Category: self love, trauma,

Do it for yourself

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How to take care of yourself, and be there for others

In psychology, taking care of yourself becomes a fundamental principle for achieving personal and social well-being, because it means accepting yourself. Working on your self-esteem and self-care, with daily gestures that take personal needs into account, is an important first step. The role of the therapist, in this case, becomes that of accompanying the person who does not take care of themselves on a path of change and supporting them in achieving this important goal.

“Self-care” comes from the ancient Greek expression epimèleia heautou, an articulated and complex concept dating back to the philosophy of Socrates. This concept, of great importance now as then, referred to the ability to look at what is happening inside us and outside of us, with the aim of questioning and knowing ourselves through a continuous internal dialogue with ourselves.

Taking care of yourself: what does it mean?

Taking care of yourself means listening to yourself to understand your needs, loving yourself and thinking about your physical and mental well-being. It is necessary to cultivate the introspective ability to look within and recognize the value. This takes time, patience and also includes the need to accept and love each other with one’s limitations and defects.

Think of Maslow’s Pyramid: the central idea of this theory is that in each of us there is a hierarchy of needs, on which learning and conditioning are built through motivation.

Taking care of yourself can seem like a difficult thing, especially for those who are used to putting aside their own needs to fulfill other’s. Instead, taking time to take care of yourself is essential because it triggers a virtuous mechanism: taking care of yourself to take care of others.

How to take care of yourself: some concrete tips

Sometimes a few things are enough to feel good about yourself. Here are some tips to start taking care of yourself. To learn how to take care of yourself in everyday life you can:

  • plan a routine
  • follow a balanced diet
  • do physical activity, as they say mens sana in corpore sano
  • buy something new that you’ve wanted for a long time
  • read a good book
  • spending time in nature
  • take a walk
  • meet friends.

The key to self care is consistency. However, don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t stick to your planned routine. Every day is a brand new opportunity to show up for yourself.

Be there for others

It is fundamental to choose to devote yourself to relationships that enrich and make you feel good, that give us back what we give in terms of time and affection. Taking care of yourself and of others becomes a single action to live with greater serenity and satisfaction.
Every human being exists, but also coexists with others: this underlines how much we need the other and how much the other needs us. How can we take care of others? The most precious things we can give are our time and our presence, therefore a smile, a gesture, a word. It is therefore important to ask how we can help, listen without judging and be close to the other person. All of this can be trivially summed up in two word: being there.

‍How Therapy can help!

Each of us, at least once, have felt lost, stuck and not aware of what we wants or feels necessary. In these cases, it often happens that the person feels they have a problem and that they are not feeling well, but they don’t know where to start to get better and improve their lives.

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Through therapy you can build tools to achieve your own personal growth by working on low self-esteem and increasing self-empowerment. As a therapist I can help you identify your needs and priorities, noticing them and help them flourish.

Let’s show up for ourselves one more time!

Self-Helps Tools- “Your body is not an apology workbook; Tools for living radical self-love.”

Disclosure – I speak from the perspective of a Caucasian, female, cisgender, and I can only speak for myself. As a therapist I am called to broaden my view of other cultures, experiences, skin colors, sexual orientation, ethnicities, values, religions, etc. All things that influence how we interface with the world. I acknowledge my privileged position that enables me to be able to stop and reflect on my own biases, and further my understanding of myself and the world. YOU should not expect anything less from your therapist!

Hello YOU! In this post I wanted to touch on a great self-help book,  “Your body is not an apology, workbook; tools for living radical-self love,” by Sonya Renee Taylor, a sort of tool box sequel of the “Your body is not an apology.” The author’s intent seems to be to empower her audience with practical tools in order to grow and heal when it comes to our relationship with our bodies and media (though not limited to that). I found it particularly helpful as a self-help book in creating a dialogue between our own bodies and the image that it is expected of that in the media. I also want to be clear that recommending a self-help book does not align with the recent mentality that pushes us to “feel better at all costs.” The journey is what matters, and I believe that books that promote self-awareness and self-discovery, are as healthy a gym membership or a walk in nature.

“Your body is not an apology workbook,” contains different chapters among which: Taking Out The Toxic, Mind Matters, Unapologetic Action, Collective Compassion. Finally, there is an epilogue titled: “Embodying radical self-love to change the world.” I believe that each chapter and self-help exercise in this book can be used in no particular order, and the activities listed in it can be proven very effective and useful especially if used in a therapeutic relationship. Some of the exercises listed in this workbook can be used as homework for clients and discussed with the therapist. Among the chapters that I particularly enjoyed is: “Banish the binary.” During the past couple of years, we have probably learned like never before, the importance of acknowledging gender differences and gender expressions. We have been learning about how using our pronoun when we introduced ourselves can normalize a non-binary vision of gender. Though, I find that a lot of people are still struggling with this concept, and do not understand the point of introducing ourselves with our pronoun. There is a lot of ignorance about what it means to be LGBTQ + allies. On page 79 of this book Sonia Renee Taylor explains how the binary thinking really is a very limited and dichotomic way to looking at things (eg. Bad vs good, white vs black, etc). The author briefly talks about how a binary language can be marginalizing, and a potential barrier to what she calls, “radical self-love.”

From a therapist point of view I can see how different techniques and approaches have been collaged into this workbook. I am thinking CBT, DBT, strength based, narrative approaches, just to mention few.

Even though it is not always easy to do, I find journaling very helpful when it comes to work on self-awareness, and seeking a change in our behaviors. Journaling not only helps us become aware of what happens in the moment, but also sets the bases for a potential next step that might lead to it change.

If journaling seems too hard, just think of what you would like to write down, maybe say it out loud; or even better, share it with someone.

This is a example of journaling that you can do directly on the book.

In the book I liked the idea of creating your own Mantra, of rewriting your narrative and embracing a new one. The workbook absolutely embraces the concept of radical self-love that was introduced with Sonya Renee Taylor’s same titled book. I have not read her book yet, and this was an intentional choice. I wanted to see if this workbook was approachable even without reading the book. I share the authors mentality about living in the moment and exploring what you think you need to in the moment. For some people might be best to start at the beginning; but if you find yourself in the middle that is where you might need to be to learn. I tried using this book as icebreaker when working with Cisgender Female adolescents as well as non-binary adolescents who feels more attuned with their female side. Because the language of the workbook it is so friendly, non-judgmental, and the nature of the exercises it’s not pretentious, I found that this a useful tool to talk about how the adolescents relate to their body. How is their relationship with their bodies and social media. I found it helpful to go through the exercises together with my adolescent clients, as well as giving them if few copies to work on between sessions.

Finally, I would love to see more men approaching this kind of readings to get in touch with their nurturing female parts, and potentially bring forth these parts in their daily lives. I wish you to enjoy this workbook as I did.

Stay at-tuned and share it if you liked it!

Ciao, S