Category: <span>Self-improvement</span>

EFT Self-improvement Therapy Trauma • • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

Self-care for Mental Health Professionals

As a psychotherapist how do you self regulate?

How do you keep yourself from getting burnt out?

When there are personal issues, because you’re human and you will have them, how do you balance personal and professional life?

If you’re triggered in a session, feel biased towards your client, have a sudden personal triggering memory pop up, feel agitated, suddenly feel unwell etc, how do you handle it mid-session?

Although we already have coping skills and knowledge about self regulation as psychotherapists, it’s really important to have quick tools that can help us self-regulate prior to, during and after a session as well as have a tapping self-care routine to prevent burnout. This form of regular self-care in turn helps your client. How?

By you being able to hold a safe space for your client during sessions. Being trauma informed means being able to hold a safe space for our clients and in order to do that we need to feel safe in our bodies as therapists, especially if we are working with clients with trauma history. And I believe mostly all clients have some form of trauma background.

Self-regulation also helps in your interactions with your client outside of sessions, for example, scheduling appointments, answering emails, handling conflicts with clients – all this requires you to be in a grounded and calm space.

Another essential aspect of therapy is to have empathy. However, consistently working with clients while being present and empathetic does take a toll on our minds and bodies, especially if we’re not careful and don’t engage in regular self-care practices. We need a form of self care that requires less time, is somatic and helps in processing feelings safely without analysis paralysis.

Let’s say you’re triggered right before a client session due to a personal issue. Now, what will you do? One of the quickest ways to feel calmer is to just tap for a few minutes. It helps in reducing your emotional intensity instantly and is even helpful during a session.

Consider learning foundational skills in EFT for quick reduction in stress and emotional distress.

While mechanical EFT ( which can be learnt just be reading a manual or attending a brief course) is helpful, for effective EFT application a solid base in foundational skills and experiential learning is necessary, otherwise you will not find significant improvements after EFT.

EFT is a research supported, evidence based, somatic-cognitive tool. Since trauma enters through the body and emotions are felt in the body, the best way for trauma and emotions to be processed is through the body and that’s where EFT comes in.

For a short video on this, click on the link below

https://youtu.be/eiJ_XXQ29io

Self-improvement By Puja 0 Comments

Procrastination

There’s always a choice point when we procrastinate. Although it may seem like it’s happening automatically and we might think we don’t have a choice, the fact is that we do. Either we act on the thought of wanting to do a task or give in to the urge to delay it. It’s at this critical juncture where thoughts play an important role. In that split second you’ve made a decision to delay the task and then your mind will give you umpteen justifications for your reasons to delay and that’ll become a habit.

Today when I was laying on the sofa watching Netflix and not feeling like getting up, I had a thought of sketching. I immediately went and picked up my drawing tools and sat down to draw. Hence the result is these two drawings. Now in that moment as I reflect, I had another thought, “let me watch one more episode”. That was the choice point – drawing or giving in to watching another episode and remaining in that place for the rest of the day.

I’ve had practise with catching my thoughts so I was able to quickly act on my action thought.

This may not be possible all the time. But over time if you practise you’ll be able to recognise your choice point – choosing whether to delay or act. Many a times, there are valid reasons for delaying like being burnt out, exhausted, needing rest, sleep etc. However many a times, what makes us procrastinate is not being aware of the choice point, and then we have these handy justifications that don’t help at all.

We have all these ‘ideal conditions’ that have to be met before we do a task. If any of these conditions aren’t met, we procrastinate. We think we need to do it perfectly and unless all the demands/conditions are met, we cannot do it. All conditions may be important but they aren’t necessary to do the task.

For example, if I think of drawing, I just need the drawing tools, hence even a pencil will do. All conditions like having a quiet corner for myself, being in the right mood aren’t necessary to draw. Also, we have this idealised and perfect image of tasks, like I might think I need the best markers to draw, I need to finish my laundry then draw, I need to do this and that and then… I procrastinate!

So try this. The next time you get a thought that prompts you to take an action, instead of ignoring it, act on it immediately. Once you act on it, you’ll gradually feel motivated to continue doing it. We cannot wait for the right feeling to come along to do something. You don’t need motivation to act, you just need to recognise the choice point and act despite the urge to delay. Also, become aware of the automatic thoughts that come up, the justifications that come up when you have the urge to delay.

Practise, telling yourself, I don’t need to meet all the conditions to do this task. All conditions don’t have to be met to complete this task or to start it. What I have is enough to do it right now.

Self-improvement Understanding Emotions Videos • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

How emotions are made?

