If feelings are our compass needles, we need to take them seriously as information sources.The purpose of your feelings is to help you focus attention and action so that your brain will work out and carry out a plan of how to deal with the situation as adaptive as possible. As an example: If someone…
How you talk to yourself is extremely important. Often we are not aware of this, but it is common to have a critical inner voice evaluating ourselves harshly and disproportionately in situations, being overgeneralizing in a judgmental and destructive way: “how stupid of me…” “Can’t you do anything right…” “Are you for real…” “Idiot…” Definitely…
There are actually two stress levels that are important to keep track of: 1. One is the stress-scale that I explained in last week’s session, i.e. how the level of stress generally fluctuates in the human body during the day depending on activity level and intensity. 2. The other is your general baseline stress-level over…
The best way for the body and brain to recover and rest is of course sleep. Research shows that sleep repairs the body, cleanses the brain but also processes information for learning and memory on a deeper level. Sleep is also vital for maintaining a good mental health. Optimal sleepers have in research (e.g. Hamilton…
Feelings are very important since they are central both to human identity and to the experience of self. Feelings are also important messengers and guides of needs and desires, both for the individual and for communication among humans. Still, there is not a shared definition of feelings. The Tomkins Institute helps us with the following…
Another extremely important exercise to improve your self-worth and self-esteem is reading aloud your list of your 10 positive traits (see last week’s exercise) to yourself. In therapy, there are important healing phenomena such as mirroring and validation, when one is feeling understood and seen, e.g. by regard and affirmations from another human being. You…
The second step in traditional CBT is to be aware of your thoughts and the feelings they contribute to as well as what situation that triggered them. A trigger is something that happened and/or something somebody said/did which make you react with thoughts and feelings that reinforce each other making you create a response. Common…
One of the most important exercises within mindfulness is to learn to observe your breathing without necessarily altering it. This is one step in developing the ability to stay in the observant, non-judging position and postpone reactions, an ability that can be used in more stressful or distressing situations. Here comes one version of the…
To be able to assist with stress management, we first need a common basis of understanding. The body needs stress to function, to perform but also for survival. The system in the body that is the most responsible for speeding up the system is the sympathetic nerve system, one of the two parts of the…
Before diving into the possible changes you would like to make and new directions you would like to explore, I suggest you reflect over and honour yourself for what you already have accomplished over the last period and who you have become during the last year or two since this will set a positive tone….