Name a few things that give you satisfaction with your own life. They can be related to your family life, your relationships with others, or other activities that you usually do. Also, think about some simple things that give you joy, such as eating a cake, buying something nice for yourself, enjoying a concert, or drinking coffee with your friends, free time. Write them down and consider practising some of them daily. And also, share them with those around you. What are the resources that you are using in order to achieve high levels of satisfaction? You can use the table below to record the things that you reflected upon.
Reflect upon different aspects of your personal, relational life and your activities, either professional or duties related to your child/children. Consider the following dimensions you feel that give you meaning and accomplishment:
Every component of the exercise can be done either in:
1. verbal or narrative form (a list of features, stories, descriptions) or
2. creative manner by expressing the components through modelling, drawing, music, body expressions. You can, for example, draw the six components in the shape of a flower with six petals.
You can share your exercise with another parent or with the therapist of your child.
This exercise is based on Ryff & Keys model (1995). For more information on the model or generally on psychological well-being, you can access:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1EUawAOoo&ab_channel=PRYDE
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzuaH6QBSkQ&ab_channel=TEDxTalks
- Exercise 3: Personal coat of arms
Use the image below to build your personal coat of arms as a parent of a child with disabilities. It can be a symbol of yourself in relation with those dear to you, a reflection of yourself and your struggles and efforts as a parent. The six parts of the coat of arms can represent (though a symbol or a keyword):
1. your relationship with your child
2. your relationship with your partner
3. your relationship with your direct ancestors (parents, siblings)
4. your relationship with your extended family and friends (your support network)
5. your relationship with your work/activities
6. your relationship with the professionals around your child
Please include on the ribbon below the coat of arms a motto that defines yourself in all these relations.
FIGURE 9. PERSONAL COAT OF ARMS
Please ask members of the family to design their own coat of arms and after you complete them, reflect together on the resources that you have.
- Exercise 4: Deep reflection
Please sit comfortably in a chair and try to connect to your inner authentic self, your feeling in the moment. As you sit comfortably, please allow yourself to ask a question. What brings me joy from being a parent? What are the sources of satisfaction? What am I proud of? In what aspects do I feel competent?
Please spend a few minutes in your own company with these reflective questions and as you look deep within yourself , please allow for a symbol to appear that represents an answer to these questions. It can be a verbal symbol, a representative song or book, a picture, or any other symbol that defines you. If you feel appropriate, please share this symbol with others and reflect upon it.
- Exercise 5: Self-compassion
Allow yourself to connect with a personal experience in which you felt that somebody showed goodness towards yourself. Maybe it was a person or another significant being, such as a professional who works with your child, family member, friend or even a pet. Remember your need, your struggle in that moment, your feelings, your dilemmas. What did that person or significant being do or say? In what way did that person or significant being show support and comfort?
How could you define goodness towards yourself by connecting with what this person or significant being offered you? In what way do you think and feel you can increase goodness towards yourself by using this experience?
Kristine Neff is an author who wrote a lot of useful materials about self-compassion that you can use as a parent. If you are interested in increasing your self-compassion, as a buffer in font of burnout , you can see: https://self-compassion.org/
- Exercise 6: Assertive communication techniques
Part 1 of the exercise
Think about a situation related to your child in which you felt discomfort, stress, anger, discontent towards a person. How did you express these mixed feelings? What was the outcome and how did that person react?
Read through the following paragraph with this experience in mind.
In order to cope with these problems, different strategies have been proposed helping individuals to achieve better communication skills.
Communication competence means being familiar with appropriate communication practices and being effective at adapting to different communication situations (Steele and Plenty, 2015). It is important to be assertive in our communication as it helps reduce stress. Assertiveness means being able to express respectfully the concerns that one might have for situations that might affect negatively someone's safety or psychological well-being, and sharing opinions with others, including those having the power (Omura et al., 2017). "Speaking up," is one of the major assertive communication techniques. As Kolbe et al. (2012) demonstrated, this technique involves communicating specific observations, asking for clarification, or questioning the choices or decisions made by a person who has the power or authority.
