Daily Maintenance for April 3 - James Fitzgerald Therapy PLLC

James Fitzgerald Therapy, PLLC

James Fitzgerald, MS, NCC, Psychotherapist

April 3rd

Daily Maintenance

Self Compassion Inspiration to Nurture Self Improvement

I have made several changes throughout the process of developing this resource, and felt it necessary to change the intention and titles to accurately represent the content. Please use this free self-improvement resource from James Fitzgerald Therapy and Strengthening Your Conscious Self Health & Wellness Program. You are invited to consume as much or as little of the content as you feel comfortable with. You don’t have to read every article, or watch every video, or do all of the activities every day. This feature of the website is a tool in your toolbox, to be used as you need it. Thank you for using this feature, I appreciate your support.

Daily Meditation: Letting Go

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION

Source: The Daily Calm (YouTube Video)

Recommended Video:

The Science of Love, Desire and Attachment | Huberman Lab Podcast #59

VIDEO

Source: Andrew Huberman, PhD. YouTube

Daily Thinking Error (Cognitive Distortion, Cognitive Bias, or Logical Fallacy)

What is All or Nothing Thinking and why it’s important to manage it.

CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Source: Psych Central

Daily Emotion & Emotional Intelligence

Resentment

EMOTIONAL VOCABULARY

Source: Good Therapy Psychpedia (Website)

Daily Recovery Inspiration from Narcotics Anonymous

April 3

For you alone

“The idea of a spiritual awakening takes many different forms in the different personalities that we find in the fellowship.”

Basic Text, p. 49

Though we all work the same steps, each of us experiences the spiritual awakening resulting from them in our own way. The shape that spiritual awakening takes in our lives will vary, depending on who we are.

For some of us, the spiritual awakening promised in the Twelfth Step will result in a renewed interest in religion or mysticism. Others will awaken to an understanding of the lives of those around them, experiencing empathy perhaps for the first time. Still others will realize that the steps have awakened them to their own moral or ethical principles. Most of us experience our spiritual awakening as a combination of these things, each combination as unique as the individual who’s been awakened.

If there are so many different varieties of spiritual awakenings, how do we know if we’ve truly had one? The Twelfth Step provides us with two signs: We’ve found principles capable of guiding us well, the kind of principles we want to practice in all our affairs. And we’ve begun to care enough about other addicts to freely share with them the experience we’ve had. No matter what the details of our awakenings are like, we all are given the guidance and the love we need to live fulfilling, spiritually oriented lives.

Just for today: Regardless of its particular shape, my spiritual awakening has helped me fill my place in the world with love and life. For that, I am grateful.

Source: NA World Services

Today’s Inspirational Quote:

“Today, I will let things happen without worrying about the significance of each event. I will trust that this will bring about my growth faster than running around with a microscope. I will trust my lessons to reveal themselves in their own time.”

~ Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go

Today’s Virtue: Detachment

Source: The Virtues Project

Today’s Character Strength: Perspective

Perspective means the ability to see the bigger picture in life. Perspective is about being able to see the forest as well as the trees, to avoid getting wrapped up in the small details when there are bigger issues to consider. While listening to others, perspective helps you to simultaneously think about life lessons, proper conduct, and what’s best for the situation being discussed. This ability to look at systems as a whole, or to think in big terms, helps you to offer good advice. Perspective is distinct from intelligence but represents a high level of knowledge, the capacity to give advice and to recognize and weight multiple sides before making decisions. It allows the individual to address important questions about the conduct and meaning of life.

Source: VIA Institute on Character (Website)

Today’s Coping Skill: Reach Out and Connect with Others

Contact someone you trust and feel safe with to be vulnerable. Ask them if they have time to talk. Tell them waht you need from them (listening, support, encouragement, suggestions, ideas, insight, or advice). Tell them what you are going through. Ask them what they might be going through.

Today’s Self Care Practice Suggestion:

Visualize Your Goals

Leave your work or obligations a few minutes early. Stop by an open, green space. Sit by yourself and daydream for a few minutes about reaching your goals. Tell yourself, I have everything I need to accomplish my goals. What I don’t know, I will find out. I am manifesting my greatest desires and am grateful for the ability to do so.

Source: Shaw, Dr. Zoe . A Year of Self-Care: Daily Practices and Inspiration for Caring for Yourself (A Year of Daily Reflections)

Daily Self Care Practice:

After waking up, or anytime during your day…

Find a comfortable to sit, and spend some time in silence. Don’t do anything, just observe your internal experience in that silence of that moment. Allow any thoughts, emotions, sensations, images, memories to appear and disappear, but don’t follow them. Breathe in a rhythmic but natural pattern.
Repeat several affirmations to yourself, verbalize your self-compassion, talk kindly about yourself, and to yourself. For example, “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be at peace.” Or, “I am happy, I am healthy, and I am at peace.” Even if a part of you resists, reassure that part the work is important.
Close your eyes, and visualize yourself reaching your goals, even if your goal is to file paperwork or clean one room in your house. If you find yourself getting distracted, just bring your awareness back to the original visual. Gently challenge any preconceived notions, automatic thoughts, or negative core beliefs you may hold onto.
Sit down and write, handwriting or typing. Make a journal entry, create a social media post, or start a short story or novel. Even if it is something as easy as recording the times of the sunrise and sunset, what your mood was like that day, or what you ate for meals. Scientific research has found that handwriting is better for retention and neural pathway reconstruction, but outliers do exist in studies, so do what feels best for you.
Sit down and read. Learn new information, new knowledge, awareness and insight. The goal can be to challenge any existing beliefs that cause cognitive dissonance. The goal can be to reinforce knowledge and beliefs that are important to you. And, the goal could be to just escape and immerse yourself in fantasy, and nurture adventure and novelty. I don’t recommend formal educational materials or the news for this activity.
Get any amount of natural light you can. Get any amount of physical activity or movement you can. Match your ability and physical limitations to the amount of activity. Exercise, strength training, physical therapy, stretching, yoga, and/or tai chi, any movement is good movement for your body and mind.

If you practice a new skill every day you can develop these new skills into habits, and they become automatic. The new habits will construct new neural networks in your brain and will change your default mindset. This will reduce the symptoms of ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD.

Sources:

“The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod

“Atomic Habits” by James Clear (dopamine, adrenaline, rewards, action steps)

(SMART goals) [S]pecific | [M]easurable | [A]chievable | [R]ealistic | [T]imed: achieve by a specific date

Today’s Reflection & Journal Prompts:

If you could relive one memory of your life over again, which would you choose and why?

Source: Fox, Rossi. 365 Journal Writing Ideas: A year of daily journal writing prompts, questions & actions to fill your journal.