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Self Soothing Relieves Distress.

8 Jul

“Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” – Hermann Hesse.


When our external world changes too rapidly, it can ramp up fear, stress and anxiety. Crammed minds, overwhelm and exhaustion combined with less connection and enjoyment, takes its toll on our nervous system. Shocking experiences, oodles of uncertainty and unexpected events cause acute stress responses in us, and self soothing is the antidote.

Self soothing helps lower cortisol levels, calms our mind, body and gut; resetting, rebalancing and returning us to our felt sense of safety, enabling us to either let go of, or circle back to what we need to pay attention to in a more manageable, emotionally regulated way. It begins with a 30 second pause, longer exhales, a lot of grounding, engaging our five senses, being kinder to ourselves, doing things we love, consciously relaxing and it extends to mindfully not labelling or judging our reactions and feelings so much.

Deepening our engagement and choosing a pleasurable activity that settles our emotions and helps us manage our stressors, gently and compassionately offers relief from distress. When we really look, listen, inhale, taste and touch nice things, we shift our focus away from what’s bothering us. We need to learn to mindfully choose healthy distractions and adaptive coping mechanisms rather than maladaptive ones like sloshing down booze, mindless scrolling and gobbling whole tubs of ice cream.

Ways to self soothe:

  • Place a hand on your heart and close your eyes
  • Practise focused breathing, in for four, out for eight
  • Anchor your mind with an I am safe and all is well affirmation
  • Touch something soft
  • Listen to relaxing sounds
  • Breathe in calming scents
  • Taste something yummy like a warm drink or sparkling water bubbles
  • Give yourself a butterfly hug or stroke your arms
  • Squeeze a stress ball
  • Look out to the horizon
  • Splash cold water on your face
  • Change into comfy clothes
  • Spend time with pets and plants
  • Get lost in a craft or a movie
  • Go to a happy haven in your imagination
  • Look at a photo of someone you love
  • Soak up a patch of sunshine
  • Take a 20 minute walk
  • Watch something that makes you laugh
  • Closely observe an object
  • Immerse and ground yourself in beautiful surroundings
  • Take a warm soak or shower
  • Offer yourself compassionate, kind, reassuring self talk
  • Lie down and do a body scan, muscle relaxing meditation
  • Tense and relax parts of your body that feel tight or uncomfortable
  • Jiggle your legs and rub your hands on your thighs
  • Try making vocal sounds and vibrations 
  • Listen to an uplifting podcast
  • Meditate for ten minutes. Link below.

To feel good we need to do things that are good for us.

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Rumination and Overthinking.

1 Oct

“Shut up, she tells her monkey mind. Please shut up, you picker of nits, presser of bruises, counter of losses, fearer of failures, collector of grievances future and past.”

― Leni Zumas – Red Clocks.

Do your thoughts get stuck on repeat?

How come the endless monkey chatter in our brain doesn’t just swing along the monkey bars, happily processing emotions, highlighting new insights that strengthen us and lead the way to sensible solutions that resolve our problems?

It depends on the nature of the chatter! Rumination can stem from too much self-focused thinking about emotional distress, mistakes, upsetting events, unresolved concerns, uncertain futures, perceived inadequacies and trauma. 

We’re mistakenly hoping for relief and instead paying attention to our distress, rather than seeking ways to destress, if we do any (or all) of the following,

  • Have a negative filter on.
  • Talk to ourselves in a self critical way.
  • Tend to overanalyze situations.
  • Replay past conversations or conflicts.
  • Dwell on the past and only focus on what went wrong.
  • Spend too much time guessing people’s intentions.
  • Constantly second guess our own decisions.
  • Catastrophize.
  • Make mountains out of molehills.
  • Chew over the what ifs… the did I… and the how comes…
  • Try to perfect or control future events.
  • Predict imagined futures and the many ways they could play out.
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2023. Resolutions Are Out. Replenishing Self Care Is In.

31 Dec

If you’re scanning the horizon looking for the latest emotional wellbeing trends, the predictions will come as a welcome surprise for the exhausted amongst us.

It seems that constantly trying to make sense of what’s been happening in a world filled with uncertainty, unrest and upheaval has meant we’ve spent way too much time doom scrolling and over thinking. We’ve been like meerkats on high alert, constantly bracing our brains and bodies against the storm, causing resilience fatigue.

Emotional stress depletes us and calm revives us. We need timeout to lower our heart rate and blood pressure, to calm our tummies and relax our muscles. We need to find stillness to settle everything down, to breathe easier and to soften. It’s time to surrender, to find places to vanish into, to swan about in, and if that means spending more time in our bathtub dressed as a merperson, eating plant based ice cream listening to music, so be it. It seems we are all so over having to be strong that we’re more than ready to welcome in these stress banishing S words for 2023.

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Going Damp? Mindfulness, Moderation & Mocktails.

8 Dec

Is the “damp” lifestyle trend on Tik Tok a fresh new thing in the world of drinking or is it just a rebrand of controlled drinking; a reliable, reputable method of moderation with far reaching benefits? 

Whatever it is, if you look beyond the delivery system you’ll see that TikToker @hana.elson has 2 million likes and 37,300 followers who are being influenced by her “it’s cool to be moderate” message. They’re a new, mostly youthful audience who are ready to hear “that drinking culture and your relationship with alcohol does not have to be black or white, all or nothing.” Hana says it’s an “action plan” to “drink with the mindset of the next day” which I think slots nicely into the current wellness movement.

Someone was bound to coin a new phrase. I’d thought of “moistly moderate” (cue the laughter) but that was never going to catch on was it!