FB series Part 4

The clasical view of emotions suggests that they are universal, that each emotion has a distinct set of bodily sensations (called fingerprints) and that how they’re experienced isn’t contextual or culture specific. However, research has proven something quite different. Lisa Feldman Barrett in her book, How emotions are made?, challenges the classical universal view of emotions.
In her book she makes a much more logical case for emotions, that is ultimately more empowering for us.
Wouldn’t we all like to feel that we can control our emotions, that we aren’t at the mercy of our emotions.
Learn more about this theory of constructed emotions, how we actively construct our emotions instead of being a passive recipient of them. In this video, learn how each emotion is felt differently by different people, how facial expressions for each emotion vary from culture to culture and are very context dependent.

It is found in experiments that when electrodes were attached to the person’s face to measure how the facial muscles move during an emotion expression, there is more variety than uniformity.

 

A recent study conducted by Jack, Caldara, and Schyns (2012), demonstrates that we do not have a “universal language of emotion”. Sad, happy or angry facial expressions are seen in distinctive ways. “The study found that the Chinese participants relied on the eyes more to represent facial expressions, while Western Caucasians relied on the eyebrows and mouth”

The bodily response to different emotions are too similar to be thought of as distinct fingerprints.

So the same emotion will vary in the same individual and other individuals in different contexts in the way the bodily responses show up.

Find out more in this video

 

EFT Self-improvement • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

5 tips for learning a new skill

7 years back when I started learning Krav maga, a street smart self-defense, I didn’t realize it would be so tough especially since my fitness level was pretty low 🙂 However, more than the craft itself, it was my attitude that made it difficult. My perfectionism was a problem. I was pushing myself a lot and was too hard on my body. Gradually with the help of EFT, I started paying attention to my body’s signals and understanding when it needed a break or rest and when it needed to be gently coaxed, encouraged, or pushed. I was able to find the right way to navigate out of my comfort zone. Too little stress and no change happens, too much stress and we burn out. We need to find that balance ourselves as each one of us is unique and different.

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Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

Slowly I started enjoying the training and my body was able to adapt and pick up the techniques much faster. Surprisingly I was able to withstand the brutal Kravmaga grading as well. I was also able to deconstruct my limiting beliefs and change them. Here’s an article I wrote on this. (https://eftforpeace.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/10-ways-to-develop-persistence-and-enjoy-learning-a-new-skill/)

As I look back, I realize how EFT helped increase my self-awareness. I learnt that I was a perfectionist when it came to acquiring new skills and slowly I was able to change that and be more accepting of myself.

Recently I joined Zumba classes. I’ve always wanted to learn dance and it seemed like the right choice to learn dance and stay fit.

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I’ve been to 4 classes so far. I’m often out of sync in the class as I suck at dance though I enjoy it thoroughly. Thankfully, the perfectionism I experienced in my Krav Maga classes was absent. Then it struck me that the tapping I did for my krav maga classes had brought about lasting changes. I didn’t have to tap at all this time on perfectionism despite the fact that I’m a non dancer and this is as difficult a skill to learn as Krav Maga had been for me 🙂 This a clear case of generalization in EFT. When you tap on an issue thoroughly, the results often generalize to other similar stuff.

I’m sure that some new aspects may come up and I’m all set to tap on them!

So here are the 5 things that can make it easy for you to learn a new skill.

1. Increase tolerance for your mistakes. Fumble, fall, be out of sync, be out of tune – just practice and be tolerant of your mistake because they will happen. That’s how we learn.

2. Decrease worry about what others think – Tap on decreasing your worry and fear of judgement. Stop paying so much attention to the body language of others and guessing what they’re thinking. Making assumptions and guessing drain your energy.

3. Increase self compassion. Be more kind to yourself. Be more accepting and forgiving.

4. Honour and Appreciate the effort you’re putting in. We’re habituated to look at our mistakes rather than the effort that we put in. Tap on appreciating your efforts.

5. Persist and tap on persisting.

Krav maga Self-improvement • • • • • • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

Anger, freeze response & Krav maga

I recently restarted my Krav Maga classes. Over the past few years, I have been in and out of Krav Maga many a times for various reasons, but have always been drawn back to it. After my class yesterday, despite the soreness and pain, I felt good and decided to pen down my thoughts about what I have felt and observed in the last couple of years. I see this practical self defense as a kind of somatic therapy which helps you get in touch with your healthy anger, and also allows you to step out of your freeze response, amongst many other things.

Getting in touch with your healthy anger

I help my clients cope with and heal their anxiety, trauma, pain and other emotional and physical issue on a daily basis. And what usually comes to the forefront is that most of us don’t really understand anger. Anger has been demonized for a long time. It’s only recently that people are discovering that anger is a very vital emotion and when not suppressed or disproportionately expressed, it can help us in many ways. And this is where Krav Maga comes in.

