Author: VKM

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Mental Health

Happy Women’s Equality Day

In times of turmoil, it’s good to remember that change is possible.

How do we know change is possible? Because there have been many extraordinary moments in our collective past when positive leaps of societal evolution took place seemingly out of nowhere.

Women’s Equality Day celebrated every August 26th since the early 1970s, is intended to honor one such significant moment in history.

What is Women’s Equality Day?

Before 1920, women were prohibited by law from voting in any elections. Women were presumed to be politically irrelevant, even too delicate for the difficulties of politics.

Of course, many women did not see it the same way, but since women’s voices were not represented, it was difficult to change public perception. To this day, equality remains a disputed topic.

Since the passing of the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, women have been participating in politics in greater measure, as voters as well as elected representatives.

Achieving the right to vote was an important milestone for women because it meant that women had to be reckoned with in the political sphere. Once women gained the right to vote, candidates running for office needed to inform themselves and show some measure of care for topics close to women’s hearts, in order to get elected.

Gradually, through political action and other channels, the subjective experience of women gained visibility and greater understanding within the larger collective consciousness. Women gradually became protagonists in the story of life, and not only objects and side characters, just there to support the narratives of men.

What is the history of Women’s Equality Day?

In the early 1970s, 50 years after the proclamation which granted the women’s vote was signed into law by then-Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, Women’s Equality Day was officially designated by Congress as a day to celebrate and recognize the importance of women’s suffrage.

A proclamation was introduced by New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug in 1971 and again in 1973, as debates and struggles over the (still controversial) topic of the Equal Rights Amendment took place all around the nation. Abzug’s proclamation was a response to the 1970 Women’s Strike for Women’s Equality.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon issued a proclamation officially recognizing August 26th as Women’s Rights Day, and in 1973 Congress approved the resolution, changing the name to Women’s Equality Day. Since then, each President has rededicated August 26th in honor of Women’s Equality.

What is the importance of Women’s Equality Day?

Women who grew up with the right to vote may not have full appreciation for the bitter nature of the struggle that was necessary to bring women’s equality to the light of national attention. As unsupportive of the female principle as our current social structure is, the situation was worse in the generations immediately before us, in which basic rights of protection and recognition of our subject-hood were not given. It’s an important reminder to preserve and protect what we cherish, which our foremothers sought to ensure for us.

As all generations of women stand on the shoulders of those before us, it’s important to understand and recognize what women before us fought for, and what they overcame.

Women’s Equality Day is important because it reminds us to never forget the power of people coming together with a positive purpose.

What are ways to honor Women’s Equality Day?

Express Your Point of View

If you appreciate your right to vote, to have an opinion, political or otherwise, and to express your personal point of view, say thank you in your heart right now to the women who came before us.

You may also celebrate them and what they gave so that we could be free, by exercising those freedoms now, for example by speaking your mind!

Use your politically-protected right to express yourself by sharing what you see, what you feel, and what you sense about yourself, each other, and our world. Your subjectivity matters.


Enjoy Being You

In 2024, American women have the most freedom to be themselves we have ever had in recorded history. We are free to compete, to win, to be strong, to be creative, to be intelligent.

Perhaps most important of all, we are free to live our lives from within, as the authors of our own experience and not only as an object of another person’s lens. We have the opportunity to live our lives from the inside out, and not the other way around.

We are here not only to be looked at but also to look. We are active, organic, alive intelligence in a human body, representing the feminine principle and perspective, as grandmothers, daughters, sisters, wives, girlfriends, partners, elders, matriarchs, leaders, and more.

Enjoy your freedom to be a person, unique and individual in all the beautiful ways you actually are, by actually being you, whatever that looks like today. Be as authentic as you can. Forgive yourself for not matching the impossible standard. Let yourself be you. This is a freedom worth cherishing.

What are ways to support Women’s Equality Day?

If Women’s Equality Day means something to you, talk about it to people in your life. Reflect on what it means that just over a century ago, we were considered politically irrelevant, presumed to not have anything of value to contribute to the political sphere. If you disagree with that, speak up and contribute. Shine your light, and share your piece!

You may also want to go out of your way to lend extra support and recognition to women you know who are holding it down in a difficult spot, or who are pioneering in their field. Watch movies made by women, listen to women’s music, support women-owned businesses, and learn more about women’s experiences.

Every moment, in every day, we are gradually shifting this “man’s world” back to a world in which men and women are equal partners in the co-creation of our social structure, sharing power in mutual appreciation, recognition, and protection of all.

Villa Kali Ma supports Women’s Equality Day

At Villa Kali Ma, as a women-centered business providing services for women, we support Women’s Equality Day! We value women – ourselves and the women in our lives. That’s why we’re devoted to helping all women everywhere experience the freedom of healing profoundly from trauma, addiction, and mental illness.  The more women are healed, the more we can heal the rest of the world too.

Happy Women’s Equality Day to all! 

Categories
Mental Health

How to Maintain Mental Health from Summer to Fall

Seasonal Changes Affect Women’s Mental Health

The annual shift from the warm, lazy days of summer to the cooling, darkening days of fall can and often does affect women’s feelings, stirring melancholy to rise up to the surface.

Many of us feel echoes of loss and the hints of winter’s upcoming celebrations and darkness. The changes in sunlight, temperature, and return to time indoors can stimulate and disrupt us.

For those of us who have a harder time keeping an even keel, we may suffer during changes of season. Fall can feel like a wind sweeping through, stirring us up and scattering us around.

Is it hard to trust the natural shifts and changes in our own inner and outer worlds? Do we turn depressed or anxious, destabilized, or fall into painful states of being? If so, we may need extra attention and TLC to adjust.

How can we accept these natural, predictable yearly shifts? How can we prepare for the upcoming transition into fall and winter?

Here are some ideas from Villa Kali Ma, as to how we might embrace the wisdom of nature’s seasonal shifts and go more gracefully into the next chapter.

Do women struggle with mental health more in the summer or fall season?

Seasonal Affective Disorder is triggered by the change of season, most commonly kicking in around the fall. Although some women struggle with summer, too, more of us tend to struggle at the end of summer, as darker seasons appear on the horizon.

This struggle shifting from summer to fall has natural and social components. In part, we are affected by changes in sunlight, the amount of outdoor time (nature and being outdoors are healing and regulating, and good for mental health), and dropping temperatures.

At the same time, many women are affected by the long-reinforced pattern of fall being a back-to-school time of year, as well as anticipation of the winter holidays, which bring family topics to the fore.

Signs of Seasonal Affective Disorder include losing energy, feelings of sadness, and a dropping away of feelings of connection, purpose, and inspiration.

We also might find ourselves turning to self-soothing behaviors like overeating or spending aimless time on the internet or phone, as our old coping behaviors appear in response to the increase of sadness and pain internally.

What are some ways women can maintain their mental health in the fall?

Take Care of the Body

When it comes to maintaining a better state of being during the shift of seasons, there are many body-oriented hacks that help.

Focus on nutrition, taking advantage of the sun when it is there, good workouts, sufficient sleep, and weekly time in nature. In general, when we keep our bodies happy and supplied with mood-regulating hormones through these natural practices, our state of mind will be much more resilient.

Stay in Connection

Connection with others is key to reducing isolation. Think of ways you could get more emotional contact with safe support during this time. People in recovery can double up on meetings, or attend a recovery-themed retreat. If you’re in therapy, you might consider scheduling some extra sessions, following the principle that prevention is the best medicine. Dedicated time having fun with positive friends and loved ones may do the trick, too.

Embrace the Season

Deliberately enjoying the best sides of a season can help, too. If we consciously choose to enjoy the golden light of Indian Summer, the arrival of squash and pumpkins at the farmers market, or the smell of drying walnut leaves, whatever it is that we personally love, we can align ourselves with the beauties of the season.

Journal to Prepare for Fall

Here is a suggestion for a journal writing prompt about the seasonal shift:

What do I love most about this time of year?

How might I get the most out of what this time of year offers?

What is hardest for me about this time of year?

How might I protect and care for myself during the difficult sides of this season?

What does fall mean to me personally? What does it mean to nature? What does it mean to my fellow humans?

Make a Fall Self Care Plan

If you think about it, each season is only 3 months long. Can we make and commit to a 90-day plan? If that feels too long, go month-by-month, starting with September. Think about what you can put on the calendar that will help you feel loved, supported, and treated like you matter.

Here is a way you could put that plan together.

Step One: Brainstorm

Free write and get out everything you think and feel about how you could have a good experience of this season, fall 2024.

