Category: Self help
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Calm Down With This Quick Stretch
When we get tense, we tend to freeze into that tight shrimp posture without knowing it. Even when we’re not anxious, we spend too much time slumped in front of a screen or curled over our phones. This can mean that when we’re anxious, tense, or even fully dysregulated, that our shoulders and neck can Read more
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The Easiest Breathing Technique to Calm Yourself
Breathe in. Breathe out. Just make your exhale last a tiny bit longer than your inhale, to help yourself calm down. That’s it. Continue until you feel a bit better. Why does this work to help you relax? Inhalation engages the sympathetic nervous system. This is the function that gives you energy, engages in fight Read more
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Trace One Hand With the Other: Quick Somatic Exercise to Calm Down When You’re Dysregulated
When your body heads into fight-or-flight (and you’re not actually in physical danger), your mind tries to fly right out of your body. Or it can feel like that, anyway. When you’re so reactive that you can’t focus or think straight, somatic exercises can be more helpful than trying to think your way through the Read more
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Quick Take: How to Go Through Hell (and Keep Going)
People are taking inspiration from this Dan Savage quote during our desperate learning curve on how to survive America’s quick descent into fascism. There is still hope that this is a horrible dark flirtation with evil, and not a complete commitment to this abusive relationship. Maybe we’ll turn this ship around over the next couple Read more
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I Work On My Life 66 Days At a Time
A Structure for DIY Therapy During the time when I was organizing the first of my successful efforts to heal (vs. the decades-long failed patterns), my goal-setting challenges modeled from The One Thing book turned into more of an organized effort. I decided beginning in July of 2020 to start one of these 66-day challenges Read more
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Is It Really Narcissist vs. Codependent?
For those who are making a sincere effort to heal from CPTSD, especially for those raised in dysfunctional families, it’s important to understand types of toxic relationship dynamics. One of the most common is often referred to as the “narcissist/codependent” relationship. The narcissist in this scenario is seen as the “bad guy” and the codependent Read more
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ADHD Hacks for Actually Using a Planner
“Have you tried using a planner?” This question must be one of the top pet peeves of the ADHDer. As if the real problem is that we just haven’t tried the most obvious solutions in the world. Many ADHDers have collections of unused planners sitting neglected on a shelf, bearing silent testimony to the wild Read more
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Personalized New Year Rituals
I’ve developed my own traditions over the years. My personal rituals have made New Year’s Day my favorite holiday. These traditions are inspiring and give me that “fresh start” feeling, but also help me continue my healing work from CPTSD, and to build on prior successes. Here’s a quick take on a ritual that takes Read more
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Getting Sober. How Did that Huge Thing Become So Little?
Of all the steps that I’ve taken, including: journaling, meditation, impulsively signing on for a couple of creative projects, learning about trauma, etc., one of the biggest steps was cutting alcohol out of my diet and out of my life. Preparing to get sober Getting sober was another big step I took over the summer Read more
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Journaling For Mental Health
I’ve been outlining the various steps I took starting in late 2019 and going into 2020 to try to emerge from a state of mental illness and misery. Although they seem random and unrelated, these steps led me, for the first time in my life, to a period of continual improvement out of the state Read more