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.