A more mindful Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day is here - a day for telling those we love how much we love them and celebrating that love. At that basic level I like the idea of Valentine's but I do hate how commercialised it has become. I cringe at the displays of huge cuddly toys and sparkling, heart-shaped balloons in the shops. I don't like the idea of showing how much you love someone by how big a gift you get them (physical size or monetary value). What happens with these gifts for the rest of the year? Are they placed somewhere as a reminder of how much you are loved or, out of necessity, does it just get stored away to be discovered years later when clearing out the cupboards? Do these gifts retain their significance throughout the year or does it inevitably wane? Despite what the marketeers try and tell you, I think these gifts are actually getting in the way of showing how we truly feel about each other.

I'm not saying that you have to stop buying gifts for your loved one on Valentine's Day - it is absolutely up to you whether that is the way you would like to demonstrate your love. I simply want to suggest an additional idea for today and future Valentine's Days.

A time for reflection and gratitude.

Let's use Valentine's Day as a special day to reflect on our relationship - to take a moment to recognise how grateful we are for our loved one, to look at any flaws we perceive with compassion and truly open up to the love we feel for them. When we open up to such love we can often find fears creep in - what if we lose them? What if we are not good enough for them? Acknowledge these fears, allow them to pass in their own time and know that they are a natural part of loving someone this much - loving another being with their own free will and susceptibilities can make us feel very vulnerable. Try to open up and accept that you can't know what the future brings and remind yourself that despite that uncertainty you are willing to feel that love because it is so worth it. If the fears get too powerful you can use your feelings of gratitude as an anchor.

Take a moment to appreciate all the things they do for you and think about the kind of person you would ideally like to be to them. This can bring up feelings of guilt if we are not currently being all we want to be for our loved one - be compassionate with yourself but also know that this is good news because you have just been given guidance on which areas you may wish to work on over the next year.

A gift with more longevity.

Rather than spending loads of money and effort on one big gesture on just this one day of the year, maybe it would be better to use Valentine's Day as the start of a regular routine of small gestures to be made throughout the following year. Think about small ways you can help your loved one or just little ways you can show them that you appreciate them. Make sure it's something easily achievable and something which can become habit with a little practice.

Here are some ideas:

• Make them a cup of tea once a day and while you make it be mindful of who you are making it for and why.
• Make the effort to ask them how their day has been and really listen to the answer.
• Resolve to be mindful of the things they do for you and simply thank them each time - it can be surprising how much we take for granted.
• Make sure you always tidy up after yourself: pick laundry up off the floor, or put your cups and dishes in the dishwasher etc.
• Set one evening a week to spend in the company of your partner without other distractions.
• Do a chore each week that you don't usually do - washing up, vacuuming, laundry, taking the bins out etc.
• Practice gratitude at the end of each week - think of your loved one and reflect on all the ways you are grateful for them.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list - ultimately, you are the person best placed to know what actions to take for your loved one (other than your loved one themselves I suppose).

Whatever you choose, make sure you know the timescale (what day of the week or month will it happen?) and specifically what the action will be. Ensure the action is small and easily achievable. Also, make sure that the action you choose is about your loved one and not about you - a good test is to ask yourself “if I did this and they never even notice, would I be ok with that?” If the answer is no, then you are looking for recognition and praise rather than doing something purely for your loved one's sake.

So rather than grandiose gestures on one day of the year, you can start using that day as a springboard for showing that person how much you love them throughout the year - a far longer lasting gift which may have greater ramifications throughout the rest of your time together.

Can making a few cups of tea or picking up a few pairs of underwear really do all that you ask? There's only one way to find out...

Happy Valentine's Day.

Being Process Focused

My kitchen is a mess right now - a total tip. There's stacks of washing up, various dirt and debris across all surfaces, loads of things waiting to be put away. I would ideally like it to be spotless - all surfaces tidy and polished to a beautiful shine and it seems I am always short of that lofty goal.

However, today I congratulated myself - I have done so well. There's one load of washing up drying on the rack, the dishwasher is filled and going, I've tidied a lot of debris off the sides and moved more washing up next to the sink. I'm cooking a healthy lunch for myself and my toddler (and making more mess as I go) and I've spent most of the morning playing with her which is something I value greatly. To the outside observer my kitchen really doesn't look much tidier but I know what I have achieved and I am proud of myself.

If I focus on the end goal of the spotless kitchen and hold onto it too tightly then I will end up feeling bad: either sorry for myself - “why is this place never clean? I never do anything right. What's the point?” or angry at myself - “I should have stayed up later last night to clean. I shouldn't have wasted my time talking to my friends when there's work to be done. I shouldn't have spent all that time playing with my daughter this morning. It's all my fault.  I'm so lazy. I'm so useless. I can never do anything right.” If I hold on tightly to my perception of what others would think upon seeing my kitchen then I can get caught in the same trap.

