Welcome

 

  

    Welcome, all! I'm so honored that you've taken time out of your day to check out my new blog. First, a little bit about me. Academically, I have B.A.s in Psychology and Social Work, a Master's in Social Work, and am currently working on a PhD in Psychology (a focus on learning and cognition). I am also a licensed master's level social worker working as an outpatient mental health therapist. I have 3 years of clinical experience working with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders. Additionally, I am a certified yoga instructor - at the 200 hour level - and have been practicing yoga for about 2 years now. Oh, and I'm 22 years old. That's just a bit of background so you know a little bit about the person behind the posts. Feel free to ask any additional questions in the comments section. 

Now on to the good stuff....

    My vision for this blog is to be a space for me to share practical knowledge of everything from mindfulness and meditation to therapy tools to helping you understand how/why brains think and bodies feel the way that they do. Basically, to take everything I've been learning in the last 5 years of education and practice and help you use it to improve your life. This will (hopefully) be a place to learn fundamentals that you can apply to your own personal experience to help you feel at peace with yourself. So often, we fight ourselves - our emotions, our thoughts, our behaviors. We feel at war within in ourselves. I believe that with mindfulness and education, we can understand and appreciate our inner being and create a sense of inner peace. 

Primarily, I will be drawing from a therapeutic approach called dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) which I will explain further in a later post. Essentially, it is the technique of using mindfulness to become an observer of your thoughts, emotions, and environment then using intuition to decide whether to change or accept the current situation. DBT also lays out the tools to assist in both the change and acceptance process. I have included a helpful illustration below. 

A second therapeutic approach is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which I will also explain in greater detail in a later post. Cognitive behavioral therapy is based on the premise that we, as people, are made up of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and that they all affect each other. Often we come to therapy wanting to change our emotions - we're angry, sad, anxious, unstable/chaotic, depressed, etc. Or we come to therapy because of consequences of behaviors (which are affected by our emotions and thoughts). Typically, we want to make direct changes to our emotions. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work that way. We can rarely say "I don't want to feel angry" and POOF! We're not angry. The easiest way to change our emotional reaction is indirectly. That is to say, to make changes in our behaviors or thoughts which then change the emotions. But again, I'll go more into that later. 

Lastly, a word on organization. My plan for the following posts is to have an education concept where I share some knowledge either from yogic philosophy, academic learning, or my clinical practice. Or, perhaps more likely, all three in combination. Next will be a section on why it's important and what it might mean for you practically. Then I will include an activity, worksheet, or concrete way to apply it in your life. Lastly, I will include some questions for you to consider either just mentally or maybe something to journal about if that's something you're into. 

Please feel free to leave any topic suggestions, questions, or thoughts in the comments section.

I look forward to sharing a journey with you.

Namaste.