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James Fitzgerald Therapy, PLLC
James Fitzgerald, MS, NCC, Psychotherapist
Strengthening Your Conscious Self © 2022
April 4th
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 Thinking Error (Cognitive Distortion, Cognitive Bias, or Logical Fallacy)
Title
Source: The Decision Labs
Today’s Inspirational Quote:
Today’s Virtue:
Source: The Virtues Project
Today’s Character Strength:
Source: Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification (Vol. 1)
Today’s Self Care Practice Suggestion:
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
(Life SAVERS acronym) [S]ilence | [A]ffirmations | [V]isualization | [E]xercise | [R]eading | [S]cribing (writing)
“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:
Source: Fox, Rossi. 365 Journal Writing Ideas: A year of daily journal writing prompts, questions & actions to fill your journal.