“Observing without Judgement”

Here is a mindfulness exercise I am constantly forgetting about and re-discovering: the five senses exercise. Observe, one at a time, what input is coming in through each of your five senses. Focus on what you see, taste, feel, hear, and smell without allowing your mind to wander to anything else. When your mind wanders, don’t feel guilty; just gently guide it back to focus.

Here is the tricky part: you need to “observe without judgement.” This means you need to focus on the sense perception as a matter of fact and not take the next step your mind wants to take: wondering why it is the way it is, what you should do about it, what memories it brings up, etc. Just observe that it is.

For example: I observe red flowers on my desk in a blue vase. I don’t allow myself to think “oh boy, I really need to change the water;” or “why doesn’t my husband buy me flowers more often” or “I wonder how much these cost” or “I wonder if that bud will bloom” or “I’m no good at keeping flowers alive.” I just think, “Those flowers are red. That vase is blue. It’s a bright spot in the room. It’s red like those red pens. It’s on the right side of the room. There’s a computer over there on the left side.”

Another example: I observe pressure on my ankle, warmth in my belly, coolness on my arms. I don’t think “I need to get a sweater. I wonder where my blue sweater is. Why is it always cold in this office? I’m such an idiot, I keep forgetting to bring sweaters.” I just think “this is cool and that is warm. Huh.”

The point is to take you away from the racing, analyzing, scrutinizing part of your mind and place you in the here and now. Even farther than that! You don’t want to be thinking very much at all, just observing. This really works to still your mind when it’s racing with anxiety. You can do it while you’re waiting at a red light, while you’re in the bathroom, in between calls at work, whenever you have a few minutes.

7QT–Things That Help

I’m back! Welcome to visitors from This Ain’t the Lyceum. I’m hoping to begin blogging regularly again this week, at least until baby #4 comes along in August. I hadn’t really intended to write mainly about mental health, but I guess that’s the biggest thing occupying my mind these days. So here are a few practical things I have figured out, read about, or learned from therapists that have helped significantly with my depression and anxiety.

1.  Mood charting. I’m sure there’s an app for this, but I do best with pen on paper, so here’s a handy chart you can print out. This particular one includes categories for depression, anxiety, irritability, sleep duration, weight and medication. I alter mine to include whether or not I’ve had a nap (see #5), and specifically how much trouble I’ve had being patient with the kids. I found it very helpful to have the different categories separated, rather then under one big “was I depressed today” box to check. When I differentiated between anxiety and depression, I discovered that anxiety was a bigger problem than I thought, and began working on that. Another chart to help you identify trends in your routine: The Well Mom Checklist asks some basic questions to help you take control of your day, like “have I eaten nutritious food today? Have I let others help me today?” It’s aimed at postpartum moms, but you can easily alter it to fit your situation.

2. Self-esteem exercises. I know, it sounds awful. But it works. I’ve written about these before, but it bears repeating: you believe it more if you say it in so many words, especially out loud. I’m also supposed to be starting each morning by saying “yippee!  Another day with Rosie!” but I confess that I haven’t worked my way up to that yet.

It helps when you have a nice brother who adds his own note at the bottom.

3. Make a list of everything you accomplished today–and don’t forget the little details! For example, don’t just write “took care of the kids;” write “fed the kids breakfast, changed their clothes, read books to them, brought M. to school, made sure he had his backpack and lunch, put the baby down for a nap, washed her face, said night prayers with them.” This is a really wonderful exercise to do at the end of a long day when you feel like you’ve accomplished nothing.

4. Make a little list of small tasks you can do in your spare minutes throughout the day, to give you little boosts of satisfaction in your accomplishments. With 3 small kids, I found that my free time comes in 5-minute portions, which I generally spent (a) wasting on Facebook, (b) running around thinking “what should I do? Should I cook? Should I pray? Should I clean? Should I nap?” until the kids demanded my attention, or (c) starting some big project, and then inevitably being frustrated when I had to stop it two minutes later to take care of the kids. My therapist suggested a way to make the best of these moments without stressing out:

•  Do something small, something you know you can get done in a few minutes, so you can feel like you accomplished something. Make a phone call, sort the socks, take the meat out of the freezer, answer a quick email, hang up all the jackets, etc.
• Do something big, but start out with the understanding that you’ll do it one step at a time, so you won’t get frustrated when the interruptions start.. First I’ll take out my dinner recipe. Next time I have five minutes, I’ll get the ingredients out. Next time, I’ll chop the vegetables. Next time, I’ll grate the cheese….
• Just sit and be present. Give yourself permission to rest for a couple of minutes, and focus your mind on the information your senses present to you, without judgement or analysis. This takes a little practice, but it works.

5. Naps. At various times in my life, a daily nap has been a necessity, not a luxury. I sleep for about two hours every day while the baby and the 3-year-old nap, and guess what? I don’t feel guilty about it! I used to, but that was before I started paying attention and noticing that every day I didn’t take a nap was a day I was cranky, mean, weepy, and depressed to the point of despair by the end of the day. When I started thinking of a nap as a mental health necessity, it became easier to make it part of my daily routine. Now I take a nap even when I don’t feel particularly tired, or when there’s something else I’d rather be doing, because I know it’s not being lazy, it’s essential self-care.

6. Bare Minimum Mode. I got this idea from the wonderful Jennifer Fulwiler. The idea is that you’re not just sliding into chaos, but purposefully choosing to cut out some non-essentials during certain seasons of your life. As Jen says,

I found it helpful to articulate those activities that were just too much for me right now, cut them out, and embrace that as a proactive strategy, rather than walking around feeling stressed about what wasn’t getting done.

Here’s a post she did with some more details. My version of Bare Minimum Mode includes using paper plates and plastic cups, and not worrying too much about having three, distinct balanced meals–as long as we’ve eaten something healthy today, and no one’s hungry, we’ll call it good.

7. A nightly routine. Every night for the last week, as soon as the kids are in bed, I go through this routine:

• chart my mood for the day
• check the “Well Mom Checklist”
• take five minutes for quiet mindfulness/being present

This has surprised me in two ways: (1) it feels wonderful and really helps me relax, and yet (2) each successive day it becomes harder to do. So many excuses!

Bonus: don’t skip your nightly routine in favor of staying up past midnight to argue about gay marriage on Facebook. That would be bad.

Please see Kelly at http://www.thisaintthelyceum.org for the rest of the Seven Quick Takes! I missed you, and I’m going to do my best to begin blogging regularly again.

Uncluttering your Mind

My mother once said, “being rich won’t make you happy, but being poor can sure make you unhappy.”  I don’t have much to add to this succinct truth, except that I’m discovering it’s true for a lot of things besides money.  In my efforts at detachment and mental peace, I often tell myself that a clean house (or a better schedule, or a better organizing system, etc.) won’t really make me happier, and so it’s pointless to get anxious about them.  But what I’m finding out is that a clean house doesn’t make me happier, but it does take away a big occasion for me to be sad.  When I look around a cluttered or chaotic room, all the unfinished chores and things out of place automatically stress me out.  But when I look around a clean room, all I think is “what a nice room,” and I’m free to go on to other things.  Even the simple visual is important; things piled on top of each other in my house create metaphorical piles of worries in my mind, and an open and clean room clears my mind.

If you’re someone who’s prone to anxiety or depression, it’s okay to make your life easier.  You’re not necessarily trying to find happiness through making more money, or buying nice things for the house, or cleaning up; you’re just taking away things that make it easier for you to be sad.