10 Days for Mental Health Free Online Course - Day 5

When we have been used to thinking negatively, it’s very difficult to train our brains to think in a more helpful and less stressed way.

One way of doing this is to learn how to meditate. Don’t get caught up with the idea of having to sit cross-legged while you have some out-of-body enlightened experience where you have no thoughts and are just left with a feeling of bliss. Most meditation is not like that.

Most meditation is a constant practice of focusing, losing focus and then refocussing again. But in the end you are able to sit still and quietly, acknowledging the thoughts that come up without fear or judgement, and then allowing them to pass away without being taken on the spiral of negative thinking. And after a bit of practice, this can leave you with a real sense of peace.

Labelling

To gently ease you into the practice of meditation, we’re going to start off with a method called ‘Labelling’ – a simple and effective technique that will help train your brain to stop being overtaken by negative thoughts.

First of all, we’ll have you watch a clip below called ‘Candle Gazing’ which is simply a video of a candle flame over some relaxing music.

As you watch the clip, try and focus on your breath, as you breathe deeply and fully. Now, quite naturally, thoughts will creep into your head. But instead of allowing these thoughts to take over, or trying to banish them or judge them (or judge yourself!), we want you to simply acknowledge the thought and then label it in your mind. For example:

If you think about your to-do list or anything about the future, label that thought “planning”.
If you worry about something, label that thought “worrying”.
If a thought of a past event pops up, label that thought “remembering”.
If there are thoughts that don’t fit into any of those labels, just label it “thinking”.

Then refocus on the candle flame and your deep breathing, and let any of those planning, worrying, remembering or thinking thoughts just float off.

By doing this, you are acknowledging the thought’s presence but you don’t allow it to intrude on your present moment.

You will have to do this countless times during the meditation (and you will no doubt feel a sense of frustration at times) but the more you do this type of exercise, the more you will be able to train your brain to focus on the breath and to allow those negative thoughts and judgements to float away, leaving you with a sense of calm.

Once you get the hang of it, you can begin to use in everyday life too. Whenever you feel taken over by bad thoughts, you can just label them, acknowledge them, do a couple of deep breaths while you allow the thoughts to pass and then you can get on and concentrate on the task in hand.

Give it a go and see how you get on…

Pain and Trauma

Some of our mental health issues are rooted in trauma or pain from our past. Sometimes this pain is something we've tried to bury because it's been our way of coping.

But whatever our hurts are - and whoever has hurt us (and that includes ourselves) - we must find a way to accept this pain as part of our life. We must acknowledge it, grieve for ourselves, grieve for our old life and find a way to resolve and accept this as part of our being.

This sometimes takes a long time, but it’s never too late to make a start. We have a special meditation by Emma Triplett from Old Town Hypnotherapy who has recorded a guided piece called ‘Release Your Past’. Hypnotherapy is an excellent method used to help relax you enough to release tension and deal with your issues in a positive and pleasant way.

Forgiveness

As well as anger and hurt that needs to be released, there is also forgiveness that needs to happen before you can emotionally move on. So much of our stress and tension comes from not being able to let go.

So to help you get in that forgiving frame of mind – whether it be forgiving someone else, a situation or, most importantly, ourselves – we have a meditation to help you with that. Below is a special Forgiveness Meditation where we’ll guide you through starting the process to forgive and let go.

Good luck for the techniques today – see how you get on and see what emotions it brings up for you - and we’ll see you tomorrow for Day 6.