How can I make spirituality part of my mental health?
Spirituality and mental health are closely interconnected and can have a significant impact on one another. Spirituality is a sense of connection to something greater than oneself, whether it be a higher power, nature, or the universe as a whole. For many people, spirituality provides a sense of purpose and meaning in life. It can be a tremendous source of comfort and strength during difficult times.
Research has shown that spirituality can have a positive impact on mental health. Studies have found that people who have a strong sense of spirituality are more resilient to stress and trauma, and may have lower rates of depression and anxiety. Spirituality can also provide a sense of community and social support. Social support is important for maintaining good mental health.
Spiritual practices such as meditation, prayer, daily gratitude, journalling, mindfulness-based practices and even spending time in nature, have been shown to have therapeutic benefits for people with mental health conditions. These practices can help to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, improve sleep, and increase feelings of well-being and relaxation.
You can start your spiritual practice slowly and build on it day by day. In no time, you’ll notice you feel more connected and joyful.
Put an end to pessimism and stop overthinking
Put an End to Pessimism: 10 Strategies to Stop Negative Thinking
You envy your friends who always wear a smile on their faces and see the glass half full. If only you could be like them. Instead, your thoughts turn to everything that’s wrong with your life–the unfriendly neighbor, the boss with unrealistic expectations, the weather that never cooperates with your plans. While those perceptions may be true, negative thinking won’t help improve your circumstances or change your life for the better. Fortunately, you’re not doomed to a pessimistic mindset forever. These ten strategies will help put an end to the pattern of negativity so you can enjoy brighter, healthier, and happier days ahead.
Manage Your Pessimism Triggers
Take a moment to consider what causes your negative thoughts to surface. Is it someone trying to control your actions, a situation where you feel vulnerable, or the feeling that a threat is imminent? Any of these triggers can incite negative thinking and a cycle of pessimism. The good news is you can learn to manage those triggers by identifying them and adopting useful ways to cope, such as practicing acceptance and self-care or finding humor in the triggering event.
Get Mindful
Wandering thoughts can steer your […]
Tracey Cardello Featured On 94.3 The Shark, Helping Those With Anxiety
Want to hear more about dealing with anxiety and depression?
How do you know if you have COVID-19/Coronavirus phobias?
In this confusing, unprecedented time, people are suffering from COVID-19 phobias which are impairing their ability to be calm and make healthy decisions for themselves. These irrational phobias are made worse by a constant news cycle and social media influence. In HBLU or healing from the body level up, phobias are the most basic and foundational issues. They not only block energy fields but they stop us from doing the things we want to do by exaggerating the fear and shame associated with them.
“Phobias are irrational, exaggerated and extreme unconscious reactions to feelings, events, or experiences.”
Unlike normal fear, phobias serve no useful purpose. They are not protective or motivational. They simply prevent you from achieving a sense of internal harmony. Rather, they are a reflex that trips your central nervous system into a fight, flight or freeze reaction. In her recent webinar, Dr. Judith Swack identifies several COVID-19 phobias that can be treated with simple tapping techniques in just a few minutes.
The most common COVID-19 phobias include:
- Getting it and dying from it.
- Passing it to someone else and killing them.
- Being harmed by reckless, or evil people who are desperate for your money […]
You can reinvent yourself
You should always be growing. By knowing about seven-year cycles you can reinvent yourself and keep life fresh and interesting. The story that goes with this picture really happened. It is the picture of my graduation from the fire training academy. In 2012 I hit a wall. My work felt stale. I didn’t feel valued or appreciated. I was suffering from burnout. The more I struggled to make a living, the worse it got. The phone wasn’t ringing and I found myself looking for part-time work just to get by. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong or how to change it. I felt like I needed to reset myself. Reinventing myself wasn’t exactly my goal but I couldn’t stand the stagnation any longer. My ego was bruised because the place I got so much of my self-esteem, my job, was collapsing around me.
On a beautiful spring day, I stopped into my local firehouse to learn about volunteering. I was fully aware of how ridiculous I must have appeared to the first man I spoke to. I probably would have dropped it right there if not for a connected friend who pushed the process along. Before I […]
The path to happiness
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be happy. What can I do to be happier? Does happiness play in mental health? What about physical health? People seem to use success and happiness interchangeably or one as a path to the other, but I think they are quite different in their own rights. What is the path to happiness?
