Author: Holly Mae Haddock

Categories
Mental Health

How to Improve Your Mindset: 5 Tips for People with Trauma 

It’s helpful on this rather demanding human journey to have a positive attitude, right? If you have a great outlook on life, you are more likely to have good experiences. 

To change our mindsets, it is recommended to try on the idea that what takes place around us as seemingly independent events, as well as our feelings about those events, are inseparably connected to our beliefs about ourselves and the world. 

The trouble is that most people with trauma are imprinted with the mindset that they do not have any power, not even the power to change their own mindsets. So this can be a tricky space for us.

I want to be very clear that I am not saying that bad things that happen to you are your fault. There is genuine victimization and abuse in this world. Harm and trespass is not our fault. 

Especially important is to recognize that terrible things happened to us when we were too young or otherwise disempowered to defend ourselves, and that these experiences left us with “bad mindsets”.

We can’t change what happened in the past. The area where we do have influence over our lives is when and where we may be re-creating our victimization now, through the ways that our deep beliefs shape our experiences.  

The most problematic mindsets tend to be variations on the following themes: 

-It’s all my fault (self-scapegoating)

-I deserve bad stuff to happen to me (turning on the self)

-Nothing I do makes any difference so it’s useless to try (helplessness)

-I have no value/I am bad (self-devaluation)

-I am abandoned/unloved/alone (isolation)

-the world is all bad/unsafe/scary (splitting)

-my experience is controlled by you/someone other than me (agency is located outside the self)

That is by no means a comprehensive list but if you recognize any of those themes, please understand that there is trauma at play, which is largely the case with those of us who have a harder time changing our mindsets, and consequently our experiences in the world, than others may seem to. 

Once you’ve identified what might be the core mindset, think about if you’re willing to change it, and if you are, go ahead and replace it. If you’re not really willing, work on becoming willing. (This is more often the case than we might think, because our core beliefs feel like they protect us.) 

Once you’re willing, the changing of the mindset is literally what it sounds like. Identify the mindset you want to have instead, and replace it, like a car battery. 

“Instead of believing that I am inherently bad, I will now uphold and empower the belief that I am inherently good.” 

Repeat it enough times, say it and write it and think it and act as if it’s true, and eventually it will become your own. Like breaking in a new pair of shoes.

Here are a few mindset changes I have found helpful, which you might like to adopt, too: 

1. The mother of all mindset changes: Mindsets can be changed.

Mindsets are changeable. Neuroplasticity is a thing. Trauma is healable. Humans can learn. We are resilient. It’s amazing what can change in a short time of doing things in a new way. 

2. The Me-to-us mindset change: This is a shared human experience.

Whatever I face is a universal human experience. I may feel alone, but I am actually one among many. I experience this along with many others. Together we will improve this. 

3. The Silver lining mindset change: Every experience has a positive aspect.

If I am finding it hard to change a mindset, perhaps I am not yet done with this mindset’s positive side. What is the hidden positive side of this mindset? Having this mindset allows me to feel…to do…to experience…OK, I accept why I am still holding onto this one.

4. The Fake it until You Make it Mindset change: Acting “as if” really works

It works to practice and try and fake it. All baby mammals learn this way, by pretending to do what their parents do. One day, you can do it for real. 

5. The Make-it-A-Habit Mindset: Easy Does Do It.

It is repetition, not strain, that turns a new behavior into second nature. To make something feel easy, turn it into a habit, by doing a little bit in an easy, almost effortless way, every day at the same time for at least 21 days. For example: you might write your new belief down 12 times, every day for 21 days, and see what happens.

Remember: you can do it, it can be done, and the whole world benefits from every tiny bit of progress you make. Thank you for your courage to change!

Categories
Mental Health

Why Depression should be taken Seriously

The most tragic thing about not taking depression seriously is when we don’t get to receive its gift. 

What depression presents us with is deep and beautiful – the great boon of being redirected away from all that’s wrong for us, back towards our Selves. 

I’m talking about our truest, biggest, deepest, most satisfying Selves. What’s real within us is a treasure; depression is what it feels like when we’re out of touch with that. 

Harm happens to us gradually or quickly when we don’t listen to depression. In extreme cases, we hurt ourselves. Sometimes we succeed at finally destroying ourselves once and for all. 

So if we’re feeling down, it’s important not to brush it off. If we brush it off too long, it will do damage to our core.

