Every Wednesday, I go live and discuss military lifestyle challenges and discover or rediscover new coping techniques/strategies that people can introduce or reintroduce to your family unit. This last Wednesday was fantastic. I went live a few times and had a few different people join each time; I even got some great reviews.
I was still working out the bugs with my technical abilities and linking platforms with streaming devices, but I think I figured it out.
The theme was Mindfulness and focusing on the blessings you have. When you are intentionally mindful for 30 or 45 minutes a day, it becomes easier to be mindful. Professor emeritus Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder and former director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, proved that practicing Mindfulness can bring improvements in both physical and psychological symptoms and positive changes in health, attitudes, and behaviors. Specifically, he found it could help relieve stress, treat heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, and alleviate gastrointestinal difficulties. I can attest to the benefits of Mindfulness and have noticed that people who are mindfully moving through their day are happier; they don't appear bothered by worrying about the past or future because their attention is on the task at hand.
This is a massive discovery because, for years, I was taught that multitasking is the preferred way of doing things. After all, it increases productivity, which is a bunch of HOGWASH!
I found that multitasking adds stress and anxiety and keeps your body in the fight or flight response, among other things. The fight or flight gear of our body is needed when we are in life-or-death situations it was intended to be a safety alarm to signal to our body and mind that we need a change or to move and get out of the stress-inducing situation. The problem is that the world has advanced so quickly that more and more people live in that space.
We will always have dangerous situations in life; some things can't be avoided, but we can change how we react to them.
I introduced a few activities to help keep us mindful, teach our children to be mindful, some art projects to identify our supports, positive self-talk, and a gratitude tree. I will put PDFs for these projects under the files tab of my free Facebook page Military Spouse Deployment and Lifestyle support group.
We teach our children how to react to the world, let's help make sure that their reactions are positive and healthy, and if it adds to our quality of life, then it is just a BONUS.
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