Mindfulness Training for Persons Who Have Committed a Sexual Offense

1. Mindfulness Training for Persons Who Have Committed a Sexual Offense Nena L. Kircher, Psy.D., L.P. Daeton H. DeGrant, M.S., M.A.,L.P.C. Center Hope Solutions

2. Abstract: This presentation reviews basic principles of Mindfulness and then applies these techniques to the management of risk factors associated with sexual offending through a combination of lecture and “hands on” skills practice. By incorporating mindfulness skills into their risk management toolkit, we can assist our patients in managing emotional dysregulation, unhealthy/deviant arousal, interpersonal relationships, impulsivity, and unhealthy coping. Attendees of this training will be provided with access to material/handouts they can use with their clients after the seminar. • Objectives: • Describe the utility of mindfulness for management of risk factors associated with sexual offending. • Be able to apply at least 3 mindfulness techniques for use with clients who have a history of sexual offending.

3. What is mindfulness? “Mindfulness is awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally (Kabat-Zinn 2012). • Paying Attention • On Purpose • Right Now • Without Judging

4. Mindful Attentiveness • Our thought processes typically • Try to focus on too many things at once • Constantly make judgements and attributions of the things we are focusing on (including our thoughts and what we think other people might be thinking) • A good metaphor to use for clients is to compare this mental chaos to static on the television or radio dial • Mindfulness tools allow one to tune out the static • Letting go of things that are not necessary • Mindfulness Definition from Prev. Slide • Paying Attention • On Purpose • Right Now • Without Judging

5. What mindfulness is not • Just Meditation • A Religious or Spiritual Practice • A Way to Detach from Reality • A Quick Fix • A Magic Bullet • A Replacement for Cognitive Behavior Therapy

6. Science Behind Mindfulness (Why It Works) • What happens to the body when you practice mindfulness: • Increase in Endorphins (Natural Pain Killers) • Change in Emotional Reaction to Pain, Fear, Anger, etc. • Change in Thoughts Triggered by Pain • Improved Response in Immune System that is easily Compromised by Stress • Increased Serotonin production (possible decrease in depressive symptoms). • Exercises: Progressive Muscle Relaxation (Email for Scripts)

7. Science Behind Mindfulness (Why It Works) • The body’s Autonomic Nervous System is responsible for maintaining balance (homeostasis) in the body. • The Autonomic Nervous System is divided into the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous systems. • These symptoms are responsible for the body’s fight, flight or freeze responses. • As we are scanning our environment with TV static brains we are generally operating within (or being controlled by) the sympathetic nervous system. • Memory Tip: The Sympathetic Nervous system is in sympathy with your emotions. • In other words, we are nearly always in fight or flight mode – scanning the environment, worrying about whatever comes next, and never truly relaxed. • Mindfulness can be used to switch off the sympathetic nervous system (and the fight or flight response.

8. Why Mindfulness Doesn’t Work Remember: • Mindfulness requires disciple and a motivation to create change. • Clients have to make a choice to engage in routine mindfulness practice in order for it to be effect. • Like any other lifestyle change this will take time. • Common Obstacles: • Laziness: You have to make a choice to practice mindfulness. You also have to make a choice to be non-judgmental and move-on when there are days that you forget or become to busy with the static of life. • Busy-ness: You need to set aside a scheduled time for your mindfulness practice if it’s going to be a routine. As with all new habits, it’s VERY Easy to be too buys for mindfulness. • Disheartenment: The reward of mindfulness is not immediate (and we tend to want immediate gratification). It is easy to become discouraged. Remind yourself why you started practicing mindfulness. (e.g. to manage stress, to improve health, to manage risk, etc).

9. More than Meditation… • But we still having to start with breathing. • Noticing breath is the most basic mindfulness skill and can be useful regardless of your setting from SuperMax Incarceration to Community Based Therapy. • Once your client masters noticing and controlling his/her breath this also becomes a grounding skills for use in triggering or risky situations where escape/avoidance is not an option.

10. Mindful Breathing Exercise • To Begin Breathe in through your nose to the count of four and out through your moth to the count of eight. • As you exhale, purse your lips blowing gently as if you were blowing out a candle or blowing a bubble. This will slow down and help you focus the exhale. Instead of letting it out in one big whoosh. If your nose is stuffy it’s fine to breathe in through your mouth. • Inhale through the nose 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 • Exhale through your mouth blowing out slowly 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 • Repeat this three or four times. • This is a great technique to practice daily to improve your breath control.

