Tapping into Self Love #WithMe (Affirmations for Teenagers)

In this video, we are going to quite literally be tapping into self-love with some positive affirmations.

But these are not gonna be just any usual self-love affirmations.

These are gonna be validating those negative icky thoughts that we all have from time to time while working towards a better relationship with ourselves. Also known as self-love.

So we're going to be coupling this new strategy of affirmations with another technique called Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT for short.

With EFT, you literally tap on different points on your body to help physically ground yourself to your experience and to help process or center on new more positive beliefs about your emotional experience.

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Now, EFT has a specific protocol that they use. So I'm gonna walk through that first and then we'll get to the actual guided with me EFT tapping technique. So if you wanna skip ahead to that in the video, I'll put the time in the description of when that starts.

Here is how to do EFT

Typically you’ll start with this fleshy part of the outside of your hand. They usually recommend two fingers, though if you wanna use one, three, all of them, or however you wanna do that, it's fine.

You’ll want to lightly gently tap the following areas. You do not want to hurt yourself. You don't wanna scratch. If you have longer nails, you might wanna use the more fleshy part of the pad of your finger. So you don't wanna be hurting yourself when you're doing this.

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Here are the different tapping points you’ll use for EFT:

1. Start with the fleshy part of the side of your hand.

2. Middle of your forehead

3. The side of your head aligned with your eye (do not tap your actual eyeball)

4. The top of your cheekbone

5. Between your upper lip and nose (mustache area)

6. Your chin

7. The “sore spot” between your collarbone and upper chest area (do not tap here, instead rub in a circular motion)

8. Side of your body where your rib cage starts/aligned with where a bra strap would be

9. The crown of your head

10. Repeat and cycle through again

EFT will tell you that you have to follow in this direct order. I'm gonna be rebellious and tell you I don't know that it really matters where you're tapping. I think that the idea of tapping in general, it's just a very healthy grounding technique.

And I stand by that because I first heard that from Dr. Bessel van der Kolk and he's like the granddaddy of trauma treatment and chronic PTSD. He's amazing. In his research, he wrote "The Body Keeps Score."

I saw him speak many, many years ago before I even decided to go to grad school to be a therapist when he was talking about how to work with people who struggle with self-harm. He first introduced me to this concept of tapping or EFT, Emotion Freedom Technique in that training, and he said the same thing. He was like, “You can tap wherever. I've seen progress wherever you're tapping.” So don't worry too much about the exact order.

But in this video, if you wanna follow the order along with me you can do that as well. And if at any point you feel overwhelmed or emotional or stressed out, you can pause, you can stop this video. You can go back to the fleshy area of your hand and reset.

This is how we're going to do the affirmations.

We're going to start with, "even though," and then we're going to say a negative thought that we've had about ourselves or about our situation or circumstances. Then we're going to end with, "I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

“Even though (negative thought or belief), I deeply and completely love and accept myself”

That is my positive affirmation that I was trained to use when I was learning how to do this. I have found it super helpful and effective in my own work when it comes to self-love. And I hope that it will do the same for you, though if you would rather replace that with a different positive mantra or affirmation, go for it. I'm not here to stop you.

I highly encourage you to follow along with the guided demonstration in the video here: https://youtu.be/BGoXFQf0Atk

Though if you’d prefer to read along, here are the affirmations I use with EFT Tapping for Self-Love in the guided video practice.

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• Even though I struggle with loving myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I judge myself harshly, and even though I feel really bad about myself sometimes, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I have a hard time believing that I am lovable, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I say really negative things to myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I actually hate myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I struggle to find anything that I like about myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though I feel insecure sometimes about the things that I say or the way that I say things, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I believe the negative things I hear people say about people like me, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I struggle to find the good and to find the positive in myself and others, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I find myself self-sabotaging, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though I don't always keep those promises to myself, and even though I have those days, those weeks, those months, where I just give up on my self-care, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I feel like I have to be perfect and I have to be the best, and I struggle with that, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though I find it hard to accept myself sometimes, and even though I struggle to love myself all of the time, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though I'm not exactly where I want to be, and even though I'm not done on this self-love journey, even though it seems like it's going to be a long time until I fully love and accept myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though I don't always think I'm doing a good job, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though I have a hard time always looking at myself with kindness, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though sometimes I [beep] up, sometimes I make mistakes, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• Even though I struggle with self-love, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

• I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

When you're ready you can take a deep breath in through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. Walk a little lighter and brighter out into your day or into your evening sleep, depending on when you are practicing these self-love tapping affirmations.

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I'm a Teen Therapist and I'm answering: "Should I cover my self-harm scars?"

