The Power of Forward Motion
When clients sit down for their first therapy session, they generally report a feeling of feeling “stuck". Stuck in an unpleasant situation, stuck in a feeling of no direction or overwhelmed by an event in their life. They all wanted one thing and to receive it as quickly as possible: a feeling of corrective motion. A feeling that the things you are doing now will lead to feeling happier in the future.
These feelings of anxiety, depression, frustration and fear are so overwhelming that the client hopes that the therapist will provide them with an instant positive charge. The truth I remind my clients is that life is a continuous string of challenges that you will need to overcome each time. The key to addressing these life obstacles is to create a routine of doing small things throughout the day that will fill you with a sense of purpose.
Like a train leaving the station, your gears will start to move, slow at first, but with each small thing you do every day, your gears start to move faster and faster until you’ve caught speed and are heading in a positive direction.
When we begin therapy, we are all searching for a sense of forward motion. And if you want to start feeling better now, then focusing on how you treat your body is something you can start right after your first therapy session. Below are three key areas to address before anything else:
Food
Our society is built on instant gratification. Commercials with images of giant hamburgers (which never look that good in real life), adults and children happily taking a bite and rolling their eyes in bliss. Fast food companies spend billions of dollars selling you an idea that if you eat our food, you will be happy.
Our bodies are a furnace that provides us energy throughout the day. If we consume too much sugar, our bodies burn through it quickly and the feeling that comes from our blood sugar levels crashing can increase irritability, headaches and sluggishness. Now imagine feeling this way and getting a frantic phone call from work. In that situation, a jolt of anxiety has shot through our bodies and we’re likely going to struggle to meet this challenge without unneeded discomfort.
Same thing happens with an excess of junk food in the form of carbs. We've all had a big meal (usually Thanksgiving is a good example) and we all feel the strong tug of the living room couch. Our blood rushes to our organs to process the food. We feel drowsy, uncomfortable walking around a bit, and now imagine having to combat a feeling of sadness? Anxiety? A negative self-talk moment?
Focusing on giving yourself a steady stream of healthier food, as free from overly processed food, sugars and complex carbs, the better you'll feel in addressing daily life's obstacles. I’m not saying to drop all “bad” food, but the change to eat healthier can start today and you can feel the positive impact in a short amount of time.
2. Movement
Regardless if it is yoga, pilates, the gym, resistance training, running on a treadmill, swimming, dancing or walking... increase the amount you move in a day. This reconnects you to your body, allows you to feel a sense of accomplishment and after doing this for a small short amount of time, you can feel the progress throughout your body. This feeling of self-improvement is like the wheels of train starting to move into a higher gear.
We've all been taught how deep breathing and silent counting can help you manage anxiety or feel overwhelmed. It is not a coincidence that yoga, resistance training and running/swimming/walking are exercises that force you to develop stronger lungs through rhythmic breathing.
3. Sleep.
If I had to find the most common symptom of my clients the past several years, it's their struggles in establishing and maintaining a steady sleep schedule. There is a feeling that there are not enough hours in the day to do things that bring pleasure so we push our sleep schedules further back. We roll the dice past midnight and hope our bodies can adapt in the morning, which is sadly unrealistic.
Imagine waking up with a headache and this sends you into negative mood. Now imagine this mood lingerings for 2 hours or more after waking up. So now you are dropping off your kids while irritable or maybe you have a meeting in the morning that you find it difficult to concentrate in. Now the rough night before has followed you all the way to 10am-11am the next day. Poor sleep has not set you up for taking on the next day’s challenges.
Screen time until the moment of trying to fall asleep, eating too late in the evening before bed, not having a nightly routine to teach your body that "bed time is approaching" can make the next day brutal from the start. Be sure to put your phones away an hour before bed time and take a warm shower. Drink a cup of tea and possibly read a book (not on your phone). Try to finish your last meal of the day a few hours before bedtime and refrain from stacking. Close your eyes in bed and practice deep breathing. Hopefully creating a schedule that works for you and sticking by every night can create a rhythm in your body telling you, “it’s time to go to bed”.
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Changes in these 3 areas in life immediately when meeting me are things I commonly ask in session. I know they seem simple but before we address your relationship with others or yourself, we need to establish this feeling of forward motion in your life.
The hope is that once you start to take action, you feel yourself swept up in a forward motion. Like a train moving in a straight line toward your ultimate goal of inner peace and happiness. You remain the conductor of this journey, I only hold the map for you at the start. But I’m certain that after some time, you'll have the route memorized and you won't need me any longer.