Assembling Your Coping Toolkit
A coping toolkit is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a collection of the coping skills, people, places, things, and ideas that help you to cope when symptoms of mental illness become overwhelming. Your tool kit is unique to you, and can be physical, mental, or some combination of the two. It depends on what works best for you. It can include ideas of where to go and what to do when you are experiencing overwhelming or distressing symptoms, it can include things like medication, it can even include a safety plan, if you ever experience self-harming behaviors or suicidal ideation or attempts.
The Dangers of Toxic Positivity
Often, toxic positivity creates a feeling of guilt for experiencing negative emotions at all. It can be trivializing to others’ experiences. If you are having a rough day, sometimes relying on positive vibes are enough to make you feel better. However-with depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses-thinking positively does not make the symptoms go away. What this attitude does, instead, is imply that mental illness is simply a mindset that someone can get over.
Savoring: A New Mindfulness Method
What if we could find a way to be fully present (mindful) and it feels as though we are getting to do something? Guess what? You can! You can do this by intentionally looking for moments to savor throughout the day. Savoring is when we attempt to fully feel, enjoy and extend a positive experience. Savoring has been shown to have many of the same benefits of mindfulness including improving mood, leading to greater life satisfaction and increasing feelings of gratitude and appreciation.
Be Informed in a Healthy Way
Everyone likes to be informed. It keeps us aware of what’s happening in the world and lets us discuss current issues with others. However, just as the old proverb assures us, sometimes having no news is good for us. But we have to work at it in an age where we are bombarded with real-time updates from around the world.
How to Stop Overthinking: Tools to Quiet Your Inner Critic
Do you ever feel like your mind won’t stop talking? Maybe you lie in bed at night thinking about something you said, something you did, or something that might happen tomorrow. That is called “overthinking”, and it can make you feel very tired, sad, or even scared.
You’re not alone. Lots of people overthink. The good news is, you can learn to quiet your thoughts and feel more calm. Let’s talk about what overthinking is, why it happens, and some simple ways to help your brain slow down.
Self-Respect and Using the FAST Skill
Imagine you’re having a problem with someone, and you want to fix it. You try to be nice and let the other person talk first. But then, they get everything they want—and you don’t get to say what you want or need. You might even feel bad for trying to speak up at all.
Does this sound like something that’s happened to you?
Do you sometimes feel like people walk all over you, or like it’s wrong to ask for what you need? If so, this blog post is for you!
When things like this happen a lot, they can make you believe that your voice doesn’t matter. But it does matter. You deserve to be heard, and learning how to speak up kindly can help you feel better about yourself.
Your First Therapy Session
Therapy is a common recommendation when someone discusses stress, anxiety, depression, or relationship issues. As therapists, we love to see therapy being recognized as a valid treatment option, as well as normalized to reduce stigma. We love hearing people talk about their experiences in therapy on social media and in casual conversation. But what about those of us who have never been to therapy before? What is it like? How do we know it’s a good fit? Is every session like the first session? What is going to happen?
Simple Ways to Work on Self-Improvement
Many individuals want to invest in self-improvement to be more mindful, to learn new skills, or to improve their overall well-being. But just how do you improve yourself? While there’s no one way of working on self-improvement, there are some strategies that have been proven to help.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Exercises You Can Do At Home!
At its simplest, CBT is designed to change unhelpful thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors to improve emotional regulation and solve problems with coping strategies. In other words, with practice you can change negative thoughts (“I am terrible at everything I do,”) to thoughts that allow for positivity and growth (“I didn’t do as well as I hoped but I will be better next time”). Over time, you will become more self-confident and have a better outlook on life. Reaching your goals will suddenly become a much easier task. A therapist can help you through the process of deconstructing and redirecting negative thoughts and behaviors, but there are many ways you can get started at home.
Limit or Permit?: A Parents’ Guide for Monitoring Social Media
Having a conversation with your kids about online safety rules is a crucial step. This will help your kids grow up using social media wisely. This post is intended to act as a guideline for parents who share some of these questions about when to limit or permit their kids’ online activity.
Is It Time to Break Up With Your Therapist?
Therapy is a relationship. In order to be effective, you need to feel connected to your therapist. So what happens when you no longer feel like your needs are getting met? Do you stop coming in? No show? Something many people don’t realize is that therapists do want you to be honest with them, especially if the relationship isn’t working.
Talking to Teens About Mental Health
Ask questions. It is okay to be direct when it comes to checking in with mental health, it sends a message you take this topic seriously. It is also okay to bring mental health up in a roundabout way. You can bring up an article you recently read or discuss well-known individuals such as Simone Biles and Harry Miller who are making their mental health a priority.
“Can You Just Tell Me What To Do?”
Therapists can at times be viewed through an “all-knowing” lens, but the reality is that we very rarely have “the answer”. Your therapist cannot “just tell you what to do” because answering that question for you takes away an opportunity for growth and self-determination.
Teamwork in Mental Health: The Key to Better Care
Collaborative care is more than sharing views; it’s about improving the treatment process by including several different diverse insights and expertise. It’s a team and collective effort where, for example, a therapist’s understanding can broaden a psychiatrist’s view and vice versa.
Is Therapy Right For You?
Anyone can benefit from therapy if they want to work on themselves. Therapy allows for a safe space to talk about feelings and experiences, and learn new ways to cope with stressful things in life. Recently, going to therapy seems to be something everyone is doing. In spite of this, there is still a stigma associated with getting any kind of treatment for mental health. So how do you know if therapy is the right move for you?
First Responders Need Support, Too
We often look at physical health and mental health as different, but they are not. If you break your arm, you go to the doctor and eventually heal. If you suffer from PTSD, depression, anxiety, or any other mental health issue, you may suffer in silence, have feelings of shame or guilt, and not seek help due to fear and/or the stigma.
What is EMDR for Trauma? How Can It Help Me?
EMDR for trauma is a type of psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of trauma or adversities such as issues of abuse, bullying, domestic violence, grief, abandonment, and attachment wounds.
How to Cope with Anxiety Caused by Things Out of Your Control
While we can't necessarily stop our brains from perceiving “things that are out of our control” as danger that will trigger anxiety, we can control our responses once anxiety shows up and we can also retrain our brains to not perceive a lack of control as anxiety.
6 Things Your Therapist Wishes You Knew
To help improve your therapy experience, we have come up with a list of some things that our therapists would like you to know about the therapy process at Champaign Counseling.
So You Want Mental Health Treatment
Mental health treatment is different for everyone, and people often feel overwhelmed trying to figure out where to begin. Outpatient therapy is a great place to start, and you and your therapist can work together to figure out if that is the right course, or if you need a higher level of care.