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Life’s a journey with twists and turns, and at times our emotions best express what experiences we’re going through. Emotional self-care is a sure strategy to make you stay grounded despite the flare-ups thrown at you by life.Most of the emotions you encounter in your life are too often familiar as daily life events trigger them. However, some are less familiar as they are from events that don’t happen daily, such as tragedies, deaths, and love losses.As such, by attempting to mastering our emotions, you stand a chance of getting through the difficulties. You have the sole responsibility of caring and safe guarding for your feelings. When equipped with emotional self-care strategies, each time a test hits you, you’ll be able to come out strongly, less overwhelmed, and handle the situation without circling down.Instead of reacting without emotional control, it would be far more helpful to understand your emotions and how you can manage them for your betterment.There are a couple of basic strategies to equip yourself with to help you master your emotions and practice emotional self-care. Learn about your emotions Mastering ourselves is a process that never ends. When we know our emotions, how they’re triggered, and how we respond to them is a better approach to understanding them.Find out what your past experiences were. Understand which people or events are associated with your feelings. Do you get why your responses are emotional in a certain way? Do your responses reflect what you feel? Do they trigger discomfort?Knowledge of how you handle your emotions is essential in helping you identify the best responses during specific situations. Every new event should feel like a whole new encounter rather than a repetition of the first occurrence. When a particular emotion is triggered every time, you get another chance to monitor yourself and devise a better outcome. Maintain emotional integrity How do you ensure that your emotions are not affected by those of others? Can you identify when other people’s emotions infringe upon your own? What strategies do you have in place to ensure that your feelings are free from the invasion by others’? How do you better protect yourself?An emotional boundary can be helpful. Think of it as your territory. You get to choose how big it can be so you can get comfortable. This space can be physical, maintaining distance from certain people that make you feel unpleasant. Or it can be psychological, choosing not to be impacted by other people’s feelings. It is their business how they feel about you after all.When you are successfully able to maintain emotional integrity, you’re taking better care of yourself. You’ll notice a significant change in how you deal with people or situations as you already know what you are capable of and can do, as well as things that you won’t tolerate from happening. Admit when you aren’t okay When you accept that you are not okay, you are merely embracing one of the most significant essentials of emotional self-care. Knowing you are strong to admit that you are weak.When the tough days come along, and you don’t feel good enough, accept it and lean into it. (Embrace it) It is okay to let those tears flow or sadness prevail when you’re overwhelmed.Everyone needs emotional support. Accepting your emotions and understanding them is vital in making better decisions and managing life stresses effectively. Practice self-care on every level Psychological and physical well-being go hand in hand. When you’re not in good physical shape, your emotions may suffer. Taking care of your physical health makes you stronger, healthier, and better prepared when life throws you problems.Gaining a better understanding of who you are inside, what moves you, plus your belief system, can help you stay on the right track.Develop a belief system that restores faith and hope in yourself. Spirituality can also help you build sustenance and can ground you during trying times or when you’re dealing with challenging people. Connect with people who care People who care, nurture and encourage you are the best fit for creating a healthy support system. They should understand you, and are ready to assist you in being your best.People who tear you down, make you feel worried, anxious, or push you into relationships that aren’t productive must always be kept at bay. At times, it can be difficult to notice that a relationship isn’t doing you good, especially if blinded by love. But as time progresses and the negativity keeps on being repeated, you should be able to notice that it could be the time to move on.Even when you feel firmly attached to a relationship that isn’t healthy for you, a robust and healthy support system is essential. Your goal should be to lead a more satisfying life and a relationship that fosters growth and productivity and a partner that inspires you. Create a coping toolbox We all have one or two things we like to do when faced with situations that drain our energy. It could be physical exercise, listening to music, creating art, writing in your journal, charity, or walks. Whatever it is, find a set of activities if you don’t have one that you can immerse yourself into when you don’t feel like yourself.These activities make us feel whole again. They bring us closer to realizing that there is more to life than what we perceive. Anything you think has a positive impact on your life and helps you develop emotionally is welcome to be part of your coping toolbox.Emotions can make or tear us apart. How we nurture them and control them is what matters the most. Always welcome positivity into your life.And above all, feel comfortable in saying no, when you feel the request is not in your best interest. Saying no is another way of saying yes to yourself.

