquently explained, as she often does, that she has come across many posts about living in the moment, but none have explained how we achieve this often sought after goal. Surprisingly, I use a lot of tools that I often use with my severe and persistent mentally ill clients like re-framing, re-directing, and reality testing:
RE-FRAME --changing a belief, assigning it new meaning, which can change our views of the world around us and our situations
Often, for me, this is changing a negative to a positive.
Example (using the pain flare I am experiencing at the moment): "This is it for me. I must be getting worse. If I feel like this now, what will I feel like in 6 months? I'll be in a wheelchair!!!"
Re-frame: "Every pain flare I have been in has not spiraled me into a wheelchair, and if it does, I will address it then, not now. There are always options."
RE-DIRECT --change focus
Example: "I'm in so much pain. I'm in so much pain. I'm in so much pain..."
Re-direct: "Oh, look! My dog wants me to throw his toy!" --at times, it is that simple. Hanging out with a friend or family member is also another great distraction. Basically, do something FUN.
REALITY TESTING --gauge the difference between your internal world and the external world
Example: "I'll never be able to graduate because of this illness, and I won't be able to have a job and give back to my community if this disables me."
REALITY TEST: "How likely is that to occur? Not that likely."
These are very simple tools, but for me, they bring my focus from the future back to the present moment. Make sense?
Happy Healing!
3 comments:
There's no substitute for the logic approach! The way you have written this thinking process is almost exactly how I work through the harder 'thought viruses' too.
Another way of interpreting 'living in the moment' is what they call mindfulness. Paying almost meditative attention to exactly where you are and what you are doing in a moment. Such as, if you're washing the dishes, you might be thinking things like 'how am I standing? The water is warm...the air around me is cold/warm...this dish needs an extra scrub...' Probably not the best example but I hope that it made sense! It's a tool that can help get through tasks that have to be done whilst getting a little mental relaxtion and not focusing on the longing to be somewhere else :)
Hey, caf! I actually read Jon-Kabat-Zinn's book on mindfulness (he discovered the idea) 2 years ago. It's kind of the size of a bible and tells you the same thing that googling it would! But he is a genius. I personally use the idea with my clients in and out of their groups. They struggle with it, too, like we all do (I work with the mentally ill and chemically addicted). So happy you have found a doctor you like!
Hey, I found the answer to one of my questions...now I just have to actually read it, then understand it, then do it...
Post a Comment