← Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Daily Self‑Compassion Routine: 10 Minutes to Reduce Anxiety & Improve Resilience
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If anxiety has been pulling you out of your life, this 10 minute daily practice can gently bring you back to yourself over and over.
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You can use it as many times as you want.
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This is something that is going to be here to support you through your anxiety and OCD recovery. And I'm so grateful. By the end of this video, you are going to have a repeatable daily self compassion practice and routine that you can use and make it specific to your specific needs, your specific wants, how
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you want your daily life to go. So as always, I'm going to encourage
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you to get a journal and we're going to go through this together. Most people wait until their anxiety is
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completely overwhelming before they start a self compassion practice. Now what I want you to know
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here is real resilience is built through repetitive, daily gentle, consistent support. This isn't support coming from other people.
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While that's wonderful, exactly what we want,
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we want to be the first line
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of defense when things get hard.
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We want to be a safe place for ourselves when we're engaging in our anxiety recovery.
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This practice is not about getting rid of anxiety.
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It's actually quite the opposite. It's about changing our relationship with the discomfort that we feel, the difficult emotions, the difficult times, and so that we can move towards being our absolute biggest supporter and our biggest cheerleader.
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Okay, so let's get started.
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Number one is to pause and check in. This should take you no more than two minutes. When we pause and check in, we're asking ourselves, what do we feel right now? We're naming emotions, we're looking and identifying where the discomfort is showing in our body. And we're not doing this to hyper focus on it. We're just here to acknowledge that it's uncomfortable. We're not trying to fix it, we're not trying to judge it, we're just noticing. And so what I would often encourage you to do is in your journal, sit down and just name it. Some scientists, Dan Siegel being one of them, has said that you've got to name an emotion to tame an emotion. And so this can be a very important practice. Before we move into the nuts and bolts of self compassion, you first have to know what you're dealing with. And so in this case, I want you just briefly, it can be bullet points. It doesn't have to be articulate, just write down what's going on, what are you feeling? Then we're going to move over to step two. This is where we identify what does help and what absolutely is not helping. Often what happens is if we don't slow down to reflect on these things. We tend to just repeat bad behaviors. We just keep doing things that aren't working and in that case, we just keep repeating and repeating and repeating and then we get frustrated on why things aren't improving. What we want to do instead is we want to identify specifically for you, not what your Uncle Bob says, not what your cousin says, not what your neighbor says specifically for you. What helps and what doesn't. We know when it comes to the practice of self compassion, one of the core questions we can ask ourselves is what do I need? This is such a beautiful and rich question that can help us identify specifically what it is that you can use to help soothe you and tend to your discomfort while you face your fears and move throughout your day. So you might ask yourself some of these questions. Number one, what have I been doing that is actually helping me towards my long term goals? And that additional concept of long term is so important because as you know, when you're anxious, if you only ask yourself what it is that will help you in that moment that you're panicking, you're going to run away, you're going to engage in a lot of avoidant behaviors. So we want to ask ourselves what actually helps that helps me meet the long term goal or my long term values. Another question you might ask is what have I been doing that makes this harder? Is it beating yourself up? Is it running to somebody else and asking them to fix it? Is it throwing your phone against the wall? Is it throwing a tantrum? Is it avoiding your work, procrastinating, beating yourself up? You know, binging on food or Netflix or being on your phone? There's nothing wrong with any of those things. We want to know specifically whether it's actually just making things harder for you. Try to leave your judgment at the door here. We're not here to judge you as good or bad. We're just trying to identify what serves you in the long term. And examples of this might be what helps might be rest or slowing down or calling a friend or texting a funny meme to somebody. And they might identify what doesn't help. Maybe it's rumination, maybe it's avoidance, maybe it's saying unkind things to yourself. What we want to do here is we want to focus just on the core goal of awareness, not on judgment. Now we're going to move over to step three. This is the greatest part here. This is my favorite. And it should take you again no longer than two minutes. This is where before we move into any strategy, we actually validate. Now, just this weekend I did this most beautiful Q and A with the folks who bought your self compassion toolkit, which is our online course