Thank you for reading part 1 of my post about the tips and tricks I learnt from being in therapy, and for liking and commenting on it. It makes me feel so good to know that a lot of people respond to it, and I hope to do the same for this one as well.
When I first attended therapy, my mama told me it is to help with my nightmares and worries. I REEEAAALLLYYY hope that none of you have my nightmares or my worries! I hope this is not why you are reading it!
I am going to keep writing these when I remember them, because they’re helpful to me and I want to be able to not have nightmares again (even though my mama says that is impossible!), well then, maybe just not the same ones because they are too scary!
If you find them helpful too, I hope you can subscribe to my posts!
So here’s the second thing I learnt that is helping me:
Turning Bad Voices to Good Ones:
You know how when you are too stressed or ashamed or overwhelmed (which happens to me a lot!) and your inner voice asks you questions or says stuff to you, like:
Why are you always so dumb?
Or how come you can’t just do the right thing?
Or how come you are so so bad with things??
Your inner voice always asks these questions too, right?
Well, my therapist told me to maybe turn the questions and statements into questions and statements that make me feel good about myself like:
Remember how to manage your stress, ok? Remember how you did it before?
Always know that you are strong and healthy! Always remember that!
Don’t worry, always feel confident and stay strong and happy!
Which doesn’t really work for me, but I try it anyway.
And then, she told me to come up with my own way of managing the overwhelm, so what I do is I imagine my Patronus in my mind (I have three! - wolf, stag and wolpertinger - and they take turns, depending on what I’m feeling at that moment) to just be in front of me and do their own thing. Sometimes the stag is munching on a fruit from a tree, sometimes the wolf is just walking around the forest, looking for the moon, so I just watch them, and that makes me calm.
My mama says when your brain is too overwhelmed no new thing can enter it, so you need to calm yourself down first. I get overwhelmed at school, and I know I cannot learn any new thing when I am overwhelmed and scared like that, so that is when I need to make myself calm and think of my Patronus. Sometimes this gets me in even more trouble with the teachers though, because they don’t see my Patronus, they only see me not paying attention at them, but how can I pay attention to them if I’m paying attention to my Patronus?? THIS IS WHY WE ARE HOMESCHOOLING NOW!
Anyway, when I do get to use my Patronus to calm myself down, it feels like before, I had so many strings tangled up in my brain, and then when I am calm, the strings undo themselves and I feel not so tight.
Try it! And tell me what your Patronus is too!
Miya I absolutely love that you’re sharing these with us and I LOVE the idea of a patronus to help you. (So cool you have 3!) Keep helping your brain learn these new ways of thinking, you’re doing amazingly.
Now. I need to choose a patronus…hmmm. 🫶🏻