Author: VKM

Categories
Mental Health

September is World Suicide Prevention Month

What is World Suicide Prevention Month?

As anyone who has been touched by suicide knows, death by self-harm creates enormous trauma in the lives of surviving loved ones, friends, and even casual acquaintances. The fabric of human life is torn for generations whenever any violent death takes place, and suicide is one of the worst ways of bringing harm to our collective heart.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States and around the globe, as many heartbroken humans succumb to the supreme tragedy of severe isolation and despair that gives rise to thoughts of ending one’s life.

To be clear, there is no shame to be applied to such individuals, as anyone who has been there knows that the kind of extreme torment suffered by people longing to die isn’t easily judged away. At the same time, it can’t be glorified or glamorized away, either, as though there is anything noble in it because there isn’t anything wholesome about killing anyone, especially oneself.

This September, we at Villa Kali Ma invite you to honor World Suicide Prevention Month together with us. World Suicide Prevention Month is an awareness campaign observed every September, in hopes of strengthening collective commitment to preventing suicide.

To Villa Kali Ma’s mind, suicide is the result of extreme disconnection from one’s own life source, sense of value, and meaning. Addiction can and often does lead to suicide, as do the soul-fragmenting impacts of serious trauma. Several forms of mental illness are linked to self-harm as well.

Through our holistic programs for women, we are committed and devoted to helping to heal these epidemic ills through our daily work.

Why is World Suicide Prevention Month important?

Like addiction, suicide is no respecter of class, race, or any other lines and categories we draw between people in our minds. Suicide can touch any human through its signature mechanism of intense, intolerable pain of the heart and mind.

Although patterns of suffering and trauma run in families and across generational lines in intricate ways, what all suicidal people have in common is a loss of hope and a severe disconnection from their own love.

When the fire of a person’s spirit has gone out, it is important to understand that through contact and connection, the fire can be lit again. When we understand how critical each human life is to the rest of us – how we are all puzzle pieces of a picture that cannot be completed without each person’s contribution – we might remember it is in our own interest to make sure less of us fall through the cracks.

Statistics on women and suicide

According to an analysis of suicide statistics collected from 2001 to 2021, conducted by public health researcher Preeti Vankar, suicide is most common among women ages 45 to 64.

In 2020, 8 in every 100,000 women between the ages of 45 and 54 committed suicide. Although women are three times less likely than men to commit suicide, the rate of women attempting suicide has gradually increased over the last two decades.

According to a study of suicide rates across races and ethnicities published by the CDC by way of the National Center for Health Statistics, suicide rates increased between 1999 and 2017 for all race and ethnicity groups, with non-Hispanic white women showing the greatest rise in rate of suicide among females. Women’s suicide tends to be less violent (less likely to involve firearms than men), as women are more likely to try death by self-asphyxiation or poisoning.

Although completion of a suicide attempt is more common among men, women are more likely than men to experience suicidal thoughts and perform suicidal gestures. Women who suffer from addiction are more likely to experience suicidal ideation, or serious thoughts of suicide, and to attempt to take their own lives.

It is exceptionally important to acknowledge the significantly elevated suicide risk among women who are suffering from addiction, mental illness, and traumatization. Women with these conditions are vulnerable and need protection and support.

What are some facts about suicide?

Suicide is defined as death due to purposeful self-injury with the conscious intention to die. An accidental death by overdose or as a result of self-destructive behavior is not, strictly speaking, considered a suicide in the same way.

Not all efforts to end one’s own life succeed; some remain as suicide attempts. A suicide attempt means that someone intended genuinely to take their own life, but they were not successful.

It’s important to understand the degree of seriousness behind an attempt, as some expressions of self-harm are meant as ways of crying out for help, whereas others are more serious attempts to die. When a person has a serious intention to die, they will likely try again and must be protected and supported in greater measure.

People who have experienced other kinds of violence, including sexual violence, bullying, and child abuse, are more likely to attempt to commit suicide.

According to statistics presented by the CDC, suicide rates increased by around a third between 2000 and 2022. In 2022 alone, almost 50,000 Americans died by suicide, and the estimate for those experiencing suicidal thoughts was 13 million. Almost 4 million people planned a suicide attempt, and more than 1 million people attempted suicide but did not die.

The importance of taking care of your mental health

With statistics like these, we cannot afford to ignore the positive effects of proactively caring for mental health and all that that entails. While at large as a culture we have dismissed the stirrings of the soul, emotions, and the need for connection as secondary to productivity and external markers of success, our inner lives cannot be ignored without cost to all of us.

Therefore, in honor of World Suicide Prevention Month, we here at Villa Kali Ma invite you to consider how, when you take good care of your own mental health, including your soul, spirit, and physical body, you are helping the whole collective to learn how to have greater care for all of mankind.

When we have good mental health, we enjoy the following protective factors:

Greater Resilience

Self-Esteem

Positive, Healthy Relationships

Balanced Quality of Life

Greater Sense of Purpose and Calling

Career Success and Personal Productivity

More frequent experiences of Joy and Inspiration

What are some reasons you can think of, to practice good mental health habits?

Here are some thoughts of ours:

  1. When we fill ourselves up with love, self-care, healthy boundaries, and positive thoughts, we have a wellspring of soothing, hopeful, honoring energy to share with others
  2. When we honor the life inside ourselves unconditionally, whether we meet externally imposed standards of success or not, we promote the practice of loving and including all people, just as they are, no matter what, as part of the family of life
  3. We can live our lives in a way that shows that we value human life and that it is something to cherish and give thanks for. When we treat ourselves and those closest to us as precious, important, irreplaceable beloveds, we are helping the world’s soul remember its own unconditional value.

Depression can lead to suicide

Certain mental health patterns, such as depression and most especially bipolar disorder, are strongly linked to suicide.

It’s important to understand that persistent suicidal thoughts often accompany these conditions. Suicidal thoughts should never be taken as less than very, very serious symptoms. We can only hope that these thoughts are more metaphorical than literal, but we would never want to take that chance and assume that a person won’t one day act on that thought.