If you are depressed, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with you. Depression is feedback from your true nature. Something in you is saying no to something about your life. Depression is a big, huge, sacred no. 

The gift comes when you ask yourself, if this is my psyche saying no, what would I say yes to? 

Depression will say nope to everything but your true life. Depression says: “I want to live my real life, and I recognize that this is not it. Let me go find my true purpose and live it.”

Here are three ways of thinking about depression which may feel helpful for opening up the gift, if it’s knocking at your door these days.

1. Depression is about death – and rebirth!

Depression is death energy. This can mean a lot of things, but definitely something within you is dying to make way for the new. If we are not behaving supportively for this transformation, if we are resisting or clinging to old ways of being, depression can get quite fierce as it tries to get our acknowledgement of its truth.

Remembering that depression is a sacred nope, ask yourself: What am I saying no to? What needs to die within me? What is coming to an end? Is there a part within me who doesn’t want to live the way I live now? Why doesn’t she? Is there anything I could do, some change I could make, that would make her feel excited to live? 

The answer might surprise you, and give you valuable clues about what you’re really here to do. Your depression is a part within you who knows you are in your nature, as well as what your real mission and purpose is here. 

2. Depression is about anger

As the adage goes, depression is anger turned inwards. If you are depressed, you are angry about something, but that anger has collapsed inwards, and does not have the sense of possibility and power normally connected to anger. 

Anger goes inwards when we do not approve of our own anger. If we cannot side with ourselves, and we tell ourselves we are wrong for being mad, it can easily turn into a black depression. 

From the starting place of depression, conscious, vivid, lively anger on our own behalf is a healthy destination. This anger is not for acting out towards others, but for our own learning about who and what we are in our deepest nature.

So see if you can find out what you may be mad about & validate your right to be angry about it. 

The information you want to get from yourself is: which of my vitally important boundaries have been crossed? Which of my universal human needs are not being met?

The information you get in this way helps you to see who you are and what you need to be yourself more fully in this world.

3. Depression is a call to go inwards: let yourself do that.

Finally, give yourself the darkness you need. Depression asks you to stop focusing energy towards the bright, noisy externals of your life, and to pull inwards.

You may like to treat a depressed period like a psychological flu: something that needs stillness, rest, quiet time and solitude. 

Turn and face the darkness that is already within you, see what treasures are there when your eyes adjust. Don’t push yourself to be on the surface of life when you are being called to go underground.

~~

The gift in the end is this: if you are living your life “wrong”, you will feel it as depression. If you are living your life “right” (according to you and you only!) you will feel it as joy, energy, purpose and alignment. 

It’s that simple. Depression, as awful as it feels, is the best friend ever. A friend that tells us the truth, about how small we are living compared to our true, magnificent size. May we all learn to respect depression’s voice.

Categories
Trauma

Childhood Trauma and Addiction

Post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse are highly correlated. That’s true whether we’re talking about the acute traumas sustained by war veterans or whether we mean the chronic psychological wounds of those surviving childhood abuse and neglect. 

No one intends to be an addict. Many substances are addictive to humans just because of what’s in the chemistry, yes. But the reason addiction can get such a foothold within us in the first place is because it offers an answer to a deep, painful need. 

Even though addiction is the opposite of healing, we can still recognize that what a person is trying to do when they use a substance is find a way to survive a level of burden that would otherwise fragment them into oblivion. 

Substances change our bodily states, our emotions, and our thoughts. They also reduce the volume on pain, psychological or physical. People with trauma need extra help with all of those things. 

That’s because those with developmental trauma, which is another way of saying childhood trauma, are impaired in their ability to manage their inner experiences and their outer behaviors. 

As the name implies, developmental trauma interrupts our development, and we don’t get to grow up to the point of being a fully functional adult with the ability to make executive decisions and self-soothe our feelings.

Traumatized people do not complete their growing; rather parts of us get split off and left in the past at various stations where overwhelming events were too big to be resolved. 

This splitting off is also a way of understanding that the traumatized person does not feel like a whole person. Rather, trauma turns us into a jumble of shadows, parts and portions of us who stay in back in our traumatizing childhoods even though we are physically adults now. 

This is part of why it’s so important to refrain from judging addiction. Addiction is devastating and horrible to the addict and it wrecks lives, there is no debating that. But as with all problematic phenomena, it’s good to understand why and how this negative thing comes into being. 

Addiction is rampant in our world because it is a safety seeking behavior. 

