Compassion and me

I've been exploring third wave CBT for practically all this year, starting with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Lately I have been exploring DBT and Compassion Focused therapy. At first I didn't really get CFT, I thought it would be too light for me. Recently, though, I have found compassion, especially self-compassion, to be particularly important for my own journey of healing and recovery. Whenever things feel particularly difficult I find being kind to myself about my struggles and endeavours and failures and also widening my compassion towards people I share my life with and beyond that, really helps. I have been doing the Loving-Kindness meditation with my daughter since July, I feel it has also been helping. I have been practising mindfulness since March 23rd, recently, on the morning of November 14th, I was sitting in a coffee shop in Harrow when I experienced a feeling of great inner peace. I felt the most calm, zen-like or Nirvana-ish perhaps, than I possibly had ever felt before. I think this feeling will come and go, but at least I know I can feel like that sometimes. I am looking for more peace and calm in my life, at the moment I find it in half-hour pauses in cafes and pubs. Above and below are examples of colouring sheets I have created  to help me in my new acceptance-based, compassionate and mindful way of being.

   

The following blog posts show the therapeutic journey I have been on this year, starting with ACT in February and ending with CFT in November. It is interesting to see where I started from and where I am now.

1. Welcome to the third wave (September)

2. A guide to guided meditations (August)

3. Yoga for Stress Relief (July)

4. Mindful ACT : favourite resources (June)

5. Breathe (May)

6. Mindful Colouring and Doodling (May)

7. Stoic quotes and mindfulness plus (April)

8. The Yin and Yang of ACT  (February) 

Extra Resources

Mindfulness Plus on Pinterest

Mindful Meditations on YouTube

CFT Books

The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert

Croydon, Robinson, 2009

Mindfulness based compassionate living by E. van Der Brink and F. Koster

Hove, Routledge 2015

Exploring Bhuddist-Christianity

After completing my '5B450' projects last year, leading up to my 50th birthday, I have found myself on some kind of spiritual-psychological-philosophical quest. One of the journeys this has taken me on is a progressive shifting away from Christianity towards Buddhism, which is surpirsing and refreshing. These are the three books that have been accompanyinging me on my journey.

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

I was going through a very difficult time when I read this book. I found it very wise. Pema has written other books too, which I have enjoyed reading, 'The places that scare you', 'The wisdom of no escape' and 'Start where you are', but I enjoyed this book the most. In 'When Things Fall Apart' Pema first talks about her spiritual inspiration from doing nothing for twelve months. The book is about giving up struggles against fear and anger and a lot of other negative emotions as well. It explores the Buddhist ideas about letting go of everything. A lot of what I have been reading echoes what I was exploring through writing about aspects of surrender in my poetry group SubVerse. I think a lot of things are related but none of them hold the complete answer. Possibly because there are no complete answers. I think that's possibly a very Buddhist conclusion. It also explains why the best thing is to just live in the moment, hopefully the present moment is OK. I have only just started exploring Buddhism, at the moment I am getting a good deal out of it. I hope I will pursue this spiritual practice further, possibly with the help of the Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh.

The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu

The Book of Joy is a big book about the week when the Dalai Lama met his friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to celebrate a big birthday. The book starts with a reflection on human fragility and moves on to exploring negative feelings that mask joy; these are fear, anger, sadness, despair, loneliness, envy, suffering, mortality. The book then goes on to discuss the eight pillars of joy which are perspective, humility, humour, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, generosity. The three most practical things I got from this book were the Breathing Practice, Tonglen Practice and Acceptance Meditation. The book is written in a simplistic, friendly way. The Buddhist books I have been reading by Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron have been a lot more in-depth.

Becoming like Jesus by C.J.H. Wright

I've been a church-going Christian for over ten years. My favourite bit of the bible is St Paul and in particular his verses on the fruits of the spirit; 'The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, against such things there is no law,' Galatians 5: 22-23. There is a lot of love in this book and to me that is what jesus was all about; love. It was about replacing the old testament law enforcement with this one statement 'the entire law is fulfilled in keeping one command: love your neighbour as yourself,' Galatians 5: 14. I've always tried to an open minded, free thinking person, a liberal Christian, I find myself now leaning more towards, Buddhism, due to life difficulties and embracing both Stoicism and ACT. That said I still have room for Jesus in my life and this book helps to explain why. There is a lot to think about and at the moment I am looking for positive practical stuff to keep me going. Positive practical Christian stuff you can do is go to church, pray and bring more of the fruits of the spirit into you own life and sphere of influence.

Lavender birds

My owl matryoshkas were inspired by nursing mentorship and education books and the lavender swallows were inspired by a digital collage I produced a few years ago called 'The birds of the air', which also features the lyrics to my song 'Phoenix'. Please see the images below for more details.

 

Aurora's Gifts

These star heart dolls are in celebration of the three gifts the fairy godmothers give Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) at her christening; Beauty, Grace and Melody. The three gifts have also inspired this new digital collage.

Soft Dolly Furnishings

       

These soft dolly furnishings are modelled by Patience, a Star Heart Doll made mostly from material purchased in the Gold Hawk Road, Shepherd's Bush, London, an area well known for the number of fabric shops it possesses. The soft furnishings include a flowerly sheet, linen and knitted cushions, knitted rainbow blankets and patchwork doll quilts. I love knitting and needlework, but because of time limitations I find doll sized projects much more doable.

     

Tea pots and tea cosies

In 2016, when Amy was doing her GCSE exams, I was feeling so stressed out that I felt I needed to work on a simple, but useful knitting project to help calm my nerves. At the same time we also needed a tea cosy.

I found a really simple tea cosy pattern on the internet involving knitting two large squares and sewing and tying them together into the appropriate tea cosy shape. I was pleased with the results, both the tea cosies and Amy’s GCSEs.

