Thanks so much for attending the seminar today. Below are the notes and some of the content we’ve used.
You can find the resilience tree exercise and other resilience resources below. Just click on the image.
This is the stop meditation we used at the end of the session.
Check out some more from Matthew Walker
Thank you so much for attending our Meditation and Reflection for Wellbeing Day. We really hope you enjoyed it. Below are the slides from the session and some of the resources we used. Also below are links for the next events coming up. Do advertise and share them if you’d like.
We spoke about Space to Breathe’s Wellbeing Triangle and you can read more about this in this helpful article by Ben Harper.
This video explains our approach to meditation and reflection and the ideas of being calm, filling your mind and being present.
Below are explanatory videos about the Body Scan, The Stop Process, Stress Container and the Snow Globe idea.
We spoke about Forest Bathing, and below is the video we showed on the day and also a Space to Breathe meditation using Forest Bathing.
We thought about these natural images and used this Guided Beach meditation.
River of Life
River of Life idea
Lastly we spoke about anxiety and the idea of catching anxieties. An explainer is below.
If you want to find out more about Space to Breathe and subscribe to our mailing list, you can do so below.
Thanks so much for attending, we hope these resources are helpful.
“The Internet has changed our social landscape—especially how we communicate—in both subtle and seismic ways. We text instead of call. We like, share, tweet, post, snap, pin, and swipe. Even when we’re together, our eyes remain affixed to our screens.”
Psychology Today
Technology is moving at an incredibly fast past. The iPhone was launched in 2007 but it is estimated that by 2019, 94% of adults had a mobile phone & three quarters of those are smartphones. Indeed Deloitte estimate one third of smartphone users don’t do traditional calls at all
According to BBC Capital, smartphone users unlock their smartphones an average of 85 times a day.
I wonder how you feel about?
Undoubtedly the development of digital technology can be a double edged sword. On one side we have incredible benefits. Useful and time-saving apps, PCs in homes, digital communication, global connectivity, advancements, 3D printing, health and social advancements, seeing a refugee connected with a tablet and zooming home. I could go on.
But challenges also exist and that’s what these pages are about. How do we deal with the challenge and anxiety that tech can present to us? How do we become more engaged online when that comes with some fears, barriers or worries?
Watch Andy explore the challenges in this first video.
Working through Digital Anxiety
So how do we get to grips with some of these anxieties?
I would like to suggest that a primary response is learning and training.
Whilst the online world can understandable worry us, there are reassurances and solutions in getting to know more. This is one of the reason’s we connected with the Make it Click project - providing support to become more confident online.
We recommend you head over to our Make it Click pages and express interest in receiving support or in joining one of our groups. We’d love to help you. You can sign up and create an account, select Space to Breathe (8006130) as your centre and start learning.
Particularly, remember what your aims are for coming online. What is it that you want to achieve? How can you then learn ways to achieve what you want, whilst protecting and supporting yourself where you feel worried?
During one of our sessions, someone asked about Facebook groups. How can I join them without feeling I’m going to be inundated with people and adverts targeting me? Similarly how can I post things on Facebook and have them read by the people I want, rather than those I don’t?
The answer is review the settings on the groups you join and with the posts you post. Look for the three dots (…) usually on the top right of a post or page. Here you can discover the settings of a group? Private or Public? Are there steps before you join? How easy is it to leave?
When posting, select the (…) and you can select to only post to friends or to keep a post private.
Make it Click can offer some brilliant resources and learning in these areas.
When you’re learning and engaging in training, try to get practical quickly - put your learning into action. Also try teaching someone else what you’ve learnt - this always gives you confidence.
Lastly, one way to address technostress is to go one step at a time. You can get overwhelmed by all the internet has to offer so just pick one thing to start with and choose your platforms wisely.
But what about information overload, the pressures of tech or disconnection anxiety or the fear of missing out? Andy shares more in this next video.
Hopefully you’ve found these ideas helpful.
If you’d like to explore Digital Anxiety further, we thought you might find these articles helpful.
Stress and Anxiety in the Digital Age (Open Learn)
Can’t unplug? Here’s how to navigate your digital anxiety (BBC)
Staying Safe Online
Many of the people who are interested in the subject of digital anxiety are concerned about staying safe online and how to protect their information and personal details. There are many guides online and we recommend you access the resources in Make it Click. Get in touch and express interest in support and we’ll be in touch.
If you want to get started now, we’ve found these pages from Gov.uk particularly clear and helpful.
Welcome to our course
These pages give you all the information you need for the upcoming Meditation and Reflection of Wellbeing courses.
This course will equip you to use meditative and reflective practices to aid your wellbeing and also begin to introduce you to the principles of leading others in these practices. We’ll explore mindfulness, silence, learning from different spiritualities, the senses, the imagination.
Afternoon course:
Thursdays 2pm to 3.15pm for five weeks.
Dates: 24th, 31st Mar and 7th, 14th and 21st April
Meeting ID: 850 7069 7545
Passcode: 616039
Session 1: Introduction to Meditation and Reflection
How do we meditate? What is reflection? How do practices like Mindfulness help our wellbeing? Session explores the principles of meditation and reflection, Space to Breathe’s approach to this subject (the Wellbeing Triangle) and gives you takeaways to try.
To try before the session:
Think about your wellbeing and ask yourself:
If my wellbeing was a colour what would it be?
If my wellbeing was a weather what would it be?
If my wellbeing was an animal what would it be?
If my wellbeing was a food what would it be?
Session 2: Skills and Approaches
We look at meditation and reflection techniques from different traditions and parts of the world. We consider what we can learn from the world of spirituality, the creation of art and the ways our mind, emotions and body can help us understand ourselves. All of these elements will help you build your own toolkit.