Such thoughts cannot be easily batted away when the spirit of a person is eclipsed by depression patterns, which represent a very serious sickness of mind and heart. With compassion, we must understand how a person can become entranced by the voice of suicide when one dances too closely with the dark, as people with these disorders cannot help but do (until they are able to heal from these conditions).

It stands to reason that those who are in intense suffering without a break may find themselves thinking about suicide if only out of desperation and hope that the suffering would end with death. For such people, the goal is to help them have hope and to imagine and see a future.

It is also helpful, if the suffering person has anyone they care about, to realistically understand and consider whom they would harm if they acted on the thoughts and harmed themselves. People who are depressed have an extremely negative image of themselves, in which they imagine that they are so terrible, that no one could love them or get any joy out of their presence. We must help people in this state understand how far off these thoughts are.

Has suicide worsened since COVID-19?

Some reports showed that the impact of what took place between 2020 and 2022 has been to increase the rate of suicide.

Recently some of these claims are refined as more data emerges. The current view shared by the National Institute of Mental Health says rather that the increase in suicide rates affects teenagers, but that other categories remained stable.

In general, researchers will learn more over time, and current data could be interpreted in different ways.

How can you get involved in Suicide Prevention Month?

This September, think creatively about how you might support all people to know that their lives are valuable, meaningful, and necessary in this world. Here are some ideas for ways to honor the spirit of the month.

1. Tell your people you love them

Make sure everyone around you knows how much you value them, unconditionally. Not only for what they do for you but for who they are.


2. Offer to hold space for someone

Everyone can use a little compassionate witnessing. If you sense someone in your life may be going through a hard time, offer to sit and listen to them, without offering advice or trying to fix it. Help them feel safe to share the truth of what they’re going through by modeling an attitude of peace and non-judgment.


3. Share your own experiences

If you have any experience with depression and suicidal thoughts, talk to people openly about how you got out of that particular spell. What was the cure that your spirit gave you, for this particular poison? How did it show up in your life? What actions did you need to take? Who helped you?


4. Give Thanks to the People Who Help You Feel Valued

If there are people in your life who help take care of you, and help you feel connected and important just as you are, make sure these people know that you feel and appreciate their love. Shine a light on the ways that they are helping to hold you in this world, connected and secure in the strands of the web of life.

Our individual therapy program can assist women thinking of suicide and self-harm

At Villa Kali Ma, we offer several paths of healing that all lead to the same place – a full and total reconnection to life.

One way we help women get there is through our individual therapy program, which is integrated into each of our programs for substance abuse, mental illness, and trauma.

Read more about how we protect and promote women’s well-being through individual therapy sessions.

Villa Kali Ma Cares About Women’s Mental Health

Women are at the heart and core of Villa Kali Ma. We offer addiction and mental health recovery programs to heal women from substance abuse, trauma, and mental health problems, including depression.

In our integrative sustainable recovery programs, we guide women to discover their inherent, eternal value, and teach them how to live in joy and self-love. From abiding awareness of one’s own lovability, self-harm becomes impossible.

References:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1114127/female-suicide-rate-in-the-us-by-age-group/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2017.htm
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130500/suicide-thoughts-plans-attempts-women-us-by-substance-use-disorder/
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/index.html#cdcreference_3
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2023/youth-suicide-rates-increased-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9331016/

Categories
Recovery

September is National Recovery Month

What is National Recovery Month?

Every September, people living in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction are celebrated through National Recovery Month.

The month-long national observance helps educate Americans about addiction while honoring the hard work, dedication, and emotional courage represented by the choice to recover. Every day, brave, amazing people rebuild their lives after the many ravages of addiction.

National Recovery Month also shares a message of hope, that through programs like 12 Step, as well as through substance abuse treatment programs, miracles and change happen all the time. Every day, millions of people around the globe regain authorship over their own lives and find the path to experience freedom and joy in life again, through sobriety.

What does National Recovery Month celebrate?

National Recovery Month aims to notice and acknowledge the progress, milestones, and important gains achieved by those on the path of recovery.

For too long, addiction has been shrouded in shame, judgment, moralizing, and codependent confusion on the part of loved ones. At the same time, the deep and beautifully transformational path of recovering from addiction has mostly been misunderstood completely.

Millions of Americans are in recovery. Their stories are important, as examples and as inspiration for us all.

We can all learn from the wisdom, strength, and encouragement of those who have gone before us. For each human being still in the clutches of the heartaches of addiction, as well as for their loved ones, it’s important to hold the door of hope open and to remember that nothing is impossible in this life when we genuinely do desire to change.

All of this, and more, is honored with National Recovery Month.

What is the permanent tagline of this month?

National Recovery Month uses the tagline “Every Person. Every Family. Every Community” to encapsulate the heart of its message for Americans. This tagline shines a light on the importance of family members and communities as part of the cure for addiction. Recovery is a personal, familial, and community matter, and everyone can help.

What is the goal of National Recovery Month?

National Recovery Month’s primary goal is to spread awareness to Americans that there is a solution for substance addiction.

Secondarily, Recovery Month shares information about the most up-to-date evidence-based practices that have the highest effectiveness rates for treating addiction clinically.

Likewise, the campaign educates about the potential dangers of substance use, as well as about how substance abuse and mental health disorders negatively interact as co-occurring disorders.

National Recovery Month also aims to disperse information about the effectiveness of treatment services and to encourage people to seek treatment. National Recovery Month also honors addiction professionals.

What positive message does National Recovery Month spread?

National Recovery Month shares the positive message that recovery is possible and worth the effort.

Recovery is a precious gift, tough and meaningful beyond imagining. Recovery turns us into what we have always wanted to be in our deeper selves, making us more heartfelt, wise, and real. Living in the world as it is, activating our potential, while feeling what it is to be a human being.

Every day, through 12-step programs and addiction treatment programs, people are able to transform the whole basis of their lives and begin again.

Recovery is hard work, and the realities that each person must face on their path can feel overwhelming at times. However, there is also a heartwarming abundance of people available to help, starting with other recoverers, and extending to treatment staff and informed family and friends. Resources exist to help us as we do what sometimes feels like the impossible, but which is asked of us nevertheless, to give our whole life over to a benevolent change process.

National Recovery Month helps spread the truth-telling voice of the recovery community to the ears that need to hear its hopeful and fortifying message.

What are some objectives of National Recovery Month?

National Recovery Month aims to change the perception in the public mind about people recovering from addiction, raise awareness about addiction and treatment, and help those affected.

People who were once in the clutches of addiction can be reclaimed and redeemed to live lives of connection and health in every sense of the word – mentally, emotionally, and socially. People who have been written off by society can become potent, positive contributors, the lifeblood of aware, loving communities.

National Recovery Month has the objective of improving understanding of substances and substance use disorders. Additionally, it works to lower barriers to entering treatment and getting needed help.

National Recovery Month campaigns to promote the benefits of early intervention in substance use disorders, receiving substance abuse treatment, and getting help for mental health alongside addiction.

National Recovery Month also hopes to provide visibility for the recovery community and share recovery stories to counteract impressions of hopelessness and despair. Stories help reduce stigma about addiction and can help people’s self-recognition process when they find their own experiences reflected in another’s share.

National Recovery Month also takes on board the necessity to help loved ones, friends, work colleagues, and healing professionals cope with the feelings and pain that accompany loving or working with people who have addiction.

With a greater understanding of addiction and how it works, much pain can be depersonalized, leading to greater effectiveness at emotional support and less burnout for affected parties.

What are 5 ways to get involved this month?

There are many ways to support National Recovery Month. Here are some ideas from us over at Villa Kali Ma.

1. Educate Yourself

There are many resources on the internet about recovery and addiction, including blogs (like ours!) as well as websites dedicated to sharing information, facts, and stories related to addiction. One way to support recovery around the nation is to familiarize ourselves with the landscape that recovering people inhabit.


2. Go to an Open AA Meeting

Although most AA meetings are closed to non-addicts, there are always some meetings, tagged as Open Meetings, which welcome supportive members from the community who would like to learn more about the realities of recovery. Inside the walls of such meetings, you will have the chance to hear first-hand stories of the miseries of addiction as well as the deep joys of recovery. Through this act, you can become an informed, sensitive person when it comes to the addiction topic. You will know much more about what helps and what doesn’t when someone needs to recover.


3. Host a Sober Party

For many, it is out of the ordinary to host events without alcohol or drugs. That simple creative restriction can spur invention and lead you to organize different, fun, heart-connecting activities you wouldn’t have thought of before.
If you have a friend in sobriety, throwing them a sober party can be a personally meaningful act of love. Even if you just want to try it out as an energetic support for the healing of addiction nationally, you will learn much from the experience of interacting and playing with other humans in a festive setting, without relying on substances.


4. Go Without Something for a Month

If we really want to delve into what is asked of people in recovery, we can look into the quaky discomfort that arises in us when we don’t have our go-to comforts.
Most of us have some greater or lesser addictions, not only to substances but also to movies, TV, the internet, food, sex, drama, or cell phones. This National Recovery Month, pick one habit you have and try to go without it for the whole month of September.
If it isn’t easy, be nice to yourself about it and understand, with empathy, through that challenging feeling, what it is that sober people face when they first begin to change their lives so deeply.


5. Interview Someone in Recovery and Do a Creative Project about Them

If you have someone in your life you can interview about their recovery, conduct a considerate, respectful interview made up of questions you would feel all right answering in their shoes. Using the answers as inspiration, make an anonymous artwork, poem, song, or collage expressing the emotional content of that interview.

What treatment programs do we offer at Villa Kali Ma to support women with addiction and mental health issues?

At Villa Kali Ma, we offer several tracks for women who are looking to recover from addiction, mental illness, trauma, or all three.

We have inpatient services at our residential facilities, as well as outpatient treatment, here in the San Diego area.

We offer a medically supervised detox program, an innovative residential trauma treatment program, a residential addiction treatment program, and intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programs.

You can read more about how we work to heal mind, body, and spirit through an integrative, holistic approach united with our cutting-edge, evidence-based clinical program.

Villa Kali Ma Supports National Recovery Month

At Villa Kali Ma, we know how important it is to get the message out that recovery from addiction is possible. We know from our own experiences how hopeless and despairing one can feel when in the throes of a substance disorder, and we know perfectly well the shame, self-hatred, and self-destruction that addiction makes any person feel.

We also know the joy, the beauty, and the life-changing restoration of dignity and freedom that comes through the path of recovery. We celebrate National Recovery Month wholeheartedly this September, for ourselves, for those of our sisters we helped recover, and for all those to come.

Categories
Opioid Addiction

Opioid Overdose Prevention

What is opioid overdose prevention?

Opioids are highly addictive narcotics that induce numbness and cause feelings of euphoria. They are effective at suppressing pain in the short term but are also very addictive.

The widespread practice of prescribing opioids for pain has contributed to a meteoric rise in opioid use disorder, or opioid addiction. One tragic impact of the increase in the number of opioid-addicted people is overdose death.

An opioid-related overdose can occur when a toxic amount of an opioid, or a combination of opioids with other substances, including alcohol, is ingested into the body.

Overdoses are a leading cause of death in the United States. Fentanyl, a lab-made super-opioid considered about 50 times stronger than heroin, is the leader in overdose deaths. However, other opioids and, frequently, opioids in combination with other substances, such as benzodiazepines like Klonopin, are contributing to out-of-control numbers of drug deaths as well.

The opioid epidemic has led to a greater need for opioid overdose prevention. Opioid overdose prevention refers both to emergency interventions in the moment of an overdose transpiring, as well as strategies for preventing opioid abuse in the first place.

How is opioid overdose preventable?

Education as to the presence and lethality of fentanyl in illegal drugs being sold is a key factor in opioid overdose prevention.

Although many overdoses happen due to misuse of prescribed opioids, the majority of people who develop addiction to opioids will eventually purchase illegal knock-off pills for cost reasons, as well as to bypass restrictions like being unable to get a doctor to give them another prescription. These knock-off pills, as well as other street drugs, are more and more likely to contain some portion of fentanyl, as fentanyl is rising in popularity on the street.

Testing Substances for Fentanyl

One bandaid measure to help with the ubiquity of fentanyl is the distribution of fentanyl test strips which can be used to detect the presence of fentanyl in other drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.

Street drugs and illegal pills that contain fentanyl as an ingredient are not always labeled as such, and users may ingest these unintentionally. Due to fentanyl’s extreme potency, accidental overdose is a risk when a person takes a substance without knowing fentanyl is an ingredient.


Naloxone

A critical, life-saving measure is to make sure that naloxone is widely available in places where an overdose is reasonably likely to occur. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist (it reverses the effects of opioids, which can halt an overdose death from happening while it is underway if administered in time). Naloxone injections are used during emergencies to quickly interrupt an overdose in progress.


Overdose Emergency Protocol

It can be helpful to spread awareness of emergency protocols for responding to an overdose in progress. If you think an overdose may be happening, it’s best to treat it as an overdose even if you’re not sure (better safe than sorry).

If you suspect an overdose, call 911. Keep the person breathing and awake, and lay them on their side to prevent choking. Stay with them until responders arrive. If the person is having a seizure, move anything that can harm them away. Do not restrain them and do not put anything in their mouth. If they lose consciousness and are not breathing, start CPR if you are trained.


Avoid Using Opioids (Even When Prescribed by A Doctor)

Emergency measures are important, but they are a late-stage tactic. Better would be better if people weren’t abusing opioids in the first place.

Education about the risks of using any opioids, even as prescribed, is a key part of ending the epidemic. If opioids don’t get into human bodies at all, people will not end up addicted to them, which would lead to zero risk of opioid-related overdose death and injury. While many people realize that street drugs are very dangerous, still too many are unaware of the potential risks of prescribed opioids.

Everyone needs to decide for themselves, but here at Villa Kali Ma, as addiction professionals, we are against the use of opioids if at all possible. We understand that in exceptional cases opiates like morphine can be used in hospital settings. In the case of palliative care, it might be argued that super-opioids are appropriate, in a context in which there is no life expected to resume after the opioid use. If life is expected to resume after all, then the patient needs to be prepared for the reality of the effects of powerful opioid exposure.

We hope to share with these extreme examples that in general, opioids are not a good choice for most people, even though we know that physical pain is one of the hardest things to endure! But opioid addiction is worse.

The dictum generally believed among opioid proponents and doctors who still prescribe opioid drugs, is that they are safe if used as prescribed. The counterweight to that thought is that millions of people who were exposed to opioids for the first time through these prescriptions ended up struggling with overwhelming cravings and chemical dependence that made it nearly impossible to use only as prescribed.

Finally, it’s important to grasp that even if opioids are used strictly as prescribed, underlying pain remains uncured, and will need to be faced once opioid use ends again.

All in all, our recommendation to any person would be to stay away from opioids even when prescribed, if at all possible.

What is opioid use disorder?

Opioid Use Disorder is the diagnostic name for addiction to opioids.

The word opioid is a broad term referring to any substance, whether synthesized in a laboratory or natural, that affects the brain through binding to opioid receptors. The related term opiate refers only to naturally-occurring opioids, derived from opium poppies, such as morphine and codeine.

Semi-synthetic opioids are produced in laboratories using a chemical process but still rely on the active ingredients of the opium poppy. Semi-synthetic opioids include heroin and oxycodone. Finally, some opioids are fully lab-made, such as fentanyl.

Whenever there is chemical dependence on any of these substances, it is classed as opioid addiction, and the person will be given a diagnosis of opioid use disorder.

What is the stigma of opioid use disorder?

Like all addictions, opioid use disorder is widely misunderstood and broadly stigmatized. Those without any experience with addiction may have little understanding or ability to empathize, particularly with the ways that the addiction drives a person into extreme selfishness, self-destruction, and illegal behavior. It is truly difficult to understand without having been through it.

The problem with stigma is that it interferes with treatment and amplifies shame. The presence of shame is tied to all addiction and makes getting help harder. If the stigma of opioid addiction could be lessened, it would help heal the epidemic.

In our opinion, there is no reason to apply shame to opioid addiction, only compassion. Opioid addiction is truly widespread at this point, pointing to a problem not particularly in people’s characters and wounded psyches (at least, not only that), but actually to something extremely malevolent present in the drugs themselves. Ideally, the blame for the opioid epidemic should be lifted from the shoulders of sufferers.

What are opioids?

Opioids are a class of drugs that bind to opioid receptors in the brain, having a narcotic, or numbing effect. Opioids are highly effective at lessening pain in the immediate moment, making them helpful for medical situations like emergency surgeries and palliative care, when extreme physical pain is a factor. Opioids also have a euphoric effect, bringing powerful feelings of well-being and relaxation, in the short term. Opioids are extremely addictive.

There are three different kinds of opioids, synthetic, semisynthetic, and opiates.

Synthetic opioids are fully lab-made substances that mimic the effects of the natural active chemicals found in the opium poppy. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.

Fentanyl is not legally available for personal use even by prescription, but it is nevertheless widely distributed on the black market. It is exceedingly addictive and represents a very high risk of overdose. It is estimated to be at least 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Semisynthetic opioids are a class of pain relievers that are legal when prescribed by a doctor.  Semisynthetic opioids are also made in a lab but include the natural ingredient found in opium poppies. Examples of brand-name semisynthetic opioids are Vicodin and OxyContin. Heroin is also a semisynthetic because it is synthesized from morphine and other ingredients.

Finally, opiates are the least-processed versions of the substance found naturally in opium poppies. This category includes morphine and opium, which are taken from poppy resin.

The role of fentanyl and benzodiazepines

Fentanyl is the number one killer, but the opioid crisis is driven not only by people who are using opioids alone but very commonly, opioids in combination with other substances.

