Category: Mental Health

Anxiety will always be a part of life. However, it becomes an issue when the anxiety interferes with your daily life. Anxiety is necessary to protect yourself from danger, but it is counterproductive when there is no actual threat. Ackowledge the anxiety, seek a mentor or therapist, and find a fulfilling outlet to overcome anxiety.

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Acknowledge The Anxiety

Pushing and ignoring your anxiety will only make your anxiety worse. The more you try to repress, the more intense the feeling can become in the long-term. Acknowledge your anxiety so that you are completely honest with yourself. If we pay attention to a problem, then we can begin to work on healthy coping mechanisms to handle the issue when it arises.

Seek a Mentor and/or Therapist

Therapy can be a tool that can give insight into what is causing your anxiety. A mentor or life coach can give you strategies as well. Mentors and therapists can be objective when working with you. If you know what causes an issue, then you can begin eliminating or narrowing down what triggers your anxiety.

Find an Outlet

If you want to relieve anxiety, find something that you like to do for fun. Sometimes we have tons of anxiety because we are not resting or doing fun activities that bring us joy. If you do not know what you like, try some new things to figure out what brings you joy. Working all the time without a healthy outlet will increase your anxiety.

Conclusion

When you are honest with yourself about your anxiety, you can begin to work on handling it. The more you pretend that it does not exist, the more anxious you become. Find a mentor or therapist to assist you with finding a cause for the anxiety. Then, you can begin using healthy tools to cope when feeling anxious. A healthy outlet, such as a morning routine, evening routine, taking a walk, going to the gym, or reading a book, can release some of your anxious feelings.

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Hope this helps,

Dominique Duarte

Do you have anxiety? If so, what do you do to relieve your anxiety? Comment Below!

When we have negative feelings, we tend to ignore them to appease ourselves and those around us. If you ignore or suppress your feelings, it can have long term effects in the future. It is best to acknowledge your feelings, seek therapy or a mentor for guidance, and discover the why behind your feelings.

Acknowledge Your Feelings

Many people are uncomfortable with having any feelings besides happiness. However, avoiding negative feelings is counterproductive to personal growth. Acknowledging your feelings is as simple as admitting to yourself how you feel in the moment. It is as simple as that. Name your feeling and do not judge your feeling as good or bad.

Seek Therapy or a Mentor

Therapy is a great way to express negative thoughts and feelings without judgment. Also, the therapist will ask questions that get your wheels turning on the why behind your thoughts. Mentors are also great sounding boards as well. Find a mentor in your field or someone with more life experience to give you guidance. I have learned that the most insightful people are the ones that can share their negative experiences as well as their positive experiences.

Discover the Why

Your thoughts and feelings are like a thermometer for your mental health. Thoughts and feelings are always there for a reason. Until you find the why behind your feeling, it will be difficult to move past it. When you disover the why behind your thoughts and feelings, you can begin to understanding yourself better.

Conclusion

You will have negative feelings. I spent so much of my life trying to suppress those feelings. However, I noticed that once I started acknowledging my thoughts and feelings as they came, I became more emotional regulated. Lastly, when you can get comfortable with your own feelings, you will be able to hold space for others to express their feelings as well.

Hope this Helps,

Dominique Duarte

Refer to How to Become Self-Aware: https://www.bydominiqueduarte.com/how-to-become-self-aware/

Book Referral: https://www.amazon.com/Living-Life-Balance-Spiritual-Performance-ebook/dp/B0BC4PJ3SK

How do you process your thoughts and feelings? Comment Below

Therapy has been a hot topic within the last few years. It is not just for people with mental illness or people going through a crisis. Therapy is a tool to help you discover your behavior patterns and the why behind your behaviors. It can help you find your inner voice and use it effectively in various situations throughout your everyday life.

Discover you Behavior Patterns

Therapy can teach you about your own behavior. It can show you what habits and behaviors are serving you well and it can reveal behaviors that are not serving you well. Therapy can also teach you to give yourself grace and be patient with yourself.

Growing is a process and change can take years. You will not be able to change behaviors overnight because you are human. Once you learn about your behaviors, you can find tools and begin implementing them slowly throughout your daily life to create lasting change over time.

The Why Behind Your Behavior

We all do things consciously and subconsciously without realizing it. There is a reason for all of our behaviors. People make fun of the fact that therapists ask about your childhood, but your childhood frames so much of your behaviors as an adult.

