Tag: #encouragement

I Am Not My Past Mistakes

Repeat after me. I am not my past mistakes. I am worthy of change. I deserve to change and to move forward. I can change. I will change. I deserve to be happy and at peace with myself. I deserve to love myself. Repeat as many times as necessary.

If you want to move forward in your life, you cannot allow your past mistakes to prevent you from moving forward. Because they will. They will tie you down and eat you from the inside out. Time and time again, I have seen individuals engage in self-sabotaging behaviors, because they believe that they do not deserve to move forward, they do not deserve to change for the better, they do not deserve to be happy, because of the mistakes they have made in the past.

The person you were when you made those mistakes is not the person that is reading this today. Even if the mistake you made happened yesterday, or even an hour ago. We all have the ability to tell ourselves that we are not going to be that person any longer, and we can change.

Sometimes people believe that they do not deserve to change, not because of the mistakes they have made, but because someone told them that they were bad and it became internalized. When we internalize something, it becomes a part of who we are, a part of our identity. Growing up, my family was poor and domestic abuse was the norm. When I was 7 or 8 years old, my mother told me to never rely on anyone for anything. To make my own way so I would never have to depend on anyone.

Of course my mother said that with the best intentions. She didn’t want me to end up in a position like her, where she did not have choices. My mother couldn’t leave the situation she was in. She had 3 children, no job, and no family in the state. She was stuck. She wanted more for me than that. How my 7 or 8-year-old self interpreted it, however, was that people cannot be trusted, and you can only trust yourself. I internalized that.

I didn’t have many close friends for a long time because of that. I did not cry in front of others; I did not allow myself to be vulnerable with others. I did not ask others for help. I did things my way, because I could not trust the ways of others. The abuse I endured during my childhood, also had me believing that I was worthless, that I would never amount to anything, that I was stupid, a loser, etc. The list goes on.

Anytime I started to grow close to someone, I would sabotage it. Because I believed that I did not deserve to be treated kindly. I believed that I was a bad person. I destroyed relationships with others and this fed into the belief that I was a bad person. I was a bad person, who did not deserve to have good relationships because of the bad things I did to my relationships. This came from internalizing the words my mother told me, and also stemmed from the abuse I endure as a child.

So how does one move forward from this type of cycle? If left alone, this cycle leads to a very lonely life. In my experience, if you want to change this cycle, you need to change the way you think. You have to tell yourself that you don’t want to be that person anymore. You have to actively work to correct your negative thoughts that tell you otherwise; you have to go against your natural instincts to not engage in the behaviors you typically would engage. Typically, we want to sabotage because we begin to feel uncomfortable. We feel uncomfortable because the way we are behaving, or the things that are being said to us, are the opposite of everything we have experienced and have been told thus far.

I find that positive self-talk is the best way to start healing from this. Changing negative self-talk and sabotaging behaviors is a process, so we don’t want to overwhelm ourselves and take on too much, too soon; that is a fast way to sabotaging. I challenge my clients by encouraging them to give themselves positive self-affirmations. Example: Negative thought-I am stupid at Math. Correction-I am intelligent and am learning how to do Math in a new way.

Next I encourage my clients to practice accepting the kind things people say about them and then flip the statement into a self-affirmation. Example: You did a good job on that project. I-Statement-I did a good job on that project. When my clients find themselves not believing what someone has said about them, I ask them ‘why?’. Has this individual given them a reason not to believe what was said? Why would they lie? Why would they say something, at random, if it were not true? You don’t get to decide the good things that others are able to see in you, just because you are not able to see them yet.

You may have heard that when we hear something negative about ourselved enough times, we begin to believe it. The same thing goes for the positive. If you or others tell yourself something positive enough times, you will begin to believe it to be true. When I first began my career, I was filled with self-doubts. I did not think that I was capable of helping others, and did not think that I was able to convey what I wanted to say in a way that would be understood by my clients. My supervisor and clinical director gave me words of encouragement and I would always follow up with my doubts, despite the kind words they said to me about my capabilities. Finally, my supervisor asked me if I thought that my supervisor and clinical directors were liars. I was shocked. Of course I didn’t think they were liars. She asked me then why I didn’t believe them when they told me I was capable. I was unable to give her an answer. It was a big eye opener for me and it showed me just how powerful negative thinking can be.

You have the power and ability to stop this cycle. You are not your past mistakes. You are not a bad person. You are worthy of change. You deserve to change. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be at peace. You can change. You will change. You will become the person you want to be. Changing a negative mindset is not something that happens overnight. It is okay if you don’t achieve this immediately. This isn’t about doing an exercise correctly. It is about learning to love yourself. Learning to love yourself is not easy; so go easy on yourself, and be kind to yourself. I wish you well on this journey of self-love.

Exercise: Give yourself a positive affirmation (something you like about yourself) everytime you see your reflection in the bathroom mirror. It should not be a physical characteristic. It should be something that you like about the person you are.

Exercise: Keep a journal and write down any negative thoughts that you have about yourself, or anything negative anyone says to you about you, throughout the day. At the end of the day, go back and correct all the negative thoughts and replace with them with positive I-Statements.

