Managing Social Distancing When Your Love Language is Touch
Helpful tips for managing social distance when your love language is touch.
What do you do when your main love language is touch and you are currently single and/or quarantined by yourself? Are you finding that keeping your distance from others is creating a deep sadness and inner hardship for you?
It’s essential that you have compassion for who you are and create sacred time for yourself! This season might be challenging, but it can also be a beautiful lesson in cultivating self love and internal self sufficiency. Remember, you are always enough, everything you need comes from within, you have all that you need.
Try this exercise!
Set up a bit of intentional physical space for yourself. This can be getting comfy on your bed, arranging pillows around you on your couch, or even seated comfortably on the floor. Sit with yourself placing your hands on your heart. Clothes your eyes if you feel comfortable. Take some deep breaths and repeat these words:
“I am enough, I have everything I need within me, I have all that I need.”
Repeat these affirmations for several breath cycles. Take note of how your body is feeling. If you notice anywhere in particular where you’re struggling to find ease or stillness, send your breath and these affirmations to these spots directly.
Some other activities to help ground and center yourself and create a space of self-care and self-love:
Play some music and dance! Be sensual with yourself! Send love to your body through embrace, touch, and movement!
Light some candles and take a bath! Play music that helps you access gratitude for the ways your body keeps you strong, well, and healthy!
Love each piece of your body starting with your feet and working your way up to your head! This can be through deep intentional breathing or even self-massage. Pause to focus on each body part and what it does to help you function throughout your day. Notice your body’s softness, send kind thoughts, gentle touch, even appreciative kisses to your knees, hands, shoulders, etc.
What do you miss? Give yourself the touch you need to feel!
Along with meeting our needs for touch in this time of social distancing, these activities can also help us release shame as we connect to our body through love and appreciation of how it functions! This is a time to connect with yourself through love and compassion not judgment. If you find any of these touch exercises and or viewing your body naked to be difficult, you can also practice them with your clothes on, in your bed, or wherever you feel most comfortable.
If you are in a relationship but are unable to physically connect with your partner then doing those things with your partner via video chat can be a beautiful expression of love without touch. Pick a song with your partner to play and dance to, make a date to take a bath at the same time, cook together! Set intentional space to be connected and playful with one another.
Even less direct activities like finding a hobby you enjoy can be helpful in nurturing self-love and inner connection! Do you like painting, cooking, reading, crafting, gardening or building? When do you feel the calmest and most able to surrender to being fully present with yourself? These are the best activities to engage in! Find what works for you.
Lastly, I want to encourage you to reach out for support as you need it, video chat with your friends and family, reach out to a mental health professional, honor yourself by pursuing what you need and don’t be afraid to make it fun. Know you are not alone in this and find the love that IS you. You are enough, You have everything you need!
Love & Blessings,
Mindy
FREE PRACTICE DOWNLOAD!
If you’re struggling with stress or anxiety over the current public health crisis visit our resources page HERE.
Pause Don't Panic
In the midst of COVID-19, Viridiana Rodriguez reminds us to pause instead of panic.
What is the appropriate response to a crisis?
Are you struggling with questions such as “Am I overreacting?” and/or “Am I taking this situation seriously enough?”
These are normal statements to an abnormal situation occurring in our lives. You might be feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about how to proceed. Here are five simple things you can do as we face this Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis as a nation:
1. Breathe and give yourself time to process your emotions
2. Create and give yourself positive affirmations if your emotions are causing anxiety and/or insecurities.
a. Positive statements such as “I am safe and protected” and “Everything will be okay” work great! Keep it clear and simple.
3. Assess your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual needs on a regular basis. Give yourself time and space to attend to each area.
4. Connect with others in person, by phone, and/or online; friends, family, etc. Do not isolate yourself completely! Be kind to yourself and others during this difficult moment.
5. Self-Care! It can look like meditation every night, journaling every morning, limiting your social media or news exposure, or listening to music. The important thing is to pause not panic — figure out what helps your nervous system calm down.
And, of course, if you need to, don’t hesitate to reach out to a mental health professional to support you during this stressful time! All of our clinicians are offering online video sessions.
While challenging, it is in the most critical moments of our lives that it is the most important to bring light to yourself and others.
Namaste, Viri
If you’re looking for ways to educate yourself about COVID-19 and what you can do to help yourself and others from sources that are also encouraging a “pause don’t panic” philosophy, we recommend checking out this episode of Ologies to hear scientific facts from an expert, this episode of Healing Justice to listen to how we can take care of ourselves and one another, and this magical poetry offering from Dori Midnight — use it as a meditation, an affirmation, or a community action manifesto — all ways will work wonders for your heart!
You can also sign-up for our newsletter so that you’re always up to date with the wisdom shared by our therapists and what events are happening to beat the isolation through healing and connection at Gather & Grow OC headquarters and online!
5 Myths of Online Therapy
Our Director, Jacqueline Plante, debunks the myths of online therapy.