Trauma is the opposite of feeling safe, in fact it’s one way to describe exactly what your body is doing when you have a stress response to a situation: the body is telling you, and preparing you physiologically, to address something that is a threat to your life. 

For children, it’s important to remember, disrupted attachment bonds are a threat to life, so the stress response can kick in over situations that wouldn’t be life threatening to a fully grown adult, such as being left alone too long or making a caregiver angry. 

When the biological, physiological response created by an event gets trapped in the body, and is not given the chance to resolve, it becomes frozen in the body and a part of the self splits off to protect and defend against conscious awareness of those thoughts and feelings. 

Repeated stress also creates a lifelong habit of overriding awareness of one’s own inner states. If you’re a child, trapped for the next 10 years in a household of daily threats to your wellbeing, you will develop the skill of not taking the action that the body wants you to do (run away or fight back). Instead, you will learn to go still and numb. 

If it’s not safe enough to run away (because we’d die without adult protection and care) and to fight back would make our situation worse (we’d be further punished or abused), we are left with freezing as our only option for surviving overwhelming events.  Doing this over and over in childhood turns us into frozen adults with no idea how to feel what we need to feel, make good decisions, or move on from our troubles. 

Most damagingly, we never learn to use our own power and agency, but rather remain in a feeling of perennial helplessness, the essence of the freeze response. 

Being in chronic states of fear, anger, and helplessness all create a kind of inner pain which sets a person up to fall into the trap of addiction. So let’s try to give ourselves and each other a break, where possible, and see that even though addiction is a huge problem, it exists in our lives because of an even bigger problem, the trauma epidemic. 

The good news in all of this: addiction is treatable, and so is PTSD. At Villa Kali Ma, we will treat both conditions hand-in-hand. Please do come if you need help,  you are not alone. 

 

Categories
Trauma

Childhood Trauma in Adults

What happens to traumatized children when they grow up into adults? 

Mental and physical health problems, addiction, and relationship troubles are typical.

But one key impact stands out above the rest: traumatized people tend to re-enact their childhood experiences. They can get trapped in unconsciously re-creating their pasts.  

Traumatized people need, developmentally speaking, to re-experience the bad feelings and sensations they experienced repeatedly in childhood so that they can resolve those topics. 

In essence, we cannot fully grow up until we master the art of safety, something people traumatized in childhood didn’t get a chance to do. 

Mastering the art of safety involves several developing several key abilities: the ability to run away from a danger too big to fight, the ability to fight (to defend and protect oneself when the danger is fightable), and the ability to return to feeling safe and good in the body once the danger is over. 

Traumatization comes from repeated, unresolved stress due to exposure to danger without ever getting to learn how to run away, fight, and return to feeling good. 

The stress response is automatic, unconscious and biological (it’s not a choice, nor is it governed by willpower). It’s what happens when the body prepares you to take action to overcome a threat. Your body prepares you by flooding you with the neurotransmitters and hormones that your body uses to exert physical energy. 

An overwhelming threat to your life can be a direct attack, like physical abuse by a caregiver, but it can also be a lack of what is needed to survive (things like love and attention, which are necessary for human development). 

Whenever something occurs in life which represents a threat to your survival, the body responds with this kind of stress, as the body is mobilizing you to take action. 

The stress response isn’t a problem, in and of itself. It is healthy to respond with stress when there is something that needs to be dealt with. The problem is when that mobilization energy doesn’t ever turn into a successful action, and therefore never gets spent and fully metabolized. 

Key is learning agency: that we ourselves have the power to create safety. When we learn that we can run away from danger, or that we can fight it off, and that we can take positive action to experience safety, we have learned an important life skill. 

When you cannot run away and you cannot fight, because circumstances are such that neither of those are a good option for you (which is how it is in childhood, most of the time), then you are likely to go with the freeze response, which is a bit like playing dead until a time in the future when the event is over or goes away on its own.

If we are repeatedly exposed to danger, even just the danger of broken attachment, which is a survival threat for children, and we do not get to have the experience of our own role in successful resolution of danger, we enter adulthood with a backlog of fear, anger, and helplessness trapped in the body. 

If this is us, life will give us chances as adults to do what we couldn’t do then – to have a successful experience of running away to safety, of fighting off attackers, of realizing that we have power to protect our own life. We all need to master the human skill of taking positive, life-preserving action. 