I believe I can have a positive experience this fall by…

My vulnerabilities and areas of need this fall are…


Step Two: Remember Your Tools

Now that you’ve thought about the season from the bigger picture point of view, generate a list of all of your tools.

Be creative. Self-care can mean a lot of things. In our opinion here at Villa Kali Ma, a good self-care plan will address these very important pieces at the very least:

-Body – exercise, nutrition, sleep

-Emotions – feeling our feelings, connecting with others, releasing

–Inner Child – connecting with ourselves, having creative fun and giving ourselves our attention, scheduling things that will give us joy

-Support – getting help, contact, and connection with others

What are 10 tools I have that support my body to be happy?

-I can sleep in on the weekends

-I can make myself green juice

-I can go to yoga 3 X a week…

What are 10 tools I have that support my emotional health?

What are 10 tools I have to give love to my inner child?

What are 10 tools I have to help myself get support from others that help me?


Step Three: Put Self-Care on the Calendar

Whatever you came up with in your brainstorm and your list of tools, take a few pieces out and put them on the calendar. Choose low-hanging fruits, things that feel easy, fun, doable, and energizing. Where there are foreseeable difficulties, see if you can couch them between acts of self-care. Make a plan that feels good to you personally.

Villa Kali Ma offers mental health programs

Villa Kali Ma is a unique healing facility dedicated to helping women experience true mental health and happiness, at the deepest levels of being. We offer programs to treat traumatization, heal emotional wounds, and repair thoughts about ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Our experienced staff are prepared to address any variation of women’s suffering, and we have many tools, practitioners, and modalities at the ready. We treat addiction, trauma, and mental health troubles with a compassionate and effective blend of Western and Eastern modalities.

Villa Kali Ma supports women’s mental health

Since it was founded, Villa Kali Ma has served women’s mental health loyally, bringing innovative, alternative, and evidence-based breakthroughs to women in need of healing. We unite the best of the West with the ancient healing wisdom from the East.

Categories
Mental Health

PMDD vs PMS

Most women can relate to experiencing a dip in mood about a week before menstruation, and the irritability, sensitivity, and vulnerability that well up.

Hormonal ebbs and flows are part of the biologically female experience. Each month, our energies rise and fall according to predictable rhythms.

Across the female population, there are some differences in the degree how which we may experience these hormonal rhythms, with some people experiencing greater distress than others.

While many experience Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), a small minority of women have a more serious case, known as Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD.)

What is the difference between PMDD and PMS?

PMS may include physical as well as mental health symptoms. It is typical to experience mild to moderate depression, to think more negative thoughts about ourselves, and to perceive our bodies and appearances in a more negative light (perhaps triggered by cravings to eat unhealthy food, bloating, or acne).

We may have less energy, need more sleep, and feel physical tenderness in our breasts or lower back. Monthly experiences of these symptoms are generally considered a normal part of the female experience.

If these symptoms appear around the same time in our cycle every month and go away again once our period starts, they are considered part of Premenstrual Syndrome, which affects many women.

Less commonly, some women have a more severe experience of hormonal fluctuations, in which symptoms are so extreme that they are disruptive. If PMS symptoms are so strong that they significantly affect the way you relate to other people, especially if it extends to how you relate to your work or how you treat people out in the world (not only loved ones at home), that may be a signal of PMDD.

What are the causes of PMDD and PMS?

The origin of PMS and PMDD are not conclusively determined, but an intricate relationship between mood and hormones is established.

Due to the complexity of the human body and the ways that biology informs subjective experience and vice versa, it’s difficult to say where the symptoms come from or to boil their presence down to a single cause.

It can be helpful to know that those with a tendency towards depression will likely experience both PMS and PMDD more severely than those who do not ordinarily experience depressed mood.

What are the signs and symptoms of PMDD and PMS?

Similarities between PMS and PMDD

Broadly speaking, the symptoms of PMS and PMDD are very similar. Both can include changes in mood, greater feelings of vulnerability, and irritability, including crying and negative thoughts. At the physical level, both can give rise to fatigue, food cravings, muscle and joint pain, headaches, bloating, and tender breasts.

Differences between PMS and PMDD

There are some important differences between PMS and PMDD, mainly in the severity of dysphoria.

Depression

Whereas PMS is very often accompanied by mild to moderate depression, it is a sign of PMDD if the sadness or hopelessness is so extreme that it disrupts your life significantly, or if it comes with thoughts of suicide. If you or a loved one are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please get help right away because these can easily become dangerous.


Mood Swings

Similarly, some moodiness is associated with PMS, but dramatic mood swings, overwhelming feelings of anger and being out of control, as well as extreme suddenness in the change of mood are signs you might be dealing with a case of PMDD.


Anxiety

Some women feel anxious as a part of PMS, but strong anxiety is more commonly associated with PMDD. If the anxiety feels like extreme edginess and fear, that is a sign it could be PMDD.

Life Outlook and Self-Care

During PMS, it is normal that some changes to one’s self-care take place, for example, to accommodate lower energy levels. For women experiencing PMDD however, feelings of hopelessness and extreme negative states of mood and mind can lead to dropping all self-care practices and giving up on taking care of important activities in the world.

How are PMDD and PMS diagnosed?

PMS and PMDD are diagnosed in clinical settings, by a doctor or gynecologist. After a discussion of symptoms with your doctor, an assessment is made.

Assessment may include observation of one’s mood and tracking one’s own cycle for a couple of months, to gather data points and to get a better picture of how the symptoms are playing out. This means that you would need to log and journal on your symptoms in relationship to your cycle for a month or two and then bring your observations to your next appointment.

To validate a diagnosis of PMS or PMDD, it would need to be clearly established that your symptoms are linked to your menstrual cycle, starting about a week before your period and going away again once your period finishes.

What is the treatment for PMDD and PMS?

There are different options for women with PMS and PMDD, and the best approaches are integrative, addressing the body as well as the mind.

Lifestyle changes are the most powerful form of support for most mental health problems, including PMS and PMDD.

Improvements in diet, sleep, and exercise are the key. When the body is in its optimal state, hormonal fluctuations can be harmonized. Regular, cyclical changes of energy can be smoothed and softened.

You may also want to consider the benefits of disconnecting from excessive use of technology. Artificial materials, chemicals, and electromagnetic frequency imbalances connected with phones and computers are believed by some to interfere with the body’s functioning. Being more tuned in to entertainment or information, rather than one’s current bodily state, tends to amplify suffering in the longer run.

For any mood disorder, no matter what the origin, a big support may come through doing what what we can to be more aligned with nature, whatever that means to us, and however it is available to us.

Examples of practices that help us line up with nature include sleeping when it’s dark out and waking with the sun, getting enough outdoor time, moving our bodies frequently throughout the day, and eating the freshest foods we can.

Overall, for women with PMS or PMDD, we at Villa Kali Ma would recommend a movement practice (like yoga), some kind of mindfulness practice (such as meditation), as well as regular self-expression through creativity.

It is good to be aware also that trauma, mental health disorders, and active addiction make PMS and PMDD symptoms worse, so if these are at play in your life still, it would be good to get treatment for these. Ideally, a holistically-minded program would be best, to help address all the ways that hormones and mood influence our experiences as women.

Villa Kali Ma can assist women with depression

At Villa Kali Ma we are dedicated to supporting women to heal from trauma, mental illness, and addiction. We use traditional, alternative medicine, and contemporary scientific treatment approaches together as one, taking the best of each to help each woman discover her path to happiness.

If you’re struggling with low mood, alongside your period, or just in general, you might consider some of our programs for women. We take a compassionate, curious approach to suffering and its antidotes. We would love to meet you and hear your story!

Categories
Self Care

Summer Self-Care Routine for Mind and Body

When we women at last realize that we are deserving of our love, cherishing, protection, and support, we become unstoppable. A woman who knows her real value is a benevolent, harmonizing, shaping force in the environment, a powerful creator and protector.

One way that we women can help ourselves and each other thrive is to deeply embrace the concept and practice of self-care.

Self-care is a principle that strengthens us, leads us to our personal destiny, and out of the many traps laid for us by elements of our world that don’t have women’s best interests at heart.

When we deeply embrace self-care, giving ourselves permission to treat ourselves as we have always longed for someone to treat us – as unconditionally lovable, forgivable, deserving wonders of creation, full of mystery, magic, and nature’s ineffable perfection – we can get a lot of creative satisfaction and joy out of the practice itself.

This summer, we invite you to join us in celebrating the season in a spirit of creatively rethinking your self-care!

What are some summer self-care ideas to feel your best?

Self-care can be more than a habit, more than hygiene and maintenance. It can be a way of speaking to your deepest self and listening to what she has to say, in return. Self-care is a dialogue, a way of giving love to yourself and seeing how that love changes you. An ever-evolving adjustment and dance, a movement forward.