In an increasingly digital world it is hard to find a commodity that isn’t accessible online. If I run out of dog food, Amazon can have it to my door in two days (thank you Prime). If I’m hungry I can use GrubHub. If I owe a friend for the dinner bill, I use Venmo. All of these things have made my life more convenient, and come with little to no downside. It got me thinking: in a world where time is of the essence, and most things are available at my fingertips, why not create a business that offers therapy in a similar way?
Online therapy functions in the exact same way a traditional therapy session would, the only difference is, rather than having to drive to my office, you click a meeting link and are joined to the session instantaneously. No longer are you having to fight stressful traffic to get in your self-care, you can literally find a quiet space and start. What I’ve noticed as I continue to grow this model, is that while those who try and do online sessions with me love it, there are still a lot of misconceptions about what it is and how it works. I want to dispel those myths and help you see that not only is online therapy essentially the same, but the perks of this new model might make you wonder why you didn’t try it sooner.
So here are the most common myths about online therapy:
It’s not legitimate: I’m going to be honest: when I first started hearing about online therapy, I had this thought too. Right now if you search online therapy you are going to see a lot of businesses that offer things like constant email and texting contact with your therapist. They use untested methods of contact to promote unrealistic expectations of what their services can do. THIS IS NOT WHAT I DO! What I am talking about is exactly the same as therapy in an office, only through a screen. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist in the state of California, and I am doing this because I believe in the benefits of it and the accessibility. I use the same treatment style and methods I would as if we were in the same space. Safe and legitimate psychotherapy is available, just make sure you do your due diligence in finding a therapist.
It feels impersonal: This is probably the biggest concern and also the biggest misconception. Once the session starts, and we begin our work, the screen seems to melt away. As a therapist, I am giving you exactly what you would get from me if we were in a room together, and I make every effort on my end to convey that to you during our time together. I recommend taking some time upfront in order to facilitate your own therapeutic environment: Make sure you are in a quiet and private space, make sure you don’t have anything else scheduled for the hour, and set your devices to “Do Not Disturb.” These things help ensure that you are having the same experience you would in a therapist’s office.
I won’t actually accomplish anything: As with any type of therapy, the answer here is that you will take out what you put in. If you are coming to therapy because of your motivation to change, and your hope for something different, then whether the sessions are online or in person, you are going to get the same result. Choosing to be accountable to yourself will go a long way.
The technology is unsafe: We host our sessions through Simple Practice, which uses encrypted services to offer HIPPA compliance, and is used widely in the mental health community specifically for therapy. This means that every possible effort is being taking to make sure that your protected health information (name, date of birth, etc.) cannot be accessed or leaked, in the same way your records would be safe at a doctor’s office. Be sure to ask your therapist whether the video sessions are HIPPA compliant (Skype is not, doxyme and VSEE are). As with any online contact, there are limits, but every possible precaution is taking to ensure safety in this area.
My therapist won’t be able to read me as well: While there are limits to what can be seen through a screen, for the most part, I am getting a full picture when I see your face. Most of our emotion is shown in our facial expression, and posture can be noted without a full body image. If this continues to be a concern, the camera can be adjusted so that more of the body is shown, but I personally haven’t encountered this as being an issue.
Concerns aside, there are so many upsides to working with a therapist online! I cannot overstate the convenience. In California especially, traffic is an increasing problem, and a one-hour session can easily turn into 2-3 hours of your day if you are having to travel. The time and the added stress can often be counterproductive to the great work we do, and eliminating that is so helpful. Online sessions are especially great for people who own their own businesses or travel for work. Your progress won’t be interrupted by your own responsibilities, as you’re able to set aside a reasonable amount of time to prioritize self-care. During cold and flu season you don’t have to risk exposure to the germs of a waiting room, and immunocompromised clients don’t have to worry about added risk. Parents of young children can benefit as well, as sessions can happen during naptime or while kids are occupied with a game or movie.
If you’re curious about getting started, reach out and schedule a consultation. You can get a feel of whether or not it’s a good fit for you, and if it is you can get started on your progress right away.
COVID-19 Update
Stay well, calm, & hydrated!
To our Gather & Grow community,
We are aware that during this time, there are a lot of fears and heightened emotions surrounding the concern of this contagious disease. We here at GGOC cannot ignore those concerns and want you all to know we are taking active precautions to protect our staff and clients.
We have been closely following CDC guidelines, and will be increasing our cleaning protocol and implementing the following:
Increased cleaning of all community spaces including sanitizing all door handles and large surfaces between sessions
No longer providing any food that is not individually packaged/sealed
Daily sanitizing of bathroom spaces
We encourage staff and clients to wash hands when coming and going.
At this point, we are recommending anyone with cold or flu symptoms to stay home.
As a reminder, GGOC is fully equipped to offer telehealth sessions (HIPAA compliant video chat). Your therapist may recommend this to you, or you can request this at ANY time.
While we are currently in a low-risk area, we want to be mindful that there are some in our community who are at higher risk, and want to do what we can to offer protection where possible.
We will continue to keep everyone updated with any changes as they occur.
With Care & Compassion,
The Gather & Grow OC Team