RESOURCE

Supporting Self-Knowing, Well-being and Fulfilment

OVERVIEW

I share here some resources that can support wellbeing and life fulfillment.

This includes short videos that I have made that explore core themes of my

• PSYCHOTHERAPY / PSYCHOCREATIVITY system

• WATER THERAPY

• SUBLIME LIVING Personalized Mentoring Program

• MIND FLOW YOGA

• BLUE KIND MEDITATION / SUBLIME MEDITATION

• MENTORING AND SUPERVISION

• THERAPEUTIC / EDUCATIONAL /CREATIVE PROGRAM DESIGN AND DIRECTION

  I am an Enabler

  This is my skill

  ARRANGE AN ORGANIZATIONAL CONSULTATION FOR BESPOKE PROGRAMS I CAN DESIGN AND TEACH FOR YOU

  BOOK AN INDIVIDUAL PROGRAM OF PSYCHOTHERAPY, MENTORING, SUPERVISION YOGA OR MEDITATION

SAVORING

Savoring is more than pleasure

- it also involves mindfulness

and

“conscious attention to the experience of pleasure

- Savoring Researcher s Professors Bryant and Veroff

Savoring, as understood through the pioneering scientific research of Bryant and Veroff (2007) and others since, has significant health benefits.

Savouring can be understood as our capacity to give more space dwell in the joys, pleasures, and other positive feelings that we experience in our lives. 

Bryant and Veroff evidence that savoring can lead to:

• higher life satisfaction, regardless of a person’s level of physical health

• Improved self-esteem,

• Strengthening of relationships

• Improved creativity when problem-solving

• Reduced stress.

Savoring could be experienced as

• Savoring the past, also known as reminiscence. For example, remembering funny moments from school with a friend.

• Savoring the present or savoring the moment. For instance, enjoying a new meal by drawing your attention to the flavors and smells.

• Savoring the future, also referred to as anticipation. For example, visualizing the trip you have planned with your partner for this upcoming weekend.

  
  

Comparing as a Savoring Practice
Taking time to reflect on how a particular experience is better is another savoring strategy. You can compare the experience to a different setting (counterfactual comparison), the past (temporal comparison), or what other people experience (social comparison) to increase and prolong positive emotions.

TAKING IN THE GOOD

Taking in the good is not about putting a happy shiny face on everything,

nor is it about turning away from the hard things in life.

It’s about nourishing well-being, contentment, and peace inside

that are refuges you can always come from and return to

— Neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson

Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson who has developed a specific savoring model and practice called “Taking in the Good”.

Undertaking “Taking in the Good” for at least 15 seconds, 4 times each day, including once before bed, over a sustained period, is evidenced to counter-balance the brain’s inherent “negativity bias” - focusing on experiences firstly as potentially threatening.

“Take in the Good” involves: bringing to mind a positively satisfying experience (past or present); immersing yourself in that experience for at least 15 seconds, as best you can really savouring it during this period.

“Taking in the Good” is a component practice of the Mindfulness for Stress and Mindfulness, Art and Creative Movement courses that I teach.

I have adapted in the Take in the Good practice in a way that works for me, using words that resonate for me, as a daily practice.

I call and share this practice with you as SAVORING THE SPECIAL

SELF-SOOTHING

A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day.

A string of such moments can change the course of your life

- Mindful self-Compassion co-creator Christopher Germer

Supportive Touch and Self-Soothing is a component practice of the Mindful Self-Compassion course that I teach.

They are also a component of the Radical Caring and Radical Self-Care courses for LGBTQIA+ and other communities. I have been part of the team that helped develop Radical Self- Care for Rainbow Mind in the United Kingdom.

Touch and tactile connection is core to the sense of care and wellbeing of all mammals including humans. It promotes in the body the generation of the wellbeing hormone oxytocin. We are “relational beings”.

Supportive Touch and Self-Soothing can be done in a number of ways and can helps us with emotional regulation. Even without others we can bring soothing touch to ourselves through:

• putting a hand on the heart and chest area.

• stroking our cheek

• one hand stroking the arm

• a and on the belly

• giving ourselves a hug

• or in some there way that resonates for you.

Just leave the hand there, or continue the action, for as long or as little as you want to and is useful to you.

MORE GUIDED MEDITATIONS

FOFBOC

Mindfulness practice means that

we commit fully in each moment to be present;

inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness,

with the intention to embody as best we can

an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity

right here and right now

- Pioneering researcher of Mindfulness in a clinical context researcher iJon Kabat-Zinn

FOFBOC stands for “Feet on Floor, Body on Chair”.

It is a brief practice we can use and adapt to many moments of our daily life: sitting in a stressful work meeting, when anxious in a in a waiting room, dealing with the challenges of a commute in rush hour in bus, train or car.

We simply try to take a few moments to pay attention to the contact that our feet have with the floor, noticing any sensations that are arising, if any. Then we do the same with the contact that our body ( back, pelvic area, thighs) have with the chair we may be sitting on.

Moving our mind’s focus to this even for few moments can help us be more present, and help us better manage the over-active mind that is creating all sorts of unhelpful narratives about our situation.

