TIP OF THE WEEK

TIP OF THE WEEK

Understanding and Dealing with Self Harm / Self Mutilation:

Understanding and Dealing with Self-Harm / Self Mutilation:

Self-harm (also known as self-injury) is when you inflict physical harm on yourself, usually in secret and often, without anyone else knowing. Examples are cutting, burning, biting or hitting or punching your body, pulling out hair or scratching and picking at sores on your skin. Self-harm is not necessarily a suicide attempt. Engaging in self-harm may not mean that someone wants to die. Most commonly, self-harm is a behaviour that is used to cope with difficult or painful feelings.

Purpose behind people's self-harm:s

People who deliberately harm themselves have often had tough experiences or difficult relationships in their lives. You may have:

been bullied or discriminated against

lost someone close to you, such as a parent, brother, sister or friend

broken up with a boyfriend or girlfriend

been physically or sexually abused

experienced a serious illness or disability that affects the way you feel about yourself

experienced problems with family, school or peer groups.

Self-harm may be used as a way to cope with experiences and the strong feelings associated with it. Self-harm may:

Provide a way to express difficult or hidden feelings: It’s not uncommon to feel numb or empty as a result of overwhelming feelings you may be experiencing. Engaging in self-harm may provide a temporary sense of feeling again or a way to express anger, sadness, grief or hurt.

Be a way of communicating to people that you need some support: When you feel unable to use words, engaging in self-harm can be a way of proving to yourself that you’re not invisible.

Provide you with a feeling of control: You might feel that self-harm is one way you can have a sense of control over your life, feelings, or body, especially if you feel as if other things in your life are out of control.

Self-harm can bring an immediate sense of relief, but it is only a temporary solution. It can also cause permanent scarring and damage to your body if you injure nerves.

Psychologically, it may be associated with a sense of guilt, depression, low self-esteem or self-hatred along with a tendency to isolate yourself from others.

Finding help

Although it may seem hard, it’s important you reach out to someone who can help you work through some of the reasons for harming yourself. Reaching out and getting support can help you find healthier, more positive alternatives for alleviating pain you feel inside. It may take time, but remember you can move to a happier and healthier outlook.

Speaking to someone about your self-harm may be difficult so do be sure you trust the person you are speaking with.

Starting the conversation

If you are having difficulty speaking about what you’re going through, try to start sentences such as ‘Right now, I’m feeling…’, ‘I think it started when…’, ‘I’ve been feeling this for…’, ‘My sleep has been…’, ‘Lately school/work/college has been…’.

It may be necessary to talk to someone like a counsellor, psychologist, or psychiatrist to help you to work through some of the reasons why you are harming yourself and to find alternative strategies for alleviating the pain you feel inside.

Like any relationship, building trust with your counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist can take time so you need to find someone you feel comfortable with.

If there is a family member you feel comfortable telling, it may be helpful to have their support in finding a counsellor that’s right for you. The person you feel comfortable telling will already be worried about you and will be relieved at having the opportunity to listen and help.

Try to remember if you don’t get a positive response, this is not because you’ve done something wrong. It’s more likely that the person you told may not know how to respond or may not understand much about self-harm.

Don’t give up!

Either try again or maybe speak to someone else who you think you might receive a more supportive response from.

If talking about it with someone is too overwhelming, an alternative is to email or write down what you want to say.

If you or a friend are harming yourselves, take care of the injuries caused. If necessary or it'sserious, seek medical help from hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department.

In most situations, doctors and other health professionals must keep information given to them by patients or clients confidential. However, they are required to report information they receive if they have serious concerns about your (or someone else’s) safety. See confidentiality section of our website or of the place you have vistied.

Coping without harming yourself:

As well as getting some support, it may also be necessary to create a list of alternative strategies to self-harm for managing your emotions.

If you’re feeling like you want to harm yourself there are a number of things you can do to try to distract yourself until the feelings become more manageable. If you can, make sure that you are around other people and remove any sharp objects from the area.

Ideas for releasing energy or feelings

It is difficult to get strong evidence of what works for people to stop self-harming. What works for one, may not work for another. Here are some things you can try to cope with overwhelming emotions.

Choose to put off harming yourself until you’ve spoken to someone else or waited for 15 minutes (and see if you can extend it for another 15 minutes beyond that, continue to do it again and so on until the feeling passes).

Write in a journal : you might like to use an online blog.

Exercise : go for a run or walk in the park to use up excess energy.

Walk in the nature : fresh air and

Play video games : this may be a good way to distract yourself and may help until the anxiety passes.

Yell or sing at the top of your lungs, on your own or to music. You might do this into a pillow if you don’t want other people in the house to hear.

Relaxation techniques : like yoga, meditation as well as Hypnotherapy are often helpful in reducing anxiety.

Cry : crying is a healthy and normal way (not weak or stupid) to express your sadness or frustrations.

Talk to someone : talk with a trusted friend or with a psychologist or couselor.

Take care of yourself

It is important to eat well, exercise and be kind to yourself. While not a solution in itself, doing all these things contribute to a higher sense of self-worth.