Instead, I focus on the process - today I made several small steps towards my goal, the kitchen is now that little bit closer to being clean and tidy. Plus I feel motivated to do more, which is in stark contrast to how I feel if I'm beating myself up for not being there yet. Rather than holding on tightly to that ideal of a spotless kitchen I am more flexible about it - I know that the tidiness of my kitchen is always in flux, for example, my lunchtime cooking took me back a few steps by creating more mess and washing up. Even if I reach my lofty goal, it won't stay that way for long - there's always more food to prepare and dishes to wash.

Life just seems to flow better from this perspective - I am no longing wasting my time beating myself up nor forcing myself to disregard my other values because of a misguided desire for perfection in this one area. By focusing on the progress I am making and allowing myself to praise my small achievements I am giving myself more motivation to continue while being flexible if other stuff comes up.

When the mind gets a bit foggy

I was teaching ACT this morning and for the whole first half of the morning I felt like I wasn't there at all. I couldn't identify any specific thoughts that were getting in the way but I felt like I couldn't focus on what was in front of me. My mind was foggy and despite my efforts to focus on the class I felt like my attention kept drifting off into a void. Usually I am quite good at noticing thoughts I am fused with but it felt like I was fused with nothingness.

After the break we spoke about contacting the present moment and did the ‘notice 5 things’ exercise to demonstrate the concept. It was like waking up from a dream - all of a sudden I was back in the room and able to actually focus and truly see what was in front of me. With my attention back on the class I could finally get something out of it and contribute more effectively. Despite having spent the morning desperately trying to focus properly, it was only by simply taking a moment to actively notice the sights and sounds around me that finally enabled me to step out of my mind and feel like I was actually there.

For a while I have been getting stuck when my mind gets foggy - it adversely affects everything else and I didn't know what to do about it. Today, contacting the present moment really seemed to work. Even though I've been using ACT for a long time, I never before realised that it could help me step out of my mind fogs so effectively. It may not happen every time I try it and perhaps it was just a useful byproduct on this one occasion but I am going to continue testing it when my mind goes foggy and see how it works. I'll let you know in a future post if it proves consistently effective.

World Mental Health Day 2017 Kintsugi facepaint

1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 children will experience a mental health problem in a given year. In any given week 1 in 10 adults are suffering with depression. With such statistics it's hard to believe that we all talk so little about mental health and that there is still such stigma surrounding it.

This year, on World Mental Health Day, I am celebrating my history of mental illness and showing that it is nothing to be ashamed of by painting golden cracks on my face to imitate the Japanse art of Kintsugi.

Kintsugi, roughly translated as 'golden joinery', is a Zen tradition of repairing broken ceramics with a gold infused lacquer. It is a practice filled with respect for the item, rather than trying to hide the cracks, the gold lacquer makes a strong join while celebrating the damage endured along the way. In this way I want to show that despite the many times my mental health difficulties have broken me, I have taken great care to put myself back together again but I also carry the history of those experiences with me and they are a part of who I am and make me, as a person, stronger and more beautiful than before.

For me, ACT is my gold infused lacquer, helping me join the pieces back together, stronger and more resilient than before and this blog is my way of showing off the beauty of those gold cracks to the world. Whatever tools you use to help you manage your illness I hope you will want to join in with me today and on future World Mental Health days.

Please post your photos on the Keeping Up The ACT Facebook page and pass the idea on to your friends. If you have joined me today or in the future, then my heartfelt thanks to you.

Kintsugi for mental health awareness

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of joining broken ceramics together with gold infused lacquer. Instead of hiding the joins between the pieces, the golden lacquer celebrates and honours the item's history by highlighting every crack.

When we suffer with mental health problems it can often feel like we have been broken and we spend huge amounts of effort putting ourselves back together again. But sadly we have a tendency to hide our struggles and not let anyone else know what we've been through - trying to put the pieces together while hiding the cracks. Maybe we could take a lesson from Kintsugi and celebrate our own history, the struggles we've been through and the achievement of working through them.

This World Mental Health Day on Tuesday 10th October, join me as I paint golden cracks on my face to celebrate the beauty of the mental health issues I've endured and show others that they are not alone in their struggles.

I will be using facepaint to create the golden cracks on my face but feel free to use photo editing software to make your own image. Perhaps you would like to use your image as your Facebook profile photo on World Mental Health Day or just post it on our Facebook page to show your support. Thank you so much for helping raise awareness of mental health.

Thanks Mind - an ode to defusion

Using ACT during the most distressing parts of life.

Warning: this piece discusses pet euthanasia.

I believe that it is important to practice the ACT techniques in the everyday, mundane moments in life because it makes those skills accessible when life gets really difficult. If you don't practice it when things are easy then when life gets tough you forget the tools even exist and then wonder after the emotional storm has passed why you didn't think to use them.

