How to Help Yourself Heal Emotionally

A lot of people don’t understand why they can sometimes feel anxious, depressed, tired, lonely, sad, we’re just generally lacking the coping skills to deal with life when things get real.

There are so many reasons why we struggle with our mental health. Everything from genetics to brain chemistry to traumatic incidents that shape the way our brains function – all of these things are factors in how our psyches function.

Self healing is really just self soothing. Most of us learn how to self soothe when we are in our infancy. We might feel lonely or stressed, we miss our parents, and we cry for them. In a normal scenario, even a perfect one, parents can’t always be there to kiss our boo-boos. So, we learn how to soothe ourselves, to cure our own ills, to use our own logic and instinct for healing.

It’s never too late to learn how! Here’s a quick into to what has worked for me and those that I’ve coached. Enjoy!

https://anchor.fm/questuary/episodes/A-Beginners-Guide-to-the-Self-Healing-Process-emle4d

Is Ghost Train Haze Indica or Sativa? (And other questions about GTH.)

 So, is Ghost Train Haze an Indica or a Sativa? It’s actually a cross-breed of both — with Sativa dominance. So while it has the dense sturdy look of an indica plant, the trichomes contain a more Sativa-based high.

Ghost Train Haze is a light, sweet, sativa dominant that was origininated by Rare Dankness. The strain is a cross-breed between Neville’s Wreck and Ghost OG.  While this strain is a sativa dominant, it has a strong resemblance to indica plants with its rich hearty buds teeming with crystalline trichomes. 

The scent is sweet and hypnotic, a cross between lemons and greenery redolent of a tranquil spring garden at sunset. 

Ghost Train Haze is also quite strong, as well. This super strain can work magic on physical problems such as pain, general malaise, and digestive problems. You can also look to Ghost Train Haze to treat depression, but careful if you’re prone to anxiety as that heady sativa could make you anxious or jittery. 

I highly recommend this strain for creative types — I was able to write 5 blog entries in a day on Ghost Train Haze recently. If you’re suffering from some writers’ block or artistic burn-out, relax with some Ghost Train Haze to get those creative juices flowing.

I do not recommend this strain for meditation unless you’re following a cannapsychotherapeutic therapy plan (i.e. trauma management) under the advice of a medical professional. 

Coping With Pain via NLP, the Alternative Therapy's Alternative.

Pain can be defined quite simply as a symptom of some physical hurt or disorder, an affliction or an emotional distress. Mild pain can be treated in many ways ... over the counter drugs and balms. But what if the pain is chronic and unbearable? Well we get prescription drugs. Most of the drugs work well, but for some people with severe or chronic pain, NLP and hypnosis works wonders.

What is NLP? It is neuro-linguistic programming. NLP uses a set of models and principles to describe the relationship between mind and language. Though initially dubious about the treatment of pain with hypnosis, the medical community are now of the opinion that hypnosis does indeed help in controlling pain.

Acute pain lasts for a short while chronic pain lasts for a long time, usually more than a month. Even mild low - level pain can be debilitating. Pain comes in many forms, jabbing, throbbing stabbing, nagging etc. Pain is also influenced by various factors like memory, emotions and physical condition of each individual. Another perplexing complication is that sometimes pain has no organic cause at all.

Pain has sometimes been described as past remembered pain, present pain experience and also anticipated pain in the future. The combination of these three often gives us the meaning of pain and this is one of the reasons why chronic pain is almost always so debilitating. What increases the pain is the expectation that the pain will be there the next day, and the day after and the day after and so on.

A few of the techniques that help us deal with pain are given below

Trance and Relaxation are the easiest things that one can do relax. The way to relax is simple. All you have to do is tell yourself in a deep and gentle tone take a deep breathe and relax. With each breath you must relax further. Tell yourself that as you count down from 5 to1 you will relax still further till you are in a trance.

Synesthesia is a technique that is best done in a light trance. In this technique you explore the pain as a sensation. What exactly is the pain? Where is it, is it a slow or a fast moving pain? Does it have any color and texture? How does it move? This might seem difficult but don't worry. The important thing is to try and put some meaning to your pain, give it shape so that it makes some sense to your unconscious mind. What you have to do next is to think that the pain is outside your body where it is easier to observe. Try and examine it a little away from you say at a distance of about two meters. Now what you can do is to change the quality of pain. Make it smaller or bigger or change the color and the sound. Change the way it moves. Now observe what happens when you cause changes in the pain. When you are finally satisfied with the changes that you have made in your pain you can send the whole pain to a far away place or you can even put it back into your own body but in a different location where the pain can be more manageable. Or even better, you can just turn your pain up side down and put it back in the same place so that it cancels out the original pain.
 
