Tag: Positive thinking

Have You Hugged Yourself Today?

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in Self-Care

Living Self-Care: Our Hearts

Living a heart-healthy life means taking good care of our emotional health and relationships.  In short, it is loving ourselves and others unconditionally.

Heart-Healthy Habits:

1.      Prioritize Emotional Health: This involves making time for self-care but more important believing we deserve self-love.  It means saying “yes” to what makes our heart sing and “no” when it’s too much.

2.      Trust Inner Guidance: This is trusting what our “gut” is telling us.  While our inner voice isn’t 100% accurate, it’s often signaling questions or issues we need to consider.  Don’t drown it out with others’ need but listen to what’s coming up.

3.      Self-Acceptance:  One of the hardest habits is learning to love ourselves wholly with our strengths and limitations.  As Melissa Etheridge sings, “There’s no love from someone else if I can’t love myself.”  Practice unconditional self-love for optimal emotional and relationship health.

4.       Communicate Assertively:  Express both positive and negative feelings openly and directly.  Don’t  attack the other person or passively withdraw.  Address problems as they occur.  Be respectful and expect the same.  If the situation deteriorates, wait until later.

5.       Prioritize Relationships:  Nurture relationships with time, energy and attention.   How often do you stop when you’re busy doing what needs to get done to listen to your child or spouse?  Nothing is more important.  Relationships are flowers in the garden of life.  If you nourish them, they’ll bring much delight.  Neglected, they’ll whither.

The Sisterhood of Girlfriends

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in Self-Care

“Mom, you have friends?!”

It was my 5-year-old’s innocent response to me mentioning my girlfriends. Since having twins five years ago and then another son, I don’t get a chance to chat with, let alone see, my girlfriends as much as I would like. Yet, they still carry an important role in my life.

Girlfriends help each other carry their burdens, celebrate each others’ accomplishments and bring joy to each others’ lives. Girlfriends also have a keen sense of intuition. Despite miles of distance and months without communication, girlfriends are there when we need them most.

Take for example a dear friend who called me out of the blue as I was just beginning to miscarry my first pregnancy. Or another girlfriend who popped up on Google chat one day when I was having a terrible time coping with my son’s developmental delays. On two of the worst days of my life, these women
helped put everything into perspective.   I hope I’ve been there to do the same.

Mom Jessica

When the teeter-totter of life drops you square into a puddle of mud, it’s usually a girlfriend that climbs on the opposite seat and lifts you back up (then helps you shop for new pants). As women we naturally care for and nurture others, and through the sisterhood of girlfriends we give that nurturing back to ourselves.

Today’s author is Jessica Pupillo, freelance writer and editor of St. Louis Sprout & About (www.stlsprout.com).

You Can’t Give Away What You Don’t Possess

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in Self-Care

Regarding self-sacrifice as a badge of honor comes from our very best intentions. We’ve been told that when we put others’ needs first, we’ll feel so good about ourselves that our needs will diminish. While this is often true about our desires, it is dangerously incorrect about our needs.

Our primary need is for love. Conditioning taught us to look for others to meet this: parents, siblings, friends, lovers and even our children. This dynamic would often require our significant others to suppress their needs in favor of ours. This can’t be love. Furthermore, there is nobody who can love you
the way you need to be loved — with one exception: YOU!

Love is best demonstrated with time and attention. We must give ourselves all the time and attention we need, so that our soul is overflowing with love. We can’t contain it.  We must give it away!  Free from unmet needs, your loved ones will sense the pure joy you derive from the relationship. They’ll neither feel defensive about disappointing you, nor will they act out in order to get your attention.

Real Mom Laura Nash

Only you know what you need. Only you can provide it. Take the time to check-in with yourself.  Discern your wants from your needs.  Extend love to yourself through self-care and your soul will soar.

Today’s author Laura Nash is a consultant and Chopra-certified meditation instructor who teaches individuals and companies “peace of mind” skills.  Visit her an http://www.lauranash.com.