Human intelligence is an intriguing phenomenon. It makes us sensitive to experiences and helps us connect. Our brains are wired to pick pleasure, happiness, and positivity from pain, sadness, and negative experiences. But when trouble comes knocking, how can we discover meaning from those hardships?Can we derive happiness from our daily struggles in the long run? I suggest that it’s possible to reconstruct ourselves back to cheerfulness again from lies’ harsh experiences. Instead of giving in and wallowing in sorrow while feeling helpless, you can take lessons from your hardships and often these hardships can deepen us.Experience, whether small as quarrels with a partner or big as losing a loved one, can potentially help you acquire a new perspective and a greater sense of meaning in your life.Regardless of what you’re going through, what is important is the number of times you get up and move forward when hardship presents itself. And to help you discover meaning when life only offers difficulty, we’ve compiled ways to help you through. Reflect on the impact of the hardship Review your experiences and explore how they impacted your life. How has the experience changed your life? What can you learn from it? What’s the new version of you since the traumatizing experience began?Reflecting on how those difficult moments have affected you and incorporating them into your new self can significantly help you acquire a new sense of meaning. Share Emotions drive us. Sharing them with others does not make us weak, but it portrays the strength lying deep within. When undergoing a challenging moment, our minds tend to pick the easiest paths to find a solution, and keeping the troubles to ourselves is just one of them.When you withhold your feelings, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus on the things that matter the most. Instead, find someone you feel comfortable sharing your feelings.If you still feel not confident enough to share with someone, find another channel. Talk to a therapist, write about it, and sing it if you have to.By getting the weight off your chest, it becomes easy to have a different perspective on things and discover meaning from what you’re going through. Perhaps your friend may have some insight as they have walked the same path of suffering. Be part and parcel of your narrative Everyone has a story about them that is ever-changing. These stories help us understand how the different experiences fit together to shape our lives. They create the tapestry of our life.When you integrate your negative life experiences into your narrative, you’ll feel like those experiences and your life are part of a much bigger picture. And from that, you’ll get a more profound meaning from your hardships.Try to write your narrative down together with their timelines, then reflect on how every hardship affected your other experiences. Imagine the counter scenarios “What ifs” are a great way of cultivating meaning from experiences. Think about “what could’ve happened” and analyze the possible outcomes from those experiences. Reflection will not only help you discover meaning, but you also get to learn useful lessons.By imagining the counteractions to our experiences, we frame scenarios that can help us better understand what conspired. This mental approach is essential in helping us get acquire insight into the broader patterns beneath our experiences.Therefore, if your mind flees into “what if” escapades, accept it, and let yourself explore the hypothetical realities. Just ensure that you use these questions to understand the facts better and why they’re how they are. Build stronger social connections The default action for ourselves during hardships is wanting to retreat into our haven of solitude. Our minds believe that retreat can help us avoid more trouble or being bothered by others.Instead, when we use negative experiences to connect with people close to us, we strengthen our bonds with them rather than harm them. We seize better opportunities to generate meaning from our experiences when we opt to cope with difficulties and seek social support. Connect with your past When you feel threatened by difficulties, you can generate a sense of meaning from situations by connecting with your past.For instance, old photographs, vintage cars, or past joyful stories that have molded us can generate the feeling of appreciating the interconnectedness behind everything.So, when faced with a hardship, take a moment to reflect on things that make you reminisce. Let your mind take you back in time, collecting memory treasures and wiring them together up to the present moment. Mold a different future When we’re faced with a hardship, it’s easier to only focus on the present, trying to find where we may have made an incorrect decision to come to the situation, we are in. Find a deeper meaning from our experiences.There lies great potential in hardships to trigger us to make better-informed decisions about the life we make for ourselves. We can make more meaningful and satisfying lives if we accept the difficulties to extract lessons from them.

