Practice self-care tips: Five ways to support your physical and mental well-being alongside any virtual therapy services provider.
Drinking water, sleeping in, taking a walk in nature, or grabbing lunch with a friend. These may sound like insignificant things on their own, yet when enacted together and with intention, they are the kinds of activities that constitute the vital practice of self-care. But what exactly is self-care? Self-care can be developed on your own or with the help of therapy services, but it is largely defined by the set of actions, habits, and routines through which you commit to nourishing your mental, emotional, and social well-being throughout your life.
While certain aspects of mental health care, like prescription medication or intensive one-on-one counseling, will always serve as effective tools of treatment, more and more people today are realizing that consistently utilized self-care provides an accessible way to cultivate stability through reliable and even enjoyable measures. Review this Inner Clarity guide to gain applicable self-care tips and learn more about how partnering with a virtual therapist can make it easier to get started and stay supported.
Every person’s best method of self-care will ultimately be unique to that individual, but there are common categories of personal upkeep prone to benefit anyone. Consider the following self-care tips in devising your own special plan.
Change is simply a part of life, and it’s to every person’s advantage to accept that. However, daily routines can help you fashion a sense of structure that reduces the stress that results from unnecessary uncertainty. For example, by scheduling specific blocks of time to fit in exercise and meditation before work, you can guarantee that you are repeatedly nurturing your body and mind. Then, that allows you to relax guilt-free. To begin, try writing a list of what an ideal day looks like to you. Next, examine what would be manageable or realistic to include before you climb into bed for a full night’s sleep. Routines will clarify your priorities and the best regimens offer a realistic and balanced path towards living your best life every day of the week.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even 30 minutes a day of walking, dancing, or yard work will strengthen your muscles and reduce the risk of diseases. Though fitting in exercise every day can seem intimidating at first, you’ll soon come to crave it as the body releases multiple feel-good hormones like serotonin during a workout, and physical activity helps the flow of oxygen through your tissues, which boosts energy levels. You can discover more ways to move your body by tweaking parts of your work commute to allow for more walking, or by finding a friend to do yoga with. Regardless, physical health isn’t just fostered by going to the gym. Review what you usually eat to consider how you may start weaving in nutrients and vitamins missing from your diet, and ensure you’re getting adequate amounts of sleep.
Implementing more mindfulness into your life has the potential to enhance your mental clarity and reduce anxiety at lengths you cannot even imagine. The principles of mindfulness involve being curious about your feelings — noticing how they arise and change — instead of being judgemental about any experience being intrinsically one fixed way. While that may sound complicated at first, you can cultivate mindfulness by integrating meditation, stretching, journaling, or deep-breathing exercises into your daily life. These activities give low-barrier ways to deliberately build a sense of patience and apply trust to your inner movements, thus removing the need to always be seeking the next source of external validation.
It’s fulfilling to work hard and make significant progress in the tasks we set out to complete. But the productivity pendulum can swing the other way and become unhealthy if we overwork ourselves to the point of frequent fatigue. By setting boundaries with your employer or job obligations, you can prevent burnout and make certain that every day extends an opportunity for you to be both useful and restive. Doing so often requires assertive communication to both advocate for your needs and arrive at a consensus of reasonable expectations. This can extend to social situations as well; learn to say no to friends or colleagues if you know that accepting the invitation will knock you off balance. You can convey gratitude to be included and suggest other times or activities that will better suit your well-being.
Newsflash: you stand to benefit from programming time to go for a bike ride or conduct some walking meditation after a hard end-of-the-work-day deadline. But indulging in hobbies or activities that bring you joy is also healthy! Self-care doesn’t have to be limited to trying out new and challenging tasks. Appraise which of your personal interests you could just talk endlessly about and how you might protect those pursuits. The pleasure gained from starting a new crochet project, setting aside an evening for a good movie, or facilitating a board game night is no trivial thing if it regularly makes you happy. Find a friend or family member who shares your interests and schedule a weekly date to meet up and take part in your favorite thing together.
The above self-care tips provide a good place to start when creating your own daily, habitual practice. But you don’t have to set off on supporting your mental health all on your own. Inner Clarity provides a roster of experienced professionals who offer virtual therapy services capable of being tailored to the most effective treatment for your individual needs.
Virtual therapy services enable you to support your mental health in the most convenient way possible. This way, you can check in with a qualified provider about the ongoing status of your self-care routine from the comfort and privacy of your own home, which makes it easier to maintain a consistent commitment to weekly sessions. An Inner Clarity expert therapist who will become familiar with your mental health challenges can also render customized self-care tips for what will be most beneficial to your comprehensive well-being. That means that a counselor can teach and troubleshoot what kind of mindfulness techniques work best for you based on you, help form realistic physical activity goals, and assist you in talking through how to communicate boundaries with your boss or loved ones.
