Author: Amanda Smith, LCSW
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Common Thinking Errors That Get In The Way Of Self Care
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is all about how we think, how we feel, and how we act. One of the most important tasks in CBT is recognizing and understanding your established thinking patterns. The more we hear ourself thinking, the easier it is to notice any unhelpful or negative thoughts that may be getting in…
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Physical Self Care Activities You Can Do At Home
If you are anything like me, the pandemic has brought out the inner homebody that I didn’t know existed. Or maybe you have always been more comfortable in the comfort of your own home and you just prefer it that way. Some of you may have some barriers in your life that make that getting…
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How To Develop A Self Care Mindset
If you’ve ever been to one of my groupinars, you probably know how passionate I am about how we define self care. I’m constantly promoting the importance of developing a mindset that defines self care as just simply “taking care of yourself.” It’s not a noun, its not a verb, self care is a concept.…
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Practicing Self Care For Anxiety
If self care is all about taking care of yourself, then putting effort towards managing your anxiety is the ultimate act of self care. Everyone gets anxious from time to time, it is a normal and natural human emotion. But sometimes it can become overwhelming. When anxious thoughts start getting in your way, that’s when…
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Types Of Journals For Self Care
Journaling is something that comes up a lot in my therapy practice. So many people often walk into my office distraught because they feel like they can’t practice good self care. They report having tried various things like journaling and it didn’t work out for them for one reason or another. This leads them to…
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The Importance Of Physical Self Care
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about self care within the mental health community. In this era of greater mental health awareness, we are in a constant search of ways to pay attention to and take care of our emotional health. As a therapist, I am fully jumping on this trend. However, we…
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How To Be Your Own Best Friend
Are you your friend? This is one of my goto CBT examples in my therapy practice. I remember the first time that I used it. I was counseling a teenage girl in her freshman year of high school. Beautiful girl, smart girl, and overall wonderful compassionate human. The kind of girl that most people would…
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Creating Balance In Your Life
Balance was my “one word” last year. As a matter of fact, it is often my word of choice when anyone tells me to think of a word. My mother has been preaching balance to me all of my life, and while I have struggled in and out of it, I do believe that identifying…
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Self Care Isn’t Selfish
Note to self: Self Care isn’t selfish. Why we have to keep making these notes to ourselves, I have no idea. I’m a therapist and I still have to remind myself of these things on a daily basis. Logically, I know that self care is not selfish, but it can certainly start to feel that…
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What Your Personality Type Says About Your Self-Care
In my experience as a therapist, I have learned a lot about self care. In fact, it is the hot topic on my couch most days. I love to hear people sharing the various ways in which they take good care of themselves. Talks about self care usually start out fairly positive. However, the conversation…