Increasing Your Energy
 
Pain can be very debilitating and saps us of our energy. But we can overcome this by practicing some very simple visualization exercises. Bring yourself to a point of total relaxation and focus on breathing. Imagine golden ball of light all around your body,
which you can hear, as well as feel vibrating. Then imagine that when you breathe in you are taking in energy. The golden light now becomes brighter and brighter, the harmonies get louder and the vibrations become stronger and stronger. As you breathe out imagine that all the tension and pain are expelled from your body. Now the vibrations and harmonies become a tool to help you relax further and you can feel the sensations massaging your body. With the help of the techniques mentioned above you can help yourself in taking control of your pain. But remember that they are not hypnosis or NLP techniques.

Dealing With Unhealthy Attachments

Getting mired down in bad situations can bring your emotional well-being to a screeching halt!

We all need to weather things that we don't like.  From time to time, you might need to take a job that doesn't exactly thrill you.  Perhaps you'll be required to interact with people who are less than nice -- but you've gotta do it.  Life often has messes to clean, people to handle, problems to manage.  It's just the way things are.

That said, there is a dark side to this coin... or, should I say, an even darker side?  There are times and situations into which we will immerse our own selves, yet there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it.  Perhaps we're stuck in a dead-end job, despite our fine qualifications.  Or maybe we allow ourselves to continue in a very unsatisfying and harmful relationship instead of ending things and moving along into a healthier direction.

We don't always make our own misery in life -- there's plenty which is handed to us.  However, because there are so many things in life which cannot be controlled, there really is no reason to continue dealing with unhealthy and upsetting things when we can control them.

When you choose to move your life into a healthy direction, you're choosing happiness.  You're choosing life and positivity with all who know you.  You are enabling yourself to give and receive love more freely when you let go of unhealthy attachments.  It can be incredibly hard not to fall into traps like this -- but so rewarding when you free yourself.

How to Deal with Complaining and Self-Pity

If you're preoccupied with thoughts which dwell in self-pity, complaining, and feeling sorry for yourself, you may need an attitude adjustment!

I once heard a quote that said, "All depression has roots in self-pity."  I don't know if that's true, but I certainly do believe that all self-pity has roots in depression!  We can all get caught in those negative thinking traps from time to time.  A little self-pity here, a dash of complaining there, it's all part of the human condition.  If you feel bad, allow yourself to feel it.  Grieve.  Revel in sorrow.  Have a good cry.  But then -- move on.  Know when to leave that pity party; don't be one of those late-stayers at a party, where the host is silently praying to get their dishes done and get to bed!  No one likes anyone who's wearing out his or her welcome, after all!

If you have trouble with depression, anxiety, or anger, seeking a good therapist can work wonders.  If you haven't the funds for that, you can also give support groups a whirl -- there are often many free and low-cost options for those who suffer from mood disorders.  Allow talk to be your medicine.  At the very least, try meditation and positive affirmations to help soften those rough edges.  Be loving and gentle with yourself in order to expand the love you show to others.

Love yourself.  Don't put yourself through the emotional wringer.  You deserve the best!

Dealing With Ideas That Limit You

In short, get rid of them!

When you have beliefs, ideas, or impressions that curtail your own emotional development, you are committing a true act of cruelty upon yourself.  You're hindering your own progress and putting roadblocks up in the way of your own happiness.

Self-reflection can be an important part of growing up, no matter what age you may be.  Try getting out of your own comfort zone from time to time.  Dip your toes into new and unusual places -- it may be exciting or even frightening, but it will definitely expand your mind and show you cool new ways of living and thinking.

When you remove your old, limiting ways of thinking, you are opening yourself up to wild new possibilities for happiness and fulfillment!

Negative Self-Talk

Do you know that little voice inside your head that tells you "you can't do anything... you're not worth anything... life sucks..."?  We all have self-chatter that goes on inside our own heads.  But, for some people, this little voice is consistently negative, damaging, and dysfunctional.  It's like a toxic friend, a bad parent, or a boss that never seems to have anything nice to say.  It can ruin lives, hearts, and relationships with ourselves and other people.

These toxic thoughts can seriously mess up our progress on days where we're doing fine.  It can hinder the ways that we see the world, it can mess up our interactions with other people, and it can freeze us in our tracks -- instantly.

Negative self-talk is easier to control than you might think.  Some people may need extensive therapy for it, but most people who experience these toxic thoughts, it is actually not too hard to chip away at the bad thoughts and to replace them with good ones.

During those times that you call yourself stupid, stop and correct that voice.  You're not!  If you make a mistake, don't criticize yourself -- and if you do (because you can't yet help it), try saying something nice or consoling to yourself.  You might also try affirmations to say after these damning thoughts rear their ugly heads.  Another way to handle nasty self-talk is to add the word "yet" after a sentence where it's appropriate.  For example, if you're telling yourself "I can't get anything done!," add "...yet!" as a sort of punctuation to the end of the sentence.  Over time, your self-esteem will improve as you shrink that little demon who's whispering inside your ear.  Try it!