The way to do this is to lean into your creative, poetic, magical side. Understand that self-care is connected to the sun, the stars, and the universe itself. It is connected to photosynthesis, koalas, and giant amethyst caves.

In other words, to care for the self is to care for the beauty and uniqueness that we see all over our world – when we care for our own beauty and uniqueness with an artist’s touch, we can blossom under the loving attention we give ourselves.

Here are some ways to lean into the poetics of summertime as you give love and care to the irreplaceable creature you are.

Soak up the Sunshine

Sunshine supercharges us, energizing and cleansing our electromagnetic fields, filling us with warmth and power. Can we imagine the big sun in the sky connecting to the smaller energetic sun we hold in our cores? Can we let the sunshine relax us, sing us its starry music, and raise our frequency? Summer is the time to honor and soak in the sun (safely), and to let each cell in our body be uplifted and reminded of what we’re really made of.


Get in the Water

The water element is the perfect counterbalance to soaking in the sun. This summer, let yourself relax into the healing properties of water to dissolve and wash away every burden that’s hanging heavy on our bodies, darkening our souls, or polluting our minds.

Rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and of course, the ocean, are nature’s free healers. Everyone knows we are 75% water – there’s a reason that we like to be immersed, at home in our element, literally.


Self Care is a Performance Booster

Top athletes, performing artists, and extraordinary achievers everywhere are very disciplined, primarily about making sure they get the requisite self care that is necessary to be in optimal condition. We can learn from them the simple truth that the better we treat ourselves, the better we are able to perform at our best.


Touch base with the Earth

Summer is the season that belongs to bare feet. Whether in the garden or at the beach, let yourself feel the support that this earth has for you, skin to skin. Take the earth’s grounding, containing, neutralizing energies in through your feet, and let your personal body field become balanced.

If you like, you can imagine an anchor dropping from your heart and sinking down deep into the earth, until it reaches the very center of the planet. Feeling it there, allows heaviness to be a pleasure. Feel how the earth holds onto you, keeps you.

Replenish

Due to the heat and all the fun in the sun, self-care this summer should involve conscious replenishment. After releasing what no longer serves us into dissolving waters, after allowing the fiery purifying heat of the sun to repair us deep into our cells, after letting the earth ground us, we can let our bodies find replenishment in the form of nourishing juices, electrolytes, and moisture. We can drink pure water and feed our skin with healing oils.

How can you make the most of this season?

If we let nature rule us instead of fighting it, we can receive its gifts more easily. What if we let summer be what it is, surrendering to its wisdom and preparing realistically for its effects on us?

What is summer to you? A time of warmth, increased light infusion, and long and lazy days, and nights that encourage us to linger outside and see if we can recognize any constellations. Or is it maybe a time of painful memories, stimulation of our dreams, and longings that are almost hard to bear?

Whatever summer is to you personally, consider that that is meaningful, not a coincidence, but a perfection of some kind.

To reflect, you may want to explore the following sentence start:

To me, personally, summer means…

In movies, books, art, and songs, summer means…

To nature, animals, and plants, summer means…

Summer is the best time of year for…

Summer is the worst time of year for…

The best thing about summer is…

The hardest thing about summer is…

How can I help myself through the hard parts?

How can I deepen my experiences of the best aspects of summer?

Overall, how can I make the most of this summer season?

How movement can help with mental health and self-care during the summertime?

Movement is nature’s most potent medicine, as it has a way of working troubles out of the body. In the summer, movement and exercise come more naturally to us, as we tend to have more energy, time, and inspiration to get outside.

When we exercise we not only release pent-up energy that would otherwise be spent running the mental hamster wheel, we actually have the chance to process. During movement we complete and sort the events that trouble us, passing them more quickly into memory. We store our experiences away in the archival part of the mind, where we keep events that don’t need any more thinking about.

No matter what challenges are asking for our attention this summer, movement is a way to encounter them that is well supported by nature and the body. Movement is nature’s way of processing our experiences.

Be kind to yourself and choose a movement that the body likes. It’s common and normal to feel resistance to shifting gears or exercising, and we can help ourselves with that by choosing activities, places, and people that the body feels a big Yes to. Whether we want to belly dance, kite surf, or yin yoga this summer, movement can be a companion for the season.

How can summer interfere with mental health?

It’s not at all uncommon to have many triggers associated with summertime. If this is you, you aren’t alone. Many of us have this experience, too. Holidays, barbecues, family, vacations, and even just free time or longer days can bring troubles and pain to the surface for some of us.

While it’s no fun to have to process the next layer of our wounds and false beliefs yet again, it’s also an opportunity. If and when summer interferes with our mental health, the answer is to find a way to lovingly engage with ourselves, to look towards rather than away from what is surfacing for our healing awareness.

With all healing, there is a gift once we get to the end of healing and processing a particular piece. There is always a reclamation and celebration at the end, as we embrace a long split-off part of ourselves back into our loving arms. What started out as an annoyance, even something pushing us into dread or fear, turns into a present, a part of us that we really do need, coming back home. So hang in there through the wound-healing and self-reclamation process, it’s worth it!

Villa Kali Ma supports self-care for women

At Villa Kali Ma, we celebrate self-care for women, acknowledging it as a powerful cure for what ails us and every other woman we know. Wherever there is pain, the answer is always self-love. Self-care is our self-love in action.

Categories
Self Care

International Self Care Day

Here at Villa Kali Ma, we recognize that self care is a practice, something to get up and do every morning of every day. It is part of being in a human body to also care for the body we are. Our souls and spirits need daily care too.

Self care is a practice in two senses. It’s a practice in the sense of being an ongoing, daily ritual, like meditation or exercise. It’s also a practice in the sense that most of us are still learning how to do it. We need to practice self care regularly until it becomes second nature to us to do so.

Why is it so hard for women to care for themselves? There are a lot of answers to that question, but one reason lies deep in our lack of love for ourselves.

Self care reflects basic self love and a sense of deserving. That deserving must be unconditional – whether we have been good girls that day or not, whether or not we’ve perfectly met everyone’s expectations of us.

What is International Self Care Day?

International Self Care Day is celebrated every July, as a way to promote awareness of the many benefits of self care.

Since the 1950s, lack of self care in the populace has been noticed as a negative factor in health outcomes. Many simple actions would help people be healthier, but a willingness to care for the self is still rare.

International Self Care Day helps change perceptions about self care, to help people understand not only that they are allowed to care for themselves lovingly, but also that it’s a necessity.

What is the history of International Self Care Day?

In 2011, the International Self Care Foundation established a day to celebrate Self Care officially. The day is used to promote awareness of self care and change public perception.

What is the timeline of International Self Care Day?

As early as the 1950s, Western medicine began addressing the topic of self care, in recognition of it being a missing ingredient.

Even into the 1960s, self care was still a novel concept, generally considered unnecessary or indulgent. Due to many cultural transformations in the 1960s, the 1970s saw the notion of self care take root in the populace, in part through the rise of humanism in the field of psychology.

In the decades since the 1970s, the belief that self care is important has grown. Since the founding of International Self Care Day in 2011, the concept has continued to gain in prevalence.

What are FAQ’s of International Self Care Day?

Here are some questions that women with addiction, trauma, and mental health struggles often have about self care.

Isn’t self care just being selfish and self indulgent?

Self care isn’t the same thing as selfishness or self indulgence. In fact, self care makes us less selfish.

Selfishness arises when we don’t care for ourselves, so our needs come out sideways and we take energy from others in a draining way.

Self care is about giving to the self, generating positive vibes and goodness in our own personal sphere. The more we care for ourselves, the more we have to share when we choose. If we have a horror of being selfish, as many of us do, then we must understand that we have to take extra good care of ourselves.

What’s the connection between self care and addiction?

Almost always, addiction takes root in an environment of self-neglect, if not self-hatred. Addiction cannot abide in the heart, mind, or body of a woman who loves herself and knows that she is worthy of boundaries, kindness, and self care.

Those of us in recovery have to do more work than others to make sure we practice self care heroically, to counteract our pre-existing conditions of rock bottom self esteem.

We have to remind ourselves that if we don’t love ourselves proactively, we will end up hurting everyone around us again.

What happens when you don’t practice self care?

There are many problems that arise when we don’t care for ourselves, ranging from physical disease to self destructive behavior. When we don’t practice self care, we end up suffering and causing others around us to suffer along with us.

When we don’t practice self care, we create unnecessary problems for ourselves and others. This can be as subtle as unconsciously teaching self-hatred and self-sacrifice to our daughters, or as dramatic as fully relapsing in our disease and kicking off the whole addiction cycle again.

