Happy Half New Years!
Tomorrow is July 1st, so scroll down to read tips on coming back with new habits at this half-way mark. Before we do that, let’s talk about therapy.
Therapy is becoming more popular. According to a poll by the American Psychological Association, 50% of American families have seeked or are seeking therapy.1 A similar poll found that 59 million people have received mental health treatment in the past two years, and that 80 percent of them have found it effective in resolving developmental and attachment trauma, improving their thought patterns, their communication and relationship skills and learning how to mindfully sit with their feelings.2 A mental health poll in May 2019 showed that 8% of American’s suffered from anxiety. In May of 2021, 34% of American’s suffered from anxiety due to the pandemic, the economy, environment changes, political climate, and unknown world issues. Therapy (and sometimes medication) can help you rewire your brain and your nervous system so that you heal the root cause of your anxiety and fears.
How to get more out of Therapy
- Make sure you have a good connection with your therapist. They are listening to you and asking questions to help understand you more. Having a therapist that you feel connected to is one of the best indicators of having good results. Research their therapeutic tools and ask them to explain their tools and your treatment plan with you so you understand what is going on. Some clients want a lot of feedback whereas others just want a space to hear their thoughts. Knowing this, you can ask what type of therapeutic framework your therapist has. You can also get a good feel for different therapy styles by doing free consultations with two or more therapists.
Personally, I do a combination of listening to my clients and doing some deeper healing work where I listen and guide them, so that they can get the most out of their sessions. I offer psycho-education, health education and behavioral change coaching, however I do not offer a lot of interpretations regarding the possible diagnosis of your partner or family members, such as the trending interest in understanding narcissistic personality disorders, because they are not my client.
- Be open and honest. Take the time to fill out a detailed intake explaining all aspects of your current concerns and how your past developmental trauma or relationships might have affected you. Tell them if you are using internet porn and if it’s interfering with having a quality relationship with your partner. Let them know that you smoke pot every night to calm down and go to sleep. Describe your past history with depression, your eating disorder, suicide attmeps, and most of all what you want out of therepy. With the exception of hurting yourself and others, what you say in therapy is confidential and therapists are trained to be non-judgemental as well as show compassion and acceptance towards their clients. Sharing your secrets can help you feel less ashamed as well as build your self-compassion and acceptance skills.
- Be consistent. It takes 20 weeks of weekly sessions to get the best results.3 Change takes consistency and effort, going to therapy weekly or bi-monthly helps you to stay on top of your change and prevents behavioral drift. Plan out your meetings so that your team and family know that this is “your time”. Therapy is a doctor’s appointment and it should be treated with the same level of priority. After all, if you do not treat the root cause it often results in health problems and diseases.
- Keep a journal. Think about what you want to focus on healing in your next session and what thoughts, beliefs, or insights would help you be okay with your current situation. Spend some time thinking about the pros and cons of each issue you want to work on. Prioritizing working on past critical issues addresses the root cause helping your brain rewire and heal. Working on current issues can help you gain clarity, insights, and reduce your stress levels. Therapy is sort of like a fluoride dental treatment where the healing lasts for several hours after the appointment. Write down any thoughts, insights or dreams after your session to get the best results. Monitor your anxiety levels before and after working on a specific issue, practice noticing and writing down any small, even insignificant, changes that you notice. If you responded a different way, think a different thought, or notice you are getting less overwhelmed, celebrate it.
- Do your home practice. Therapy is only 50 to 70 minutes a week, therefore most of the tangible thought and behavior changes you will make will be between sessions using home practice. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, ADHD Coaching, Communication, Assertiveness training, and changing your health behaviors all take consistent practice and a refocusing of what you want. In my experience, clients who do their home practice on the confidential Mentegram app make concrete changes faster than those who do not do their home practice. I am a huge fan of doing homework and tracking results to build self-efficacy, this is why I offer accountability tracking and between session check-in’s on this confidential app.
- Trust your healing process and your therapist. In California, therapists go through a minimum of 7 years of post-secondary education plus a minimum of 3 years of training plus a licensure exam (equivalent in weight to an attorney’s bar exam) before they become licensed therapists. Afterwards, they continue to go to training, study newer techniques and they have consultations with expert therapists to improve their skills to help you.