It’s really about deciding to drink alcohol less often and less excessively.

It’s an option I use with clients who want to get more curious and explore the who, what, when, how and why behind their drinking to help inform and drive their decisions and behaviours. 

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Setting Boundaries Protects Our Energy.

24 Aug

I think healthy boundaries are about reciprocal respect. They include setting up and communicating reasonable, clear expectations of acceptable ways for other people to behave towards us that contribute to feeling safe, supported and valued.

Imagine crouching under one of those slightly dented, aluminium colanders with a lot of holes. That’s kind of what my boundaries looked like when I was a kid. 

When I first learnt about boundaries as a young therapist, I replaced that colander with a magnificent castle on a lush flower-filled island, surrounded by a moat, filled with snapping piranhas. I installed a drawbridge that only I could lift or lower because after all, the most important boundary a person can set, is limiting their availability. I also created a shield with light, bullet proof, glittery glass bricks, because the goal of boundaries is to be protected and stay connected at the same time.

My boundaries might seem like a fortress to some, but they serve to keep me clear, focused, more tolerant, and compassionately away from resentment. 

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Wellbeing is Trending for 2022

30 Dec

“Wellness is the complete integration of body, mind and spirit.  The realisation that everything we do, think, feel and believe has an effect on our wellbeing”  Greg Anderson.

Covid-19 wins the prize for being the most uncontrollable source of sustained stress in 2021. Just as double vaxxes offered up glimpses of hope for relaxed freedoms, a new variant slid in just in time for NZ’s summer holiday season.

At least there’s always a positive spin off from a global crisis. It’s motivated a desire to increase overall wellbeing in 2022, for ourselves, each other and the planet.

Research tells us that a prolonged pandemic elevates mental health needs, even if we don’t catch the virus. As a team of 5 million, we’ve done pretty well at following health directives, attempting to reduce emotional strain and focusing on what we can control, over what we can’t. 

How we live, work, use technology, shop, connect and socialise and how we receive care have all been jiggled around and thought about deeply, unless one has been living under a rock or tin foil hat. 

Even though some of us prefer a less overloaded society, not being able to see special people is hard, and sludging through restrictions, super strong opinions, dangerous viewpoints and crazy behaviours can get tiresome. Resilient people are better able to cope with trying circumstances, so increasing wellbeing expands happiness, optimism and meaning in life.

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Reaching For Booze & Food in Lockdown?

1 Sep
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels

Usually we know deep within ourselves if what we are reaching for is either good for us or less good! 

Do the usual rules and routines feel a bit like they’ve flown out the window in lockdown? And, who is around to hold us accountable? Just because we might be able to wear pyjamas or elastic waist pants, probably doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider how many calories, and how much fat and sugar might be hiding in tempting treats.

Social media is normalising baking up a storm. Our feeds are full of it. There’s quarantini parties and invitations to join happy hour online. We might have to ask if we want to join the pack, or lead it? Just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t mean we have to. Social media is normalising baking up a storm. Our feeds are full of it. There’s quarantini parties and invitations to join happy hour online. We might have to ask if we want to join the pack, or lead it? Just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t mean we have to. Maybe it’s a better idea to limit or be more conscious of what we’re consuming and be kinder to our immune systems at a time they really need support?

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World Smokefree Day. Let’s Stop Kids From Starting.

31 May

World Smokefree Day, that falls every year on May 31 is a chance to celebrate and work towards Smokefree/auahi kore lives for New Zealanders.

It happens to coincide with the release of a Government proposal in which the Ministry of Health have proposed a ‘grandfather’ policy, to progressively prohibit the sale of smoked tobacco products to a new age group each year. It would gradually increase the age of purchase restrictions by one year every year, so eventually it would be illegal to purchase if you’re under 25. Hooray.

The same proposal wants to limit the level of nicotine in cigarettes and put more investment into smoking cessation services. This is great for our future generation. Ask most smokers when they started, and they’ll say, ‘When I was a kid.’ And none of those kids realised they could get addicted to nicotine within days of first using it. Why? Because when they smoke, the nicotine goes to their brain. In 10 seconds. Straight to the part that controls feelings of pleasure and releases dopamine, a chemical that tricks them into thinking a cigarette equals pleasure. Then within a few minutes, the pleasure is gone, and the craving for a cigarette begins a new cycle.

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13 Simple Ways to Relieve Overwhelm.

12 May
Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com

You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying, What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass. Timber Hawkeye.

Overwhelm can arrive when something triggers a powerful emotion in us; especially fear, which can then flood our mind with paralysing negative thoughts and emotions, and change our posture, breath and ability to cope.

It’s really important to be curious about our thought patterns, and to claw back some control because once negative thoughts overly take hold in our mind, they’re likely to distort the severity of our situation and have us focusing on dramatic consequences.

Emotional overwhelm occurs when the intensity of our feelings outmatches our ability to manage them. It can come from a single big stressor, like a pandemic. Or financial issues. Trying to make ends meet is probably number one in the list for tipping many people over the edge. Others find that overwhelm sweeps in like a tidal wave, brought on from a bunch of challenges like life transitions and losses that come at us one after the other.

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Let’s All Be Better Humans.

26 Apr

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Beyond thinking about how to stop microbe movement and economic downfalls, will we also think more about respect and empathy? Can we create a new vision of a better world, for ourselves, our community, our environment and for our beautiful earth? My hope is that we will mindfully pay more attention to the wee glimpses we have of a future where we know what we want and need, and then work towards making many tiny incremental changes so all creatures can flourish. Let’s make our future ancestors proud.

 

 

 

 

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