What does self care even mean?

Self care means that you actively, regularly, repeatedly, and forever take care of the life form that you are, in every way that is required for this being to be happy and healthy, cared for, loved, encouraged, etc.

This means physical care, like hygiene, sleep, healthy food, protecting yourself from chemical exposures, etc, and also active care of your emotional, mental, and soul life.

What are International Self Care Day activities?

International Self Care Day can be a yearly reason to revisit your self care, and dedicate some special activities to celebrate yourself and what you need.

Spoil Yourself - in a Healthy Way

Every woman I know could confess to a secret longing for something that actually isn’t so hard to arrange. Flowers are a good way to self-spoil without a lot of cost. For example, you could make a force-bloom narcissus for your window.

Since we’re going into summer, you could also make sachets from garden herbs or dried flowers.

Is there something that would be relatively easy and affordable to do, a low hanging fruit, an activity, or symbolic gesture which would mean a lot to you?


Do Something for Your Inner Child

Self Care Day could be dedicated to your inner child. Is there something playful, silly, or whimsical you could do this year, to give a special gift to your inner child?

This VKM therapist once went to the San Diego Zoo, all by myself, because I wanted to see the newborn baby hippo. That worked, and counts as self care!


Love Lists

A very easy exercise that can help with self care is to write a long list (fill a whole page), of sentences that start with “I love…”. Think of small, concrete things, as much as you can.

I love having bare feet in the garden. I love the smell of geraniums. I love the little yellow green finches that come around this time of year.

Once you have filled up the page with small things you love, see if there is anything on there that you could allow yourself to experience, right away.

What are 5 interesting facts about self care?

Here are some aspects of self care which might surprise you.

Self Care makes us more able to give to other people

It’s true. When we practice self care we end up feeling so much better that we naturally give more love, kindness, energy, and attention to others. Self care creates energy in our personal sphere, rather than taking it away.


Self Care takes very little time

Many self care practices can be done super quickly. For example, you can set a timer for 1 minute and gently stroke and massage your own face, head, and body, and long before the timer is up you will feel an increase in self-love as your body responds to the care you are choosing to give yourself.

Expanding the timer to 5 minutes and you already have even more options. 5 minutes of stretching. You can dance to a pop song in less than 5 minutes.

With 15 minutes a day, you can have quite a robust self care practice going, and with an hour a day, you’ll transform your life.


Self Care is a Performance Booster

Top athletes, performing artists, and extraordinary achievers everywhere are very disciplined, primarily about making sure they get the requisite self care that is necessary to be in optimal condition. We can learn from them the simple truth that the better we treat ourselves, the better we are able to perform at our best.


Self Care Improves Self Worth

When we treat ourselves every day like we are worth taking care of, sooner or later we start to feel that we are worth that. Especially when we say out loud to others something that reflects the truth that we are taking care of ourselves, it has a way of building confidence, self respect, and self esteem. A statement as simple as “I’m going to stay home tonight because I want to give myself a chance to catch up on some rest after this week of working hard” can build the internal reality of being worth caring for and treating as precious.

Self Care Makes Us Resilient

The more we care for ourselves, the more relaxed and capable we are in the face of uncertainty and change. We are able to tolerate ambiguity better, and we are less stressed. That means we have more access to our native human intelligence and can radiate vibes into the environment that make everyone else feel better too.

Why do we love International Self Care Day?

Here at Villa Kali Ma, we love International Self Care Day because we know almost all women still need to be told many more times that it’s ok to care for ourselves.

We need to be reassured, reminded and encouraged to realize that we are precious and that we deserve to be treated as such. Human beings need a lot to thrive – and that’s ok. Not only is it ok to put ourselves first, but it’s something to celebrate every time we manage to do that.

Villa Kali Ma can assist women with self care

Self care is at the heart of all we teach women who come through our doors. To recover from addiction, mental health struggles, and trauma, we must embrace the principle of self care.

We may need to change our mindsets, and practice practice practice the simple art of loving ourselves as we have always longed to be loved by someone – unconditionally, abundantly, and for all time.

If you’re facing addiction, trauma, or mental illness, you’re not alone, and you don’t have to be. You can come get better with others (like us here at VKM!) who know exactly what that’s like, as well as how we women can find our way out again.

Categories
Sobriety

The Importance of Your Sober Birthday

What is a sober birthday?

The original 12 Step program, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), pioneered the concept of a sober birthday. Sober birthdays mark the day we stopped using drugs and alcohol. Getting sober is a kind of rebirth, and a sober birthday celebrates the day a new, sober self is born.

Why is it important to stay sober?

Total sobriety, or abstinence, is a critical part of recovery from drugs and alcohol. That’s because it’s the nature of substance addiction to pull a person back in when we’re re-exposed to even just a small amount of the substance.

A person can go for years without drinking, then one day relapse by thinking they can have “just one”. While it may begin with just one, typically within days, weeks, or months, substance use will escalate back to previous levels of consumption and beyond.

While a meaningful, good life is possible after addiction, it is only possible through choosing to live in total abstinence from all mood-altering chemicals.

What is Alcoholics Anonymous?

Alcoholics Anonymous is a 12 step program. AA is self-run and self-organized on a fully volunteer basis, as a fellowship of recovering alcoholics.

Although AA features an element of spirituality, sharing that a spiritual awakening is usually required to be able to recover from addiction, AA is not part of any religion. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

AA works for spiritual-but-not-religious people, religious people, agnostics, and atheists equally well, provided they are willing to surrender their egos to a benevolent healing force of some kind in order to be able to recover.

Alcoholics Anonymous is, as the title implies, fully anonymous, meaning that membership in the group is protected by a vow of anonymity, and no one may reveal another person’s membership in the group. Also, what is shared within the walls of an AA meeting is considered fully private and confidential, not to be shared outside of meetings.

Alcoholics Anonymous is free to attend. Collections of small donations are accepted but not required, used for fees related to renting space to meet, publishing pamphlets, maintaining websites, and outreach in jails, hospitals, and schools. There are no AA employees, and there is no permanent hierarchy or leadership, though there are temporary service positions, such as being a chairperson or speaker at a meeting.

There are AA meetings all over the globe, and every major US city will have multiple options for meetings every day. There are also online meetings that are easy to attend from anywhere with an internet connection. You can find meetings on the Alcoholics Anonymous website.

AA is based on the 12 Steps of Recovery, which are psychologically healing actions recommended to all people who are seeking to recover from the nightmares of addiction to substances. AA has been effective for millions upon millions of people, who are able to now live joyful lives in recovery.

However, AA only works “if you work it”. This means that while everyone is welcome to attend no matter where they’re at in their journey, and all are encouraged to take on board only what feels right for them, positive results require people to attend regularly (often daily for the first several years of sobriety), to complete the 12 Steps, and to work with a sponsor.

What is a sobriety chip?

AA believes in celebrating sober birthdays by handing out sobriety chips. These sobriety chips are small round medallions made in different colors to designate different lengths of time sober.

The most important chip is considered to be the 24 hour chip, given to members who have managed to stay sober for their first full day. In the first year of sobriety, many different lengths of time are honored, such as 30, 60, and 90 days. After the first year of sobriety, birthdays are generally celebrated annually.

Many people find that having a sober birthday celebrated has more meaning and impact than they could have imagined, and that to be cheered on, honored, and congratulated for the hard work of staying sober after addiction is very helpful for healing the heartache and loneliness that can haunt the lives of people prone to addiction.

What is an aftercare program?

Aftercare refers to any kind of ongoing treatment that takes place after a person has completed an inpatient substance abuse program or outpatient substance abuse program. Villa Kali Ma has an aftercare program, for example, through which we stay in contact with our graduates once they leave our doors.

Aftercare programs usually involve a combination of follow up check ins with treatment providers, and activities that help a person stay in contact with the recovery community. Most aftercare programs strongly recommend involvement in 12 Step as a way to better ensure a life of continued sobriety after all the hard work of treatment.

Why is an aftercare program important for sobriety?

Aftercare programs are important as a way to bridge what is learned in treatment into our work and family lives. Aftercare programs provide continuity and support in the form of friendly faces, and reminders of how bad addiction was and could become again if we aren’t vigilant, accountable, and engaged in the community.

Aftercare is an important way to gradually adjust to greater levels of independence, while still maintaining as much connection as we might need to feel safe and strong in our new lives.

What happens to the sober birthday date if a relapse occurs?

Relapse is a feature of the disease of addiction, and it’s not uncommon for people to relapse several times as a process of coming to terms with the true dangers of addiction.