Whatever coping skills you developed during your first 18 years of life, whether positive or negative, will influence the decisions, choices, and actions that you make presently. Unless you process your past and heal, you will continue to behave in ways that do not serve you or others around you. Therapy gives you space to process why you behave the way that you do.

Find Your Inner Voice

Most of us walk around on auto-pilot, with little to no self-awareness. Therapy taught me to spend more time with myself. People fear being alone, but being alone is necessary for true personal growth. We are so distracted with the world around us that we ignore our internal cues.

Spending time in silence can give you a chance to become more aware of what is going on inside of you. You can tune out all of the other voices that you hear in your head. We are often so focused on what everyone else thinks about us that we have no idea what we think of ourselves or the world around us.

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Conclusion

Therapy sessions can be used in the short-term or the long term, but it can benefit you either way. If you need time to find the right therapist, take the time to find the one that fits the best for you. If you cannot afford therapy, try reading personal development books, journaling, or find time to spend alone to process your thoughts and feelings.

Therapy can be the catalyst for overall personal growth, but most of the work you will do is outside of therapy. Healing can be a lifelong process. But if you begin doing the work on yourself now, your eyes will be opened to a whole new world.

Hope this helps,

Dominique Duarte

Book Suggestion: Happiness Returns: The Self Help and Self Compassion Workbook: https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Returns-Compassion-Techniques-Self-Acceptance-ebook/dp/B0CJ3B7KL1

Do you think therapy is necessary? Why or why not? Comment below!

Book Suggestion: Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity: How to manage intense emotions: https://amzn.to/3dhaN8w

Did you cry often as a child? Were you shamed or belittled for getting upset over things others considered trivial? If so, you may be highly sensitive. Some highly sensitive people’s emotional needs were not met in childhood, beginning as early as infancy.

Sensitivity does not make a person weak, or immature. In fact highly sensitive people can be the most sincere, endearing, kind, and empathetic people. Sensitivity is something that can be beautiful. However, you may want to work on building your tolerance for challenges. You just have to be patient with yourself. Use the following tips to help embrace your sensitive self.

Accept Yourself For Who You Are

You are sensitive. You can go to therapy, develop better coping skills, and learn how to take criticism, however your sensitivity will still be there and that is okay. It is a special part of you that makes you who you are. So, you can use your sensitivity to create great works of art, theatre, writing, and to care for other people in need. A sensitive person is a diamond in the rough world of cold hearts, unapologetic douchebags and apathetic people. It takes bravery and courage to show vulnerabiltity to others. It is a beautiful part of you that should be embraced and cherished.

Find & Understand Your Triggers

You will have to go through your past in therapy or through journaling. Start with your childhood and ask yourself; “What happened to you?” “Why did it happen?” What patterns did you take on from your upbringing?” “What coping skills have you learned to deal with issues?” “Were your parents emotional unavailable?” “Were your feelings validated?”

Then, analyze your daily interactions with people, especially those moments where you feel you are being too sensitive. Ask these questions: “What happened?” “What did you do?” “What did the other person do?” “How are you feeling?” “Why did this trigger you?” “Do you know why you are feeling this way?” Asking yourself these questions on a consistent basis gives you a chance to self-reflect and go over your behavior patterns and emotional triggers. You can begin to name your feelings, and why you feel a certain way in a situation.

Validate Your Own Feelings

Your feelings were probably not validated as a child, teen, or even as a young adult. If your feelings are not validated, you will mistrust your feelings all the time. You were not allowed to express your feelings in the past. This causes confusion for you, so you begin to have anxiety and fight or flight in scenarios when most people would be perfectly fine.

Your current feelings are valid. Acknowledge how you feel, do not suppress or ignore the feeling, this does not lead to growth. Once you can acknowledge and validate your own feelings regularly, then your strong emotions and anxiety will begin to subside. You will now be able to handle even bigger situations with more maturity. This takes time, months, even years. Do not beat yourself up every time you overeact. Just go back over the moment and self-reflect to help you in the future.

Validate the Feelings of Others

Sensitive people generally have more empathy for other people. Most of the population will ignore, devalue, or put down the feelings of others. If you take the time to validate someone else’s feelings, you will feel better too. You may not understand this person’s feelings in that moment, listen to their feelings anyway. Furthermore, listen to this person the way you wish others would have listened to you when you were upset. If you take the time to understand others, people just might try to understand you a bit better too.

