Enhance Your Wellness: Harnessing Inner Strengths for Self Exploration and Development.
Embracing the Unfamiliar
Navigating through a situation either to manage or to survive is a common theme in therapy. There are several misconceptions surrounding coping mechanisms. Some believe that coping skills are only considered as such when they are used in a mystical or commercial manner to navigate a situation positively. For instance, deep breathing to manage an anxiety attack or counting backward from ten to recover from extreme frustration. This blog aims not to discredit the effectiveness of techniques like deep breathing or counting backward but rather to encourage you to explore the various creative ways you can cope or resource within yourself, some of which you may not even be aware of.
A significant amount of time in therapy is spent gathering insight to understand what clients can do to navigate tough moments. Often, goals are centered around shifting behaviors from non-desired to desired. Due to societal norms and pressures, clients may not always recognize that they are engaging in some form of coping. In this blog, I will discuss some common ways that clients have already resourced within themselves.
1. Music
Music has the remarkable ability to immerse you in a moment. It possesses properties that help connect the mind and body, alleviating unwanted or uncomfortable symptoms, emotions, or feelings. Depending on your emotional connection to it, music has the power to help you be resourceful to yourself. Music can help access historical memories and moments that trigger certain feelings and body responses, ranging from relaxation to sadness and excitement. Don’t believe me? Give it a try!
“Create a list of your favorite songs, these will be your go-tos, songs you listen to often or consider notable. After identifying your list, take a moment to spend some time with each song and listen intentionally. Intentional listening involves listening with your entire body, mind, and soul. Allow the music to pass through your ears and imagine it occupying various parts of your body, noticing any tensing or releasing of muscles happening. Notice your judgments of yourself or lack thereof. Most importantly, notice your feelings or emotions and the mental space you have shifted to. How does it differ from where you were previously before you started listening to the music? After the song is finished, document all the things you noticed about yourself and your immersive experience as described above.”
The takeaway here is that your highlighted experience of music happens unconsciously every time. This explains why when a song with a not-so-good memory, moment, or feeling plays, it has the power to dysregulate you. Think about it, how could you change your playlist to help you resource more positive feelings?
2. Movement
Movement is one of the most overlooked forms of coping. Research tells us that movement is linked to many healing properties related to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. Societal stigmas make certain types of movement and their intensity seem more worthy of doing. I am here to say that all movement has the power to help. No matter what me and a client seem to talk about in sessions, we always shift to a place where movement has had the power to help decrease the intensity of symptoms. Some overlooked movements can look like tapping the tops of kneecaps, fidgeting with a keychain, pacing back and forth, dancing to a song, or even rocking from side to side. All of these are methods of self-soothing and resourcing within. These are moments when the mind and body find an opportunity to align and connect to serve as comfort. Think about how movement as a resource in the way that has been described, in what ways have you been able to connect with movement that helped you deescalate?
3. Connection
The last but certainly not least method that I will cover in this blog is going to be about Connection. Connection and the various ways in which we connect with many sources. Connection according to Oxford Languages is; “a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else”. In my practice, I find that connection is often the foundation of feeling better feelings but it can also be the foundation of feeling not so great feelings. Whichever one it ends up being it is always a gateway to healing. I like to take time with you to explore connection as a means to support and identify the many ways in which it can look. Examining connection often involves thinking about things that have the power to shift the way you are feeling as well as what you are thinking about that in most cases have an impact on your urges. It could feel like a distraction but it could also just feel like a shift in energy and a method of processing a difficult, uncomfortable, situation or feeling. Connection isn’t always about people. Our ability to connect lies within our ability to lean in and be in the moment with something that ignites our senses and demands our attention. Examine your connections by leaning into one and thinking about how it tends to impact your emotions, the things you are thinking about and what you are feeling the urge to do. Then ask yourself “do I like how I feel” and if not “how can I shift my connection habit to feel something else to feel something else”. I have included here a list and it is definitely not finite or exclusive but it is a start to help you begin to examine your connections. Nature Animals Media; television shows, youtube, social media websites, movies, music, radio, podcasts, Literary projects Podcasts, Theatre, Sports, Art activities, Physical Fitness.
How To Believe in Yourself
It happens when you decide it happens! - LS
LaToya Sevier LCPC
Normalizing the Unknown
In my practice of holding space for people I often have the pleasure of understanding that the core of most issues can be related to worthiness or the concept of self-worth. I operate a practice dedicated to trauma informed spaces. This is just a fancy way of saying that I care about all of the terrible things that you went through, I also understand that those terrible things have had an impact on how you see yourself which also contribute to how you see the world! Often times when a person has been through consistent unstable situations or consistent life adjustments they become accustomed to surviving. Surviving is exhausting both mentally and physically. Surviving means that you are spending most of your time in fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Meaning that you are not in charge and lack the ability to be intentional and experience the fullness of life and its moments. I say all of this to say that many things happen that you don’t have control over and that kind of pushes you into a place of being so disconnected from yourself that you hardly know how to believe in yourself. In this blog I will discuss 4 ways to get you started in the practice of believing in yourself.
1. Words Matter
When I think about all of the times I have spent sharing spaces with others I think about the moments that we spend with making things make sense and understanding the words and the relationship we have to the words that we utilize. Of course, language is not only words but it’s also emotions, feelings and actions that follow. This step involves paying attention to your language by using the words that you speak and think and examine how they connect to some of the things you do. Here in this space of exploring you will invite yourself to slow things down and learn about how you communicate and how it impacts what you do or do not do. In this space you can learn how to slow down to pay attention to how things connect which leads us to the next tip!
2.Using Healthier Words!
After you have decided that words matter it is imperative that you challenge your vocabulary especially when you are speaking about or to yourself. There are various ways to do this but most of them involve purposely considering yourself. Treating yourself gently and affirming and validating yourself no matter what. Yes!- Even when you make small mistakes in which you believe you knew better, it is still very possible to consider that it was a mistake and really dope people make mistakes. Consider the fact that a mistake is something that helps with the process by challenging the notion that mistakes are bad or any other negative perception related to fearful avoidance of making a mistake. Imagine that mistakes are opportunities to broaden your horizon and create new meanings for mistakes!
3.Practice Makes Progress
Mistakes are the inevitable piece of this guide. When we try something new the one thing that we can be sure about is the fact that we will make mistakes. Mistakes often communicate inadequacy or other negative messages that fit in to the not good enough group but in the process of believing in yourself you must invite yourself to become comfortable with making mistakes. There is no real way to learn than by learning through trial and error. While making mistakes give yourself permission to have grace. Grace that insists that you can give yourself a pass in hopes that next time you will do better.
4. Support, Support, Support!
This last tip is a tip that leans into being vulnerable enough to receive support. Sometimes we are so close to ourselves and we know ourselves so well that we forget that we have committed to change. Having a healthy support system to affirm you and to also hold you accountable in ways that you cannot show up for yourself. Maybe you forgot that you were using positive affirming language and you are having some negative feelings about something that you have done; your identified support system is someone who can remind you to have grace and challenge you to use healthier language creating space for you to learn from your mistake! Support systems can be hard to come by but if you start with someone you trust or someone that you spend a good amount of time with that could be your answer.
These are some tips that can support you in the journey of believing yourself. This is not a full proof method that guarantees you to believe in yourself it is only tips that can help guide you in a healthier direction. As with any guide it is important to understand your unique circumstances and situations that make you who you are! As a professional I invite you to take a moment and honor your circumstances. If you need support and guidance I strongly recommend booking an appointment with Actually ME Therapy and Consultation, we have space for you!