The recent CDC report on suicides nationwide got me thinking about how we approach suicide prevention. This is a topic near and dear to my heart because I am a suicide loss survivor. The suicide rate has been rising despite educational and outreach efforts on the part of nonprofits, government agencies, and mental health practitioners. More people than ever are on at least one antidepressant while many are on two or more psychiatric medications. Access to care continues to be a challenge in low income and rural areas. Telehealth is positioning itself to address some of those people. Early death due to alcoholism is also on the rise.
People are trying to numb out of their lives
I started thinking about some other findings from the CDC report as well as some anecdotal information I gather from the client’s […]
What it means to do the work
My most recent experience in therapy has taught me the value of trusting myself. Rather than seeking gratification and responses from the external world, I learned the value of accessing wisdom from within. Through therapy, I have learned the intrinsic importance of meeting yourself where you are.
The truth about phobias
Phobias are more common than you think because many exist at the unconscious level. That means, by definition, you don’t know when you’re experiencing one. Phobias are unconscious. This can make people argue or deny that they actually have a phobia. But if you pursue this by granular questioning, you will find there is a hidden fear or shame underlying the problem.
Muscle testing allows you to get below the conscious level and find the unconscious fear or shame as well as the specific location in the body where the phobia resides. Once you find it and name it, you can easily heal it so that it no longer runs your emotions or behavior.
To learn more about how energy psychology can help you with phobias click here.
How do you know if therapy is working?
Before I learned about energy psychology, I had no real way to measure whether or not therapy was helping. Feelings change from day to day and are heavily affected by outside situations. Unwanted behaviors can be stopped, but compulsion often remains. Urges can cause quite a bit of emotional discomfort and distraction only goes so far. Improving your distress tolerance feels like a crappy way to live, long term.
I thought I would know therapy was helping me when I finally felt happy until a trusted therapist told me that the point of therapy was not to be happy. It was to have a greater understanding and develop a wider range of emotions. That answer felt like a huge disappointment that I’d spent years and thousands of dollars waiting for. Happiness was my goal, and I know it’s the goal of most people.
Much of therapy can feel like a pointless dead-end full of useless advice and not enough unless advice. As a therapist and a long term client, I was used to living in the grey area. Hoping that what I was doing in therapy would pay off eventually but not […]
How do you know what to look for in a therapist?
If you’re looking to start therapy, there are lots of options. How do you know you’ve found the right therapist for you? In this blog series I’ll tell you a little about my background, how I found energy therapy and why I think its the best thing you’ve never heard of.
People often ask me how I got interested in energy psychology. It’s been a long winding path. I was a depressed kid who was in therapy by the time I was ten. I turned my lived experience into a career that helps other people find their way out of the darkness toward a whole new life.
Humble beginnings
I got my start in the mental health field when I was 19. I got a job working the weekend shift at an 8 bed halfway house for the chronically mentally ill in Newburgh NY. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine someone thought I was responsible enough for such a serious job. But they did. I worked there on the weekends and took clients to run their errands or mine in the eight passenger van I […]
Ask and receive
Achieving good mental health is a process. Mental health hygiene consists of daily self-care, meditation, healthy diet and exercise, and some type of self-improvement routine. Personal evolution is an important aspect of mental health. You want to feel better, be happy, get rid of your anxiety and depression. I get it.
When it comes to personal evolution, I find “Ask and receive” to be the simplest most effective path toward personal growth. It is a simple yet elegant method that seeks to establish an agreement between your higher self and other parts of you that may have conflicting thoughts or limiting beliefs.
Internal conflict.
Have you ever felt ready to make a change in your life but kept falling back into old destructive behavior patterns? This is common and can sabotage you on goals ranging from weight loss to relationships, to money or insomnia. You want to adopt a new behavior but you find yourself falling into old patterns and sabotaging your new goals. This is caused by internal conflict.
Let’s assume that all your behaviors and belief originally developed to […]
Perfectionism
Are you a perfectionist who gets worried when you’re not in the zone? The paradox of perfection is that the harder you try, the more elusive it feels. Be kind to yourself. Give your self permission to relax and take a break. Take a look at what you are giving your focus to and stop pushing against what is unwanted. Meditation allows you to reconnect with your highest self which has all the answers you are searching for. If you are looking for extra guidance, energy psychology offers a path to reconnection and healing. Enjoy the journey and learn the lessons imperfection teaches.