In this video, you'll find helpful tips for handling strong emotions and keeping yourself and your family safe. It talks about creating a safe space, doing a breathing exercise to relax, and reaching out to people who can support you. Following these steps can help prevent a tough situation from getting worse and keep everyone safe and well.
A man speaks:
If you're feeling pretty worked up, here are 3 things we're gonna do right now.
1 - Make sure you and your whānau members are safe.
2 - Calm yourself down so that you don't make a bad situation worse, and
3 - Try to figure out what's going on.
The first thing I want you to do is to put yourself in a place where you and your whānau will be safe. This might be leaving the place you were in. Going outside and finding a quiet space.
The second thing we are going to do is to get you calm. We're gonna do this through a simple breathing exercise. Follow my lead. Take a big breath in through your nose into your belly to the count of 4 (breath in...) Hold your breath for 4 seconds. Now breathe out through your mouth for 4 seconds. Push all that air out. We're going to repeat this exercise 2 more times.
Breathing in through your nose. Holding for 4...and breathing out through your mouth. Get all that air out of your belly. Breathing in through your nose. Holding for 4 seconds...and breathing out through your mouth.
You will now be starting to feel calmer. Your challenge is that over the next few hours take 5 minutes to undertake this breathing exercise. This will help you to stay calm.
The last thing I want you to do is to reach out to others. Think about the people in your life who can support you to stay safe towards yourself and your whānau around you. Being safe is the most important goal right now.