for self compassion. And we made a point before anybody asked a question and before I answered it, we worked at validating the discomfort that they felt. So if someone said to me, what do I do if A, B and C happens? Before I even attempt to answer that, before I go to solve it, I pause and I validate how that must be painful for them. And I want you to really focus on this as a core part of what you practice in your daily self compassion routine. If there is one thing you take away from from today, it's that we must practice validating more. Now. This is not self pity. This isn't not woe is me. It's not saying things are awful and terrible, it's just acknowledging that, yeah, things are hard. So an example of self validation might be, yeah, of course I feel this way. It makes complete sense that I feel this way or anybody in this exact situation would feel very, very similarly and that there's nothing wrong with the emotions that you're feel. This is what we do when we validate our own suffering. I cannot tell you how often a client will come to therapy and sit down with me and say, listen, I need help with blank, I need help with going to this event this weekend, or I need help with this test, or I need help going to the doctor, whatever it is they need help with very soon after they admit that they need help, they will often, not always, but they will often say, I know it's stupid, I shouldn't be worried about this. And I will often pause and say, wait, let's use this as an opportunity to instead of criticize and invalidate yourself, let's use it as an opportunity to validate just how hard this is. Now, their response, and I'm guessing maybe your response might be, yeah, but it should shouldn't be this hard or I shouldn't be having a hard time with this or this should be easier and if that's the case, let's slow it down. I'm going to ask who says remember anyone would probably feel this way if they had been through exactly what you've been through or if they have your specific anxiety condition, your specific ocd, your specific obsession, it would be hard for anyone if they had the exact symptoms that you're having. So we really want to make sure that validation is the core of your self compassion practice. We want to normalize your experience. We don't want to pathologize it, we want to validate. Because that when we do that is it reduces that internal pressure, it reduces the judgment. Now remember, if you have a problem, I want you to bring to mind one problem that you have today. It could be a large problem, it could be a very small problem if you judge yourself for having that problem. Now you have two problems. You have the problem and you have the negative emotions around judgment of yourself for having that problem. Now, we are not in this game to add to our suffering. Remember, the whole point that I'm here to do is to help reduce your suffering. I'm not here to give you quick fixes, I'm not here to give you this miracle cure. I'm here to give you evidence based skills that actually help you and where in the business you and me are in the business of reducing suffering, not making it worse. So really do practise strengthening that muscle just like you do bicep curls at the gym or just like you practice the piano. If you're learning the piano, I want you to practice the skill of validation. Now we're going to move over to step number four. This is identifying what I call matters to me action. And I'm going to explain what that means. But you're going to give yourself about two to three minutes each day to do this. Now, the more you do this, the easier this will get. So this actually may take less and less time the more you practise it. But matters to me. Actions are the equivalent of what we call value based actions. So when I teach the Rumination Reset, which is our online course for rumination, I teach people how to practice bringing their attention to, to the present moment instead of focusing on fear and dread and uncertainty and anger and guilt and shame and all of those things that can distract us. And so once we've identified that we are ruminating, then we bring our attention to the present and then we move into an action that matters to me. We want you to practice including if actions that matter to you. And a lot of the time when anxiety comes, the first thing to go is the actions that matter to you. We end up spending too much time beating ourselves up and avoiding and ruminating and catastrophizing and overthinking and reassurance seeking and doing compulsions instead of engaging in the actual actions that matter to you. Remember we talked before about like long term recovery, what matters, what will help me in the long term? That's the matters to me. Actions. So here are some examples of what a matters to me action might be. It could be your health. It could be nature. It could be work ethic. It could be giving back. It could be education or learning something new. It could be just being still and resting. It could be humour and laughter and joy. It could be simply just coffee, right? In those moments when we start to get hard on ourselves, we can just bring to mind something that matters to us and bring our attention to that thing.
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Now as you know, I have a private practice. I have six amazing therapists in Calabasas, California. However, we do not take insurance. Now if you are looking for insurance insurance covered OCD or BFRB treatment, I want to let you know about nocd. NOCD provides face to face live video sessions with specialized licensed OCD therapists. Now their therapists use exposure and response prevention. We know this is the gold standard for ocd. So you can be absolutely confirmed that you're in the right place there. And they have a clinically proven app that helps you see stay connected to your therapist and others who have OCD between sessions. So you'll always feel supported. Now the cool thing is NOCD is available in all 50 US states and even internationally and they accept most insurance plans, making it affordable and accessible.