So you see, our psyches will continue to generate situations for ourselves in which we have the chance to get scared, but get ourselves to safety; get angry, but successfully fight off the threat. 

If this is you, dear reader: know you are not alone with this, and that it is doable to do now what wasn’t possible then. We don’t have to live our lives repeating the bad things that happened to us. We are allowed to move onward and upward into the lives we’d rather have. 

It begins with getting help. Of all the things in this world that are hard to do alone, recovering from trauma is perhaps the hardest. So if it’s available to you now to surround yourself with some kind and capable humans from whom you can learn the skill of safety, I so hope you will give yourself that gift. 

From one survivor to another: how life feels when you are confident you can create safety for yourself versus being in a state of permanent fear, dread and helplessness is the difference between a life worth living and a nightmare. Although most traumatized people don’t know it, safety feels good – better than any drug.   

Categories
Wellness

How to Be Your Own Best Friend

Are you a better friend to others than you are to yourself? I bet you are. 

Imagine your best friend calls you up needing to talk. She’s not feeling very good about herself. You can hear in her voice and in her words that she’s beating herself up about something.

You know that she’s still lovable, even if she did kind of mess something up. 

You remember her essential goodness quite easily, even if she can’t. And when she tells you what happened, the words to make her feel better come effortlessly out of your mouth.

See? You know perfectly well how to be a friend. So you might wonder why you don’t treat yourself with the same kindness? 

Maybe you think you don’t deserve it. If you’re like most women, you have a double standard. Your friend deserves the benefit of the doubt, second chances, room to be imperfect and time to get better. You deserve none of these things. You are to be treated with suspicion, criticism, and cynicism at all times.

Do you treat yourself like some kind of dangerous, reprehensible criminal, likely to do something bad at any moment? If so, what exactly are your crimes? Are they really so terrible that you should punish yourself permanently for them? Even if you have done some truly selfish, cringe-worthy things – most of us have – what type of attitude towards yourself actually makes you behave better: kindness or meanness?  

My opinion is we’ve all been trained to believe that lightly abusing ourselves psychologically is necessary to be “good”. In actual fact, maintaining a background level of self-hatred and withholding approval from ourselves hurts us and makes us behave less well. It is counterproductive.

So I think it’s high time that all of us good Best Friends stop cooperating with this outdated idea, that we’ll spoil ourselves if we are too nice to ourselves in our own heads. How about we start treating ourselves like members of the human race. 

To start: I vote we get rid of the idea of deserving. Many say to themselves, I will be kind to myself only if I deserve it. I will first review the facts, judge myself, and then grant myself kindness or meanness based on the quality of my behavior and character. 

Who are we, Judge Judy? Is life a court of law? 

I don’t think love should be withheld as a way to motivate behavior. That is just abuse. When kindness is a reward for good behavior, instead of a basic human right, we get what we have now in our society. A very ill, very hurt, very traumatized version of humanity. 

The truth is, it is not necessary, ever, to shame, blame or punish ourselves or anyone else. Shame, blame and punishment are not at all helpful; they are abusive. 

Abuse harms the human spirit, and contrary to what authorities have told us our entire lives, it does not create positive behaviors. Across the board, abuse only creates the temporary appearance of goodness (obedience due to fear of punishment), which is not the same thing as voluntarily choosing positive behaviors because of a true recognition of our shared humanity. Abused people, time has shown, spread their abuse. Loved people spread their love. 

Here’s my invitation to you: 

Write out a definition of how a Best Friend behaves. For example: A best friend helps you laugh it off. A best friend listens without judgment. A best friend helps you feel the feelings. A best friend gives you space and time. A best friend looks past your failings and highlights the good within you. 

Now start treating yourself that way. Here are two effective ways to practice this behavior until it becomes second nature (which can take some years, but makes a difference even after just one time, like learning anything new):

  1. Record your own voice saying very nice, loving things to you, as though you are leaving a voice message for friend. Address yourself using your own name, and speak to yourself in a loving tone of voice. Then listen back to these nice things. The more you do it, the easier it will be. 
  2. Write it out in your journal as a dialogue, where you go back and forth, being your own friend. Like this: 

Holly: I can’t believe I messed up like that…

Inner Best Friend: Want to tell me how you feel? 

