Episode #32 Heading in to a New Year
Hi, this is Welcome to Self ™ Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair, and I’m your host, Dr. Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, clinical psychologist, supervisor and trainer. Welcome to Self ™ is a place where you can come and learn ways to elevate your own care and compassion. A place to rest, be soothed, and at times maybe gently challenged to think about yourself and your practice. A place to remember that you are human first, choose the helping profession is just one of the roles in your life. My aim is that this is a place of soothing, comfort, nourishment, growth and nurture. A place where you can also welcome your self.
Hi and Welcome back. I hope you managed to have some rest, some fun, some peace, and some time with the people in your life that you feel comfortable and safe with. If you’ve had challenging times with family over the holiday period, I hope you have support in your life to deal with this and I hope there has been compassion in your life as you have needed it. Whether this is self-compassion or compassion from others, as well of course as compassion for others.
I enjoyed a nice long break with plenty of time near the water and spent a lot of time resting which has been great. I’ll definitely continue to incorporate plenty of rest into my year ahead, not just time off work but also small moments of rest throughout my day. Things like briefly closing my eyes to reduce all the stimuli, slowing down my breath and focusing on its soothing rhythm, stopping to enjoy a cup of tea throughout the day, eating my lunch away from my desk and not scrolling my phone whilst eating. What are some ways you like to take moments of rest throughout your day? Maybe just think about that for a moment.
The start of a new year can be filled with so much pressure to make changes to who you are and how you live your life. I hope you haven’t been too impacted by this. If you’ve wanted to make changes then I wish you all the best with them, I just hope you don’t feel obligated by all the media pressure to somehow fit a particular mould.
At the start of January, I noticed the pull to make big changes, exercise more, eat less chocolate and crisps, be more productive and thankfully I was aware that it was mainly coming from social media posts and not from my own values and desires, although a few less crisps and chocolate wouldn’t do me any harm!! Notice how I say a few less, not none. Cos I’m not giving up crisps and chocolate that’s for sure.
If you did set new year resolutions at the start of the year, now we’re in February you might be noticing that you haven’t stuck to them, and your self-critic might be showing up and giving you a hard time. Please know there’s plenty of research out there that will support the fact that you are really normal if you’re not sticking to those resolutions. They rarely work so please don’t be too hard on yourself. Perhaps use it instead as an opportunity to practice self-compassion. I’ll give you an example of how I might speak to myself compassionately a little later.
Being intentional about changes and aligning them with my values feels important to me so I have a practice of asking myself some reflective questions. You may find them helpful too so here they are.
What is important and meaningful to me in my life? Now you may like to think of this as a broad question or you may prefer to break it down into different life domains for example: family, friendships, work, health, learning, etc.
I will also ask myself, what worked for me last year? How can I ensure I do more of these things this year? One of the things for me was making sure I incorporated breaks into the year, so I have already put scheduled breaks into my diary for this year to ensure I get enough downtime from work.
I ask myself, what didn’t work so well for me last year? What might work better this year? Last year I allowed myself to be quite isolated so this year I’ll be more intentional about my connection with others both professionally and personally. Remember when making changes it’s about thinking about the change, implementing the change, and then reviewing whether that change was actually beneficial and if not making some adjustments. In my example of making more connections, I will experiment with how much is enough and how much is too much and know that this may also change throughout the year and be dependent on what is happening in other areas of my life. There is no one rule fits for everyone, so allow yourself some time to tune in to what you need, what you want, what feels right for you based on who you are, not what everyone else is doing.
Other questions I ask myself are, how is my health right now? What would improve my health? What is the smallest first step I can take? As many of you know, I have some ongoing health issues and currently I’m managing those well. Management of health is an ongoing process though, so I regularly check in with myself around what I need. More movement is high on the agenda for me and it’s something I have struggled with over the past few years. I am setting small goals and labelling it movement not exercise as this tends to turn me off. I’m reminding myself that I won’t always stick to what I have planned and that’s ok, I can always pick back up the next day. Remember self-compassion not self-criticism is what helps. In situations where I am struggling to maintain the level of movement I might want to be doing, I might say to myself something like “I really wanted to stick at walking every day and it’s been hard to do that. I can only do what I can do and just because I don’t walk every day doesn’t mean what I do isn’t helpful. I can try again tomorrow. I’m proud of myself for the walks I have taken especially on those days when it felt really hard”. When I respond to myself this way, it feels so much better than being self-critical and I’m far more likely to try again.
Other questions I explore are, how much energy do I want to put into my business this year? What do I want to achieve? What is something I need to hold in mind if I notice I am getting busy? This will differ for all of you and be dependent on what else you have going on in your life. Please watch out for comparisonitis and know that you don’t have to be doing life the way someone else is. Also, when it comes to achievements, they don’t have to be big things. I think it’s important that we stop and celebrate even our smallest achievements. Make it a practice to notice what you do well, what has given you a sense of pride, what feels important in terms of your values and being aligned with them. Talk about the positives and your wins in supervision as well, supervision doesn’t need to be a space where you only talk about where you think you’re struggling or that you focus on your critical thoughts of what a crappy therapist you are. As a supervisor, I love to share and celebrate the wins of my supervisees. Think about your own red flags of overwork, boundaries slipping, feeling run down, exhausted, burnt out. If I don’t have at least one day a week in my diary that has nothing in it, then I know that I am likely overdoing things, and my health will suffer for it. So it really pays to slow down, tune in, access your wisdom from that kind, strong, courageous, compassionate part of you and then take action for yourself as best you can. You matter, your health and well-being matter.
Before I wrap up this first episode of Season 4, Season 4 wow I still can’t believe that, I have a favour to ask, I recently put together a survey to seek your thoughts and opinions on a few things. I am working on some new resources and offerings, and I really want them to be helpful to you, not just what I think will be helpful, so I need your help. You can access the survey at the link in the show notes or via my Instagram bio @drhayleydquinn and I’d really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to complete it, it’s only short, just 11 questions and most of them are multiple choice or tick the box. Thank you in advance. You’re a superstar. And thank you so much to the people who have already accessed the survey and completed that for me, I really do appreciate it.
As I mentioned at the end of Season 3, this season will be changing format to monthly episodes. There will still be a mix of solo episodes and guest interviews and I’ve got some great guests again this season and can’t wait to share them with you. One thing I’d really love is your feedback on the podcast, it really does help keep me motivated and I’d love to hear what topics are of interest to you and also if there are any guests you’d like me to invite on as well. To help the reach of the podcast it would be great if you would take the time to rate and review the podcast wherever you tune in and also, please share far and wide with anyone you think would benefit. If you still have episodes to catch up on, please go ahead and tune in to those whilst you wait for the next episode.
I can’t wait to bring you more of Season 4. If you would like to be notified when each episode airs, please sign up to my mailing list, you can find the link in the show notes, and I promise you won’t be spammed, I enjoy my rest too much.
Let’s hope that 2023 is a year filled with curiosity, joy, compassion and peace for everyone.
Go well and go gently with yourself.
See you next time
Thank you for sharing this time with me today, I hope your time here was helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. I’d also love it if you would like to leave a review wherever you tune in. Reviews really help to increase awareness of podcasts, meaning I can spread helpful information more widely. All reviews are welcome and much appreciated as I know they take time out of your day. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join my mailing list. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray, thanks Nyssa. I wish you all well in your relationship with Your Self and may you go well and go gently.
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Disclaimer
This transcript may not be an exact representation of the audio
