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The gut feeling Is your gut following you or are you following your gut? When was the last time you had this gut feeling about something? Did you listen to it or did you dismiss it? My guess is that quite a few people know what it is like to have a gut feeling but then decide to "rationalise it away" with logic. Given what we know about how our brain developed differently from other species - it may seem like the "logical" thing to do, right?
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Perfectionism and the Inner Critic: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Have you ever heard that annoying, little voice inside you telling you that you are not good enough? Have you ever finished your workday but decided to keep working because your results did not yet meet your high expectations? These are two examples of that voice inside us that push us hard and can lead us to the brink of exhaustion. It is the result of the combination of our inner critic and our perfectionistic tendencies. But, how are these two seemingly different concepts related to each other? Today we will find out.
On Healthy Anger: Why Do We Suppress This Normal Emotion? Our society has a complex relationship with anger. On the one hand, we frown upon it and equate it to violent outbursts and harmful behaviors. On the other hand, it is an entirely normal emotion that we all feel at some time or another.
So, why is it that most of us have decided that this supremely common emotion should be suppressed and locked inside our minds? Why are we afraid of expressing anger and processing it as we do with any other emotion? Today we will delve into the world of anger and discover how suppressing it can be harmful to our mental health and relationships. We will also discuss how to begin your journey towards accepting anger and expressing it in a healthy and productive way. What Does It Mean To Be Triggered? + 6 Self-Soothing Activities In day-to-day conversations, and especially on social media, you may have encountered people saying how they “got triggered” by seeing, reading, or hearing something. However, what is exactly the meaning of that phrase?
In everyday use, “getting triggered” is usually used to describe feelings of discomfort, annoyance, or disagreement with content the person has come across. However, psychologically speaking, the phrase has a deeper and more complex meaning. What is Learned Helplessness and How Can We Overcome It? There once was a young boy who loved the circus. At the circus, he was particularly fascinated by the elephants. At the end of the elephant show, he went to where the animals were kept and saw all animals in cages. All except one. The elephant.
Despite being the largest animal at the circus, the elephant was tied to a stump with a comparatively small rope. The little boy wondered to himself why the elephant would not just break free and run away. It clearly could with very little effort! What is Toxic Shame and How Can We Heal From It In life, all of us have done some things wrong. And made many mistakes. Too many to count. Some may have happened in moments of recklessness and impulsivity. Others may have happened even after careful planning. No matter how your mistakes happened, you probably ended up feeling many different emotions, including emotions like guilt and shame.
Why Do We Procrastinate? The Real Reasons + How To Stop Have you ever started working on an important project and suddenly found yourself cleaning the house?
Just like in a “trance”, you magically stop working on your work project and puff! you are preparing your clothes for your dinner party, but it is only 10.00 in the morning. While you are “focusing” on cleaning the house, preparing your clothes and scrolling on Instagram, you just realised it is already the end of the day and you can’t start working on a new thing because it is important and “needs time”. Sounds familiar? Why are We Afraid to Fail? The Role of Trauma in Fear of Failure
How Do I Know I Need Therapy? 8 Signs It's Time “You’d better see a therapist”
Often used as an insult or a joke, this phrase is used far too often with a negative connotation. BUT thinking you need therapy is nothing to be ashamed of. Therapy is a safe, collaborative and comforting space aimed at supporting and encouraging growth. 
A night of bad sleep can be one of the most annoying things in life. Tossing and turning. Wondering about how many hours we will be able to sleep this night. Worrying about the day to come. All these are frustrating and overly common experiences that millions of people struggle with every night.
In this article, we introduce some helpful techniques and tips grounded on science that will help you improve your sleep and achieve a healthy night’s rest.  Are you experiencing burnout and find yourself often forgetting small and big things? For example, you walk to the kitchen and then stop and wonder “what did I want to do here?” Or, do you sometimes forget what you did the day before, with who you were, or what did you talk about? If this resonates with you, here you can learn how does burnout impact your brain and memory.
 Burnout recovery is not always a linear process. It takes time and commitment to overcome burnout symptoms and we need to patiently grant our body and mind the sufficient time to heal. When we are struggling with burnout, we might wonder how long does it take to recover, and how much time needs to pass before we return to our old, happy self. In this article we explain how long does it take to overcome burnout and three important factors to take into account.