Many underestimate the deceptive nature of the disease until relapse teaches us to be more emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually ready than we were before, to change in the ways that a life in recovery generally requires.

When a relapse occurs, the date of a sober birthday is amended. It is the humbling nature of addiction that any of us may need to ask for a 24 hour chip all over again. There is never any shame attached to relapse, however, and 24 hours are as celebrated with AA as 20 years.

How to assist a loved one struggling with substance abuse?

It’s not easy to help someone who has a substance abuse problem. We cannot do the work of getting sober for another person. We cannot even make the decision to get help, on their behalf. It must come from them.

All we can do is make it less convenient for them to stay in their addiction, and to speak the truth to them with kindness and consistency.

If your loved one knows and acknowledges that she has a problem, and she is willing to seek help, this is a special window of time in which to take action right away to help her.

Support and encourage your loved one to enter treatment and/or to go right away to an AA meeting. If she wants that, you can even come with her – there are designated open AA meetings in which it is ok to attend even if you are not an addict. By being willing to sit in the room yourself and be present for the reality of addiction, you will learn a lot yourself as well as help your loved one know that you are willing to be in the difficulty with them.

However, if your loved one is fully “in her disease”, denying the impacts of her addiction on you, others, and herself, the best thing to do is to let go of trying to control her. Instead, tell her the difficult truth, hold strong boundaries, and do not skirt around the issue. Judgment isn’t helpful, but directness and firm limits are.

Very common is that a person goes in and out of willingness to admit there is a problem. Again, AA can be helpful here. Go to AA with them, or support them to go, whenever they have moments of clarity or willingness.

Keep in mind that even if your loved one seems not to have been positively affected by an AA meeting, or even scorns or mocks the group, this doesn’t mean it won’t help her later on. The truth about the nature of the disease which is talked about openly within AA has a curative effect on addicts and will plant seeds of recognition and insight in her mind. Many people who circle back to AA do so because a seed of truth planted during an AA meeting many years before has sprouted now, bringing courage and willingness.

It’s important for people just to know on some level that a solution exists. Even if a woman needs to spend many more years in the disease as a part of her process, exposure to AA makes it more possible that the life-affirming part can gather inspiration and strength to overcome the lies of the inner addict someday.

Villa Kali Ma can assist you with staying sober

Addiction is very serious. It gets worse and worse over time and has many severe consequences, including eventual death.

The good news is, it is fully, realistically possible to recover – once you want to recover. Yes, it takes some emotional courage, hard work and a willingness to be changed, but it is largely a matter of surrender and diligence.

No woman needs to know beforehand exactly how she’s going to manage it, nor to feel herself capable of it. All she needs to do to begin, is to honestly say yes to the following question: are you willing to get better?

If she can answer yes to that and can make a decision to enter the unknown of it all, to surrender all her burdens to a benevolent, healing process, she has what she needs to get there.

Recovery requires learning how to live a life more aligned with who we really are, in our best and highest natures. Villa Kali Ma was founded for just this purpose, to help women find out for themselves just how wonderful life can be, through the path of recovery.

Categories
Women's Mental Health

Understanding Women’s Mental Health Over a Lifetime: A Guide

Here at Villa Kali Ma, we believe in the power of gender specific treatment for women. We focus on offering services that foster mental health, trauma healing, and addiction recovery specifically for women.

Throughout the life of a woman, different mental health topics come to the fore, based on changing developmental stages. Read on for Villa Kali Ma’s overview of how women’s mental health may evolve over a lifetime.

What role do sex and gender play in mental health?

Sex and gender both play a part in mental health. There are biological differences – hormonal, chromosomal, and reproductive – between men and women, which have impacts on mental illness and recovery. Differences in social roles and expectations assigned to femininity versus masculinity also affect mental health significantly.

Some mental health disorders are more prevalent among women, for biological and/or societal reasons. Women also experience trauma and addiction in gendered ways.

Mental Health in Childhood: ADHD in girls

Mental health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. On the contrary, it is quite fluid and exists within the contexts and dynamics of the people we are most closely bonded with. During childhood, girls are not yet individuated psychologically from their family systems and are merged with their families as a whole, for better or for worse.

If a family is reasonably healthy and resourced, a girl has a better chance of having healthy thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. On the flip side, if a girl grows up in a family that is experiencing serious mental health trouble, for example in which a parent has an addiction or in which a main caregiver has major unhealed trauma themselves, the child is likely to have symptoms.

One way to understand symptoms experienced by girls is through the trauma lens, as children are psychologically and physiologically damaged by adverse childhood events like neglect, abuse, and various common forms of household trouble.

However, mental health troubles often also arise in children who are supported in reasonably healthy families. Even when protected and nourished by ideal family conditions, children are very vulnerable and can be affected negatively by many stressors that adults can handle without problem.

Little girls’ mental and emotional states are affected by their experiences in school and with their peers. They are also impacted at biological levels by exposure to chemicals through pollution, lack of access to green space, poor nutrient quality of food, and other environmental factors.

While biological differences between males and females are less important until puberty, girls are nevertheless affected by gender impacts at any age. The overall cultural devaluation of femininity (or conditional valuation of femininity for certain uses only, such as to be attractive or helpful) begins eroding a female-born person’s self-esteem right at birth.

One mental health condition that affects some girls is attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. The symptoms of ADHD are impulsiveness, trouble with attention, and hyperactivity. Girls are less likely to manifest hyperactivity and less likely to behave in ways that adults find disruptive. Nevertheless, girls may still be having problems with attention, which impacts their ability to organize, remember, make decisions, and prioritize.

The following symptoms are considered signs that a girl may be having trouble with ADHD-like symptoms:

  • Difficulty paying attention during class
  • Difficulty keeping up with schoolwork
  • Dreaminess
  • Higher than average levels of anxiety
  • Social withdrawal
  • Verbal aggressiveness (like teasing or name-calling)

However, please keep in mind that many conditions present in the same way, and each child is a unique being deserving of careful attention to understand what’s at play before concluding that a mental health disorder is the reason for a child’s behavior.

Depression, Anxiety, and Eating Disorders: Women’s Mental Health During Adolescence

During adolescence, mental health symptoms bloom for all humans, and preexisting tendencies become more prominent. Many fluctuations in mood and energy are explained by the effects of new hormones. Equally, the difficult social-emotional experiences of puberty, which represent a psychological stage of development, place great pressure on the psyche of a child.

Teenage girls are most prone to experiencing depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. These conditions may present separately or together.

Depression

Depression is generally manifested as a low mood (feeling down), negative thoughts, loss of interest in previous sources of enjoyment, and loss of physical energy, sometimes leading to an increase in the need for sleep. A depressed teenage girl may appear lethargic and sad, may withdraw from her friends, and become socially isolated. The struggle with girls experiencing depression for the first time is that they may not have words to communicate the onset of bleakness, heaviness, and desire to withdraw emotionally.

The most important thing to understand about depression is that it can be dangerous. Depression is connected with self-harm, attempted suicide, and risky behavior. Depression can also be part of substance use and/or a sign of having sustained a sexual trauma of some kind.

Common sources of depression include bullying and peer group related pain, such as exclusion by “mean girls”. Depression may be a signal of sexual boundary violation or traumatization, and it’s important to understand how vulnerable girls are to inappropriate sexual expressions by adults and peers.

If depression is observed, it’s important to engage, express care, offer help, and give love. If addressed in time, the wound to the soul may be healed before depression becomes a lingering state of being.


Anxiety

Anxiety is a common kind of suffering among teenage girls. In general, women are considered to be twice as likely as men to manifest symptoms of anxiety, and that is true in adolescence too.

Anxiety is excessive worry and tension and may include intrusive thoughts and obsessive behavior.  An anxious girl may appear worried and preoccupied, have looping thoughts, or be unable to relax.

As with depression, anxiety can be introduced by hormonal changes and is also a psychological response to a change in developmental stage. Anxiety may present as pressure placed upon oneself to perform well academically, to have a perfect appearance (leading to obsessive dieting or other disordered food behaviors), or other forms of perfectionism. Anxiety is also commonly somatically experienced, for example as a stomach ache.

Some signs of anxiety include:

  • Worrying about things that are out of one’s control
  • Physical body tension
  • Worried, uneasy appearance
  • Fidgeting, inability to relax
  • Obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive behaviors

Eating Disorders

Teenage girls frequently struggle with eating disorders. For many reasons, young women are socially trained to identify with their body weight, size, and shape, and to find self-worth (or more often, lack thereof) by critically examining how they appear in the mirror or photographs.

