Yoga in the Therapy Room: Tips for integrating trauma informed yoga

*KINDLY NOTE: Cynthia will be doing an experiential, please don't do this while driving*

What is self-brainspotting? How do you reset your expectations and your rulebook for a better and more authentic life? What does true inner authenticity look like?

Cynthia Schwartzberg, LSCW, is a well-recognized leader in the ground-breaking Brainspotting field. She has spent decades using Brainspotting and other highly regarded techniques to help individuals and couples discover their authentic selves and lead richer, freer, and more meaningful lives.

Cynthia is currently a practicing therapist in Atlanta who delights in the voyage to authenticity she and her clients embark on daily. Using the latest neuroscience as well as ancient wisdom traditions from around the world, she has devoted her life to going as far as possible into the experiences of both curiosity and wonder.

Visit Cynthasis and read her book, The Curious Voyage. Connect with Cynthia on Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

FREEBIE: Check out this Brainspotting Session and find out more about Financial Flow.

• The importance of authenticity 03:51
• Changing your rulebook 07:26
• Releasing your expectations 17:17
• Self-brainspotting 26:12

Therapists are invited into a person's journey and voyage to self-discovery and acceptance, which ultimately leads to authenticity.

Therapy and mental health practices teach people how to regulate and how to be in the "flow" of life so that people can progress throughout their lives instead of fighting uphill battles.

Within our subconscious and conscious awareness, we know that there are things we should and should not do.

However, there are also things that we have been taught not to do by the societies, communities, and families that we grew up in.

These rules you can tweak, and these rules you should question so that you can find the ones that are authentic to yourself instead of feeling obliged to follow what everyone else does.

You can change your rulebook and self-awareness by keeping track of keywords and patterns that you have. When do you have certain thoughts?

Our expectations get stuck when fear and a sense of forcing something to happen are present.

We experience distress when our expectations do not match the present moment. To experience a sense of peace, we need to accept reality for what it is instead of what we hoped it would be.

You can always improve where you are in life and make positive changes to what is happening, but you cannot wish for something that is to be something else.

All sustainable change begins with the acceptance of the present to then shift it for the future.

Brainspotting is based on the idea that where we look – the position our eyes rest in – can impact how we feel.

This resting eye position is combined with a grounding activity to center the client into a space of calm. It is from this space that difficult matter is dealt with, and with a therapist present, the client can make great progress in overcoming stress.

Where do you gaze when you allow your eyes to settle? Self-brainspotting is what you do without a therapist present.

Set an intention of what you want to get out of this book as we go through some of the exercises. (Having an intention to embark on the journey can help keep the work focused.)

• Chapter One

How do you feel connected to people in your life? Who do you feel most connected to and why? Who do you feel least connected to and why?

• Chapter Two

What beliefs keep you bound to your mother/father that are causing you stress and confusion?

• Chapter Three

Consider you may need time to go back to Chapter 2 as you work with Desire, Imagination, and Expectation.

• Chapter Four

As the client is working with Love, Power, Serenity Exercise: Releasing Capes, consider asking: What is one next step you are ready to take and what do you need to release?

• Chapter Five

Explore Listening together.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

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Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Have you struggled to stay present with meditation? Do you need a quick technique to help you overcome the stifling feelings of perfectionism? Can you use rhythmic art to help you build self-esteem?

Cathy Boytos has spent most of her life creating art (Fine Art, Mixed Media, Photography and Botanicals). She is an award-winning Graphic Designer, but now devotes most of her time to Botanical Illustration Art and Zentangle® - a method of drawing structured patterns through dots, lines, curves, and orbs.

Cathy left the corporate world as a Graphic Designer and became a certified Zentangle instructor in 2014. She immediately began teaching Zentangle classes in the Triangle area of NC, and although she has spent years selling and displaying her art at exhibitions, her passion has always lied in teaching it.