11. More Breathing Exercises Belly Breathing:   • Place a hand on your chest. As you breathe feel your chest rise and lower. This is commonly how people take their breaths. • Now place a hand on your stomach and inhale until you feel your stomach rise. Exhale slowly and calmly. Breathing in this manner allows you take in more oxygen, for your body.

12. More Breathing Exercises • Tack it to the Wall: • Take a small piece of paper. • Hold the piece of paper against a flat surface of a wall. • Take a deep breath and exhale slowly, concentrating your breath on the piece of paper thus pinning the piece of paper against the wall. • (Instruct the client do this as long as they can. In a group have all the clients participate in this if able. As the class goes on they this practice more, you can use a heaver piece a paper. This exercise is an excellent way to teach your clients about controlled breathing.)

13. Basic Skill Set • One of the most hardest parts of practicing mindfulness is not judging your thoughts. • We will have thoughts that interrupt our mindfulness practice. • LOTS OF THOUGHTS. • They key is to observe, acknowledge and then let them go without engaging or getting caught up in the thought. • Try these three steps as a reminder: • 1. Observe the thought—Don’t get involved • 2.  Accept the thought—Don’t judge • 3.  Let go of the thought—say “not now.”

14. Application to Dynamic Risk Management • Dynamic Risk Factors: • Significant Social Influences • Capacity For Relationship Stability • Negative Emotionality/Grievance Hostility • Emotional Identification (Congruence) with Children • Sex Drive Preoccupation • Sex as Coping (Sexualized Coping • Deviant Sexual Interest (Preference) • Hostility Toward Women • Cooperation with Supervision (Resistance to Rules and Supervision includes Non-Compliance with Treatment) • General Social Rejection •  Impulsivity •  General Self-Regulation Problems •  Lifestyle Impulsivity • Poor Problem Solving/Poor Cognitive Problem Solving • Offense Supportive Attitudes

15. Mindfulness • Letting Go (or Distraction) • Grounding • Emotion Regulation • Communication

16. Grounding Emotional Identification w/Kids Sexualized Coping Deviant Sexual Interest General Self-Regulation Negative Emotionality Impulsivity

17. Exercise: Awareness of an Object • Choose an object that is small enough to pick up and easily hold in your hand. Hold it in one hand and pass it to the other hand. Notice how heavy or light it is. How big is it? Rub your fingers over the surface. Are the edges rough or smooth? Observe the shape, color, and texture of the object. Feel any imperfections in the surface or ridges or indentations. Pay attention to whether it feels smooth or rough. Does it feel cool or warm to your fingers? Is it sticky, greasy, slippery, wet, or dry? •  Look closely to see if there is anything written on it. Are there words on it? Are there designs drawn or printed on it? If your mind wanders or you start thinking how bored you are, just bring your awareness back to the object? Squeeze it between your fingers. Is it squishy, flexible, hard, or solid •  How does it sound when you tap on it with your finger or scrape it with your finger nail? Does it echo, thud, click, thump, rattle? Rotate it in your hand. How does the light reflect off it? Is it shiny or dull? Does it reflect light, like a mirror? Is the color solid, milky, transparent? Can you see through it? Is it solid or hollow? What material is it made of? •  Hold it up to your nose and smell it. Does it have an odor? Is it stinky or fragrant or neutral? Can you drop it on the table? Does it stay still or roll around or teeter in place? What sound does it make as you move it around the table? Does it slide easily or stick in one place? Look closely and find something you didn’t notice before. (Burdick, 94)

18. Mindfulness and the Senses • Sound • Music is often called the universal language. If you have ever played an instrument or sang with a group, you know the joy that can come with being a part of many voices working together in intricate parts to produce the whole composition. Music is present in all cultures and people often have similar emotional responses to a piece of music regardless of where they came from. • ( Burdick, 175-176)

19. Mindfulness and the Senses • Text Analysis: Have you ever been in a class where you were asked to analyze a poem? Thinking about the lyrics of a song is a very similar task. Here are some questions to get you started? • Who is the speaker in the song? • How would you describe him/her • What are the speaker’s emotions? What emotions is he/she trying to create in you? • What type of imagery is used? • What is the theme or main idea of the song? Can you sum it up in one sentence? • How does it make you feel when you focus on just the words without the music? • How does the music change or impact the way a song make you feel?

