The "Rewarding" Career

We all have our messes, however clean you think yours is. Everything can be organized to the tee on the outside, but being human makes things messy and that's what makes us beautiful. I am both a Social Worker and a client. I am currently working towards my license in order to give therapy as well as receiving my own therapy from a psychologist I greatly admire. I realize I probably should not put my picture up nor should I go into specifics because of confidentiality issues, but I wanted to share my story of becoming a Therapist, confronting my own past and its unavoidable clutter, as well as gaining overall confidence.

[sittinginmymess]

I run a Women’s Empowerment Group at a clinic that serves the severely mentally ill (SMI). Last week’s objective was to examine our core beliefs. In short, core beliefs consist of deeply ingrained beliefs that we subconsciously create when we are younger, and these beliefs end up ruling our lives whether we are aware of it or not.   One woman shared, “I am broken.”   Another woman then responded, “If you were broken, then you would need to be fixed. But you don’t need to be fixed, you need to be healed instead.” Sometimes what a client needs is not a professional, but someone who can relate to their struggles

Women’s Empowerment Group Participants

[purplebuddhaproject]

[purplebuddhaproject]

[mywhisperedcolors]

[psych2go]

Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once. Breathe. you’re strong. You got this. Take it day by day.

Karen Salmansohn (via recoveryisbeautiful)

[sittinginmymess]

I get very anxious about the possibility of joy like the possibility of sadness will find a way to overweigh the other side and trump it.  It’s not that I see the glass half empty, I am one of the most positive people I know.  I am able to see the bright side of things when I’m outside of myself, but inside I find myself stuck in some maze and berate myself when I’m not where I hope to be like my self-fulfilling prophecy tends to fall in the nay end if I don’t try and think positively (Sometimes I can’t help it if my anxiety haunts me). 

I have direction and I have purpose, but somehow my anxiety gets the best of me.  I am working really hard on myself and it’s a life long journey, which has been full of taking risks - achieving something I thought I couldn’t dream of obtaining and having a false sense of positivity when things don’t go the best (e.g. previous interviews that I’ve had or tests that I’ve taken).  I just want to continue to be hopeful. 

My frustration lies in trusting the process. What if the process has always had hiccups?  I know I have always been able to get back on my feet but I have to reinforce that during the tough days.  

[hamzikz-deactivated20180120]

There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.

Barbara Kingsolver (via hamzikz)

[kisu-no-hi]

Pet peeve: People who yelled at you and made you angry but try to joke with you a few minutes later because they can’t stand the atmosphere they created

[sotouchy]

my family

[outpatientwonderland]

Fear is the memory of pain. Addiction is the memory of pleasure. Freedom is beyond both. #CosmicConsciousness

Deepak Chopra (via outpatientwonderland)

[panatmansam]

Self Observation

by  Saṃsāran

Self Observation is the simple technique of observing one’s thoughts and how they interplay with emotion. This is important because most people go through life never truly understanding how thought affects emotion. They simply think and feel even with they do not want to think and feel about a particular subject. In fact, most people are unaware that we even have the capability to do this. When we learn to observe our thoughts we come to the realization that there is a distinction between “I” and the inner talking. One cannot observe one. It takes two, an observed and an observer.

Then an amazing thing happens. When we start to self observe we gain control. You will observe a strange phenomena. This ball of negative emotion does not want to be observed. Somehow it has an awareness that to be observed is to be controlled.The simple fact of observing a thought and the emotion which follows gives us this ability. It starts slowly at first but then the more we do it the better at it we become.

This is how we do it:

Step out of your mind as if you were a completely dispassionate and objective observer. Listen to the thoughts and watch how they change the feeling. Visualize the sadness as a pulsating ball of feeling located about four fingers above your navel. Focus on it. Feel it change.

Now for the final part. Breathing. A very special, ancient kind of breathing. Sitting, back straight breath deeply through your nose and visualize the breath as it encounters the ball of sadness. Hold the breath for a few seconds and while you pull your abdomen inward and upward then release the breath slowly. Without your doing anything at all you will feel a lessening of the sorrow. Stay focused on the ball and use the breathing to dissipate it.

Experiment with this. Learn to use this technique to focus on your body. Learn to observe your body carefully and, most of all, mindfully. Listen when it is hungry, observe how your body reacts to hunger. Listen when it is fatigued. Listen when it is aroused. Listen to the body when you are angry. Feel the heart rate jump. note the effect on breathing. Pay attention to all of the sensations it offers you. See how mood changes with these factors.

Self observation offers immediate results and control comes fairly effortlessly once the observation starts.

[sittinginmymess]

I'm thankful for being a better person than I was yesterday and all of the bad things that happened because I was finally forced to think outside of myself.

Patient who is finally sober and was in trouble earlier this year, which resulted in Child Custody involvement. 

[sittinginmymess]

Thank you for accepting and being nice to me even when I didn't deserve it

A patient who just got into a Sober Living after being chronically homeless who wanted to share the news

[extramadness]

More quotes here

[purplebuddhaproject]

I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.

Charles Bukowski (via purplebuddhaproject)

[psych-facts]

I am living for the day when I find someone who will love me even when I am sad. Even when depression leaves scars on more than just my skin. Even when anxiety makes me ugly. Even when I don’t want to be loved. And I don’t buy into the bullshit that you can’t love someone until you love yourself first because my chest is burning with a passion for a familiar stranger that I haven’t yet met. And I have nothing but love to give to the person who sees something in me worth loving. Because a blind man still wants to know what the world looks like. Still wants to believe in what he cannot see. And I am living for the day when they find me. And they will tell me that they love me without exceptions and I will believe them. And I will believe that there is something in me worth loving. Even if I can’t see it.

- Ceres // mentamorphisis (via psych-facts)

[thecalminside]

Where there is anger there is always pain underneath.

Eckhart Tolle (via thecalminside)

[thecalminside]

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore (via thecalminside)