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James Fitzgerald Therapy, PLLC
James Fitzgerald, MS, NCC, Psychotherapist
Strengthening Your Conscious Self © 2022
March 25th
Daily Self Care Inspiration to Nurture Self Compassion
Please accept this self-care resource from James Fitzgerald Therapy and Strengthening Your Conscious Self Health & Wellness Program. You are invited to consume as much or as little of the content as you feel comfortable with. You don’t have to do all of the activities every day. This feature of the website is a tool in your toolbox, to be used as you need. Thank you for using this feature, I appreciate your support.
Daily Meditation: Focused Attention and Open Awareness
Source: Mindfulness Exercises (Website)
Thinking Errors & Logic: Attentional Bias
Why do we focus more on some things than others?
Source: The Decision Labs
Atlas of Emotion & Emotional Intelligence: Anxiety
Source: Very Well Mind (Website)
Inspirational Quote
“When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.”
―
Virtue: Openness
Openness is being honest, clear and sincere, sharing who we are and what we feel without pretense. It is the willingness to consider new ideas and listen to others with an open mind. We reveal our thoughts candidly without attempting to manage the responses of others. It requires a bit of vulnerability, confidence, curiosity, and courage. We have no hidden motives, intentions, or agenda. We are more interested in connection than we are in controlling situations and people. We listen to others’ feelings with calm compassionate curiosity. When we are open, we are receptive to the events, experiences, and little surprises life offers us.
To Practice Openness
Be honest and transparent. Be direct and candid when sharing your perspective. Appreciate new ideas and possibilities. Sincerely wish to communicate, listening to understand, not merely listening to respond. Do not harbor any hidden motives, intention, or agenda. Care about the views and feelings of others. Be willing to be present in any and all of life’s experiences, events, with its highs and lows. Be grateful for the virtue of openness, it frees you to be yourself.
Character Strengths: Open-Mindedness
Open-mindedness is the willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans, or goals, and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available. Being open-minded does not imply that one is indecisive, wishy-washy, or incapable of thinking for one’s self. After considering various alternatives, an open-minded person can take a firm stand on a position and act accordingly. The opposite of open-mindedness is what is called the myside bias which refers to the pervasive tendency to search for evidence and evaluate evidence in a way that favors your initial beliefs. Most people show myside bias, but some are more biased than others.
Research suggests the following benefits of open-mindedness:
- Open-minded, cognitively complex individuals are less swayed by singular events and are more resistant to suggestion and manipulation.
- Open-minded individuals are better able to predict how others will behave and are less prone to projection.
- Open-minded individuals tend to score better on tests of general cognitive ability like the SAT or an IQ test. (Of course we don’t know whether being open-minded makes one smarter or vice versa.)
Social and cognitive psychologists have noted widespread errors in judgment/thinking to which we are all vulnerable. In order to be open-minded, we have to work against these basic tendencies, leading virtue ethicists to call open-mindedness a corrective virtue.
Self Care Practice Suggestion:
Give Anonymously
Pay for the next customer’s coffee without announcing it or cut your neighbor’s grass while they’re away. There are several ways to give. Remember that it’s not the recognition that makes it worthwhile, but the act of giving itself.
Shaw, Dr. Zoe . A Year of Self-Care: Daily Practices and Inspiration for Caring for Yourself (A Year of Daily Reflections) (p. 60). Rockridge Press. Kindle Edition.
Reflection & Journal Prompts:
Tell me about one of your earliest memories. Write down anything you can remember.
Fox, Rossi. 365 Journal Writing Ideas: A year of daily journal writing prompts, questions & actions to fill your journal with memories, self-reflection, creativity & direction. . Unknown. Kindle Edition.