Managing negative self-talk

May 23, 2024May 23, 2024 ~ 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.

All-or-nothing thinking

March 28, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Drop it.

One of the things that can get in the way of our self-care practices is all-or-nothing thinking.

All-or-nothing thinking is an unhelpful thinking pattern that we may be engaging in. We can recognize when we’re doing this when we’re thinking in extremes: we’re either a success or a failure. Our performance was perfect or terrible. If we’re not one hundred percent, then we’re a zero. If we can’t exercise for an hour, then we won’t do it at all.

That last example creates a majority of the reasons why most people don’t engage in self-care practices. Some people might have an unrealistic idea – an ideal – of what self-care looks like for them.

And when they can’t meet that ideal, they don’t do ANYTHING.

For example, because Sara thinks she has to exercise for an hour 4 times a week, when she has to stay 20 minutes later at work than expected one afternoon, she decides that she can’t exercise for a full hour before going home to make dinner, so she doesn’t go to the gym at all that day. And because she didn’t go to the gym that day, her gym momentum takes a hit and she doesn’t go again for a week and a half.

If Sara dropped her all-or-nothing thinking, she could’ve gone to the gym and exercised for 30 minutes – even 20 minutes would have been beneficial.

Or because Kevin thinks he has to meditate for 30 minutes every time he sits down to practice, when he finds himself with only 10 minutes one day, he skips his practice entirely. And his meditation practice momentum takes a hit and he finds himself skipping practice for several days because he “doesn’t have time.”

If Kevin dropped his all-or-nothing thinking, he’d recognize that meditating for 10 minutes can still be beneficial.

Or because Charlie thinks she has to stick to her diet 100% or it won’t work, when she finds herself eating two more cookies than she planned on Tuesday, she quits her whole diet for the next two weeks. Quitting won’t get us to our goal faster.

If Charlie dropped her all-or-nothing thinking, she could instead think, “OK, I ate two extra cookies today, but I can still stick with my plan for dinner. And tomorrow, I can stick with my meal plan too. I don’t have to give up just because I went off part of my plan today.”

It’s great to set ambitious goals for ourselves. But not at the expense of us meeting those goals. It’s about having realistic plans for the time we DO have, with the decisions we CAN make, and with the CAPACITY we have.

With any practice, consistency and commitment are important. Showing up is key. Even for 5 minutes.

So when we want to have a movement goal of exercising every day and we only have 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening to do something, we DO something during those 5 minutes.

It could be 10 pushups and 10 squats, twice a day.

It could be a 5 minute walk twice a day.

It could be 5 minutes on a bike/treadmill in the morning and 5 minutes stretching at night.

But we DO it when the time comes. We show up for ourselves when the time comes.

Showing up for ourselves consistently builds trust in ourselves to do what we say we’ll do. Even if it’s only for 5 minutes at a time.

And what we may find is that those 5 minutes build strength, energy, and motivation to extend our movement time. We might find ourselves wanting to make more time to build on what we started and do 10 minutes at a time. Or find a 30-minute time chunk each day. We won’t know what’s possible for us until we try.

And still, maybe it happens that one day, we don’t even have 5 minutes and we only have 2 minutes. We can still do SOMEthing during those 2 minutes to move our body around intentionally.

So we can drop the all-or-nothing thinking. We can start having more realistic ideas of what our self-care plan looks like. And then we show up for those plans. We show up for ourselves.

Your turn: Where in your life might you be engaging in all-or-nothing thinking? Do you find yourself wondering why you’re not engaging in the self-care practices you KNOW you can do? Are your self-care plans realistic or unrealistic to fit into your life right now? How can you create self-care practices that FIT into your life exactly the way it is right now?

Dig Deeper: In what ways might you need to make changes in your life to help support your self-care practices? (Hint: making those changes IS part of self-care.)

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Your morning revamped

February 2, 2023 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Step into your day.

Do you look at your phone and check emails, the news, social media, or text messages the minute you wake up?

This used to be my morning routine: the alarm on my phone would go off. I’d turn it off and since my phone was in my hand, I would immediately check my work emails. I wanted to see what my day might look like.

It seems like a productive thing to do, right? To “prepare for your day.”

I want to offer that when you do this, your day might appear to “come at” you.

All the requests from other people and all the time you need to spend on emailing others for info, looking for info, and creating responses once you have the info. Along with the other meetings and projects you had planned to do that day–or last minute meetings and projects that have popped up overnight.

Not to mention what fills our minds after looking at the news, social media, or text messages as well.

It might feel overwhelming. Starting your day immediately feeling overwhelmed likely doesn’t contribute to productivity in a way that serves you.

What would happen if you didn’t look at your phone and start having information come at you the minute you wake up?

I’ve talked to clients who said they feel anxious just thinking about not checking their phones/emails first thing.

What if instead, you have an alarm that’s separate from your phone? And what if you took five minutes after waking up to start your day in a way that YOU WANT?

This could look like intentional breathing, a short meditation, or some gentle movement and stretches for your body. For five minutes.

It could look like lying in bed and recalling a dream you had or just savoring those five minutes for yourself in whatever way you want.

It could look like writing down your thoughts or drinking a glass of water to rehydrate your body and feeling it flow through your system. Five minutes for yourself.

It could look any way you want it to look. This creates space for you to step into your day the way you want to. Instead of having your day come at you.
Your turn: How would your days change if you stepped into them the way you want to? What would happen if you start by exploring with five minutes to yourself at the start of your day, without your phone? And what if you could stretch that to 10 minutes? What about 20 or 30 minutes? What would you do to empower your morning with time away from your phone?

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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 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.