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Showing posts from September, 2021

Self-care is not selfish

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  It is possible that the idea of self-care in the modern outlook comes from the Jesuits’ concept of CURA PERSONALIS. Cura Personalis translates from Latin as ‘care for the entire person’ or ‘care of the whole person’. Different cultures around the world developed their own philosophy of self-care and a connection between an individual, community and the larger environment. In other words, the holistic view of health and taking care of the body, mind, spirit and its surroundings has been promoted for centuries. In health care, self-care is considered as a necessary regulatory function, not a selfish activity. It is recommended by health providers and should be a set of regular, deliberate, self-initiated activities under individual control. Examples are: having regular healthy meals, taking medication, exercising, keeping a balance between work, family life and the rest, engaging in hobbies and social life and much more. Self-care is for everybody. It is a common sense approach, the

GRATITUDE (for Angelina)

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                                                            Dada Vaswani (1918-2018) I lived in London for a few years over 20 years ago. For many reasons I was absolutely ecstatic when I moved there, and I was able to experience many different cultures, and visit treasures of different cultures and civilizations  in London’s museums. During that time I worked for a wealthy Indian family. They treated me very well, and they made me feel that my presence and my work for them mattered. They made me feel like I belonged. My employers gave me a great insight into their spirituality, and taught me a few lessons on how spirituality works in action, without empty words. They never spoke about themselves like “I am so spiritual, look at me!”. Their spirituality was embodied in their actions. Many acts of their kindness and genuine care towards their family, friends, community and the world were inspirational to observe. It was a new thing for me -  a completely different culture with an incred

Mental Health in a nutshell ( part 2 )

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  Research shows that anybody is at risk of developing negative mental health. We all have the potential to suffer from mental health problems at any stage of our lives, regardless of our age, gender, status or ethnicity. Research shows that some disorders onset early in life and other ones appear much later. Mental health disorders are often not as visible to an observer as a person with a broken leg or undergoing cancer treatment. Something else is broken, internally. Physical health conditions, especially those ongoing or terminal can cause mental health breakdown/problems as a side effect of the illness. Overworking and not taking enough breaks can lead to physical exhaustion which leads to mental exhaustion. Looking after our physical body while having mental health issues might be  a struggle, however without a healthy routine based on a healthy diet, good sleep, exercise, hygiene and regular health check ups improvement is impossible. On the other hand - it might be surprising

Mental Health in a nutshell (part 1)

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Like with everything else – there is more than one definition of mental health. According to the World Health Organization (2018) mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. It is a state of wellbeing in which individuals realize their abilities, cope with normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and make contributions to their community. They feel content and fulfilled. In an ideal world, everybody would follow this script. I wish we lived in an ideal world. We – humans - don’t live in an ideal world. There is an enormous amount of challenges each person has to encounter in life and their wellbeing, as a result, is affected. Nothing is written in  stone and the only certainty is change. Mental health could also  be  described as the balance between emotional, psychological, social, environmental and spiritual states, all interconnected. It is what we think and feel about ourselves and everything else. If the balance is negatively impacted we can tal

Welcome to the Metamorphosis Psychotherapy Blog!

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This blog has a psychoeducational purpose as an addition to my website -  https://metamorphosispsychotherapy.com/  - in hopes that it might help someone to start their journey to well-being. I intend to write about well-being related topics and  share knowledge that I have acquired over the years along with  some reflections, observations and ideas .  My intention is to write about things in a comprehensible and relaxed manner which can be understood by everybody.  Please keep in mind that  I offer a certain perspective on wellbeing and there are lots of other perspectives out there. I have no intentions to re-invent the wheel while writing about certain topics, to challenge anybody's views, neither I claim to be a top expert in the area. I feel I know enough to share and also believe we as people are never finished learning.    Well-being is a multifaceted construct and there are all sorts of standpoints on well-being. My perspective grew out of holistic health and was rooted in