Thursday, March 14, 2019, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Tonight there were only 8 people in the room when the session started, then two more came in. Still, 10 people is a great reduction from the 25 or 30 who came to the first session!
Lisa did start with a relaxation with mindful breathing after the check-in, during which I had to admit that I did not get in bed by midnight at all, and that I had had a crappy week.
She began this first session on mindfulness with an Overview of Coping Strategies, listed as:
- Relaxation response
- Mindfulness
- Imagery
- Healthy lifestyle practices (includes sleep, diet, exercising, prioritizing and pacing, and planned pleasant activities).
- Mindful movement (combines low-impact exercise with mindfulness and relaxation).
- Goal setting
- Cognitive re-framing
- Recognizing and revising core beliefs or self assumptions
- Affirmations
- Optimism/stress hardiness
She then had us identify which ones we are currently doing, which ones we have done in the past, and which ones we would be willing to try. I recognized Nos. 7-10 as being the tactics we are learning to do (included in the spreadsheet I’m keeping now).
We spent the remainder of the time reading and discussing the basics of mindfulness, which was not new to me, after having gone through the Pain Management Program last year. The whole point of knowing what mindfulness is and how to apply it, Lisa said, is that it helps to “catch” negative thoughts and behaviors.
She didn’t assign any new “homework” so I’m thinking we should just continue working on the Thoughts-Feelings-Behaviors-Core Beliefs spreadsheet. At least, that’s what I plan to do.
My commitment was just to try again (now that the time change week is over) to get in bed by midnight. Good luck to me!
