Wellness, wellbeing, happiness – whatever word guides you, start your journey by looking for answers within you first and not from external people, places, or things. Virginia Satir (family therapist and author) gave us this perspective: Peace Within, Peace Between, and Peace Among. So, if you want to work on your relationships with others, start by working on your relationship with yourself – i.e. Peace Within. This includes self-kindness, self-compassion, self-respect, self-love, and knowing your self-worth – that no one and no thing can take away from you.
Here are some handouts for self-reflection and for sharing with others. Feedback welcome.
Self Care
Handout: Self-Care Mandala
How balanced do you live your life? How present and in-the-moment are you so that you can see more options and make good choices? How hard do you have to work to relax or find peace within you? Review this handout that highlights eight parts of your self that you should care for each day. When you balance these parts for yourself, you are a more whole person and have the potential to live your best life.
Changing Your Program – Your Default Interaction Patterns
Handout: Satir Interaction Model
Ever find yourself getting emotionally triggered or activated in certain situations or conversations and responding in ways that you regret later? Maybe you repeatedly fall into old habits and defense mechanisms and don’t know how or why this is happening.
Satir described seven ingredients of an interaction that provide insights into what happens within us between stimulus and response. This handout shows Satir’s ingredients, some helpful questions to consider at each stage, and Jerry Weinberg’s simplified steps on the left hand side for reference. This Interaction model can help you slow things down to understand what’s happening within you (or someone else) so that you can pause and ask different questions – to yourself or others.
Reclaim your Power to Pause between stimulus and response and to be curious – about yourself and others. When you replace judgement with curiosity, you change your responses. When you change your responses, you change your interactions with others. Where can your power of curiosity take you?
Need to Talk?
Want to learn more about how these handouts can help you? Do you feel you need someone to talk to about things weighing you down that are affecting your life? Not sure where to start, and maybe you just want to know what resources are out there to help you or someone you care about? I am a trained psychotherapist and am happy to listen. Please reach out to me via one of these links so we can talk: