You are a Survivor by Nikita Gill
Author: Stephanie Bittle, LCSW
“Love transforms the world”
One moment of unconditional love, may call into question a lifetime of feeling unworthy and invalidate it.
Physician and Author, Rachel Ramen
When you say something like “I love you” .. with your whole being, not just your mouth of your intellect, it can transform the world.”
Buddhist monk, Peace Activist and Author. Thich Nhat Hanh
30 favorite coping skills
- Breathing
- Meditation
- Walking
- Yoga
- Dancing
- Running/Jogging
- Martial Arts
- Enjoying Nature
- Bird Watching
- Cleaning/Organizing
- Playing with pets/cuddling with pets
- Coloring/Doodlng
- Puzzles/Crosswords
- Crafting
- Make a collage
- Playing music
- Calling/Texting a friend
- Journaling (feelings/gratitude)
- Painting Nails
- Visualizing negative energy leaving your body
- Crying/Screaming
- Punching a pillow or punching bag
- Cooking
- Playing games with friends/ kids
- Aromatherapy
- Massage
- Make Tea
- Writing Poetry
- Blowing bubbles
- Therapy
Self Love Poem by Melody Godfred
Today, give yourself
permission.
No, more than that.
Give yourself everything.
All of it.
Time, the benefit of the doubt,
gifts, patience, affirmation,
the extra mile,
delightful surprises,
validation, trust,
a soft touch, smiles
forgiveness, faith,
unconditional love.
All the things, once
reserved for our lovers,
for our children …
Take them.
They are yours.
Meditation for the New Year by Kayleen Asbo
A Blessing for the New Year, by Kayleen Asbo
As the hours of darkness begin to slowly wane from the winter sky,
So too may the fearful places of your heart unclench their grasp on your life
As the presence of light begins to grow with greater sureness with each passing day
May your own courage blossom to open more brightly to truth and love.
Let this be the year that you turn off the television and silence the talk radio chatter
in order to pick up the writing pen, the paintbrush,
and watch the candle slowly burn.
May this be the year that you delight
in seeing how much joy you can extravagantly spread.
May you discover just how much beauty you can recklessly shower upon this thirsty world.
May this be the year that you tune both the dusty piano in the corner
and the inner listening of your care-worn heart
So that both can play in harmony with the chorus of creation.
May you break the invisible yardstick of impossible expectations
and learn that just as you are,
you are enough.
May this be the year that you cease trying to march to an imagined ideal
and instead, wrap your arms around the messy wonder your life really is,
hold it close
and do the tango.
Let this be the year you befriend your soul in its radical particularity,
not forsaking it yet again for the bland demands and cravings of the masses.
Instead, may you elope with the wildness of your own true calling,
marry your soul to its deepest longings
and invite the hungry world to the wedding feast.
—
Intentional Retirement: Building a Good Day*
Congratulations! You have retired! You are finally ready to enjoy absolute freedom with no one to tell you how to spend your time. Now what? What do you want to do? Without planning, it’s possible to sleep late, watch TV all day and become isolated from others.
The best way to avoid stagnating in retirement is being intentional about “building a good day”. A good place to start is with daily routines – a time for waking, exercising, cooking, reading and going to bed. The next step is to add your favorite activities – gardening for some, a book club or bird watching group for another. Later on, you may try adding activities like volunteering or walking on nature trails.
If you have friends or family nearby, you can be intentional about how often you see them and what time works best for you.
After you’ve set up your “good day” or week, check in with yourself that you have balanced your time well and that retirement feels like a gift
*Based on an idea from a wonderful new book by Mary Pipher on women in their sixties and early seventies that I highly recommend called “Women Rowing North”.
My depression is speaking. Please try to understand.
I hope you can use this as a way to get across to people in your life how depression feels if they have never truly experienced it. You have probably heard them say “snap out of it” or some version of “I’m sure you can feel better if you really put your mind to it”. But that’s not how depression works. It has its own voice and weight that stops you from moving forward out of it. There is no “simple” way as others might believe.
When depression speaks the voice tells you messages like:
- You are not good enough (You may even hate yourself or some traits that define your character).
- You are not lovable.
- Nothing in your life matters.
- You will never feel joy again.
- No one cares if I live or die. Il’s too painful to go on.
These thoughts are frightening and often paralyzing. They can make it hard get out of bed, go to work, take care of the important people in your life, etc..I wish there was an easy answer for combatting depression. But, it usually comes with baby steps. Be kind to yourself during this time difficult time. Can you give 50% at your job if you can’t give 100%? What about at home? Can you feel okay about being easy on yourself because of your depression? Wouldn’t you do that if you had a physical illness like pneumonia? It takes time to heal.
