Wellbeing
Liturgies at Home
You can access liturgies from home for some time of reflection on your own or perhaps with your family.
Active Coping Calendar: Jump Back July
Active Coping Calendar: Joyful June
Healthy Schools 'Wellbeing Week' Challenges
Mental Health Awareness Week
When people say mental health, they are talking about how people think and feel, and how they are coping with things that are happening in their life.
Approximately one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. Mental Health Awareness Week aims to get people talking about their mental health and reduce the stigma that can stop people from asking for help.
This year's theme is kindness, with the week running from 18 - 24 May.
The focus on kindness is a response to the coronavirus outbreak, which is having a big impact on people's mental health.
Please watch the following video:
CAFOD Connect 2020 Challenge
The CAFOD Connect 2020 challenge is an opportunity for you to find out more about the world we live in, how we are connected to people around the globe, and how we can work together for the good of all. Be creative, show us what you can do and spread the word about some of the biggest challenges facing the world today.
Active Coping Calendar: Meaningful May
Mindful Easter Stained Glass Windows
Colouring in is a helpful mindfulness technique. Colour in the stained glass windows here to make an Easter journal.
Active Coping Calendar: April 2020
Chat Health
Helping children cope with stress during the COVID-19 outbreak
Kooth
Kooth is the largest Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing platform for Children and Young Adults living in the UK.
Staying Calm
1-Minute Mindfulness Exercises
Interested in doing mindfulness meditation but don’t think you have the time? Below are 8 mindfulness exercises you can do in a minute or under.
1. Clench your fist and breathe into your fingers.
Position your fingers and thumbs facing down. Now clench your fist tightly. Turn your hand over so your fingers and thumbs are facing up and breathe into your fist. Notice what happens.
2. STOP.
Stand up and breathe. Feel your connection to the earth.
Tune in to your body. Lower your gaze. Scan your body and notice physical sensations or emotions. Discharge any unpleasant sensations, emotions or feelings on the out breath. Notice any pleasant ones and let them fill you up on the in breath.
Observe. Lift your eyes and take in your surroundings. Observe something in your environment that is pleasant and be grateful for it and its beauty.
Possibility. Ask yourself what is possible or what is new or what is a forward step.
If you find yourself being reactive, try the following steps: Pause and take one to three big breaths. Say “step back.” (You don’t have to physically step back, you can just do it in your mind.) Say “clear head.” Say “calm body.” Breathe again. Say “relax,” “melt” or “ease.
3. Stroke your hands.
Lower or close your eyes. Take the index finger of your right hand and slowly move it up and down on the outside of your fingers. Once you have mindfully stroked your left hand, swap and let your left hand stroke the fingers of your right hand.
4. Mindfully eat a raisin (or chocolate!)
Take a raisin or a piece of chocolate and mindfully eat it. Slow down, sense it, savour it and smile between bites. Purposefully slow down. Use all your senses to see it, touch it, smell it, and sense it. Then gently pop it into your mouth and really savor it. Savor its texture, its taste, how it feels in your mouth. Let it linger and then swallow it. After you have swallowed it, let your lips turn up slightly and smile. Do the same thing for each raisin you eat or bite you take.
5. Mindful breathing for one minute.
Lower your eyes and notice where you feel your breath. That might be the air going in and out at your nostrils or the rise and fall of your chest or stomach. If you can’t feel anything, place your hand on your stomach and notice how your hand gently rises and falls with your breath. If you like, you can just lengthen the in breath and the out breath or just breathe naturally. Your body knows how to breathe.
Focus on your breath. When your mind wanders, as it will do, just bring your attention back to your breath. You might like to say ‘thinking’ when you notice your thoughts and just gently shepherd your attention back to your breath.
This can be done for longer than one minute. However, even for one minute it will allow you to pause and be in the moment. Or you might just like to breathe out stress on the out breath and breathe in peace on the in breath.
6. Loving-kindness meditation.
For one minute, repeat ‘May I be happy, may I be well, may I be filled with kindness and peace.’ You can substitute “you” for “I” and think of someone you know and like, or just send love to all people.
7. An aspiration.
Decide on an aspiration. Just ask yourself this question: What is my heart’s aspiration? Pause for about 20 seconds. Do this a second or third time and write down what comes. Perhaps it is to come from love, or to be kind to yourself or others or to be patient. Once you decide which aspiration you like best, say that at the beginning of the day. This will set you up for your day and your interactions with others (and even with yourself).
8. Yawn and stretch for 10 seconds every hour.
Do a fake yawn if you have to. That will trigger real ones. Say “ahh” as you exhale. Notice how a yawn interrupts your thoughts and feelings. This brings you into the present. Then stretch really, really slowly for at least 10 seconds. Notice any tightness and say “ease” or just say hello to that place (being mindful — noticing without judgement). Take another 20 seconds to notice and then get back to what you were doing
Coping Calendar: Keep Calm. Stay Wise. Be Kind.
30 actions, one for each day of the month, to look after ourselves and each other as we face this global crisis together.