20. Mindfulness and the Senses • The image before you is called a Mandala. Mandala is the Sanskrit word for circle (Cornell 2). These symbols are commonly used in some forms of meditation and were introduced to Western Psychology by Carl Jung. • The Mandala is said to be the “core of reality” or the “true center” of the world that we live in (Cunningham 2). In meditation the Mandala can be used simply as a center to quiet the mind. Notice as you consider different images that the Mandala's pattern seems to radiate outward from the center (Cunningham 20).

21. Mindfulness and the Senses • Why Create a Mandala? • Focus for meditation • To Calm and Relax the Mind • The Joy the Creative Process brings, may facilitate psychological healing. • It may make the invisible visible by expressing thoughts or ideas that could not be expressed any other way. • Mandalas represent the connection and unity between humans and the cosmos as a whole and may help understand this connection. • Creating Mandalas can give an opportunity to express an intuitive piece of the self that is often ignored. •  (Cornell 2)

22. Mindfulness and the Senses • Meditation: Remembering Who You Are ( Cornell 22 - 23) • Sit in an upright position in a chair, with your back straight, feet flat on the floor, hands comfortable in your lap. (If you like you might play soft music in the background during this exercise, while practicing on your own). • Slowly take three deep breaths. On each exhalation, release all tension or negative thoughts from your mind and body. • Keeping your heart open and receptive, close your eyes (if you are comfortable doing so). Imagine a ball of rainbow colored light at the top of your head. Visualize it descending into the center of your brain. • Concentrate on that glowing energy and direct it down through your neck and into your heart, feeling warmth and love. Continue directing it downward into your stomach and the rest of your organs and finally down through your legs and to the soles of your feet and into the ground. • Now visualize this healing and centering energy and light coming back up from the ground and up the back of your legs. Slowly direct it up and through the core of your spine back into your head. • Imagine yourself being lifted gently into the universe. Keeping a sense of your posture, see and feel yourself floating gently in outer space, surrounded by the stars and planets. • Realize that your body and the universe are an inseparable cosmic mass of vibrating atoms. • Realize that the atoms in your physical body are billions of years old—composed from the exploding light of ancient stars. • Imagine yourself being pulled into a black hole of radiation, going past time and space into the womb of the universe. The silence of this black hole is beyond description. Experience the peace and bliss of this silence. • Suddenly you experience a roaring sound and a spark of visible light spreads. The light begins to radiate throughout the darkness. The universe has begun. You perceive vast clouds of many colored lights that are the formation of galaxies and all the other creations of Earth, including your physical body. • Imagine the essence of yourself within the human body and that the sun’s rainbow colored light is entering into your physical body and streams of energy and waves of light are pouring out of your body. These steams of light weave together with the streams of energy that make up the universe. • Meditate for a moment on this web of light streams that connects you - your mind and physical body to the universe. Realize that it is through the inner light of your consciousness that you are participating in the creation of this tapestry of light and life. • Gently bring your focus back to the spot your body occupies physically. See with new eyes the paper and drawing supplies in front of you as you proceed to the next exercise.

23. Mindfulness and the Senses • Smell is one of our brains’ most primitive senses. As a result we tend to store memories associated with our sense of smell much more deeply. Think of the smell of your favorite meal cooking or your favorite holiday treat from childhood. Notice how readily it comes to mind. Even if it has been years and years since you last experienced the smell, it will come to you vividly if you allow yourself to focus on it. • Unfortunately, the same is true for smell associated with negative memories or experiences. These memories can also be very difficult to let go of even years after the event. Because these memories are stored on such a primitive level in our brains, they can be quite powerful and even overwhelming if they resurface after we haven’t dealt with them in a while.

24. Mindfulness and the Senses • Sense of Smell: • Take a moment again to think about your favorite smells. There are scents like lavender, mint, and vanilla that are soothing to many people, but think about smells that are particularly calming or soothing for you. Maybe it’s a combination of chocolate and peppermint or cinnamon and nutmeg that triggers a childhood memory; or maybe it’s the perfume of someone that you care about who is far away. We all have smells that trigger these types of memories for us. Take a few moments to think about one of these memories that is meaningful to you. Remember to choose a memory in which you and others are safe and calm. • If you do not have a memory that you feel safe to focus on, create one. Create an image of a safe place in your mind. It does not matter whether you are inside or out. If you are creating a place from scratch, it is best to imagine a scene where you are alone. • Immerse yourself in the memory. Begin with the smell, but then gradually incorporate your other senses. As you view the scene through your mind’s eye, what colors are most vibrant and noticeable to you? Are there any sounds? What is the temperature like? Are you sitting, standing, laying down? Be mindful of the surfaces you come in contact with as you build this memory? Scan the image and be mindful of anywhere that the image is unclear and focus on that part until it comes into full focus. • Once you have created the safe space in your mind, begin to focus on your breath. Slow soothing breath. Breathe in the essence of the memory and the smell that is calming and soothing to you. Breathe out the stress, worry, and anything else that you don’t need to be carrying with you. Allow yourself to just sit comfortably in your calm safe place focused on your breath. When your mind wanders, bring your focus back first to the smell and then to the other sensory aspects of the calm safe place in your mind.

