Week 6: Mind Mapping
You have made it to week 6; way to go! You now have a better understanding of your health challenge. You can define what your challenge is and have identified triggers. Now it is time to come up with coping techniques to combat your health challenge.
Let’s face it; very few of us can eradicate the triggers around our health challenge. Behaviors are very rooted in emotions and temptations can trigger those emotions very easily. This is why it is important to set realistic goals and develop tools to interface with the triggers instead of piecrust promises (easily made, easily broken) that speak in absolutes. Examples of piecrust promises include: “The doctor says I need to sleep with a C-pap. That just means I need to lose weight. I’ll start losing weight tomorrow.” Or “ I’m tired of my beer gut; from this day forward, I’ll never look at another beer.” If you could change a habit with the snap of a finger, you wouldn’t have gotten to the point of needing a C-pap. If you could avoid alcohol in every form( social events, advertising, grocery stores, etc), you would have to live under a rock! Instead of avoidance, try leaning in. Get intimate with your triggers. You have begun to identify when they occur and what brings them to life. Knowledge is power! With this knowledge, you can create a coping toolbox. An entire arsenal of tools at your disposal sounds great when faced with temptation, doesn’t it?
Let’s get intimate with your triggers. These past 6 weeks you have been examining the inner workings of your health challenge. This has helped you identify triggers. What is it about the triggers that push you over the edge? What is something that would keep you from reaching that breaking point? This is where mind mapping comes in handy. Put your health challenge right in the middle of a piece of paper and enclose it with a circle. Then, draw branches out from the circle in all directions. At the end of those branches, write down all the triggers. Repeat the process with the triggers, this time writing possible tools at the end of the new branches. Sticking with the example we have had during the entire challenge: overeating. I have identified how it feels, when it happens, what I am doing, who I am with, and where. With this information, I can easily identify legitimate triggers around my overeating. One of my triggers is family gatherings. Another time it happens is when I bring sugar into the house. Ways to combat this could vary from person to person. You know yourself best, so use mind mapping to know which tools are in your tool belt. When I write down “family gatherings” on my paper, some shoot-offs from that include: eat before I go, ask a sibling or cousin to be my accountability partner when politics arise, suggest a group activity that doesn’t involve eating. The other trigger I have with overeating, which is bringing sugar into my house, has tools such as: eat before I go grocery shopping, only buy what is on the grocery list, bring the exact money for the grocery list so I don’t try to buy a special street, reward myself with a single serving treat that I eat mindfully at the store or a park.
What coping techniques have you thought of for your triggers? Share them in the comments and bring them tomorrow so we can practice our techniques.
Wing Woman 