Self Care

Make your bed!

| Sally O'Reilly
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Make your bed!!

Now I know you’re not all teenagers reading this – and I have no wish to trigger memories of irritating parental demands, but I want you to make your bed.

And I have a really good reason for this. I believe you will feel better when your bed’s made.

It’s been something of a theme this month with client work, a sneaking sense of disorder, an un-ease. Maybe it has to do with settling back into an Autumn routine. A lot of us feel we are back to work, back to school, back to the damn Winter.

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The colouring craze & why it’s great!

| Sally O'Reilly
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Here’s a quote I love: “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – CS Lewis

I’m a supporter of all things colouring and make ‘n do – you may have deduced this from a quick glance at the pics I use on this site…You may also have noticed the new colouring craze for adults, and you can’t have not noticed the explosion in online gaming and so on.. Are we going back to play as our world gets more and more serious?

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What’s worrying teenagers? (In their own words)

| Sally O'Reilly
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This is Suicide Prevention Month 2015, indeed as I type this it’s World Suicide Prevention Day. Twitter is alive with useful information and resources, talks and seminars are taking place all over the world – and it’s great. And for me, every day should be suicide prevention day.

I listened to Dr Harry Barry speak today about how to reach our young people before they consider suicide. It was great to hear someone echo my thoughts, and those of my fellow professionals. Prevention is key.

Bottom line: we need to “get to” children before they start down the road of hopelessness.

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What to do when someone you care about self-harms

| Sally O'Reilly
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Not a week goes by that a therapist doesn’t hear about a client or a client’s friend self-harming. This is particularly true of therapists who work with teenagers – lately it feels like something of an epidemic.

After first hearing about self-harming behaviour – which usually takes the form of cutting, scraping, hitting or otherwise causing injury to the self – parents and friends usually react in one of two ways:

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Helping to nurture your teenage daughter’s body image

| Sally O'Reilly
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Do  you suck your tummy in when you think other people are looking at you?

Every day, women (and men) are bombarded by messages on the TV, radio, print media including the internet telling us (and selling us) on how to change how we look. Unless you actually live under an actual rock you are bombarded by change-your-body messages maybe twenty, thirty times a day (?!!). All designed to sell you something. All disguised as “help”.

 

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(That’s an ad for yogurt… ahem and erm…)

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6 fake apologies and how to spot them

| Sally O'Reilly
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I’m pretty certain that you, like me, have been left feeling a little chilled at some point after receiving a long-awaited apology. Instead of feeling relief, you’re left with a churning stomach, your heart is thumping, you’re feeling de-centred, uncertain, maybe even irritated.

Your gut is telling you that this relationship is still not right even though you got the “sorry”.

These negative emotions and physical feelings are a sure sign that you’ve been “fake-apologied”. (I know that isn’t a real word … ;))

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Christmas Sanity part 2: When Hell is other people

Christmas Stress
| Sally O'Reilly
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So here’s part two of guide to staying sane for the holidays (part one here)

The social part of Christmas is fun.

Ideally.

It’s when we get to connect with old friends, family, maybe make new friends. It can be an incredibly nurturing time and full of genuine care and love. There’s nearly always an accompanying pressure though isn’t there? Like, how can I get to meet everyone? How do I choose who to meet? where to meet them? How do I tolerate the people I find difficult? How do I cope when I have to spend time with a person (or people) I usually avoid?

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