One of the areas that I specialize in as a licensed mental health therapist is around treating self-harm. I work with a lot of teenagers who are struggling with thoughts or urges about harming themselves. Some have even actually taken action at some point.

As you can imagine, I get a lot of questions about self-harm care. One question that I get often is, "Should you cover your self-harm scars?"

There's really no right or wrong answer around this. It’s more about staying curious and mindful of these three areas when you are considering if you should cover or expose your self-harm scars based on a particular situation or set of circumstances.

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CONSIDER: People’s Reactions

People are going to have Reactions.

They're not always going to be healthy reactions, and they're not always going to be helpful reactions.

Sometimes they are and they can be, but you can expect that people are going to have responses and reactions to potentially interacting with your self-harm scars.

We don't always know people's personal journeys.

We might incorrectly or falsely assume that somebody who doesn't have any visible markings of self-harm has never experienced self-harm, but maybe they have. You might not always know what somebody's emotional capacity or relationship is to the idea of self-harm.

There is still a lot of misunderstanding and stigma when it comes to mental health struggles in this world. And there's also a lot of glorifying of things when it comes to harmful behaviors, such as self-harm. I mean, harm is literally in the name. (It’s one of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of some of Mental Health TikTok that really glamorizes the idea of self-harm).

I think when it comes to self-harm scars, and your experience with self-harm, the conversation really needs to be focused on, not so much on building awareness (if you struggle with self-harm, you're quite aware of self-harm), but rather more focused on what helps or supports healing in that area.

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Making sure to prepare for other people's responses or reactions and your own readiness for their reactions or responses is going to be important when deciding whether or not to cover or show your self-harm scars.

Now, sometimes this decision is already made for you. Like I know a lot of school communities have regulations that say that you must keep it covered. I have mixed feelings on that, but I understand why.

Schools, their main priority and obligation are to educate you. While they tend to be first responders when it comes to mental health concerns and issues, especially related to teens and children, that's not really their main purpose or reason for existing. They're not always equipped to really handle the sort of level of response that we would think would be healthily appropriate in these situations.

Don’t forget to Stay Mindful of your own emotional capacity and how you are prepared to cope with other people's reactions and responses.

If you don't have one already, I highly recommend that you make a Coping Ahead Plan for when other people have a poor or inappropriate reaction to your self-harm scars. You wanna make sure that you are well prepared for that.

CONSIDER: Boundaries

As a therapist, we love talking about boundaries. We like talking about how to interact with them. And we love talking about what to do when people disrespect your boundaries.

Because the thing is, is that even though you might be able to identify and appropriately communicate your boundaries, that doesn't always mean that people are going to respect your boundaries. Which of course is incredibly infuriating and frustrating!!

Being prepared so you are able to identify and communicate what your boundaries are and what you are and are not comfortable with is an important first step. Though you also have to prepare for other people's boundaries.

Perhaps you thought that somebody would have had open boundaries for talking about your experience with self-harm, but they don't have the emotional capacity for that and they are asking not to talk about that. That's something to be mindful and respectful of because you just don't know what their experience could be as well.

Being mindful and respectful of your own boundaries and other people's boundaries in these situations is gonna be really important when you're considering if you should cover your self-harm scars or not.

THE “RULE OF TWO”

So the other thing to consider when it comes to boundaries is when someone continues to ignore or disrespect your boundaries. A lot of people forget that walking away is totally an option, even if it's rude, even if it's disrespectful.

At a certain point, continuing to communicate your boundaries over and over again, it's just not gonna be effective.

Disengaging or removing yourself from the situation or the conversation in a healthy way is gonna be really important. I like to tell the teens that I work with to use the “Rule of Two” in this situation….

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When you are trying to have a reasonable conversation and you're kindly telling somebody, "Hey I'm not comfortable with that" and they have an unreasonable, disrespectful, or an uncomfortable emotional response, they're probably not in a good state of mind to reasonably, logically continue that conversation with you.

If you continue, you're just gonna kinda keep going in circles. If after two attempts at reasserting your boundary, they continue, they're clearly not understanding or choosing to disrespect your boundary. It's okay at that point to say, "You know, I think we'll have to revisit this conversation at another time" and get outta there.

If you can't physically remove yourself from the conversation, change the topic of the conversation. You can be totally weird and awkward about it. That's okay. Just change the conversation in some way.

CONSIDER: The Meaning

So a lot of the teens that I work with who have struggled with self-harm often share that their scars hold a lot of meaning to them.

They tend to meaningfully represent their journey or their healing experience.

Some of these meanings can be positive, healthy associations like noting the progress for, "Man, look at how far I've come in my healing journey."

Other people might feel really deep pain or regret because they weren't necessarily considering the markings that were gonna be left behind or how they might feel in the future from those scars.

