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Summary of the friend to friend tool

1. Identify one, or more, of your friends who might be interested in setting up regular calls or meetings where you can provide support to each other.

2. Work out a meeting schedule that works for you, for instance, calling once each day or once every two days.

3. Each of you work out the affirming message you would like to give yourself.

4. Each time you call, read out to one another the other person’s affirming message and then generally discuss how things are going. Then conclude the call by reading out the affirming message to each other again to conclude.

5. While you are hearing your affirming message being read out, just listen to it and be open to it really sinking into you.

The Friend to friend tool

• In addition to the normal pressures of being human we are now in a very uncertain age with all sorts of disruptions and potential threats.

• Some people are having sessions with a therapist to work through their issues. However a therapist typically may only see you once a week.

• It is great to have ongoing support between therapy sessions. In addition even if you are not seeing a therapist, it is useful to talk to someone

  .

• This is a mistake of course. If you have been grappling with an issue that has gone on for any period of time, the chances are that you have thought through all of the options regarding what you could possibly do about it. Nonetheless, the mind continues to mistakenly believe that just a bit more thought will provide you with a definitive breakthrough.

• In fact, the real way to deal wit

• Affirimg message

Details about each of the steps in using the tool

1. Write out a list of all of the issue you find yourself thinking about from time to time.
   Such a list could look like 1) The work task I am working on now 2) Doing housework 3) My health 4) Problems my kids are having 5) What I am going to do about my career 6) Whether I should stay in my relationship 7) The political situation in my country. . .
   
   Have this list so you can put it on your desk next to you when you work or on your computer or phone. You may need to be a bit diplomatic about how you word some of the issues if others are going to see them. For instance, issues such as 4 and 7 about your kids and your relationship.
   

2. Set out the next possible steps you can take for each issue. If you think about each issue for a moment, you will be able to identify any possible action steps that you could potentially take to progress the issue in some way. e.g. 5) What I am going to do about my career. Possible actions: 1) talk to a friend who is in the type of work that I might want to get into, 2) ring a career guidance counsellor, 3) do a Pros and Cons table comparing the two career options I am considering. You do not have to absolutely decide on which course of action you will take, you can include several options. The important point, however, is to set these out as specific possible courses of action.
   

3. If there are no next possible steps for an issue. If there are no actions you can take at the moment regarding an issue, write down ‘just accept that this is the case’ next to the issue. When you have time to focus on the issue use the Accept Your Feelings Tool to work on accepting the feelings you have about not being able to currently, or ever, fix the particular issue.
   

4. Keep your issue’s list next to you as you work and have a way of indicating what particular issue you are focusing on at any moment in time. For instance, you may lay a pen over that issue, or put an X next to it if the list is on your computer or phone. Include some generic issues such as: 1) The work task I am working on now or 2) Housework, in addition to specific issues. If the list includes generic items that cover all of the things you focus on in life in addition to specific items, it means that you always have a way of indicating to yourself exactly what you should be exclusively focusing on at any moment.
   

5. If you mind drifts to thinking about other issues. Observe your thinking as you do your current task. If you find that your mind is drifting to focus on a different issue, say to yourself something like: ‘Thank you for wanting to do some work on this other issue, however you have already thought about it a great deal, I don’t have any confidence that you will be able to fix it just by more thinking about it. There will be an action point in regard to it, or alternatively I will just have to accept that at the moment I can’t fix it. Once I have finished with the current task I am working on, if you like I can go back and have another think about whether I can do that issue’s action point now or whether I just need to accept that I can’t do anything about it at the moment’.
   
   You can use the Focus Your Thoughts Tool on a regular basis to build your ability to stop your thoughts about issues that you are not currently directly focused on. You can practice the Focus Your Thoughts Tool on its own, or use it as part of developing a regular ongoing Clinical Mindfulness (CM) practice.

Please note when you are doing any type of psychological or self-development work, if you find yourself feeling overwhelming emotions, troubling thoughts or actions, you need to talk to a health professional.