Journaling helps us to clear our minds in order to focus on what’s ahead of us. Think of your mind as an Etch-a-Sketch and as journaling as your hands shaking off the past, in order to be awake in the present.
Etch-A-Sketch Journaling
Therapists & Rockstars Get Stressed Too
Everyone gets stressed. Even rockstars, yogis, coaches and therapists (loving seeing therapists and rockstars in the same sentence). So grateful for celebrities like, Megan Thee Stallion for spotlighting mental health (see Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too) and showing us that even the most together people one can imagine, can still have bad days. Anxiety, sadness, worry, insecurities…These feelings flare up for all of us and can steer us into a pit of gloom. My surefire way of steering clear, or shoveling myself out, is to write in my journal. I start with the truth as I know it, and then begin my inquiry. For example try this in your journal…
Good News about S.A.D
Journal Prompts for Presence
Ruminating on the past, or worrying about a future that has yet to come, can keep us from being fully present with all of our energy and self love intact. Instead our attention and energy flow into experiences that have already passed and cannot be changed, or into prognosticating a future crafted by our worries.
Writing about our thoughts and feelings, plucks this anxious energy from the ether, forming it into a language we can comprehend. Labeling and defining the static of our buzzy inattention, allows us to ground ourselves in the now, harnessing our energy to fully experience the wonder of the present.
Three ways to improve your mental health right now
Life is hard enough, why do we have to be so hard on ourselves? If we’re generally pretty good at being kind to, and having compassionate for, others, what’s the deal with that mean inner monologue?
Scientists believe that one reason is due to our “negativity bias”, wherein we evolved to be constantly scanning our environment for danger, training us to orient to what is, or potentially will, go wrong. Retraining something at integral as evolutionary hardwiring is not easy.
To that end, it’s helpful to have a bunch of self-healing tools at the ready. Here are three tools that may come in handy.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
You can’t necessarily judge your mental health by your emotional ups and downs. Feelings are important and definitely have a lot to tell us, but they are always colored by "the stories we tell" about our experiences. Mental health is about experiencing a full range of our emotions without denying, shaming, or becoming overwhelmed. Emotions are innocent, it’s what we do with them (i.e. "act-out") that can get us in trouble.
5 Ways to Use Your Journal Right Now
Want to get started writing in your journal? Here are 5 simple, yet effective methods you can try right away.
Hindsight 2021 - Reading the mind of teenage me
To celebrate the beginning of the process to write a comprehensive guide to journaling for “non-journalers”, I have started a new series on Instagram celebrating entries from my very first journal, beginning back in 1987. You can watch the series unfold here while I try not to cringe.
The Loneliness of Smartphone Addiction
Cell phone addiction is when, instead of choosing to use our phones, they are just somehow always in our hands, glowing their electric blue promise of being the answers to our every need and desire. They create a dopamine fix of pleasure that keeps us hooked, lusting for next like, engaging text, or candy crushed.
People are addicted to social media now more than ever. We think it will fulfill the Covid sized hole in our social lives. Some connection does happen online, but more often than not, readers leave feeling deflated by how much fun Everyone Else seems to be having. Then, ironically and tragically, we stayed logged-on, scrolling for the happy thing that will bring us up again, or at least back to our baseline.
Therapy as Emotional Coaching
One myth, stubbornly persistent in our culture, is that needing therapy means one’s mentally ill. In reality, most people seek out therapy for what I like to call emotional coaching. A holistic therapist serves as a translator between heart & mind, helping create a pause, between stimulus & response. Therapy does not have to be about what’s wrong, but about uncovering all that’s right.