Part 2 of exercise
Please allow yourself to think about that experience in a different way. As you are discussing in an angry manner with the person, freeze the image and allow yourself for a few minutes to take a deep breath, ground yourself (you can use the exercise in the following section) in order to find your balance and your tranquility. Now go back to that person and practice communicating your discomfort, anger, discontent in a calm manner. Try to express everything related to that experience without leaving anything behind, but in a special manner in which you use the ”I position” and words that do not harm the other person’s feelings, as much as you can.
How do you feel? Reflect on how the other person feels? How do you think that would change?
You can practice assertive communication with people around you ( family, friends, child), using the following anchors:
1. Express what exactly was that bothered you in the other persons’ behaviour or words?
2. Express your feelings about it and the consequences it has on you?
3. Point out what you would like to happen in another way?
In triads, discuss about a problem you had in managing a difficult behavior or an emotional outburst of your child. Discuss the ways you could use assertive communication to speak to your child and to a family member about what happened. What difference can it make in terms of your child’s reaction?
- Reflection Exercise with imagery and body awareness
This is a more complex exercise that includes elements from various relaxation techniques. You can use this exercise in a personalized manner, according to your needs.
1. One way would be that another person guides you.
In this case the person that guides you can read through the enclosed material, with a soft voice, knowing that it is just a reflection exercise encompassing elements of relaxation and guided imagery. However, it needs to be a safe person for you, a person that you trust in order for you to be able to relax.
2. Another way would be that you do the exercise yourself, after you read through the indications and become familiar with this way of self-reflection. Feel free to select from the material what suits you best and is in agreement with your needs. If you do the exercise in the form of self-reflection, it would be useful to share the experience with a person you trust. Of course, these exercises do not replace the specialized help and support, in case you need it, for stress management.
The content of the exercise is as follows:
First of all, please find a quiet place for you to relax in a comfortable chair or on a couch. Allow yourself to find a sitting position that best fits your needs right now, with your body comfortably seated, and your head supported on a wall or the
back of the chair. You may close your eyes for some minutes or you may remain with your eyes open if this is more appropriate for you right now.
While sitting there, in this position that your body found, allow yourself to pay attention for only a few moments to yourself, to your body. And just notice how you are at this moment. How is your body feeling? Are there any physical sensations that draw your attention? Allow yourself to feel your bodily sensations from inside out. And you can allow yourself to just pay attention to how you are at the moment, comfortably seated, how your body touches the chair, how it is positioned.
And just as you are freely floating with your attention to your bodily felt feelings, you can guide your attention towards your face, feeling it from the inside out. Caress with your attention your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your ears, your cheeks and the back of your head, your hair. Then allow your attention to flow down to your neck, chest, shoulders, paying attention to the subtle or more intense reactions and feelings that you can find there.
Your attention flows towards your arms, feeling the movements, shivers, tiny changes that your body makes to adjust to the sensation of relaxation that comes into your body as you pay attention to its needs and just notice how it feels from the inside out.
Then your attention can go to the sitting part, notice how your body touches the chair or the couch on which you sit, to the legs and feet and you notice how they are positioned and how they feel in your shoes or on the ground.
And you can be amazed by the multitude of feelings that your body feels as life pulses inside it and as you notice life pulsing inside your body your attention can slowly move to your breathing.
And you do not need to modify it, just notice how the air enters and exits your body with each inhale and exhale, with each breath in and breath out.
As you stay there, noticing, thoughts can come and go, feelings can appear and disappear and a full inner experience, rich and unique unravels as you just breathe.
As you sit there, relaxed, or just attentive, allow yourself to become curious about what comes next.
And I will invite you to bring a personal experience as a parent, into your inner awareness. It can be an experience you had in the past, a more recent one, or it can be an experience you are confronted with at present, you are in the middle of it. Maybe you will choose a challenging experience, maybe a more relaxing one, or it may be an experience of success in your professional life, whichever is most appropriate for you at the moment.
And as this experience comes into your awareness, you can ask yourself the question: How was it for you? What is the general inner feeling about this experience?
Were there any joys? Any disappointments? Any fears? Was it a fulfilling experience for you? Was it hard to manage as a parent?
