Last year I wrote about an approach to help manage challenging situations that I’d been introduced to – it had as its acronym: STOP. I created a drawing to go with it to help me and my support team remember it.
While I found the approach useful, as someone with tics who’s been told to “stop” a lot in the course of my life, the acronym didn’t feel quite right, so I’ve created an alternative version – SAFE!
I find it useful having a simple visual plan with an acronym to make remembering it easier.
My friend Will recently reminded about my old PURR plan which I developed a few years ago to help my support team know what to do if my tics intensified. He said he carried the card with it on for ages and still knows it by heart all these years on. Inspired by this conversation I slightly tweaked the original plan and created a Monkey inspired drawing to go with it.
On a roll I thought about other times I might need a plan and so I created a tool to help me move on from negative situations or thoughts – I called it Dave
In case they are useful to you or someone you know they can be download here.
Feel free to use any which work for you. You might want to try making your own plans too. For me, just knowing I’ve got a plan makes a positive difference to how confident I feel.
If you have plans or approaches that work for you, please do share them in the comments section below.