It might be hard at first, but I have 100% confidence that you can learn to treat yourself humanely. If you’re having a “what would people think?” reaction to this, I assure you, no one even has to know you’re doing it. You can be secretly quite decent to yourself, in your own head. This will help everyone, everywhere. You got this 🙂

 

Categories
Trauma

How to Heal from Childhood Trauma

If you’re like me, you’re a little scared of your feelings. Scared because once a bad feeling gets ahold of you, you’re not fully sure how to get that feeling out of you. 

Can you relate to this? If so, it might be because of your childhood trauma. 

Oh no, not childhood trauma, you think. Do I have to go into my past again? 

Well…Yes! But maybe not in the same old way. Let me explain. 

What happens in childhood has long-lasting effects on us, leading to a pile-up of negative emotion that haunts us and affects our behavior now. 

These emotions are variations of fear and anger. Fear and anger are two sides of the same coin, and that fear-anger coin is how mammal biology responds to overwhelming threats. 

Nature wired us to respond to the situations we were in as children with fear-anger. We are calibrated to respond to bad situations with bad feelings. 

Trauma is what we call it when the fear-anger doesn’t have a way to leave our system as nature intended, but instead gets stuck in us and becomes a chronic pattern. 

There’s good news in that sentence: trauma isn’t the events themselves, it’s what’s in us, in our bodies. 

Why is that good? Because we can let the trauma, the activation, out of us, if we can find the door. Whereas we can’t change external events that happened to us long ago, we can change our own insides, now. 

The problem we face now is not so much the feelings themselves – which are normal and natural, just pent up within us – but in the fact that we never learned how to let these feelings subside.

So, yes, we need to revisit the past, specifically the felt-sense experience that our bodies had back then. But the revisiting of these feelings is only temporary, as a part of a process of letting these sensations move out of us for good. 

Here are the steps for healing your childhood trauma:

Here is how to heal from childhood trauma step-by-step:

How to Heal from Childhood Trauma

Step 1: 

Master the practice of generating feelings and sensations of safety in your body. The trauma response, also known as stress, is the opposite of safety. So look for the opposite of stress. 

You can do this by activating the parasympathetic branch of your nervous system. Activities like breathwork, yoga, singing and chanting, gardening, cooking, time in nature, creative expression, hugs, and pets all help activate the parasympathetic system. 

You might be happy to hear that the parasympathetic branch is what’s dominant in your body when you’re feeling good! So essentially, this step is: learn how to feel good and to sustain that state as best you can. 

Here is an assignment you can do to help in taking this step: Write out one long description (1 page or more) of a time you can remember feeling really relaxed, safe, and good in your body and being. Read what you wrote and really focus on the feelings you have as you read. This is the type of experience you’re looking for (the clue is how you feel, not so much the details of the circumstances themselves). 

Do this assignment again and again, until you have 12 pages of 12 different times when you felt safe and wonderful. 

Step 2: 

While maintaining the softest, safest state you can in general in your life, look out for those old trauma feelings when they show up, which they will on their own (a clue is: they feel bad to the body). 

When the events come back to you in the form of bad feelings, do your best to let them just be there. Observe them, knowing they are temporary, and that they will exit if you manage to stay relaxed. Open the door for them, and they will go. Your job is mainly to notice them and not react to them.

Step 3:

Witness your trauma feelings as they exit your system. Allow the body to do whatever it wants to naturally do (within the bounds of safety) as these energies exit. Typical are trembling, shaking, moving, wanting to do something vigorous like a brisk walk or suddenly needing to run or do something energetic. Do pretend karate moves or real karate. Get physical. The trauma leaves through spontaneous physical release.

This is a simple explanation of a complex topic. In truth, it is enormously helpful to work with a trauma-informed healer of some kind. But I want you to know that trauma healing is not rocket science. It’s actually biology 101. Make it safe for your body, and your body will do it for you. 

Categories
Addiction Treatment

Stress and Addiction: What You Need to Know

Life is stressful. It doesn’t matter whether you are single or have a family, work as a grocery store clerk or a CEO, have enough money to pay your bills or live paycheck to paycheck., etc. Life is stressful for everyone. Sure, there are times in life when stress increases. Maybe it’s the loss of a job, a broken relationship, the terminal diagnosis of a loved one, etc. It happens. And it is all part of life.

There exists a connection between stress and addiction. It once was thought using a substance a few times can lead to addiction. And, while it can, stress can lead to addiction, too. 

