Real Tools for Women's Mental Health

Real Tools for Women's Mental Health

Tiffany Roe talks about trends in women's mental health and shares the top strategies and tools that help her clients thrive at the Utah Women's Leadership Speaker & Dialogue Series titled: “Women's Health & Wellbeing: Strengthen Your Capacity to Influence and Flourish.”
November 6, 2019

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Thank you so much for sticking around with us tonight. As Susan mentioned earlier, we do a lot of research here at the Utah Women and Leadership Project, and we do research on a wide variety of topics. Sometimes people say, “What does poverty have to do with leadership? What does substance use disorders have to do with leadership or mental health?” What we explain to people, what I hope all of us here understand is that we can't even start thinking about how to influence and use our voice in order to make a difference in our families, homes, communities, neighborhoods unless the basic aspects of our own lives are where they need to be. So we're so thrilled tonight to be talking about real tools for women's mental health. So our speaker tonight is Tiffany Roe, a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, Psychology Teacher Speaker, Therapy Thoughts Podcast Hosts, and owner of Mindful Counseling here in Oregon. She passionately helps her clients remember they are enough. Tiffany is focused to care on her career on treatment for women navigating disordered eating, poor body image, poor relationships with themselves and food, anxiety, life transitions and self-worth. Tiffany personally survived an eating disorder and has been fully recovered from more than 12 years. She worked to dismantle diet culture and feels call to work with women and to help them find their true purpose and self-worth. She believes you can love yourself, your mind, your body, and your relationship with food. So with that, I'll turn the time over to Tiffany. Thank you. What's up? I'm so excited to talk to you tonight. I'm going to teach you all my best stuff, you're ready? This is going to be interactive, you're going to get a couple few grand worth of free therapy. Ready? I'm going to do a Q&A at the end. Does anyone want to ask questions to me? You want to do that? So we'll do that for like 15 minutes at the end. I like to put people on the spot. So throughout, I'll probably be like asking some questions. Let's rock and roll. Women's mental health facts. One in five women have a mental illness. When I talk about a mental illness, this is diagnosable mental health disorders. Eating disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression, bipolar disorder. One in five of us. So if there's 100 of us in this room, some of us are struggling. Raise your hand if you've ever had a mental health disorder? Look around Joe. We'll get to banish that stigma. Mental health is not a moral failure, it's not a weakness, and it's not a frequent choice. Let's be very clear about that. This is a struggle that causes distress, it impairs functioning, it's real, and we're going to talk about tools that help. We have anxiety and depression at two times the rate of men. What is up with that? I got a couple of thoughts, why we have higher rates is one we're socialized to have higher rates. So we're using gender norms here, I want to acknowledge that. Like gender's not necessarily as binary thing, but we treat it as such in our culture. So men are told to shut up and not have emotions and just be pissed off or happy. Women are socialized to ruminate, to have emotion, to share emotion, to embrace. So we are more likely to report this, therefore, it may seem like we have doubled the rate, but I'm going to argue we are all struggling. But we're a lot safer to report our mental health struggles as women. One in nine women will have a major depressive episode in any given year. Major depressive episodes they're scary because there's a high risk of suicide with major depressive episodes. So you've got to watch for this. If you're struggling, don't be afraid to say, hey, I'm suicidal. Don't be afraid to ask if someone's suicidal. Myth, talking about suicide causes suicide. So I had a client today in my office, the most suicidal person I've ever met, and I was scared. But I looked at it and I said, how do you want to hurt yourself? You can talk to me about this. How would you do that? No wonder you're so depressed. Don't be afraid to ask someone what's going on because one in nine of us are really struggling. Women are twice as likely to experience PTSD. Also really scary stuff. PTSD isn't just going to war. You know what else causes PTSD? Shout it out. Sexual abuse, sexual assault which only very recently we acknowledged in the DSM as a valid cause of PTSD. That's absolutely traumatizing, what else? Domestic violence. Domestic violence. Divorce, yes, thank you for saying something