disclaimer: I’m not a therapist. This is just a list of what has personally worked for me.
#1 Acknowledge and thank your past, current, and future selves for their input 🙏
They provided you guidance and protection at one time. They can all be true. They can all not be true. It’s okay to hold contrasting viewpoints in tandem and use careful discernment to pick the fruits of advice that are most relevant to you now. Look at them from a distance, but don’t merge your current sense of self with them.
#2 Get out of your head & into your body 🧠 → 🧘♂️
- ✅ Where does the emotion show up in your body? give it a name, texture, and color. I.e. my anxiety is purple, spongy, and is named Agatha.
- ✅ Realize these emotions are not you. You are not your thoughts, no matter how real they feel. Some helpful ways to think about your thoughts:
- You sit before a fire. The fire represents your mind. Logs represent your thoughts. You can choose to throw logs in to make the fire larger, or abstain and just be with the fire.
- You sit before a stream. The stream represents your mind. The leaves on the stream represent your thoughts. You can pick up leaves and put them back down.
- You look at clouds in the sky. Each cloud represents a thought. You can name the cloud or let it float by.
- Use 3rd person when your journal or talk, instead of 1st-person singular. You become a subject to be observed. i.e. She thinks this vs. I think this.
- ✅ Take 10 deep breaths. Use this Calm breath bubble for guidance.
#3 Become aware of physical deficiencies 🌦
Are physical and largely external factors contributing to your current emotional state?
- ✅ How much did you sleep the night prior? Sleep deprivation impacts mood (Harvard
- ✅ How has your information diet been recently? consuming news releases the cortisol in the same way it would if the event happened in real-time. (Uni. of Netherlands)
- When did you last:
- ✅ Eat? There’s a high correlation between a diet high in refined sugars and impaired brain function (Harvard). Also, I don’t need studies to tell me that hangry-ness is a real thing.
- ✅ Exercise? improvements in mood are proposed to be caused by exercise-induced increase in blood circulation to the brain (Univ. of Nebraska)
- ✅ Go outside into nature? forest environments promote lower sympathetic nerve activity than city environments. (Chiba Univ.)
- ✅ Meditate? Participants in an 8-week meditation program showed permeant structural changes to the brain. (Princeton)
- ✅ Do your self-care routine?
#4 Become aware of your mental bias’ 🤔
Are your past experiences biasing your current reaction?
- ✅ What would you tell a friend going through the same thing? What would you tell you if you were your own best friend? If you loved yourself unconditionally?
- ✅ Is your reaction driven from fear or love?
- ✅ What’s the softer emotion underlying that fear? eg. you’re angry but underneath that is a feeling of loss
- ✅ How can you address the softer emotion instead?
- ✅ What insecurity is surfacing now?