The Dangers of Too Much Stress

First, let’s talk about how the body reacts to stress. When life gets really stressful, you may feel the physical aspects associated with the stress – and that is because there is so much more going on within the body.  The response comes from your nervous system, endocrine system, immune system, and cardiovascular system. Short-term feelings of stress can result in rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, and pounding headaches. In the long run, however, high blood pressure, insomnia, back pain, gastrointestinal issues and more can stem from stress sustained over a long period of time. 

See, when you are stressed, your body releases cortisol. This is the boost that is meant to help you deal with the stressful situation. However, when you have chronic stress in your life, the constant elevated level of cortisol can be harmful over an extended time. This leads to a great number of health issues. 

  • High blood pressure
  • Tension/migraine headaches
  • Vascular inflammation like coronary arterial disease
  • Chronic fatigue
  • Obesity
  • Diabetes
  • Gastrointestinal problems
  • Sexual reproduction problems
  • Musculoskeletal problems, such as back pain
  • Increased risk for heart attack and stroke

Stress has an incredible physical impact on the body that can lead to a lifetime of damage if not addressed — and not learned how to be dealt with properly. 

The Relationship Between Stress and Addiction

Think, for a moment, of those addictions that require treatment programs, such as rehab facilities and support groups, but don’t involve a substance. For instance, things like gambling, shopping, sex, online, food, etc. are all examples of things that people become addicted to, but they are not a substance. We call these process addictions.

What does this mean? Well, it means that the perception that people get addicted because a substance itself is magically addictive may not be so true after all. Perhaps there is a deeper reason – one of which is the link between stress and addiction. 

Some researchers believe that there is a link between the stress hormone cortisol and the feelings associated with using a substance. But we do not even need to get that deep to see the connection between stress and addiction. It boils down to the way our brain handles certain life stressors. Some areas of the brain lead to greater susceptibility when it comes to addiction. 

We put our brains in a vulnerable position when we encounter repeated stressful (most often negative) events in life. However, it is important to note that different types of abuse, as well as mood disorders and anxiety disorders, can lead to the same response. 

Our physical actions and how we handle stress also impact addictions. Chronic stress requires a set of healthy, readily available means of managing it, otherwise known as coping skills. Yet, so many of us turn to substances to handle stress. You may spend an evening drinking your cares away. You may seek out various substances as a means of escaping for the day. But once the substance wears off, then more is needed. The stress was never dealt with and then the relief from the substance is no longer there. Since it felt so good, more is needed to keep that peaceful feeling. These cyclical patterns can very easily lead to addiction. 

It is important that we point out that substance abuse can lead to stress, too. Which can make it all a very damaging cycle if it is not addressed appropriately. Things like health issues, financial issues, unstable families, relationship issues, and more can result from addiction and put more stress and strain on one’s life. 

The Power of Stress Management

The best way to handle stress so that it reduces the chance of addiction is to learn tips and tools of stress management. Don’t choose another hit or another drink. The more you do, the more dangerous it may be. Instead, choose healthy ways of managing your stress. These include: 

Exercise. When you feel stressed or anxious, get your body moving. Go for a walk or run. Join a kickboxing class. Ride your bike. Exercise is one of the top natural ways to help your body deal with stress. Not to mention that breathing the fresh air when exercising outside can also feel good. 

Eat a well-balanced diet. Eating foods that are highly processed, full of sugar, chemicals, and additives can impact your body negatively and make it harder to feel in control of it. Eat a healthy diet full of whole foods, leaving the processed junk out. Your mental clarity will be stronger and your stress will be easier to manage. 

Sleep well. Stress requires sleep. With all that cortisol, your body is on overload. Give it rest – good, quality rest – to help you face the new day. 

Finally, if you find yourself dealing with stress and battling an addiction, then it is important you seek treatment. This should not be from just any facility, but one that practices the whole-body wellness of women. Stress management tools should be taught and ways to handle everything life throws at women today should always be part of the program. 

Life is full of stress. It’s not going to go away. So being equipped to handle it properly is the best way to a healthy future.

Categories
Wellness

11 Self-Care Ideas for Women

If we don’t care for ourselves, who is going to do it? Relying on anyone else to care for us, give us what we need, or make us feel whole and complete will never work. 

If you want to truly learn how to love yourself and fill yourself up with self-worth and empowerment, then you need to start practicing self-care. 

In this article, we’re going to share several self-care ideas for women.

Self Care Ideas for Women

We can easily take ten minutes each day to show ourselves some self-care. The idea is to find something that brings you comfort and just makes you feel good — and make a point to do it daily. The great thing about self-care is that it doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. And it doesn’t have to take up hours out of your day.