that is so deeply traumatizing that we can ignore, and it can really cause impact on someone's life. Anyone here who struggle with infertility? Miscarriage? Children getting illness. We've got to open up our eyes, this isn't just trauma due to war which is absolutely a cause of PTSD, car accidents, all kinds of stuff. Women, 85-95 percent of people with anorexia and bulimia are women. That's all, what? You do not hear those statistics about anything, 95 percent of something is ridiculous. That's a lot of percentages of people dealing with these specific eating disorders. Sixty-five percent of people with binge eating disorder are women. Binge-eating disorder is the most common eating disorder, and we don't talk about it. One in four women who diet will go on to develop an eating disorder. This is my thing, I get a little so poxy here, so pardon me. One in four people who diet, how many of you all have been on a diet? Twenty-five percent of us will get an eating disorder. That's my story. That's a lot. That's a high risk situation. This is what impacts women, we got to watch out for this. Then one in three women will have experienced violence in their life. We are in a college campus, this is a high-risk population. So I'm going to talk about some real deal tools tonight. You ready? I like the energy. A couple of themes. I'm just dangling the tools. I'm going to hit you with some tools but one more anecdotal thing. I've been a counselor for almost 10 years, and these are the themes I see with women in mental health and it's blowing my mind. Doesn't matter how old you are, if you have kids, if you don't, if you've been hustling in the workforce, if you're single, if you're married, it doesn't matter. We all feel bad for taking care of ourselves. We feel bad for wanting more. The women I work with who are moms never feel good enough. The women who aren't moms never feel good enough. Single, really struggling in this area. Married, really struggling. Dating, really struggling, and they feel bad for wanting to feel good. We're socialized to default to guilt and self-sacrifice. So we feel bad for self-care, and we are taught our worth is based on approval from others. Anyone battle that self-defeating belief? I need other people's love acceptance and approval to be okay. It's a women's issue that I see over and over, the men don't come in my office and say that. We're bombarded with messages of you just aren't enough. So let's combat that today. Number 1, self-care. Self-care means this, this is the definition, it is knowing and meeting your needs, that's what self-care is. You can never step in a hair salon or nail salon and do great self-care. Self-care is not synonymous with pampering. Self-care is knowing and meeting your needs. So if you're standing in your kitchen and you're overwhelmed with work or school assignments, and you feel like you're just starting to clinch, and your head's racing, self-care says what do I need right now? Water is self-care. Yesterday, I felt like I was having a panic attack because people are coming to look at my house because I'm selling it and it wasn't clean. So I said Tiffany Roe, what do you need? I needed to go lay my head on my dog's stomach and get grounded. That self-care. Like I was losing it, I was getting all stressed out and I needed to get grounded and listen to an animal's breath and just get grounded, that's self-care. So here's permission to think about self-care in a new way to open up your mind and think about how do I meet my needs? How do I get safe? How do I meet my physical needs? Water, sleep. How do I meet my mental needs? Positive affirmations? How do I meet my emotional needs? I set boundaries. The best boundary in the world is no. Just say no, it's boundary. Spiritual needs. I liked what our last speaker was talking about connection, grace, joy, finding something that fills you up, and then your social needs. So again, this isn't synonymous with hampering, it doesn't have to cost you any money. That's a self-care myth, and you can do it right now. I hope you're thinking of a need you can meet because that's all curious. The next real tool is challenged, there's a right way pressure. So there's a right way to do something, messes up a lot of my clients and it messes of me. So there's a right way to parent, there's a right way to be a perfect student, there's a right way to be the best employee. What's right is what works for you. So this isn't a moral discussion, this is a cognitive thinking discussion. So when you're pressuring yourself with perfectionism, this is what I'm talking about; challenging perfectionism and saying what's right is what works for me. So I want to talk about permission slips and I want you to write down some permission slips around this. What's something in your life that is pressure-focus, perfectionism focus that you are really stuck on doing a right way? For me. It's