Guest Blogger Sherry Duson, MA – “Speaking of Time”

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in Guest blogger, Self-Care Month, Self-Care Saturdays

phpThumb_generated_thumbnailjpgWelcome to Self-Care Month! We’re proud to present our readers with our first Saturday guest blogger, Sherry Duson, MA. Sherry holds Professional Counselor and Marriage and Family Therapist licenses in Texas and she’s also a State of Texas board-certified clinical Supervisor for both licenses. She’s about to expand her practice to include The Center for Postpartum Family Health. You can read more about Sherry at SherryDuson.com or on Facebook.

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Do you ever find yourself running through your day at a pace that leaves you exhausted?  Are you frantically trying to cram in more errands or mark one more item off of your to-do list, only to find it leaves you depleted and spent?  For most women, our relationship with “time” is a complicated one. This leads me to an item of self-care which I believe is not discussed often enough, which is our conscious use of TIME.  Perhaps it is a remnant of the deeply embedded American work ethic, but many of us corrupt the quality of our days by taking on more to do than is realistic, and then carry a mantra of negative self-talk about not getting enough done.  This year might be a good time to re-think your relationship with time, and make the adjustments necessary to help you feel that you run your day instead of it running you.

I would challenge you to find a pace which is realistic for YOUR UNIQUE SELF, based on an honest assessment of your energy and stamina and a conscious decision to adjust accordingly.  If you have no idea of how much is too much, you may need to start with a little self-discovery.  Begin by taking inventory of your well-being throughout the day. Take a break every two hours and take a quick check of how you are feeling in that moment.  Just give yourself a number on a scale of 1-10. Notice how it changes throughout the day. If you start your day at a high number and then it deteriorates throughout the day, ask yourself why.  The answer is often some sort of self-judgment about your perceived lack of accomplishments.

Once you know a bit more about how you feel during your day, consider the tasks you lay out before you.  Are you asking yourself to conduct your day with a sense of nurture and self-preservation? Or is guilt driving your choices, making you feel badly about every lack of accomplishment? One way to figure this out is to ask yourself what you would say to a good friend if you saw her going through her day at a frantic, maybe even damaging pace. If you really loved your friend, you might say something like, “Wow, you are really hard on yourself! Why don’t you slow down and relax? You don’t have to do it all today. I am concerned about you, and I don’t like seeing you so stressed out!”  Now, consider being your own best friend.  Cultivate that feeling of love and nurturing towards yourself.  Chances are if you can do that, you will be more forgiving and less judgmental about what you do or don’t accomplish.

Finally, ask yourself how you would like to feel at the end of your day.  Do you want to be able to have a little patience and reserve left over for your family and loved ones? If so, it may require altering your day, so that you can do just that.  Connection with others requires some energy and patience.  If you have run yourself ragged all day, chances are nothing will be left over for those you care most about. Make the adjustments necessary to be your “best” self with those who matter most to you.

In closing, I remind us all that an important feature of self-care is to take responsibility of those aspects of our daily lives that we have control over. Your schedule is probably one of those things  Sometimes the reason we over-extend ourselves with commitments and appointments is because we are afraid to ask for help, or can’t admit we are doing too much. Once we set a realistic expectation for our day based on what we know of our personal energy capacity, we need to work to quiet any guilty feelings which accompany it, and tell ourselves that it is okay.  Perfection is not the goal.  Going through the day using a pace that works for us and those we love is a goal worth pursuing!

February is Self-Care Month! Help Us Celebrate!

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in Guest blogger, Self-Care Month

Buddha

We’ve deemed February as Self-Care Month! It’s a great time to do special things for YOU! Valentine’s Day focuses on relationships, but our February focuses on love for the Self.

We’re looking for a few good women to be guest bloggers on Saturdays during February. Have you got something to say about the importance of self-care? Have you established a self-care regimen that works for you? Do you have questions and would like to hear feedback from our readers? Have you made a video about self-care or wellness that you’d like to share? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then please contact us using the form below!

Guidelines:

You may re-post things from your own blog or site (and we’ll put a link in your post to direct readers to your site), write something original or post something that someone else wrote along with your reaction to it (make sure to include any relevant links to the original article/author). Basically, our website is your canvas to paint whatever you’d like as long as it pertains to self-care, self-compassion, self-love, wellness, mind/body health or any other POSITIVE mental health topic.