We spend so much time thinking about everyone else that it can be hard to even think of something to do to take care of ourselves! So, to help you out, we’ve put together a list of 11 self-care ideas for women. 

Here are 11 self-care ideas for women.

1. Say I’m Sorry – to Yourself

Forgiveness is powerful and can rebuild and strengthen relationships. And when we let things go, we free ourselves. Unfortunately, we always find it easier to forgive others rather than to forgive ourselves. Today, give yourself permission to say, “I’m sorry!” For everything. Or anything.

2. Have Coffee With Someone

As humans, we need connection. This doesn’t have to be anything formal. Simply meet a friend and connect over coffee (virtually or in person, according to your comfort level). This doesn’t mean sit and chat about the weather, but take the conversation deeper where you can start to open up and get to know one another on a meaningful level. This type of connection feels good. 

3. Go for a Walk

We are not talking about going for a long walk or a fast-paced walk or even a jog. Simply strolling through your neighborhood or the park is a good way to get the blood flowing a little while breathing in fresh air, soaking up the vitamin D from the sun, and so on. A 10 or 15-minute walk is all you need to transform your day and breathe life into stagnation. 

4. Buy Yourself a Bouquet of Flowers

We all love flowers. There is no reason why we should ever wait for someone to bring us flowers. If having a fresh bouquet of flowers sitting on your dining room table makes you smile every time you see them, then buy the flowers. Treat yourself to this small indulgence. You deserve them and all the smiles they bring. 

5. Dance

In your room, turn on some feel-good music and dance. Let it out. Whether you want to waltz or booty shake, just let the music carry you away. Maybe even consider creating a playlist that is an instant mood-booster that you put on your headphones and go to town dancing. This can make you feel so good in so many ways. 

6. Read a Book

Reading is one of those peaceful things that are nearly always available to you, but not always on the top of our to-do list. If you are like most women, you have a list of books you would love to read, but never have the time, right? Make the time. Make it part of your self-care routine. Even if it means only reading one chapter a day or setting a timer and only reading for 10 minutes – do it. This even works really well when reading self-help books that can help you grow. 

Not much of a reader? No problem. Audiobooks are fantastic ways to get the benefits of a book without having to read!

7. Take a Bubble Bath

Escaping the real world some days sounds so enticing. But, let’s face it – it is not realistic. We can’t just disappear. Unless, you disappear in a bathtub full of bubbles! Light a candle, fill up the tub, turn the lights off, turn on some relaxing music, and soak. 

Let the hot water melt away all the heavy worries, burdens, and stresses you carry. 

8. Write an “It’s Done” List

When you write a list of all the things you have to do, life can suddenly feel so overwhelming. Even more than normal. Seeing those tasks in black and white is too much. So why not ditch the to-do list and start looking at the glass half full? 

Write an “it’s done” list of all the things you have accomplished. This might include tasks you have completed today or this week or it can be all the things you have already accomplished in life. 

9. Write Yourself a Love Letter

Keep a journal of letters to yourself. Spend a few minutes looking at yourself, your life, your day — and write yourself a love letter. Praise yourself for things you did and offer encouragement for things that maybe didn’t go so well. Keep it positive.

Do this regularly and watch how you become your biggest cheerleader. 

10. Turn Your Phone Off

Our phones can be so distracting. In fact, it is hard to even have thoughts to ourselves without hearing a chime or a ding notification. Turn your phone off or put it on “do not disturb” for an hour or so. No calls, no texts, no emails, no social media. Just enjoy the uninterrupted time. 

11. Watch the Sun Rise

Waking up early – when it is still dark outside – and watching the sun rise above the horizon with its breathtaking views can help, in some way, to bring perspective to life. It reminds us that the world is so much bigger – and that we are just a tiny little part of it. Our problems and struggles that we feel are enormous, are really not so big after all. 

And, if that isn’t a bit of self-care, then we don’t know what is. 

Try these tips for self-care or find some more on your own. Lots of people have ideas for engaging in self-care or you can choose something on your own that will make you feel good. The point is to find something and do it. Treating yourself well is one of the first steps toward finding whole-body wellness and balance in your life – and in recovery. 

