Giving Yourself Self Therapy

Therapy is a powerful tool to assist you in personal growth and relationships with others.  Sometimes therapy can be difficult, as its success depends on you being open and honest with yourself and your therapist.  Sometimes it can also be expensive.  Dealing with memories and emotions can sometimes take it's toll on you and can be a massive undertaking.

In Self Therapy, strategies are used for every day growth and development. When utilizing these given directives as a part of self therapy, growth should begin to occur.   

Know that your emotions are normal.

• Emotions are part of human nature.  Negative feelings can be overwhelming, but they are a part of live.  Anger, resentment, sadness, disappointment in yourself or others, low self-esteem, feeling hurt by someone else — all of these are normal and everyone experiences them. Allow yourself the luxury of being human and just feel what you’re feeling. You can be a man, a woman, or a child...emotions are normal. It doesn't make you weak to be emotional; it makes you  human.  
  
  

Put a Time Limit on your dwelling time.

• Try not to dwell on the sadness or anger (negative feelings).  Sometimes it’s necessary, and perfectly alright, to dwell around in emotions, but give yourself a goal of when you are going to be done with it and make a conscious effort to stop. Once your time is up, do something deliberate and counteractive to interrupt the thought patterns that are harboring those negative feelings, and move on with your day.  For example, if you are laying in bed, get up and walk around. 

Counter every negative thought with two positive ones.

• Switch it up. Challenging yourself to focus on positive thoughts truly does make a difference. Deliberately countering your self-doubt is a great way to steer yourself away from the inevitable snowball effect of negativity.

Find a way to let your emotions out.

• Write down free-flowing thoughts on a piece of paper, and then tear the paper up. Don’t even re-read it, because that can lead to a cycle of negativity.
  Some other suggestions for ‘letting it out’ include: writing in a journal, talking to someone you trust, creating art, or doing vigorous exercise. Practicing a safe way of expressing your emotions is a big part of therapy, and it’s something you can do any time you want or need to.