Reflection on the Past Week

In the last week, we summarized everything we have learned together: stabilizing our minds and stepping out of autopilot, approaching the challenges and difficulties of our daily experience with kindness, and breaking free from the vicious cycle of thought patterns that undermine our mental well-being. All of this is supported by training our minds in self-compassion and compassion towards others around us.

Week Seven – Taking Care of Yourself

This week, we will ask ourselves: How do I spend my time, and what do I do to cultivate balance in my life? This question pertains not only to what we do but also to the mindset or state of mind in which we perform these activities. The state of our mind and our ability to act mindfully and with sound common sense are equally important as the activities themselves in shaping our overall well-being. Perhaps, we will discover that when we bring full attention and mindfulness to what we do, all activities become interesting.

From the very beginning, we have been talking about how the world itself is not so much stressful as the way we think about it and interpret it. Throughout the program, you have learned to be more sensitive to yourselves and to the present moment. Perhaps, as a result, you can better discern what is good for you, what suits you, and what is important in your life. Similarly, we become increasingly aware of and better recognize the sources of burden and stress in our lives. In this lesson, we will clearly identify the activities that cause us stress.

1. How can I best take care of myself?

Try to conduct a simple and time-efficient survey of your daily activities this week. The intention is to find out how much of your life is dedicated to activities that give you strength, nourish and fulfill you, and how much to activities that drain you. 

First, mentally go through a list of activities you perform during the day. You can close your eyes for a moment and mentally review your typical workday, from the moment you wake up until you go to bed. If you find that most of your day consists of seemingly similar activities, try breaking them down into smaller parts, such as talking with colleagues and classmates, making coffee, organizing study materials, learning, typing on the computer, making phone calls, or engaging in sports.

Once you have the list completed, consider the following two questions:

1. Which activities nourish you? When do you notice an improvement in your mood, feel more energized, calm down, and reconnect with yourself? During which activities do you feel truly alive and present, rather than just surviving? These are the activities that fulfill you and provide you with energy.
2. And which of these activities, on the other hand, deplete you? What brings you down, drains your energy, makes you feel tense and scattered? What prevents you from feeling fully alive and present? During which activities do you feel like you're merely surviving or even worse? These are the activities that are depleting.
   

For each activity that nourishes you, write the letter "N", and for each activity that depletes you, write the letter "D".

The purpose of this exercise is not to stress you out with the realisation of how many depleting activities you have in your life, but to give you an overview of the balance between activities that cultivate your sense of contentment and those that deplete you. The balance doesn't have to be perfect, as one fulfilling activity can easily outweigh many exhausting ones. Nevertheless, it's beneficial to have several nourishing activities and to engage in at least one of them every day.

Reflection: What nourishes and depletes me?

Contemplate the balance between activities and explore how to establish equilibrium. We won't tell you what to do; you surely know which activities support you. However, we consider the topic of balance to be crucial for life satisfaction and a meaningful existence. 

• The more drained and lacking in "life juice" we feel, the more we create an environment for the development of aversion and negative thoughts. 
• Conversely, when we cultivate self-care infused with kind discipline and an intention to take care of ourselves, we create conditions for healthier emotions. As we have mentioned several times before, what we strengthen and nourish, grows and thrives.
  

Establishing healthy habits and self-care is especially important for prevention. If we set these habits during times of well-being, it will be easier to employ them during challenging periods in life.

One of the fundamental ways of caring for physical and mental well-being is regular physical exercise. You may consider planning a short walk daily, and if your health allows it, try other exercises like pilates, swimming, or brisk walking. When physical exercise becomes part of your daily routine, it will be readily available as a life rhythm and inner support during difficult situations.

Adapted and modified from "Mindfulness pro Život" (Mindfulness for Life) by Bernard, Cullen & Kuyken, 2020: 76.

2. Three-step breathing space with an action plan

Home Practice for Week Seven

Please do not distribute or reproduce this work without the permission of the authors.

This program was created with the kind permission of Professor Mark Williams and the Oxford Mindfulness Center, who allowed us to use their materials as sources. It is a unique integration of the original program by the mentioned authors and our clinical and theoretical knowledge and skills.

Bernard, P., Cullen, C., & Kuyken, W. (2020). Mindfulness for Life: A Handbook for the Course. Oxford: Oxford Mindfulness Center.

Williams, J.M.G., & Penman, D. (2011). Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World. London: Piatkus.

Světlák, M., Linhartová, P., Knejzlíková, T., Knejzlík, J., Kóša, B., Horníčková, V., ... Šumec, R. (2021). Being mindful at university: A pilot evaluation of the feasibility of an online mindfulness-based mental health support program for students. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.581086.