We look forward to hearing from you, ladies! Let’s share the love in February!

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

How to Control What You Can and Let Go of the Rest

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in November tips, Thursdays with Stacey

Here’s my latest Examiner.com article. You can see the original post HERE.

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Everyday stressors, such as broken appliances, leaving a bag of groceries at the store, and even stubbing a toe can build up into a big bundle of stress if we let them. Each thing in itself may be just a minor inconvenience, but when several things happen in a short period of time, it leaves one wondering if this chain of events is some type of punishment from Beyond.

Spiritual beliefs aside, it is very important to deal with each stressor as it happens. Even if there is nothing you can do about the situation at the moment, you can make sure that you perceive it in a healthy way, which will minimize the stress hormones in your body. That, in turn, will help you feel calmer, and over the long run, will give you the benefits of better physical and mental health.

As an example, let me tell you about what’s been going on in my life lately. Two weeks ago, one of our beloved dogs passed away. A week later, my daughter’s pet hamster died. The next weekend, I found out that an old friend of mine had passed away from a motorcycle accident. “I wonder what’s going to die next,” I remember thinking. The next day, my washing machine died.

Had one thing happened with lots of time in between the next, I would have had proper time to process the situation and moved toward acceptance of the loss. However, the day I started feeling a little better about losing our dog, the hamster died. He was an old, spoiled hamster, and his death wasn’t totally unexpected, but when added to the grief I still had to process about the dog, the rodent’s passing was all of a sudden very tragic to me. Not two days later, I heard about my friend. When the washer conked out, I had to laugh at the answer to my question about what would die next!

Believe me, laughing at the washer was a choice. There are four people that live in my home, along with a small zoo of furry friends, so an inoperable washer is a huge inconvenience. When I figured out that it was really broken, I thought about the question I had posed to the Beyond. I could have gotten frustrated or enraged or depressed. But I thought that I’d much rather have an appliance “die” than another person or pet. So, in a way, the fact that the machine broke was a blessing.

Don’t get me wrong: I did have a few really bad days. One day, I had a hard time getting out of bed because of the crushing grief. I was able to sit with the feelings and write about them. I accepted them as they came and remembered that they would pass. While I still have moments of sadness that seemingly strike from out of nowhere, I allow myself to feel them and cry if I need to. There is no “proper” time period for grief.

The broken washer gave me an opportunity to be pro-active. I couldn’t control the fact that my pets and friend were gone, but I did have some control over the appliance situation. I found a wonderful website called justanswer.com, which has hundreds of experts in many different fields on hand to answer questions about various things. They hooked me up with appliance expert Chas, and he helped me order the proper part, sent me a video that showed how to install it and helped me troubleshoot the machine after the part was installed. Now, the machine is functional, and I feel accomplished and proud, which are great counter-feelings to grief.

Next time you’re having “one of those days (or weeks or months),” make sure to carve out time just for yourself so that you can process each thing individually. If the situation is beyond your control, as most situations are, it’s healthiest to just accept it. That sounds easy, but it’s not. If you need some questions to ask yourself so that you can objectively prove that acceptance is the “proper” thing, feel free to use these:

  • How does this situation make me feel?
  • Am I OK with feeling this way for a while? (If the answer is yes, then you’ve already gotten to acceptance.)
  • Will these feelings hurt me in the long run (e.g. put stress on me)?
  • Is there anything that I can do to fix this situation? (If the answer is yes, then take the steps you need to in order to get things “right” again, like I did with researching my washer.)
  • If there’s nothing I can do about this, who is being hurt the most by my feelings?
  • Have I been able to sit and experience my feelings without running away from them?
  • How can I look at this situation differently so that I feel healthier feelings?

Moving through stressful, unhealthy feelings toward acceptance takes practice, as many of our stress-producing thoughts are very automatic. However, it is possible to find the “silver lining” or “lesson” in every situation, given enough time. Just remember that the one thing that stays the same in life is change. This too shall pass, my friend.

