check-in – The Healing Modalities

Practices to try.

When I was first embarking on my self-care journey and figuring out what self-care meant and looked like for me, I had some help along the way.

I received ideas from my therapist, the books I read, workshops I attended, and my holistic life coaching program. I created the 3 Pillars of Transformative Self-Care. One of the three pillars is how we speak to and about ourselves.

Many of us have a habit of negative self-talk that we might not even be aware of. Some of us are aware of it, but don’t know what to do about it. Today, I’m sharing three helpful practices around how we speak to and about ourselves, in case they’re helpful to you, where you’re at.

If you have any specific area you’re working on in your life and would like a relevant practice for that, please let me know here and I’ll share the requests and responses/practices in future emails.

Practice #1

I used to race through my days and not pause to check-in with myself. I didn’t even know that checking-in with myself was an option, or something that could be helpful to me. But checking-in with ourselves is a powerful reminder that we matter, that what we’re feeling and needing is important.

To check-in with yourself, you can ask, “What am I feeling? When I feel this way, what do I need? What is the kindest thing I can do for myself in this moment?”

Practice #2

Most of us are very busy seeking approval from outside of ourselves so we try to do all the things – and we exhaust ourselves or think we don’t have time for self-care because we’re so “busy” all the time. We forget – or don’t even recognize – that our own approval of ourselves matters the most. Because we can’t control what other people think about us, no matter how much we DO, or the circumstances that grant us approval. WE are the only guarantee of approval when we seek it. So why not practice accepting our own approval?

We can do this by practicing the affirmation or mantra, “I approve of myself.” Repeat multiple times daily.

Practice #3

I’ve shared this practice before, but it’s worth repeating because of its power. This is mirror work.

– Stand in front of a mirror.
– Look yourself in the eyes.
– Say “thank you” to yourself.
– What do you feel when you do that? Is it easy? Hard? Comforting? Uncomfortable? Cringey? Why?
– Practice at least twice a day until you feel comfortable saying “thank you” to yourself – where you accept your own thanks, smile, and feel good while doing it.

This practice helps us appreciate ourselves and to value what we see in the mirror when we stand in front of it.

All of these practices can support us in caring for ourselves more by helping us connect to ourselves and remember that we matter, that we are valuable, that we are worthy of self-care.

Your turn: Pick one practice to engage with this week. Next week, choose another one. Make one up for yourself, if that feels good to you. These are ways you can quiet the negative self-talk and strengthen the compassionate, supportive self-talk, so that you can start caring for yourself even more.

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What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

😑

Sometimes, I just don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like doing “the thing,” whatever it happens to be.

For example, I didn’t feel like writing this post this week. I kept thinking, “What do I have to say? I’ve said everything that I want to say. I don’t have any new ideas.”

I felt unmotivated to come up with something new. But because I’m committed to myself and my business, I decided to tell the truth and have that be a topic I’m writing to you about this week.

We all struggle with those times when we say to ourselves, “I just don’t feel like it!” And then we don’t do whatever it is that we told ourselves we’d do.

And sometimes, that’s OK. When we check-in with ourselves and find that we really don’t have the energy or capacity to do something, we can choose not to do it.

We just want to make sure that it’s intentional, on purpose, and not just an automatic response, a way for us to push the “easy” button on something that might be really important to us in the long run.

What I mean is, are we getting in our own way and self-sabotaging in that moment OR are we choosing to take care of ourselves in that moment?

Because sometimes doing something to take care of ourselves might be hard – not easy. And doing something self-sabotaging is usually easy. Like eating that fourth cookie, or having that third drink, or blowing off the gym, our walk, our yoga class, our meditation practice – or not writing a weekly blog post.

So we really want to check-in with ourselves and ask, “Do I really not have the energy or capacity for this? Or do I just want to do the easy thing? What might be the long-term benefit of doing / not doing this thing?”

Sometimes we will choose to do the easy thing. If we do, we choose that on purpose and then we don’t need to beat ourselves up for it. Because choosing the easy thing and beating ourselves up for it doesn’t help anyone. In fact, it probably defeats the purpose of choosing the easy thing if we’re just going to beat ourselves up for it. Might as well choose the hard thing, then!

So I could’ve chosen the easy thing and not written a post this week. Would anyone have noticed? Maybe. Maybe not. But I chose to write this post and tell the truth about not wanting to write this post as an example of what’s possible.

(And honestly, when I finally sat down to write this, it wasn’t that hard!)

We can be intentional about our decisions as acts of care for ourselves, instead of automatically pushing the “easy” button. And we get to know the difference between self-sabotaging actions and self-care actions. We can always choose differently next time.

Your turn: Are you clear about which of your choices are self-sabotaging or self-caring? If not, you can get clearer for yourself. Each time you have the thought, “I don’t feel like it,” get curious with yourself. Why don’t you feel like it? Is it about caring for yourself or is it about pushing the “easy” button for yourself (aka, possibly a self-sabotaging action)?

Ultimately, you get to decide which one it is for you. Asking the last question, “What might be the long-term benefit of doing / not doing this thing?” could also help you find more clarity.

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Episode 2 of my show “Get Out of Your Own Way” is on today at 3:30pm Pacific time! And you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, by searching my name, April Yee. Listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Podcast Addict, and more!

Tag: check-in

Managing negative self-talk

I didn’t want to write this post