In today’s busy world, applied self-care is a reliable method to create a foundation for your own physical, mental, and social health. Constructing a daily routine that periodically embraces physical exercise, mindful techniques, firm boundaries, and occasions for unabashed joy will offer a well-balanced well-being. What’s more, Inner Clarity therapy services are the best at orchestrating a plan for obtaining a sustainable self-care plan on top of personalized counseling. That way, you can engage in specific services — perhaps you’re interested in cognitive behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety, or marital counseling for you and your spouse — while also enacting a self-care routine outside of regular sessions with the confidence you are participating in the right medley of treatment for you. Partner with Inner Clarity and request an appointment today to learn more about how you can embark and empower yourself on your self-care journey.
We have all heard clients use this phrase in sessions. They, like us, can describe themselves using "parts" language.
We have all heard clients use this phrase in sessions. They, like us, can describe themselves using “parts” language. Something like this may sound familiar, “A part of me wants to do this but another part of me wants to do that.” Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a model of therapy that helps clients to develop relationships with their various parts in a way that feels integrative, healthy, and clear, thereby alleviating the symptoms causing them distress. There are many “parts” to this model, but for this blog’s purposes, I will help illustrate how to utilize IFS language in a clinical encounter and also speak to the conceptual nature of this model that serves as its foundation.
Parts
Parts are categorized into “firefighters”, “managers”, and “exiles” to help categorize their function in the client’s system. A firefighter is a protector part that acts swiftly, quickly, and intensely to help manage a situation that feels overwhelming or too scary. For example, a firefighter part may tell a client to drink alcohol excessively to avoid something too big, too much. A manager part (also a protector) may tell a client to work excessive hours at his job to help manage the uncomfortable feelings of fear, anxiety, sadness, grief, etc. An exile is a part that typically has gone “underground” for a significant period of time due to the pain, shame, or fear it once experienced at an earlier time, and the manager and firefighters have come on the scene to help protect these exiles from ever having to feel that pain again.
You might be wondering at this point how this model of therapy can help with the many issues clients bring to therapy. IFS therapists devote a lot of time helping clients appreciate the positive intentions of these protector parts in their systems. These parts are very used to feeling shamed, criticized, or “bad” for how they go about protecting the client from feeling pain. We help clients develop a new relationship to these parts that feels more accepting, nurturing, and understanding. This relational shift opens an opportunity for these parts to change roles in the client’s system. A firefighter part who tells a client she has to binge eat in order to avoid an aversive feeling or to possibly feel more control in an overwhelming situation, will inevitably feel the freedom to support the client in more adaptive, healthy ways. However, first, this part has to feel the freedom to shift into its new role, and that comes with the confidence that the client can handle life’s circumstances on her own.
Curiosity
Where to begin you may ask? Well, curiosity is a great access point to making contact with these protector parts in non-judgmental, open, accepting ways to help understand their positive intentions. It’s remarkable how these parts reveal their concerns, beliefs, and worries when approached with open curiosity. They sense the spaciousness the curious energy brings with it and can rest in the awareness of new possibilities. This awareness serves to soften its edges. The softening of the edges and dampening down of the intensity of these protectors allows for the space to trust the client’s Self Energy. Once trust is established between these protectors and the client’s Self, the IFS therapist works to expand this Self Energy as it’s energy knows no bounds.
Self Energy
In the IFS model, Self is energy we all possess. It comprises of curiosity, compassion, courage, clarity, confidence, connection, calm, and creativity. This is the energy we can bring to our protector parts who play their respective roles only with the intention to help and protect, always with unintended consequences. Think of the person who tends to criticize or shame himself before someone else does or the person who incessantly stays busy to feel competent or in control. These are protectors doing their due diligence so intolerable pain and vulnerability can be thwarted. An IFS therapist will help orient the client toward this Self Energy before nearing toward the exiles, or old wounded parts of the client. This is where trauma resides, frozen in time, fiercely protected by Protectors.
Final Thoughts
There are additional stages to this model such as the Witnessing and Unburdening stages which carry with them their own techniques for trauma reprocessing and/or symptom relief. However, I honed in on the aspects of curiosity and Self Energy to illuminate the transformative, resourceful energy we all possess and how to see our individual protector parts more clearly for all their positive intentions. I find this aspect of the model to be so crucial because it offers hope and compassion, and orients our clients to a path forward out of their pain.