**There are a variety of different emotional experiences. These are just two examples and don’t necessarily represent everyone’s experience.

If you are considering covering or showing your self-harm scare, then you want to be really considerate about the meaning that you are associating with your scars.

What it would mean to share that with somebody else? Who would that person have to be?

If you are struggling with mixed emotions or associations or thoughts around your self-harm scars or you're still concerned about what you should do in terms of covering your self-harm scars or not, I highly recommend that you discuss it with a mental health therapist

I tend to really, really recommend group therapy for these situations because not only are you getting the therapist's perspective, but it can also be really validating and inspire some creative problem-solving when it comes to this struggle.

Especially when you are talking about it with people who are going through similar experiences or people that you know are supportive of your health and your healing journey together.

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Coping with Summertime Depression ☀️😭

So we have got to talk about the other seasonal depression and that is summertime depression.

I know a lot of people tend to think of seasonal depression associated with the wintertime and the winter blues.

To be clear, seasonal depression is NOT an actual diagnosis. It's more of a general term to describe when different depressive episodes tend to perk up or peak up for us. And summertime is definitely not immune to depression or depressive episodes.

So if you struggle with depression spikes in the summertime, even when the sunshine is out and bright, you are in the right spot.

I'm gonna be sharing five different strategies to help you cope with summertime depression in this video post today.

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Get Up

If you are reading this post, I'm gonna assume that you are sitting down or in bed and I want you to actually get up and move your body.

Get Up and MOVE around a little bit.

Movement creates energy and gives signals to our brain and our mood that we need to motivate or activate something else, rather than just keeping things as is. That right there will help to jumpstart a little bit of a mood change or mood shift in your dynamic.

I would highly, highly recommend you make use of this coping strategy in the summertime, especially if you are a student and you are not actively in school or have an obligation or commitment to wake up at a certain time every day.

Physically get up and stay up for a little while. I would try to make it at least 20 minutes and then check-in before you go straight back into bed.

That should be plenty of enough time to at least give you some motivation and energy to keep going about your day or to motivate yourself, to take some other actions which will really, really help with your depressed mood.

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Brush Your Teeth

Y'all know how I feel about dental hygiene. I think it is super, super important. I think that it not only makes a difference in how we physically feel but also when our teeth and our mouths look good and feel good, it just helps kind of boost your mood a little bit.

Now you don't have to have perfect teeth. You don't have to brush your teeth perfectly every single time, but I'm sure that your dentist and especially your dental hygienist will appreciate you making an effort to brush your teeth. Try to make it twice a day.

Join A Group

The third thing that I want you to consider doing is to join a group. Now, y'all know I am partial to therapy groups, especially for teenagers.

**I'm licensed to practice in the states of Connecticut and New York, so the members of my Teen Growth Therapy Groups have to be physically located in those states at the time of these groups. (*I don’t make the licensing laws, but I still gotta follow them).

I also really like making these videos + posts for y'all, especially right now. There's a huge value on mental health and mental health treatment/support, which means that there are a lot of therapists that are overbooked, *myself included.

It's one of the reasons why I started offering therapy groups even before the pandemic because creating connection, solidarity, and understanding with other people can really help validate our own experience.

Joining a group can also help kind of reality check a little bit that maybe we are making more progress than we realize. It's really really cool when you can offer support or help or guidance to other people and see that reflected back for us, too.

There's actually this concept of the 200% rule, when you give or do something to somebody else, it can actually improve your mood by 200% because not only are you getting the satisfaction and like good energy boost of doing something kind or good for somebody else, but when you can see that reception reflected back to you and seeing the impact you're getting that 100% back too.

Joining a group, whether it is an actual therapy group or something more low-key like:

⚽️ joining a sports team

🎨 signing up for an art class

👬 reaching out to your friends and making an effort to hang out in person if that is possible and doable, but even a virtual, online hangout can be effective and helpful too.

Just feeling connected and part of something where they're expecting you to show up and they're going to notice and feel when you aren't there, it's gonna help to motivate and improve your mood or depression over the summertime.

One of the things that I think causes a spike in that feeling of disconnection for teenagers, in particular, is not having that built-in friend time throughout the school day. Now I know schools’ primary focus is education. I know I get that, but let's be real. You also get social time with your friends and your friend group.

So making an effort to maintain or continue some sort of community or social interaction is gonna help to improve your depressed mood in the summertime.

Eat Something

When it comes to emotion regulation, you've gotta take care of your basic self-care needs.

These include, but are not limited to:

💤 Sleep

💊 Taking your medication as prescribed. If that is something that you struggle with, talk to your prescriber, I'm sure they have a lot of good strategies around that.

