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How do you stop being so self critical?

Posted by on Dec 7, 2017 in Blog

How do you stop being so self critical? If you find yourself being self critical you could ask yourself is this the first time in your life that you are being this way. Most likely the answer is that you have been like this perhaps countless times. You may consider labeling that self criticism as a “story” that comes up often in your mind. You may even notice that you have been telling yourself this “story” since childhood. Then the question is has buying into that story been helpful? Has it gotten you closer to where you want to be going? If there answer is no you can tell name that story: “there is my self blaming story”. You might be able to detach yourself from this...

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A part of treating Depression

Posted by on Nov 30, 2017 in Blog

A part of treating Depression is looking at the negative self thoughts that are active during depression and using either CBT (Cognitive Behavioral therapy) or ACT (Acceptance and Commitment therapy) to deal with them. For example when depressed you may have thoughts that it is all your fault someone is upset with you; you are a failure, you are worthless or you are inadequate. If using ACT and have any of these thoughts the first thing you may want to ask yourself is getting hooked to the thought helpful? In using CBT you want try to use a technique like looking at the evidence to support the belief and evidence against it. If you are reading this and are depressed you should seek the help of a mental health...

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Watching your thoughts

Posted by on Nov 16, 2017 in Blog

Watching your thoughts instead of being rapt up with them could be a way to reduce stress. To me what it means is to be able to observe your thoughts like you may observe your breathing when meditating. When I first was learning ACT (Acceptance and Commitment therapy) One technique that was described was to tell yourself I am having the thought that…”. This would be the way to do it in the purest way to observe your thoughts. There are plenty of other techniques that you can use to achieve distance from your thinking. It might also be helpful to step back from neutral and positive are real important to help you in your journey of stepping back from...

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Depression around criticism

Posted by on Nov 9, 2017 in Blog

If you are finding that you get depression around criticism then you may be suffering from a Sociotropy type of depression. One way I look at this is to see it as your own concept is overly dependent on the opinions of others. You may want to consider seeing a psychotherapist for this as you can learn to get the tools to cope with the thoughts that it will automatically come up in this situation, especially the self critical ones. A therapist that specializes in using CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) or ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) may produce the best...

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Tips on managing worry

Posted by on Oct 26, 2017 in Blog

Another thing on tips on managing worry. When a worry pops up in your mind you could ask yourself is this a helpful worry to pay attention to at this moment in time. In you think it is then look at what options do you have. For example if you have a worry about losing your job after you heard a rumor about your company down sizing you could brain storm what you could do…e.g. get your resume changed, discuss your concerns with your friends and or family, go on line to see what other jobs are out there, decide to do nothing at this point. These are just some of the options you have. If you think it is not a helpful worry you could do worry time as described in the blog last time or perhaps you could label the worry by calling it worry every time it comes...

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Tip on managing worry

Posted by on Oct 19, 2017 in Blog

I am going to add another tip on managing worry. This can come under the heading of worry time. Here is how it may work. Say you start to worry about a relationship you are in and that the worries are taking up too much of your time and energy and seem uncontrollable. You can tell yourself that a couple of times a day you are going to set aside for worry time. It may be 10-15 minutes or less or more. During the worry time you will worry about the issue or issues then stop. And every time you notice that you start to worry you remind yourself of the next worry time you will be setting aside and that you will save that worry for...

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