being a mom. Never cut myself a break there. So I need to write a permission slip that says, “There's no right way.” Keep him alive today. So what permission slip do you need to write down for yourself to challenge that there's a right way pressure? Here's some ideas: I need permission to make mistakes and to improve. I do all kinds of marketing on Instagram, and part of that is like a constant call out culture. Whenever I say something wrong, I hear about it. I have to constantly give myself permission to make mistakes. After constantly give myself permission to blow it, to screw up, to say the wrong thing, to look like a butt hole in front of lots of people, it's okay to improve. Anyone else need that kind of permission? So write that down. You need permission to be imperfect, to set boundaries, to be assertive, to take breaks, permission to relax. Any type of A's in the room who struggled bus with relaxation? Permission to succeed and achieve your goals, permission to learn grow, and permission to be yourself. So if any of these resonate with you if you got anything else in your mind, write down this permission slips. I'm the kind of girl who has like post-it notes everywhere reminding me how to act right. So my bathroom mirror has all of this, just getting through it. So you can write these, you can put them on your phone, you can make them screensavers by giving yourself permission. Boundaries, it's like every therapist's favorite word. I love boundaries. I'm going to tell you how to set them today. You are allowed to say no and not feel guilty, and a lot of people spend years in therapy trying to get this one down. So if this is hard for you, have some grace and self-compassion. Some boundary ideas I think about because I think most of us think, “Oh no I got to set boundaries with people and hurt people's feelings.” Boundaries protect you, boundaries simply define what you're comfortable with and what you're uncomfortable with. So I think of boundaries like playing any sport. There's rules of engagement, and you have to learn the rules to play the game right. So if I have a relationship with any one of you, you need to tell me the rules because I might do something that hurt you. So I want to reframe boundaries out of this like, “Scary, oh no, I'm going to disappoint people, I'm going to hurt people's feelings, people won't like me,” into, “Boundaries enable relationships.” By telling people what works for you and what doesn't work for you, you can have a really cool relationship with them. Boundaries are on social media, work, school, turning off your phone, taking breaks, saying yes, or saying no, those are all boundaries. Three steps, how do I do that? Step 1, 2, setting a boundary is expressing gratitude. Trying to think of an example. I recently got invited on a girls' trip and two the women in the group are pregnant, and I'm currently going through IVF, and it triggers the hell out of me. So here's the boundary I set, express gratitude, “Thank you for inviting me on this girls' trip. I really appreciate that. Thanks for including me.” Number 2, set the boundary, “I'm not going to be attending the trip this year.” The end. Does that make anyone uncomfortable not explaining why? It makes me uncomfortable, but I really work at this. “I will not be attending.” Expressed importance of relationships step 3, “I sure love you guys. Super stoked to hang out next time.” How uncomfortable are you with that? But how empowered are you by that? So think about setting boundaries in your life. How do I set boundaries with people and take care of myself? Women's mental health, we self sacrifice, we don't take care of ourselves, we feel bad, so here's permission to say your needs matter. Your emotions matter. If you're not going to take care, number 1, no one else is. So it's your responsibility to take care of yourself. Self-compassion, I love it so much. This is all the research. I'm going to break this down very simply. There's three pieces of self-compassion: self kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. This explains all of it if you care. You can take a screenshot, but self-compassion is very simply being cool to yourself. I call that not being a butt hole to yourself. Treating yourself with kindness, treating yourself like you would a friend who you love. Kristen Neff is the self-compassion guru research head poncho N-E-F-F, Kristen with a K. I really love her work. She explains these three components, but I'd rather have you experience it. You ready to do some work? Okay. I'm holding this microphone so I can't perfect. Well, here we go. Let's problem-solved. Thank you. Okay. I want you to use your hands and put them on your cheeks. Just do this in your mind's eye and repeat after me to yourself, “Hey, baby girl. I see you. I'm with you. I know what you've been through. I know how hard it's been. Your suffering is real, your