Please just allow the feeling to come from the inside, without any effort to find it, just let these questions sit inside yourself and without any effort to answer any of them, allow yourself to reflect upon the effect that they have on you.
You can connect with the intrapersonal level of the experience, the level of your emotions, knowledge, experiences, skills, thoughts in relation to the experience.
What did you learn about yourself? What was most difficult, challenging? What was easiest? What new things did you learn about yourself?
And just let these questions wander inside, without effort to pay attention to answer them, just letting them be there with you as you pass to the reflection at the interpersonal level, the relationship in which the experience took place, maybe a group in which you were immersed, maybe just in relationship with your child or other member of your family, or maybe in relation with a professional you are working with for your child’s rehabilitation.
What did you learn about others? What about yourself in relation to others? What were the skills within the relationship? How did the experience change your perspective on human beings? On cooperation and team work?
And just let these questions sit there with the others, there is no need to make any effort to answer them, just let them be there as you move to the reflection on the practical level, the lessons you learned as a parent, to the applications within the experience.
How can you use what you learned in this experience for your life? In what situation can you use what you learned? What would you recommend to others?
And now that so many reflection questions are going through your mind and are flooding your inner space, maybe some sort of discomforting feeling appeared and it is welcomed, it is just a feeling that arises naturally from the confrontation with
questioning, wondering and reflecting on experiences.
It is the natural feature of our mind to select the relevant and leave out the unnecessary information and it is just what your mind will do.
But for now, I will invite you to thank your mind and body for all these rich experiences, and to leave behind you all these questions and memories about experiences and move back to your breathing, feeling how it moves your abdomen area and with each inhale and exhale you become more and more aware of what is happening around you, of the sounds in the room, of my voice, of the feelings in your body, sensations, movements and you are more and more connected to the chair you are sitting on, to the room you are in, and slowly, at their own unique pace, your eyes may open. You are fully aware, present, and ready to come back to the room we are in.
You can choose only a part of the reflection exercise, or you can choose to focus on only one aspect: body work, guided imagery etc. Also, you can enrich the exercise with other components useful for the practice of breathing, body work, and mindful awareness, or you can invite the trainee to find a symbol for each part of the experience, in order to anchor it.
- Self- compassion exercise
Choose one exercise of self-compassion from Neff’s website: Self-Compassion Exercises by Dr. Kristin Neff: https://selfcompassion.org/category/exercises/
Practice in pairs the exercise and share how you felt.
- Compassion focused therapy (CFT) techniques
Self-compassion break (long version, 13 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_80y_CT32c&t=6s
Self-compassion break (short version, 6 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ax8Y741rxA&t=3s
Loving-Kindness for Ourselves CFT meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mILRWPdQPKs
Soften Soothe Allow CFT meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmQi3VQCdCQ
- Observation list/questionnaire of satisfied psychological needs of parents
1. When the ECI specialist arrives in your family, notice what kind of mood you are in (ask yourself which pleasant and which unpleasant emotions you notice in yourself at that moment). Comment and share with the ECI expert your feelings/emotions that you managed to name related to his arrival in your family.
2. Fill in the observation list/questionnaire of satisfied psychological needs of parents.
3. Have a conversation with an ECI professional about the obtained self-insights related to the satisfaction of one's own psychological needs related to the parental role after completing the self-observation list.
4. Use some of the techniques and methods of preventing parental burnout during a home visit of an ECI professional if it is needed and ask ECI professional for support or advice on implementing the chosen technique.
o Abdominal breathing: when a person is anxious, he/she breathes rapidly and through the upper part of the body (chest), which in the absence of physical activation leads to an imbalance in the level of oxygen and CO ₂ (O>CO ₂ ). Abdominal breathing balances oxygen and CO ₂ levels by applying slower and deeper breathing (belly). By slowing down and calmer breathing, you affect the slowing down of the heart and control other physical symptoms of anxiety. Inhaling air through the nose, you push the abdomen outward and draw air into the lower part of the lungs. You keep our hand on the abdomen during inhalation and exhalation. This is a very simple but very powerful relaxation technique because the effect is visible already after three inhalations and exhalations.
o Holding the breath - you inhale air through the nose counting to 3 and drawing the air into the lower part of the lungs. The air should be held while counting to 3, and then release the breath through pursed lips as you say to yourselves "relax".
o Rhythmic breathing – you breathe in through the nose while counting to 3 or 6, depending on what is more comfortable. Exhale through the nose in the same number without holding the breath in between. You should breathe like this for several minutes.