Karla Mclaren calls anger “the honourable sentry”. Healthy anger helps you take a stand for yourself without violating the boundary of others. It teaches you to respect your boundaries as well as that of others. “Anger arises to address challenges to your standpoint, your position, your interpersonal boundaries, or your self-image”. It helps “restore your sense of self and your interpersonal boundaries”

In a typical KM class when you are asked to practice with a sparring partner, by taking turns to be the defender and the attacker, you actually get a chance to get in touch with your healthy anger.

By defending yourself against the attacker, you get to protect your interpersonal boundaries and not let the attacker violate your boundaries. With specific set of natural reflexive techniques, you protect your personal space. When it’s your turn to be the attacker, your sparring partner defends himself/herself. This helps you develop a healthy respect for others’ interpersonal boundaries as well. So essentially you learn that you need to protect and restore your own boundaries and also make sure that you don’t transgress others’ boundaries.

The sparring sessions, power drills, aggression training etc allow your anger to flow freely through your body – while getting discharged in the specific reflexive action that is needed to protect yourself. The more you practice it in a safe simulated environment, the better you are able to channel your healthy anger to keep you safe when needed.

Freeze response

When there is any danger – real or imaginary – the body goes into the fight, flight or freeze mode. Freeze response is the feeling of being ‘scared stiff’.

Freeze response is also known as tonic immobility (Levine, 2010). This is the third reaction to threat called immobilization, or Tonic Immobility (TI). When you cannot escape threat, the freeze response or tonic immobility takes place wherein you do not feel the pain of the injury or in the case of the animals, the predator feels that the prey is dead. It is a coping mechanism to fool predators.

Now if we look at it in the Krav Maga realm, the defense postures help you complete the fight – flight response that the body automatically goes into when it is hyper aroused. You either run from the situation or you stay and fight. Either way you have tackled the threat successfully. fight-flightHowever, a freeze state can occur prior to the sympathetic hyperarousal, if you have concluded in that split second that you cannot overcome the threat. You go into the freeze state; the immobility stops you from running or fighting. Tonic immobility is a somatic dissociative response that protects against overwhelming threat that could result in death. If not discharged, this usually temporary response can also become persistent and chronic leading to trauma.

Animals shake off the freeze response by literally shaking their bodies. We as humans do not engage in this behavior and hence the freeze response gets stuck in our bodies. “The storage of those false responses or procedural memories is basically the structure of trauma.” (Dr. Scaer) [ Adding a clarification here: Humans ‘can’ shake off the trauma if they want to. For more information on shaking off freeze response, go to http://traumaprevention.com/ ]

When you keep practicing these techniques in mock scenarios, your body will gradually learn to come out of this paralyzing state of freeze, and you will be responding with fight or flight depending on what is needed in that situation. This will also help in responding to emotional threats without becoming numb or dissociating. If you’ve had trauma in the past, and have frozen in threatening situations, then those locked traumas will also get released in the form of minor tremors or shaking of the body. Certain stretching techniques that we do in the classes- when done for a longer period of time – can automatically result in shaking and trembling, which is simply the body releasing the stored autonomic and physical somatic energy.

Conclusion: Krav Maga lets you find the ‘gifts of anger’ and helps you come out of the frozen paralyzing response to emotional or physical threat.

Observe how you feel after the classes. Do you think they are helping you get in touch with your healthy anger or come out of the freeze state? Leave your comments below.

 

References

Karla Mclaren http://karlamclaren.com/understanding-and-befriending-anger/

Peter Levine, http://www.amazon.in/Unspoken-Voice-Releases-Restores-Goodness/dp/1556439431

Dr Scaer http://www.traumasoma.com/

Healthy boundaries Self-improvement Stress • • • • • By Puja 0 Comments

Your voice is important

How many times have you suppressed your voice? How often do you suppress what you want to say?
How often do you clearly express yourself?

When I work with clients who have social anxiety, this is one topic that often comes up. Along with fear of judgment they fear that if they express, then there might be a conflict and in order to avoid conflict they don’t speak, ending up suppressing their feelings.

This is not just an issue for people with social anxiety but also for lot of people who stay silent to maintain peace in a situation. For example, if you have a spouse who is very critical, you might stay silent to avoid his/her criticism. Or if you have a very dominating boss, you will not voice your opinions openly in front of him/her. If you feel that any situation has a potential of escalating, you stay quiet and don’t express your opinions.

You don’t express fearing that it will lead to arguments and confrontation. In order to maintain peace, you put up with things that you would not usually put up with. You fear that if you speak then you will get into a confrontation which will lead to unpleasantness.

To maintain our peace of mind, we give up on our voices. To avoid unpleasantness and intense feelings, we give up on our voices!

This video will help you address this – How to find your voice again.
Your feelings are important, your voice is important and if you express with clear intent, you will feel more confident.

LINK TO THE VIDEO