Visit The Triangle Tangle and connect with Cathy on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

• What is Zentangle? 03:26
• Zentangle as a remedy for perfectionists 11:04
• Using Zentangle as a practice of gratitude 15:42
• Zentangle is not like doodling 26:38

Zentangle is more than an art method. It is comprised of a collection of patterns that are made up of various shapes.

The beauty of it is that everything is already structured, and all you have to do is start drawing.

After a Zentangle group art class, all the tiles that the art is drawn on are put together into one big piece. You can then see how everyone interprets and draws things differently, and it develops from an art class into a profound lesson.

Because the methodology behind the Zentangle method is a combination of structure and intuition, it can be a great remedy and soothing activity for perfectionists.

It is just art and intuitive drawing. We don't put value judgments on it or think it has to be a certain way.

Zentangle began as a form of mediation. This is why it does not work well under ego-driven, intellectual, and thought-centered work, like perfectionism.

People experience gratitude by completing Zentangle art because it allows them to focus on their experience in the present moment and see their abilities in a new light.

They see what they can do, and often feel more confident afterward. The Zentangle can therefore also help people build up their self-esteem and self-confidence.

It is all about the process and not the result.

There is a distinction between completing Zentangle art and doodling.

Doodling is like mindless art. You may doodle when you are doing something else like talking on the phone or listening to a podcast.

With Zentangle, you are mindful. You are intentional and present. You breathe deeply, stay present in the moment, and experience it fully.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Which Feng Shui principles can therapists use in arranging their office space for good energy? Do you have overstuffed bookshelves, drawers, or closets in your office? How can you create a healthy energetic flow within your office?

Susannah Alle is a certified feng shui consultant and the owner of Healing Homes Feng Shui. When Susannah first found out about feng shui in the 1990s, she was immediately hooked. She found it enlightening to see how our environments impact our lives and vice versa. Once she began to make feng shui adjustments in her home and saw how it improved her life, there was no going back.

Susannah began her formal feng shui training by studying the traditional methods of classical feng shui. After becoming certified, she began to explore the more spiritual approach of BTB (western) feng shui. She uses tools from both disciplines but takes a more modern, contemporary approach to her consultations.

Visit the Healing Homes Feng Shui website and connect with them on Instagram.

Email them at: [email protected]

• Laying out your therapy office - 05:29
• Bringing nature into your office space - 10:13
• Elements in Feng Shui - 12:32
• Avoid clutter - 18:45

Desk placement: have your back in front of a solid wall with a clear view of the door in the distance.

Avoid having your desk facing the wall with nothing to look at in front of you.

Have a clear view of the door to have control of the room, your back to the solid wall behind you, and open space in front of you to feel stabilized and inspired.

If you cannot change your desk, consider:

• getting a desk chair that has a back to it
• putting something shiny or a small mirror on your desk to see the door without having to turn
• putting a picture on the wall behind you that has a depth of field to it, like open fields or the ocean.

Couch placement: make sure that the client can also see the door from where they sit on the couch.

Coffee table: consider a round coffee table for a gentler energy flow, and avoid sharp corners.

Always try to have a plant – a real one if you can – in your office space.

A plant brings an important refreshing, vital, and calming energy to a room, and makes a noticeable difference.

• Fire: it is expansive and actionable energy. Use Himalayan salt lamps.
• Earth: transitional and grounding energy, like spring. Use crystals, pottery, ceramics.
• Metal: the energy of autumn. Use metal objects.
• Water: quiet and soothing energy, like winter. Use a small fountain feature.

Having clutter around you, on your surfaces, in the bookshelves, on the tables, is both frustrating to look at, can create unnecessary stress, and creates stagnant energy.

Do not chuck all the clutter into a drawer or stuff it into a closet because that energy will still be stuck.

Get the energy flowing and moving throughout your office by using what you need, having some small things around, and either giving away or throwing out old things that no longer bring value or a service to you.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

How do you incorporate embodied healing into eating disorder treatment? Why is it important to have a bottom-up approach for body-to-brain communication in recovery? What is the role of the provider's embodiment in eating disorder recovery?