trials, your struggles, you matter. Your needs matter, and dang, it's been hard. I care, I got your back.” Spree that in. Now, take those hands and put them on the back of your neck. Feel that touch, that self soothing. “I won't abandon you. I care how you feel. I'm here for you. Your values matter, your beliefs matter. I'm committed to showing up for you.” Just breathe that in, and put those hands on your heart. Just fill that beat, connect to your heartbeat. If you can't feel it that's okay. Give yourself some gratitude. Wow, we've really made it this far. I'm not going to judge your experience, I see it, I honor it. It matters and it's okay to feel how you feel. Have empathy for you. Then by saying I love you baby girl, breathe that in. That's self-compassion. That's not feel. You know when babies have failure to thrive like little brand-new humans, you know what we give them to help them live? Skin contact. Skin to skin. It doesn't have to be their birth mother. Skin to skin contact. There's something about human touch we need that. Yeah, when's the last time someone touched you? You've got to show up for yourself, give yourself this kindness and that connection and that compassion. It's a 100 percent okay to accept help. This is the next real deal tool. My first suggestion is reminding you that therapy is cool. You know what I'm saying? It's okay to get therapy. Who gets therapy? I do. I've been in therapy since I was like 16. Who else in this room gets therapy? Therapy is for people who value mental health, that's who gets therapy. I want to acknowledge there's accessibility issues and a lot of barriers. Most of my clients who come to therapy with me say they've been on wait lists with lots of different therapists, lots of different times. Access, insurance is a problem. So we got to vote for mental health. But therapy is cool. We got to get past the stigma and we have to stop blaming people for mental illness. None of us opt in to that or choose that, it's not a choice. Medication is smart. I take anti-anxiety medication. I have been on and off of it for my whole life. Medication is something else that's stigmatized, that it stems from this cultural belief that it's weak to accept help. It's weak to need something outside of ourselves. So I'm here to just remind you, you can be extremely bad ass and successful and still need help. I'm very open as a therapist saying like I get help. Because hopefully that gives someone permission to also get help. It's not a personal failure, it doesn't mean you're broken. So watch the shame, watch the stigma that you have about getting help. So many of us are chronically under-supported, it's okay to accept support. I swear I tell every single one of my clients to skip a therapy session and buy a Roomba instead. The Roomba is literally like robot vacuum. Deadass my Roomba is like my best friend. It's part of my mental health plan like I need my Roomba vacuum. I need that support in my life. How are you under-supported and what can you do to fill that? Who can you ask? What can you invest in? Being here is giving you support. You're surrounded by women, right? It's okay to need help. So many of my clients I might tell them it's okay to buy a Roomba vacuum. They cry and they're like shoulders drop like, ”Thank you for the permission.” So here's permission. Something else. You don't have to be 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. In fact you don't have to be a 100 percent ever. That's another permission slip you can write. Something else about accepting help, stress is normal. So it's good to take care of yourself. Permission to step out of that and to slow down and to challenge this you have to be hustling and busy to be worthy kind of a thing. Therapy, I've already talked on this it's not for weak or crazy peoples, it's for everyone. So embracing that, and you can benefit from this unbiased professional ear: it's for everyone. That's who needs therapy is fricking everyone. Make sure you make appointments for stress management and work-life balance. So accepting help can look like acupuncture, can look like energy work, can look like chiropractic massage, something like this. You're here for a massage. Yeah. Just keep cruising. Ooh, this is something I'm so excited about, validation. Self-validation. If I leave one message with you tonight I hope this is it. This is something I really care about. This is the best skill I got. It's the golden pill, magic pill. Validation is the cure we all need. Okay. I mean this with all my heart and soul, your feelings matter. In order for us to have mental health resilience and optimism, and balance, we have to learn to validate our own feelings. Not relying on external validation from other people but it's got to come from inside. Have any of you asked someone you care about for reassurance a million times and it's never enough? Not that I know anything