The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) concept of Opposite Action, asks you to do the opposite of what you feel like doing when you are depressed. Your depression may feel overwhelming and change takes time. With depression, one might feel like curling up in a ball under the covers and crying in bed or withdrawing and not interacting with others. Using Opposite Action, what small action steps could you take to break free from those depression voices?
Perhaps:
- Go make yourself a cup of tea or coffee
- Shower and/or get dressed
- Go to the grocery store or order food
- Look at a magazine or book
- Call or text or email a friend/ or family member
- Take care of a pet
- Write something in a journal
- Go for a walk/ do yoga/ exercise
- Light cleaning or organizing
- Go to a therapist and/ore medication management appointment
Try to pick things that you like to do or are important to you. Start out with things that seem manageable like making tea and work up to more difficult things, like meeting up with friends and going to work or exercising. If you choose medication, that may help your recovery. REMEMBER, depression sends you messages to try STOP you from taking these steps that are good for you. SLOWLY, take these small steps to act in ways that make you feel better.
Once people around you understand better what you are going through, you can ask them to help you with these small steps.
Call or text 988 or a mental health or suicidal crisis. Call 911 in a life threatening situation.
Worry vs. Action
Do you ever find yourself ruminating about the past? Maybe you are caught in a loop of “if only” – wanting to turn back what happened in the past or stuck in a feeling of why is this happening to me today. Perhaps you worry you made a stupid comment at school, work or with friends or family? You surmise if you had talked more on your date then s/he would have called you back. Maybe you are afraid other parents think you are a bad mother because they heard you yell at your child at school.
STOP. Realize that these negative thoughts are harming you so take immediate action to combat them.
1. Put your thoughts in prospective by considering that you are looking at only looking at part of the picture. You may be focusing on one comment in the meeting and come across splendidly for the rest. Even if you did make a “stupid” comment, did anyone notice? Will they remember next week? We tend to focus in on the one negative thing we hear and exclude most of the positive. This is called focusing on the negative and excluding the positive in Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
2. We only know our own thoughts. It is frustrating and a waste of time to try to guess at what others are thinking. You don’t know why your date didn’t call and you are torturing yourself by questioning your date’s behavior. In CBT, they call this self talk “mind reading” and emphasize that these assumptions can damage our self esteem. Take action instead. Get out – find an activity you enjoy and meet people. Your mood will improve so you will be ready if the right person comes along.
3. We all make mistakes. Try not to judge yourself at a higher standard than you would your friends. If you saw another mom yell at her child in public, you would probably relate well to the frustration she was feeling and even feel empathetic towards her. It makes sense to let yourself be imperfect the way you would a friend. Be kind to yourself. This is called self-compassion.
If we realize that our thoughts aren’t reality and we are all doing the best we can, we feel better about ourselves.
Thank you FACEBOOK for my insecurity
I find many women in my practice constantly compare themselves to others, judge themselves in a negative light or expect themselves to be perfect. Do you find yourself saying things like: Is there something wrong with me? Do I act weird, stupid, or say the wrong things? Why don’t I have a partner? Am I too fat or thin, my breasts are too big, small or saggy, etc..?
It’s almost impossible to feel comfortable with yourself (body and soul) when you analyze every aspect of how you live your life and focus on the negative voices that stem from these comparisons and expectations and leave you feeling worthless and low. When we look at social media and see others having the “perfect life” we are not seeing the reality of each other’s lives.
The reason we struggle with INSECURITY
is because we compare our behind the scenes to everyone else’s
Highlight Reel.
Steven Furlick
The first step is being mindful of these thoughts and recognizing that you want to stop comparing yourself in these moments and focus more on your positive accomplishments and traits as well as things to be grateful for.
Stop comparing yourself to other people; you are an original. We are all different and it’s okay.
Joyce Meyer
Don’t Be Beautiful by Nikita Gill
They keep saying that beautiful is something a girl needs to be
But honestly? Forget that. Don’t Be beautiful.
Be angry, be intelligent, be witty, be klutzy, be interesting
be funny, be adventurous, be crazy, be talented –
there is an eternity of other things
to be other than beautiful.
And what is beautiful anyway
but a set of letters strung together to make a word?
Be your own definition of amazing, always.
This is so much more important than anything beautiful, ever.
—-By Nikita Gill
Stephanie Bittle, LCSW 