Category: MindTree

Your Values || Purposeful Life Series

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

What do you value?

The key to you

Defining your values is the next step to unlocking your success. Values are those things that really matter to you – the ideas and beliefs you deem to be the most important in your life.

A range of factors, including your background, upbringing, life philosophy, and events that you’ve experienced will shape the values you hold.

Values have a major influence on your behaviour and serve as broad guidelines to make authentic choices that leave you feeling more content, happy, and satisfied throughout your life.

When your actions are not in alignment with your values, you find yourself without a sense of achievement or feeling out of control.

Make a deliberate and conscious effort to identify and live according to your values.

D E F I N I N G   Y O U R   V A L U E S:

1 | SELECT

Identify your top ten values. Go with your gut instinct!

2 | PRIORITISE 

Prioritise each value from one to ten. Focus on your top five and briefly define what each one means to you.

3 | CONTEMPLATE

Read each value to yourself, letting the meaning of each word sink in.

4| DEFINE 

Select your top three values and write them down. Commit them to memory, as they will now act as your decision-making blueprint. You also need to define the single value that is most important to you.

5 | COMMIT 

Work out what you need to add or remove from your life and what you need to change to reflect these values.

Common Personal Values:

  • FAMILY HAPPINESS
    Quality time, bonding.
  • COMPETITIVENESS
    Taking risks, winning.
  • FRIENDSHIP
    Close relationships with others.
  • AFFECTION
    Love, caring.
  • COOPERATION
    Working well with others, teamwork
  • ADVENTURE
    New challenges
  • ACHIEVEMENT
    A sense of accomplishment.
  • WEALTH
    Making money
  • ENERGY
    Vitality
  • FREEDOM
    Independence, autonomy.
  • SELF-RESPECT
    Sense of personal identity, pride.
  • RECOGNITION
    Acknowledgement, status.
  • ADVANCEMENT
    Promotion
  • HEALTH
    Mental, physical.
  • RESPONSIBILITY
    Being accountable for results.
  • INVOLVEMENT
    Belonging, being involved with others.
  • ECONOMIC SECURITY
    Strong and consistent income streams.
  • PLEASURE
    Fun, laughter, a leisurely lifestyle.
  • POWER
    Control, authority, or influence over others.
  • GENEROSITY
    Helping others, improving society.
  • WISDOM
    Discovering and understanding knowledge
  • LOYALTY
    Devotion, trustworthiness
  • CULTURE
    Traditions, customs, beliefs.
  • ORDER
    Stability, conformity.
  • CREATIVITY
    Being imaginative, innovative.
  • INTEGRITY
    Honesty, sincerity, standing up for oneself.
  • PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
    Use of personal potential.

 

Your Purpose || Purposeful Life Series

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

What is your purpose in life?

Of all the questions you should ask yourself, by far the most powerful is the one you should start with each morning: What is the purpose of today?
Breaking it down daily can assist with increasing your happiness and sense of achievement.

To have purpose is to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. Be it a community, sporting club, a cause or just a simple reason to get out of bed each day. It gives us something to aim for and helps clarify our intentions.

For some of us, purpose derives from popularity, power, and money. Meanwhile, for others, the focus is growth and contribution.

What matters most is that we pursue our purpose for the right reasons. Because it is something we deeply believe in, rather than something someone else is steering us towards.

Self-Discovery || Purposeful Life Series

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

S T A R T

Who are you? It can be a difficult question to answer. Many of us rely on our work to define our sense of ourselves. You might be an executive, an office worker, or a CEO, but while this is what you do, at the end of the day it’s not who you are. Parent, friend, sister, brother, dog-mum, boss, employee, wife, husband, partner . . . These are exemplars of the many different hats we wear in our everyday lives. But these are roles we play – not who we are at our very core.

The question is actually less, Who am I?, and more, Who am I without my job, partner, career, home, hobbies, kids, and family? 

Currently, you have had a tapestry of valuable life experiences – some will have been great, good, others okay, and some will have been bad. Nevertheless, each one has shaped who you are today. Collaboratively, these experiences provide you with all the information you need to tell you who you are and who you want to be.

A C T I V I T Y:

So really… who are you?

The following questions will help you get started on the process of clearly defining who you are. Take time to consider each question fully and honestly.

Who are you when you’re at your best?

