Blog Posts Tagged "Facebook".

For this month’s Facebook project, I’m going to be doing…

1 Small Action Per Day Towards Actually Doing Something From My Bucket List.

Plan

I think of my bucket list in a very flexible way. For example, it has about 10 recipes I want to try making on it. So, 1 small action might be something like buying a specialty ingredient for one of the recipes.

I anticipate this will be more challenging than November’s 30 Days of Savoring 1 Thing Per Day.

You can join in if you’d like to by
1. “liking” the FB page for the blog, and
2. leaving a daily comment of which small action you took for each day of the project (Most people just watch but it’s fun to have fellow participants!).

You can see how it works by having a look at the blog’s Facebook page. No need to join to view, it’s completely public (You will need to “like” the page to be able to comment).

Just a wee note to any therapy clients, for a bunch of legal/ethics/privacy reasons please don’t publicly participate in the projects/Facebook (feel free to ask at your session if you’d like to know the specific reasoning). Reading the page is fine (of course!) and you should feel free to read/not read as you want to. The Facebook page is an experiment and I’m trying to keep the things I do for free separate from the therapy services that people pay for. Am more than happy to explain this more when I see you in person, all you need to do is ask.

This project is going to be using the productivity principle of “Next Action” which just means that, when setting a goal/task, also identify the next (single) action you need to take. Tip: Make sure it really is the next single action e.g., get bank account number of person need to make a payment to, rather than transfer money by internet banking.

Would love for you to say hello via the FB page, even if you just want to lurk for the project.

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The November 30 Day project is going to be 30 days of – Savoring one thing per day. I’ll be posting my daily update on Facebook (most days, I usually don’t post on weekends), and I invite you to join in.

Each day I’ll do one of two types of savoring once a day:

1. paying greater attention while having a positive experience

or

2. reflecting on something positive that has happened in the day (e.g., reflecting on the feeling of satisfaction at finishing a task).

Why You Might Want to Participate: The Rationale

This is a great first 30 Day project for people who want to:

1. Increase willpower by picking something small and sticking to it consistently (especially good if you are stuck in boom and bust cycles of activity)

2. Increase positive emotions. Increasing positive emotions is not just hedonistic, pointless or selfish. Research shows that increasing positive emotions increases flexibility of thinking, increases creativity, improves cooperative problem solving, enhances realationships, and even improves physical health. Cultivating good mental habits also helps protect against depression and anxiety (especially if you have a tendency to get depressed).

Start date is Nov 1.

Observers welcome too but if you’re curious about participating, hopefully you will. It took me ages of following other people’s projects before I started doing my own because I was worried I wouldn’t stick at them, but I have found that I get so much out of them that I do stick at them. I’m also getting better at setting more reasonable daily goals for myself, which is leading to increased success.

You’ll need to “like” the Facebook page to post on the page. The idea is that I write my update and other people write their update as a comment to mine. You’re likely to find that posting your update each day helps you stay on track with the project. Latecomers also welcome, so you really have no excuses if you are curious about trying this ;-)

Link below – Join the “Savoring One Thing a Day” 30-Day Project

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Alice-Boyes-Psychologist/146054325428624

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Research into the psychological benefits of self-compassion is an emerging trend in psychology. I actually prefer the term self kindness.

Self-compassion is about learning alternative responses when you are experiencing psychological suffering (suffering includes when you’re feeling frustrated, anxious, or when you’re feeling disconnected from other people etc), rather than using self-criticism.

Online Self-Compassion Test

You can take an online test of your self-compassion here at self-compassion.org

The test auto scores.

If you want to work on self-compassion, you might choose to take the test now, and then set yourself a calendar reminder to retake the self-compassion test in 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months time. Record your answers and observe changes.

For Parents

A generation ago, parenting advice seemed to focus on raising high self esteem children. After that, came a focus on mindful parenting and raising mindful children.

Now it seems like a focus on raising self-compassionate kids might be the next big thing.

Compassion and mindfulness are closely linked since mindfulness is needed to notice your own and others’ psychological suffering, and to recognize how you are responding to yourself/others (with criticism or with kindness) and its effects.

Is self compassion linked to self esteem? Self compassion is more closely linked to the self worth aspect of self esteem than the aspect of self esteem that is about being good at things, or being better than average.

(Self esteem that is hinged on being better than average is a recipe for trouble, because by definition the majority of people are average or worse in terms of any one attribute).

Self Compassion tends to lead to more skillful responding to yourself and the world

People worry that self-kindness will cause them to become lazy or dysregulated, but its more likely to do the opposite. If you have been trying self criticism as a way of regulating your behaviour, then its time to try something else.

Self Compassion Research

This is an interesting study. You can view it free online.

It’s about how self compassion buffers people against the stress of negative events.

The authors conclude “In general, these studies suggest that self-compassion attenuates people’s reactions to negative events in ways that are distinct from and, in some cases, more beneficial than self-esteem.”

Self-compassion helps people feel more connected to others and tends to lead to more pro-social behaviour.

In other words – it is the opposite of selfish!

Dr Kristin Neff’s book about Self Compassion

The author of the website I have linked to, Dr Kristin Neff, had a book on Self Compassion published in April.

Another good self compassion book is

New 30 day Project where I practice what I preach (Update: Now finished and I’m on to a new 30 Day Project.)

My next personal 30 day project is going to be 30 days of self-compassion. You can see what I’m up to on my blog Facebook page. You can also participate if you want.

My life is in good shape so the emotions I need to have self-compassion about are likely to be minor and might seem a bit silly to be mentioning, but I still expect the project to have an effect in helping smooth out anxiety spikes and helping me choose skillful responses. I’m going to use the month to practice the skill of self-compassion and see what happens. Do join if you feel interested/curious about what might happen if you start to notice and change your self-critical responses.

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