May is Mental Health Awareness Month
As we adventure into this month we are gently reminded of taking care of ourselves and taking care of one another. Kindness and compassion are our cornerstones this month. To be kind to another human is to show them empathy and the willingness to understand. Compassion is to show others that you care about them and the things that may not impact you but impact them.
During the month of May we will have OM your Mental Health Giveaways all month long. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram when we drop information throughout the month! We will have live talks, mini live online classes, and mental health information.
Canada is sharing their National Hotline with America
Here is the number if you or anyone you know is struggling
Toll Free 1-877-330-6366
Mental Health Information
Stress is the body's natural defense against danger o0r what the body perceives as dangerous. It flushes the body with hormones to prepare systems to evade or confront danger. This is known as the "fight-or-flight" mechanism.
When we are faced with a challenge, part of our response is physical. The body activates to protect us by preparing us either to stay and fight or to get away as fast as possible.
The body produces larger quantities of the chemicals cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. These trigger an increased heart rate, heightened muscle preparedness, sweating, and alertness. All these factors improve the ability to respond to a hazardous or challenging situation.
Factors of the environment that trigger this reaction are called stressors. Examples include noises, aggressive behavior, a speeding car, scary moments in movies, or even going out on a first date. The more stressors we experience, the more stressed we tend to feel.
Acute stress
This type of stress is short-term and is the most common way that stress occurs. Acute stress is often caused by thinking about the pressures of events that have recently occurred, or upcoming demands in the near future.
However, repeated instances of acute stress over a long period can become chronic and harmful.
Episodic acute stress
People who frequently experience acute stress, or whose lives present frequent triggers of stress, have episodic acute stress. This type of stress can occur when life presents us with undesirable situations.
Chronic stress
This type of stress can cause additional long term damage to the body and mind.
Chronic stress can continue unnoticed. It can become part of an individual's personality, making them constantly prone to the effects of stress regardless of the situations
Movement Exercises to help you move out that trauma from the body
Rock your body from side to side
Shake your body: arms, legs, and full body
Tigers breath with tongue out
Tapping collar bone or knees
Acupressure with thumb and index finger between the thumb and index finger on opposite hand
Yoga
Mindful Meditation
Humming
Clicking with mouth
Dancing
Our Class schedule is in full swing! Our classes are open to NON-Thera members the first week of the month and if you are a TheraCommunity member you can invite special guests anytime of the month! All they have to do is register at our website theraexpressions.com
Summer Class Schedule
Monday:
12pm Hatha Yoga
Tuesday:
5:30pm Slow Flow Restorative
Wednesday:
12pm Hatha Yoga
5:30pm Aerial Yoga
Thursday:
5:30pm Aerial Nidra Restorative
Friday:
9am Meditation
Saturday:
9am Aerial Conditioning
11am Vibrational Sound Healing (1st Saturday of month)
11am TheraCommunity Lunch (last Saturday of the month)
Sunday:
9am Mindful Hiking
10am Breathwork and meditation (bi weekly) (Mothers Day special Breathwork class)
Making Friends can be hard! Adult Friendships can be even harder!
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Self Care support
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Mothers Day Somatic Yoga and Movement Event
Ladies its your time to shine
Join us for Dancing, Meditation, Movement, Journaling, and a whole lot of compassion
May 10th 11-12:30pm
Bring your yoga mat, journal, pen, and water bottle
Register at the link below
May 15th Livestream 9:30 am on Facebook with JRs Hunt for Life Suicide Prevention Discussion
Big News!
For the month of May we will have our online membership 19.99 a month! Get in on this super savings
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Cognitive Thought Distortions
Filtering A person engaging in filter (or “mental filtering) takes the negative details and magnifies those details while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. When a cognitive filter is applied, the person sees only the negative and ignores anything positive.
Polarized Thinking (or “Black and White” Thinking) In polarized thinking, things are either “black-or-white” — all or nothing. We have to be perfect or we’re a complete and abject failure — there is no middle ground. A person with polarized thinking places people or situations in “either/or” categories, with no shades of gray or allowing for the complexity of most people and most situations. A person with black-and-white thinking sees things only in extremes.