- Mindfulness exercise: Three-minute meditation “Space to breathe”
Step one: become aware
In a sitting or standing position, take an upright and dignified posture. You may close your eyes if you want. Direct your attention to your inner experiences. Ask yourself, "What am I feeling right now?" and accept any disturbing or uncomfortable feeling without judgment or attempt to change them. Next, observe your thoughts. Ask yourself: “what thoughts are going through my mind?” and try to accept them.
Pay attention to any sensations in your body. Take a moment to scan your body and notice any tension or stiffness. Accept these sensations and feelings without trying to change them.
Moving on to the next step, narrow your focus in your abdomen as you breath. Notice the rising and lowering of the abdomen as the air enters and leaves your body. Focus on each breath to connect with the present moment. If your thoughts tend to wander, gently bring your attention back to your breath.
Now, expand your awareness to your entire body, your posture and facial expression as you breath. If you notice any discomfort or tension, focus your attention on their strength and imagine the breath entering and surrounding them. By accepting these sensations and by not trying to change them, you create space for exploring them more easily. When they no longer demand your attention, return to your meditation, being aware of your whole body, moment by moment.
Step one: Set aside time to worry
One of the ways to prevent parental burnout is to bring your parental worries under control because worries can be overwhelming. You can put your parental worries under control by creating Time for Worry. Let's determine the time of the day that will be dedicated only to worries, say „Every day between 6:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. will be my time to worry.“
It is recommended that this time be at the same time every day and that it is always of the same duration. When a certain time of the day comes, it is allowed to think about any concern that arises. Sometimes it is easier for you to think, and sometimes it is good to write down worries (i. e. in the form of keeping a diary), but what is important is to keep the worries within that time. If a worry comes up outside of worry time, you can write it down or remember it, but wait to think about it until it's time to worry. When worry arises outside of worry time, you can say something like: “I'm worried that something bad is going to happen, but there is time to worry, and then I'll think about it, and now I'll focus on the activities I'm currently engaged in.“
Step two: How to spend time worrying
When it's time to worry, make the most of it; in that time you look for possible solutions for your concern or if a solution is not possible in that time you dedicate yourself to accepting reality. Pick one concern and ask yourself what you can do about that particular problem and then create a plan of action. If that worry is out of your control, work on accepting it and letting it go.
Step three: Getting out of worry time
The most challenging part of this technique is to stop worrying after the worry time has passed. One of the ways you can make it easier to stop worry time is to reward yourself with a transitional activity after the allotted time is up. Let it be something you like to do so that they are motivated to finish worrying and get out of it: for example, call a close person, go for a walk, watch a good movie, read an article, go to a training session, go out for coffee with a friend, etc.
- Circle of psychological needs
Try to think to what extent each of the four psychological needs listed in the circle is satisfying on a scale of 0 - 100%
FIGURE 10. CIRCLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS
The perfect week tool can be used by a person to describe an ideal week, in a manner that is realistic and achievable with existing resources and budget. In a broader perspective it helps people to express how they want to live their lives by making the best use of the available resources. With this tool a person specifies elements of an ideal week and notes people, interests and places that are important to him, as well as the available resources. The Perfect week tool facilitates the matching of personal resources and development of specific steps to achieve aspirations and the elements of a perfect week for a specific person.
How it helps
This tool can be used as an effective person-centered care and support plan helping people organize and utilize their own resources, persons and budget to improve the quality of their life in a practical way.
(http://helensandersonassociates.co.uk/person-centred-practice/personcentred-thinking-tools/perfect-week)
FIGURE 12.EXAMPLE OF A PERFECT WEEK SHEET
- What’s working/not working
This tool allows a first a mapping of the current condition of a person’s life, and most particularly what works well and what needs to be improved or changed. It also takes into account the person’s own perspective as well as the perspectives of other persons’ involved in their lives.