Do you know what is true, good, and possible when it comes to who you are? More often than not, many of us tend to dwell on our failures. We personally think that memories of our bad moments tend to linger far too long, while memories of our best moments fade all too fast. Most of us are so busy churning through everyday life that we tend to overlook our achievements. For this next activity, take a moment to think back on the last few times you felt energised, engaged, and enjoying life.

Consequential Thinking

James Champion by James Champion

Consequential thinking allows individuals to assess their choices, to anticipate how people will react, and to follow their intentions. In other words, consequential thinking is about considering the likely outcomes of one’s behaviour before acting. It involves the assessment of the upsides and downsides of various courses of action. Two critical factors influence how individuals come up with solutions to the problems they encounter: (i) confidence in their abilities; and (ii) their capacity to overcome and deal with their emotions. Both emotional intelligence and critical analysis are fundamental to consequential thinking.

Critical analysis: The objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Emotional intelligence: The capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions.

One key mechanism for developing consequential thinking is self-talk. In this regard, self-talk entails exploring multiple options and perspectives prior to arriving at a carefully considered decision. This kind of thought pattern is often referred to as thinking ahead. Such thinking requires understanding the interaction between cause and effect. For example, rather than reacting, individuals high in consequential thinking respond with clear thought out intentions.

Think big picture. When you think about how a specific situation fits into your overall goals and objectives it will be easier to respond.

Next time you encounter a stressful or emotionally-provocative situation, think big picture. When you consider about how the specific situation fits into your overall goals and objectives it will be easier to respond. Remember, consequential thinking is about deciding what you need to do for the best possible outcome. Ask yourself:

  • “Am I interpreting this situation accurately?”
  • “Does my interpretation of the situation fit with reality?”
  • “Does my interpretation support the achievement of reasonable and constructive interests or goals?”
  • “Does my interpretation help foster positive relationships?”
  • “Does my interpretation seem reasonable and logical within the given context?”

De-Clutter Your Busy Mind

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

A healthy mind is important. Here are some tips to help you detox negative energy and to help you feel stronger mentally.

Unplug from Technology

Make the effort to spend 10 hours each week away from your phone, computer, or iPad. Don’t touch it, play with it, or use it – unless your phone rings. You will be amazed at how much more alert you become and how clear your mind will feel. If you don’t make it to the full 10-hours, that’s okay – some time away from technology can be really good for you.

Practice Gratitude

What are you grateful for? If your mind begins to wonder to negative thoughts during the day, take a step back and practice gratitude. Each time you do this, you are building mental resilience. To challenge yourself – try and name 3 NEW things each day!

Cultivate Positivity

Create your own sunshine by reading quotes that you find motivating, positive, and inspirational. Go one step further and collect these quotes for when you need a little pick-me-up.

Be Present

Start each day by doing nothing but listening to the sound of your breath. During this time, set a goal of how you want to feel for the rest of the day. Relaxed? Happy? Make sure you keep it simple and clear.

 

3 Ways to Keep Your New Year Resolutions

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

We’re just over half way through January. If you’ve made resolutions for 2019 and feel that you’ve already failed, we have simple tips & tricks to help get back on track.

Set Short Term Goals

It’s often difficult to stick to your resolutions if they are long-term goals that will take a while to achieve, as you may lose focus. The best thing to do is to break down your long-term goals into smaller goals, which you can achieve bit-by-bit to reach the long-term one. Additionally, make sure to only work on one goal at a time. Attempting to change too many behaviours at once can be tricky.

Write Them Down 

Committing your goals to pen and paper will help you to visualise them and keep them in your mind. Additionally, tell other people about your goals. Letting other people know your goals and resolutions serves a couple of purposes: First, it allows friends and family to give you support in reaching your objective. Second, the knowledge that other people are aware of your goals hold you accountable for your behaviour.

Continue Assessing & Re-evaluating Your Resolutions

One of the biggest reasons people give up on their resolutions is because they might hit a wall or realise it isn’t working. Introducing a new behaviour into your life is not easy. You may have set-backs and this is perfectly okay. In this instance, be kind to yourself and be open to the idea of re-evaluating and making changes to your resolution.

New Year, New You || 12 New Chapters, 365 New Chances

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

A new year; A fresh start with new challenges. 365 new days with 365 new chances. It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. This is the beginning of anything you want. Remember though, what the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year. You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.

