New Additions
- October, 2020
Breathe is always expanding and adapting to ensure that we provide the best client care possible. This month has been no exception, as Rodrigo Dasilva, AMSW, CSAT-C joins our team, and our incredible IOP program goes virtual. Joseph Rohmann, MS, APCC, LPC, also delivers some powerful tools and practices that can help us better manage negative self-talk. All that and more in this month’s edition of INSPIRE.
Managing Negative Self-Talk
by Joseph Rohmann, MS, APCC, LPC
We often times have thoughts and find ourselves attaching to them as though they are here to stay simply because we have them. What if we could begin a practice daily of accepting our mind and its assessments of life as we know it. What if we could balance this acceptance with practices that allow us to address these thoughts and move on to bigger and better things. Can we remind ourselves that that which the mind creates can be altered? Here is just a brief practice to begin shifting your negative thoughts:
Engage the now – Acknowledge that you are having these thoughts – the content, be gentle with yourself – it is natural for our mind to have a variety of thoughts – and today – your mind has attached to some negativity or negative thinking is present.
If you can – acknowledge the thought is there, and practice allowing it to float by like a cloud in the sky or a leaf in a stream… if the sense of the intensity of the thought or the thought itself dissipates…GREAT! Stay with this peaceful feeling.
But let’s face it…if streams and clouds aren’t doing it today and you want/feel you need to explore a deeper practice…
Invite openness and curiosity (there is room for many things in curiosity) – Once you can acknowledge the presence of these thoughts – you might explore how they may or may not be serving you in this moment (does this thought leave me with a positive outcome/negative outcome; is there any truth to this and is there any false) and explore if the thought has staying power or deserves space in your mind/life right now.
Engage a Grounding/centering practices – take a moment to pause – check in with your 5 senses, meditate, literally STOP everything and give yourself a bit of space to NOT have to commit to anything right now. Consider the moment, observe what is actually taking place, and proceed with care.
Flip it! – If your thought is not serving you in this moment – or for the future that matter – then move onward with opposite action (thoughts are made up in our minds after all and usually only partially routed in facts – and this creative mind can surely drum up a new thought! – maybe even an affirmation (I am intelligent, competent, and creative and I can do this!) – or positive self-talk that lifts you up.
Negative thinking in the present can also be routed in much of our past. Exploring how we might be continuing a narrative of negativity in our lives currently may offer insights into how we can shift our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and enjoy a positive future through healing practices.
In The News
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A mother of four helps her daughter through an important surgery, fearing that addiction to pain meds might be what lays on the other side. Seeing the effects of addiction on the rest of her family, she weighs the risks.
Philly Walks Against Stigmas
With the pandemic still in full swing, this family takes precautions to walk in solidarity with those who have suffered from addictions. Normally walking with 30,000 people, they instead walk with eachother.
Raiders' Darren Waller Celebrates 3 Years Sober
Bouncing back from 3 drug related suspensions, Darren hopes to grant children and teens the same access to rehab facilities that he was provided.