Eating disorders are more common among women than men in general. Adolescence tends to be the time in which eating disorders start and can include self-starving, fad dieting, self-induced vomiting, overeating, and even abuse of laxatives.

Eating disorders are very serious mental health conditions and are a form of self-harm that has addictive and compulsive aspects. Eating disorders have many physical health impacts, including damage to major organs, and are also psychologically damaging, resulting in arrested development and impairments.

Some signs of an eating disorder include:

  • Obsession with weight and body image
  • Obsession with monitoring calorie intake
  • Restricting food and dieting, trying to lose weight
  • Food rituals
  • Thin, dry brittle hair, degrading teeth and fingernails

Mental Health in Women During Adulthood: Reproductive-related mental health issues in women

During adulthood, women’s mental health continues to be affected by hormones as a strong factor in overall well-being.

Premenstrual Syndrome

A common, recurrent impact for many women is Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). Over the week before and sometimes also during menstruation, reproductive hormones may negatively affect mood, self-esteem, and energy levels.

PMS is often accompanied by headaches, moodiness, and physical bloat. These conditions may be experienced more dramatically by women who already struggle with depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.


Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder

In cases where symptoms are extreme, a woman might be given a diagnosis of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), a more severe form of PMS. When a woman has severe mood swings, irritability, and significant depression every month, she may meet the criteria for such a diagnosis.

However, the diagnosis of PMDD is generally reserved for women who are affected to such a degree that it is interfering with important life functions, for example, if it is affecting work and relationships. PMDD is more common among women who also have depression and anxiety.


Postpartum Depression

Women can also be affected by hormone fluctuations connected with giving birth. Postpartum depression, or the baby blues, can create mood swings, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and overwhelm. Postpartum depression is more severe for women who already struggle with anxiety or depression.


Menopause

As a woman shifts out of her reproductive years, hormones again become a factor in mood and state of being. Many women experience depression and anxiety, partly in response to changes in phase of life. Again, women who have depression and anxiety already tend to experience hormonal impacts more intensely than other women.

Other mental health disorders in women

Due to biological and social impacts, women experience mental health disorders in gendered ways.

Substance Use Disorders

Substance use disorders have critical impacts on the body, mind, and spirit, negatively affecting relationships, work, and finances.

In terms of numbers, men make up the majority of people addicted to drugs and alcohol, though women’s use of drugs and alcohol is on the rise. Women are more likely to be prescribed addictive prescription drugs such as opiates and anti-anxiety drugs.

Women who do use substances are more likely than men to progress quickly through the stages of addiction, becoming dependent on substances. Women appear to experience greater pain levels during withdrawals and have a higher rate of relapse than men.

The stressors that cause women to seek out drugs and alcohol tend to be different than for men. Social obligations and family roles, such as parenting and caregiving of elders feature more prominently in sources of stress.

Substance use disorders frequently start during teenage years, manifesting as addiction during adulthood.


Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder is a difficult mental health condition affecting many people. BPD symptoms include emotional instability, impulsive behavior, intense attachment problems (fear of abandonment) leading to dramatic interpersonal relationships, and severe problems with self-worth. BPD is associated with intense anger, depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal gestures, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors.

BPD has a history of being prescribed much more often to women than to men. It is now believed to have been over-diagnosed in the past because of cultural bias against women. Currently, it is believed to affect men and women equally.


Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is a painful condition that involves severe mood swings, between mania and depression. There are different types of Bipolar Disorder, and one of them (Bipolar II) is believed to affect women more than men. Men and women are equally likely to have Bipolar I.

In general, women who have bipolar disorder are likely to also have other health problems and to be more affected by hormone-induced mood problems such as depression after giving birth.

Dementia: Mental Health in Older Adulthood

In older adulthood, mental health struggles for women center on dementia, especially Alzheimer’s, which affects more women than men.

Symptoms of Alzheimer’s include forgetting important names and faces (such as loved ones) and struggles with executive functioning.

How can a woman struggling with mental health look to the future?

At Villa Kali Ma, we believe that at any stage of life, a woman has many internal resources working in her favor. Assets like intelligence, resilience, humor, and kindness get us through and make meaning out of difficulty.

We have our hearts and our creativity, and we are adaptable creatures. Life asks us to use the many gifts we are given, to face challenges that shift and change over time, as we do.

Looking into the future, a woman can expect both that her resilience will be on her side, and that there will be times of needing more help than before.

We are not meant to stay the same. We change, and so does our mental health.

It’s important to know that at no stage is it necessary to go it alone unless we want that. Whatever aspect of our womanly life we are facing, there are women by the millions who are going through the same, and many elders ahead of us with wisdom to spare. In our common experiences, there is strength, laughter, comfort, and joy in great abundance.

Villa Kali Ma can help women ages 30-60 with mental health

At Villa Kali Ma, we help women discover their native gifts for mental health, from deep within themselves. With a signature combination of clinical Western modalities and Eastern healing approaches, we guide each woman who comes through our doors to find her unique path through her unique life.

Categories
Dual Diagnosis Program

Most Common Dual Diagnosis Disorders in Women

Villa Kali Ma is a holistic treatment program dedicated to women. We address addiction, mental illness, and trauma, with a combination of Western clinical methods and ancient Eastern modalities.

At our core, Villa Kali Ma is a place where the complexity of women’s suffering is understood and gently unwound. In recognition that each woman is unique and irreplaceable, we endeavor to serve and heal using the best tools available.

One important part of our program is our comprehensive treatment approach for women with dual diagnoses.

What is Dual Diagnosis?

Dual diagnosis means having two mental health diagnoses at the same time. One diagnosis is a substance use disorder, such as alcoholism, and the other diagnosis is a mood disorder, such as anxiety or depression.

It is very common among people who have substance use disorders to also have a co-occurring mood disorder. The pain of the mood disorder is connected to why a person is driven to use substances in the first place.

It is always important to do a careful assessment for dual diagnosis because many mood disorder symptoms are caused, complicated, and masked by addiction. For example, depression, anxiety, and even psychosis can be caused by addiction to substances. Accurate assessment can only happen after all substances have left a person’s system, and withdrawal has been largely completed.

Mental health symptoms can be hidden or changed by the presence of substances in the body. A person can have a serious mental health condition and not realize it because drugs and alcohol are front and center, pulling focus from deeper topics.

Many people struggling with intense mental health difficulties self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. For such people, it is unrealistic to expect that they will be able to stay sober for very long if they don’t also get good help for their mental health situation at the same time.

To make things more complex, trauma is almost always a factor at play when it comes to women who are using substances. A mental health condition like depression, anxiety, or an eating disorder may itself be in place in response to chronic traumatization of the type sustained in adverse childhood events like abuse and neglect, or whenever sexual boundaries are violated.

Dual diagnosis is serious, with compound effects due to negative interactions between the two conditions. Mental health diagnoses make it harder to achieve and sustain progress toward healing addiction, and over time, substance addictions make any independently existing mental health problem worse.

All in all, the relationship between mental health and addiction is delicate and requires careful consideration.

The Most Common Dual Diagnoses among Women

Dual diagnosis is more prevalent among women than men. Women who have a dual diagnosis are especially impacted by gender and biological sex differences that affect both addiction and mental health.

Depression

For teenage girls, the most common diagnosis alongside substance use disorders is depression. Depression in teenage girls is connected with suicidal thoughts and self-harming behaviors such as substance abuse or eating disorders.


Anxiety

After the age of 18, the most common co-occurring mental health disorder in women with substance use disorders is anxiety. Anxiety frequently accompanies stress.

Feeling overwhelmed by daily responsibilities of life, such as managing work while caring for children, is a source of significant levels of stress for many women. Stress is one of the most commonly cited reasons for turning to substance use.
Anxiety may also be present due to traumatization – very often the real source of unease lies in an unresolved past experience of abuse, violation, or danger.


Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Women with substance use disorders are highly likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, and/or other kinds of traumatizing events, for which substance abuse is a coping mechanism.

An estimated two-thirds or more of women who enter treatment for substance abuse report having been the victim of sexual violence or mistreatment in some form. Childhood trauma of any kind, including neglect, is a strong predictor of substance abuse and addiction in adulthood.


Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is characterized by severe mood swings, cycling between mania and depression. Bipolar disorder is very painful, and people with the disorder often use mood-altering substances in an effort to gain a measure of control over their feelings and states of mind.

People with bipolar disorder often turn to different types of substances to cope with the two different poles of mood, for example using alcohol during mania and stimulants to help with depression.


Borderline Personality Disorder

A borderline personality disorder is a challenging condition that manifests as relational volatility, impulsivity, intense emotions, destructive relationships, and self-harm tendencies.