about this but my husband I have harassed him for 10 years just to prove if he loves me. “Do you love me?” “Are you really?” He's told me every day for 10 years and I still I'm like, ”But I need you to tell me again.” Anyone else? It's not just me, right? Seeking that external validation never fills us up because it means we've got these holes in our bucket if we're that desperate for it. So it just seeps through, it's a temporary high when we get external validation. That's why I want you to rely on self-validation. It's okay to seek that. It's okay to ask your partner if they love you, that's fine. I love that, I love that we can ask that. But you getting your own back is where the magic is. So when I want to ask my husband if he loves me what am I needing? I'm needing to know if I'm lovable, if I'm worthy, if someone could possibly accept me. So I got to put my hand on my heart, and my cheeks, my neck and say, “Okay, baby girl. I got your back. I love you. At least I'm not going to give up on you.” Whatever. So that's self-validation. I want you to get this tattooed on your face, it's okay. I don't care what you feel. I feel some really horrible things as someone who deals with infertility. There's been times where I see a pregnant person and I say I hate that person. This is the kind of stuff I do in therapy with people and they're like ”I do feel that I wish I had permission,” and I say, ”It's okay.” So I make anyone kind of like uncomfortable to think about it's okay to hate, or rage and anger, like it's okay, or pain and depression and sadness, like it's okay. Not that I want us to follow through, or be violent, or be aggressive, or be chronically depressed but I'm just proposing self validation says it's okay that you feel that, and by saying that, guess what? It goes away. So this is self validation, it's okay that I feel as it doesn't matter what it is, you just say it's okay. Replace but with because, this is the secret for validation. So instead of saying, “I shouldn't feel this because my life so good. I shouldn't feel this way about my parents because they tried their best. I shouldn't be mad at my professor because whatever,” I don't know what examples. Instead of saying because and invalidating yourself, I want you to validate yourself by saying, so here's an example, “I hate pregnant women and that's okay because it's been really hard not being able to be pregnant.” Or “It's okay that I'm really mad at my mom or my dad because that trauma has impacted my whole life.” So instead of invalidating yourself, I want you to validate and just give yourself permission to feel whatever you feel. Don't downsize, minimize, label yourself as wrong, don't insult yourself, don't tell yourself it's bad. We just want to get rid of all of these and instead say it's okay to feel what you feel. Allow space for emotion, unconditional permission to feel is the key because by allowing yourself to feel it, it can pass, it's a paradox. Does that make sense? Feelings are like annoying little kids at a pool, they are like “Pay attention to me, watch, look at what I'm doing,” and all you need to do is say, ”Cool, I see you,” and then they move on. Just give them attention, emotions are just energy that passes, and the more we say ”You're annoying, stop trying to get my attention,” the harder they try. So the paradox of emotion is by feeling it and accepting it it'll pass. Energy in motion, that's what emotion is and when we resist it, it persists. It's the best thing I got as a therapist you all. This is it, accepting emotion, validating it is the key. I'll go more in depth into that if you need me to during Q&A. Feel, deal, heal is another really good technique that builds off of validation. Feel, deal, heal is an approach to mental health that says, you feel things, you deal with things, and then you heal. It's the opposite of avoid, ignore, and suppress. Most of us suck at this because we have not been taught to feel, and learning to feel is a skill and it's a muscle that we have to build. So how do you feel, ready to practice with me? These one can feel a little bit vulnerable, so if at anytime you're like I'm uncomfortable to a point that you're not feeling cool, just stop. I'm going to ask you to close your eyes and to locate sensation in your body. I want you to pretend like we have a metal detector, that's an emotion detector. We're going to go from the top of your head and try to scan and see if you got any emotion in your body. How do you know if there's emotion? Just sensation, that's all it is. So maybe you notice a little tingling or tightness in your chest. Maybe you notice a little pit in your stomach. Maybe there's some tension in your shoulders. I just want you to notice wherever it is and just give it attention and we're just going to say “Interesting” and stay with it. I want this metal detector to give us all kinds of information. Just