 Burnout is becoming an increasingly problematic illness in our fast-paced world. In order to learn how to identify, prevent, and manage burnout, we must first begin at the source. We must learn what triggers burnout and when exactly does it begin. Is it when you start losing sleep or when you feel stressed every day? In reality, burnout starts way earlier than that and the answer might surprise you.
 Perfectionism can be exhausting. Constantly trying to attain these greater-than-life expectations we have placed on ourselves can be quite tiring. And, yes, we are the ones that have placed these expectations on ourselves, most people around us do not expect as much from us.
However, these feelings and expectations stem from somewhere. Perhaps people in our past did expect as much from us. So, who expected so much from us? What is the root of perfectionism? And, if it is something that we learned, is it possible to unlearn it?  Throughout our lives, we play multiple roles. We can be a parent, a friend, a professional, a sibling, a sports person, and so on. Balancing all these roles can be challenging. We are only human, and we have a limited amount of time every day. When we have too much in our plate and do not have the tools to appropriately balance all of our roles, we can end up experiencing burnout. But, how can we identify if we have burnout? What symptoms can help us recognise that we are burning-out?
 Feeling lonely is not the same as being alone.
You can be among other people, your partner, your family and still feel lonely. You can be all by yourself and yet, not feel lonely at all. Contrariwise, you can feel in peace, connected, calm, joyful, satisfied with your life, you name it. So, what is loneliness then?  Fear of failure can be one of the most self-sabotaging, crippling feelings we can experience.
But why does it have such a powerful impact on us that it can make us stop chasing our dreams, avoid starting new relationships and be hyper-vigilant all the time? How can we allow fear to exert such control over our lives and, most importantly, how can we overcome this fear?  Family dinners are fun. Right?
Hmm, not always and not for everyone. Most of us have been to family dinners, gatherings and celebrations, where (some specific) family members are more intrusive than others: they keep asking personal questions in front of everyone, they feel entitled to know our private secrets, they treat our life as theirs. You get the point here.  Many clients say to me: “I need to stop feeling guilty” or “I just want this guilt to go away”. For me these are very interesting statements that require more exploration, and I hope by reading this you will get more of an understanding why.
Through my study and practice of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), I feel that I have developed my understanding of the nature of guilt and how it can be confused with shame. We may say that we are feeling guilt for something, when really what we are experiencing is shame. This is an important distinction to make, so, this blog starts with firstly understanding what shame is.  Traumatic experiences leave a mark on us. We survive the experience but they leave their emotional imprint on us, they shape how we view the world and how we relate to it. But this does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. Coping mechanisms can be either healthy or unhealthy. Here we explain the psychology of trauma responses and how they can be either helpful or harmful.
 How many times have you thought that you wish you had more time in your hands so that you can follow your dreams? Or, that you wish your life would be different and you could distribute your time better so you can follow your passion?
If you have asked yourself these questions and you have noticed a pattern of regret and "stuckness" coming up interestingly often, there is a high chance that you might be standing in your own way. You might be sabotaging yourself subconsciously with some specific behaviors and actions.  It's been 5 years since I registered at the Chamber of Commerce with my private practice "AntiLoneliness", and today I am as excited as I was on my first day.
Excited to be part of the Mental Health community, excited to help and support, excited to expand and to create. What have we done in 5 years? Hundreds, thousands of amazing things, but here are the top 5 we hold dear to our hearts:  Social media is a paradox. It can get us closer to others, but it can also leave us feeling inadequate and lonely. It can help us develop ourselves or lead us down the path of social media burnout.
The good news is that we can choose how social media affects our wellbeing. Here we explore some concrete steps we can take to make social media our friend.  Social media is one of the latest technological advances that have most effectively changed our everyday lives. It has shaped our daily habits, our economic structures, and how we relate to one another.
Our social media channels have become the first and last thing we do in our day. And despite the many benefits social media has granted us, there is a darker face to it. We are referring to the negative consequences that occur due to our excessive use of social media; social media burnout. |
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