Hey everybody! Happy Thursday!
Now today's question actually comes from
the livestream and if you haven't come
over to YouNow and hung out with us you
are totally missing out.
But before I hop into today's question I
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Now to jump into today's question and the
question is; "on the livestream you asked
about the LGBT+ ideas".
I did!
"What about self-acceptance,
dealing with a homophobic family,
bullying and gay bashing,
how to handle it all and what we can do to
'save' our mental health from falling".
I thought this was a great question
and so I'm going to try and answer these
in order as well as give some general
advice.
So her first question says "what about
self acceptance"?.
And I find a lot of my clients in the
LGBT+ community struggle with this most
because we know that we're part of that
community before anyone else.
We're the first to recognise that.
Therefore, we can notice all of a sudden,
start noticing things around us and people
can be really ridiculous and really
judgemental and really prejudiced.
And so a lot of that we internalise
before anybody knows what we're going
through.
And so I would encourage all of you,
if you're part of the LGBT+ community,
actually, if you're
a person in general, we should all be
practising positive self-talk.
It's something I preach over and over and
I know you're like 'Oh my God Kati if you
say this one more time',
but it's so important for us to notice
how we talk to ourselves,
because the whole process of coming out,
if that's something you decide to do -
you don't have to come out, just so you
know - but if that's something you decide
to do,
we need to feel good about it. We need to
be accepting of ourselves and where we're
at and even if we're just questioning we
need to be able to say 'it's okay for me
not to know right now'.
And I know that that sounds like a lot
because it is.
Give yourself time, journal about it,
talk to a therapist about it,
talk to people, talk to yourself in a very
kind, compassionate way because
there's a lot going on and it can take us
some time to process through it all
and be accepting of we're at right now.
And a tip for positive self-talk is to
start your day with five positive things
that you like about yourself,
and end your day with another five.
And if you're having a really shit time I
would encourage you to keep one of those
lists of five things in your wallet or in
your purse, somewhere on your body,
maybe in your pocket, so you can
pull it out and read it and be like
'Yes,
I do believe that those are things about
me that I enjoy and that I like',
because all of that just helps build our
self confidence,
build our self acceptance,
and make us feel better overall.
The second question she asked is,
"How to deal with a homophobic family?".
This I hear about a lot
and there are a few tips and tricks I have
as well as
the thought that maybe we aren't as close
to our families as we used to be which I
know is a lot to digest so let's start at
the beginning.
Start by having a thoughtful conversation
with them.
I have an LGBT+ workbook, I'll link it in
the description so you can check it out,
but I talk a lot about prepping how we
tell people in our lives and come out,
if that's something we want to do, like I
said, not everybody wants to do that and
that's completely fine.
But a lot of it's just practising how we
want to say it,
talking to them,
because I find a lot of my clients get
upset when they do come out to their
parents or their family,
and then they expect acceptance right away
and unfortunately
it can take family members and close
people in our lives a while to digest what
we're telling them.
And I know that that can be really
frustrating because
it's taken us forever to get to this point
and then we tell them and we want them to
hug us and say 'we love you no matter
what" and all of that,
but we have to give them time to
think about it,
to hear what you've said, and we have to
be comfortable with giving them that time
and space.
The second little tip when it comes to
dealing with family,
especially if they may be homophobic or
showing you some signs and symptoms of
being that way,
is to educate them,
give them resources,
tell them to check out a certain website
or a certain video, or a certain book, or
anything,
so that they can educate themselves.
And then the final
thing is, like I said,
we may just not want to see them as often.
And I know that sucks,
and that doesn't mean it's easy,
but,
we're going to need people in our lives
that support us,
who love us,
who don't make us feel bad
about who we are.
And if they can't come
around to it, if we give them time, if we
communicate clearly,
if we offer up resources so they can
educate themselves,
they have no reason to not understand
where you're coming from and love and
accept you.
And so if they don't, and they can't,
then we may just want to spent less time
with them.
And the final part of her question, "how
to save our mental health from falling
during all of this?",
have support ,
have people in the LGBT+ community that
you talk to daily,
that you're in contact with, whether that
be a group, whether that be an LGBT+
therapist - there's a lot of sex positive
and LGBT+
positive therapists and people who work
out of that mindset - so find someone,
start talking to someone,
even if that's online,
find a space where you feel safe to
communicate all that you're going through
because then
we can start feeling better,
then our depression and anxiety
may go down and we'll feel like a better
version of ourselves, so give yourself the
time you need, make sure you get the
support when you need it most,
and hopefully that helps you feel
healthier and happier altogether.
Thank you so much for watching!
Hope you found this helpful, and leave any
of your tips and tricks in the comments
because as you know
together with your experience and my
expertise we get the best result.
And I will see you next time, Bye!
Subtitles by the Amara.org community