Rachel Lewis-Marlow is a somatically integrative psychotherapist, dually licensed as a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Massage and Bodywork Therapist. She is also a Certified Advanced Practitioner in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and has advanced training and 30 + years of experience in diverse somatic therapies.

Rachel is also the co-founder of the Embodied Recovery Institute, which provides training in a trauma-informed, relationally oriented, and somatically integrative model for eating disorders treatment. Recently, she authored a chapter on the application of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to eating disorders treatment in the book, Trauma-Informed Approaches to Eating Disorders.

Visit the Embodied Recovery Institute and connect with them on Facebook and Instagram.

• Reconnecting the mind and body - (06:11)
• Why somatic approaches help treat eating disorders - (07:10)
• Embodied recovery for eating disorders - (10:00)
• The role of the provider's embodiment in eating disorder recovery - (22:15)

The concept of stitching is about reconnecting the mind and the body in a bottom-up approach, where someone is encouraged to make sense of an experience through what they feel and what they are presently feeling.

This contrasts with the standard top-down approach, where people often rely on their minds to understand what they are experiencing instead of sticking with and feeling the experience itself.

Embodied work is a missing piece in many standard treatment plans of eating disorders. It is essential because information about the world travels from the experiences of the body to the mind, and people experience the world as children long before they have the language to decode and organize everything.

Encouraging somatic experiences to reconnect the body-to-brain circuit is what helps people to communicate better with their body and understand what their body needs.

Therefore, people will no longer distrust their bodies and work against them, but instead learn to communicate with and trust their physical experiences again, which is a cornerstone to recovering from eating disorders.

It is a way of assessing the underlying somatic foundation of eating disordered behaviors and thoughts so that mental health professionals can build interventions that speak directly to the body in its own language.

Embodied recovery looks at:

• Movement patterns
• Birth history
• The role the body plays genetically in nutrition
• A person's attachment system
• Helping someone to understand how their body regulates
• Using the body as a resource for healing

Embodiment is the intersection of awareness and the body. The awareness of our bodies, and the awareness of how we experience the world through our bodies.

The first thing, the last thing, and everything in between that you do to help your client is for you to show up in your full embodied self during treatment.

You cannot ask your clients to go someplace that you are not willing to go.

Three levels of somatic providers:

• Somatically aware: they understand this is important but they cannot facilitate the somatic experience.
• Somatically oriented: they know how to facilitate this for their clients but it is still a top-down approach where they use cognitive cues instead of physical cues.
• Integrated provider: they use their somatic organization in an intentional and nuanced way to have regulated treatment with their clients.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Are you interested in energy art? What are some of the benefits of creating art with real crystals? How can you create energy art?

Michele Lundstrom is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in private practice and an intuitive empath. She is also a Shamanic practitioner, Certified Advanced Chakredy® Practitioner, Reiki Master, Empath Coach, Teacher, and Energy artist. Michele provides intuitive readings through your subtle energy (the chakras) to help identify and prioritize what your energy wants to bring to your awareness; as well as energetic imbalances and direct channeled healing energy to the chakras. She is a carrier of lightning medicine since she was struck by lightning a few years ago.

​Michele also offers coaching for empaths and intuitive medical and mental health professionals.

Visit Michele's counseling website and see also Luminous Ignus.

Connect with Michele on Facebook, Instagram, and Psychology Today.

• What is energy art? (07:20)
• How do you create energy art? (08:29)
• Orgonite crystals (13:16)

Energy art is founded on the science behind working with energy that has been compounded through crystals and metals that rest together in a resin.

They can help soothe energy blocks in the body, and have other incredible benefits.

Michele may start an art session with an idea in mind, however, most of the art pieces come about through a process of letting go, and just seeing where the progress takes her.

Practice letting go when you create energy art so that you can work with whatever energy comes through you instead of trying to organize everything mentally.