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We love that.
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Now if you think you might have OCD or you're struggling to manage your symptoms, you can book a free call. Just click the link in the show notes@nocd.com I am honored to partner with NOCD. I want to remind you that recovery is possible. Please do not forget that. Now big hugs and let's get back to the show.
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Now if you're wanting to learn more about the Rumination reset, you can head over to cbtschool.com or you can click the link in the Show Notes. It'll take you straight to that course. It's an on demand course course. It's probably one of the most favorite courses I've made, although I do tend to say that about every course that I make. But I really do feel like it's a very, very specific solution to a very, very specific problem, which is rumination. But ultimately, for the sake of this episode, the reason we do this is the kindest thing you can do is to invest your time and attention into the things that matter to you, that bring you joy, that make you feel good about yourself. Often when we beat ourselves up, when we have an anxiety disorder or we have depression, that negative critical voice in our head can be so mean, so painful. So just outright Rude, right? And what happens with that is we start to lose our own sense of identity, we start to lose our confidence, we start to lose our sense of self. And what we know based on research is the more you engage in these small actions, these matters to me actions, the more we can improve and increase our self confidence. That is where we get the confidence from.
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We build it.
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We don't build self esteem by winning. In fact, we have lots of research to show that that is a short term relief of self worth. Real confidence, real self esteem, real sense of purpose comes from when we're engaging in actions not for the outcome but for the process, for the learning and the growing and the expansion of our own experience. So do make sure that you identify those matters to me actions and then write them down in your journal so that you can make sure you put them into practice. Now if you know what these are, this is like a no brainer for you. You can use this time to actually do the things that matter to you. So for me, if I had three minutes and let's say I was like, okay, part of my routine is to do a matters to me action, I would text somebody and say, how are you doing? Because that matters to me. I would reach out to someone who I wanted to maybe have a relationship with, I wanted to network with, maybe for my work, because that matters to me. Maybe I would check my bank account. If, you know, financial security mattered to me, I would maybe do that. There are so many ways in which you can quickly engage in matters to me activities instead of beating yourself up now. Extra bonus points if you make it delicious. If you make it so wonderful. I have been thinking you guys are going to laugh at me, but I did a post on this a couple of weeks ago and actually got a lot of attention. Which is sometimes the kindest thing you can do is just wear nice underwear. I'm not talking about expensive underwear. I'm just talking about underwear that doesn't cut you at the hips, that doesn't feel uncomfortable. Sometimes that is the kindest thing you can do. So you get extra points here if you can make your matters to me actions absolutely delicious and gentle and soft and cuddly and make you get the warm and fuzzies. Okay? So do try to highlight that as you're identifying those actions. Now we move on to number five. And this is going to be key. Now that you've got your journal out and you're on a roll, I want you to practice one of the skills that I teach in your self Compassion toolkit, which is you're going to write your pocket compassion note. This should take you no more than one minute. You can take longer if you want, but I want you to write a short, kind message to yourself. I want you to keep it simple, but I want you to keep it believable. I'm not saying you are Kimberly, you are the best looking person on the planet. Maybe I wouldn't believe that, right? Or you are the most intelligent human. Like I don't believe that. So we don't want it to be just fluff. We want it to be something that is simple and kind and believable. Now if you are just starting out with this and at this point you've been so mean to yourself that nothing is believable, you could just simply write, I am a human and humans deserve respect. If kindness is too hard for you just yet, just start with self respect. Meeting yourself with the same level of respect that you would meet any other human being. Examples that you could also use. I'm right here with you. You could also say, you don't have to solve everything today. You could say, I'm going to treat you with kindness today. You could say, you're doing great. Keep going. You just want to write something very gentle and kind. You're going to fold it up and you're going to put it in your pocket or your purse or whatever it is that you tend to carry around so that if you ever get stuck, you're having a really rough day, you're having a lot of anx, you can recall it, you can bring it out and it's going to be there for you