25. Mindfulness and the Senses • Eating, like breathing, is one of the necessary functions of life. We all do it everyday, but how often do we slow down and think about the process. Not just the process of cooking food or of opening your mouth, shoveling it in, chewing and swallowing, but the real process of tasting food. • Do you pay attention to the color of your food on your plate? • What about the way it smells? Smell is very closely related to taste. • Do you consider foods with certain textures to be more or less appealing?

26. Mindfulness and the Senses Mindfulness & Taste: Piece of Candy • Take your first piece of candy in your mouth. • Don’t bite down and don’t swallow it! • Just let it dissolve in your mouth. • Pay attention to how the taste and the texture changes as the candy dissolves. • When your mind starts to wander bring your focus back to the piece of candy in your mouth. •  (Rinzler,15)

27. Mindfulness and the Senses • Remember when you were a kid and adults had to scold you not to touch things because they might have germs that could make you sick or they might be dangerous to touch. As humans we seem to be drawn to touch. In a way this makes sense. After all, our skin is our largest organ. We have the ability to take in a lot of information through our sense of touch.

28. Mindfulness and the Senses • Mindfulness Practice: Touch • Begin by placing your hands together, lining up your palms so that they are pressing together. • Now slide your hands back and forth against one another for twenty seconds. • Notice the sensation and the temperature as you rub. • Stop rubbing your hands together, and for thirty seconds more notice the sensations in your hands. • (Aguirre & Galen 72)

29. Mindfulness for Grounding • Little Tension Releasers (Davis et al 36-37) •  During the day there are many moments when you can benefit from a short time-out. For example, when you catch yourself sighing or yawning. This is generally a sign that you are not getting enough oxygen. Since a sigh or a yawn actually does release a bit of tension, you can practice sighing or yawning at will as a way to relax. Make a conscious effort to sit or stand up straight when you do this. •  Sighing • 1. Sigh deeply letting out a sound of deep relief as the air rushes out of your lungs. • 2. Do not think about inhaling—Just let the air come in naturally. • 3. Repeat wherever you feel the need for it. • Yawning • 1. Open your mouth wide. • 2. Stretch your arms over your head. • 3. Yawn (loudly if you can). • 4. Repeat as needed. •  Diaphragmatic breathing • 1. Step back mentally from what you are doing • 2. Notice how you feel. • 3. Take three slow, relaxing, deep diaphragmatic breaths. • 4. Notice how you feel. • 5. Repeat as needed.

30. Letting GO Sexual Preoccupation Sexualized Coping Emotional Congruence w/Kids General Self Regulation Cooperation with Supervision Negative Emotionality

31. Sexual Preoccupation and Sexualized Coping • When you practice mindfulness, thoughts will emerge. This is completely normal. We think about 60,000 thoughts each day. One of the basic skills of mindfulness is learning how to notice the thoughts, acknowledge them, and then dismiss them without engaging them. (Burdick 103) • The pattern goes like this: • Observe the Thought  • Accept the Thought • Let go of the Thought—say, “Not now.” • Remember: • Don’t get involved with the thought; just observe it. • Don’t judge the thought or fact that you had the thought. • Accept the thought and dismiss it. • NOTE: This is an excellent exercise in assisting letting go of deviant fantasies and thoughts. It can become a useful tool in arousal control.

32. Mindfulness for letting go • NOTICE, ACCEPT, DISMISS, RETURN (Burdick 61) • Begin by choosing something to focus on: your breath, a mantra, your surroundings, a concept, a task, etc. • Focus your attention on your target. Each time your mind wanders use the following process. Notice the thought. Accept it without judgment. Dismiss the thought without engaging in it. Finally, Return your attention back to your target. Repeat this as many times as you need to during your mindfulness practice.