This tool allows reflection on the current situation and starts to develop outcomes and strategies to ensure that the desired changes actually happen.
What it is useful:
It can help you realise what is working and what is not working in your life from various viewpoints so as to decide the right way to proceed.
How it helps:
By incorporating the perspectives of various persons involved in your life, this tool helps you identify the areas of agreement and disagreement. This way, the tool allows you to become aware of areas of common ground in order to get the support you need in a way that makes sense to you.
(http://helensandersonassociates.co.uk/person-centredpractice/person-centred-thinking-tools/whats-workingnotworking)
FIGURE 13. WHAT'S WORKING/NOT WORKING SHEET
The decision-making profile gives you a clear idea of how you make decisions and how you could be supported in this process. It can be used to empower you to take control and make choices for your own life. Furthermore, it assists you in presenting your choices and decisions to others in a way that makes sense to you.
There are 5 steps to follow for decision-making according to the tool:
1. How I prefer to receive information
2. How choices should be presented to me
3. Ways used by other people to help me understand
4. What is the right moment for decision-making
5. What are the moments that are not right for decision-making
When completing the decision-making profile, it is important to reflect on a previous real-life decision-making case and identify what worked and what didn't in terms of the support you received.
How it helps:
This tool is essential since it helps you understand the available choices and make well-informed choices. This is particularly important when considering your own and your child's wellbeing.
(http://helensandersonassociates.co.uk/person-centredpractice/person-centred-thinking-tools/whats-workingnotworking)
- Technique Connecting to Resources #1
Resources are the strengths of the personality, these are the qualities, people, events, environment, nature, sports, pets, etc. which give you security, a sense of safety, a sense of coping.
Art Therapeutic Technique Creating a “Safe Space” from clay. This technique is preferably conducted together with a psychologist, social worker or psychotherapist.
Material needed: Clay or play dough
Clay takes away some of the tension, clay is the earth, it can be a resource, relieves tension. The clay has a pleasant texture, plastic, pleasant to the touch, amenable to processing. It allows the expression of spontaneity and the transformation of created emotions.
Pieces of clay or play dough are distributed. Instruction is given: Draw your safe place out of the clay. After 10 minutes, someone from your group is invited to present their symbol, their safe place.
Questions from the facilitator:
Where is this place?
What's in this place?
How do you feel in this place?
Who can go inside? How?
Who would you let in?
Is there someone who can't come in, you don't let them in?
What are the sounds of this place?
What are the aromas of this place?
Where does it resonate in your body, in which part of the body
do you feel your protected place?
What helps you feel secure?
The goal is for you to name and find the resources within yourself, around you, you are guided to connect with this place, to find the source, the "anchor" in your body. These anchors mean that every day you can use them, and when you have anxiety, you find that place and connect with it, it stays installed, nurtured you.
To guide you to what is available here and now so that you feel security and safety. From this place to have interaction in the world and so when communicating with different people and problems to feel protected. The symbol made of clay can be kept and you can put it in a place at home or where you can look at it and draw the sense of security from it.
- Technique Connection to resources #2
Materials needed: paper, colored pencils, colored markers
You are given the materials and given instructions to draw a picture in which there are three elements: Ship, storm, lighthouse.
You are given 10 minutes to work. The presenter invites you to present your drawing and asks questions:
Describe what you depicted in the drawing?
Who is on this ship?
What happens in the ship?
Which of the travelers reacts?
What helps the people on the ship to keep calm?
What happens in this storm, in your story?
Does this drawing have a title?
What is the end of the story?
What does it mean?
Where does the ship reach?
The goal is again for the individual to seek and name available
resources, salvation, direction.
"Imagination is our vital and creative energy"
This tool allows a person to reflect on the diverse roles and responsibilities and identify areas where they can be creative and take decisions. It allows also to specify the areas that go beyond their control or responsibility.
By applying the Doughnut tool in particular situations, people can specify the opportunities they can be creative and innovative, while recognizing the limitations to experimenting and the things that should be done in a predefined way. Most importantly, using this tool can help persons realise what exceeds their role and falls under the responsibility of someone else, allowing best use of resources in order to create a burnout free environment.