Make this year a year of fulfilment, of joy, and of purpose. Go out and make a change. Do new things. Better yet, do things that challenge you. Take every opportunity you get. Impress yourself instead of impressing others. Lend a hand without expecting anything in return. Embrace self-love and self-acceptance. Reduce negative self-talk and silence your inner critic. Start a daily journal or blog to improve your mental health. Learn to be more optimistic and think more positively. Endeavour to complain less and appreciate life more. Practice daily gratitude. Disconnect from social media. Learn to say no without feeling bad. Decide where you want to be and don’t stop until you get there. May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.

Remember- your past does not determine who you are. Your past prepares you for who are you are to become. Whatever happened throughout this past year, be thankful for where it brought you, as where you are is where you’re meant to be.

And so the adventure begins… the best is yet to come.

We hope 2019 is your best year yet.

Gold Coast Psychologists

Mindfulness || Being in the Now

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

FAST FACTS:

  • Mindfulness is a mental state of being engaged in the present moment without evaluating or emotionally reacting to it
  • More than 250 medical centres worldwide now offer mindfulness-based therapies for mood and other disorders
  • Mindfulness training works, at least in part, by strengthening the brain’s ability to pay attention

Pulling into a parking spot, you realise you have no recollection of the drive that got you there. On reaching the bottom of a page in a book, you are frustrated that you have failed to understand what you just read. In conversation, you all of a sudden become aware that you have no idea what the person speaking to you has said. Have you ever had the experience of watching a television show or movie and suddenly realising you missed a good portion of it because your attention drifted?  Or had to ask someone to repeat something?  Or had a partner accuse you of not listening?

These episodes are symptoms of a distracted mind. Whether the mind journeys to the future, or the past, whether the thoughts that distracted you were useful, pleasant, or uncomfortable, the consequences are the same. You missed the present, the experience of the moment, as it was unfolding.

Distinct from daydreaming, our mind gets offtrack almost half the time. Such mental meandering is associated with negative mood. Severe psychological stress may be cultivated by rumination, worry, or fear about many topics. This type of diffused and unstable focus impairs performance too.

The opposite of a wandering mind is a mindful one. Mindfulness is a mental state of being engaged in the present moment without evaluating or emotionally reacting to it. Evidence reveals that mindfulness reduces psychological stress and improves both mental and physical health, alleviating depression, anxiety, loneliness, and chronic pain.

HOW TO PRACTICE MINDFULNESS:

​There are many ways to practice mindfulness, and you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to do it.  One of the simplest ways is to pay attention to your breath, because that is always here and now. You simply sit and breathe, watching your breath as it goes in and out.  You can also practice mindful walking, where you walk slowly and feel each footstep. You can eat mindfully, keeping your attention on the smell, texture and taste of food. You can do dishes or laundry mindfully. Anything you do, you can do it with mindful awareness of the experience as it is happening. You can also learn to observe your own thoughts and feelings, and therefore be aware of your internal experiences rather than just being swept up in them.

10-MINUTE MINDFULNESS EXERCISE:

  • Sit in an upright, stable position, hands resting on your thighs or cradled together
  • Lower or close your eyes, whichever is more comfortable for you
  • Attend to your breath, following its movement throughout your body
  • Notice the sensations around your belly as air flows into and out of your nose or mouth. In this moment, you are simply noticing your breath.
  • Select one area of your body affected by your breathing and focus your attention there. Control your focus, not the breathing itself.
  • When you notice your mind wandering – and it will – bring your attention back to your breath.
  • After 5 to 10 minutes, switch from focusing to monitoring. Think of your mind as a vast open sky and your thoughts, feelings, and sensations as passing clouds.
  • Feel your whole body move with your breath. Be receptive to your sensations, noticing what arise in the moment. Be attentive to the changing quality of experience – sounds, aromas, the caress of a breeze, thoughts.
  • After about 5 or so minutes, lift your gaze or open your eyes.

Emotional Intelligence || “and how does that make you feel?”