Overdose deaths caused by the use of street drugs or knockoff pills come about because these substances are not pure opioids, but also include other ingredients, some of which are lethal when taken in the wrong combination.

One common source of lethal overdose is the pairing of an opioid with another central nervous system depressant, such as benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines are another very dangerous class of drugs regularly prescribed despite strong addictive properties. Examples of name-brand benzodiazepines are Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin. Benzodiazepines are prescribed for anxiety disorders and sleep problems, but they are also widely abused and sold on the black market.

Fentanyl has the most overdose deaths

The biggest contribution to overdose deaths is owed to fentanyl.

Estimates of overdose deaths in the United States are currently around 100,000 people a year, according to the CDC.

Fentanyl is believed to be responsible for about two-thirds of those deaths. Deaths by fentanyl overdose have risen by almost 30% since 2020, according to an analysis of data conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Fentanyl death is affecting all sections of the population, including older adults and people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Rural and urban areas are both affected.

Opioid overdose deaths in San Diego County, California

According to the San Diego County Overdose Surveillance and Response Program Quarterly Report, opioid overdose deaths are on the rise regionally in San Diego.

The number of overdose-related emergency room visits increased by a greater percentage (13%) in the category of opioid overdose as compared with other drug overdose, which rose also but by a lesser percentage (7%) over 3 years.

In preliminary data collected in the first half of 2023, 75% percent of overdose deaths were related to opioids. The numbers of opioid overdose emergency room visits are around 3 times higher for male users, and the ages most affected are between 25-44.

Overdose facts

According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, per the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, overdoses are the leading cause of death by injury in the United States.

According to a data brief entitled Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2002-2022, 107,941 people died from drug overdoses in 2022 (almost 300 people a day). Of those overdose deaths, about two-thirds were opioid-related.

According to a 2018 article, Risks of Fatal Opioid Overdose during the First Year Following Nonfatal Overdose, people who have had at least one overdose are more likely to have another.

Finally, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s findings from 2022 report that around 50 million Americans are estimated to qualify for substance use disorder treatment. Of those 50 million, less than 15 million were able to receive treatment in that year.

Signs of an opioid overdose

When it comes to recognizing an overdose, it can be tricky to identify and it’s best to follow the rule, “better safe than sorry”. If you think an overdose might be underway, call 911 and stay with the person until medical personnel arrive. Turn the person on their side so that they do not choke and if CPR trained, be ready to administer CPR if the person stops breathing.

Signs that an overdose might be underway are:

  1. Unconsciousness (you can’t wake the person up)
  2. Choking and gurgling, slow shallow breathing, or snoring sounds from someone who won’t wake up
  3. Skin discoloration, especially in nails and lips
  4. Pinpoint pupils that don’t react to light

What is International Overdose Awareness Day?

International Overdose Awareness Day is a day set aside to remember those who have passed by overdose, and to rededicate ourselves to raising awareness of the dangers of drug overdose.

When is International Overdose Awareness Day?

International Overdose Awareness Day is acknowledged every August 31st.

Promising prevention strategies

  1. Stop prescribing opioids
  2. Improve communication and prescription tracking among doctors and clinics to prevent opioid abuse through prescriptions
  3. De-incentivize opioid prescription (make kick-backs for doctors illegal)
  4. De-stigmatize opioid addiction, and provide treatment for all affected by opioid use disorder
  5. Increase awareness among active drug users of the severe dangers of fentanyl and other opioids
  6. Distribute fentanyl strips
  7. Share the message that full recovery from opioid addiction is possible
  8. Expand and fund research into natural, non-addictive healing solutions and alternative methodologies for physical pain disorders, injuries, and mental health struggles (treat the underlying pain in a better way)

How to recognize someone experiencing an overdose?

Opioid-related overdose is recognizable when a person is unconscious or nonresponsive and appears to have difficulty breathing or is not breathing at all.

Other signs and symptoms include:

  • Limpness of the body
  • Clammy, cold skin
  • Discolored, bluish skin
  • Small, constricted pupils that don’t respond to light
  • Unable to stay awake
  • Slow, shallow breathing
  • Gurgling or choking sounds

Other bad signs, indicating another kind of drug overdose, can include tremors, nausea, vomiting, drooling or frothing at the mouth, uncontrollable jerking and twitching, sudden falling, and other more dramatic signs. It is best to call 911 if there is any suspicion of a drug overdose, opioid or otherwise.

We Offer Opioid Addiction Treatment in San Diego County

Villa Kali Ma is a San Diego County facility that helps women heal from addiction through compassionate and integrative approaches to recovery.

Our programs for women who suffer from substance abuse and co-occurring disorders facilitate healing and transformation of women’s lives at the deepest core so that they are fully free to discover the truth of who they are. Opioid addiction is a nightmare, but it’s possible to wake up from that nightmare and live a tender, precious human life again, in recovery. We’d love to help you do just that.

References:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm

https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/hhsa/programs/phs/od2a/Q4_2023_Overdose%20Quarterly%20Report.pdf

https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/135849

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871618303466?via%3Dihub

Categories
Mental Health

Natural Remedies for Anxiety

Passing states of worry, unease, edginess, and even fear are so commonly experienced that we might call them an ordinary part of life.

When life situations are uncertain, as they so often are, and we’re not completely sure what we may ourselves may be called upon to do in order to resolve them, it’s natural to tense up. The unknown is felt in the body as a kind of question, waiting to be answered.

There are also many factors of contemporary life that trigger the body at the nervous system level to signal possible dangers – sudden loud noises, pollution, chaotic energies, and information overload can all be processed by the body through tension in our stomachs, restricted breathing, and racing hearts.

For some of us, chronic fear becomes a burden of its own. Anxiety is a problem when it seriously disrupts our lives when we are unable to relax fully after the resolution of a situation, and when it starts to create physical and mental health problems for us.

Women are more likely than men to be given a diagnosis of anxiety and are more likely to be prescribed anti-anxiety drugs. This sets us up easily for dependence and eventually addiction, due to the habit-forming properties of these drugs, which can become problematic very quickly.