🧘‍♀️ Focusing on one thing at a time

🤸‍♀️ Moving your body.

🍎 And of course, taking care of your Nutrition, which is where eating something is hugely, hugely impactful.

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I am somebody who, if I do not eat throughout the day or if I do not eat nutritionally, definitely negatively impacts my mood. It's one of what I call my emotional vulnerabilities.

So if that is something for you, which I think it is for most of us, I mean, food helps to fuel us and give us energy, which is usually what's lacking when we're feeling depressed.

Eating something can make a difference, though, of course, you wanna make sure that you're not overeating or eating in a way that is triggering or upsetting to anything in your process.

If you struggle with knowing, you know, what to eat or how to eat linking up with a registered dietician or a nutritionist, especially one who understands the mood and relationship connection to food is gonna be really, really key. But you can also talk to a mental health therapist who specializes in this area as well.

Visualize Your Future

One of the things that can make us stay feeling depressed is not being able to see or notice our future.

When we're not connected to our future, or it just seems so obscure or unachievable from what our ideal future self could be, what we're working towards, it can keep us feeling depressed.

So taking some time to visualize your future is going to actually help you shift your depressed mood. And the more that you visualize it, the clearer the steps that you need to take to get you one step closer to that ideal life.

Doing this may help to motivate you to start making some changes or taking some action.

If you'd like to walk through how to visualize your perfect day, I've got a great mindfulness video that you can practice with me right here: https://www.mallorygrimste.com/counseling-blog/yourperfectday

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Coping with Body Image Struggles?? | 5 Therapist Approved ways to improve your self-esteem

Let's talk about something that we all have…

Our Bodies.

Yep, from our heads to our toes and everything in between- whether you have all the parts or extra parts or different parts than you would like, we all have bodies.

And when we have our bodies, we also have our body image.

The way that we feel about ourselves and the way that we view our bodies are important, especially in this society. So if you are struggling with your own body image, for whatever reason or factor, you are in the right spot.

In this video post, I'm sharing five of my favorite therapist-approved coping strategies when you are struggling with your body image.

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Acknowledge Your Body

You have to acknowledge and notice your body before you can change the way that you view and feel about your body.

A really, really great strategy that I highly recommend, I actually share this with my own therapy clients, and I do this for myself as well, is to practice some gentle mindfulness throughout your body.

So when you are doing something like a body scan meditation, or when you are naturally moving your body throughout the day. When you are interacting with your body, whether that is washing your hand, eating food, smelling flowers, or a certain perfume or scent around, just take a moment and notice your body and what is doing at that moment.

Don't try to judge it. *Though if you do judge it, don't worry about that. We are created in a way that we are supposed to make snap judgments.

Just because you have an automatic snap judgment does not mean that you have to roll with it.

But if you do have a snap judgment just notice that too and go, “oh, okay. That was a thought, that was a judgment. I don't have to roll with that.”

So just taking some time throughout your day and just noting or acknowledging your body and what it is doing every single day is a key first step in coping with your body image.

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Positive Affirmations

So positive affirmations have definitely been having a moment for like, longer than a moment now, which is pretty cool to see as a mental health therapist. But they're not always used in a healthy way.

The reason why that I say this is because there's the manifesting community and the positive self-talk/thinking CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) community has kind of like morphed together to create some sort of like magical thinking when it comes to positive affirmations.

We do tend to believe what we tell ourselves. That is very true, though…

Just because you think it does not always make it accurate.

Positive affirmations can be used in a healthy way to transform or adapt or adjust your automatic negative thoughts.

Remember when I talked about how when you acknowledge your body, sometimes you're gonna have automatic negative, snap judgments that pop up? That's okay.

When you notice that, I want you to pause, and think about a way that you could adjust that into a more positive affirmation or thought for yourself. And then repeat it.

It can take five positive thoughts to counteract one negative thought.

So when you come up with your more positive affirmation or a new positive thought that you would rather believe about yourself or your body, I want you to repeat that five times. Even better if you could say it out loud. Try looking at yourself, too.

If that's not doable, say it in your head, write it out, whatever works for you.

Okay, so here is a really, really cool strategy when it comes to positive affirmations…

so you don’t try to go so hard, so positive, so fast, that it doesn't feel believable. Because sometimes we try to jump too far ahead.

When you need to make your positive affirmation feel more believable, you have to also validate your automatic negative thought, because quite possibly, there is some truth in that automatic negative thought.

The feeling behind it might be aggravating or irritating you, or making it difficult to move on from that.

I want you to take the negative automatic thought that you're having and put the words “even though” in front of it. So you say:

“Even though (insert your automatic negative thought about yourself or your body image)”, and then you say, “I am working towards (insert that more positive affirmation)”.