They can increase mood stability, and generally create a better sense of well-being making you feel happier, on the outside and the inside.

For more information and help, Visit: www.clearthoughts.in

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INCREDIBLE THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS WITHIN US

INCREDIBLE THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS WITHIN US 

 As humans we have 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts in a single day. That’s a lot of thoughts. It’s about 3000 per hour and 50 per minute. Many times we say I have negative thought or positive thought. But the fact about thought is – thoughts are just thoughts. We can also call them as Sentences or Phrases that we say to ourselves. Thoughts are not positive or negative, it’s the emotions that we connect to thoughts are positive or negative and then our mind presumes that because of the thought I am feeling so, but it is quite the opposite. The question we can ask is, How do we know what though can trigger my negative or positive emotions? Well the answer is very simple, the “BELIEF” that we put into any thought that crosses our mind, makes it more powerful to raise our emotional area in the brain.    

 Becoming Mindful of is one of the best techniques to develop awareness of our thoughts and emotions, further cultivating it to our advantage. Emotional expressions such as talking to someone we trust, also activities such exercise, meditation, walk in the nature, dance, music, drawing, writing, even involving in any sort of hobby or singing out the emotions in a form of a song to yourself helps to vent out emotions.

    

           When I was growing up, emotional expressions whether positive or negative was encouraged. This expression of emotions has motivated to understand myself better and clear my mind. Many of us implicate emotional expression in ways such as, “You should have known how I was feeling by the look on my face.” Whereas, the look on the face hardly ever changed. Some may also feel, putting on a smile before leaving the house each morning can make the day go smooth, but sometimes this bubble can be popped by the prick of a negative emotion that can rise from different circumstances that we encounter though the day or even from the emotion that we are trying to hide or done nothing which is bothering us. What comes to mind is what emotions are? How do we stop negative emotions? Emotions are often called feelings, which include personal experiences. Emotions have both Physical and mental components. Positive or negative emotions are triggered by our feelings or memories of experiences.

Sometimes we generalize happy to refer to specific positive emotions. Positive emotions have a whole range of emotions from Inspiration, Amusements, to Awe, Interest, Gratitude, Love, Joy, Pride, Serenity, Trust and Hope. These are “Wantable” states, which not only feel good but we want to feel them always. The secret is to deny their short lividness but also to find ways to increase their quantity.  That’s true for all emotions that they come and go. 

          About how to stop negative emotions, best way is to look at the positive side of negative emotions. Negative emotions are also necessary for us to flourish, and positive emotions are by nature subtle and momentary. Rather than trying to eliminate the existence of negative emotions, we balance negative feelings with positive ones.

Emotions tell us not just what the body needs but what we need mentally and emotionally and what our future selves might need. They help us broaden our minds and our outlook and build our resources down the road. If we focus on day-to-day feelings, we can up lift building our resources and becoming our best version of ourselves. 

As I believe, we teach best what we most need to learn.

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TIP OF THE WEEK !

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OPEN SELF TO LOVE

 When we glance in to our lives whether persons or things, smallest to biggest, everything and anything can easily turn into attachment. From all the emotional relationships, to house, cars, phones, jobs and even favorite dress that we own, to further complicate our lives, we get attached to even those who once existed as important component in our lives but are no more around us due to parted by fate or god.  I am not talking about remembering moments spend with them to inspire us, it’s the cling on them to never let go off.  

Philosophy on attachment says it is the root cause of suffering as it gives rise to pain, desire, hatred, insecurity, fear. And to end this suffering is to take the path of non-attachment.

In my thoughts attachment is not the root cause. It’s just the bark of a tree. The root is love; our love has further developed into attachment. If a plants root is healthy but its bark is getting infected, it doesn’t mean we up root complete plant or get into a life of detachment. We treat the bark or cut it off, so that new shots can emerge to form healthy bark from the strong roots. What happens if we spread this root deeper into our lives? I mean to say if we can make our life nurture with love only, the bark or the pillar of our life will stand with fruits of happiness, compassion, trust and bliss.  We humans have inborn quality of loving, that’s the homeostatic state of mind or balance state. But troubled by our experiences and belief system, we tend go into an impression state of suffering. Though we can get into the coil of experiencing all these emotions but coming back to equilibrium level of love is the fuel to existence. As much as we stay in this frequency of love, the better we get used to aperture altruism love. As quoted by novelist and poet John Updike, “We are most alive when we’re in love.”  This explains it all  : )

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Tip of the week

LIVING IN ‘NOW’