Stephanie Carpizo, LPC is trained in the IFS model and currently taking new clients through Telehealth.
Please call 732 639 0232 to schedule an appointment, or click here to schedule.
Easily, this is a trait that any parent would want their child to hold. Likewise, if you had a friend who was struggling with self-esteem and self-worth...
Are you someone who struggles with self love, self esteem, or self worth?
By definition Self Worth means “ an individual’s evaluation of himself or herself as a valuable, capable human being deserving of respect and consideration.” (APA Dictionary Definition)
Easily, this is a trait that any parent would want their child to hold. Likewise, if you had a friend who was struggling with self esteem and self worth, chances are you’d wish this level of self love for them too. Yet for too many, self worth has been muted and minimized for so long that at this stage in the game, it can feel nearly impossible to build it back up.
The truth is, all humans deserve to feel loved, worthy, and capable. So, if along the way, you adapted a belief that you are not; the following advice will help to bring awareness to your thoughts so that you can begin to make small shifts toward massive amounts of worthiness for your uniquely perfect, amazing self.
Happiness is the birth right of every human being.
Every single person deserves love. It is your right to feel good about yourself and create your own version of personal happiness. It’s not selfish to command a high sense of self-worth or to feel fulfilled and content in your life. If fact, feeling good about yourself is the most selfless act to take. It is within loving yourself and your own unique quirks that you are able to create more compassion and empathy for the imperfection in others around you.
Still struggling to appreciate your inner awesomeness? Here are some quick tips to begin to tune in and gently shift your dialogue to one that encourages more love, compassion, and forgiveness for your number one….YOU!
By beginning to tally when your inner critic says nice things about you versus when that inner voice attacks your desires, actions, and abilities you will begin to notice the programming within.
The Golden Opportunity – The more you begin to recognize your inner critic that emerges as judgment of yourself, the more you can learn to shift to a better thinking thought that may begin to allow you to build yourself up, rather than tear yourself down.
As you recognize a belief about yourself that makes you feel poorly, remember that you are a human being who is doing their best. Hold the belief tightly that you are doing your best. And within that, that you are deserving of feeling like enough and knowing that you are giving your absolute best. No matter what the circumstance, what you are able to give moment to moment is always enough.
In today’s comparison driven culture, it can be difficult (and often feel downright uncomfortable) to pat yourself on the back. But the truth is, you deserve daily accolades – so don’t be shy about taking them!
Find more ways to give yourself credit for being amazing!
Find comfort in allowing these things to be enough and pat yourself on the back for getting through the day.
After all,
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss
Also, you rock…remind yourself more often.
Surround yourself with people that allow you to feel good about yourself.
Find a community online, a trusted person in your family or circle of friends where you feel secure to feel good about yourself.
Remind yourself why you deserve reciprocated love and friendships.
Exercise, craft, write, or sing.
Be creative and allow your emotions place and space to move.
Your definition of feeling good is not open to anyone else’s opinion. The more you continuously make deliberate choices that help you to feel good about YOU, the more you will find that taking a stand in the pool of self worth is truly where you’d like to be.
Listen, human beings are not meant to be perfect. In fact, you can spend your entire life trying to find one (a perfect human) only to recognize that every single being is riddled with imperfection.
It is not the perfection that creates an amazing human, rather the imperfection held by all that create uniqueness, quirks, and the specialness that makes you, you.
Your uniqueness is what makes you incredible! Spending time to embrace it helps to elevate your personal sense of self.
By creating more awareness around your sense of self worth, you continue to shine light on what is working for you, and what needs to be redefined so that you progress toward more of owning your inner awesomeness.
Struggling with Self Worth but deep down know that life is meant to feel good?
At Inner Clarity our therapists work with you to help unpack your inner dialogue and create steps toward success so you can love yourself more, feel good inside, and know that in every moment, you are good enough.
Ready to learn how to find more personal love for you? We are here to help.
If there’s one thing we know for sure it’s that body’s change. Whether this change comes through aging, parenthood, surgery, or lifestyle, your remarkable body can stretch, shrink, create life, break, bend, and heal. And if there’s another thing that remains certain, it’s that you will remain in your body for as long as you live.
If there’s one thing we know for sure it’s that body’s change. Whether this change comes through aging, parenthood, surgery, or lifestyle, your remarkable body can stretch, shrink, create life, break, bend, and heal.
And if there’s another thing that remains certain, it’s that you will remain in your body for as long as you live.
That’s a pretty important reason to allow yourself to respect and honor the current transition your body is in!