- The healing process is not always a straight line forward, sometimes you can learn more from relapsing and getting back on track. Therapy is about thinking, feeling, and being healthier, having more joy, being more on target with your words, thoughts and behaviors. Healing takes time, however as long as you stick with it and don’t change your plan you will get there a little quicker. Every time you start with a new therapist, you are taking a few steps backwards to catch up on your history and repeat stories. This interferes with you spending quality time healing yourself.
- Give feedback to your therapist regarding what happened after the last session, what things have changed, what things are staying the same. Your therapist should be repeating mood and symptom assessments every 4-6 weeks to track your progress. It is essential that you feel like your therapist is a warm, friendly person you can practice having healthy conversations with regarding your wishes about your progress and having different treatment options. Your therapist wants to help you, but each person is different. If something is bothering you or does not seem to help, tell them so they can make adjustments and help you move forward.
I am delighted that therapy is becoming more trendy and less of a stigma because therapy can help people become a better version of their best self. Today, people are being proactive and preventative with their mental and physical health. I believe we all have stuff to work on and I am here to help guide you.
Sheltering in place might have given you an opportunity to improve your living environment so it helps calm you down. Adding plants, nature items and artwork can help calm your mind. Clearing out the extra clutter can help people feel more focused and less distracted and overwhelmed. Here are some tips to help you declutter and organize your space, especially before we go back to working in the office.
Summer Cleaning Tips
- Make a Happy Half New Year’s cleaning to-do list
- Share your cleaning goal with another person to have accountability
- Snap a before and after photo of your space and share it with friends
- Set a small, 15 – 45 minute cleaning or organizing goal that you can do daily, such as: getting rid of unused items, cleaning one drawer a day, coaching your child to discard unneeded schoolwork to get ready for next school year
- Set a timer to help you stay focused on the task at hand
- Listen to a podcast, lecture, audiobook or music while you clean
- Have a garbage bag, donate bag, other room bag plus a small broom and a damp cleaning rag so you do not have to move out of your cleaning space
- Schedule time to go to your favorite donation place and bless others with your donations
- Give your maybe bag to someone in need, if you have not looked at it for 6 – 12 months
- Take pictures of the items you are selling and post them
- Enjoy crossing items off your to-do list and add what you need to do next
- Consider rewarding yourself with a new plant, an organizational product, decorations or a favorite outing
- Celebrate your win!
Are you ready for a Fresh New Start?
Perhaps your goals and habits need a little tweaking. Perhaps you lost some good habits and gained new unhealthier ones. Perhaps you want a fresh new start because things feel fresh and new now that we are opening up more in California. It’s always a good idea to do goal check-ins every 6 months (at least).
Brainstorming Time!
Research says that when we change jobs or move we have the potential to make lots of new habit changes automatically because our environment has changed. COVID changed our environment more than moving or changing jobs. Let’s step back and reflect by asking ourselves a few questions so we can move forward consciously.
What did/do you like about sheltering in place, working at home, being less socially active?
What might you want to keep as we get back to the new normal?
What are you excited to get back to?
What brings you joy, love, satisfaction, and peace of mind?
What would help you feel less stressed and more joyful as we return?
What is your updated big picture of why you do what you do?
Spending a whole week contemplating, meditating, journaling, being in nature, and gaining insights might be a refreshing way to start this new phrase. What is it that you most want and why?
- Write out your goals and place them somewhere you can see them
- Track your goal progress daily/weekly
- Create digital inspirational photos and quotes and read them every morning
- Do a daily meditation and send people, animals, plants and trees love
- Write down one thing that you savored and one glimmer at the end of the day
- Keep track of how many cups of vegetables and water you have. Fuel yourself!
- Prepare for the next day by reviewing your schedule, getting your clothes and food ready, and scheduling your workout and meditation time
- Practice saying hello, smiling, and interacting with others. Practice making somebody else feel heard, seen and happy.
Enjoy this half-year mark on the calendar and it’s a great time to shift your perspective as needed to create a healthier, more balanced and more centered version of yourself. Everything is new and this is a great time to be proactive about your habits.
Here’s to taking one step closer to being your best self!
Sherian
Sources
1 https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/survey
2 Therapy in America 2004, May 2021
3 Psychology Today, August, 2021
