Video: Daily Mindfulness – Long Body Scans

One of the most effective practices I do in order to better cope with physical pain and other sensations of chronic illness is the body scan. The research also supports it being helpful. Interestingly it’s also been used as a meditative practice for hundreds of years (possibly longer) to help cope with physical sensations. While it can be a bit scary for chronic pain/illness warriors to go inside, the benefits can be well worth it. This practice is also great because you can totally do it lying down (as long as you’re not at risk of falling asleep). This versions is half an hour long, so if you’re not quite up to doing it that long yet, check out my meditation channel for the shorter version.

Keep making the most of it!

Video: Daily Mindfulness – Acceptance of Sadness and Grief

Sadness and grief are common emotions to experience when dealing with chronic pain and illness. Illness grief consists of grief of the loss we once had. (Here’s a podcast episode about it). When sadness is particularly strong, depression can set in. Finding effective coping strategies is important for all chronic pain/illness warriors. This meditation is one that can be quite helpful.

Keep on making the most of it!

Video: Daily Mindfulness – Inner Child Imagery

This type of practice can be deep and quite healing when you have chronic pain and illness. I do highly recommend you only do this if you have strong grounding skills and preferably if you’ve done this type of practice before and/or are able to debrief this with a licensed mental health professional in your area. For other mindfulness practices, check out my YouTube channel.

Keep making the most of it.

Video: Daily Mindfulness – Acceptance of Anger

When we learn to make room for our difficult emotions, we give ourselves the opportunity to react in different ways. Often with anger we yell, swear, throw things (including punches), etc. and typically don’t act in ways that align with our values. When we make space for anger we can clearly communicate that we are upset without doing any of those things.

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As always, keep making the most of it!

Video: Daily Mindfulness – Mountain Meditation

Grounding practices can be so helpful, for pain, for intense emotions. I personally love them and use them all the time with my clients. This grounding practice uses visualization. For more meditations and mindfulness practices, check out my YouTube channel.

Keep making the most of it!

Video: Daily Mindfulness – Making Room for Anxiety

Making room for our emotions (like our sensations) can be difficult to do, mostly because we spend most of our time doing the opposite – pushing them away. If you watched my video from January 9 on The Struggle Switch, I explain how doing the opposite – allowing/accepting/making room for difficult thoughts, feelings and sensations – actually makes them less powerful and have less control over us. This meditation is one way we can learn to do it.

Let me know how it goes and keep making the most of it!

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Video: Daily Mindfulness – Expanding Awareness

Mindfulness is a skill we want to develop because it can help so much with chronic pain and a lot of mental health issues. Meditation is the best exercise for that muscle. Looking back, I wish I had started practicing meditation when I was much, much younger. However, I’m glad I did start because there have been so many improvements for my overall wellbeing.

Be mindful, and keep making the most of it!

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Video: Daily Mindfulness – Guided Light Imagery

This week’s mindfulness activity is a guided meditation that uses imagery of light to help us centre, ground, and sometimes it can even be relaxing. Notice what comes up for you while you do this practice. For more guided meditations, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

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Video: Daily Mindfulness – The Continuous You

In this practice we are working on developing the “noticing self,” “observer self,” “self-as-context,” or whatever you would like to call the part of you that notices everything. Many people find this type of awareness to be very beneficial in many areas of their lives. This was adapted from Russ Harris’ ACT made simple. The noticing self is something that I have found to be very important in my own life, and in the lives of my clients.

You can access my full meditation library here.

Keep making the most of it everyone!

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Video: Daily Mindfulness – Observation of Body & Breath

It It is extremely therapeutic for chronic pain and chronic illness warriors to get into our bodies. Yes, this is the opposite of what we want to do (run away from being in our bodies) but there is a lot of research that shows this is far more helpful for both our physical and mental health. In this practice we can gently get into our bodies, while using the breath as an anchor. If you haven’t listened to this episode of the podcast on achieving a sense of accomplishment (with Darren Radke), check it out.

I hope you enjoy this practice, and keep making the most of it!

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