Coping Contract with Myself

Coping. Everyone knows or has at least one coping skill that they have used. However, many people believe that they have tried everything for coping, and nothing seems to work. This can be very frustrating for the individual who is trying desperately to better their situation. Not knowing how to cope with certain feelings or situations can really make someone feel stuck. Or, maybe you have the coping skills that work well for you, but you never use them when you need to.

As someone who struggles with her own mental health issues, I am very guilty of not using coping skills when they would be beneficial for me. When my depressive symptoms act up, I don’t have the energy, or feel that I am a burdon to everyone I talk to. When my anxiety acts up, I feel that I am a lost cause and no one can help me and the fear of reaching out is too strong to do it. When my PTSD acts up, I dissociate. When my insomnia acts up, I sit on my phone and ignore how I know that my lack of sleep increases my symptoms of all of the above. I am 110% guilty of not using coping skills.

This can become a vicious cycle, if I allow it to. There was a time in my life, where all I did was cycle because I never used any healthy coping skills and this gave my mental health symptoms the opportunity to feed into each other, which in turn increased and intensified my symptoms. This is why coping skills are so vital. Coping skills are not just for addressing mental health and addiction symptoms, they can also help to get yourself out of a funk on a bad day.

When I first became a counselor, I was working in an intensive outpatient chemical dependency/mental health facility working with adolescent girls. I saw a lot of similar patterns of getting “stuck” and cycling with my clients that had difficulties utilizing healthy coping skills. Whether it was to cope with triggers, cravings, or other mental health symptoms, they could not understand why they were not moving forward and why they could not get un-stuck. We would discuss coping strategies that worked, why others didn’t work, and the importance of using them; but discussion never seemed to be enough. I could not figure out why. My clients knew the importance of using healthy coping skills, they knew how to use them, they knew when they should be using them. So why weren’t they using them?

Then it clicked. My clients were not using the skills they knew would work, because they did not believe they were getting anything in return. Sounds weird, right? You would think that the reduction in cravings, or mental health symptoms would be enough of a reason to use coping skills. However, there are two small pieces that are missing that can make a huge difference. You ready?

1. Accountability.

My clients were lacking the support and encouragement they needed to use those coping skills. Even if they knew that coping would be effective. If my clients had someone to encourage them to use those skills, even if they didn’t use them right away, they were more likely to begin attempting to use them.

2. Reward

The idea of having a reward for successfully coping comes from behavior modification, where you reward the desired behavior. The desired behavior, in this case, is the coping skill(s) that needs to be utilized. When my clients were able to reward themselves after successfully coping, they were more likely going to continue to try to successfully cope because they want the gratification of doing something correctly.

Once I realized this, I put together a contract, you can find the link for the contract I use at the bottom of this post. I would sit down with my clients and go over it, have them answer some questions, and then the client and myself would sign it. I would make a copy for myself, for the client, and any additional copies the client thought they may need. I would follow up with the client about the contract on a weekly basis and we would make changes as necessary. And what I found was that, over the course of time and practice, my clients no longer needed to be held accountable, nor did they need a reward. Utilizing their coping skills had become a habit; they began to see the benefits of having reduced symptoms and did not need to recieve anything in return in additon to that. The coping skills became enough.

This contract is not meant just for adolescents. I have also used it with adults and have found it just as effective. You do not have to work with a therpist or counselor to use this. You can fill this out with anyone that you trust and believe will encourage you and support you. This may mean, however, stepping outside of your comfort zone and telling the other person what it may look like when you need to use these skills; that way, they know when to encourage you to use them. Make a copy for the individual who will be holding you accountable, so when they encourage you to use those coping skills, they can be specific and be that much more of a support to you. And of course, you get to decide on how you will reward yourself when you cope successfully! It can be something as simple as watching a TV show you enjoy, or going out and buying yourself a nice new shirt. Anything that you enjoy can be a reward. I do not recommend using food as a reward if you will be using the contract for coping with disordered eating behaviors and/or thoughts.

The contract is pretty specific. You identify the coping skills that you have worked well for you in the past (I specify the past week), the skills you will continue to use, new coping skills that you are willing to try, how you will utilize the skill, and when you will utilize the skill. The contract finishes up by having you identify how you will reward yourself, you and the individual holding you accountable both sign the contract, and when you follow up, you check on whether or not you were successful at coping. If you were not successful, you identify why and you will need to revise the contract. I find it helpful to have a physical contract because you can put it somewhere where you will always have access to it. You can hang it up, carry it in your wallet, put it on the fridge, etc; anywhere that if you need to cope and are drawing a blank, you can pull it out to utilize.

Coping in healthy ways is not always easy. In fact, many times, it can be extremely difficult. Especially when our mental health symptoms are telling us to do everything but cope. So remember, you are more than the symptoms you experience. And the best way to give the middle finger to those symptoms is to cope in a healthy way. Take your time, and be kind to yourself. Every failed attempt is an opportunity to try something new. I wish you well on this journey.

Coping Contract with Myself