For those of us struggling with anxiety, there are many good reasons to try working with natural remedies before turning to a prescription. The main concern is that anti-anxiety drugs are not only very quickly addictive but also wane in effectiveness, meaning that they are not a real solution, only a postponement of the inevitable.

On the positive side, anxiety is responsive to many natural interventions, including lifestyle changes like better exercise, sleep, and eating patterns.

What are natural remedies for anxiety?

Anxiety treatments are considered natural if they do not involve prescription medications. Herbs, nutritional supplements, aromatherapy, exercise, and mindfulness practices are examples of natural remedies for anxiety.

From Villa Kali Ma’s point of view, the most important natural remedies for anxiety to know about are exercise, movement, yoga poses, breath work, and parasympathetic nervous system stimulation.

Regular Exercise

Exercise is the most potent natural mental health intervention. This is because when the body is exercised to appropriate levels of physical exhaustion, many beneficial physiological changes take place within the body.

Natural hormones and neurotransmitters that calm and soothe the body are triggered to flow through the entire body system through exercise. Exercise always works in a pinch, and can be used on the spot to avert a panic attack, because it interrupts the body from effectively creating the anxious state.


Release through Movement

The body creates anxious feelings by restricting breath, tensing muscles, and increasing the heart rate. The body is preparing for action because it believes us to be in danger. Once prepared for action, it’s hard to release those energies without actually taking some kind of intense physical action.

We can help ourselves release anxiety by moving the body vigorously. The best way to do it is to let the body do what it’s trying to do, rather than to work against the body. Anxiety is the body’s attempt to create safety through running away or fighting. Therefore quick, very energetic exercises that allow the body to use up the urge to run and fight will release the anxious state most directly.

The trick is to move the body until you feel like you are at your fitness limit, out of breath, warmed up, and heart pounding. You may want to mimic punching or fighting motions, such as those used in martial arts.

Exhaustion can be achieved quickly, depending on your fitness level, by running, doing squats or push-ups, HIIT, jumping jacks, or anything else that quickly spends your excess energy and gets you into a state of full body activation.


Calming Yoga Poses

Other forms of exercise that are helpful for anxiety include calming, regulating poses such as those taught in yoga, which stimulate adrenal glands directly, and other parts of the body, to induce the relax and release stage. Therefore, if vigorous physical activity isn’t available, you may also be able to interrupt an anxiety attack through poses like forward bends and child’s pose, or gentle twists.


Breath Work

The trick to using breathwork for anxiety is to shorten the in-breath and to lengthen the out-breath. During anxiety, we over-oxygenate through hyperventilation, because the body is preparing for a fight or flight situation. As described above, we can help the body by allowing the body to experience vigorous physical exercise, which will give it the opportunity to mimic fight or flight sufficiently, so it can calm down.

If this isn’t an option, we can also support the body to trigger calm down by consciously inducing the relaxation mode, through the breath.
This can be quickly achieved, much more quickly than we might imagine, through following simple breathing patterns, such as box breath.

Box breath goes like this:

Breathe in for a count of 4 full seconds (one Mississippi, two…)
Hold your breath for a count of 4 seconds
Breathe out for a count of 4 seconds
Hold for a count of 4 seconds
Start again with the 4-second inbreath. Do this whole cycle 4 times. At the end of the 4 cycles, pause to check how you’re feeling, and repeat as many times as may be necessary.

Allow the body to shake, tremble, or gasp if it does, this is part of the discharging of energy.


Parasympathetic Nervous System Stimulation

Finally, another powerful tool to know about is parasympathetic nervous system stimulation. There are many tools and techniques that can be relatively quickly and easily applied, such as this hand space which uses the hands, and this one, which is a gentle vagus nerve stimulator.

Experiment with gentle, easy ways to trigger the vagus nerve. You may want to check out our post on using the Voo Sound, popularized by trauma work pioneer Peter Levine. Further, a quick search on YouTube for “vagus nerve reset” will guide you to many other easy tutorials that demonstrate the principle.

All in all, to quickly encourage the body to release the anxious state, the most important is to go through the body. When the body is appropriately allowed and supported to release the anxious state, the thoughts will gradually calm down.

What does not help is thinking, or mental looping, as this reinforces the tunnel vision and restricted thinking that goes along with anxiety. It is hard to stop thinking during an anxiety attack, therefore going through the body is much easier. Calm the body first, and the mind will follow.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a very uncomfortable state of being, which has physiological aspects as well as mental and emotional components.

At the physical level, it is experienced as inability to be still, difficulty breathing, rapid heartbeat, sweating, muscle and stomach tension.

At the emotional level, anxiety is felt as a degree of fear, ranging from dread, panic, and terror, to vague unease.

Mentally, anxiety is characterized by worries and obsessions, looping thoughts, and preoccupations with “what ifs…”

What are the signs and symptoms of anxiety?

Chronic anxiety shows up in many ways. Anxiety is strongly correlated with stress and is sometimes indistinguishable. Anxiety generates many health problems, such as stomach and digestion problems, muscle pain, and lowered immunity. Some physical signs that you may have anxiety include high blood pressure, stomach problems, and muscle tension.

Anxiety is most commonly diagnosed because of mental or emotional distress, such as being burdened with worry, tension, and the inability to relax. When you are unable to dismiss worries, especially when you realize that they are out of balance, but you are unable to let them go, that is anxiety. If you are familiar with states of intense dread and panic, you are likely dealing with anxiety.

What are the different types of anxiety?

Anxiety comes in many shapes and forms, with different diagnoses. The most common types of anxiety are generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These conditions are related because they all have to do with fear and maladaptive attempts to cope with intense unease.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is diagnosed when people experience the symptoms of anxiety to a life-disrupting degree, and when the anxiety appears throughout their lives (is “generalized”).

Panic disorder is diagnosed when a person experiences panic attacks.

