Big Self School

The doctors will see you now. Big Self School is growing. Big giddy vibes over here. Here's the skinny: 1. We are now offering therapy for mental health maintenance, as well as coaching. Through our intake process, we'll help you decide what the right path is for you. Come visit us in our cozy office. 🛋 (Look how cozy it is!) 2. We no longer offer coaching "packages." It's unrealistic to decide on the front end of your well-being journey that 12 sessions are all you need to reach your goals. Healing and growth are messy and our timetable isn't always accurate. Now you can pay as you go. A flat hourly fee. Keepin' it simple. 3. We're providing mental health pop-ups to businesses around town who want to offer a taster version of therapy or coaching to their employees. We'll come hang out for an hour, a half day, or a full day and bring our bag of tricks for mental health maintenance. 20 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒔. 𝑮𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒏. 𝑮𝒆𝒕 𝒐𝒖𝒕. 𝑮𝒆𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒔. 4. More on this soon, but we are embracing AI. It's changing the world — fast — and how we care for people through therapy and coaching will 100% be affected. If you're looking for a therapist or coach, and you're open to using AI to supplement your work with a human, then you are going to want to work with us. 😇 These are exciting times. Reach out to chat if you want to learn more! xoxo #mentalhealth #mentalhealthmaintenance #therapy #businesstherapy #feeltoheal #chattanooga #chattanoogatn #leadership #leadershipcoaching #AI #embraceai

Burnout 👏 is a soul 👏 crisis. 👏 You heard it here first.

Many of us are well-rehearsed in all the reasons for our personal and collective anxiety. I (Chad) started writing this in the middle of the night because my brain was wide awake. Sometimes even the most earnest mindfulness attempts at calming your mind can only sit there and observe what's going on--but not necessarily stop it. There is a great deal of specific content and research on how to work on yourself from the inside out. Articles on forming better habits, and practicing mindfulness abound. Not so many, however, show us ways to get outside ourselves, if not always literally outside. May these ideas be a guide for transport and help you as much as they’ve helped me. #bloggerlife #bloggingtips #bloggingcommunity #bloggerstyle #bloggersgetsocial #blogging101 #bloggerbabe #ontheblog #bloggerproblems #linkinprofile #lifestyleblog #blogtribe #bloggingadvice #bloggerlifestyle #writersofinstagram #instapoetry #writerscommunity #writersofig #writingprompt #writersblock #creativewriting #writtenword #instawriters #spilledink #wordgasm #poetsofinstagram

We all do some of these. But most of us don't know when we're doing them. We think we're responding to "reality." What's your go-to CD? I'm (Shelley) definitely prone to #7. 🙃 1. Labeling: Ever felt like a complete failure after one small mishap, like a job rejection? That's labeling – where one slip-up makes you define yourself entirely in a negative light. 2. Discounting the Positive: Do you ever brush off your wins, thinking they’re just luck or not a big deal? That's discounting the positive – minimizing any good that comes your way. 3. Mental Filtering: It's like wearing negativity goggles, where you only focus on the bad stuff even when there's plenty of good around you. 4. Emotional Reasoning: This is when your feelings take the driver's seat, making you believe something is true just because you feel it, ignoring the actual facts. 5. Mindreading: Assuming everyone has a negative opinion about you, even without any proof? Yep, that’s mindreading. 6. Catastrophizing: Always expecting the worst possible outcome without any real evidence? That’s catastrophizing – turning molehills into mountains in your mind. 7. Overgeneralizing: If one thing goes wrong, do you think everything will always go wrong? Overgeneralizing makes one bad event mean endless future failures. 8. Personalization: Do you think everything bad that happens is somehow your fault? Personalization takes all negative events and makes them personally yours. 9. "Should" Statements: Do you constantly beat yourself up with “I should have” or “I must have” done something differently, even when you couldn't have known better? 10. All-or-Nothing Thinking: Seeing things in black and white, like either you're a total success or an absolute failure, without any middle ground? That’s all-or-nothing thinking, ignoring all the shades of gray in between. So now your turn -- tell us which one you use all the time but wish you didn't. #cognitivedistortion #mentalhealth #therapistsofinstagram #CBT #cognitivebehavioraltherapy #selftrust #selflove #selfacceptance #holdingspace #bekind #bepresent #expectations #onhealing #selfadvocacy #useyourvoice #behuman #knowyourself #feeltoheal #selfconfidence #discernment #resilience

What we want to tell every, single client. And every single one of you who may think you're broken or need to be fixed. 💖 There is nothing wrong with you. You have patterns to unlearn, wounds to heal, and new behaviors to embody. But there is nothing wrong with the core of you and who you are. You are unlearning generations of fear and remembering love. It takes time. There is ZERO to feel shame about. #EndTheStigma #BeKindToYourMind #MentalHealthRecovery #EndTheSilence #MentalHealthJourney #mentalhealthcommunity

