WRAP and Recovery Books provides

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WRAP and Recovery Books provides Training
Manuals, books, articles and other
resources www.WRAPandRecoveryBooks.com
Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery
for Speakers, and all levels of Training
Facilitation www.CopelandCenter.com
Essential Learning Complete selection of on-line
learning options www.MentalHealthRecovery.com
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Mindfreedom is an important organization, one
that shares our values and mission The mission
of Mary Ellen Copeland's Mental Health Recovery
and WRAP is to promote personal, organizational,
and community wellness and empowerment.
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Taking Charge of Your Mind and Making Your Life
Go Well
Presented by Mindfreedom International
Janet Foner
Al Galves
March 3, 2011 2pm EST
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http//www.mindfreedom.org MindFreedom
International celebrates its 25th year as an
independent coalition for human rights and humane
alternatives in the mental health system. MFI
President is Celia Brown.
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• MFI has a vision of a peaceful revolution in
  mental health care. You are encouraged to sign up
  for MFI's free human rights e-mail alert system.
• www.mindfreedom.org/mfi-faq/MFI-news-public-email
  -alert/

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• MFI Choice Campaign has a searchable Directory
  of Alternatives for mental and emotional support.
  Those listed have agreed to MFI Principles.
• www.mindfreedom.org/directory

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• While most MFI members identify as psychiatric
  survivors, MFI welcomes all who support human
  rights including professionals, advocates, family
  members, and the public.

Judy Chamberlain
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What well be talking about today

• A program for Taking Charge of your Mind and
  Making Your Life Go Well
• An exercise in reacting and controlling your
  attitude towards your thoughts
• What is Mindfreedom and how to learn more about us

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Natural Healing

• Human beings are born with a natural emotional
  healing process.
• When babies are born, they cry and rage when they
  are upset,10 or 15 minutes later theyre all
  smiles wanting to snuggle.
• Later they get socialized away from this
• natural healing process, but if you watch a
• young baby closely you will see what people
• do to heal.

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Natural Healing

• Our healing process gets damaged and eventually
  buried because of the number of times we get
  hurt, try to use it for healing, and are not able
  to continue to do so.
• We can reclaim that process for ourselves.

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The Healing Process

• How do we reclaim that process for ourselves?

Mainly by taking turns to listen to each other
tell our stories about what happened to us.
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Reclaiming the Natural Healing Process
What happens during the process?

• You eventually get to talk, cry, tremble, rage,
  laugh, and yawn your way through how you got
  hurt-releasing the effect of the hurts.

Your mind will be able to sort through the hurts
and figure out new ways to respond instead of
repeating old ways of behaving that always got
you in trouble.
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Reclaiming the Natural Healing Process

• Confidentiality

Fully listening
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Reclaiming the Natural Healing Process

• Our society is focused on production, not on
  taking care of peoples needs, emotional or
  otherwise.
• This means that we have to set up time and space
  for ourselves, both to reclaim our healing
  process and to make our lives go well.

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Personal Story

• Having a hard time growing up

A family in crisis
Hospital experience
Creating a better life
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A New Way of Doing Things

• A mutual peer support/leadership project
• In order to be able to heal the feelings and not
  get sunk, that is, not be sad all the time, I
  gradually figured out a system of focusing
  attention on the good things in life that allowed
  me to get my life back in shape.

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5 Major Things

• 5 major things that work in combination
• All have to be done all at once to work well
• Each point I will talk about is a different way
  to work on feeling better
• When you feel bad, you may need to do one or
  more of these five types of things. If one
  thing doesn't help, try another

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When youre feeling bad

• Sometimes when you feel really bad, trying to
  get out of that feeling by doing something fun
  doesn't help.

It's at that point that you really need someone
to listen to you talk, cry and laugh your way
through the bad feelings.
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Point 1- Support System

• Having lots of time every week to heal from past
  hurts and having lots of time with friends and
  family that are supportive

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Point 1- Support System

• How much listening support do you need?

Its up to each person
More than our society expects us to have (which
is 0)
Ask yourself how much listening time do I need
in order to handle what I am trying to
accomplish?
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Point 1- Support System
How many people do we need in a support system?