Tamara Brown by Tamara Brown

FAST FACTS: 

  • Emotional intelligence is how well individuals identify and manage their own emotions and react to the emotions of others.
  • Emotional intelligence allows us to communicate better with others.
  • Self-awareness is fundamental to emotional intelligence.
  • Self-awareness refers to the ability to recognise and understand your own character, mood and emotions, and their effect on others.
  • Self-aware individuals are able to recognise their emotions as they occur.
  • Emotional intelligence is something you develop and requires continual improvement.

What is emotional intelligence? 

  • Emotional intelligence is how well individuals identify and manage their own emotions and react to the emotions of others.
  • It is understanding how those emotions shape your thoughts and actions so you can have greater control over your behaviour and develop the skills to manage yourself more effectively.
  • Becoming more emotionally aware allows us to grow and gain a deeper understanding of who we are, which thereby enables us to communicate better with others and build stronger relationships.
  • A key component of emotional intelligence is self-awareness, which is the ability to recognise and understand your own character, mood and emotions, and their effect on others.
  • Self-awareness includes a realistic self-assessment of what you’re capable of – your strengths and weaknesses – and know how others perceive you.
How to increase your self-awareness

1. Practice observing how you feel
Taking time to acknowledge how you feel about experiences is fundamental to improving your emotional awareness. Often we lead busy lives and it’s all too easy for us to lose touch with our emotions. if you ignore your feelings, you’re ignoring important information that has a big effect on your mindset and the way you behave. To reconnect, try setting a timer for points in the day. When the timer goes off, take a few deep breaths and notice how you’re feeling emotionally. Pay attention to where that emotion is showing up as a physical feeling in your body and what the sensation feels like.​
For example:

  • Stress might feel like a knot in your stomach
  • Sadness might feel like waking up with slow, heavy limbs.
  • Joy or nervousness might feel like butterflies in your stomach.

2. Observe how your emotions and behaviour are connected
While you’re practising your emotional awareness, take the time to notice your behaviour too. When you feel strong emotions, how do you react? Observe how you react when you’re experiencing certain emotions, and how that affects your day-to-day life.
For example:

  • Feeling embarrassed or insecure might cause you to withdraw from conversation and disconnect.
  • Feeling anger might cause you to raise your voice or angrily stomp away.
  • Feeling overwhelmed might cause you to panic and lose track of what you were doing, or cry.

3. Keep a diary
This is a great way to get an accurate gauge of yourself. Start by writing down what happened to you at the end of every day, how it made you feel and how you dealt with it. Documenting details like these will make you more aware of what you’re doing and will highlight where problems might be coming from. Periodically, look back over your comments and take note of any friends.

4. Acknowledge your emotional triggers
Self-aware individuals are able to recognise their emotions as they occur. It’s important to be flexible with your emotions and adapt them to your situation. Don’t deny your emotions stage time but don’t be rigid with them either, take the time to process your emotions before communicating them.

5. Question your own opinions
It’s easy to fall into an ‘opinion bubble’. This is a state of existence where your own opinions are constantly reinforced by people with similar views. Take the time to read the other side of the story and have your views challenged – even if you still feel they are right. This will help you understand other people and be more receptive to new ideas.

6. Take responsibility
Your emotions and behaviour come from you. If you feel hurt in response to something someone says or does, and you lash out at them, you’re responsible for that. They didn’t ‘make’ you lash out. Your reaction is your responsibility. Emotions and behaviour don’t come from anyone else and once you start accepting responsibility for how you feel and how you behave it will have a positive impact on all areas of your life.

7. A lifetime process
Understand and remember that emotional intelligence is something you develop and requires continual improvement; it’s very much a lifetime practice.

Distress Intolerance || Effective Ways to Tolerate Distress

James Champion by James Champion

FAST FACTS:

  • Distress intolerance refers to a perceived inability to fully experience unpleasant emotions.
  • It is linked to a fear of experiencing negative emotion.
  • Distress intolerance can occur for both high and low intensity emotions.

WHAT IS DISTRESS INTOLERANCE?

Distress intolerance refers to a perceived inability to fully experience unpleasant, aversive, or uncomfortable emotions, and is accompanied by a desperate need to escape the uncomfortable emotions. Difficulties tolerating distress are often linked to a fear of experiencing negative emotion. Distress intolerance often revolves around high intensity emotional experiences, such as when the emotion is strong and powerful (e.g., intense despair after and argument with a loved one, or intense fear whilst giving a speech). However, it could also occur for lower intensity emotions (e.g., nervousness about an upcoming medical examination, sadness when remembering a past relationship break-up). It is not the intensity of the emotion itself, but rather how much you fear it, how unpleasant it feels to you, how unbearable it seems, and how much you want to get away from it, that determines if you are intolerant of distress.