You were born exactly as you needed to be. You possess gifts and a unique constellation of atoms and neurons, all firing to make you already whole. By cutting through outward expectations and cultural mania, you will find that within you is already a calm and steady self. Our modern lifestyle packs a punch when it comes to stress. We are brainwashed by the idea that we can control the uncontrollable, bend reality to meet our expectations, and twist other people’s wills to meet our needs. We have an arsenal of irrational thought patterns that don’t line up with our lived experience, and that dissonance we feel is anxiety showing up. Even in the best of times, our anxiety can dictate the terms of our reality. In times of intensity and heightened stress, our desire to stay calm, patient, and unruffled may seem impossible. Our brains are hard-wired to scan for impending threats to keep us safe, and the body automatically keeps score. We can’t escape this. But we can learn to work with what is naturally happening so that it doesn’t pull us under into the deep black waters of anxiety and despair. Visit the Big Self blog to read this brand-spankin' new blog post. Link in bio! #bloggerlife #bloggingtips #bloggingcommunity #bloggerstyle #bloggersgetsocial #blogging101 #bloggerbabe #ontheblog #bloggerproblems #linkinprofile #lifestyleblog #blogtribe #bloggingadvice #bloggerlifestyle  #writerscommunity #writingprompt #writersblock #creativewriting #writtenword #instawriters #spilledink #wordgasm 

𝘽𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙮! 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙩— 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙙𝙤 𝙄 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙣𝙤𝙬? Common issues that a business therapist is uniquely qualified to help with: ✅ Workplace and team dynamics (Family systems on a massive scale 🤓) ✅ Burnout (and symptoms associated with it such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc.) ✅ Imposter Syndrome (Result of an “insufficiency wound” that needs to be healed) ✅ Developing EQ and leadership skills (honor your own emotional capacity before you can honor it in others) ✅ Deprogramming unhealthy patterns with money (Your relationship to money often resembles the ways you approach other relationships in your life.) ✅ Life Purpose (Imagine that all the issues and wounds from your childhood were chosen deliberately by your own soul in order to develop and hone you. How have your psychological issues trained and developed you?) Give us a holler if you want to talk business therapy for yourself or your key employees. #businesstherapy #consciousleadership #purposedrivenleader #purposedrivenleadership #personalgrowth #professionalgrowth #wellnessatwork #wellbeingatwork

What if you had an AI coach offering instant alerts when your mind starts to ruminate or get entangled in negative thought patterns? 🧠 Or when your heart starts to race for no apparent reason. 📈 What if you could catch your stress before it escalates? And begin to decode the underlying thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that triggered it? What if you could get to know your own Inner Teacher/True Self intimately well and know exactly what it wants you to do? And what if this coach could support you 24/7? And offer you tangible feedback and be your thought partner in helping you understand WHY you do the things you do so that you can unlearn those habits and patterns in real-time. Without having to wait for your next appointment. Pretty cool, huh? This is a fun time to be alive. We are at the very beginning of an AI revolution. The way we take care of our mental wellbeing and support each other's wellbeing will not look the same in 10 years. More on this later. (We want you all to be prepared.) But for now... 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙀𝙈𝙈𝘼 — 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙀𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙈𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙈𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝘼𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩. We are hard at work bringing her to you. If you want to stay in the loop about our launch, sign up at bigselfschool.com/emma. We'll be looking for folks to test very soon. #AI #mentalhealth #therapy #AIwellbeing #mindfulness #therapistsofinstagram #aiatwork #aiphotography #aiwellness #aiwellbeing #aiwellbeingsupport #aimentalhealth #aicoach #bigself #bigselfschool

Mindfulness Works, but it’s Not For Everybody Mindfulness works, and it is hard. First, accept that you will never master it. You will never get “good enough.” So don’t even try. At the same time, you don’t need to live in, “I’ll never live up to the high standards of someone who practices mindfulness,” either. The standards aren’t high. You’ll definitely not practice it well at some point in the near future, and that’s after the obvious first attempts, which will not be easy or possibly even yield much in the way of results. What matters is that you show up, just like the idea of showing up in life. You show up to your practice. And it turns out, that is hard. How do you keep your practice afloat -- even when you're not feeling it? #mindfulness #meditation #mindful #meditate #consciousness #gratitude #enlightenment #spirituality #innerpeace #healingjourney #mentalhealth #selflove #mindfulnesspractice #dailymotivation #buddhism #personalgrowth #wakingup #personaldevelopment #beherenow #awakening #selfcare #dailyinspiration #positivityquotes #meditationpractice #dailyquote #qotd #lettinggo #healing

When I (Shelley) was studying to be a therapist in grad school, the first research paper I had to read looked at the effectiveness of therapy. The control group was assigned to meet with friends once a week for 6 months to discuss their feelings and the issues coming up in their lives. The experimental group was assigned to meet with a therapist once a week for 6 months. The researchers did a pre and post-test on several scales (depression scale, anxiety scale, life satisfaction scale). Every single outcome measure improved for BOTH groups. And the control group was slightly more improved. In other words, meeting with friends (at least in this study) demonstrated as many gains as meeting with a single therapist. Granted, it was a correlational study so it's hard to know what caused the gains, but we can wonder. This study made me rethink becoming a therapist 😂 but more than that it showed me the power of community for our mental health. And I've never forgotten that lesson. (For the record, I think therapy is absolutely essential for a host of mental conditions, just not all. There's nothing 'wrong' that needs to be diagnosed for many, if not most, people.) Why don't we do this more? This level of connecting and vulnerability with people in our lives? Why don't we make the time? Why don't we value it? #weneedeachother #therapy #mentalhealth #community #wellnesscommunity #wellbeingcommunity #AIassistedwellbeing #growtogether #bigself #bigselfschool