Use watercolors or alcohol inks because they are more difficult to control to help you work in a process of non-attachment, and letting go.

You can experience the benefits of orgonite combined with other healing crystals in resin when you hold them, or place them in your home, or around your room.

If you want to test the authenticity and strength of your orgonite crystals, place them in some water and freeze them.

If patterns form in the ice around the crystal, then you know that the crystal and its energy are real.

Some benefits of having orgonite near you or in your home include:

• improved sleep
• protection from overexposure to EMFs (electro-magnetic frequencies)
• better mood regulation
• feelings of peace and relaxation

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Is your intuition the voice of your soul and wise self? What are some traps that can stop you from moving forward in your life? How can visualization help you to overcome stressors in your life?

Dr. Shannon D. South, aka the "Joy Doctor", is an award-winning therapist, an Amazon best-selling author, and an inspirational speaker. Dr. Shannon is also the founder of the Ignite Your Life! and Grow Your Business by Growing You Breakthrough Programs!

In 1994, Dr. Shannon had a spiritual experience during meditation that healed her debilitating anxiety and depression permanently. Since this transformative experience, Dr. Shannon has helped thousands of clients connect to their most loving, abundant, and joy-filled selves. Her recent book, Grow Your Business by Growing You, is a roadmap to this unique, healing process.

For a free discovery call to see how Dr. Shannon can help align you with your highest potential, go to www.drshannonsouth.com. Connect with her on Facebook, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

Check out Dr. Shannon's upcoming Spirit and Soul retreats.

• Helping therapists align their dream lives and businesses (08:56)
• Traps that can stop people from moving forward (15:20)
• Your intuition is your soul's calling (24:32)

You can tune yourself, like an instrument, to your needs and desires so that you are better able to care for yourself. This happens by working on your healing.

By focusing your control on your internal self you have more confidence, peace, and ability to cope with fluctuations in the external world.

Make use of visualization, meditation, breathwork, and many different modalities that help you to connect your physical body and your conscious mind. Have this unison and compassion between mental and physical instead of having your mind work against your body and your sensations.

There are different subconscious survival traps that people can fall into which keep them stuck in the past, blocking their attempts and progress at moving forward.

Some of them are:

1. Perfectionism
2. The not-enough trap
3. The spiritual bypass and running after any quick solution
4. Depression and burnout

Find your passions, because they are the bridges that can take you to the things that are nourishing for you.

Allow space for the things that are healing and nourishing to you once you find them. Schedule time for them in your days and weeks to improve your self-connection.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Do you have feelings of low self-worth that are getting in the way of your success? Do you often struggle with comparing yourself to others? Are you treating yourself with respect and kindness?

Linda Bonnar is a Personal & Corporate Coach, Author, Trainer, and Educational Wellbeing Consultant based in New York City. Passionate about empowering others to succeed, Linda partners with business executives and future leaders across the globe. She equips her clients with a range of skills, tools, and techniques to overcome challenges successfully and move forward confidently, allowing them to thrive in life and not just survive the "daily grind".

As a corporate coach and trainer, Linda has worked with individuals from global companies such as Google, Warner Media, Oliver Wyman, Guardian Wealth Management, Salesforce, and Chevron.

Visit Linda Bonnar's website and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube.

• The importance of having a solid foundation of self-confidence
• How to improve self-worth and self-esteem
• Self-esteem in business
• Linda's three things to remember

Self-confidence and self-esteem are not only important for you to function well in life, but they are important because they provide you with a solid foundation of self-worth.

If you do not have self-esteem and struggle with confidence, you will struggle with upholding healthy relationships and boundaries because you can say no, accept a good partner, or take the job offer.

Self-worth, which comes from having self-esteem and confidence, is crucial to you having a healthy, vital, and happy life.

Improving your self-worth and self-esteem comes from you, and starts with you. You need to treat yourself with respect, compassion, and friendship to begin to feel worthy of accepting that from others.