Session 3: Sight
This week we consider the ways sights and sounds can be tools to add to our wellbeing. Visual things can lead us into a meditative place and enable everything to be meditation.
Session 4: Sound
How is sound another and different language that we can engage in for meditative practice? We look at calming sounds like the sea, the use of music and the place sound has in our memory and emotion.
Session 5: Meditation, Reflection and the Imagination
In this session we explore the unique place that the imagination has in meditation and reflection. How is this useful to our wellbeing, how does imagination work and where can the imagination take us?
We always appreciate the feedback and comment from people who’ve attended the course in order to make it better. Would you take a few minutes to complete our review? Thanks so much
Part of your registration for the course gives you access to Well? resources for March and April. You’ll receive special emails each week but can also access the resources here. Password is subscription101.
Andy Freeman will be leading this course. Andy has 20+ year’s experience in leading others in meditative and reflective practice. He has learnt and developed these skills in faith, charitable and now business settings. Andy has an MA in Theology from Oxford Brookes University and is a qualified Mental Health First Aider.
For more visit his LinkedIn page.
One of the first things I’m often asked to do when meeting a service-user for the first time is to imagine what it’s like to live in Residential Mental Health care or to be in a Forensic Mental Health setting.
It’s so hard for us to do this, we have our perspectives on life. Other people have other perspectives. We see the world in a certain way and it’s unique to us. How do we work through this? One of the keys is to begin to see the world from the perspective of the person you’re meeting. In this training video and handout, our Education Lead - Ben Harper - shares some thoughts and perspectives on how we can learn to do this.
Watch the video and use the handout below for follow up. The idea is to listen the video and then pause when you want to stop and reflect, using the handout to help you get the most from the session. The video is about 20 minutes long but it’s worth giving around 45 minutes to this task.
Thanks so much.
Using Zoom has become something we’ve all got used to during the COVID pandemic. Indeed statistics suggest Zoom is now the go-to video conferencing provider.
As of April 2020, Zoom surpassed 300 million daily Zoom meeting participants multiplying 30 times in four months (The Verge.)
Meeting minutes exceeded 2 trillion in April 2020 (Cloud Wars)
With an increase of 21% compared to the end of 2020, Zoom reached 12.92 million monthly users in February 2020 (CNBC)
As of March 22, daily active users of Zoom up 378% from a year earlier.
Daily active users of Zoom in the UK reached a peak of over 770 thousand in mid May 2020 (Statista.)
Given these statistics, how do we make the most of this growing part of our daily lives. These pages explore ways we can be creative in presenting on Zoom. They are not exhaustive, they won’t make your presentation like Netflix and they don’t overcome the barrier that screens are not as good as human contact.
However, we hope they will get your creative juices going and help you present in different ways via Zoom.
Andy mentioned during the video the work of the fantastic David JP Phillips. You can find his ‘Death by Powerpoint Presentation’ here.
Andy also mentioned Zoom’s Lighting Guide which you can find here.
During the session we suggested a wealth of different tools and programmes you can experiment with. Why not try the following.
Presentations
Digital Whiteboards
Group Mindmapping
Polling and Questions
Thanks so much for attending the seminar “Building Wellbeing at Work” as part of your team day. Below are the notes and some of the content we’ve used.
This is the stop meditation we used in the grounding section of the session.
We discussed the idea of ‘Being Present’ and this video explains some of the ideas in more detail. The video is one of our Shhh… meditations and explains the concept in more detail.
Lastly we explored the concept of self-awareness and self-acceptance and the idea that I am enough. I quoted Brene Brown who said:
“No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
Brené Brown from “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are”
If you’ve not come across Brené Brown before, this YouTube video is her most watched and well known explanation of her thinking.
Space to Breathe is a small CIC working to support mental health and wellbeing in Sheffield. You can subscribe to our newsletter here. You can also get access to more wellbeing support through our Wellbeing Suite subscription and attend training courses on Wellbeing at our events page. Why not have a look around the site to find out more.
Thanks so much for attending the seminar “Creating a Culture of Wellbeing.” Below are the notes and some of the content we’ve used.
This is a short video from TEDeX presented by Amy Edmondson.
ACAS pages re Mental Health and work
Space to Breathe is a small CIC working to support mental health and wellbeing in Sheffield. You can subscribe to our newsletter here. You can also get access to more wellbeing support through our Wellbeing Suite subscription and attend training courses on Wellbeing at our events page. Why not have a look around the site to find out more.
Thanks for visiting our stand today. With our partners at Space to Breathe we wanted to offer you some resources and support to aid your wellbeing. T
Space to Breathe have found that all good and healthy routines of wellbeing usually fall back to three simple principles.
Self awareness
Being Present
Being grounded
Why not check out the videos and PDF’s below to engage with all three.
The psychologist Carl Rogers said
“The Curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
Healthy wellbeing begins with looking inside ourselves and knowing what’s going on. Imagine lifting the bonnet of your life - what would you find underneath? What’s working well? What needs a service?
Check out this video from Andy Freeman which explores the idea of self-compassion or looking kindly towards yourself. Practising this can make a big difference.
Being present is the way we optimise the way we run as human beings. Here we are in our sweet spot because the present is the only time we can actually live. We can affect the past or change the future, even though we’d like to. Check out this Shh… meditation on the theme.
This PDF can help you through the ideas of being present and can be downloaded below.
Grounding ourselves enables us to find peace and calm in the midst of unsettling or stressful times. Its a way we can take a moment and reassess where we are. This is the pit-stop for our lives. Probably the most effective thing we can do is to do a breathing exercise. Watch this video to learn a breathing technique called ‘The Stop Process.’
We’ve also uploaded these three simple one page guides to three handy tools for our wellbeing - gratefulness, meditation and relaxation. Have a look below.
