Australiandaisy.com is changing to elevenpetals.com.  Please update your readers!! :)

NEW BLOG:

SOMETIMES – after I’ve just downloaded some GREAT music (“We found love“, “Mr. Saxobeat“, “Good Feeling“, and the new David Guetta Album, which btw – the we found love music video is depressing so I just linked the audio) – and I’ve been dancing around in my room to my new music – and I’m about to write a blog – then I get this crazy urge to like do a BlaVlaLog.  Which in MY head is the equivalent of my being able to TYPE the way I’d SAY something so that you could alll benefit from the FULL… umm… welll… the full YAY!! that is in my head right now. YAY!  :) SMILE!

But since I don’t really want to VLOG and BlaVlaLogging is something I made up (in my head) let’s just all be aware that everything I’m writing tonight should be read LIKE it’s pepped up on caffeine but it ISN’T because this high?  It’s au naturale.

hahahaha.  I smile every time I see that picture.  That’s Duchess, my dog.  She pretty much loves the park. SPEAKING OF WHICH!!  The PARK is a GREAT distraction from dwelling on stuff you can’t change.

So is looking at that picture.  In fact, maybe you should look at it again.

K cool – we have that settled now.  Let’s dive right back into Distraction Techniques.

No – wait. Let’s do a quick recap.  WHY are we talking about this?  Because sometimes we get overwhelmed with stress and when THAT happens?  We usually cope with stress by using self-defeating behaviors.  Blog One was Common but Self-Defeating Stress Coping Mechanisms.  Then we discussed Radical Acceptance in Blog Two and explained that the FIRST tool in fighting stress is acceptance.  Once we get the gist of acceptance we can start distracting – which brings us to today.  MAD DISTRACTION SKILLZ.  YAY!

Mad Distraction Skillz #1 – Stop being self-centered! ;)

I don’t know that much needs to be said about this one.  If you serve others and put others first – you won’t have time to dwell on your own stress.  It is kinda that simple.  BUT let’s delve a little deeper.

• Do Service
• People Watch  (observe as many details as possible so you have no time to think of anything else.  AND if you’re like my brother … you might sneak a camera phone pic of some fashion faux pas awesomeness and send it to a friend – you’ll both laugh and hopefully feel a little guilty for being kind of mean – but still laugh.)  Or you could be like the people of “People of Walmart” and take pics like the one below.  Aaaannnnddddd Please Bless I don’t go to Hades for posting this. YAY!

• Go on a quest to take a GREAT picture of a Fanny Pack!!!  Double points if you get TWO fanny packs in one pic and TRIPLE points if you manage to get YOURSELF in the pic with a fanny pack.  OH!!!! And one billion ga-jallion points if you email the picture to moi.  :) :) :)

(please extra please bless I don’t get sent to H.E.double hockey sticks for these.)

• Think of someone you care about.
• Keep pictures of people you care about around where you can see them and then LOOK at them when you’re SpIraLinG.

Mad Distraction Skillz #2 – Change your thoughts!!

This one is SOOOOoooooOOOO much easier said than done.  But being AWARE of your thoughts and AWARE that you CAN change them gives you power.

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS

This doesn’t mean you can change the way you feel!!!  This also doesn’t mean you are going to forget.  We can’t always CONTROL our thoughts.  It’s not even worth trying.  But we can DIRECT and CHANGE our thoughts.  We can distract ourselves.

This concept is SO important that we will have a blog JUST on thought patterns.  I’ve read a few books that focus on this specifically and it’s SO WORTH giving it some extra attention.  But for NOW?  When you feel yourself thinking about things that can’t be changed – TELL YOURSELF NO.  Be aware.  Think of something else … for example:

• Remember things that were fun.  Maybe a specific event where you couldn’t stop smiling.  Remember that feeling.  Remember what made you laugh.  Remember as many details as you possibly can. (don’t get side tracked remembering that things might be as good NOW as they were THEN.)
• Find something lovely outside and FOCUS on it.  Look at every detail  BE CURIOUS.
• IMAGINE!  FANTASIZE!  You’re a superhero – who are you going to save?  What has your super villain arch enemy done THIS time?
• OR imagine you just won the lotto – what do you buy first?
• Pray
• Do something on the Really Long List of Things To Do
• Tell yourself No again – and then remember something happy – remember the FEELING
• Watch this video because it’s SO FUNNY

Create a distraction plan.

Mad Distraction Skillz #3: Create a Distraction Plan

Is there something on your plate or in your life that overwhelms you?  Be aware of it.  Decide NOW that the next time you feel yourself dwelling or spiraling because of this issue that you WILL do _________.  It doesn’t matter which technique you try.  Just pick one and try it!!