THE PARADOX…

The more we fear, struggle with, and try to avoid any form of distress, generally the worse that distress gets. Our fear and avoidance of the distress actually magnifies the distress.

EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES TO TOLERATE DISTRESS:

Distress tolerance require us to accept our current situation in a non-judgemental way. We must learn how to tolerate discomfort without demanding that people or things be “different”.
ACCEPTANCE

Getting angry in response to a situation that is upsetting prevents you from seeing what is really happening. Intense emotions have a way of blinding us from the reality of the situation, which only allows the emotions to escalate.

Acceptance means being willing to experience a situation as it is, rather than how we want it to be. It is about acknowledging the present moment (no matter what it is) without judging the events as good or bad.

Accepting distress is not about having to like emotional discomfort, or being resigned to feeling miserable, or wallowing in negative emotions. Rather, accepting distress is about seeing the negative emotions for what it is, and changing how you pay attention to emotion. Reacting in an accepting way towards your emotion, often changes the effect the emotion has on you.

AVOID SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOURS

Engaging in self-destructive behaviours often brings temporary relief from emotional pain. The most common ways of doing this would be by using alcohol or drugs to escape emotional discomfort. Binge eating is also a common way to alleviate distress. Excessive sleep can also be used in an unhelpful way to zone out from and escape unpleasant emotions.

These types of behaviours can serve as distractions from whatever emotional pain we may be feeling. In the long-term, self-destructive behaviours like binge drinking, drug use, and emotional eating, make our emotions worse and prolong the challenges we are facing by distancing us from healthier ways of coping.

RELAX & SOOTHE YOURSELF

Learning to relax and self-soothe is fundamental for healthy emotional functioning. When you are relaxed, your body is not in a constant state of emergency, preparing to fight or run away at any given moment. Most importantly, your brain is much more capable of coming up with healthy ways of coping with stress when physically relaxed. There are many ways to relax – read our tips on getting your self-care routine started (self-care-you-cant-pour-from-an-empty-cup.html)

SAFE-PLACE VISUALISATION

Fun fact! your brain and body often cannot tell the difference between what’s really happening and what you are imagining. Use this to your advantage. Find a place where you can be alone and practice visualising a real or imaginary place that makes you feel safe and relaxed. Explore this safe place in vivid detail

REDISCOVER YOUR VALUES

Your values are the standards, morals, principles, and ideals that fill your life with meaning, worth, and importance. These are the reasons that we have to wake up in the morning – why we’re motivated to keep going. Sometime we may feel adrift in life, unsure of the reason for doing much of anything – these are the times when we feel lost and empty. Discovering or rediscovering your values can help you tolerate emotional distress and begin to build a life worth living.

LIVE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

No matter what you do, it is always now. No matter how much you would like to go back in time to fix something that went wrong or blame someone who hurt you, it is impossible. The desire to live in the past or in the future creates suffering. All of the time spent dwelling in the past or focusing on the future results in something tragic: missing out on life. It is happening right now – all around you. 

Focus on the present moment by drawing your attention to anything sensory, a particular task you are doing, a sound, taste, smell, sight, or feeling of touch you may not have realised you were experiencing that you can now tune into.

SELF-AFFIRMING STATEMENT & COPING THOUGHTS

 A large part of learning how to tolerate distress involves having a strong foundation of yourself as a healthy capable person. You must believe in yourself first. Behind intense sadness, rage, and despair there is a caring, loving, and strong person who is capable of handling intense negative situations in a healthier way.

Using positive statements can help us develop a new attitude to ourselves and our situations. Use a statement that starts with “I” and use the present tense, such as “I am strong” or “I am a good and worthwhile person”.

It is helpful to hear encouraging words during times of intense emotional distress. Sometimes a supportive friend or partner is not around to provide us with the emotional support and comfort that we may desire. In these times, we must be capable of providing ourselves with this comfort. Coping thoughts consist of reminders of times when you’ve been strong in the past and words that give you strength. “I am strong enough to handle what happening to me right now”.