 

Welcome to the Third Wave

My introduction to third wave CBT came with reading the Happiness Trap by Russ Harris which introduced me to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Discovering the other third wave therapies has been like a journey which has finally led me to Buddhism.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

The six core processes at work in ACT are

1. Values

2. Committed action

3. Acceptance

4. Defusion

5. Mindfulness

6. Observing self

Working on and with the processes you can develop psychological flexibility which makes you able to better handle anything life might throw at you. One of the main areas ACT helps with is experiential avoidance, it is a kind of 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' therapy.

I was very excited when  I found out that psychology had moved on and was now putting acceptance ahead of positivity. Accepting the negative and committing to the positive seemed such a good way to go. 

The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris really opened my mind up to a new way of viewing and living my life. I would also recommend Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Dummies which includes many helpful practical exercises.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Main Book Read: Wherever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
New York, Piatkus, 2004

This is a lovely book, guiding you in meditation, but not with the easy guided meditations you get in the third wave therapy books. As far as I can tell the new mindfulness based therapies started with Jon Kabat-Zinn and his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programme which requires participants to meditate for forty-five minutes every day. I really enjoyed Full Catastrophe Living, it was very long and very wise. I have two of his guided meditation CDs which are very helpful. He has certainly encouraged me to give Buddhism a go. I love what I have found out about Buddhism and have decided to attempt to persevere with it.

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

The two books I have about MBCT revolve around the '8 week mindfulness course'. The courses look more or less like this:

Week 1 involves waking up from autopilot through becoming aware of your breath
Week 2 introduces more body awareness with the body scan meditation
Week 3 involves mindful movement, a kind of basic yoga
Week 4 involves listening to music more mindfully
Week 5 explores difficulties through guided meditation
Week 6 introduces the loving-kindness meditation
Week 7 involves cultivating mindful routines
Week 8 expands mindfulness into daily life

Mindfulness by Williams and Penman also includes helpful and extremely short meditations like the 1 minute meditation, the 3 minute breathing space meditation, the chocolate meditation and the frustrating queue meditation. The Beginners Guide to Mindfulness also includes useful breath awareness and body scan meditations as well as exercises on making space for difficult emotions, observing your thinking, developing non-judging skills and developing more mindful routines.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)

At the heart of CFT is kindness, humanity and acceptance. This therapy involves relaxation exercises, being at peace, listening to sad music and visualisations such as 'safe place' and 'flow of life'. There is a lot of mindfulness in it. I found it a bit too light for me, I have a dark side which I have made friends with, there does not seem to be much space for this in CFT.

In Mindfulness Based Compassionate Living I encountered another breathing space meditation and the compassionate body scan. It explained the differences between the three psychological systems of Threat, Drive and Soothing, and how we can tune into them when we need them. This therapy introduces these four Buddhist friends for life: 

1. Loving-kindness. 

2. Compassion. 

3. Sympathetic joy. 

4. Equanimity. 

It also explains that living happily requires three fundamental qualities: your life should be pleasant, engaged and meaningful. I have found this to be the least helpful third wave therapy I have encountered.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

DBT is the last therapy I have been exploring. In many ways it has been the most practical and helpful. DBT seems to have a lot in common with the 'Serenity Prayer' used by Alcoholics Anonymous. The dialect being between acceptance and change.

'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference'
Reinhold Niebuhr

It involves many practical coping strategies to help people cope with strong moods and emotions. These include distraction and soothing skills, doing more positive and enjoyable things, having goals, creating a crisis plan, as well as mindfulness.

DBT addresses these four areas of therapeutic intervention in great detail

1. Distress tolerance
2. Mindfulness
3. Emotion regulation
4. Interpersonal effectiveness.

Guided meditations for DBT include visualisations, naming emotions, relaxation, loving-kindness and the ubiquitous breath awareness and body scan. Other useful DBT ideas are keeping a mood diary, emotion exposure and developing assertiveness skills. It all seems to be very practical and helpful, especially for teenagers and people with BPD.

Basic Buddhism

Seeing as all these third wave therapies seem to have a big Buddhist element in them, I have concluded that I might just as well become a basic Buddhist. I think I will become more involved in Buddhism when I am older, but for the time being, with family, home and work commitments being what they are, basic Buddhism will have to do. These are the Buddhist ideas I am most eager to explore.

Impermanence
Compassion
Selflessness
Mindfulness
Non-judging
Letting-go

My favourite book I have so far discovered on basic Buddhism is the Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh, London, Rider, 2017. Other books with really good, basic Buddhist guided meditations have been Buddha's Brain and Siddhartha's Brain.

Selected Bibliography

ACT

Acceptance and commitment therapy for Dummies by Brown and Gillard

Chichester, John Wiley and sons, 2016

The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris

London, Robinson, 2008

MBSR

Wherever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

New York, Piatkus, 2004

MBCT

Mindfulness by M. Williams and D. Penman

London, Piatkus, 2011

A beginner's guide to mindfulness by Bohlmeijer and Hulsbergen

Maidenhead, OU Press, 2013

CFT

The Compassionate Mind by Paul gilbert

Croydon, Robinson, 2009

Mindfulness based compassionate living by E. van Der Brink and F. Koster

Hove, Routledge 2015

DBT

Don't let your emotions run your life for teens by  Van Dijk

Oaklane, Instant Help Books, 2011

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook by McKay, Wood and Brantley

Oakland, New Harbinger, 2007

Basic Buddishm

The art of living by Thich Nhat Hanh

London, Rider, 2017

Buddha's Brain by Rick Hanson

Oakland, New Harbinger, 2009

Siddartha's brain by James Kingsland

London, Robinson, 2018