Ask someone how they are, and their reply would most probably include some version of been “busy.” It has so happened that this phenomenon of being busy has turned into a sort of a humble badge of honour. People have started believing that being busy is some kind of benchmark of success. In a way, it implies that the “busy” people are important. They do something or know something that is in demand. But if you are one of those people who are always busy, there is a major possibility that you struggle when it comes to saying no. A logic similar to that of busy being a signifier of success makes us believe that saying no is something that might be perceived as aggressive, unhelpful, or uncaring. There is a sort of negative connotation to it, and people generally prefer swaying away from it. After all, who really wants the guilt of rejecting someone or being perceived as a bad person just for saying no, right? Simply avoid conflicts by complying with others even when you actually want to say no. By doing this, you might continue being on the good books of people around you. But do you really want to be a people pleaser? What if there were ways to say no without feeling guilty, damaging relationships, or being perceived as not a giving person? This is possible if you know the right tactics. So, if you are someone who generally struggles with saying no, here are a few tips that can help- 1. Be Proactive with Your Approach The biggest difficulty in saying no is when someone asks you to do something face-to-face or even on the phone. So, start by eliminating this biggest cause of concern. Rather than doing it face-to-face, ask them to email or text their request. Remember, you are a busy person, right? It is completely alright to tell them the same, and you’ll get back to them with a response at the earliest. When they contact you for a follow-up, it will be much easier for you to politely decline their request. 2. You Don’t Need to Explain Yourself While it might seem very polite to decline requests along with an explanation why you cannot, this can make things super awkward. It is generally seen that when you give an explanation, people tend to modify their request to try and nullify your objection. For instance, if someone invites you for dinner this Friday and you decline their request by saying that you’ll be working late on that day, they might get back to you asking if Saturday or some other day of the week would work for you. Rather than explaining, stalling, or delaying, it is better to say no and keep things short and sweet. If you feel the need, offer a short explanation but don’t do so just because you feel compelled. 3. Put the Ball in Your Court The art of saying no has a lot to with being in the driving seat of the whole exchange. For instance, if we take the same dinner example from above, you can say something like, “I don’t think I can make it this Friday, but I’ll let you know when I can.” By saying this, you change the dynamics of the whole exchange and get into the driving seat. Now it is up to you whether you really want to meet the person over dinner in the future. The ball is in your court, and you get to make the decision. So, try to be polite with your reply but also be innovative with your approach so that you get to be the one driving the exchange. 4. Understand Your Role in the Relationship Consider this scenario; you have an acquaintance whom you hardly know. The person sends you an email telling you that he/she would be visiting your city soon and whether they can stay with you during the stay. In cases like this, it is always better to take a step back and analyze your role in the relationship. You need to set boundaries and determine whether it is a kind of relationship in which you should even be worried about what the other person thinks about you. In the scenario above, it is completely alright to politely decline their request as the person is not even your friend but an acquaintance. Even in case if you have a solid relationship with someone, it is still wise to evaluate the relationship. If the relationship is indeed pretty solid, it should easily withstand your no. 5. Put Your Needs First In the process of complying with others, you often end up sacrificing your needs. For instance, if the boss is keeping you way too busy, you’ll sacrifice the time you can spend with your family and friends. Keep doing this long enough, and you’ll see that you are not left with the time or energy to take care of yourself and your needs. Resentment can rise, and you can burn out. In this regard, it is completely alright to be a little selfish. Rather than being the good person that you already are and thinking about others, you should put your needs first. Saying no is saying yes to you. The Subtle Art of Saying No Start saying no, and maybe you’ll see a drastic change in your life. It will help you overcome your fear of being rejected or being perceived as aggressive or uncaring. You will be in better control of your life. If you want this feeling of empowerment and freedom, take the plunge and rest assured that you will move towards a life that is less stressful and more rewarding.

Life can be full of disappointments and downright depressing. Work stress, relationship issues, health problems and a host of challenges are presented to us on a daily basis. For such hard times, we vent.  Let me rephrase: we complain!  It is no secret that complaining is remarkably common. For some of the people, it is embedded in their “social DNA.” We complain without realizing it. A recent study indicated that in a typical conversation, an average person complains at least once. Complaining can create a bond between people who have nothing in common, but too much venting can ruin conversations and break up relationships.  When you complain about something, certainly it is in your thoughts. You are relentless in doing something about it. In this case, the main aim of complaints is to receive support from the listener, thereby help you in working towards dealing with the issue.  Constant complaints add no value to your life. They let your problems take the better part of you. You add fuel to the fire destroying everything around you. When you are constantly complaining, it can be tied to the following Your desire to control, The need to get sympathy or validation  Your fear of addressing a problem  Solutions to overcoming constant complaining  Change your mindset Our minds gravitate towards the negative aspects of our environment. Practice being mindful. When you find yourself making a negative comment about someone, stop yourself and say something positive instead.  Vent once in a while  If you are going through a rough patch, don’t feel ashamed to share your feelings with a family member, friend, or therapist. Ignoring your negative thoughts constantly could add up, making it worse.  Judge people less Before complaining about how bad the service was at a restaurant, put yourself in the shoes of the waitress. They may have had a bad day or have a big issue going on behind the scenes. Once in a while, stop judging people before knowing their background story. Knowing about them will push you to relax and display an act of kindness.  Accept responsibility. This may be easier said than done. If you have a problem, take action or accept that it cannot be fixed. Why complain? Transform the process of complaining into getting a solution. Therefore accept the situation and move on.     The problems we face in life need solutions. Therefore stress should be managed and minimized. Constant complaining is a passive activity. It is draining, and it creates an undesirable self-fulfilling insight that adds no value. Minimize constant complaints, and you are likely to view the world with more gratification.

