Take in the Good: Skills for Staying Positive and Living Your Best Life

by Gina Biegel, Breanna Chambers (Illustrator)

Overview

Manage strong emotions and stay positive with this self-care activity journal for teens ages 13 and older.

When you feel completely stressed out by your crazy life, it often helps to channel your energy into a project or activity to shift your focus from the negative to the positive. This activity journal contains 50 fun and focused art projects, writing prompts, and exercises to help you find ways to feel more calm, confident, resilient and able to take care of yourself and manage your emotions. This journal will also be an invaluable resource for teachers, guidance counselors, and therapists to use with young people in a group or academic setting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611807714
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	1,158,715
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

GINA M. BIEGEL, MA, LMFT, is a psychotherapist, researcher, speaker, and author in the San Francisco Bay Area who specializes in mindfulness-based work with adolescents. She is founder of Stressed Teens, which has been offering mindfulness-based stress reduction for teens (MBSR-T) to adolescents, families, schools, professionals, and the community for over a decade. She created MBSR-T to help teens in a large HMO's outpatient department of child and adolescent psychiatry whose physical and psychological symptoms were not responding satisfactorily to a multitude of other evidence-based practices. An expert and pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based approaches to youth, she is the author of Be Mindful & Stress Less: 50 Ways to Deal with Your (Crazy) Life, The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens (first and second edition), the Be Mindful Card Deck for Teens and the forthcoming book Mindfulness for Student Athletes: A Workbook to Help Teens Reduce Stress and Enhance Performance. She also has a mindfulness practice audio CD, Mindfulness for Teens, to complement the MBSR-T program; provides worldwide multiday trainings and intensive ten-week online trainings; and works with teens and families individually and in groups. Her work has been featured on the Today Show, CNN, Reuters, the New York Times, and Tricycle.

Breanna Chambers is an artist from San Luis Obispo, California. She is in a BA program in Art and Design at Cal Poly University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Guide to Your Well-Being vii

A Guide to Take in the Good xi

1 Sense Awareness 1

2 Mindful of Hobbies 4

3 Mindful Eating: Take a Mindful Bite 8

4 Take a Break with the 3 Bs: Body, Breathe, Begin 11

5 Mindful Check-In: Your Highs and Lows 14

6 Zooming Out and Zooming In: Shifting Your Perspective 17

7 Your Thoughts in 1 Minute or Less 21

8 Mindful Walking and Photography Practice 27

9 Grounding Focal Points 31

10 Your Stress Waves 35

11 Ride the Waves: Manage Your Stress 38

12 Drop Anchor 42

13 Dropping-In Mindfulness Practice 45

14 Take in the Good: Doing What You Enjoy 50

15 Capturing Your Life: Pleasant Moments Calendar 53

16 Capturing Your Life: Unpleasant Moments Calendar 56

17 Mindful Qualities: Your Values 59

18 Your Basic Needs 65

19 Your Fundamental Needs: Safety, Satisfaction, and Connection 68

20 Getting Your Needs Met: Are You HALT? 73

21 Positive Self-Care Activities to Resource Yourself 76

22 The Self-Care Water Bottle 79

23 Take in Beneficial Experiences with HOT: Learn to Resource Yourself 82

24 The Playlists of Your Life: Happy Jams and Depressing Dives 86

25 130 Positive Coping Skills 90

26 Plant Seeds and Pull Weeds 95

27 Feeling Your Feelings 100

28 Don't Get Prickly: Know How You're Feeling 103

29 Assert Yourself: Using Mi-Messages 106

30 Sitting Body-Scan Mindfulness Practice 111

31 Train of Thoughts: The Railroad Practice 116

32 Don't Believe Everything You Think: Don't Get Inked 120

33 Your Guest House 123

34 Take a Mindful Pause: Create a Mindful Bubble 128

35 Urge Surfing: Surf the Urge 132

36 Your Mental Locker 136

37 My Mantra 139

38 Thermostat Set Point: Balancing Your Mood 142

39 Mindful Downtime 145

40 Mindful Self-Care: Levels of Self-Care Activities 149

41 Your Heart Space: A Mindfulness Practice 156

42 The Gratitude Tree 160

43 I See You and I Hear You 163

44 Little Thank-You Notes: Acts of Kindness 167

45 Celebrating Being Perfectly Imperfect 171

46 Let-It-Go Box 174

47 Growing Your Resources 177

48 The 5 Gs: Be in an Attitude of Gratitude 180

49 Dream Catcher 183

50 Rise Strong and Be a Survivor Credo 186

Editorial Reviews

"With beautiful illustrations and powerful exercises, Take in the Good is a step-by-step guide to acceptance and loving transformation. A poetic and practical roadmap for awakening to what is, for teenagers, and readers of all ages who seek clarity, courage, and peace."— Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness

“This enormously helpful and practical book uses the power of positive neuroplasticity to hardwire confidence, calm, and happiness into the nervous system. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the suggestions and mini-meditations are fabulous. Truly a gem.”—Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Resilient

“Life in high school is fast-paced, and it can sometimes feel like there’s only enough time to go to school, do homework, and sleep. I read this book in the beginning of my junior year, and one idea that really resonated with me was that stress is like waves in the ocean. In order to manage stress, you must notice and ride these waves—and then find a way to “drop anchor.” Now, when I find myself in a stressful situation, I visualize each wave coming up and myself floating over it.”—Liv Bailey, a student at Maine’s Yarmouth High School, and contributing writer for KidSpirit

“In this book, Biegel zeroes in on helping teens understand neuroplasticity, the process by which our brain changes in response to our experiences—and how directing our attention to the positive, i.e. “taking in the good,” trains our brain to be happy and resilient. There’s plenty to read in here, plus lots of prompts to write, move, and try out a variety of skills for emotional health.”—Mindful

From the Publisher