notice how big is this emotion in your body. Would you say it's big or small? Now, would you say it's heavy or light? Would you say it's stuck or moving around? What substance is it? Does it look like a mist or a goo or like a rock or something? Notice the substance. Light and airy or heavy. Notice what color it is. Don't push it away, don't judge it, it's not right, wrong, good, bad, should, shouldn't, it just is. Notice the shape. So take a shape. You guys are doing so good. Take a big all deep breath. We just felt and I want you to deal with it. How we are going to deal with it is just look at it and say, “It's okay for you to be here. You matter. I won't push you away. All my feelings are valid. I'm going to give you the time and space and attention that you need. It's safe to feel you. Thanks for the information you're giving me,” and take a big old deep breath. Notice, you can open your eyes now if it's cool to do so, did the sensation shift for anyone? Did it move around? Feel, deal, heal means you stop, you feel, and you deal with it instead of saying, “I don't want to feel this, I push it away, I can't deny, I have to avoid this.” Imagine making that a practice with any emotion that you face where you feel it and you deal with it. It's pretty revolutionary in emotional health. There's a couple other ways to do that. What I just taught you is a form of mindfulness. So mindfulness means you're just paying attention without judgment. Sensation, interesting. You're getting present, so instead of getting in the story of whatever your story is, just getting present and feeling. It's being right here and right now. It's what the magic is. It's using your five senses, like what's the temperature? Right now, you can be mindful and notice how it feels to sit on your chair. Just notice your posture, don't change it. Just notice it. So hard not to shift right. Notice how your bum feels on the chair, is there more weight on one side than the other, notice how your legs are, just notice. Just right here right now. You can shift, you're not not allowed to move, but using your senses to tune in, what's your temperature? Here's another good therapy skill, ready for an interaction? I wrote ”Feel your pants.” It's actually called ”Rub it out”. So I'm going to show you how to do that, ready? Do this with me please. Keep rubbing your pants and notice what's the texture of your pants feel like. Soft, ridges, a little bumpy, a little soft, a little prickly. Just keep rubbing. Notice sensations on your palms as you're doing that, what's the sensation on your palms? Little friction. Anyone feeling heat? Keep it going. Notice the difference on your thighs versus your palms. Is it a different sensation? It is, isn't it a little less there? Keep going, trust me. How's the sensation changing on your palms? Anyone getting numb yet? Yeah. Does it feel a little bit different on your fingertips versus the palms? Just notice that. Stop. What are you think about? Your hands. Maybe how weird I am, but you're thinking about your hands mostly. Is this magic? This is a grounding technique that forces your prefrontal cortex, the mature evolutionized part of your brain to say, I'm going to think about right here right now; temperature, texture, sensation. You weren't thinking about whatever you were thinking about before. That's a grand of therapy. You're welcome. Just kidding. So feel your pants. You could do this if you're panicking or stressed or having a lot of anxiety or depression, you can snap your brain out of emotional snowball and get present. There's nothing magical about this other than it's very easy to focus. You can do that idea with anything. Grab a pen and use it to prompt your attention into the present moment, that's the whole point. The pants are just always with you so it's easy, mostly always with you. Journaling is another great tool to feel, deal, heal whether that's free association, meaning you just write whatever, or you do deep digging, deep prompts into specific questions. I really recommend journaling. Something that's really cool is using your non-dominant hand to journal. This is the weird psychology stuff. So what you can do is write a question with your dominant hand. So if you're right-handed, hey, what do we need to focus on today? Then you bust out your non-dominant hand and let it answer. Now if you want to get even more deep into your brain in your subconscious in work, you can visualize your inner-child. I think I have a slide on inner-child works, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but visualize little you and be like, “What's up little you? What should we talk about today?” Your non-dominant hand is going to be your inner-child's voice. It's accessing the other hemisphere of your brain into a part of you that is not typically conscious. Love the faces. The reactions are very cool. Moving on. That's me, inner-child work. So