Today on my beautiful early morning walk, I came across a friend of mine who had finished her walking and was standing gazing at something. With a warm smile, lot of enthusiasm and loudness in my voice, I greeted her good morning, but she stood there staring in the infinite. I thought maybe she didn’t hear me and came few steps back, and greeted her again, waving my hand in front of her eyes as if to bring her focus on to me or to get her out from her trance state. She was so astonished and asked Hey! What a surprise! When did come you? Sorry…. I was so lost in thoughts about all the problems going around me and didn’t notice. For a moment it felt as if only the physical body of hers was standing in front of me, but the mind is somewhere else.
This is not only with my friend, this happens with most of us when we are eating, driving, talking, multi tasking with any work, we are completely occupied with en number of things running in the back of our mind. This makes me think, Are we living our moments? Most of us look back at our past years and think how we want to see our future, with that accordingly plan our present. But of all, if I ask what is on your mind now? The answer could be something like, thinking of the meeting that I have with my boss today, wife/husband’s birthday tomorrow and thinking what should I give, my child’s parent-teacher meet in school, need to take permission from the office for a half day leave …..and the list can go on…..and on ….ooooon

That doesn’t mean we don’t have awareness but these awareness is for the tomorrow that is still to come or about things related to days gone by and in it lost is the awareness of just being now and here. On top of it, awareness gets mixed with thoughts, feelings, emotions which give raise to labeling, judgments and interpretations. In other words, Awareness gets attached to strings which give raise to tensions, restlessness and stress.
Awareness can be explained in many adjectives such as consciousness, realization, understanding, attentiveness, grasp, alertness, wakefulness, Knowledge. When we are just an observer to awareness that comes for ourselves, others, situation, events and just float with it, that’s the pure awareness. Many a times when things come to our awareness we start introspecting, reasoning it, and looking at things in deeper way. We do say, the meaning of life can be deepened with high awareness but at the same time, awareness with lot of thinking and over whelmed sense of perception can lead to days and days of wandering with the same thoughts and can be chores. Awareness of just being in now keeps us grounded, drops our emotional baggage being carried further and making us live moments to the fullest…….
Let’s embark our moments to ...... “NOW and HERE”

Priyanka Padhi

Maintaining and Balancing Emotional Hygiene

Today there is no picture post or news on Clear Thoughts Clinic. Today there is something that just comes as clear thoughts to me!

I had read a quote of Buddha which says "All we are! is the result of what we have thought"...... And also days back, my mentor and my guruji Dr.Prashant said, take responsibility of everything that happens around you, even of the drought in desert or floods in any other countries. This kept me thinking how I am creating all these........
The cycle of human's behavioral life runs on the wheels of Thoughts-Feelings-Actions. And this goes for everything and everybody: Self and others! And to understand others, we have to understand Self first and it also applies for, to heal others we have to heal ourselves first….. Now the question lies in how do we heal ourselves and what we have it to heal others? Why could it affect anything “Out there”? As many of us go through Anger issues, Health, Relationship, family, marriage, children, parents, confidence, self esteem, work related issue…… name any amount of issues.
Now time to open the secret, which is…There is nothing called as “Out there”- everything that is happening is in your MIND, it is all “In there”. Everything you hear, every person you meet, every experience that you go through is the experience of your mind. So you are responsible for everything that you think and also that comes to your attention. It means that you are also able to clear it, clean it and through Repentance, Forgiveness, Gratitude and love to Change it. And amazingly this is the Secret to change things. Just Following four steps of power of mind. It doesn’t matter which steps comes after which. But there has to be feelings and willingness to do so.
Step 1: Repentance – I’M SORRY, as I mention above, you are responsible for everything in your mind, even if it seems to be “out there.” Once you realize that, it’s very natural to feel sorry. When you know something in my consciousness has created that idea. I’m so very sorry that someone I know has a broken bone that I realize I have caused. This realization can be painful, and you will likely resist accepting responsibility for the “out there” kind of problems until you start to practice this method on your more obvious “in here” problems and see results. So choose something that you already know you’ve caused for yourself. As I mentioned earlier, Over-weight, Addicted to nicotine, alcohol or some other substance, anger issues, health problems. Start there and say you’re sorry. That’s the whole step: I’M SORRY. Although I think it is more powerful if you say it more clearly: “I realize that I am responsible for the (issue) in my life and I feel terrible remorse that something in my consciousness has caused this.”

Step 2: Ask Forgiveness – “PLEASE FORGIVE ME”, don’t worry about who you’re asking. Just ask! PLEASE FORGIVE ME. Say it over and over. Mean it. Remember your remorse from step 1 as you ask to be forgiven.

Step 3: Gratitude – Saying “THANK YOU”, again it doesn’t really matter who or what you’re thanking. Thank your body for all it does for you. Thank yourself for being the best you can be. Thank God. Thank the Universe. Thank whatever it was that just forgave you. Just keep saying THANK YOU.

Step 4: Love – “I LOVE YOU” this can also be step 1. Say I LOVE YOU. Say it to your body, say it to God. Say I LOVE YOU to the air you breathe, to the house that shelters you. Say I LOVE YOU to your challenges. Say it over and over. Mean it. Feel it. There is nothing as powerful as Love.
That’s it. Simple and effective practice for Emotional Freedom! And this is what we can mention as Unconditional Love for self and others. This can be practice by saying it to others if you wish to express them or just practice in your head or mind with self awareness.

Priyanka Padhi smile emoticon