MORE GUIDED MEDITATIONS

INFORMAL TEA CEREMONY

You go into a small room.

tea is served,

and that's it really,

except that everything is done with so much ritual and ceremony

that a banal daily event is transformed into

a moment of communion with the universe

- Art Critic Okakuro Kazuko

So much of my thinking on Being is inspired by Zen practices in Japan. These practices transform daily life actions into meditation. They are today understood also as an art. Perhaps the most well known is Sado, the Way of Tea, Internationally this is known as the Japanese Tea Ceremony

Stripping it down imagine simply savoring a cup of tea, coffee or some other drink or food.

INFORMAL TEA CEREMONY practice

Select a cup of tea or coffee or another drink or a snack or a meal that you would like to have.

Taking a moment and enjoy how the food or looks to you.

Then enjoying the smell if any;

Then, how it feels to the touch ( avoid touching something hot!).

Beginning to reflect on the many hands that were involved in bringing this food or drink to your mouth—the farmer, the trucker, the grocer…

Now, eating or drinking it very slowly, noticing first how you may be salivating before reaching for the food, bringing it to your mouth, noticing when it crosses your lips, when you bite down, is there a splash of flavor, when you begin to swallow…

 Continue eating or drinking in this way, giving yourself full permission to enjoy the experience of eating, as if this were your very last meal.

 When you are done, notice the “finish.” How do you feel in your body right now?

APPRECIATION AND GRATITUDE

Practicing gratitude also affects behavior.

Studies have shown that grateful people engage in more exercise,

have better dietary behaviors,

are less likely to smoke and abuse alcohol,

and have higher rates of medication adherence

– factors that translate into a healthier and happier life

- Robert A. Emmons, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis: a leading scientific expert on the science of Gratitude

I write in my journal at the end of each day - when I remember LOL - the things that I have have appreciated, enjoyed, and found  positively meaningful that day or previously. Today I fondly remembered a time, around this time last year year, when with dear friends I enjoyed the cherry blossom season: one of may favourite periods of the year.

Research, such as that at University of California Davis, suggests that daily writing down such experiences of the day, can help us counteract the brain’s inherent “negativity bias” - focusing on negative experience.

Our brains our wired to focus on “negative” experience as part of our survival mechanism. This serves us well if we live in the jungle when faced by marauding animals. It does not help us with the emotional jungle that we also have to find our way through each day.

As Grtatidue Expert, Professor Robert A. Emmons explains

The practice of gratitude can have dramatic and lasting effects in a person’s life…It can lower blood pressure, improve immune function and facilitate more efficient sleep. Gratitude reduces lifetime risk for depression, anxiety and substance abuse disorders, and is a key resiliency factor in the prevention of suicide…

https://health.ucdavis.edu/medicalcenter/features/2015-2016/11/20151125_gratitude.html

DUCHENNE SMILE

Smile

it's free therapy

– Douglas Horton

Cultivating the Duchenne Smile is a way for us to develop what I call our Inner Smile, by which I mean our inner sense of self value, self worth, and goodness, even when we feel bad, when we “fail”. This simple technique can be practised by almost anyone and helps promote endorphins and serotonin that help make us feel good and reduce stress. You can find out how to develop the Duchenne Smile with my Facebook page video Playful Being: developing the inner smile:

https://www.facebook.com/TheDeliciousDelightOfLiving

MINDFUL SELF-COMPASSION

And I said to my body softly,

‘I want to be your friend.’

It took a long breath and replied,

‘I have been waiting my whole life for this’

- poem by Nayyirah Waheed

Mindful Self Compassion, known also as MSC, is a scientifically evidenced training programme designed to cultivate the skill of self-compassion.

Self-compassion here should not be understood as a feeling only, but as a skill that we can train ourselves to cultivate, and embody, through regular practice.

MSC was co-originated by compassion researchers Kristin Neff and clinical psychologist Christopher Germer. Rapidly expanding research by Neff and other  demonstrates that self-compassion is strongly associated with:

• Emotional wellbeing. 

• Stress reduction.

• Anxiety control.

• Depression management.

• Healthy habit maintenance, such as diet and exercise.

• Satisfying personal relationships.

This link lists over 200 research publication on Self-Compassion.

https://self-compassion.org/resources-2/

Research shows that self-compassionate people:

• Have high personal standards and are motivated to achieve.

• Are more likely to engage in perspective taking, rather than focusing on their own distress.

• Tend to be more caring and supportive in romantic relationships, 

• Are more likely to constructively compromise in relationship conflicts,

• Take greater personal responsibility for their actions.

MSC, in its program, teaches core principles and practices that enable us to respond to difficult moments in our lives with care, kindness, and understanding. It helps to identify our core life needs and to take action that meet those core needs. We thereby move toward being the most authentic and fulfilled version of ourselves.

To arrange one-to-one training for the full MSC eight week course: email: Raphael@TheDeliciousDelightOfLiving.com

I also run group courses in MSC and other wellbeing programs as detailed on my page: Detailed Course Descriptions

5 WAYS TO WELLBEING

Taking Notice

Connecting

Learning

Being Active

Giving

- New Economics Foundation

British Government sponsored research undertaken by the New Economics Foundation evidences 5 things that we can do to make a significant difference to our wellbeing, and general mental health, if done regularly. These are:

• Taking Notice

• Connecting

• Learning

• Being Active

• Giving

I introduced these 5 Ways in a video that you can see on My Facebook page:

https://fb.watch/4DYpqXPb1L/

The full research report is available via this link:

https://neweconomics.org/2011/07/five-ways-well-new-applications-new-ways-thinking