Overgeneralization In this cognitive distortion, a person comes to a general conclusion based on a single incident or a single piece of evidence. If something bad happens just once, they expect it to happen over and over again. A person may see a single, unpleasant event as part of a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Jumping to Conclusions Without individuals saying so, a person who jumps to conclusions knows what another person is feeling and thinking — and exactly why they act the way they do.
Catastrophizing When a person engages in catastrophizing, they expect disaster to strike, no matter what. This is also referred to as magnifying, and can also come out in its opposite behavior, minimizing. In this distortion, a person hears about a problem and uses what if questions
Personalization Personalization is a distortion where a person believes that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to them. They literally take virtually everything personally. A person engaging in personalization may also see themselves as the cause of some unhealthy external event that they were not responsible for.
Control Fallacies This distortion involves two different but related beliefs about being in complete control of every situation in a person’s life. In the first, if we feel externally controlled, we see ourselves as helpless a victim of fate. For example, “I can’t help it if the quality of the work is poor, my boss demanded I work overtime on it.”
Fallacy of Fairness In the fallacy of fairness, a person feels resentful because they think that they know what is fair, but other people won’t agree with them.
Blaming When a person engages in blaming, they hold other people responsible for their emotional pain. They may also take the opposite track and instead blame themselves for every problem
Shoulds Should statements (“I should pick up after myself more…”) appear as a list of ironclad rules about how every person should behave.
Emotional Reasoning The distortion of emotional reasoning can be summed up by the statement, “If I feel that way, it must be true.” Whatever a person is feeling is believed to be true automatically and unconditionally. Emotional reasoning is when a person’s emotions takes over our thinking entirely, blotting out all rationality and logic. The person who engages in emotional reasoning assumes that their unhealthy emotions reflect the way things really are — “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”
Fallacy of Change In the fallacy of change, a person expects that other people will change to suit them if they just pressure or cajole them enough. A person needs to change people because their hopes for success and happiness seem to depend entirely on them.
Global Labeling In global labeling (also referred to as mislabeling), a person generalizes one or two qualities into a negative global judgment about themselves or another person. This is an extreme form of overgeneralizing. Instead of describing an error in context of a specific situation, a person will attach an unhealthy universal label to themselves or others.
Always Being Right When a person engages in this distortion, they are continually putting other people on trial to prove that their own opinions and actions are the absolute correct ones.
Defense Mechanisms
Denial Denial is one of the most common defense mechanisms. It occurs when you refuse to accept reality or facts. You block external events or circumstances from your mind so that you don’t have to deal with the emotional impact. In other words, you avoid the painful feelings or events.
Repression Unsavory thoughts, painful memories, or irrational beliefs can upset you. Instead of facing them, you may unconsciously choose to hide them in hopes of forgetting about them entirely.
Projection Some thoughts or feelings you have about another person may make you uncomfortable. If you project feelings, you’re misattributing them to the other person.
Displacement You direct strong emotions and frustrations toward a person or object that doesn’t feel threatening. This allows you to satisfy an impulse to react, but you don’t risk significant consequences.
Regression Some people who feel threatened or anxious may unconsciously “escape” to an earlier stage of development.
Rationalization Some people may attempt to explain undesirable behaviors with their own set of “facts.” This allows you to feel comfortable with the choice you made, even if you know on another level it’s not right.
Sublimation This type of defense mechanism is considered a positive strategy. That’s because people who rely on it choose to redirect strong emotions or feelings into an object or activity that is appropriate and safe.
Reaction formation People who use this defense mechanism recognize how they feel, but they choose to behave in the opposite manner of their instincts.
Compartmentalization Separating your life into independent categories may feel like a way to protect many elements of it.
Intellectualization When you’re hit with a trying situation, you may choose to remove all emotion from your responses and instead focus on quantitative facts. You may see this strategy in use when a person who is let go from a job choose to spend their days creating spreadsheets of job opportunities and leads
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