Here is a list of psychological concepts, exercises, and worksheets that often come up in client sessions.
Control: What is and is not within your control
Your intended behaviors are within your control. You can learn and practice to think, act, and respond differently. You can condition yourself to create a space between reaction and response through practice. The consequences of your behaviors, however, are outside of your control.
- What you intend to think about (and you may get distracted).
- What you intend to feel (and you may feel something else).
- What you intend to do (and something else may happen).
- How you intend to respond to thoughts, feelings, and other people.
- Your intended behaviors only occur within the present moment (not the past or present).
Everything other than your intended behaviors is outside of your control. People encounter resistance when they try to control something beyond their control. If you want the weather to be different than it is and become upset or frustrated because it isn’t what you expected or wanted, you are creating that upset or frustration by trying to control something (the weather) that you cannot control.
- What others feel, think, say, and do is outside your control.
- How other people interpret what you say or do is outside your control.
- How others react or respond to you and the world is outside your control.
- External events, circumstances, and situations are outside your control.
- The past and future are outside of your control.
Emotional Processing
- Awareness: Become aware that you are feeling something.
- Acknowledgment: Acknowledge the feeling sensation without judgment and name what you’re feeling.
- Acceptance: Accept that, at this moment, what you are feeling is real, and accept it without judgment.
- Understanding: Once you identify the emotion, work to understand its meaning and significance, exploring why you feel this way and what the emotion is trying to communicate.
- Mindful Deliberation: Reflect on what led you to what you are feeling and the interpretations, assumptions, or appraisals you made.
Mindfulness: The Basics
Mindfulness is the act of shifting one’s awareness to the present moment experience. It involves recognizing and acknowledging the reality of a situation – what actually is.
Shawn outlines the mindfulness process in four steps.
- Awareness of the present moment
- Acknowledge that this is reality
- Accept what actually is
- Mindful deliberation
A few mindfulness techniques
- Body scan technique
- Five senses grounding exercise
- Three-step mindfulness exercise
- Moving awareness exercise