Weekly Intervention Ideas : March 23rd Edition
Kid strategy of the week:
- Feelings heart: Kids are experiencing a variety of confusing emotions right now (as are adults!). Use the worksheet below or have clients draw out their own Feelings Heart on paper. Have the child choose a few emotions, and the therapist choose a few emotions to use in their heart. Ask the child to color in their heart using colors to represent how much of each emotion is in their heart right now. Normalize all of their emotions!
Couples strategy of the week:
Love Mapping
- Download the free Gottman Card Deck app
- Have couples choose a deck to go through. Each deck contains different sets of questions related to creating connection in the relationship, getting to know each other, sexuality, etc.
- For the Love Mapping Deck, partners take turns guessing what their partner’s answer would be, and then their partner reveals whether it is the right answer.
- Creating a Love Map (i.e., knowing each other well) is one of the strategies in Gottman Therapy to help couples create a strong relationship.
Adult strategy of the week:
- Now is a time when many people are grappling with a lot of change, opposing truths, and ambiguity. We can help clients explore ways to hold everything that is going on and tolerate the ambiguity by practicing dialectical thinking and behavior (see below).
- Practicing Dialectical Thinking and Behavior
Mindfulness/Meditation of the week:
- Giving Yourself Compassion for a Difficult Situation (Script)
- Let’s begin by taking a moment to settle our body into a comfortable position. You may close your eyes or keep them slightly open with a soft focus looking downward a few feet in front of you. Allow your spine to lift and your shoulders to soften (2 seconds).
- Today we will practice self compassion.
- Taking a full breath in (2 seconds) and a long slow breath out (2 seconds).
- I invite you to think of a situation in your life right now that’s difficult. Maybe you are feeling a little stressed or you’re worried about something happening or perhaps there’s tension in one of your relationships.This practice is only for a few minutes, so choose something that isn’t too difficult (2 seconds).
- Bring this challenging situation to mind. What happened or what do you think might happen? And now that you’re holding this in your mind, I invite you to consider these things (2 seconds).
- First, simply acknowledge that this is a difficult situation. Find language that works for you to label what’s happening right now. Perhaps this is a really tough situation. Maybe I feel a little afraid about this. Just bring mindful awareness to what’s happening right now (2 seconds).
- Next, acknowledge that difficulty is a part of life.It’s something that you’ve experienced before and everyone around you has experienced before too (2 seconds).
- Remind yourself of our common humanity. That difficulty is a part of our experience and like everything else, it to will shift (5 seconds).
- Finally, I invite you to say to yourself from your mind, “May I be kind to myself in this moment.” (2 seconds)
- Acknowledge that no matter how hard the situation is you can still be kind to yourself. (5 seconds)
- Use any language you’d like that supports this sense of kindness. Perhaps choose wording you would offer to a friend going through something similar.
- I’m here for you. (2 seconds)
- It’s going to be okay. (2 seconds)
- You are loved. (2 seconds)
- And if you like, rest your hand on your heart, offering kindness to yourself. (5 seconds)
- Take a moment to take that kindness in (5 seconds),
- breathing in (2 seconds) breathing out (2 seconds), breathing in (2 seconds), breathing out (2 seconds).
- And now with that recognition of compassion for yourself, finish with a full deep breath in (2 seconds) and a long slow breath out (3 seconds)
- *ding* (15 seconds).