It is common for women with borderline personality disorder to struggle with substance abuse as part of a larger pattern of heightened sensation-seeking and self-destructive urges. Noteworthy is the theory that some trauma researchers have put forth, that borderline personality disorder is created through trauma.


Eating Disorders

Frequently, women with substance use disorders also struggle with healthy eating, body image, and weight. For some women, full blown eating disorders may co-exist or develop over time, sometimes only after getting sober, as a woman struggles to find new ways to cope with overwhelming emotions and thoughts.

What treatment options does Villa Kali Ma offer to assist women with co-occurring disorders?

At Villa Kali Ma, we specialize in helping women heal from three conditions: addiction, trauma, and mental illness. We are prepared to treat each of these three pieces as they emerge, in our comprehensive women-only treatment programs.

For women with dual diagnosis, mental health struggles and addiction are woven together, while trauma may or may not be a factor too. (In our experience treating women, it very often is, in one way or another.)

Our core program addressing addiction guides women through the transformational work of learning to live life without substances.

We address mental health with our intensive individual, group, and family therapies. Cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy are examples of our clinical approaches for helping women heal psychological conditions like depression, anxiety, or borderline personality disorder.

We address trauma through cutting-edge treatments like EMDR, brain-spotting, somatic experiencing, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

Women who go through our holistic program receive a tailored treatment experience that addresses their unique needs.

Villa Kali Ma offers a dual diagnosis program for women with addiction and mental health problems

Dual diagnosis is difficult to overcome since the pain of a mental health disorder tends to drive people deeper into substances, while the many nightmares of addiction make mental health problems worse. When addressed together in an appropriately supportive setting, however, it’s possible to heal both conditions at once.

Villa Kali Ma offers a comprehensive, holistic dual diagnosis program that also addresses trauma, which we know to be a complicating factor for most women who enter treatment for addiction and mental health problems. We have inpatient and outpatient offers. Throughout all of our programs, we bring the best of Western clinical approaches together with the healing insights of Eastern, natural practices for healing mind, body, and soul.

If you or a woman you love is struggling with a dual diagnosis, we’d love to help you if we can!

Categories
Mid Year Goals

Halfway Through the Year: Revisiting Your Mental Health Goals

It’s the beginning of July and we are officially halfway through the year!

Happy Summer, everyone! The solstice that just took place on June 20th marks our entry not only into summer but into the second half of 2024.

Here at the halfway point, we can pause to look six months back into our past and also cast our eyes six months forward into our hoped-for futures. At such a peak in the gorgeous, challenging trail called life, let’s take a moment to see how we are doing in comparison to our intentions for 2024.

Should you revise your mental health goals?

Thinking back to what you hoped 2024 would be about, how have things been going for you? If you’re like us, some things have gone beautifully, just as we had hoped and planned. Other topics are still on track but have changed shape or shifted priority, as we adapt to what emerges in life’s unfolding series of surprises. And, truth be told, a couple of projects we meant to tackle have fallen by the wayside completely. Oops!

What to do when life doesn’t resemble the plan we made for it? Not to worry, we can always change course, responding to the winds we’re dealing with now. Rather than getting stuck in the swamps of self-defeat, or letting this feel personal (it is not – all human beings struggle with enacting deeply desired changes in their lives), let’s take a breath, take a beat, and reassess.

Checking in with our mental health goals, what revisions might we wish to make? What have we learned from our attempts at putting intentions into practice? Where have we shined? Where have we biffed it? What can we do now, shaking off the past and letting ourselves have a new, fresh chance in the present?

Intentions or resolutions: words do matter

Resolutions fail, notoriously. Intentions, on the other hand, live forever in the ethers, as heart-seeds that can crack, sprout, grow, and bloom in their own best timing.

As the manifestation prayer “this, or something better” suggests, intentions leave a little more room for life to show us something we had not taken into account. Intentions are powerful statements of alignment and orientation, declarations of who we are.

Intentions are powerful, like white magic. When paired with action steps we are willing to do, intentions are the secret to how change happens.

Truly Intending to Meet Our Goals

Looking back on any failed attempts to change, we can learn a lot.

If our goals for 2024 didn’t happen as intended in the first half of the year, the reason is one of three things:

  • Our intention was not strong or clear enough
  • Our goals were not actionable – too big or too vague
  • Something unexpected happened

Let’s look at each of these possible weak spots and give some TLC to repair them.

Strengthening Intention

A well-chosen intention should feel fortifying and true. It is not a wishful thought, a lie, or even a stretch. It is a factual statement of genuine, sincere willingness.

If I get on a plane to Atlanta, there is no inner conflict when I say, “I intend to get to Atlanta”. Intentions can feel as clear and strong as that.

If we make a statement like “I intend to be sober, all day every day” and there is some vague feeling that that is not completely true, flush out that part of you that’s hesitating. Don’t judge it, just find out what it’s saying. This will be important information about where you’re at.

I intend to be sober, all day, every day. But I am afraid I will fail.

Sometimes it helps when something like that pops out, to try working with the phrase, “I am willing to…I want to…I hope to…”

I intend to be sober, all day, every day. I am willing to be sober all day, every day. I hope and I pray, and I ask the benevolent forces of the universe to please help me, that I succeed in being sober all day, every day. I want with all of my heart to be sober all day every day.

Life forgives us infinitely and gives us many chances. It is us who sometimes lack the self-love to take them. Even if we feel frail and unworthy, we can usually find, as they say in AA, “the willingness to be willing to be sober.” Start with whatever feels true.


Actionable Goals

Actionable goals need to be the right size, in the right time frame.

If I consider 90 meetings in 90 days, and that feels like too much to commit to, then I can set a goal of 30 meetings in 30 days first, and take it from there.

Find the size and timing that you can say “Oh, yes, absolutely I can do that” to, and work with that as a starting point.

Also remember that practice goals, where you just show up and do the practice, are usually easier than outcome-based goals.

For example, instead of saying, “I will clean out the garage”, you might find it easier to say, “I will spend 15 minutes, 3X a week, on cleaning out the garage, and see where I’m at by the end of the month”.

Again, the goal here is to find something that’s soft enough to feel like support and kindness, but not so soft that the avoidant parts of us rule. Be kind. Change is hard. But do the work to change, so that you can reap the rewards of your own self-love, too.


Adjusting to Unforeseen Events

Finally, it’s important to remember that life happens. Very little is in our immediate control, fortunately, or unfortunately!

If we go to a party where alcohol is served, it is not exactly unexpected that we end up relapsing. That is the inner addict taking advantage of us. But if we are faithfully doing our part, and new information and context emerge which makes it impossible to meet our goals, that is just life being life.

If we did not meet our target of doing 15 minutes of yoga every morning for 30 days, because our child ended up getting the stomach flu and needed our care, that is an unforeseen event.

We can acknowledge and accept when life is being life, and reset and recenter ourselves.

Over time, we may adjust our intentions and have contingency plans.

I intend to meditate every morning. If I happen to miss a meditation due to a genuinely unforeseen event, my policy is to make it up in the evening if I can, and if I can’t, to just try again the next day. As long as I am genuinely doing my best, that counts.

How can a woman shift from fear to gratitude?

The shift from fear to gratitude is one of the most powerful tools to work in any given moment. Here is a short, 15-minute writing activity you can try, which works on the spot.

Surround Your Fear with Powerful Gratitude

Step One: For about 7 minutes, write down some fears. You can use the phrase, “I am aware of fear related to…”

I am aware of fear related to my sister’s upcoming visit, I’m worried I’m going to get triggered…

Step Two: Take another 7 minutes to now identify at least three gratitudes that are somehow connected to each one of the fears you surfaced in Step One.

Sister: I am so grateful that we have such a good relationship. I know she has my back, in the end, and I know that she loves me even though I might disappoint her. I am grateful she’s coming out to visit. I’m grateful for her kids, they’re so fun, and that I have a good relationship with them.

How do you feel now?

Mental health intentions for the rest of 2024

Now is the time to consider, what intentions can you set for yourself, for the rest of 2024.

Here are some ideas for jumping off points:

What are some intentions related to protecting, nourishing, and supporting my sobriety?

What are some intentions related to physical exercise?

What are some intentions related to eating, food, and nutrition?

What are some intentions related to loved ones, friends, family, coworkers?

What are some intentions related to mindsets, attitudes, and thoughts?

What are some intentions related to my emotions, how I care for my inner world?

What are some intentions related to my spirituality?

What are some intentions related to protecting, nourishing, and supporting my mental health?

What are some intentions related to healing my trauma?

What are some intentions related to creative expression, career, or being of service?