Mad Distraction Skillz #4: LEAVE

Don’t run away from your problems but be aware when walking away from the situation until you can clear your head might be best.  If the situation involves another person, relationship guides suggest you tell the person you are going to clear your head for X amount of minutes and give them a time frame for when you will come back and discuss things.

Mad Distraction Skillz #5: Whistle While You Work

When life gets overwhelming, sometimes we let daily tasks fall behind.  It’s not that we WANT our sink to fill up with dishes, or to look in the mirror and realize it’s been WAY too long since our last eyebrow wax – but sometimes it happens.  Crossing off tasks from your to do list is AWESOME.  And cleaning can be cathartic.  AND sometimes if you attack dirt and grime and come out the WINNER?  It feels GREAT!

• Clean your car
• Pull weeds
• Vacuum
• Clean the kitchen
• Wash blinds
• Reorganize a shelf (any shelf)
• Reorganize anything
• Rearrange furniture
• Get rid of old stuff
• Color coordinate your closet
• SCRUB the bathroom til it SpArKleS
• Clean the garage
• Sweep
• Mop
• Get the haircut/wax/manicure you need
• Treat yourself to a massage
• Wash your car
• Mow the lawn
• LAUNDRY
• Homework?
• Extra assignment from work?
• Clean your jewelry/watches/shoes
• Cook – then CLEAN up afterwards
• Pay that stack of bills
• Respond to emails
• EXERCISE
• Take your dogs to the park because you’ve promised them every single day that you’d go and every single day you don’t end up going… wait… haha – you don’t have to do that one.  That one was just for me. ;)

Mad Distraction Skills #6: Count Dracula

Back to the “counting” suggestion.

• Count your breaths – breathe slowly.
• Count anything.  The cars passing by, the people you see, how many letter Ts are in this blog…
• Count in increments of 7.  Go up or down the number line.

CREATE A DISTRACTION PLAN

Please leave a comment and tell me the FIRST four words you see. :)

I saw a WHOLE lot of words all at once.  But they’re all pretty similar.  I pulled this up on my phone and the first word I saw?  Serve.  Then dramatic, stubborn and courageous.  (but honestly I don’t think many people would call me a stubborn person but it IS a trait I struggle with in other people and it doesn’t surprise me that it jumped off the page.)  When I pulled it up on my computer the first I saw were lovely, passionate, dramatic and thoughtful.  hahahaha.  BUT since I think it takes passion to be courageous (or stubborn) and being thoughtful usually means service – I’d say either way the list was fairly accurate. :)

I’m changing blogs!! Please update your readers with elevenpetals.com/blog!! :) Also – you will find my version of “Things to do when you are bored” or “The Big List of Pleasurable Activities” on the new blog – CLICK HERE.

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Anxiety.  Stress.  We feel it.  We react.  Sometimes we react well.  YAY!  Happy days!!!  *smiley face emoticon*

But sometimes stress causes us to be overwhelmed with emotion. *frowny face emoticon*   ;)

We are overwhelmed by stress.  We react poorly.  Our emotions course through our veins, race through our minds, and/or sink into an uncomfortable pit in our stomachs and we, in a sense, lose control.  Logic flies out the window. We shut-down.  We bite back.  We avoid.  We cry.  We act in spite: spiting ourselves, our loved ones, our feelings.  Our emotions take over.  We spiral.

In my last post, we discussed Common but Self-Defeating Coping Mechanisms for Stress and detailed the negative consequences to each mechanism.   And let’s be honest – most of us have used more than one of those coping strategies on the list.  That’s why I labeled them “common”. ;)

Ok – so, sure – it’s great to acknowledge these reactions are self-defeating… and even better to acknowledge you use them. (or maybe vice versa)  But so what?  When you’re living in that moment you don’t care!!   If you DID, you wouldn’t be acting that way.  *duh*

So what can you do?  How do we fight back if, in a way, we’ve already lost control?

Distraction.

You need to distract yourself so that you can snap out of it and come back to the situation/problem/stress with a refreshed and in-control mind. :) *Big SMILE!* :) Distraction skills help you temporarily stop thinking about your stress, they help you prevent your emotions from spiraling farther and they give you time to find an appropriate reaction for your stress. :) :) *Even BIGGER Smile* :) :)

Soooo…..Make the choice NOW, that you WILL choose to distract yourself the next time you find yourself in a self-defeating reaction to stress. YAY! :) Tell yourself NOW that no matter how convincing your irrational justifications for your behavior are, the next time you find yourself coping with stress in a self-defeating way, you WILL, even though you won’t want to, try a distracting technique.  (which btw – will be covered more in the next post)

Have you done it yet?  Have you made the choice? :) :) :)

No?  ok – well… seriously…

Do it.  *warrior face emoticon*

haha.  Just teasing.  But for REAL?  Make the decision.  NOW.  Because if you don’t do it NOW – you probably will find yourself wishing you had.

