5 min for a self-love upgrade

This week I've been delving in deep into the Youtube wisdom of Dr. Gabor Mate, physician and expert in the realms of addiction, stress, and childhood development.  I came across his 5 minute talk about ways to grow in self-love and found it to be a short but powerful message (video below).

To summarize, Dr. Mate offers three keys for growing in self-love:

1. Compassion for the self.  "Something else is possible and you are worth that possibility." Dr. Mate talks about learning to recognize self-love as not just a feeling, but an attitude and an action.  Many of us struggle with emotions of shame, but are we also celebrating the ways we are already partnering with healthy self-love?  Every time we take time to prepare healthy food for ourselves, go on a walk, take a moment to breathe and acknowledge our inner world, ask a friend for support--these are all actions of self-love.  Let's give ourselves some credit and compassionately come alongside ourselves and say, "I see the ways I am growing and I honor the transformation happening inside of me." 

2. Courageously looking at the truth.  "[Looking at life] not how you would like it to be, but how it actually is."  It takes courage to set aside denial and to be honest with ourselves.  Are we engaging in behaviors that we know aren't good for us?  Are we using substances, food, binge watching Netflix, pornography, you name it, to numb pain?  This is where having compassion is crucial--it helps us set aside judgment and self-criticism and kindly look at the reality so that we can start the vulnerable process of truly healing and growing.

3.  Dis-identify from negative experience.  "Language identifies us with experience, it says 'I am that experience.'  Well, you're NOT that experience."  Here's the truth: You are not an anxious person, you are a person who sometimes struggles with anxiety.  Do you see the difference?  If I am an anxious person, I have little hope for change because I have adopted anxiety as my identity.  Instead, I can use my language to distinguish that anxiety is an experience I sometimes have, but not a descriptor of who I am.  Better yet, I can start identifying myself with the opposite of anxiety, which is the transformation I am currently undergoing-- "I am by nature a peaceful person learning to quiet anxiety."

If this resonated with you and you'd like help walking out this journey, counseling can help you overcome the barriers to self-love and and connect with who you are in a deeper way.  Click below to learn more.

depression as a message that your body is craving health

In my last blog what is your depression trying to tell you?, I talked about emotions being helpful messengers informing us of what our unmet needs are.  For example, resentment might be an indicator that we are over-committing ourselves and needing to tighten up our boundaries with other people.  Pervasive boredom that leaves us doing that never-ending Instagram scrolling might be a messenger letting you know that you feel a lack of challenge or adventure in your life.  Whatever the emotion, you can usually trace it back to an unmet need.  In this way, our emotions are friends trying to help us be healthy and happy--not enemies that need to be conquered or stuffed down. 

We also have to take into account that humans are complex, holistic beings and the state of our physical body can have a big impact on our emotional and even spiritual health.  If you are struggling with depression, it's possible that one message your depression is trying to tell you is that your body is craving a higher degree of health.  I would encourage you to consider these thoughts about how your physical health may be contributing to your symptoms, as well as some self-care tips below that can help decrease your symptoms.  

• Get a physical: You may know some of the more classic physical symptoms of depression, such as changes in appetite (overeating or not being hungry), changes in sleeping (insomnia or oversleeping), and fatigue or lack of energy. But did you know that in some people, depression can manifest in the body as headaches, stomach and digestive issues, or pain in your back or muscles? A lot of the symptoms of depression are similar to other health conditions, and sometimes depression can be exacerbated by underlying health conditions, so it's always a good step to consult with your doctor and get an updated wellness exam to rule out any of these other conditions.

• Get some sleep: Problems with sleep and depression are intimately connected. Sometimes sleep issues can be a trigger that actually causes depression or exacerbates it, and other times the depression can be the trigger for insomnia or other sleep issues. If you are in a stage of life where you have interruptions to your sleep cycle, such as doing shift work at night or being a new parent, this could be a big contributor to depression or anxiety. If there are changes you can make to help promote 7-9 hours a night of restful sleep, let this be one of the first things you address in treating depression. For suggestions of how to get restful sleep, check out this helpful article with 21 ways of how to sleep smarter.

• Get good nutrition: Nutritional psychiatry is a field on the rise for good reason--the link between food and mood is a strong one. Research has shown that "An unhealthy diet might make us depressed, and depression, in turn, makes us feel even sicker." There are a million diets and eating plans out there and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by that. I would encourage you to start with what is undisputed: our bodies do well when we get balanced meals of real, unprocessed foods, including a lot of fruits and vegetables. If you are currently not eating whole, real foods or if you are eating irregular, meager meals, start with trying to get at least one balanced meal a day, and work your way up to three meals a day of mostly healthy food. Your food is literally the building blocks your body needs to produce the chemicals to help you feel good, so you've got to give it good materials to work with.