Online therapy, also known as telehealth, video therapy, teletherapy, and telephonic counseling, is a wonderful means for a client to receive psychological advice and support via the internet employing digital technology. Technology, along with the improved range of wellness options has increased the ability for people to take more control over how they want to feel in their lives—including the full spectrum of emotional and mental health needs. Growing lifestyle demands, coupled with work schedules, school pick-ups, and drop-offs, let alone things like physical access issues makes online therapy a versatile option at any time. This is especially true during the current pandemic when we are confined to our homes and when all manner of morbid and disabling symptoms are manifested: anxiety, depression, stress, obsessive behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD, sleep disturbance, social withdrawal, appetite disturbance, difficult and abusive relationships, parenting issues, coping with loneliness, managing grief, character disorders, sexual abuse, gender identity, the entire gamut of mental distress. Do it at your own time and at your own pace. Finding a therapist used to mean receiving a referral or recommendation, then scheduling an appointment, getting dressed, and fighting traffic. For someone struggling with depression or anxiety, facing relationship challenges, or already juggling a hectic schedule, each of these steps can act as a barrier to accessing therapy. Online therapy promises rapid access and no need to get dressed or leave the house. Communicate with your therapists as often as you want and whenever you feel it’s needed. Help is available at your time and your place. The coronavirus outbreak has forced millions of us to isolate ourselves, often within the same house. The more proactive your approach to mental health, the more you will be able to combat anxiety, cope with difficult times and increase your happiness when good times return, instead of having to make up for lost time in therapy, with possible setbacks and reversals It’s still unclear what the future of mental health care will be in a world where self-isolation might last months and the only way we can connect with others is via a digital device but I am confident that this therapeutic format has a brilliant future. It`s perfectly understandable that you are beset by existential fear of a troubled present and a looming future. Help is just a click away.

Anxiety can be as contagious as the coronavirus, and psychological states such as loneliness spreads throughout populations like New York, like a virus. We need, all of us, to work mindfully on the physiology of fear unprecedented in American history. Due to COVID-19, large portions of the country are mandating social distancing, and a “Shelter in Place” order, which may exact a physical toll on our brain’s circuitry, triggering higher blood pressure and heart rates, stress hormones and inflammation, as well as anxiety and depression. New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo acknowledged, the “truly significant” psychological and social stresses of our uncertain times “People are struggling with the emotions as much as they are struggling with the economics,” he said. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-loneliness-from-coronavirus-isolation-takes-its-own-toll He appealed to psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists willing to volunteer to contact the state to help provide mental-health assistance for people who are anxious, depressed and feel isolated. Anxiety can be as contagious as the coronavirus, and psychological states such as loneliness spreads throughout populations like New York, like a virus. We need, all of us, to work mindfully on the physiology of fear unprecedented in American history, during which much of the country has closed down, the economy has ground to a halt and millions have been told to stay home. Normal life has been suspended. Phobias can be activated whether by repetitive thought, overwhelming anxiety, or plain mind-numbing fear. Sure, it all feels eerie and scary. There is so much information coming through our news reports.  What to believe? Your mind may be swinging backwards and forwards. When you finally decided that this is something very serious, further psychological states may occur in which all the ways you had unsuccessfully sought to deal with problems may no longer work and overwhelming fear assails. A few tools to help with the anxiety: Keep as many of your daily routines in place as possible. Start a record of what you are grateful for and add to the journal every day. Do not cut down on your sleep during these anxious times. Attempt to strive for 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Avoid alcohol and recreational drugs. Move into a more balanced and healthier diet and drink lots of water. Keep abreast and informed of the news but not in an obsessive way. Meditate-There are many good apps on your phone or listen to YouTube meditation videos on your television to reduce the stress. Look for breathing exercises online to relax. Prayer also helps to reduce your stress level if that is part of your spiritual foundation. Stay connected to family, friends, coworkers, faith mentor or therapist to reduce the feelings from the social isolation. Use the old fashion phone to connect. Create a peaceful home environment through candles, soft music, aromatherapy and order. Practice good hygiene on your hands and overall body and be conscious of face touching. Just because you are home it does not mean you lounge all day in your pajamas. Get up early, shower and dress in comfortable casual clothes. While out keep a healthy distance of 6’ from each other. The gyms are closed but you can still exercise. Walking is a beautiful way to exercise. There are also ways to practice mindful walking that are good feeling boosters. https://www.mindful.org/daily-mindful-walking-practice/ Anxiety also has a way of affecting our immune system. “When we’re stressed, the immune system’s ability to fight off antigens is reduced. That is why we are more susceptible to infections. The stress hormone corticosteroid can suppress the effectiveness of the immune system (e.g. lowers the number of lymphocytes).” Saul McLeod https://www.simplypsychology.org/stress-immune.html Anxiety is always about the future, not the present. What’s happening now is the virus presents itself as some kind of perceived catastrophe or horror, and the other element on us, very often inappropriately, is to fight-or-flee. But where do we flee, and how do we fight something we do not know much about at this time? Work on trying to remain calm, to center oneself and to control things that you have control over. It is time to be extra diligent in taking care of oneself.