Phobias refer to anxiety that is centered around specific topics, such as social phobia when we fear social connection and contact with groups or other people.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a form of anxiety that involves compulsive behavior and obsessive thoughts.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is diagnosed when the anxiety is clearly connected to specific traumas.

When is it best to get help for anxiety?

Some anxiety is completely normal – we all go in and out of states of tension, and having anxiety isn’t anything to feel ashamed of or to take on board as a fault or failing. We have all been socially trained to think negative thoughts and to keep ourselves in states of edginess. Furthermore, almost all of us sustain some form of lighter or heavier trauma.

If anxiety is making your life miserable, we here at Villa Kali Ma extend you our compassion, and we encourage you to get some kind of help. That help doesn’t have to be clinical, though it could be. Anxiety can be helpfully treated through many different paths, including yoga, diet, meditation, even massage and essential oils. You should be able to find a kind of help that fits you and who you are, what you value, and what you really need.

The loneliness of any mental health condition is usually a big component of the suffering and can be greatly lessened by reaching out to someone who will connect with you kindly to help you find a solution.

What treatment programs does Villa Kali Ma have that can assist women with anxiety?

Villa Kali Ma addresses anxiety through our women’s mental health treatment program, and through our dedicated trauma facility. Healing anxiety is also a part of recovery from substance abuse, as most substances disrupt our ability to self-regulate our emotions, so we address it in our addiction treatment programs.

It can be helpful to know that the strong majority of women who turn to substances to cope with their lives have experienced some measure of traumatization, and frequently qualify for an anxiety disorder.

Overall, the interactions between alcohol, drugs, anxiety, trauma, and mental health are complex and require thoughtful, attentive care to unravel and treat. It can be done, though! We know, because we’ve helped many women free themselves already.

Why is holistic treatment most ideal for anxiety?

We at Villa Kali Ma strongly favor holistic treatment for anxiety for one simple reason: the existing mainstream medical solutions, prescription anxiolytic drugs, do not work except as an instant fix. They do not cure the underlying condition, and instead lead to addiction. To us, this is not a solution, but rather a trap.

Holistic treatments sometimes take longer and require that we do hard work to change at deep levels (though that work is not as hard as we may fear). However, changes made through holistic treatment are longer lasting, have no side effects, and have the upside of leading us into greater, kinder contact with ourselves.

That said, we integrate our holistic approaches with the Western medical model for a reason. For us, it is not an either-or, but rather a case of both models working together.

Villa Kali Ma supports natural remedies for anxiety

Villa Kali Ma offers many natural treatment paths for healing anxiety. We treat women’s anxiety with nutrition, yoga, mindfulness, creative arts therapies, outdoor therapies, massage therapy, aromatherapy, and body psychotherapy (somatic therapy), in addition to the most effective psychotherapy approaches available.

References:

Hand Space I Arizona Trauma Institute I Somatic Exercises

Micro Movements I Arizona Trauma Institute I Somatic Exercises

Categories
Recovery

The Importance of Positive Recovery Words: Recovery Words Matter

What are positive recovery words?

Positive recovery words are affirmations about ourselves and our recovery. Affirmations are formulated as present-tense statements, worded as if they are true already and taking place in the now moment. Affirmations use phrasing like “I am” and “I have”, (rather than “I will” or “I want to….”).

An example of a very famous affirmation is “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” An example of an affirmation geared toward women in recovery is “I am a good person and I deserve my happy, sober life of joy and connection”.

Do positive affirmations work?

Positive affirmations can be very effective at changing a person’s life because of the chain of connections between thought, feeling, and behavior. The same therapeutic principle is used in cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the evidence-based practices that works well with addiction and many other kinds of mental illness.

Positive affirmations work because of the ways that specific thoughts, interpretations of the given facts, and underlying conceptual frameworks shape our experience. Positive affirmations help us take charge of our mindsets so that we have more conscious choices regarding which thoughts we allow to linger in our minds. Working with positive affirmations gives us a greater measure of control over how we feel, which gives us hope, possibility, and power.

Having choices when it comes to thoughts and feelings leads to more self-control. Most negative, destructive behavior arises from a desperate attempt to escape our painful thoughts and feelings. If we don’t feel so bad inside, or know we can shift thoughts and feelings without acting out, we have no reason to behave badly.

What is the power of positivity?

Authentic positivity has a regulating effect on the body, causing it to settle into a pleasantly alert, but relaxed state which is most beneficial for physical and mental ease. When under the influence of a generally positive mindset, we do not suffer psychologically, except as a passing response to a specific, short-term event.

Furthermore, when we are able to access our natural positivity, we are in the state of mind that is most effective, creative, connected, and intelligent. We are able to act effectively in the world and connect and relate to others through the heart, from the top of our intelligence.

Negativity, on the other hand, has dis-regulating effects on the body, creating physically uncomfortable states, which are felt by us as painful emotions. Negative thoughts have deteriorating effects on physiology, and cause us to operate from a more shut-down, less relational, less creative, and less intelligent state of being.

What are positive recovery words for those in addiction?

People with addiction who have made a commitment to recover benefit from using affirmations that specifically address the pain and suffering associated with addiction.

Positive recovery words for addiction speak to the challenges related to restoring the ability to behave in sane, constructive ways, and how to heal from the shame associated with addiction.

Alcoholics Anonymous, the original 12-step program that has helped millions (and counting!) of women to recover, offers many sayings that can be used as affirmations in recovery.

“Progress, not perfection” and “Just for today” are examples of helpful wordings that can give focus to the path of recovery.

Here are some examples of positive recovery words:

I value myself and I love myself unconditionally.

Every day, love finds a way to help me.

I let go in perfect trust.

As I reach towards goodness, goodness reaches towards me.

What are three affirmations that you could use? Write three sentences that speak directly to your heart, and that say what you need to hear today.

Why are recovery affirmations important in recovery?

No one becomes an addict on purpose. Instead, we wake up one day to realize we have been sucked into a black hole, a condition that mercilessly erodes our self-esteem and faith in ourselves.