the whole idea with inner-child work is be a loving parent to yourself, repairing yourself. We all have different experiences with our folks and they did the job that they did. I just want to give you permission to say it's your job now and your responsibility to meet your needs as an adult. This isn't about hating or rejecting or blaming anyone, this is about you accepting responsibility for meeting your needs. Inner-child work is personally a really powerful pillar of my own recovery and my own mental health and I encourage it for most of my clients. This can be very emotional and triggering particularly if you have childhood trauma. So if you're having weird feelings about this, don't worry about it, you'll be called to when it's your time, but if this is really calling you now, your brain might be ready. The idea is as you start meeting your needs as a loving responsible parent, healing the wounds of your little kid you. So it's very much a symbolic relationship of, “Come on little me, let's go to the pet store and have a good time. Hey, I'm going to wear pink today because that feels like that would nurture my inner-child, or hey, I'm not going to say mean words to myself, because I'm not going to talk to this little kid this way.” It's connecting to yourself like a loving parent would. It's validating your feelings. So when you were a little kid and you got the message that you're dumb or something's wrong with you or you're not good enough, you're the adult now who says, “No, that's BS. You are enough. I say so, because I know you and I know how to meet your needs.” So it's really empowering work. You're going to teach yourself emotional regulation tools. So do any of you throw temper tantrums still? I do. I always throw temper tantrums when businesses don't do their job right. I don't know why. I'm trying to figure this issue out how come I throw fit when things don't go my way like, “Comcast, you're so slow, I'm going to throw a temper tantrum.” You get to say, “Hey, little you, it's okay if things don't go your way. Let's talk about patience and breathing skills and getting through this.” You become a responsible parent and start to teach yourself how to act right. You start to manage these childhood emotions that run your life. If you're loving what I'm talking about this, this is all John Bradshaw stuff. He's old school like late '70s, early '80s. He talked a lot about addiction, recovery and shame way before Bernie Brown did. He was talking about shame and overcoming dysfunctional families. So you could pick up some books by John Bradshaw. Another way to do inner-child work is keep a promise to yourself everyday. Have you ever been like, I'm going to drink eight glass of water everyday, and you don't drink water for like a week? All of my examples are very personal by the way, so it's just throwing myself into the bus. You would keep a promise and say doesn't matter I drink water no matter what and you keep that promise to yourself or you journal for three minutes every day no matter what. You start keeping promises because you deserve it and you deserve to trust yourself and you deserve to meet your needs. Setting boundaries is good inner-child work. Then a couple of other things you can do, grab a picture of little you, put it on your screen, on your phone, put it on your car dashboard, put it in your journal where you see it everyday, and connect and just think about her. You could write her a letter, do the non-dominant hand stuff and just tap into her joy. What does she want to do? Literally when my clients are like, tell me what their inner-child does, I tell them to literally do it. So they'll like my inner-child wants to choose lizards. You have to go chase lizards, do not let her down. You have to go climb a tree, sorry, you have to wear a princess dress, literally connecting to this piece of you. You guys down to try it? It's really powerful work. Affirmations. You ready to practice with me? We're going to do another real tool here and I'm going to have you practice live and direct with someone next to you. There's the high percentage that you will cry and I want you to just have permission to do that. Emotion, tears, that's energy that literally leaving your body's stress release. So if this triggers that, don't trip, that's very normal. If not, it's fine. That's all. Those were fantastic final words. Thank you so much. You've already done it, but put a great hand for our amazing speaker tonight. I'm excited for all of us to go home and practice the things that we've learned to be working on. Thank you so much. So we have refreshments outside. Please continue the conversation, come back in here. You can sit at the tables out here. Let's talk about the things we've learned and how we're going to bring them into our lives. Thank you so much for coming tonight everybody.

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