I would love to hear the way that you are transforming your automatic negative thoughts into more positive ones and who knows? It may inspire others. So leave it in the comments on the YouTube video if you feel comfortable with that.

Self-Soothe

When it comes to our bodies and our body image, our bodies give us a lot of physical feelings and responses. It tends to give us a little more information about how we feel physically and emotionally about a situation or a circumstance.

Sometimes it can get a little haywiry and a little extra. It can really kind of like shout at us. If you've ever had a panic attack, a stressful anger attack, or something like that, you definitely have felt that physical discomfort that comes with those extreme emotional experiences.

So that's where coping strategy number three comes in, and that is to self-soothe.

When your body is physically distressed or uncomfortable I want you to make use of self-soothing strategies. So use one or more of your five physical senses (sight, smell, sound, taste, or physical touch) to physically soothe, calm, or relax the distress that your physical body is experiencing at that moment.

One of the ways that I really recommend doing this is using some lotion or cream to rub on your different body parts or skin, one that feels and smells good to you. You don't want it to be aggravating. If you have sensitive skin, obviously honor that.

→ It could be something like wearing clothing that feels really good and comfortable for you.

→ It could be drinking a drink that feels great for you. I really, really love hot cocoa.

I would highly recommend that you make it a healthy drink. So you can use a whole bunch of different strategies to physically soothe your body's physical responses to stress.

Express Gratitude

This is really, really cool because you can actually combine all of the first four coping skills for this next strategy.

When you are acknowledging your body parts, transforming your automatic negative thoughts into more positive ones, and self-soothing, you can actually go through your different body part areas and express gratitude for the work and effort that that body is doing to help you live the life that you are living.

This may be something as simple as when you're washing the different areas of your body, expressing gratitude and gratefulness for that body part doing a good job at keeping you in this world.

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Some examples include expressing gratitude for your:

🦶 feet being able to support your body and move your body to different locations.

💪 forearms give you the arm strength to be able to carry and lift things or help boost yourself up from a sitting to a standing position if that is something that you're able to do.

You can get creative and express gratitude for what your body is already doing, can help transform your relationship with your body.

Check Your Surroundings

We are constantly surrounded by different information sources and people and other bodies around us if you just take a moment and just look around in your actual physical environment.

❌ Not on your screens

❌ Not in your movies

❌ Not on your social media feeds

✅ but actually look out around the world

and you will see there are so many beautiful people.

You will see there are SO many different shapes and sizes, colors, and different aspects of bodies, and like, gosh, everybody just has such beauty within themselves.

It's really, really easy to forget this when your social media feed is only showing you a certain type of body, or a certain aspect of bodies, and not being open to the fact that we are all made of different shapes and sizes.

When you can check in with what you are surrounding yourself with, and make a conscientious effort to surround yourself with diverse body experiences, it will absolutely help transform your own relationship with your own body image so you can improve your self-esteem.

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CONTROL Your Test Anxiety!! (therapist approved strategies)

If you are ready to CONTROL your test anxiety, you need to try these 5 therapist-approved coping strategies to overcome and beat your exam anxiety.

*They’re some of my favorites.

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Self Care

The very first thing that I like to remind everybody is that you've got to maintain your self-care.

If you are not taking care of yourself and your basic self-care needs, then you're not going to have the stamina, energy, or mindset in order to take that test or exam at your fullest capacity.

I’m talking about the boring, basic, maintenance, self-care kind of stuff.

😴 Maintaining your sleep schedule

🍎 Making sure you're eating nutritiously throughout the day

👟 Moving your body

…all that good stuff.

If you would like a fun way of keeping track of your self-care, I highly recommend that you sign up for free access to the Self Care Bundle.

The Self Care Bundle includes a bunch of curated resources to help amplify your self care needs for mental health and wellness.

There’s even a set of Self Care BINGO cards for Teens, which is like, really fun and really cool. *People seem to really love those.

Pomodoros

Using Pomodoros is a time management strategy that I personally like to use and I highly recommend it to others.

A Pomodoro is when you work in 25-minute increments with 5-minute breaks. So when that timer goes off after 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break.

Now you might not be able to use this strategy during an exam, but you can use it when you are studying and preparing for your test.

The idea with Pomodoros is that allowing yourself space of 25 minutes to just laser focus on learning a particular topic or section for the exam, helps you maintain your focus. It can also help you get into a state of flow where things are just kind of clicking, but not burning out your energy.

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Bio Breaks

When you are studying, or even during exam time, you want to make sure that you take bio breaks.

