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1.  Let go of something holding onto you.

Releasing something that is binding you to the past can allow for freedom and a new beginning. 

2.  Clean! 

Pick one thing to tidy up in your everyday life. It will give you a sense of control and accomplishment! 

3.  Do something new this month. 

Changing your pace and discovering new things can open new areas for you to thrive or new hobbies you were never aware of. 

4.  Make gratitude a priority. 

Every day, write something that you are grateful for. Doing this can open your eyes to the little things in your life that may be big. 

5.  Challenge your perspective. 

Being stuck in the same routine and mindset can be dangerous if you are not challenging your views and learning more. Knowledge is powerful and can help you understand other perspectives. 

6.  Go outside!

Something beautiful about spring is that the sun is beginning to shine, and the warm weather is starting to tease you with summer activities. In Texas, we don’t often get pretty days that aren’t too hot or cold. So, embrace them! Go for a walk, sit in the sun, or eat dinner outside. Anything can be fun! 

7.  Check on your sleep schedule. 

Sleep is important and crucial to your everyday life. Check in with yourself and see if you need more rest and figure out how to help yourself reach that need. 

Here are a couple of different tools to use when feeling anxious!

Thought Challenging: To thought challenge, you need to look at the evidence for AND against your anxious thoughts. The hope is that once you look at the evidence, you can lean into your logical thought and reframe into a more balance belief and view than where your anxiety was taking you.

Worry Time: Life is stressful and being anxious is going to happen. What would it look like if you set aside a schedule time to think about all those worries and anxiety? Assign a 5–10-minute time every day where you are allowed to sit and think about all the worries you have. When you have worries that pop up outside of that time, right them down and revisit them during your assigned time.

Controlled Breathing: This is used to help calm your physical symptoms of anxiety. Breath in deeply through your lower abdomen for 4 seconds, and then breathe out for 6 seconds. Repeat this 3+ times.

5-4-3-2-1: This is a grounding technique to help you connect with your surroundings. With this exercise you will name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.

Sleep: Anxiety can affect the amount and quality of sleep you are getting. It is crucial when dealing with anxiety to have a healthy sleep routine, regular sleep patterns, and other sleep hygiene strategies (skin care, journaling, praying, etc.)

Compassionate Self-Talk: Give yourself the credit you deserve. Anxiety will try and tell you all the ways you are not good enough or failing. Take a second to step back every day and give yourself compassion. Example: “I failed because I did not work out today.” Instead try, “I did not work out today to allow more rest for my body.” Or “I did not work out today, and I am still a healthy person”.

Anxiety can take over one’s mind and make even the most irrational beliefs feel like a real possibility. And though this can seem odd, it is not strange at all. According to the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), over 40 million adults in the United States have an anxiety disorder. Therefore, knowing how to communicate with a person who experiences anxiety is crucial, especially within a relationship. It is important when in a relationship with someone who has anxiety to discuss their symptoms and triggers in their daily lives. This can be as simple as discussing how anxiety affects sleep, mood, irritability, etc. Once that is discussed, one can start to be aware of when their partner may be feeling anxious and be able to offer support during that time.

When someone who does not experience anxiety is communicating with a person who does, it can be easy to want to rationalize and point out the flaws in their way of thinking. However, do not minimize feelings. Instead, try to understand, or at least acknowledge, that the fear and worry the person is experiencing is real to them, even if it is not rational. Meeting a partner where they are at with compassion will go a long way. Once a person is met with empathy and acceptance, then they will be more open to conversations of logic.

The point in these conversations with a partner is not to get rid of anxiety, but to manage it. Anxiety often leads to people avoiding different things such as flying, conversation, taking a new risk, etc. This means it can also lessen the amount of life experiences with one’s partner. By encouraging and supporting a partner in new and scary steps in life, it is one more area where they are managing their anxiety and not letting it control their life.

However, sometimes talking at home and encouragement is not enough. It is important to know that supporting one’s partner with anxiety does not have to mean only one person is doing the supporting. Helping a partner seek treatment can be just as powerful and changing in a relationship. Needing outside help is not weak or less than, but instead shows a large amount of strength. This can still be scary though, so it could be helpful as a partner to help find therapist and do research into what treatment would be the best fit. Another option is to be involved in a partner’s therapeutic process. Overall, showing support and the want to help will go a long way.

What is Self-Care?

Self-care is a phrase we all hear very often these days. You may hear it at work, or with your friends. You may see people posting about it on social media, or it may even be a part of your New Year’s Resolutions! But what is self-care? Well, that depends. Media often depicts self-care as bubble baths and reading, but you may hate baths and reading. So where does that leave you? Well, it can be simple if you make it. Self-care is not going to be the same for you as it is for the influencer on social media, your best friends, or your grandparents. You are all different people, so the way you take care of yourselves will look different as well. Here is a list of different ideas that could fit into your self-care regimen….

·       Go for a walk/run

·       Listen to music

·       Watch TV

·       Watch your favorite movie

·       Go to the park

·       Eat out for dinner

·       Sleep in

·       Wake up early

·       Set your budget

·       Go shopping

·       Talk to your counselor

·       Talk to your best friend

·       Play trivia

·       Sit in silence

·       Meet up with friends

·       Say “Yes!”

·       Say “No!”

·       Play a video game

·       Cuddle with an animal

·       Journal

·       Take a nap

·       Clean your room

·       Take a day off

And the list goes on and on. As you can see, some things on this list contradict the next. That is on purpose! Self-care cannot be put into boxes for you to check. What works for you may not work for others! Challenge yourself this month to sit and listen to what works best for YOU! Try some things out and fail at them until you find something that feels right. There is not magic wand to wave when it comes to taking care of yourself, but this list can be a starting guide to get you there.