Some Inspiration for Your Weekend

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in October Tips

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in November Notes, November tips, Thursday "Words of Wisdom"

We here at Living Self-Care would like to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving! This year has been full of changes for us, and I think I can speak for Diane when I say we are very grateful for each and every one of them.

When things happen, they’re just things. We are responsible for what we label them (good or bad). It’s hard to imagine something like a cancer diagnosis being something GOOD, but I have also heard from several survivors and current cancer patients that their diagnosis and journey has ultimately changed them for the better.

It’s easy to be thankful for the obviously positive things in life, but most of the time, the negative (or what we label as “bad”) presents a learning opportunity. The trick is to be open minded and try to look at the situation outside of your usual way of thinking. There’s usually the proverbial “silver lining” to be found, and I truly believe there is no such thing as failure, only lessons.

This year, as challenging as the change has been, I am so thankful that my mother moved in with us. We don’t have to worry about each other long distance anymore. And though we bump heads often, I am so thankful that we are learning how to relate to each other again (in a much more healthy manner this time).

As you go about your Thanksgiving traditions, remember that there are so many things to be grateful for – even the things that you may have categorized as “awful.” Have a safe and happy one!!

All of our love,

Diane Sanford and Stacey Glaesmann

Big Changes

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in Monday Musings, October Tips

Diane will be back posting next Monday after she gets back from her fabulous trip  to Spain! Hopefully we’ll get to hear all about it!

In the meantime, I wanted to share an experience of my own with you. My family and I recently decided that it was time for my mother to move in with us for several reasons. I felt such a mixture of emotions at the thought: happiness because I’ll see her more and because I’ll be there if she needs anything medically; apprehension because of our past relationship (though it has since been healed); and wariness that I might fall back into my childhood relationship patterns with her.

She’s only been here a couple of days and I have to keep myself from treating her like a guest. My impulse is to ask, “Can I do something or get something for you?” In reality, all she wants is to find her own way and settle into her own routine that is harmonious with ours. My offers to do things for her would just enable her to be more dependent than independent, and neither of us want that.

We have agreed on a code of complete honesty, even if that may mean hurt feelings. We have discovered the hard way through the years that mind reading is just not possible!

This is a big change for all of us, and I struggle to remember that. Holding myself back from offering things and allowing myself to be calm in spite of my mother’s habitual anxiety is a challenge. But my intuition is telling me that this is a good situation, so I’m focusing on an attitude of gratitude instead of stressing out. It’s not easy, but I am worth it – and so are YOU!

Instant BFFs: Is it Possible?

Posted on by Dr. Diane Sanford in October Tips, Thursday "Words of Wisdom"

Have you ever encountered someone that you’ve never met before, but it seems like you’ve known them forever? Someone that you knew within the first 5 minutes of talking to him/her that you want to be in his/her life (in friendship or romantic relationship)? If you have, you know how rare that is. If you haven’t, let me tell you about it!

Recently, I was on a writing assignment and went to interview my source for the story. The interview went very well and we were both professional. After the “official” work was over, this young lady and I sat around talking about this and that; it was surface chit-chat, but I felt as if I could tell her my deepest secrets – and I had only just met her!

It turns out that she had experienced the same phenomenon with me, and we found ourselves contacting each other to find ways to hang out. She’s a volunteer with a local animal charity, so I signed up too. I have made time to help out on 2 occasions so far, and while I enjoy working with the animals and people, it is nice to have extra time with my new friend!

If one of us is not feeling well, the other will offer (and mean it) to cook chicken soup or go to the store for remedies. If one of us is having a crisis, we instinctively contact each other. Keep in mind that I have known this woman for less than a month.

Somehow, I just know that I can trust her and that I can count on her. I also know that I feel a deep loyalty to her and will make myself available whenever I am able when she needs something. How can someone I just met feel like a best friend? How can such a short relationship feel like it’s taken years to build and cultivate?

I firmly believe that people are put in our lives for a reason: to teach us lessons, to see us through a crisis or victory, to be there when we need them. My “new” friend and I joke that we are long-lost sisters, but I know without a doubt that she is supposed to be in my life and I am grateful to have found her!