Bio breaks are when you tend to your biological needs:

🍿 grabbing a snack or meal if it's mealtime

🚰 drinking a glass of water

🚽 going to the bathroom if you need to

🤸‍♀️ moving or stretching

Just kind of honing in on biologically.

Ask yourself: “what do I need to recalibrate so that I can get ready for my next study session?”

Make a Coping Ahead Plan

And so, before you even take the test or the exam, you have to know what sort of coping strategies you're going to use during the exam.

Now y'all know I am like, the queen of coping skills. Let's be real, right? I can't even like tell you how many coping skills videos I have for a variety of different situations, so I'm not going to go into too many coping skills here, but I am going to tell you that you need a coping ahead plan for your test anxiety.

So I want you to consider and think about the coping skills or strategies that you already know that work for you and that you can use before, during, and after the exam.

What would you need ahead of time to get ready? Like, do you need any additional tools or anything like that? Maybe wear a special bracelet, whatever.

You definitely want to commit those to memory or have them written down somewhere where you can readily access them. I know a lot of kids will actually use their notes app on their phones. I highly recommend that.

Now I know in a lot of exams or tests you're not allowed to bring in other materials that are written. But before you go in or on a break, you could totally look at them real quick.

I would say have at least six to eight coping strategies that you know that you can use during test time. You want to make sure that it is applicable and usable in this situation.

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One of my very favorite coping strategies that you can take anywhere with you is taking a pause and deep breathing.

So breathing in slowly through your nose, and even slower out through your mouth.

Doing this just kind of resets and recalibrates everything. Takes only a moment and is a huge game-changer.

Ask for Help

And don't forget to ask for help. If your test anxiety is out of control or it's really getting in the way of your performance at school or on these exams, it's okay to ask for help.

There are different resources available for people who struggle with such extreme test anxiety that it's getting in the way of their learning.

Ask your teachers or your school what sort of resources they have for you. Need help knowing how to ask your teacher for help? Check out this video: https://youtu.be/4qPdeMTJleg

Potentially even consider working with a therapist (like me) on your test anxiety. We can really help advocate and navigate the school situations for you and give you some useful strategies on concentrating and managing your anxiety and also getting to the root source of that anxiety too.

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3 Minute Guided Meditation for Teenagers who need to Focus

Trouble focusing?? Try this 3 minute guided mediation for focus #WithMe - Mallory Grimste, LCSW

It's no secret that practicing mindfulness can improve your ability to focus. This can make it easier to get motivated to do your homework or study.

This is a great meditation to use as you get ready for AP and Finals exam season, too.

Watch the full guided meditation video when you click this image here:

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Welcome to this three-minute guided meditation for focus.

This is a lovely and wonderful meditative exercise when you feel overwhelmed or stressed out by how much you have to do or if you're getting lost in not being able to concentrate on your studies or your homework.

Please go ahead and take a moment and get settled in a comfortable seat. I would highly recommend that you have your back flat against something so that you feel supported through this exercise.

Next, choose an eye gaze that feels useful and comfortable for you and breathe naturally and normally. You're not going to change anything about the way that you're breathing, you're just gonna let things be.

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As you get settled, we'll begin now.

As you sit, notice any of the sounds around you.

→ You may notice the sound of my voice,

→ You may notice something in the background.

→ If you're outside you may notice the nature sounds or perhaps cars or people going by.

→ You may notice other noises coming from other rooms.

Just notice any sounds that are coming outside and around you.

Next, I want you to transition your focus to how you feel in your body physically.

You can start with the top of your head and work your way through your body down to your tippy toes, or you can start with wherever you're noticing any sort of physical sensations.

→ These could be pleasant or unpleasant.

→ They could be comfortable or uncomfortable.

Just notice where you feel different sensations physically in your body without making an effort to move or adjust.

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I would try to challenge yourself to just notice your physical experience right now.

Though if it's really painful, don't suffer unnecessarily, please go ahead and adjust in the way that you need to.

Now I'd like you to bring your attention and awareness to your breath.

I want you to notice how it feels to breathe in through your nose, and slowly out through your mouth.

You can go ahead and speed up or slow down your breath, you can play around with it here, notice how it feels.

Or you can just simply breathe normally and naturally without making an effort to change or adjust your breathing here.

You are doing an amazing job and I am so proud of you.

After this next inhale in and exhale out, I want you to bring your attention and awareness and focus back to your physical body sensations.

Then after a few more breaths, go ahead and bring your attention and awareness back to the noises and sounds surrounding you.

I really hope that you enjoyed this three-minute guided meditation for focus.

As you are ending this guided meditation, go ahead and flutter your eyelids open if they're closed, go ahead and shift your position or seat, and remember that you can always take a moment to pause, notice, and breathe, and this can help to recalibrate and reset your focus and attention. I wish you well.