Typically, it isn’t until we experience the death of a loved one that we come to think about our attitudes and expectations around the end of life. Following tradition is then eased by ritual or spiritual practices and funeral/memorial plans. Society dictates rules for how to act, dress, speak, and operate in the world, society also dictates rules around grief, and these rules can be subtle or explicit with defined mechanisms of ritualized social forms according to varied cultures and religions. They work wonders. We experience disenfranchised grief, when our grief is not publicly mourned or socially sanctioned by the larger community. Delays and limitations to funerals and burials in a pandemic greatly increase the likelihood of unresolved complicated grief (CG) for the bereaved, when our own need for strict isolation makes it often impossible to say goodbye properly. Furthermore, the possible feeling of guilt for having exposed those close to us to disease greatly adds to the already deep pain of a lack of preparation for death. Disenfranchised grief takes “grief rules” to another level.  The unpredictable trajectory of the illness has practical and emotional consequences and needs work. What to do?  First, identify your grief as an illness to which you are a victim, not its cause. Your ruminative thoughts, excessive bitterness, alienation from previous social relationships, difficulty accepting death, and purposelessness of life are typical and require work on yourself from the start. We, humans, are wired, after all, to reassure and to comfort. In my practice, I’ve seen that it is not only distressing to be deprived of receiving comfort, but similarly to be deprived of the ability to provide comfort. That is the lot of all too many front-line health workers these days. The father of modern grief counseling, Erich Lindemann, interviewed some 110 grief sufferers in the midst of World War II. He identified specifically the activities that are the external sign of a deeper inward psychological disorder distinct from normal grief. You may experience recurring physical sensations lasting up to twenty minutes involving shortness of breath, physical depletion, choking, or non-stop sighing and crying all made worse by even the comforting words uttered about the deceased. In fact, even under ordinary circumstances, what is unavailable in a pandemic is not a sure-proof cure-all for grief. There is even ordinarily a tendency to blame ourselves for the death, and also regret our former failings toward the diseased now that it is too late to make amends. ”The duration of the grief reaction seems to depend upon the success with which a person does the grief work, namely, emancipation from bondage to the deceased, readjustment to the environment in which the deceased is missing, and the formation of new relationships,” according to Lindemann.  J.W.Worden  in his book Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy, presents that “grief work” in four stages that he thinks are necessary for successful grief resolution. First, the reality of the loss must be accepted. Second, the pain of grief must be experienced. Third, the grieving person must adjust to the environment from which the lost person or object is missing. And, fourth, emotional energy must be withdrawn from the lost person or object and reinvested in someone or something else. That requires self-help practices beginning with finding alternative online means to carry out meaningful transitional rituals related to a transition from life to death that human beings so badly need, whether you are a Jew, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, secular or a person in need of a shaman among the ancient tribes of Siberia, or a Lama versed in death transitions in the mountain vastness of Tibet.  How that may be achieved electronically is the subject of my next posting.  For now, let me leave you with a mindfulness exercise a little different from the conventional one designed to still your monkey mind. This is a grieving mind, which is a very different thing entirely. This exercise calls on you to judge, and make a decision on the sole criteria, whether the physical/mental experience is wholesome and beneficial or not. King Milinda of the first century is being thought of creating this thought to identify symptoms and their consequences. “When mindfulness arises, sire, it reminds one of the states together with their counterparts that are wholesome and unwholesome, blameable and blameless . . . Thus, sire, mindfulness has to remind as its characteristic. . . . When mindfulness arises, sire, it examines the courses of the beneficial and unbeneficial states thus: ‘These states are beneficial; these states are unbeneficial; these states are helpful; these states are unhelpful.’ Then the one who practices yoga removes the unbeneficial states and takes hold of the beneficial states . . . Thus, sire, mindfulness has taken hold as its characteristic.”