Self-Care Archives - Wellspring Therapy & Training

Asking For Help – ‘Time to Talk’

February 10, 2021 By wellspring

Asking for help can be difficult. Some of us would rather do anything other than acknowledge how terrible we are feeling.

If we hide our vulnerability from others, maybe we can ignore it? Maybe we can hide it from ourselves? We certainly don’t want to share it.

There is also a temptation to rely solely on our own resources, and to keep a lid on a box that we have no wish to open. There is a temptation to believe we deserve our troubles and therefore are not worth helping. There is a temptation to think everyone else is managing and we are somehow ‘weaker.’

All these beliefs can mean it is even harder to ask others for help when we need it most. But we don’t need to ask anyone, or everyone, only someone we trust.

Sharing how we feel can be the most powerful comfort if we allow ourselves to access this balm.

This is how counselling can help, but so can a friend, colleague or family member. If we can share now how hard we are finding things, it can also give others an invitation to do the same at a later date. It is part of a conversation that allows all of us to be less than perfect; it allows us to be vulnerable. To be resilient we need to be able to access external help as well as our own internal resources.

The pandemic has taught us we are all so connected. Why don’t we use this idea of connection to help someone we care about improve their wellbeing by giving our time to talk, or listen?

Time to Change hosted ‘Time to Talk Day’ earlier this month as a way to start conversations about mental health and help end the stigma. You can find some helpful tips on talking about mental health on their website.

Written by Alex Brook-Dobson

See our Resources page for more support and links.

Our building is currently closed for face-to-face counselling until further notice. But we are still offering sessions over the phone or through Zoom to the people of Harrogate and the surrounding area. Most of our clients live within a radius of up to 20 miles. However, if you live outside this area (but still in the UK) and do not have access to a local counselling service, you can still contact us through the online form as we do have capacity to see a limited number of adults from outside the area. If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the link at the bottom of our Therapy page.

Comfort and the bleak mid-winter

January 27, 2021 By wellspring

It’s cold and dark at the moment and can feel even more difficult to motivate ourselves in the midst of winter. It’s feels like it’s time to hibernate and withdraw, and literally lock down.

If you feel like this, the chances are you are responding to the natural world around you, and also to the fact that your freedom is curtailed during a national lockdown. The chances are your stress levels are raised more than usual, for a whole variety of reasons. This can wreak havoc with our levels of anxiety and depression.

So if we can’t change the season, or the reality around us, what can we do to make ourselves feel better?

Well, it turns out, quite a lot. We can complete our stress cycle, rather than stopping in the middle of it. What does this mean? When we feel anxious, cortisol and adrenaline course through our bloodstream which stimulates our flight, fight or freeze response. We have little control over this prehistoric biological system designed to save us from peril. But we do have control over whether we stay there or not. We can complete the cycle to return to a rest, relax and digest state where cortisol and adrenaline dissipate.

And these are some of the ways to do this;

Run or move in any way. The fastest way to release tension having been primed to run away from the woolly mammoth.
Laugh. It’s a release!
Cry. Ditto. If you have trouble accessing these emotions, use music, films, tv to help.
Sleep. It literally regulates your emotional state.
Affection. Maybe difficult for some now, but if you are able to (within the guidelines), a 20 second hug is the prescription.
Breathe. Look on the internet for breathing exercises, you can do them anywhere and no one will know!
Visualise and imagine a better outcome. Your brain does not know the difference, even if you do… proven on brain scans.
Positive social interaction. Even zoom and phone calls work.

The good news is you do not have to do all of these to complete the stress cycle. If you struggle with sleep for example, don’t worry, pick a different strategy. Experiment, be curious around what works best for you.

If you want to learn more, try reading Burnout: The secret to solving the stress cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski

Written by Alex Brook-Dobson

See our Resources page for more support and links.

Our building is currently closed for face-to-face counselling until further notice. But we are still offering sessions over the phone or through Zoom. Please note that we have a reduced capacity at the moment. We are therefore only able to offer counselling to people based in Yorkshire, including those working online. If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the link at the bottom of our Therapy page.

Dealing with disappointment

January 13, 2021 By wellspring

We find ourselves here again, not only navigating another lockdown and the way it impacts our lives, but managing the disappointment that we have returned to this place, again, after all we did last time.

Disappointment means literally “to undo the appointment’ and most of us were ready for more, not less, appointments! Last year, many people mourned the loss of social interaction, a key component of connection and meaning in our lives. And were looking forward to a return to sociability over Christmas and into 2021. For others the losses have been deeper. Whichever way we look at the new lockdown it is challenging to not feel some sense of disappointment to be here all over again.