Conclusion

In conclusion, being sensitive has its’ ups and downs, but embracing your sensitivity as well as the sensitivity of others can make you a more well-rounded human being. We forget that at the end of the day we are all human and showing emotion is what makes us HUMAN. Devloping your coping skills can help you express emotions in the healthiest way possible. In order to know what coping skills you need to use, you have to name and feel your emotions consistently.

Sensitivity tells you if you are regulated or not, just like the nerves in your body tell you when something hurts. You would not ignore a throbbing pain in your side, so why do you ignore your emotions. Accept yourself for who you are, find and understand your triggers, validate your own feelings, and the feelings of others to embrace your sensitive nature.

Hope this helps,

Dominique Duarte

https://www.bydominiqueduarte.com/how-to-encourage-yourself/

Are you sensitive? Why or why not? Comment below

Do you feel discouraged? If you want to encourage yourself, you can use daily affirmations, find your gifts by exploring your interests, take care of yourself, hygiene included. I know that sounds extreme, but when people are depressed or lacking self-esteem, hygiene may be neglected. Learn to take action toward your goals, and surround yourself with positive family and friends to support you. Begin encouraging yourself today.

Write & Recite a Daily Affirmation

We all have days when we are not feeling our best. You need to have a pick me up and this does not mean going to caffeine, drugs, alcohol, weed, or food to feel better. Feel your feelings! We are not going to feel positive all the time and this is okay. It is better to feel the feelings than avoid and suppress them. However, you can overcome persistent negative feelings by reciting an affirmation or mantra to get you out of your inner-bully. If you do not want to write an affirmation, there are plenty of affirmations that you can find online and repeat to yourself when you are feeling low.

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Find & Cultivate Your Gifts

We all have at least one gift. People see singing, dancing and acting as a gift, but teaching, cooking, organizing, planning, encouraging, writing, styling, are all gifts and there are plenty where that came from. I am always surprised at how many people do not actively use their gifts and passions. Once you find your gifts, cultivate them like a garden so they will blossom.

Believe it or not, natural talent can only get you so far. If you want to become great in your calling or purpose, you will have to put in hard work. Read, watch, and talk to people who possess your gifts and learn as much about them as possible. When you know why you are here on Earth, you will feel better about yourself and will flourish.

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Take Action toward Goals

A planner will be your best friend. You can use your phone, but I go old school with a small planner where I write everything down and use my handy dandy pen to scratch off things as I complete each task. You will feel so good about yourself when you see that you are getting things done. Write your long term goals and post them on your wall.

Then, write down the actions you need to take in order to accomplish those long term goals. Figure out how you can spread out those actions daily, as well as weekly. This is the type of planning that leads to success. Goals are amazing, but if you do not have a plan of action to accomplish it, your goals are in vain. Take action, cross if off your planner as you go, and your dreams will start to become reality.

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Make time for Self-Care

If you are not taking care of yourself, you will not feel encouraged. Get up, brush your teeth, shower, put on some clean clothes, take walks, go to the spa, get a massage, get your nails done, get your hair done, go to the park, ride your bike, go outside. If you are on a tight budget, find and attend free events, do something that you enjoy.

Furthermore, learn to say no sometimes to make sure you are making time for you. You cannot be a help to someone if you are operating at a deficit. Make it a habit to do these things at least once or twice a week and your mood will improve and this will put a little peep in your step. If you are grinding all the time and not taking time to live life, then you will struggle to stay centered and regulated.

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Surround yourself with Positive Family & Friends

Listen, you do not want to be unsupportive to family and friends who are having personal struggles. However, there is a difference between when people are having a hard time for the moment and when someone is negative in general. You know the difference, trust yourself. You can limit contact and you can set boundaries with toxic family and friends.

Set boundaries with negative people so that you protect your own heart. Spending time with positive family and friends is a necessary component to feeling encouraged and becoming your best self. If you do not have any positive family and friends, use positive youtubers to be your supportive friends.

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Conclusion

If you want to encourage yourself, speak affirmations to yourself every day, ask yourself questions to help you find your natural gifts. Once you have found those gifts, cultivate them and continue to grow in those talents.

