Balancing Roles

For a lot of people, it can be challenging to find balance between all the different roles they fill within their lives: a worker, a parent, a spouse, a child, a homemaker, a student, a citizen, and a leisurite. To start finding balance, it can be helpful to take inventory of how much time we’re spending in each role currently, as well as ideally how much time we would like to spend in each role. To do this, first create a pie chart that shows how your roles are currently balanced in your life. Next, create another pie chart that shows how you could ideally balance your life. Finally, you can begin to explore ways to get closer to your ideal balance

Daring Greatly

Daring Greatly: In her book, Daring Greatly, researcher and author Brené Brown beautifully defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure… [that] is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy courage, empathy, and creativity.” In other words, vulnerability is uncomfortable but often necessary to foster emotions and experiences that help us feel fulfilled and satisfied in life. Take some time to think about ways you can practice vulnerability in big and small ways, and maybe even challenge yourself to experiment with being vulnerable.

Calming Color Meditation

This is a guided meditation activity that can help clients identify feelings and physical sensations of feelings intheir bodies.

Feelings Iceberg

This intervention is useful for helping children more tangibly understand how they display or hide feelings from others in their life. This can be a helpful intervention to gather information and reflect what can be worked on in the therapy setting.

Anger Collage

This is an intervention that can be used to hep with identification of emotions / thoughts, cognitive challenging / reframing, instillation of hope, and empowerment.

3D’s Skill

3D’s Skill: Delay, Distract, Decide: One way of supporting clients in early recovery is to develop their efficacy with managing urges/cravings for substances. The 3D’s Skill (a modification from DBT STOP distress tolerance skill) walks the client through pausing (Delay), coping with the urge (Distract), and then engage in critical thinking about their next step (Decide). This can slow down the process of returning to use and support the client in living a life aligned with their emerging values in recovery

Meditation for Uncertain Times

This guided practice is intended to help ease fear, anxiety, or any heavy feelings you may have at this time. It’s nothing more than breathing and focusing your intention on deep healing.

Letting Go of Shame Meditation

This practice can help clients accept and face shame, and practice attending to it and distracting from it.

Self Compassion Break Version Two

Accepting our own vulnerability is made easier when give ourselves compassion. Use this self-compassion break with clients in session or encourage them to use it on their own when working with difficult or vulnerable emotions.

Self-Esteem Journal

Positive journaling has been found to help improve feelings of well-being and self-esteem. With this self-esteem worksheet, your clients will be asked to record three daily statements related to their successes, good qualities, and positive experiences. This worksheet is great for clients who have difficulty generating ideas for positive experiences to journal about.”

Assign this as homework for your client for a week, and use the next session to reflect on their observations after journaling about their success and strengths for a week. How did this affect their view of self? Relationships? Mental health symptoms? Explore the Ct’s experience noticing their own strengths.