If I have learned one thing from being on this planet, it is that life is hard. Tragedies strike, relationships end, jobs get terminated, and every news station will tell you the world is chaos. And yet, most people expect themselves to get up every Monday and go to work like nothing is happening. To put on a smile and say “Great!” when someone asks about your day. What about the days where you cannot fake it? When someone sees through your cracks and asks, “How are you really?”. Some may feel like they failed in getting through the day, but this is where it is so important to offer self-compassion.

Well, what is self-compassion? Dr. Kristin Neff has dedicated most of her life’s work into figuring that out and explain it to the world. Dr. Neff states that, “Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself [as you would others] when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring you pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop and tell yourself “This is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?”.

Self-compassion is not letting yourself off the hook, but instead understanding that perfection is not attainable, and so failure is inevitable. It can mean accepting that there is still work to be done, but breaks are just as crucial. On Dr. Neff’s website she continues to dive deep into her work with what self-compassion is and what it is not. The links are attached below. Dr. Neff also hosted a beautiful TedTalk on self-compassion versus self-esteem. If you find yourself wanting more, this will also be attached below!

https://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvtZBUSplr4

“Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?” -Dr. Kristen Neff

New Year, New You?

With New Year’s right around the corner, many people are discussing different life changes or resolutions they are hoping to take place. However, when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, many people feel overwhelmed, or have given up completely on setting goals for the upcoming year. Why is that? Sometimes the goals are too big, some are unrealistic, and sometimes a year like 2023 happens and meeting your goal is the last of your worry. I am here to tell you that it is OKAY. Sometimes just surviving and getting through the day is good enough, and that should be celebrated just as much.

Soon (or maybe already) you will start seeing people post about their goals for 2024… weight loss, read more books, travel more, etc. These can feel overwhelming and unhelpful for where you may be in your journey of life… instead here are some goals for 2024 you and your therapist can work on together.

·      Setting boundaries in your life.

·      Learning and practicing positive self-talk.

·      Saying “No”.

·      Self-forgiveness.

·      Forgiveness in general.

·      Journaling (almost) every day.

·      Sitting in your feelings.

·      Asking for help.

·      Figure out what your self care looks like.

·      Self-acceptance.

·      Find music that makes you happy!

·      Learn to identify different feelings.

·      Love yourself.

·      Take a step towards the uncomfortable.

·      Laugh, smile, cry, scream…. Because they will happen this year anyways.

·      Be unapologetically yourself.

In therapy we set goals all the time. They can be goals for that session, day, week, or year, and yet those do not feel so scary. Why is that?  In therapy you know you have a person that will hold you accountable to those goals and check in on them and you. New Year’s resolutions often fail for being too big and being alone when trying to achieve them, but what if we looked at them the same way we look at goals in therapy? Talk to your therapist about where you want to be at the end of 2024 and set some goals for yourself. Embrace the failures throughout the year and celebrate the success.

-Shae Martin, M.S., LPC

Why Sex Therapy?

When I mention my interest of sex therapy to people, I often get met with blank stares, awkward laughs, and a lot of questions. Sex is still a topic that many do not feel comfortable talking about, so partnering that with therapy… well, it is something very confusing for some people and that is okay. It gives us all a chance to learn and broaden our perspectives. So, why sex therapy?

It is the job of a therapist to look at and understand the whole person and this includes the sexual parts. If counselors do not address a client’s sexuality, we could contribute to their struggle with it and only see the client as part of their whole. That is why it is so important to be asked questions that are deeper than, “How is your sex life?”. There is a lot of shame and humility that surround the conversations of sex, and people are slow to talk about problems that they believe are so individual and unique. However, the Laumann survey (Laumann et al., 1999) discussed that sexual problems, male and female, are the largest of its kind with 60% of women and 30% of men reporting some type of sexual dysfunction. This allows awareness that though sexual problems can be uncomfortable to talk about, they are something that many people experience.

Many people are raised to not talk about sex. It is a topic that is uncomfortable, unpolite, and unknown. People grow up having questions and then never getting a place or person to ask them… well until the internet. However, even with the internet, many people were learning what sex was through invalid sources such as sexually explicit material, or different chat rooms. This leaves many people not fully understanding the education around sex. Part of sex therapy is allowing for a space and for conversation for learning and growth within one’s sexuality and to find the answers to those questions that are “awkward” to ask. Some of these questions may be about anatomy, birth control, LGBTQ+ community, sexual trauma, statistics, out of control sexual behavior, and so much more.

And yet, the most asked question is almost always, “Am I/is this normal?”.

What is “normal”, especially when it comes to sex? This world has people constantly compare themselves to others on social media, in test scores, income, etc. and has taken individuality away from people. This is all for people to fit into the “norm”. But what is “normal”?  Normal is a construct and it does not matter how you have sex or what you do, your normal is going to be too vanilla for someone, or too crazy for another person. Sexuality is a way to express your true self in a way that you have the ultimate decision over and that is something so beautiful.

So why sex therapy? Sex therapy is just regular vanilla therapy where we as a collaborative group choose not to get hung up on sex, but also invite the topic into the conversations. Sex should be as mainstream of a topic in the therapy room as talking about anxiety. Night Sky Counseling offers sex therapy because not enough people have and we want to offer a safe and open space with no shaming of any kind and where any person can walk in a feel that they are being seen as their whole self, not just a partial print.

If you are interested in more on this topic/conversation, or are interested in sex therapy as a client, please reach out through the Night Sky Counseling website.

-Shae Martin, M.S., LPC

• National 24-hour Sexual Assault Hotline: Call 1-800-656-4673

• National Sexual Violence Resource Center Directory: https://www.NSVRC.org/organizations

• Victim Connect: Resource Center: Call or Text 1-855-484-2846

• Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN): https://www.rainn.org/resources