The Therapy Edit - On 5 things to help you in tough times

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

In this solo episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna shares 5 powerful tips to help you through tough times.Every so often, life will throw us a curveball - it could be losing a loved one, financial difficulties, redundancy, illness, the breakdown of a relationship. But whatever is turning your world upside down right now, Anna's tools will help you cope and see you through to brighter days.We hope they help.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi, welcome to today's solo episode today. It is just me chatting away with you for 10 minutes, about five ways to manage in tough times. Now, gosh, this is a bigot, isn't it? How do we? get through times that are tough, those careful times in life perhaps where everything just feels like it has been tipped upside down

and maybe it's a piece of news or an illness or just one of those curveballs that sweeps normal away from you. Now this came as a message. So every now and again I put a little shout out on my Instagram saying, let me know what you want me to talk about.

Always feel free to look out for those drop me an email or drop me a DM just with your questions or your requests. So this was a message from a follower saying, how do I manage in tough times? Family deaths, severe illness. Please, please tell me. So I'm going to share five ways, really, things that I think will help. And these will be useful to you, even if you're listening and you're thinking, actually, you know what, Anna, I'm not going through a massively tough time at the moment. These are good, Maybe for the future then when there is a challenging situation, but also just for now, these are really good tips and tools to use in those weeks perhaps that just feel a little bit

overwhelming. So number one, strip life back. Just have a little inventory of a day. Think about what standard can I lower? Maybe what could I delegate? Are there things that we always do that actually we can just put on pause for now to buy ourselves some energy. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's just a little bit of ease in some of those jobs that you're always doing. Maybe it's as simple some of those practical things like ready meals, you know, leaning on some of those amazing corner cutting tools that are available to us. How can you strip life back? I think a really helpful little saying to comfort yourself, if you're finding that challenging, is it's not forever, it's just for now. Sometimes we need to do certain things or not do certain things just so that we can get by.

Just for now, just for this time in life as we try and use all the resources that we have available to us to get by. Number two, I want you to think about what you need, what you need for yourself, what you need as a family, because sometimes when we're going through a hard time, we might have a friend or a family member that says, how can I help? And we actually don't know. We don't actually know what they can do. A, maybe it's a situation where people can't actually help practically. There is nothing that can be done. But don't underestimate the value of having someone kind of stand beside. you in that challenging time. There is always something that can be done to at least help comfort you or support you. Maybe it's just listening. Maybe it's a cup of tea. Maybe it's taking a load of washing. Maybe it's helping out so that you can get some space, go for a walk, whatever it is that you need to do to give you a little bit more of yourself. So consider what you need. So when people ask you have an answer, what might that feel like to actually say and step out there because you know what you're doing when you do this. It feels like we fear it being a

burden. We fear being burdens. But actually what we're doing is we're saying to that person and you can ask me to when it's your turn. It's an opportunity to deepen relationship, even though it might feel really challenging to ask for or accept support. Number three is ride the waves of feelings. You know, feelings peak and subside like waves. Sometimes we can really fear them as if I let myself feel sad or overwhelmed, then I might never stop feeling like that. How will I ever function? How will I ever cope if I'm so overwhelmed by emotion? But we can let little spurts out and feelings peak and they subside. So sometimes we have to shove feelings down, right? Sometimes there are things that we have to do and hard things are going on in life and we have to just tuck that

feeling away. But it's really important that even if not in that moment you're acknowledging it later on, you know, we're very good at kind of storing these emotions up and shoving them under that metaphorical rug. But the rug gets lumpy and we end up tripping over it, don't we? Literally in our house there's a rug. I'm looking at it right now in the living room and all sorts ends up under there and it does get lumpy. It does get lumpy and you can trip over it and the corners get lifted up, and this happens with our emotions. How can we acknowledge our emotions so that they're not getting shoved under that rug? It might be as simple as noting to yourself how you're feeling. I feel sad. And then following it up with, and that's okay, rather than perhaps what we often do

is use that gratitude to beat ourselves up. I feel sad, but it could be worse. Yes, it's good to have that gratitude. It's really good and powerful to bring that gratitude in. You know, gratitude draws our attention to the other things that are good and that are right when everything else feels chaotic and uncertain. So yes, use that gratitude, but do not use it to invalidate your emotions. Label them, name them to yourself and follow it up with and that's okay. Number four, look at your habits. What can you do to give yourself a little bit more of yourself? Are you meeting your basic needs in this challenging time? Or are they getting a over, you're drinking enough, are you getting enough sleep? Or you're doing that kind of

bedtime procrastination thing we do, we often do, don't we? Is flop on the sofa and just kind of passively watch stuff to switch off. Now, there's a place for that. But if actually that's robbing you of sleep, then it can, it can turn out being the kind of less productive. So are you meeting your basic needs? Are you nourishing yourself and how you're eating? Because these things really matter. These habits really matter when we go through challenging times because they make sure that our bodies aren't under additional stress. And when our brains are tired and we're feeling totally depleted, maybe undernourished, maybe dehydrated, our bodies are already in a state of stress. We've got a higher base level of stress.

So we're navigating challenging times and our bodies are maybe already in stress. So just doing this little kind of overview MOT of even your most basic needs and thinking, am I meeting those? How can I meet those so that I have a better level of resilience or patience or energy to access when things are hard? And number five, I like this one, lean towards comfort. But, you know, think about that little child in you, because often when we're going through a hard time, we're having a hard week, we're facing a sad or scary situation. We can feel really young, can we. We can feel vulnerable.

We can feel like looking for an adult to come and tell us that things are going to be okay. How can you comfort that little version of you? What kind of things do you like doing? is it cosying up with someone with someone that you know really well? Is it is it wearing certain clothes that make you feel cozy and warm? Lean towards the comforting things. Lean towards comforting people. Comforting situations, comforting habits.

I know when those things as we just touched on might be verging into the unproductive. But there's a space when we're having a hard time. to lean towards those comforting things. So there are some tips for those of you who are going through challenging times and hopefully they feel massively compassionate because I think often that is more, that is so much, you know, we need so much more compassion, don't we? For ourselves and from others when we're going through a hard time. So I'm thinking of you, if you're walking along or sat in the car and you're having a hard time

and you're thinking, how am I going to get through this little steps? and every now and again maybe taking a moment to reflect on times that you've come through that felt like you couldn't do it and you did. And maybe you want to reflect on perhaps how far you've come already in this journey. It can feel encouraging, perhaps sometimes a little bit energizing. But yes, I am sending you love and I hope that's helpful. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha.

You might like to check out my three books, Mind Over Mother, Know Your Worth, and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows, and the moments in between. It's a little book, you don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and videos, all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a month. They are all 12 pounds and you can find them on anamatha.com.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.