Expectations are key… expectations of normality have changed again! What is normal for you is personal and the loss is personal, as well as collective for friends, family and communities.

We do need to mourn those lost opportunities and give respect to our feelings of disappointment that our immediate future has changed. However large or small those impacts are, they are real to us.

But setting up a permanent home and living in the gap between expectation and reality accentuates disappointment, frustration and sadness. Spending some time with the reality of the here and now allows for adaption and creative, flexible solutions for change.

Taking the pressure off, and working out what helped last time and doing more of it can help. So can asking others for their help.

Collectively we can shift our gaze from disappointment to change, as “this too shall pass.”

Here are a few ideas for inspiration:

This Too Shall Pass by Julia Samuel
Feel better live more podcast with Julia Samuel No.123

Written by Alex Brook-Dobson

See our Resources page for more support and links.

Our building is currently closed for face-to-face counselling until further notice. But we are still offering sessions over the phone or through Zoom. Please note that we have a reduced capacity at the moment. We are therefore only able to offer counselling to people based in Yorkshire, including those working online. If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the link at the bottom of our Therapy page.

Resilience – Part 3 – External Factors

July 10, 2020 By wellspring

For the final part in this resilience series of blogs we will be looking at external factors that support us.

As mentioned previously, when faced with adversity we can draw on our own internal resources; who we are, and what we can do. In addition, we can draw on external resources; in essence, ask for help.

So what exactly do our external resources look like?

They will be unique to each one of us. The most obvious is our social support structure; our family, friends, co-workers etc. The good news is we do not have to have perfect relationships with all of these people, or a perfect family history, we just need to identify who can be there for us, and then engage with asking them for help. Our external resources also come from our education and learning experiences, our skills, our financial education, and our wider community. We never need all of these aspects at once, and we can take small steps to improve one of these areas at a time, and that in turn will build our resilience. What small thing could you learn today? Who could you reach out to ask for help? How could you help someone in need today? Giving and receiving help can build resilience.

And as a final note, Wellspring can be one of those external support structures for supporting anyone who is struggling to make these changes on their own.

If you want further information, have a look at these resources:

www.resiliencedoughnutuk.com

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/stress/ developing-resilience/

Written by Alex Brook-Dobson

See our Resources page for more support and links.

Whilst our building is currently closed for face-to-face counselling until further notice, we are still offering sessions over the phone or through Zoom. Please note, however, that we have a reduced capacity at the moment. If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the contact details at the bottom of the page.

Resilience – Part 2 – Emotional Intelligence

July 3, 2020 By wellspring

The second aspect of our own internal resilience support systems can be described as our Emotional Intelligence.

It is unrealistic for all of us to expect life to be smooth and without emotional upsets, and clearly with our common latest challenge of Covid 19, we have no previous specific life experience to draw on. But we do have our emotional skills that can be used in any environment. As Victor Frankl famously said,

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

So how do we do that exactly?

Well, we draw on certain skills of self-awareness, labelling and measuring our emotions and self-regulating. We can also grow our optimism and express our emotions in a useful and helpful way. Again, as with last week’s internal awareness of our unique skills, we do not have to be excellent at all of these aspects to have strong mental health and we can boost each individual area a small amount to improve our sense of wellbeing and resilience. If we can have have some patience around improving rather than perfecting, we can see progress and growth in resilience.

So to start with, we can ask ourselves how we are feeling.

Try to be exact as possible, label that emotion as specifically as you can. There are charts on the internet or apps too assist with this. Then examine how strong or weak that feeling is, gain some perspective around it. Then share it, express it and let it go in time. Depending on the emotion, this can be relatively straightforward or exceedingly challenging, but really sitting with it and exploring how it feels in your body, how it impacts your breathing or your heart rate can help create some distance between the feeling and you.

We never stop learning about ourselves and no one gets this right all the time, but the good news is we can become more skilled at it, and subsequently build confidence around our ability to cope…our resilience.

Here are a few resources to help if you are interested in finding out more:

The Mood meter app for labelling, perspective and responding to emotions

www.thebodyandmindcoach.com/the-feeling-wheel/

Podcast Feel Better Live More No 60: The secret to solving the stress cycle

Written by Alex Brook-Dobson

See our Resources page for more support and links.

Whilst our building is currently closed for face-to-face counselling until further notice, we are still offering sessions over the phone or through Zoom. Please note, however, that we have a reduced capacity at the moment. If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the contact details at the bottom of the page.