Publisher's Synopsis
My name is Wendy. I am married, a mental health nurse, a mindfulness facilitator and a therapist. This workbook has been successfully used for a variety of reasons. It has brought success to those who have incorporated it into their lives. However, as with other workbook's you must, make a commitment to set time aside to start on your journey of self- discovery if you wish to recover. I feel it is important to share some of my own experiences with you, as this promotes a sense of empathy and understanding. Besides there is nothing worse than someone preaching about something they know nothing about. I have experienced many periods of stress that has developed into chronic anxiety and sleep deprivation throughout my life. I found solitude and peace in self- help books. I was able to master mindfulness, meditation and Reiki that would assist me to relax and switch off from life's stresses. It took me a long time, patience and commitment to want to find my own personal solutions. Over the years I have read multiple workbooks for myself to feed my desire to seek solutions to this epidemic problem. What I found was that due to the complexity of human behaviour there is a lot of information in these self-help books about theories, models and mindfulness, which are all very effective. However, mindfulness takes a lot of effort to master its technique, and it is not an easy task to do when stress is present. I believe that when you are faced with stress, reading about theories, models and mindfulness can be viewed as overwhelming and intimidating. This may increase the risk of giving up on that workbook, as it may be perceived it is too difficult to follow. In all fairness theories and models can explain thoughts, feelings and behaviour. However, they cannot provide that instant solution that many people seek. I believe that to maintain a person's personal interest in a workbook, the approach needs to be simplistic and easy to follow. In my experience people who are experiencing stress, are so exhausted by it. Looking at theories and models is not what they are looking for. What they are looking for is lasting solutions and I believe my workbook provides that. The workbook is designed to provide you with some of those simplistic solutions and strategies. They will assist and help you, to overcome some of life's difficulties, by using an autonomous, simple way of problem solving. I have chosen not to focus on complex mental health problems because I believe that complex problems need to be supported by a trained Mental health team and a Psychiatrist. Therefore, the workbook has been designed for everyday stress, and how you can and will overcome it. This will be the core of the monkey on the tree process that will be explained in Chapter 2. It will provide a humorous and simplistic approach, on understanding how monkeys (problems) can and will attach to a tree. It will teach you how to manage your own stress levels that will have long term lasting solutions, only if you decide to take back control of your life. I want to wish you the best of luck on your own journey of self-discovery. I hope you enjoy the workbook, as many others have. Now "let us tackle those monkeys and let's start throwing them out of our tree."