33. Mindfulness for letting go • Another way to remember this is with the Acronym SOLAR • Stop • Observe • Let it Go • And • Return • The SOLAR exercise is also useful for letting go of unwanted thoughts (e.g. deviant arousal, anxiety, worry, etc).

34. Sexual Preoccupation/Sexualized Coping • Mindfulness Skills form the basis of meaningful distraction techniques that are more effective than “pure avoidance” of the triggering stimuli • Through creating a mantra and practicing focusing their thoughts, they learn to manage and refocus deviant thoughts when they arise by using their mantra’s to refocus their thoughts. • Mindful thinking as illustrated in this exercise and the one on the next slide also aid in learning to let go of unhealthy thoughts and of guilt/shame associated with those thinking patterns.

35. Sexual Preoccupation/Sexualized Coping • Mindfulness of Thoughts (Burdick, 106) If you are comfortable doing so, close your eyes. Take a deep cleansing breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Do it again. Inhale peace and comfort. Exhale tension and stress. Allow your breath to come and go effortlessly. Be aware of the ease with which your breath comes and goes. It is normal while you focus on your breath, that thoughts will come and go in a steady stream. Just notice each thought as it arises. Imagine you are looking at a blank white board in front of you. As you notice and acknowledge each thought, imagine that the thought is being written on the white board in bright red letters. As soon as it is written, imagine that it simply vanishes off the board. Poof. The board is white and blank again. When another thought comes along. Notice it. Write it on the white board and watch it vanish with a Poof. Gone. You let it go. No need to engage with the thought or to judge it. Just notice it, watch it get written on the board, and watch it vanish. Instead of thoughts being written on the board as words, you might imagine the thought being represented as a picture. As soon as the picture appears, imagine that it disappears instantly. Do this over and over as the parade of thoughts continues. Enjoy the process of awareness of thoughts followed by their instantaneous disappearance. In between the thoughts, bring your awareness back to your breath, your life force, your energy. Continue this process on your own for the next two minutes. NOTE: This is an excellent exercise in assisting letting go of deviant fantasies and thoughts. It can become a useful tool in arousal control.

36. Negative Emotionality • Judgment and Labels • Whether Positive or Negative typically lead to disappointment. • Judgments can trigger overwhelming emotions. • Judgments can often lead to disappointment and suffering. • Judgments prevent you from being truly mindful. • Often there are times in your life you make judgments that often preset your emotions. • An examples could include: • You’re at your home on a Sunday afternoon and you think “I hate Sundays; they are always so boring.”

37. FLOWING STREAM: Practice Exercise • First make yourself comfortable in your chair. Then if you’re comfortable doing so close your eyes. Clear your mind. • Now, imagine a flowing stream with water lazily going by. As you look closer you notice that there are leaves, twigs, fish and other tiny objects drifting by in the steam. • Imagine yourself standing beside the stream watching these objects float past. Allow your thoughts, feelings, and wishes to float past on the stream with them. Just notice them and allow them to float past without judgement (Burdick, 104).

38. Letting Go of Self Loathing • Stigma • Prejudice • Need to Let go of the past and accept the individual that one is becoming.

39. Letting Go of Self Loathing • Self-Loathing or Self-Hatred can be a difficult obstacle to overcome; however, there are mindfulness tools that can help. Try incorporating any of the following phrases into your meditation practice as a way of beginning to offer compassion and caring to yourself: ( Aguirre & Galen, 169-171 ) • May I be free from danger • May I have mental happiness • May I have physical happiness • May I have ease of well-being • May I be filled with loving kindness • May I be free in my inner core. • May I be peaceful and at ease. • May I be happy. • Remember that Self-Compassion like all mindfulness skills must be developed gradually over time (Aguirre & Galen, 169-171). • If you still have trouble with this concept, you might try meditating while focusing on the following phrases: “At my core I am basically good”, “ I am worthy of this moment” and “I have everything that I need.” (Rinzler, 90 - 91). • Finally remember that Self-Doubt like all other thoughts are temporary and given time, these will pass as you continue to grow and move forward (Rinzler 92).

40. Communication Significant Social Influences Capacity for Relationship Stability Co-Operation w/Supervision Emotional Identification w/Kids Hostility Toward Women Offense Supportive Attitudes Problem Solving

41. Mindful Communication • Mindfulness skills can improve your ability to: • Identify Problems and Generate Reasonable Solutions • Communicate your wants and needs appropriately • Generally interact with others and build relationships. • Explain your problems and concerns to others (without losing your head). • Sort through your thoughts to determine whether or not they are “true.”