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Trouble Focusing?? Declutter Your Desk #WithMe (stop procrastinating and do your homework)

If you're anything like me, when your desk is cluttered and disorganized, you also have a difficult time staying focused and completing your assignments.

As a mental health therapist for teens, I see this struggle and its impact over and over again.

Watch the full video interview with Kelsey Torgerson Dunn when you click this image here:

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As inspiration, and hopefully motivation, I thought rather than talk about how to declutter your desk, I'd invite you to join me as I declutter my desk so you can stop procrastinating and do your homework.

Play this video before you declutter, or while you’re decluttering your desk, to help you stay focused and on task. Then you’ll have a nice, clear space to stop procrastinating and do your homework fast!!

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When Anxiety Makes You ANGRY!! featuring Kelsey Torgerson Dunn, LCSW

Kelsey Togerson Dunn, LCSW literally wrote the book on what to do When Anxiety Makes You Angry!

They graciously allowed me the opportunity to interview them about questions people like you had about these concepts and the skills she recommends in her new book.

Watch the full video interview with Kelsey Torgerson Dunn when you click this image here:

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WANT TO GET 25% OFF YOUR COPY OF THIS BOOK?

Kelsey’s publisher, New Harbinger is offering 25% off through the end of April 2022 when you purchase it through their website, newharbinger.com using the code 25ANXIETY.

*this is NOT an affiliate link and I will not receive any compensation if you use this link and/or discount code.

*don’t forget to use the Discount Code: 25ANXIETY at checkout to get 25% off this book through the end of April 2022.

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Get what you want using the DEAR MAN strategy (compilation mix)

The DEAR MAN strategy is communication GOLD if you struggle to ask for what you want.

DEAR MAN is a communication strategy that is a part of DBT's Interpersonal Effectiveness module.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy recommends you use the DEAR MAN strategy when you want to get what you want more effectively.

In this compilation mix, Mallory explains how to ask for help using the DEAR MAN strategy then shares 3 different examples of how you can use this strategy in real-life.

If you prefer to watch the video, click this image here:

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If you are wanting more of a deeper dive into coping skills, I have a ton of videos on them, but you can also sign up for the Coping Skills Crash Course.

It’s getting a MAJOR upgrade right now!!

In fact, when I filmed the video for this post, I also filmed some new videos for that program too so you might see me in the same outfit.

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How to Ask Your Parents for Therapy (and Get Help) in 2022

When you are legally or financially reliant on your parent's permission, it can be difficult to know how to ask your parents for therapy so you can get help for your mental health struggles.

I would love to introduce you to a strategy called DEAR MAN.

If you prefer to watch the video, click this image here:

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What is DEAR MAN?

DEAR MAN is a communication strategy that we use in Dialectical Behavior Therapy to help you ask for what you need more effectively. 

Now again, this is not a 100% guarantee.

You could potentially execute all the strategies absolutely 100% correctly and clear, and the answer might still be no.

Stay open, stay curious:

→ It could be that your parents might need more time to process this new information.

→ It may also be that they don't necessarily have the time, energy or resources to dedicate to this request right now.

→ It doesn't mean that it could be potentially a forever no, or maybe it really will be a no while you're a teenager.

→ That doesn't mean that you can't make some efforts to improve your mental health now, while you are waiting to become a certain age or a situation where you are more independent and autonomous and able to make these decisions for yourself.

I will tell you the teen years end for everybody, hopefully successfully, but once you enter into that next phase of life you have a lot more legal choices and options. Now, of course, those have outcomes as well and consequences but right now let's stay focused on why you even came to this video, which is how to ask your parents for therapy….

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I happen to really love group therapy as y'all know. I have several Teen Growth Therapy Groups that I run out of my office for teens that are physically based in Connecticut and New York. *That's because of licensing laws, that's not my choice. Take it up with the law, it's not me. I don't make the laws, but I do still gotta follow them.

So group therapy is a little bit different than individual counseling. And so it might take a little bit more to ask your parents to consider group therapy as an option which is why I’ll use this for my example.

So let's jump into how to use this strategy using the example of asking your parents to sign you up for Group Therapy.

How to Use DEAR MAN to ask your parents for therapy

The DEAR part of DEAR MAN is what you say, and the MAN part is how you say it. So let's start with the MAN part.

M= Mindful

Is this a good time for you? Is this a good time for them? I happen to be someone who gets very stressed out when I'm cooking. If somebody tries to have a conversation with me when I'm in the kitchen, trying to make something even if it's just boiling a pot of water I get very emotionally dysregulated, very easily. The people in my life know when Mallory is in the kitchen just like let her be until she's got some food in her belly, then you can talk, or at least if you don't want monster Mallory coming out.