when you need it. I cannot tell you how many times I have used this. It is amazing. Especially if you put some happy emoji faces or some hearts or you put it on nice paper. And then what you can do, and this is what we do in your self compassion toolkit, is we move up and up and up to where you write an actual letter to yourself. Now if you want to move straight to that, by all means do. But for the sake of this episode, we just wanted a 10 minute routine, something you could do every single day. And I want you to write a new note every single day. Think about as we did at the beginning, what's something that's happening today? We're going to identify what works and what doesn't work right as we did. We're going to validate how uncomfortable it's going to be. We're going to go through the steps and then you're going to write a note to yourself on something that will help support you as you go through today and then you'll do this whole routine again tomorrow. Number six is commit to staying on your own team. This should take no more than two minutes, but this is something I want you to do with gusto. This is a commitment you make to yourself on how you are going to treat yourself. Not based on how you feel, not based on what your thoughts are, but no matter what you are committing to yourself. Pinky promise that you are going to stand by yourself no matter what. Absolutely, unconditionally. It doesn't matter how strong those intrusive thoughts come, you're going to stand by yourself. Doesn't matter how much you fail, you're going to stand by yourself. It doesn't matter how strong the emotions are. You are going to show up and commit to practicing kindness and respect and non judgment and validation. This is something, now that we've practiced it a little, we're going to extend it into the day. But this is a commitment. I don't want you to try this for one day and be like, ugh, didn't work. This is something you do every single day for the rest of your life. And it will get easier. There will be days when it will be hard, but overall I promise you it will get easier. And you deserve it. You absolutely deserve this. Now let's do a review. The 10 minute daily reset for self compassion involves number one, you do a check in. Number two, you identify what helps and what does not. Number three. And most important, you validate your emotions and your experience no matter what. Number four, you identify your matters to me actions. And then you write a pocket compassion note for number five. Number six, you commit to staying on your own team. And then after that you go for it. You go at it. We go and we put it into practice. Now remember, you don't just do all this and then be like, oh cool, I can go back to beating myself up. Then you've set the tone for the day, then you move it on. Now the thing I want you to remember here is you're not going to want to do this. You're going to think it's so much better to scroll on your phone. So make sure you habit stack this with something that's already a routine. Maybe you do it while you brush your teeth and you put your makeup on. Maybe you do it while you drive in the car. It doesn't matter as long as we stack it. Science shows that habits become more Solid when we stack it with events that you've already got as a part of your routine. So do try to make sure that you put that piece into play. Set an alarm if you have to, whatever it takes. As always, I want to remind you that nobody is perfect. You are going to suck at this. That's what I say to all my patients. That's what I say to all my students. You are going to suck at this. And that's okay. But with 1% improvements, you will be shocked at where you are this time next month, this time next week, maybe this time next year. We're just looking for baby steps. You don't need this to get less anxiety. We're not doing it to make you feel, quote, unquote, relief from anxiety. We're doing this so that you feel feel less alone. Our goal here is to be present. It's to stay kind. It's to stay as non judgmental as we can. And it's to strengthen a skill that you deserve. This is a skill that you deserve, no matter what. Now, as always, I'm so grateful for you. As you know, I am on a mission to change as many lives as I can here. So please do share this with at least one person that you think this will help. Now, as always, before we leave, I have one main message for you and that is it is a beautiful day to do hard things. I am so impressed that you are here doing this work with me. I'm so grateful that you've trusted me to do this work with you. I really know how important your time is. So thank you so much for being here. I want to remind you here that this podcast is here for you. I want you to remember that if something doesn't sit well with you, if something isn't exactly what you need to hear, trust that just because I'm saying it and I'm telling you even that science is here to back it. I want you to get really good at identifying that not everything is for everybody. So really listen to your body, listen to what's best for you and trust that you know what you need. I'm so grateful you're here. I cannot wait to see you in the next episode and I hope you have a wonderful week. Please note that this podcast or any other resources from CBTSchool.com should not replace professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day and thank you for supporting CBTSchool.com.