Tag: kindness

Managing negative self-talk

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

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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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

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.

3 Pillars of Transformative Self-Care

~ The Healing Modalities ~ 3 Comments

Relate to Self.

We’ve heard the term “self-care” being thrown about somewhat recklessly lately. It could mean anything from taking a bubble bath, getting a massage, going out in nature, or drinking a frothy, sugar-filled drink. 

Yes, those are all things we can do to take care of ourselves – unless we’re cutting down on sugar, then maybe pass on the frothy, sugar-filled drink! 

The way I view self-care is in a transformative way. And there are three pillars of transformative self-care:

  1. 1. How we think about ourselves
  2. 2. How we speak about and to ourselves
  3. 3. How we treat ourselves 

All this adds up to how we relate to ourselves – our relationship with our Self. 

How we think about ourselves will determine how we speak about and to ourselves. If we mainly think thoughts that reflect poorly on ourselves, we will likely speak poorly about and to ourselves. This shows up in self-denigrating language spoken out loud to others, like “I’m so lame, you’ll never guess what I did yesterday!” Or to ourselves, “I can’t believe I messed that up again! Why am I so stupid?!” 

How we think about ourselves also impacts how we treat ourselves. If we don’t think we’re deserving of care, we will likely not take caring actions towards ourselves, even if we know what to do to take care of ourselves. This shows up in how we blow ourselves off by not doing what we say we want to do. For example, we scroll on social media when we have plans to take a walk instead. Or we eat three cookies when we said we’d only have one. We don’t take our commitments to ourselves seriously. We flake on ourselves. We self-sabotage. 

And then we wonder why our relationship with ourselves can feel so frustrating. Why we never do what we say we’ll do. Why we end up feeling disappointed with ourselves. Why we feel discouraged about our goals. Why we keep making decisions out of alignment with ourselves.

We can start to build ourselves back up, to transform how we care for ourselves. We had a strong sense of ourselves when we were little kids. Over the years, most of us got that knocked out of us unintentionally by certain adults, society, peers, our culture, the media. 

We can think about ourselves intentionally and with kindness and care. Start treating ourselves like our 5-year-old self who is just starting to learn more about the world and other people. What would we say to that 5-year-old when she (or he or they) makes a mistake? Or when she is excited about something she’s doing? Or when she is sad because something didn’t go her way? 

This is one way to engage in transformative self-care: by becoming aware of our relationship with ourselves and to start nurturing it even more.

Your turn: What do you want to think about yourself on purpose, with kindness and care? Here’s a clue: What would you love to hear someone else tell you about yourself? What if you tell that to yourself and you believe it? How can you practice believing it even more?

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

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.

More self-confidence?

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Your thoughts about you.

How many of us want to have more self-confidence? There’s a difference between confidence and self-confidence.

Confidence comes from experience. If we’ve done something well before, when we do that thing again, we’ll likely have confidence that we can do it. The thought might be, “I’ve done this before and I can do it this time.”

Self-confidence comes from within. Even if we haven’t done something before, our thoughts about ourselves and our abilities can create self-confidence that we can figure something out. Or if we can’t figure it out, we’ll see it as a learning process, and we won’t beat ourselves up for that. 

Self-confidence comes from having our own back and what we’ll tell ourselves when something doesn’t go the way we thought it would. The thought might be, “I tried my best, I learned what didn’t work, and I’ll try it again to see what might work differently. I know I can figure it out.” 

Confidence and self-confidence are feelings. Our thoughts create our feelings. So if we want to feel confident and self-confident, we’ll need to think thoughts that create those feelings.

Many of us struggle with self-confidence because we’re used to telling ourselves mean and critical things when we think we’ve “messed up” somehow. Thoughts like:

  • “I’m just not good enough for this.”
  • “There must be something wrong with me.”
  • “Nothing ever goes the way I want it to, so why keep trying?”
  • “This is too hard for me.”
  • “They think I’m incapable.”

Those thoughts will create a feeling of disappointment, self-doubt, discouragement, or defeat. Are those feelings close to the confidence or self-confidence we want to feel? No. So let’s try different thoughts. Thoughts like:

  • “I’m figuring this out and I can keep trying.”
  • “I’m learning what works and what doesn’t.”
  • “It didn’t go the way I wanted it to this time, but let’s see if this other way works . . .”
  • “This is hard and I can do hard things.”
  • “I’m as capable as I need to be.”
  • “I’m deciding to believe in myself no matter what.”

When we become aware of the thoughts we think about ourselves, we can choose them on purpose. We can choose thoughts that serve us, that are kinder to ourselves than the ones we might be used to thinking. 

Your turn: Are you aware of the thoughts you think about yourself? What thoughts about yourself serve you? Which ones don’t? What are some slightly kinder thoughts you could choose instead? What are some much kinder–and still believable thoughts–you can choose instead?

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

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.

Compassionate or Judgy

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Which will you choose?

