Wise Online - View Week
Week 8- WISE Recap
Congratulations for completing the eight week WISE Resilience program with Victoria Police and Engage Health. We hope your journey to gain more personal resilience has been an inspiring one. We have learnt that eight weeks of mindfulness meditation results in neuroplasticity where the neural pathways are altered and reshaped. Hopefully this has resulted in wonderful changes for you.
If you have not practiced as much as you would have liked there is an option to go back to week one and begin your journey again. In fact, this is highly recommended. If you have any questions along the way we will always be available to discuss. You are welcome to send Sally an email sally.cumming@engagehealth.com.au or call 0401 358 309.
WISE Tools
- Eat mindfully. Slow down, use all your senses. Ensure your mind is fully engaged with the present moment. Eating can be your meditation.
- The mind needs an anchor in order to be still. The breath will always be with you so it is the most accessible tool.
- Keep up the regular bicep-curls for your brain. Continue those mental reps!
- Avoid multi-tasking. This creates a busy, active mind. Give your full attention and focus to one task, then move to the next.
- 5,4,3,2,1 (sensory activation)/ walking safari (using all your senses, combine your exercise with meditation).
- Express gratitude daily to alter your memory of the past experience and rewire the negativity bias. Each night recall three things that went well that day.
- Practice staying pleasant to the unpleasant. Breathe in and around the areas of constriction/ tightness/ unpleasant in your body. Welcome the sensations onto your body.
- ‘Name it to tame it’. Name the emotion/s that are present. Use the emotion wheel to investigate why you are feeling the way you are feeling. Find the value under the emotion.
- Let go of unhelpful thoughts. “Thank you mind but there is no further action I need to take right now”. Say hello and let it go.
- Take a Breathing Space (S.T.O.P).
- A.B.C.D (for panic and anxiety).
- Vagus Nerve Activation (5, 5, 8). Breathe in for 5, hold for 5, exhale with an open mouth (like you are fogging up a mirror).
- Box breathing (in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4).
- The Second Arrow of Suffering. Notice when your mind makes hay with your pain and causes suffering. Notice when your mind shoots the second arrow!
- Work with pain mindfully. Avoidance and blocking are not effective strategies. The middle way involves feeling into the sensations with non-judgement, curiosity and compassion.
- Body scan (feel into the body and be aware of sensations without any judgement).
- Autogenic training. (Psycho-physiology). Use the mind to relax the body.
- Self-compassion meditation. Write your self-compassion script and talk to yourself with those words regularly. Be your own best friend.
- Communicate with your giraffe heart.
- Listen mindfully from the middle of the chest/ heart. Use reflective listening.
- Dial down the empathy. Modulate and regulate your emotional response to other people’s distress. Perform de-compression techniques regularly. Replace emotional empathy with compassion and kindness.
- Remember – all the informal practices in this program serve as wonderful practices moving forward too.
FORMAL PRACTICE- Revisiting the Recordings
Between now and next week (and after this program) practice the below recordings as you feel necessary. Many participants go back to the start and commence the program again.
