Category Archives for "Self Help"
Tools and techniques for self help
How Trauma is Not Just in Your Head or Mind
What I found out about trauma is this: Trauma isn’t something that is just in your head or mind. It’s not just a past memory.
In fact, it is stored in the habitual reflexive state of your nervous system. It is in your heart, head, your stomach, arms, legs..all the sensory information that got coded. They manifest in an overreactive response to stress today: racing heart, shallow breathing, nausea, indigestion, trembling hands, blurred vision, etc.
For trauma recovery, it helps to remember: not just your head or mind, every part of your body was there in the past.
What Are Glimmers and How You Can Find Them
Glimmers are the opposite of triggers.
Glimmers are moments that act as cues for self-regulation and for soothing our nervous system. They are tiny moments where we feel relaxed, safe, assured and connected. In contrast triggers cause us to feel threatened. When we are triggered badly, our fight-flight-freeze response can get excessively activated and our nervous system becomes deregulated.
The concept of glimmers first came from Polyvagal theory. The theory was introduced by Stephen Porges in 1995 where we learn about how our autonomic nervous system is constantly on the lookout for cues to determine if they are dangerous. “Glimmers” is coined by Deb Dana, a licensed clinical social worker who specialises in complex trauma and also the author of The Polyvagal Therory in Therapy, as a way to help us shift out of survival mode.
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Stop Shaming Your Body For Gaining Self-Acceptance
If you are in the habit of shaming your own body, stop.
Shaming your own body because of your physical imperfections can cause you to feel lousy about yourself.
Perhaps you don’t like the way your nose looks, the slant of your eyes, the shape of your face, your freckles, boob size, etc…and the list goes on.
While it may be true that they are not perfect according to some beauty standards, shaming yourself over them is not going to be helpful for your confidence. Continue reading
How to Heal Your Childhood Wounds When You Can’t Turn Back the Clock
Some of us may be resistant to the idea of having to heal childhood wounds. That is because we don’t like having to revisit the past in our memory. We fear that we would relive the pain and that we would traumatise ourselves all over again.
Even more so, we wish that the past did not happen. For sure, if not for the past, we would have suffered less all these years and we wouldn’t have felt so lost, alone and confused. More importantly, we wouldn’t be unconsciously having an inner child that is bent on sabotaging our present.
Perhaps, just like how movies portray, we dearly wish that there can be a time machine that can take us back. We would like to have the power to change things right from the start, instead of having to do repair or healing work. If we can change history, a time machine would certainly help.
Self-Love Practice eBook is Now Live
I’m happy to announce that my new ebook, Self-Love Practice, is finally “live” on Amazon…yayyyy!!
As I figure, it is time for an update with new insights and client stories. Although it has been at least 9 years ago since I published my first book on self-love, I’ve been suspecting that there is still a lot of people out there with no or little clue on what it means to love themselves. Much of my suspicion arose from my sessions with clients. They could have presented a problem in say, performance anxiety, relationship conflicts or having imposter syndrome. Regardless of the presenting problem, we would be led to the same place: the need to be and feel loved.
What really got to me is how timeless the message of self-love is. Thus, the idea of a new book was born about a year ago. Titled Self-Love Practice, the book is a reaffirmation and a deepening of what it means to love ourselves. It’s now available on Amazon.
How to Practice Loving Self-Acceptance
Practising loving self-acceptance is not something that may come naturally. In fact, it could be a key life lesson that some of us. You may find yourself attracting various experiences that involve this important aspect of what it means to embrace yourself totally.
Many of us long to be accepted for who we are. And so, we go about seeking validation and approval from others. However, the crux is that if we cannot accept ourselves, we cannot expect others to accept us too. Without any self-acceptance, we live in constant fear of being rejected.
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” – Mark Twain
I find it great to learn from movies too. One of the movies that I watched with my children was Wreck-it Ralph show. Initially, I had found the plot rather slow moving. And so I was not paying full attention to it. But as the movie wore on, I discovered that there were valuable lessons on self-acceptance.
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How Emotions Got Stuck in the Body
Have you ever felt scared just as a storm was brewing and there was loud rumbling thunder, whistling winds and lighting bolts in the sky?
Well, a deer in the forest instantly senses fear.
It is most likely to be prancing, kicking, shaking and chattering thrice as much in nervous tension.
In fact, most wild animals react in the same manner when they are feeling scared. They can’t keep still. Moving around helps them to discharge the negative energy from their bodies.
However, humans are taught differently.
How Reparenting Helps to Address Your Insecure Attachment Style
If you have an insecure attachment style, you can potentially benefit from doing some reparenting work. Insecure attachment affects those in their ability to form healthy relationships, make decisions and/or to cope emotionally. On the other hand, reparenting yourself helps you to heal your inner child, gain trust and maintain emotional stability. Thus, you enhance your ability to cultivate close relationships, boost confidence and enhance overall well-being.
Attachment styles first came from the work of John Bowlby, a psychologist. He first proposed Attachment theory in the 1950s and 1960s. Attachment theory helps us to find out more about the nurturing that was experienced during the initial years of our life and how it affects us today.
Bowlby’s view is that the bond between mother and child is most important of all. The first formative 18 months is very crucial in the child’s development. Where there is adequate nurturing, the child grows up to be a secure adult. Conversely, the absence of adequate nurturing leads to insecure attachment and the forming of invisible emotional wounds that often results in maladjustments in the emotional, social and cognitive development of the child.
Reparenting Yourself: What Does It Mean and How to Get Started
What does reparenting yourself mean?
Reparenting yourself simply means healing your inner child and giving your inner child the love and the guidance and support that you didn’t receive when you were young, in the present.
[Update] Check out my new online course on How to Reparent Yourself.
How to Connect with Your Inner Child using S.H.I.F.T.
You may be wondering about how you can connect with your inner child. For a start, you may even have some doubts about the idea of having a wounded inner child. After all, it is not like the inner child is a being that you can actually see or hear externally. Let alone one that is wounded. How, then, do you connect with your inner child, if you are interested to heal aspects about your childhood?
Well….it is true that you can’t actually see your inner child with your naked eye. It may even feel like you are playing pretend when you close your eyes and attempt to see your inner child. Yet, just because you can’t see something with opened eyes does not mean that it does not exist. For example, just because you can’t see electricity does not mean that it is not working in the background when you turn the lamp on.