• Get some movement: This is another one you are probably familiar with, but that many of us (myself included!) can have a hard time putting into practice. It can be tough because when you are depressed, motivation can be hard to come by, and sometimes just doing things like getting in a shower or getting dressed can feel like they take all your energy. But the bang for your buck is huge for this one: for those with mild to moderate depression, studies have shown that exercise can be as effective as an antidepressant for some people. Other studies have shown that exercising for 20 minutes-a-day cut the risk of developing depression by one third. Does this mean that exercise is a cure all for depression. Not at all, but it is an important ingredient that can help you start feeling improvement fast.

The benefits to these self-care strategies are many.  Not only is this helping your physical body get its needs met to literally produce the feel-good chemicals your need, but doing these things will help you feel proud of how you are taking care of yourself, and giving you a feeling of accomplishment.  When you take the time to prepare healthy food for yourself, you are literally demonstrating to yourself that you are worth it.  When you go outside and walk down the block and back, you are cooperating with self-love and sending that positive message to yourself that you are valuable.  

These tips can be a great place to get started in changing your life and helping yourself feel better.  And reaching out for help can be another great place to start.  Counseling can provide the encouragement, accountability, and structure to help you get momentum to start seeing things change for the better for you.  Give me a call today for a free 15 minute phone chat to see if I might be a good fit to help you start feeling better.  

What your depression is trying to tell you

As a therapist, I know that usually by the time someone walks into a counselor’s office, their pain level is pretty high.  As a person who has struggled with depression myself, I know from my own experience that it took things getting pretty bad before I was willing to actually go seek out help for myself. 

By the time I picked up the phone to find a therapist, I was so depressed that I had trouble doing basic things to care for myself like eating regular meals or exercising.  At that time I was weighed down almost physically by my negative thoughts about myself, and getting through the day seemed to be so taxing, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up the effort. 

When I had my first meeting with my therapist, I was just ready for her to help me figure out how to make the depression stop.  And while I did get some relief from the pain, even from the first session, what she helped me to do was actually a lot more important than just making the symptoms go away.

She taught me how to actually hear the message my depression was trying to tell to me. 

All of our emotions are like lights on a car dashboard.  One light tells you that you need gas, another to check your tire pressure.  Without these lights alerting us to the needs of our car, we would end up broken down on the side of the road, well… a lot!  Because most of us have the tendency to go, go, go until we absolutely have to stop do some maintenance.

Our emotions are the same way.  They are lights on our dashboard letting us know something under the hood needs our attention.  All of our emotions—happiness, sadness, anger, boredom, shame, resentment—are important messages letting us know something in our internal world or in our outside environment needs attention. The type of emotion we are feeling gives us a clue about what action we need to take to meet the need connected to it.  In this way, our emotions are incredibly helpful friends, giving us guidance on how to meet our needs.

Imagine that one day you just got fed up with having to get gas.  You thought you would solve the problem once and for all by gouging out your tiny little gas light on your dash.  You see how that would backfire on your when you’re calling AAA and needing to be rescued a few days later.  The consequence of shutting off the gas light, which leads to a costly breakdown, is a lot worse than the perceived inconvenience of regular fill-ups.

The same with our depressive symptoms.  If we just want to alleviate the painful symptoms and just make them go away through numbing, avoiding, addictions, or whatever, then we are not addressing the root of the problem, and we pretty much guarantee that this isn’t the last time we will find ourselves in a breakdown.

But if we instead see the symptoms as helpful signals alerting us to look inside ourselves with compassion, to locate our unmet needs, and to give ourselves the attention in those areas that’s required… well, that’s where the real change happens.

In this blog series, we are going to address some of the messages that your depression might be trying to send you.  This list isn't exhaustive and it won’t be true for every person, but it will give you some food for thought.  Here’s some topics we will get into in future posts:

• Depression as a message that your body is craving health

• Depression as a message that your heart is wounded

• Depression as a message that your relationships are disconnected

• Depression as a message that your hope tank needs a refill

• Depression as a message that your spiritual life needs an upgrade

The good news is, once you figure out the message your body wants you to receive, it’s much easier to meet that need and the symptoms often dissipate easily once the root cause is addressed.

If you want some help figuring out the message that your depression is trying to get across to you, it can help a lot to sort through things with a counselor.  Call today for a free 15 minute phone consultation to see how I might be able to help.