Practicing body positivity is a radical way to transform your relationship to your skin suit and share gratitude for this vessel that carries YOU around. Here are six ways to learn to love yourself so you can find happiness with exactly where your body is in this moment of time.
Practicing body positivity is a deliberate movement to bring more love and gratitude to your deserving self. At Inner Clarity, LLC in Hazlet, NJ our therapists excel at helping people to recognize where they are now and find gratitude for the many roads that got you and your beautiful body here. Our therapists understand how to work with you so you can find peace, respect, and love for your life and the body that allows you to live it. Ready to love your body so you can enhance your happiness? Book an appointment today.
For many years prior to my retirement I dreamt about what it would be like. I imagine most people dream of retirement and believe it will bring immediate happiness. For me, in some ways that was true, but I learned that finding happiness after retiring a lifetime’s long career takes work, self-reflection, and intent.
My Retirement Journey: From Trials and Tribulations to Triumphs
For many years prior to my retirement I dreamt about what it would be like. I imagine most people dream of retirement and believe it will bring immediate happiness. For me, in some ways that was true, but I learned that finding happiness after retiring a lifetime’s long career takes work, self-reflection, and intent. Growing up in a North Bronx area in the 60’s I had been working since I was in high school, with my first job as a shoe salesman. I worked through college and immediately upon graduation, I suited up, and entered the corporate world. If I add it all up, it comes to 48 years, and almost all of my adult life. In my career, I held about 5 different jobs, before my last job at AT&T overseeing a team of talented technical and business professionals. Among these jobs, some I absolutely loved, other times I had jobs that paid the bills to support my family so we could live in more financially stable conditions than I grew up in.
Throughout my career, I traveled quite often, sacrificed nights tucking my kids into bed and reading the bedtime story. Retirement was so far in the future I never gave it a second thought. But fast-forwarding to today, my kids have careers and kids of their own and I am a proud grandfather of 3 special young grandchildren.
Two years ago, my retirement party marked the end of my career with fanfare. I got the quintessential watch and plaque from my team, a large family brunch with gifts ranging from “old fart” t-shirts, to personalized golf swag, to a handmade journal where I expected I’d spend time reflecting during much of my newfound free time. But after the party, a loneliness set in. After 48 years on the go, working with purpose nearly every day, I found an emptiness I had not yet learned how to cope with. Some days were slow, bordering on boring. There were (and still are) times I miss the interaction among the people I worked with. I miss the challenge of making the right decision at the right time, and basking in successful outcomes. The pressure of managing people, being responsible for their continued growth and success, has been lost. These are all examples of the downsides of retirement.
What I have found and consider critical is having someone to talk to, a friend, a relative, a therapist. Someone who you can share with and who will not make any value judgements about what you are doing, or who you have become or who you are. For me, one of the most critical people in my life these days is, in fact, my therapist. There are so many good days in retirement, but help with the bad days is paramount to my successful retirement.
With the help of my therapist, I’ve learned tools and explored resources to reflect, intentionally think about what my goals, passions, and purpose in this new life stage are, called Retirement. As I look towards the future, retirement offers me so much more than I ever could have imagined. It allows me to see my grandkids more, watch them grow, and help them find their own way. I now travel for pleasure more often, without the stresses of stepping away from my work for a few days. I do more of what I love; writing, reading, and playing golf. Time is no longer my enemy. If I stay healthy, I have all the time in the world, to enjoy retirement, enjoy my spouse, my kids, and my grandkids.
Summarizing with Tips:
As you begin to contemplate retirement, you can do some of the following to be better prepared:
On Therapy
In my opinion, an important person in your retired life is your therapist. Therapy has its cost, but the benefits far outweigh any such costs (and in many cases Medicare will cover the expense). So long as you define hese costs in your financial plan, you will be fine. You will most likely want and need someone to talk to who is not related to you to, who can give you an unbiased perspective. There will be good days, there might be some tough days, your therapist can help with both.
If you are seeking professional support, consider engaging with a therapist prior to, and within a few months post retirement. Waiting until you begin to experience the emotions of retirement is certainly acceptable, but I found starting early (before I retired) and sticking with counseling is a good approach.
It is time to make it happen. I hope me sharing my experience may help you along your way to a happy and successful retirement. These years ahead should become the best years of your life.
This story is brought to you by Inner Clarity.
At Inner Clarity, we have a growing team of therapists here to support you. Currently, several therapists at our practice including Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Rebecca Sidotti, and Charlene Kwinter both accept Medicare Insurance. We also have a broad network of community resources and can work with you on your individual retirement journey. Get started today at FindYourInnerClarity.com
