Mental Health Tricks and Treats

Here are a few tips to help you along your healing journey! 

• Watching a scary movie can elicit similar physical sensations in your body to those that you might feel when you’re in real danger (anxiety, panic, tense, etc.). Your body is signaling that you might be in danger, despite the fact that you are safe. Keep in mind that the physical sensations in your body significantly impact your perception of what is happening around you. 

• Have you ever smelled a scent that brought you back to a prior time in your life or triggered a specific memory? Emotions work similarly! Emotions can trigger memories of past experiences that can make you believe that you are currently reliving a similar situation. 

• Often, we communicate our emotions through describing the behavior of another person. Ex: “I feel like you don’t care about me.” In these moments we may feel unsupported, neglected, lonely, etc.  Understanding and sharing the emotions behind these statements can help improve your self-awareness and help navigate conflict. Practice communicating the emotion that you feel when an observable behavior occurs. Ex: “I feel hurt when I notice that you’re on your phone when we’re together.” 

• Many of the behaviors that are unlearned in therapy are deployed to help you avoid uncomfortable emotions. A helpful way to gain insight into which emotions are most difficult for you to feel is to ask the question: What emotions am I unwilling to feel? Shame, guilt, and loneliness are a few of the most common emotions that trigger avoidance.  

• How would I coach my younger self to deal with this emotion? A helpful way to move through difficult emotions is to communicate to yourself as if you were a kid experiencing the emotion for the first time.