• We need a lot of people in our network because
  if two people are out of town, a third person is
  sick, and two others are very busy, we can still
  call on the sixth or seventh person when we need
  them

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Point 1- Support System
Use your creativity to figure out how to setup
your support system
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Point 1- Support System
Agreements
I wont give you advice
Lets not interrupt each other
I wont bring up what you say with you or
anyone else later
Lets listen attentively lovingly
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Point 1- Support System
The more you listen to each other, the more
safety will be built between the two of you so
you can feel more comfortable with your
emotions.
With experience doing this, it will become easier
and easier to feel what you need to feel,
release the emotion and heal from your old
hurts.
At the end of the listening time it is also
important to bring your thoughts away from
the old hurts and on to the present situation
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Point 1- Support System
You are in charge of your mind You can figure
out how to make things work well in your life
If you have difficulty finding friends that means
you need to do healing work in that area. It
doesnt mean that there is something wrong with
you because you dont have friends.
Even finding just one friend will be a big
benefit, and eventually you will have more
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Point 2- Making the Repeated Decision to Refocus
Onto Rewarding Things
Spend at least some of your listening time
repeatedly making the decision to keep your mind
on the good things in your life. Make the
decision to set aside some time(s) daily or
weekly to deal with how you got hurt and healing
from that, and the rest of the time to just be
able to enjoy your life. " I now decide to stop
putting my attention on upsetting things and
instead to focus my attention on enjoying my
life, and that means. . .."
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Point 2- Making the Repeated Decision to Refocus
Onto Rewarding Things
and that means..
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Point 2- Making the Repeated Decision to Refocus
Onto Rewarding Things
"I dont have time to focus my attention on my
distress, there are so many other things I would
rather be doing (sometimes I name some of those
things). So I now decide to focus my attention
off distress and on to wonderful, rewarding
things, and that means. .."
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Point 3- Make Time for Fun Every Day
Another aspect of your life to address is how
much fun do you have every day?
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Point 3- Make Time for Fun Every Day

• Ways to find fun
• Use listening exchange time to
• strategize on how to bring fun into your job
• list things youd like to do
• Whats fun for some, isnt for others.

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Point 4- The Art of Telling Your Story Without
Believing the Old Messages
When you are having time with your listening
partner or partners, try to always notice the
good things in life while you are talking about
hard things.
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Point 4- The Art of Telling Your Story Without
Believing the Old Messages
It is an art to develop your own process of
being able to talk to somebody about what
happened to you without believing all the old
messages that came to you from that event.
Try to figure out what will keep you "afloat,"
and keep you remembering the good things in life.
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Point 5- Setting Goals to Make Your Life The Way
You Want It
Oftentimes our parents, or other adults who were
around us when we were younger, had ideas of how
our lives should be. Sometimes we ended up doing
things to make them happy. Sometimes there are
real difficulties in changing our lives around,
but..
If you can wake up in the morning and take a
look at what you have to do today and be excited
about what you are going to do, that is the life
you want.
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Point 5- Setting Goals to Make Your Life The Way
You Want It

• While youre being listened to, think aloud and
  release emotions about deciding what you really
  want
• Set goals and have listening times around
  achieving those goals
• Set long range goals AND short range goals

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Heres How I Changed My Life to Be the Way I
Wanted
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Making a habit of the 5 points
Making a habit of using these five points on an
ongoing basis is a workable way to make one's
life go well. I hope you will try it and see
how you can apply it to your life.
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An exercise on breathing and noticing What is the
purpose of this? What can I expect from this
exercise?
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The Focusing on the Breath Exercise

• You are more than your thoughts.
• You can learn to control your attitude towards
  your thoughts and your reaction to them.

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Setting
Comfortable
Solid
Calm

• Relaxed

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Even More Relaxed and Calm
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The Breath

• Bring your attention to the steady in and out of
  your breathing.

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Breathing in a warm, pink, cleansing
air
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Breathing
Breathing out all the tension and tightness in
your body
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How do you feel?

• Notice any feeling associated with the thought.
• What is the feeling telling you?

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Try it!!
Two 10-minute sessions each day in a calm, quiet
place.
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MindFreedom International is one of very few
totally independent activist groups in mental
health, with no funding from the mental health
system. The United Nations accredits MFI as a
Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).
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• MFI Shield sends out alerts to thousands of
  people concerned about human rights violations.
  http//www.mindfreedom.org/elizabeth
• Elizabeth Ellis is a member who has been court
  ordered to receive involuntary outpatient
  electroshock.

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• MFI has campaigns to celebrate "Mad Pride," to
  build affiliates internationally, and to question
  the undue influence of the drug industry in
  mental health care. To be notified, sign up for
  MFI's free alerts.
• http//www.mindfreedom.org/mfi-faq/MFI-news-public
  -email-alert/

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• MindFreedom International is open to membership
  of all who support human rights and alternatives.
  You are invited to join today! www.mindfreedom.org
  /join-donate

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Questions?