So if somebody were wanting to have a serious conversation with me, I already know that my stress level is gonna be super high when I'm in the kitchen, trying to make food. So I would recommend that they wait until after, or let me know, like, "Hey after you're done here, "can we talk about something?" Then I could say, "Yeah, no problem." versus just kind of entering the room and saying, "So there's this situation I've been wanting "to talk with you about. "It's really been bothering me." 

Make sure that your parents are in a good state of mind where they can give you their full attention and focus as well. 

A = Appear confident

You wanna be very clear, direct, and kind in what it is that you're asking for with your parents. If you leave it open and you say, "Oh, I'd like help,” or “I'd like to work with a therapist," and you know that you want a certain kind of help or a certain type of therapist to work with, you've gotta be clear in that request too. Because maybe they link you up with somebody who does music therapy, which could be awesome and excellent, but that's not the kind of help that you were looking for.

Definitely be clear in this and do a little research ahead of time, practice it, write it out. You reading or watching this video post right now is already great in terms of improving your self-esteem and asking for what you want and what you need. So you are doing an excellent job already.

So if you've been here a few weeks, you already know I'm doing some major upgrades to the Coping Skills Crash Course right now.

This Coping Skills Crash Course program is all about helping you learn different coping skills that are available so that you can personalize them to your situation and your needs.

We have a whole breakdown on the different types of coping skills and when and how to use them, and there are some really cool bonuses in there as well.

Definitely wanna sign up for that, if you're wanting a deeper dive into how to coping skills for your unique situation. 

N = Negotiate

Be willing to negotiate. Perhaps your parents can't afford a therapist right now for you, but they can save up, and in a few weeks they can consider getting you a mental health therapist.

Maybe they don't necessarily believe in mental health therapy as an option right now, but they do believe in consulting with another type of healer or helper. That's okay too.

I will say I tend to be partial to mental health therapy because that's what I personally have found helpful. I've made a career out of it and I make these videos about it, but I will also tell you that there is value in a variety of different helpers.

There are many paths to healing, mental health therapy is not the only way, though it is a pretty great way.

Okay, so let's get in into what to say when you ask your parents for therapy

Remember, for the DEAR part for what to say:

1. Describe the situation

2. Express your thoughts and opinions

3. Ask for it

4. Reward the other person

So let's walk through an example of how to ask for group therapy because you've been feeling really moody and irritable lately. I think most teenagers can relate to that, right?

So to describe the situation you want to literally say something like,

"I'm sure you've noticed I've been a lot more moody and irritable lately."

Most parents, if that's true, aren't gonna disagree.

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Then you want to express your thoughts and opinions.

This is an excellent opportunity to speak from an “I” perspective, use those “I feel” statements to share your thoughts and opinions about the situation that is leading to this request.

When your parents can understand why this is important to you, and how you think that this could be helpful, it's more likely that they're going to say yes or at least consider saying yes in the future.

Keep in mind they might need more information or they might not be able to give a hard yes or no right now.

So an example of expressing your thoughts and opinions on this is,

"I feel really overwhelmed and out of control when I feel irritable and angry like this because I think I just don't know what to do."

Then you want to ask for it. What is it that you're wanting to request from your parents?

In this particular situation, a really simple way to ask for it is,

"Can you sign me up for group therapy?"

Clear, direct, and kind.

Then you wanna make sure that you are rewarding the other person. Now, this is where I see people get this part wrong over and over again because they're trying to think about what information they would need to convince themselves to say yes to themselves.

You've already done that. You already know what you want, and you've already understood why that would be beneficial for yourself. Now you've gotta think about it from the other person's perspective.

So from your parents' point of view, why would signing you up for group therapy be beneficial to them? I mean, they're gonna have to put a lot of time, energy, financial commitment, and potentially scheduling to make this happen for you. So why would they put that energy and effort out that in a way, that's going to be beneficial to them?

And it's gotta be more than because they love you and you are their sweet dear child. Of course, they do, and of course, they would probably move mountains for you but that's not the situation here. So you've gotta make it particular to the situation and not just this warm, fuzzy feeling.

So when it comes to rewarding your parents in this situation, you wanna think about how this would be beneficial and useful to them too.

A simple way to think about potentially rewarding your parents is to say something like,

"Connecting with other kids who are going through similar situations as me would definitely help me feel less lonely and isolated, and it might actually help me feel better to learn from them. Then I can teach you guys the strategies that I learn too. And wouldn't that be cool if we could have a conversation without biting each other's heads off?"

That's probably the big reward.

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