Take action toward your goals and surround yourself with a positive network of people, whether real or virtual. Who are you spending your time with? Do they have a growth mindset? Remember, you become like the 5 people that you spend the most time with, so choose your closest peeps wisely.

Hope this helps,

Dominique Duarte

How do you encourage yourself? Comment below!

https://www.bydominiqueduarte.com/how-to-accomplish-your-goals/

Book suggestion: Finding Awareness: The Journey of Self-discovery: https://amzn.to/3vAR2z2

Why do you do the things that you do? What triggers you and why does it trigger you? Do you know who you are and why? Most of us think that we know ourselves well, but this is not as common as we think. According to Merriam Webster, self-awareness is awareness of one’s own personality or individuality. (Merriam Webster). In order to become self-aware, please consider the following tips.

Self-Reflect

Journaling is a great way to self-reflect. You write in your journal consistently. Then, go back and read what you wrote about a week or even a month later. What thoughts did you write down? “Why did you think this way at the time? In the moment, we may feel a certain way. However, when time passes, we can look at the situation with new eyes.

You can assess situations that occur in your life, positive and negative situations. How did you handle the situation? Be objective about your actions. If you have a conflict with someone, the other person may have been in the wrong. If you handled it in an unhealthy way, reflect on why you did this. Ask yourself, “Why did this trigger me?”. Get to know yourself like you would get to know a close friend or spouse.

Recognize Strengths & Weakness

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, we only focus on the tangible qualities, such as being organized, or having a talent in the performing arts. Strengths and weaknesses also involve you character traits. We all have unique personality qualities. A weakness can always be improved and a strength can always be improved as well. You are in charge of your personal growth.

If you want to become better in an area, work at it. All of us can learn to be better if we invest time to become better, through our daily actions. For example, if you are a naturally shy person, you can actively work on your communication skills. Learn to ask open ended questions. Work in customer service to help you interact with more people more frequently. You will probably always be a bit shy, but you can always work to improve on your communication skills.

Reflect on Criticism from Others

Criticism can be a taboo word in our society. Constructive cricitism is a great way to build personal growth and self-awareness. Crticism coming from a neagtive place does not usually lead to your growth. Learn to discern the difference between the two types of criticism by considering the source giving you the criticism. Sometimes constructive criticism can hurt quite a bit.

Pay attention to how you feel when you hear criticism, whether constructive or not. Self-reflect, “Is there merit to what was said?”; “Is this an area that I can improve?”. If we are honest, most of us would say we do not need to improve. Yes, you can accept yourself as you are. But personal growth is a must in order to deal with the ups and downs of life. Self-awareness can give you a leg up during extremely difficult circumstances that are beyond your control.

Consider the Feelings of Other People

When you are self-aware, you can empathize with other people’s feelings. Someone may be upset and you do not understand. However, you can give that person their space with no judgement. You know that all feelings are valid. There were times when you were upset, people didn’t understand, and you probably wished someone would have validated your feelings.

When you are self-aware, you become accustomed to acknowledging how you feel without judging your own feelings. Our feelings are not good or bad. However, how we express our feelings can cause us to make poor choices that effect others. There is nothing wrong with any feelings no matter how big or small the issue. When you are aware of what makes you feel a certain way, you can advise other people on dealing with difficult feelings.

Read Personal Development Books

Reading personal development books can be a life changer. Why? Successful writers, speakers, entrepreneurs now know who they are, but this was not always the case. Listening or reading about someone’s life or life choices can inspire you to work on your own personal growth. You would need to read or listen to these books regularly for this to be effective long term. I suggest immersing yourself in an audiobook or reading a book 15 minutes a day. These 15 minutes can make a difference in motivating you to get to know your self.

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Conclusion

Often, we walk through life on autopilot and we are not attuned to ourselves, or our needs and our wants. Sidenote: gaining self-wareness and discovering who you are is not selfish. When you are working toward healing, you can effectively influence other people in a positive way.

Selfish people do not usually have self-awareness. They can only see the world through their own narrative. They usually do not take criticism well, and refuse to become more enlightened on their feelings and actions. Becoming self-aware is one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself and the world. I hope you find this within yourself.

Hope this helps,

Dominique Duarte

What are your strengths and weaknesses? Comment below!

Cited Work: “Self-awareness.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-awareness. Accessed 3 Aug. 2022.