How does our self-compassion motivate us differently than our self-judgment?

Most of us are used to judging or punishing ourselves into action. This might sound like: 

“I’m so gross, I need to workout extra hard today.” 

“I’m such a loser, I have to figure out how to make more money.” 

“I’m so inadequate, I need to find a partner.” 

“I’m a mess, I have to get this right.”

Whatever it is, we think mean things about ourselves in order to “motivate” us to do what we think we need to do in order to feel better about ourselves. “If I stop beating myself up, if I accept myself the way I am, I’ll get complacent and lazy, and never change.” 

We think we need to beat ourselves up in order to take helpful actions. We might be in a rush to get “over there” because we think that’s when we’ll feel better about ourselves. Beating ourselves up may have gotten us results in the past, but at what cost to the relationship with ourselves?

When we have a self-judging narrative, everything we do can feel punishing:

  • Instead of seeing a healthy plate of food that will nourish our body, we see a restrictive, limited diet
  • Instead of doing a workout and celebrating what our body can do, we see it as a way to burn calories and whip ourselves into shape–sometimes even as a penalty for “not eating right”
  • Instead of staying happy in a new relationship, we find ways to prove that we’re not worthy of happiness
  • Instead of becoming aware of how we talk to ourselves, we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up!

Kindness, love, and respect for ourselves doesn’t start when we hit a certain goal of ours. 

In fact, when we do hit that goal without doing the work of self-compassion and acceptance, the reward will likely be temporary and we might still not like ourselves the way we thought we would when we finally get “over there” by hitting that goal. It’s because achieving goals doesn’t create our feelings. Our thoughts create our feelings. 

Kindness, love, and respect for ourselves can start right now, exactly as we are. 

Decide that that’s possible. 

When we have compassion and acceptance for ourselves exactly as we are at this time, we can start making the changes we want to see in our lives from a place of care, love, and patience. It’s about our relationship with ourselves. So that in the long-run, we are where we want to be with ourselves and in our lives, loving and accepting ourselves along the way. No matter what.

Your turn: Are you open to feeling accepting of yourself as you are? If not, what’s getting in the way? What are some of the self-judging thoughts you’re aware of? What are some self-compassionate thoughts you can have about yourself instead? What would happen today if you found some self-compassion for yourself in a situation where you usually beat yourself up?

Feeling challenged by finding more self-compassionate thoughts? Let’s talk about it. Book an exploratory session here to build your self-compassion practice.

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

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.

When you beat yourself up

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Stop it.

How does our sense of self-compassion motivate us differently than our self-judgment?

Most of us are used to judging or punishing ourselves into action. This might sound like: 

“I’m so disgusting, I need to workout extra hard today.” 

“I’m such a loser, I have to figure out how to make more money.” 

“I’m so inadequate, I need to find a partner.” 

“I’m a mess, I have to get this right.”

Whatever it is, we think mean things about ourselves in order to “motivate” us to do what we think we need to do in order to feel better about ourselves. “If I stop beating myself up, if I accept myself the way I am, I’ll get complacent and lazy, and never change.”

We think we need to beat ourselves up in order to take helpful actions. We might be in a rush to get “over there” because we think that’s when we’ll feel better about ourselves. Beating ourselves up may have gotten us results in the past, but at what cost to the relationship with ourselves? 

When we have a self-judging narrative, everything we do can feel punishing:

  • Instead of seeing a healthy plate of food that will nourish our body, we see a restrictive, limited diet
  • Instead of doing a workout and celebrating what our body can do, we see it as a way to burn calories and whip ourselves into shape–sometimes even as a penalty for “not eating right”
  • Instead of staying happy in a new relationship, we find ways to prove that we’re not worthy of happiness
  • Instead of becoming aware of how we talk to ourselves, we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up!

Kindness, love, and respect for ourselves doesn’t start when we hit a certain goal of ours. 

In fact, when we do hit that goal without doing the work of self-compassion and acceptance, the reward will likely be temporary and we might still not like ourselves the way we thought we would when we finally get “over there” by hitting that goal. It’s because achieving goals doesn’t create our feelings. Our thoughts create our feelings. 

Kindness, love, and respect for ourselves can start right now, exactly as we are. 

Decide that that’s possible. 

When we have compassion and acceptance for ourselves exactly as we are at this time, we can start making the changes we want to see in our lives from a place of care, love, and patience. It’s about our relationship with ourselves. So that in the long-run, we are where we want to be with ourselves and in our lives, loving and accepting ourselves along the way. No matter what.

Your turn: Are you open to feeling accepting of yourself as you are? If not, what’s getting in the way? What are some of the self-judging thoughts you’re aware of? What are some self-compassionate thoughts you can have about yourself instead? What would happen today if you found some self-compassion for yourself in a situation where you usually beat yourself up?

Feeling challenged by finding more self-compassionate thoughts? Book an exploratory session here to build your self-compassion practice.

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

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.