Categories
Wellness

The Health Benefits of Journaling

There are several profound health benefits of journaling. Every minute of your day is used in the manner you choose, whether you think you have control over it or not. Today is based on a series of events and actions that have taken place in the past and have landed you right here, right now. Maybe you made some good choices that you are proud of. Maybe there were a few poor decisions that had a great impact on your life. Or maybe you were dealt a tough hand from the very beginning of your life. 

The thing about gratitude is that it can still impact your life in incredible ways from the place where you are standing at this very moment. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or where you are going. It is life-changing in this moment.  In this article, we’re taking a closer look at the health benefits of journaling.

What is Gratitude?

Gratitude means being grateful or thankful. It means being able to show compassion and kindness and care toward others, toward yourself, toward a higher being, or toward life in general. A definition of gratitude needs to include appreciation – such as the appreciation of all the goodness in your life despite the hardships, struggles, and other negative aspects. There is always good to be found and those who practice gratitude can often find it. And, being thankful for that small piece of good can have a huge impact on your overall quality of life. 

The Importance of Practicing Gratitude

Getting in the habit of practicing gratitude means that you will soon find your body and mind are feeling the benefits. It is true — gratitude can bring positive changes and transformation that you may have never otherwise imagined. These include: 

Better overall mental health. You will find that toxic, negative emotions will begin to be outweighed by positive, happy emotions. In fact, many research studies have shown that feelings brought on by gratitude reduce depression. 

Improved physical health. Studies show that those who regularly practice gratitude are more likely to care for their overall health and live longer lives. 

Better sleep. Keeping a gratitude journal by your bed and jotting down a few things you are thankful for before going to sleep leads to better quality sleep. 

Decreased aggressive, angry emotions. When you learn to look at the positive aspects of every situation, you begin to adjust your focus. This results in a reduction of negative emotions such as anger and aggression and replaces them with feelings of happiness, empathy, and even sensitivity.

Greater self-esteem. Gratitude helps you view everything in a more positive light – including yourself. You will find that the more you practice gratitude, the easier it will become to appreciate others and yourself. And, let’s face it – when your self-esteem begins to soar, so will you. 

A reduction in stress. When you can truly see that there is goodness, you are no longer allowing yourself to get worried or worked up about things you cannot control. Guess what? You can control your ability to find gratitude in every moment. 

How Keeping a Gratitude Journal Can Help

Practicing gratitude is one of those things that we know we should do – and need to do – but we don’t always find it so easy. We may have very good intentions, but in the middle of a tough moment, there is a low likelihood that you will stop and say, maybe I should take a moment to look at the things I am grateful for. Sure, it’d be wonderful if you could do this, but most of us are not wired that way. We need to get in the habit first. We need to practice. The more we do, the more we will find ourselves looking for that silver lining in every situation. 

This is why a gratitude journal can help. It is a way of making your mind focus on the things you are grateful for every day. No, you may not stop in the middle of an argument to reflect on gratitude, but at the end of a rough day, you can look back over it and find things to be grateful for. 

A gratitude journal should ideally be used every morning and every evening – as the perfect way to begin and end your day. Sit in the quiet for a moment and reflect on your day and your life in general. Then, write down at least 3 things you are grateful for. 

That’s it. A task that doesn’t have to last longer than 5 minutes can have intense benefits on your life. 

Creating Your Own Gratitude Journal

Now that you know just how powerful a gratitude journal can be, there is a good chance you want one, right? Great! Creating your own gratitude journal is simple – and it is the best way to bring positivity and light into your world. 

Ready to get started? Let’s go!

  1. Find Yourself a Journal. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy at all. You can go buy a new one at the store or you can use an old notebook that you have left from school. Choose what is easiest for you – -as long as it has plenty of space to write. Remember, what matters most is not what the outside looks like, but the words written inside. 
  2. Determine When You Will Practice Gratitude. Will it be in the morning? At night? Both? During your lunch hour? You are trying to develop a habit so you need to find a time during your daily routine that will allow you to do that. 
  3. Choose Your Method of Gratitude Journaling. You are showing gratitude for 3 things, but it is up to you if those 3 things are just general things, or 3 fantastic things that happened during the day today, or 3 things that will make your day great (if journaling in the morning), etc.

Final Thoughts

Starting a gratitude journal is taking a step toward a positive future. It is not easy to make changes to your life, even when you know it will have great benefits. But, setting yourself up for success is the perfect place to start. 

Get your gratitude journal, keep it where you will remember to use it, and watch the powerful transformation that happens. 

 

Categories
Wellness

A Recovery Journal to Inspire Us All

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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