This was not the blog post I planned to write today. I got home yesterday to some bad news and it sent me on a downward spiral (hence no post yesterday). I had a rush of emotions; sadness, anger and worry. These conflicting with some very negative thoughts totally overwhelmed me.
I had to be reminded to implement the skills I had learnt on my Emotional Coping Skills course. I had to take a step back and look rationally at the problem. I decided to do a technique based on distraction. There was an acronym for choosing how to do this; ACCEPTS:
Activities – any activity you enjoy doing
Contributing – do something for someone else
Count Your Blessings – looking at what you have rather than have not
Emotion – do something which illicits a different emotion (music, comedy, etc)
Pushing Away – put the situation to one side
Thoughts – using other thoughts (playing the alphabet game, etc)
Sensations – hold something cold, ping a rubber band on your wrist, etc
Distraction techniques have become a very popular way of dealing with the stresses of modern life, especially with the proliferation of colouring books for adults.
Distraction was really useful yesterday. I took myself away to my Jaws Room (I’ll explain about the room another time) and did some photoshopping whilst listening to music. Whilst I was still aware of my emotions, I was able to put them to one side until I could better deal with them. I am now feeling much better about the situation and feel capable of dealing with it.
On the theme of distraction, I was excited to receive my first Pause delivery from Mind this week. Within the box was an origami kit beutifully wrapped in tissue paper, some postcards and a booklet on well-being.
Anywho, normal blogging will resume tomorrow.
Not Perfect 