What are 5 action steps a woman can take mid-year to achieve her mental health goals?

1. Tell the Truth to Someone Kind

Get together with someone who will kindly witness you, such as a therapist, a peer from your recovery community, or a safe friend. Tell them the truth about how it has gone with your 2024 goals until now.

The truth means not only where you did not fully show up for yourself, but also where you did. Sometimes it’s even more vulnerable to let ourselves be seen for the courage and tenderness of change.

Remember also that partially fulfilled goals are not the same thing as “nothing”. Shoot to share just the actual facts, they might be better than you think. The reason to have a kind friend there is to help you see yourself clearly, and not through the eyes of judgment.


2. Reframe Your Goals for the Second Half of the Year

Update your plan to today. Change what needs to be changed, eliminate unneeded things, incorporate new things, and bring your positive intentions forward into the now. This is your plan going forward. Share your intentions with someone who will get it, who will understand the tenderness behind this act.


3. Celebrate Your Wins

Don’t forget to be happy about the changes you did manage to enact. Honor yourself and your courage with some kind of a healthy reward that is meaningful to you. A simple, easy way to do this is to write yourself a love letter in which you truly acknowledge yourself.

Dear [Your Name],

Oh my gosh, you have so much to be proud of. You showed so much grit and courage! I know this wasn’t easy but you’re still here. Incredible!


4. Mourn Your Losses

If something bad happened this year, if you slipped or something else hit you hard, allow yourself to take that into account. The love letter might be a good place for this:

I want to take a moment to acknowledge that Fran’s relapsing hit you out of nowhere, and you weren’t expecting that. Of course that impacted you! I’m sorry you lost your sober friend.


5. Dream a Little Dream

Yes, reality happens, but dreams can help cushion us and connect to the magical realms within us which have a lot of power, even if we can’t quite always predict or control everything.

Give yourself a chance to dream forward, and imagine everything going perfectly from now on.

For 15 minutes, let yourself journal on what the perfect day would be, starting from the moment you open your eyes:

I wake up well rested and refreshed, in clean, silky sheets smelling like bergamot and jasmine. I feel strong, healthy, and relaxed, happy to be alive. I roll comfortably over and see….

Villa Kali Ma can assist women with mental health goals

Dear reader, we know that life is challenging and magical in the same breath. Villa Kali Ma is dedicated to women, to helping all of us reclaim our lives and live happily and healthfully from now on. It is never too late to try again, nor is anything that ever happened in the past a reason to withhold love from ourselves now. If you need a team on your side, come check us out!

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National Minority Mental Health Month

Observing National Minority Mental Health Month

At Villa Kali Ma, we believe that happiness is a gift given to all life. Vibrant, abundant well-being arises organically from inside our own deepest natures if only we can find a way to access it.

But the forces that entrain us women into suffering are mighty, and our birthright of natural happiness can be greatly harmed by many destructive factors coming at us from the outside.

While it’s true that healing the psyche is an inside job, outer life circumstances can be favorable or unfavorable to that work. It is part of the mystery and complexity of human life to understand the ways that we are each and every one of us products of our environment, even as we co-create that environment together.

Many social conditions directly oppose health and happiness. Poverty is an example of such a condition – when people are pushed to direct all of their personal consciousness energy just to attend to basic survival needs, mental health suffers.

Health takes time, safety, and resources. Poverty, racism, sexism, and other forms of widespread social illness represent real challenges to our ability to be well.

For all these reasons and more, Villa Kali Ma celebrates National Minority Health Month.

What is National Minority Mental Health Month?

National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month takes place every July. Dedicated to raising awareness about unique challenges faced by ethnic and racial minorities within the United States, the month-long campaign aims to support minority mental health topics to receive greater attention in the national dialogue.

How can mental health affect women of all races and ethnicities?

Mental illness affects women of all races and ethnicities. Likewise, mental health can flourish in the heart, mind, and body of any woman, no matter what her culture or socioeconomic position.

Mental health is not determined by forces outside of us, though social circumstances can certainly make it much harder for us to find our way to the healing resources that lie in wait inside us.

We all inherit beliefs and undergo social programming, no matter who we are. It is the difficult job of each woman on a healing path to discover which of those beliefs she wants to keep, and which she would like to discard.

If we let society tell us who we are, we as females and especially if we are also from a minority cultural group, may have very little sense of value, except in certain very limited ways.

Mental health for any woman depends on regaining control over one’s own thoughts, feelings, actions, and relationship to herself. We must remember that we deserve our own love, and find a way to love ourselves in spite of overwhelming messages to the contrary. We must also love ourselves in the face of blatant social inequalities, widespread systemic injustice, and true victimization.

What mental illnesses are common for women in minority groups?

Mental illness symptoms can arise in anyone. For women in minority groups, it’s important to understand the ways that certain mental illness symptoms can be masked or exacerbated by cultural and familial expectations about suffering.

There is no culture that is better than another, we are all colored by our own origins. The key is to discern the ways that our consciousness is being impacted by the values and ideas we have been taught. Once we see the lenses that distort our thoughts, we can extract them and replace them with a more loving view.

Some cultures have more stigma around mental illness, getting help, or even speaking your mind. Some cultures are more accepting of emotions like anger and sadness, while others may attach shame to having certain kinds of human experiences, even though everyone secretly has them. Almost all cultures have differing expectations of men and women. Any group identity to which we belong shapes us to some degree, affecting how we think about ourselves and others.

Some specific mental health impacts that could be affecting you if you grew up in a minority culture within the United States include trauma, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.

To be clear, all of the above impacts can affect anyone from any culture. However, they are factors that are known to affect some members of minority groups within the United States for certain systemic reasons. Some examples of systemic impacts include poverty, growing up in unsafe conditions, being pressured to perform perfectly because of representing one’s race within the mainstream, and generally being misunderstood, ignored, or devalued by the larger cultural paradigm. Further, some minority women are dealing with the effects of racially motivated violence, psychological abuse, bullying, and prejudice.

Trauma

Trauma can become a mental health issue whenever we are exposed repeatedly to frightening, soul-fragmenting events, such as violence, abuse, and sexual assault. Depending on where in the country you grew up, in what economic conditions you live, whether in a city or the country and also what kind of family you have (if there is addiction or trauma in your family), you may have been exposed to greater or lesser measures of life-threatening events.


Low Self-Esteem

Low self-esteem can be pervasive among women growing up in minority cultures due to a lack of value, visibility, and fair treatment by the dominant culture. For many women, lack of accurate representation in media, and lack of understanding of one’s experience as a member of a minority group existing within a larger majority, can lead to a diminished, devalued sense of self.


Depression, Anxiety, and Addiction

Depression and anxiety are symptoms of traumatization and low self-esteem, as well as other factors, such as undue economic burdens, systemic disadvantage, prejudice, and more. Finally, substance abuse can be a greater problem in certain communities, where poverty and violent crime are high and basic safety lacking.

Remember, no one has to be determined by their conditions. But at the same time, we have to give ourselves fair recognition of what we’ve survived, and what we are up against now.

When conditions have not been friendly to our soul finding love and support to be our true selves in this world, we will need extra help. That is completely to be expected (and not on us).

We are not to blame for the impacts of a racist, sexist, inhuman culture. We do have the power to reverse its effects, and we can prevail at bringing our light to shine in this world, all the same, as thousands of inspiring women before us have shown.

Addressing mental health challenges among minority groups

There is no easy way to address minority mental health challenges all at once, just as there is no single definition of a minority woman. Nor should everyone be painted with the same brush. We are always also an individual spirit, no matter how we have been shaped and colored by our lineage, culture, and society at large.

We can practice greater sensitivity, consideration, openness, and awareness that women with different cultural backgrounds have different experiences of this world than we do, in many ways, we may not yet be aware of. It’s ok for us to learn more about others and to let go of old beliefs. To make space for voices other than the ones we’re familiar with, and to be affected.

We at Villa Kali Ma want to spread the following message:

It’s hard to be a woman in this world. It takes everything we have just to make it. We all need help learning how to be here, and there is help to be had.

There’s nothing shameful about any of us, as broken as we may be. And every single one of us can recover fully, to live lives of great beauty.

There is love, kindness, and support available for every single one of us, no matter who we are. 

Villa Kali Ma can assist women with mental health

Villa Kali Ma is dedicated to helping mental health flourish and grow in women’s hearts and minds. Different as we are, we are also all connected through our shared humanity, equally deserving of the somber and tender magic of healing.

All women know heartache and hurt, as well as love and courage. On the strength of these commonalities, we do our best to help women find the freedom we believe belongs to all womankind.

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