(and I wonder why my boyfriend teases me about being bossy *slanted smile emoticon*)

;)

****IMPORTANT NOTE: Please do not confuse distracting yourself with avoidance.  Distracting yourself when your emotions are overwhelming?  Good.  Avoiding?  BAD.  The difference? “When you avoid a distressing situation you choose not to deal with it.  But when you distract yourself from a distressing situation, you still intend to deal with it in the future, when your emotions have calmed down.”*****

Ok – so we understand the importance of and the “why should we?” for distraction… BUT

Before we use distracting skills we need Radical Acceptance 

Distracting yourself will never work unless you learn “Radical Acceptance”.  Radical Acceptance is accepting life for what it is – judgment free.  If you can’t accept that life IS and cannot be controlled, you are probably a control freak.  What?  You probably are!

Let’s be real.  Life cannot be controlled.  Bad things happen.  Stress happens.  And wishing something didn’t happen is ultimately a waste of your time.  When you are upset that something happened you miss the point that it DID happen and now you need to deal with it.

Let’s think about this for a second.  Do you REALLY think that being upset and angry, or wishing something didn’t happen will change the outcome of something that has already happened? Or going back to our list of Common but Self-Defeating Coping Mechanisms for Stress - will ANY of these reactions CHANGE the outcome of what lead to your stress?

If you said “yes” – you are wrong. *Playful winky emoticon*  Each of those coping mechanisms ultimately paralyze you.  You cannot move forward and change the situation when you are busy engaging in self-defeating behaviors.  You might not be able to prevent feeling angry, upset, critical and judgmental, but you can accept that dwelling on those feelings won’t help.

Feel it, acknowledge it, accept it, move forward.

Trying to fight a moment in time, that has already happened, only leads to poor reactions and more stress.

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean you have to condone or agree with bad behavior in other people.  Accepting life for what it is only encourages you to not get angry about what has already happened and to not waste time trying to point the finger.  Blame, anger and dwelling will never help!  If a situation needs to be changed – change it!! but don’t dwell on who is to blame or get caught up in being disappointed in yourself for allowing the situation to happen.

Feel it, acknowledge it, accept it, move forward.

Back to Distraction

We’re going to talk more about Radical Acceptance in future blog posts but for now … let’s get back to Distraction as a coping mechanism for stress.

Developing distraction skills are more involved than I realized at first.  It’s going to take more than one post to get through them. *sorry!!*  BUT since I promised you some distracting ideas in THIS post, I’ve included pages 15-16 from “The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook” by McKay, Wood and Brantley for you (Click the link for a pdf).  It’s called “The Big List of Pleasurable Activities” and they claim it contains a list of over 100 ideas of things to do.  But I think listing “exercise” and then 14 different ways to exercise shouldn’t be counted as 15 things to do :) so I edited the list, added a few of my own ideas and included my amended version at the bottom of this post.  Please consider doing one of these things when you start feeling yourself reacting poorly or not caring that you are upset.  YAY!!!!

(YAY that there is a list – NOT yay that you are reacting poorly)

But WAIT!  There really is more!

If looking at the list makes you think “This will never work” – bear with me ok? *hopeful smiley emoticon*  I realize this is just a LONG list of things to do.  But the fact is, doing ANYTHING to change the pace a little should help you refocus and refresh your mind.  YAY!

PLUS – we haven’t gotten to the distraction SKILLS yet! :)  That will be next time. :) My next blog will cover in-depth ideas for distracting your thoughts and I’ll also go over the book’s suggestions for relaxing and fighting anxiety.

So …

to be continued! :)

And please CLICK HERE to be taken to the list of things to do :)  It’s at the bottom of the blog. :) :)  Thanks!!

Sometimes, no matter how prepared we are, the world feels like it’s crashing down on us.

We are overwhelmed with emotion.  Unprepared for the moment.  Maybe even depressed by current situations.  It doesn’t matter if the trigger is big or small: unexpected accidents, disappointment, unrealistic expectations, broken hearts, unobtainable dreams, approaching deadlines…   ANXIETY.

Overwhelming Emotion can strike anyone at anytime.

But with the right tools, we can strike back.

For the next little bit I’m going to share with you what I am learning from the book I’m reading on “Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation and Distress Tolerance.”

I’ve had this book on my shelf for over a year now but haven’t taken the time to read through it.  I wanted to practice mindfulness last October and after doing a bit of research I learned that Dialectical Behavior Therapy is all about teaching mindfulness.  Sure – it was created to help people with BPD and so that makes it a little extreme *yikes!!* but I figured that the core principles of the book would be a great foundation for learning to practice healthy mindfulness – so I bought the book anyway and am NOW going to read through it. YAY!  Happy days!!