If you are in the habit of accepting negative behavior and poor emotional hygiene from those in your life, then you may think that is what you are worth, but that is not true.

If you notice that you are falling into the comparison trap, catch yourself. The more you become aware the more easily you can stop doing it.

It is not only a comparison trap, but you are also then assuming the life of the other person you are comparing yourself to.

Use the three Cs:

• Catch: catch yourself when you are having comparative thoughts and when your self-worth dips.
• Challenge: challenge the thought and force yourself to look at only the facts, and not to get swept away in assumptions.
• Change: change the thought by changing the question, "what is a more empowering way I can think about myself?"

1 – Listen to hear: do not listen to reply, but rather listen to hear on a deeper level.

2 – Practice self-compassion: self-compassion is powerful to both improve your life and to quieten the inner critic.

3 – Follow the three Cs: catch yourself when you are going downhill, challenge the thought, and change your pattern.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Can wisdom from the past still ring true today? Do you sometimes need help returning to your center when life gets busy? Do you know how to properly "do nothing"?

As an 8-year-old refugee who only spoke Russian, Jessie (or "Asya" then) yearned to fit in. Having arrived in America, she changed her name and much about herself. Later though, she experienced depression, an eating disorder, and all sorts of existential problems. She pursued Hollywood fame, men, and the American Dream, but always fell short - until she stopped.

With the help of the Tao Te Ching she rediscovered herself and her innate power, and she learned to chill. Her book, Don't Just Sit There, DO NOTHING, will help others do the same.

Visit Jessie Kanzer's website and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

FREEBIE: Read the first two chapters of Jessie's book for free!

• About the Tao Te Ching
• How to be an expert in doing nothing
• Let go of the "all or nothing" mentality

The Tao was written in the 6th century BC.

Human beings at their core have been much the same throughout human history. People throughout centuries have struggled with:

• Comparing themselves to others
• Searching for external validation
• Following outside messaging for fear of stepping into who they are

• Have an activity that you do that centers on stillness: this can be meditation, yoga, meditative running, walking, breathwork, spending time in nature, and so forth.
• Seek stillness physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
• Focus on building the connection to your inner voice.
• Schedule time into your calendar: write "DO NOTHING" for 1, 2, 5, or 10 minutes in your daily activities.
• Enter your flow state: try activities once a day or week that help you to enter your flow state where you forget about time passing, and focus wholly on one thing.

Sometimes you need to be honest and real with yourself and push yourself to do the things that you have been avoiding getting to.

However, when it comes to practicing stillness, you cannot beat yourself up about struggling because the struggle is a part of the process.

Each time it does not go well, try again.

Consistent small actions that grow over time are far more sustainable than forcing yourself to try something completely new and then beating yourself up if you fail.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

As a parent, do you practice self-care? How does practicing emotional regulation as an adult make you a better parent? What can therapists do to help stressed-out parents who deal with unhappy children?

Aaron has been working with children, teens, and parents for over 18 years. After ten years directing camps and empowerment programs around the world, Aaron opened Fire Mountain because he wanted to work with kids and families on a deeper level. Over the first few years of running programs like Teen Rites of Passage, Aaron realized the need to turn his efforts towards teens struggling with drugs, alcohol, and the behaviors and issues related to addiction.

Aaron's formal educational background is in acting. He graduated from the top acting school in the US, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1990. His skills in comedy and drama make him an influential speaker and presenter, and a favorite among the kids. His confidence, compassion, and humor set the tone for deep healing and fun.

Visit the Fire Mountain website and connect with them on Youtube.

Listen to Aaron's parenting podcast, Beyond Risk & Back.

Connect with Aaron on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Join the Parenting Teens that Struggle Facebook Group.

• How unregulated parents negatively impact their children
• Parents need to learn how to regulate
• Practice adult relationship care
• How therapists can help parents of high-risk kids

Some parents get into the bad habit of taking their anger and frustration out on their children when they are young. As the children age, they learn how to retaliate and treat the parents the same way, which of course upsets the parents even more.