When we get into recovery, we face the challenge of changing the habit of daily use of substances. But stopping the use of the substance is only part of the journey.

The real, deeper work is an inside job, in which we must renovate the entire structure of our personality so that we can exist in a state of basic positivity again.

To do this, we need to do a lot of repair on our thoughts, not only to weed out thoughts that serve addiction but also to address the underlying pain that brought us to addiction in the first place.

Recovery affirmations are essential for consciously reprogramming ourselves to think better thoughts. We can no longer afford to harbor thoughts that sabotage and cut us down. We need thoughts that create happy bodies and good feeling states, which allow us to live a human life of creativity, connection, intelligence, and purpose.

What are self-care activities to pair with positive affirmations?

Positive affirmations work best when paired with self-care actions, such as regular exercise, good diet, creative practices, involvement in a supportive community, and emotional release tools like journaling.

Positive affirmations set things right in the mind, while physical exercise, yoga, diet, outdoor time, massage, and sleep set things right in the body. Connection with positive people and therapeutic support set things right emotionally.

How do you choose the right recovery affirmation?

Positive affirmations can be used towards any goal, to boost certain kinds of feelings and to reduce others. In order for this to be true, we have to work with statements that feel uplifting and which resonate with us as reasonably true, or within reach. It won’t work to repeat a statement that we do not believe could ever become true, such as “I can fly!”, but we can stretch ourselves with words that feel like they’re in the realm of possibility, such as “I love myself and I celebrate my courage to choose to recover”.

Some people prefer to write their own affirmations, to find wording that feels really true personally. Others may find peace and comfort in tried and true statements used by many women before us.

We know we are using the right positive recovery words for us personally when we can feel that the words have a positive effect on us when we say them. We’ll feel gently soothed, energized, enlivened, calmed, or centered when we say the statements out loud. The right words will feel right.

Why do words matter in addiction recovery?

Words have harmed us in the past, and words can heal us now. The power of words can not be overstated.

In addiction recovery, the words we say out loud about ourselves and our recovery, as well as the words we say only to ourselves in our minds, make all the difference to our success or failure.

In recovery, a big piece of getting better is simply sharing the truth of what’s really going on inside our heads, because as they say in AA, “secrets keep us sick”. We can avoid a relapse by saying out loud that a voice in our head is telling us to skip our evening meeting, for example.

When it comes to the words we consciously choose, those words have the most power and impact. No matter where we’re at on any given day, we can course-correct with a few good recovery words.

How can we use addiction recovery words instead of words that create stigma?

A big part of addiction recovery is realizing that we are not identical with the addict self, that no matter how much control the Addict Self takes over our lives, still it’s not us and we are not it.

The addiction is its own thing, and it’s not a good thing, and the more we see it and call it out, the more we restore our own innocence. We must take responsibility for ourselves, but it’s impossible to do that before seeing that we have fallen prey to something that isn’t our true self.

Although society at large still tends to apply stigma rather than compassion to suffering, that is a reflection of the amount of fear and ignorance that is still at play. The truth is that there is no shame, no value difference, nor any judgment on anyone who falls into the trap of addiction, except in the minds of the ignorant, arrogant, or fearful.

And shame is a killer, so we have to find ways to de-stigmatize ourselves and our sisters with addiction and other kinds of suffering, too. Part of using recovery words is changing perception as we go along. The small shift from “I want to” to “the addict within is telling me to” for example, makes all the difference in the world.

What is stigma?

The word stigma refers to a socially constructed idea of disgrace associated with someone or something. Stigma is a social phenomenon that creates a lot of pain and usually clouds the issue with fear-based misunderstandings, including a fear of contamination by association.

Stigma implies that a person or thing is bad, wrong, or shameful in some way, and often suggests the person is to blame, deserves punishment and exclusion, and needs to be shunned and shut out.

We can see by looking at our society that stigma is applied to painfully marginalize many social subgroups.

Where does stigma come from?

Stigma is socially created, and heavily influenced by religion, culture, social and political concepts, media, and other pillars of society.

Stigma originates from the problematic, anti-human belief that some human beings do not deserve love, inclusion, belonging, and kindness, due to their circumstances, who they are, or their choices.

Stigma is almost always unfairly assigned, in the “punching down” style of picking on people with less power, and tends to flow towards those who have been most hurt already. Stigma is connected to cultural narcissism, ideas of superiority, and devaluation of others who are not deemed socially useful or valuable.

Over the centuries, what specifically is stigmatized has shifted and changed, but it is always about creating a vulnerable and marginalized group that is punished socially.

In our current age, stigma is largely attached to poverty and lower socioeconomic status, including homelessness. It is still applied in great measure to women, people of color, and people with mental illness, addiction, and trauma.

How does stigma affect women with SUD?

Addiction is widely misunderstood and heavily stigmatized. The most basic stigma is the idea that the addicted woman is to blame for “choosing” to be an addict, or that she is amoral, or weak. In truth, all addiction masks terrible pain. Under any pattern of addictive behavior lies a giant well of shame. Self-hatred for not being capable of behaving better, and for not succeeding at life in all the ways we’re told are necessary to deserve love and respect. The problem begins largely in these artificial conditions of belonging.

Addiction does create heartache in loved ones and families and causes a lot of destruction. On the tricky path of addiction recovery, we women have to find a way to fully acknowledge the truth of what we have done while in the throes of the illness, and at the same time not give up on ourselves or let ourselves believe that that means we are beyond the reach of love and worthiness.

All in all, there is no benefit to propagating stigma related to substance addiction, as it only obscures the real issue at hand, including the role of trauma in leading to the addiction epidemic. For women in recovery, the element of social stigma is an added challenge to learn to overcome.

Villa Kali Ma supports positive recovery words for women

At Villa Kali Ma we pay close attention to the ways that words can help women recover. We support the use of positive recovery words, all day every day. Positive affirmations work by gradually, consciously re-wiring deep beliefs and practicing thoughts that create mental health. To find words that help you feel better and get better for good, consider coming to heal with us in one of our many programs for women!

Categories
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.

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