The first section asks you to recognize your current COPING STRATEGIES for stress.

When feeling overwhelmed or stressed, do you…

• dwell on the past? your mistakes? current problems?
• get anxious thinking about the future?
• find yourself avoiding social situations?
• snap and lose your temper with people?
• avoid the problem?
• over-eat or under-eat?
• find that your favorite things have no appeal?
• resign yourself and be depressed?
• live a little on the edge? (i.e. do risky/dangerous things?)
• turn to drugs/prescriptions/alcohol to numb the emotional pain?

Because if you do – I have news for you!!!  YOU’RE MAKING IT WORSE.

hahahahaha.  You PROLLY already knew that.  And unfortunately this knowledge PROLLY just spirals the stress. :(

The book suggests taking a moment to reflect on the  consequences of the above reactions to stress.  Are ANY of the above mentioned “coping mechanisms” actually helpful?

NOPE.

Let’s look at consequences for the above coping strategies:

• If you dwell on the past, your mistakes, and current problems:  Waste time, miss opportunities to live in the NOW, regret missing these moments, feel depressed, feel ANXIETY
• If you get anxious thinking about the future:  Waste time, miss opportunities to live in the NOW, procrastinate planning for the future then feel stressed when you are unprepared, feel depressed, feel anxiety
• If you avoid social situations:  Feel isolated and depressed, miss opportunities to have fun, regret missing these moments.
• If you snap and lose your temper with people:  Hurt relationships and feel depressed for hurting your relationships, feel bad about yourself, low self-esteem.
• If you avoid the problem:  Feel unprepared, overwhelmed, get burned out, neglect your own needs.
• If you over-eat or under-eat:  Weight gain or loss, health consequences, anxiety, grumpiness, disappointment in self and lack of self-control, low self esteem, depression.
• If you find that your favorite things have no appeal:  Depression, loss of enjoyment.
• If you resign yourself and be depressed:  Depression, loss of enjoyment, hurt relationships.
• If you live a little on the edge: (i.e. do risky/dangerous things?)  Physical pain, accidents, trauma, death.
• If you turn to drugs/prescriptions/alcohol to numb the emotional pain:  Loss of respect of self, depression, loss of money, relationship problems, health consequences, addiction.

All of the coping mechanisms above lead to prolonged stress, anxiety and unhappiness. There are healthier ways to cope.

So what do you do instead?

DISTRACT YOURSELF.

Chapter One of the book deals with “Distracting Skills” – and we’ll talk about THOSE in the next blog. :)

Have a happy day/night! :)

Oh my.  Have you ever tried to get a group of 6 and 7 year olds to sit still and listen to you teach them for AN HOUR outside of school?  It’s not easy.  In fact – it’s impossible.

Or so I thought.

This week I tried something new.  I usually give them a treat (sugarless, but very flavorful gum – and they get to pick each week between a bunch of flavors – I don’t like using food as a reward :-o ) as incentive to be “good” during class.  They love it!! :)  But THIS week I brought an extra treat.  One they could earn at the BEGINNING of class, conditional upon their utter and complete silence while they took turns telling me about their week. (I love redundancy.  Is there any form of silence that is not utter or complete?  And aren’t utter and complete synonyms?  Why yes – they are. ;)

ANYWAY

Usually they compete with each other during “tell me about your week” time.  The first child says he or she did x,y,z and then the second child OF COURSE did x,y,z TOO but ALSO did a, b, and c so then the first child has to interrupt to explain they ALSO had a,b, and c but that they just forgot to mention it and then the THIRD child adds even MORE so the first and second children have to pipe in AGAIN… I think you get the idea.  It’s great fun. :-\

I don’t love the competition so I told them that I’d give them one caramel (hee hee – kids are so easy to please!!) at the end of in-class sharing time if they would be SILENT while their classmates spoke.  I WAS SHOCKED!

I have NEVER, and neither has my team teacher who has taught them for the past year, seen them so quiet.  YAY!  Hip hip hooray! :)  They didn’t utter even one tiny PEEP while their classmates spoke.  And then after in-class sharing time – because they had just been practicing listening and being quiet for the past 5 minutes they STAYED quiet for another 10!!!

I’m a genius! ;)

And now that I’ve proven to myself and to them that they ARE capable of listening :) I’ve got a whole new set of expectations!!  hahahaha – just kidding.

kind of.

I don’t want to teach a class where the children are silent :) I LOVE our boisterous activity time AND we usually try and play a game too (kids need wiggle time).  I don’t want to run a prison camp.  However, having them respect their classmates by listening and not competing is something I will continue to do. :)  So YAY!  I found success!