When parents are stressed, have not slept well, have not eaten well, are worried about their children, have work issues and so forth, they do not make the best decisions.

If in those moments their children ask something of them or push them too far, parents can often snap and yell unnecessarily at their kids. This behavior is then learned by children as the way to behave in these situations.

Even a good fluid parenting decision in a crisis is a bad one.

Parents must address their self-care. By regulating themselves, parents will be less likely to flip in a crisis and make poor, emotional decisions.

If both parents or partners are unregulated, have not cared for themselves, and act solely based on their emotions, then it is highly likely that their adult relationship has also suffered.

Have emotional conversations with an adult, whether that is your spouse, your co-parenting ex, or another adult that you are friends with to discuss your emotions, have your emotions be heard and reflected, and released.

When the parent then discusses an issue with their child, the parent can remain calm and collected and not release all their tension out upon the child.

It is harmful to the child and unproductive for the situation if the parent – the adult – is having a power struggle with the child.

Therapists can ask parents with high-risk kids: "what does taking care of yourself look like?"

If those parents do not practice self-care and self-regulation behaviors, therapists need to fully explain to the parents how they are hindering their ability to connect with their children when in a crisis.

Therapists need to get parents to understand that:

1 – Self-care is imperative to good parenting

2 – Tending to their adult relationship is vital to their being able to handle tension with their children

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Can untreated elevated blood sugar levels contribute to anxiety and depression? Which blood sugar-related symptoms can therapists look out for in their clients? What can you do to reduce insulin resistance?

Dr. Ritamarie specializes in using the wisdom of nature to restore balance to hormones. She places a special emphasis on thyroid, adrenal, and insulin imbalances. Dr. Ritamarie founded the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology to empower health and nutrition practitioners to get to the root cause of health concerns by using functional assessments and natural therapeutics to balance the endocrine system, the body's master controller.

Dr. Ritamarie is trained and certified in the art of using whole, fresh plant foods in delicious ways to restore balance to hormones and body systems, and she's trained and certified other health and wellness professionals – doctors, nurses, nutritionists, health coaches — in the art of using palate-pleasing, whole fresh food as medicine.

Visit her website, and connect with Dr. Ritamarie on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Listen to her Reinvent Healthcare podcast and read her books.

• How does blood sugar impact mental health?
• Which blood sugar-related symptoms therapists can therapists look out for?
• How to treat and steady blood sugar levels

Insulin is a hormone that transports sugar into the cells for the body to have energy.

Cells can become insulin resistant over time if someone eats too much sugar too frequently. Therefore, they have high blood sugar, but low levels of cellular sugar.

Sporadic blood sugar levels impact your memory, mood, attention span, ability to focus, as well as your production of serotonin and dopamine – happy hormones – in the gut and brain.

Therapists should lookout for some of the following symptoms in their clients that could relate to imbalanced blood sugar levels:

• If a client cannot go for two hours between meals and snacks without feeling cranky, moody, or irritable.
• If a client still feels hungry after eating a full meal.
• If the client is prone to exhaustion in the afternoon.
• If a client struggles to get up and start their day without a cup of coffee.
• If a client is constantly craving sugar and carbohydrates.

1 – Observe diet

Limit your intake of processed and highly refined food.

2 – Be conscious of your vitamin and mineral intake.

Highly sugary and processed foods can block or minimize the body's ability to absorb nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

Eat raw, healthy, whole foods wherever possible to ensure a higher vitamin content and take a good supplement.

3 – Reduce stress

Cortisol, the stress hormone, seeks out glucose – sugar – in the body to put into the blood when the person is feeling stressed or anxious.

Stress hormones cause a spike in blood sugar to help you run away from the stressor, like a lion. However, we have no lions in our streets, but we do have emotional and mental stressors daily.

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Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

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Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)