42. Just the Facts Please: Problem SOlving • Labeling our experiences can help provide clarity. However it is important to stick to the facts without judging. • Some people use judgments as shortcut ways of describing an experience and assume that others know exactly what they mean. • For example, if you asked a friend, “How was the special in the dining room?,” and receive the reply, “It was disgusting.” You might decide not to order the meal. • However, if your friend used the Labeling skill of Mindfulness he might have said, “It was a medium rare steak with broccoli covered in blue cheese.” • Now it is possible that you might still find it disgusting, but it is also possible that you might think that sounds wonderful! The fact that one person finds something to be disgusting doesn’t make it true for you. • Labeling clarifies our experiences in the world and makes them more clear and comprehensible to the people we want to communicate with. (Brantley, McKay 95)

43. Mindfulness in Relationships • Mindfulness in Conversation (Kabat-Zinn 91) • We use mindfulness to understand what others are trying to say when they communicate with us. • Mindfulness is necessary for us to pick up on the moment a look flashes across someone’s face and you realize you said something hurtful, even though you didn’t intend to; and would be clueless that you had done it if you were not mindful of the other person’s expression. • In fact, as we become more mindful of the other person we are involved in conversation with and less focused on our own wants, needs, and thoughts, we may even be able to avoid having made the hurtful comment at all. •  When was the last time you hurt someone’s feelings by not being mindful in conversation? •  How could being mindful have prevented this incident? • What things would you pay attention to in order to be mindful in a conversation?

44. Mindfulness in Relationships • Isolation, Loneliness, and Social Rejection are major areas of concern for this population. • In the long-term these feelings will lead either to anger, callousness and resentment toward others or to anger, self-pity, and despair. • Addressing these experiences is especially important for our clients who have a trauma history these negative or hurtful emotional experiences build on one another like links in a chain so that each new experience activates the hurt from previous traumatic experiences. • Common Diagnoses: • BPD • ASPD

45. Mindfulness in Relationships • Feeling Misunderstood is one of the most uncomfortable feelings. • It can interrupt our relationship with our treatment team, our family and friends, and our peers or roommates. • Feeling understood also compounds trauma. • A new experience of feeling misunderstood may stir up a memory related to a past time when we felt misunderstood and then we are dealing with the rush of emotions from our current situation and from our past.

46. Mindfulness in Relationships • You can use the acronym GET ME and the following instructions to refocus yourself when you feel misunderstood. • 1. Ground yourself using mindful breathing (focus on your inhalation and exhalation). • 2. Express that you need space to figure out the misunderstandings. • 3. Think about alternatives to your current understanding of the other person’s position. • 4. Maintain an even manner by reminding yourself that everyone is doing the best they can. • 5. Express yourself, clearly validating the other person’s view while explaining yours. • (Aguirre & Galen 127)

47. Mindfulness in Relationships • Feeling Felt: We all long to have people in our lives who we feel really understand us and have our best interests at heart. Many times we become frustrated when we lack this type of relationship. However, we may be to blame. Mindfulness techniques can help us open up to others and cause others to feel “felt” or feel like we “get them.” In return, we are more likely to have the experience that others truly understand us. • Connecting with Others: • Consider all the people you are connected to: • Friends & Family • Therapists, Case Managers, P&P • Dietary? Housekeeping? • Community Members? Legislators? • Take a moment to consider these new connections, to challenge your brain to think in a bigger way…

48. Mindfulness in Relationships How to help others feel “felt” by you: • Be curious, interested, and open to know the person • Practice being mindful of being present with them. • Truly listen in an accepting and non-judgmental way. • Be willing to be vulnerable and share your feelings, dreams, likes, and dislikes. • Guard their secrets, and don’t share them with others unless they tell you to. • Help them out when they need help with something (within reason/rules). • Repeat back what you just heard the person say to help them feel heard, understood, known, and “felt.” • Take time to know how the person feels by listening when they tell you and by talking with them about their feelings. • Make eye contact. • Give them your undivided attention. • (Burdick, 142 -143)

49. Emotion Regulation Negative Emotionality Problem Solving Co-Operation w/Supervision Impulsivity

50. Negative Emotionality • Mindfulness can alleviate symptoms of • Anger • Depression • Anxiety • Trauma • Loneliness • That may have led to negativity for feeling like the world was against you • This is a great exercise for focus and can be done either in a group setting with the formal instructions on this slide OR can be done by the individual with an “object in my pocket.”