Four Ways to Check in With Ourselves
Ideas from a Maryland therapist for ADHD, anxiety, autism, and family stress.
Today’s blog topic is an essential one: ways to check in with yourself. Whether it’s summer, fall, spring, or winter, it’s important to remind ourselves to check back in with how we’re doing.
What is checking in with yourself? To check in with ourselves simply means that we are reconnecting with our feelings, positive or negative. It means that we take a moment to pause and reflect on how we are doing.
Sometimes we don’t check in because we’re afraid to see how we’re really doing. But most of the time, checking in with yourself will help you process that feeling and move forward.
Checking in to strengthen your mental health: 4 easy ways
1) Talk to a trusted friend
This is a great way to think about and reflect on our experiences. We can talk about things to a trusted friend and they can both give us their perspective on the world and make us think about our own experiences in a different way. They can also help us sort through and make sense of events we feel at a loss to untangle. Giving them the space to do so is important as well — to have the back and forth of helping them check in with us and us check in with them is highly important for a healthy friendship.
2) Write/Voice record your thoughts
Relaying our experiences in a different form can help us think about the same experience in a different way. Writing your thoughts and experiences down in a journal, or voice recording your experiences (if you’re not one for the act of writing) can help you check in with yourself. Record your thoughts and set your writings aside for at least two hours, if not a day. Come back to your writing and see what thoughts spring up. Sometimes what you say in the past puts your feelings in sharper perspective.
3) Take a mindful moment
Sometimes the best reflection and check in is to take a moment to think and feel in stillness. It’s important to give ourselves some space (whether it’s at a quiet park or in a closet away from the rest of our housemates) and sit with ourselves for an uninterrupted period of time. Reflect on the day or the week (or the year). How am I doing? Am I feeling okay? What things could be better or worse? Am I happy with where I’m at right now? Asking ourselves gentle questions from time to time can help us tap into parts of ourselves and our experiences that we forget to reflect on in the moment.
4) Do some gardening (or something like it)
Do an activity that slows us down in our daily life. Anything that requires time and patience (and small movements) can help us slow down physically and mentally. That means anything from gardening to yoga and pilates. It gives us time to reflect and think about how we’re feeling. Allow thoughts to flow freely in this space — it helps with our understanding of how we’re doing.
Creating something is especially helpful for adults with ADHD (kids too)
This last tip is especially important if you have ADHD or anxiety. If you struggle with anxiety on a regular basis, gardening brings you into the here and now. Touching the ground (or a canvas) and making something happen is…well…grounding. If you have ADHD, gardening (or writing music or creating art) brings the vision in your head to life. Using your creative spark in this way gives you a moment to connect with your best self.