I well and truly proved this theory to myself a few weeks ago. I have been practicing ACT for several years now, in easy times and harder ones. The other week I managed to use ACT during one of the most distressing moments in my life and even though I'm already a pretty devout believer in this stuff, I was amazed to watch it working for me at such a destructively distressing time.

Some background: many years ago I saw a young rabbit in a pet shop with such a wonderfully curious and loving personality that I felt I was meant to buy him. I was at a very low point in my life and looking after this adorable, good natured little bunny gave me a small sense of purpose, a glimmer in the darkness which surrounded me daily. I vividly remember a moment when I was seriously considering suicide but I chose to get my rabbit out of his cage and just sat and held him on my chest with his head tucked under my chin. He sat placidly in my arms and I had this sense of unconditional love from him even while I felt like the most unlovable thing on this planet. At that moment I loved him more than anything, I poured my love back to him and he held it all in his calm, peaceful way. He anchored me in that emotional storm and helped me to find a way to keep living. Over the years there were many moments I returned to him when I was feeling low and he was always such a steady, loving presence.

A few years ago my rabbit was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. We medicated him, kept him warm and comfortable and didn't expect him to last the year but he rallied and kept going for several years. Then it came back with a vengeance a few weeks ago after my other rabbit, his friend for most of his life, passed away. After a string of visits to the vets for various other health problems, he finally stopped eating or ingesting his medicine and was clearly struggling to breathe or move. The time had come to help him pass away so we booked an appointment with our local vet.

I sat and cuddled him on my chest just like I had all those years ago and when the time came to leave I desperately didn't want to go - I didn't want to accept that this was the end, but I also didn't want to leave him suffering like he was.

In the vets, after a short confirmation of his condition and signing of forms, the vet took him away to put a cannula in, promising to bring him back for the final part. I was left alone in the empty room, no longer able to comfort my dear little bunny. As soon as the vet left the room I internally screamed until it nearly burst from my lips. My mind screamed over and over that I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to do this. My teeth clenched and a distressing pressure built up inside me like a pot about to boil over.

Then suddenly, I remembered - ACT teaches us to be willing to feel our emotions. I was definitely not willing in that moment - I was fighting my own experience with all my strength. It was time to try something different, time to try what ACT teaches. So I turned myself to face what I was feeling and opened myself up to it. This feels like the most counterintuitive thing you possibly could do, especially when you are feeling so very distressed - I can't possibly open myself up to this, it will overwhelm me, it might kill me. But as I turned towards it, my body released it and the sharp edge of it dissipated like a half remembered dream upon waking. The feelings of distress didn't completely disappear but they lessened to what felt like a much more natural level. It was like the overflowing pot had reduced back down to a steady boil. I was still distressed but it was no longer boiling over and overwhelming me. It was the most distinct example I've ever experienced of the suffering we can build up around natural emotional pain and how ACT techniques can alleviate that suffering.

Throughout my wait, which was interminably long, I repeatedly allowed myself to feel my feelings. As the wait grew longer and longer my mind started panicking - drawing me into imagining what could possibly be happening in the next room. Had his heart failed while they were working on him? Had they cut a vein and was he bleeding to death on the table? Had I not been clear that I wanted to be with him while he was put down and had they already done it without me? As these catastrophic thoughts carried me off I managed to remind myself to come back to the present moment - noticing myself in this room at this moment, noticing the objects in the room and my breathing. It was again, very counterintuitive to draw my attention to my present moment experience, after all, the present moment was the last place I wanted to be right now. But to my surprise I found the present moment was the safest place to be - away from the storm of thoughts about why the wait was taking so long. In the present moment I could observe those thoughts but not get caught up in them and I could accept that I simply could not do anything about what was happening next door, that all I could do was wait and hope.

Eventually my rabbit was brought through and all too soon he died in my arms with his head tucked under my chin. That was the end of my rabbit's story but he will live on in my memory and my heart.

I am still surprised by how effective the ACT techniques were for me at such a distressing time. I had to constantly remind myself to open up to my feelings and return my attention to the present but doing these things kept my distress from boiling over and consuming me. It was still a horrible time, but ACT helped me to get through it. It helped me to experience the normal, natural emotional pain without it increasing to the suffering which my instinctive tendency to resist my emotions causes. If I hadn't been practicing these techniques in everyday life then I don't think I would have remembered to use them nor been confident enough to try them.

So I hope this serves as motivation to some of you to keep plugging away and practicing the ACT techniques you have learned, even if life is going well and you don't feel like you need to use them much. Practicing now will give you the opportunity to use these skills when life gets rougher as it inevitably does from time to time.

In memory of my dear rabbit - you meant the world to me. Thank you so much for being a part of my life.