A useful tool for teens that are self-loathing

More and more teens are viewing their body and face in a negative light. Getting support can feel like finding a needle in a haystack.

In my practice, I focus on psycho-education and coaching. Psycho-education shows you why your mind is doing what it is doing. Coaching shows you how you can overcome your inner trodden mind thoughts and how you can measure your progress.

How does an adolescent cope with their thoughts while you seek the right support for them?                                            

We need to make coping strategies as easy as possible for adolescents, otherwise, they won't use them. Below is a simple tool that teens can use to soothe them called ‘just for today'.

Imagine for a moment you are a teenager and you're hating your body/face. Think of what you are finding hard to accept at the moment. Perhaps it's "I can’t accept my tummy being so big." Or ,"I can’t seem to accept my skin and how I look."

I am sorry if what you bring up is painful, but I’d like to think that this will help you to understand how this works.

Whatever it is that stops your mind from accepting, please focus on this:

Instead of trying to accept how you look and wondering how you will get through your days ahead, we are going to play with words a little and make things a little easier on your mind.

Allowing it today is allowing it to be as it is.

Your mind soaks up every word you feed it and keeps those words stored, so we need to feed words that your mind will be OK with. It’s all about the art of allowing, if the art of accepting won’t let you accept. Your teen may not like what is presented before them today, around their body image, and usually, this is because they are thinking about the long-term consequences. So, if they can’t handle this long term, try it ‘just for today', until you seek further support.

If you can, allow what it is you do not like, not tomorrow or the day after; ‘just for today ’.

I would like you to say to yourself:

• "Just for today, I’m OK with..." (whatever your problem is).
• "Just for today I will allow..."(this problem).
• And "Just for today, I’ll let myself off with..." (this problem). 

Don’t worry about tomorrow. It is ‘just for today ’.

Try it and see if you find any relief from it, then pass it on to teens.     

Example

Suzan was dismissed from work for not concentrating and making too many mistakes. Suzan was struggling with her self-image and hated her nose; she just could not accept it. When she was dismissed on the spot, she became very distressed and had a myriad of such intense emotions all running irrationally through her mind.                                           

In Suzan’s despair, she used ‘just for today ’, stating to herself: "Just for today, I will allow this news to be OK. Just for today I completely forgive myself and just for today I will be gentle and kind to myself".

It’s such a simple thing to do and can relieve so much stress and anxiety if you let it. If you can get through today knowing that, just for the whole day, you are OK with what is going on, and you are going to allow this. You will be going with your natural flow of how life is at this moment.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is another new day. This day is also your ‘today’. Try to allow this truth just for today also. Not the day after, but ‘just for today ’ and see how you go. Try and bring yourself some relief in your allowing because allowing for today is also accepting.

The day after tomorrow

As you can see, there is a pattern here, the pattern being ‘just for today ’. If you can teach yourself to handle a day at a time (today only), with your thoughts, you will manage things better. If you instruct your mind to focus just on today, the mind will focus on today.

When you use ‘just for today ’ it takes the pressure off thinking that you may not be OK with this long term. So, being OK with it today helps you. You are putting this problem on the back burner to deal with it later and allowing it to be how it must be now, which means that you can concentrate on just accepting today as it is.

Allowing it today is allowing it to be as it is.

Then, tomorrow, do the same again. "Just for today, I will allow..."

Put your difficult thoughts around body image on the back burner until, eventually, you have allowed yourself some ‘time out’ from those dark thoughts, every day for a while – enough time to show your mind that you are safe and that you do not need to think about those thoughts all the time.

It's a kind of mind trickery – tricking the mind that it is OK for today – but the mind doesn’t mind being tricked like this. In fact, the mind loves living ‘just for today ’ if you will allow it. You tell the mind what to think and it will think it! A whole lot depends on what it is you are trying to allow, but the greatest thing we want to achieve here is relief, relief to oneself.

Just for today, give yourself that break and allow...

If you're looking for further support, feel free to email me.