Psychologist Inna Tkach

okay, folks
I made up my mind. It’s harsh, but I do need to do it.
I want to start working with English-speaker clients so I want to find someone who will be brave enough and patient to me to work with me in English as with a psychologist-consuler.

I guess, I can do it in text and audio-messages for beginning, for 25$ per session (an-one-hour-chatting).

I'll be appreciated for sharing this post to whom need it.

🤔People are often asking «why? what the point is? what is the reason of my tough situation? why did it happen to me?»
These are the most unproductive questions for self-searching however the most common.
There is no guarantee that we can find a reason at all; no guarantee that we will find a «very right», true reason. And if we could, there is no guarantee that this knowledge can help someone change their life in a willing way.

More often than not, «the reasons» of our choices and positions are caused by other people’s actions in the past, which we can’t change now.
In different psychotherapist’s traditions the question «why?» is not the best one of the possible (because of the associations from childhood with the question «why did you do that?!» and willing to be protected and make excuses) 🙅🏻‍♀️
But in the form «why is it significant?», this question acquires a completely different connotation.
It turns into a question about values and meanings: «Why was it so crucial to do in this way, not another?»
In this case it becomes perfectly acceptable👌

🤓Janet Conner in her book «Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within» gives us four types of non-constructive questions (for people who write the diary, ask themselves or world) and the previous is the one of them👆

❓She writes that «closed questions» (with yes/no answers) are better to ask to themselves , e.g.: «Am I ready to face the truth?» or «Do I really want to become a more empathetic, compassionate person?»
Any answer to these types of questions is an invite to dig deep.
Being addressed to the World (whatever it means) these questions are less effective for understanding our life and fortune.

💁🏻‍♀️One more type of questions, which Conner considers as non-constructive for self-discovering, is
the timing questions: «When smth good will happen to me or when smth bad will stop?»
More effective variant of this question is «How do I need to change / what do I need to start doing differently so I will get what I want and don’t get what I don’t want?»

☝️The last but not the least type of non-constructive questions are about other people.

When we are writing a diary, especially when the written practice becomes for us an option of spiritual practice, there is a meaning to write about yourself - your emotions, meanings, self-development. It’s not effective to write fin order to have impact on other people’s behaviour.
Others’ behaviour can change after our’s changes.
Janet Conner began to collect some effective, working, constructive questions, which we can use for self-discovering and her collection contains more than 200 questions. There are five basic categories.

1. The questions for supporting the development of awareness. E.g.:
Where do I feel that I stuck on my way / in my movement? What prevents me?
What do I need to deal with first? What kind of decisions have to be made?
What sort of conditions do I need for making the right decision?
How do I feel about what’s going on?
What do I try not to notice with hope that it will somehow disappear from my life on its own?
What do I need to do to be more at peace with myself?
Which parts of me want to be heard right now?
At what time during the day do I find myself the happiest?
What steals my energy? Where do I lose my resources ?
What do I have to learn now more than ever?
What kind of changes are coming in my life? How can I recognize them?
What is the «product/result» of my worries and anxieties? What do they bring into different areas of my life?

2. The questions for supporting the development of comprehension and meaningfulness. E.g.:
What sort of decisions brought me to this point of my life? What alternatives did I reject?
What am I doing to distract from important things?
What kind of traits and skills do I need to be more honest to myself and others?
What sort of my convictions formed the basis of this decision, this act?
What thoughts, words, and actions do I undermine my own efforts, how do I sabotage my movement towards my dreams, my desire to act in accordance with my values?
What has kept me from doing what really matters to me so far?
What is triggering automatic behaviour patterns in me that I would like to change?
What sort of tone and words do I speak with myself?
What do I do in my daily life and at work that I feel “forced” to do? How does this subjectively differ from what I really want to do?

3. The questions for contributing to deep self-understanding. E.g.:
What sides of myself I don’t want to accept? What would change if I could accept them?
Why do I hide my head in the sand like an ostrich? What life experiences am I avoiding? How much of my life do I spend «in the ostrich pose»?
What am I doing on auto-pilot, reproducing a behavioural pattern that I don't particularly like? How does this pattern of my behaviour affect the people around me?
Do I have a habitual mask - a form of self-presentation and communication? Or more than one mask?
What do I fear the most deep down in my heart?
What is my calling? What do I do in those moments when I feel like myself - in the highest and best way?
When do I feel inner wholeness?
Does my self-presentation, my external environment, reflect my inner world? To what extent, in what way?
What can I do to have more love in my life?
How can I get my power back? What will be the price of this?
What is my heart's deepest desire? How did it arise?
What question am I most afraid to answer right now?
The answer to what question am I most afraid to find out right now?

4. The questions for contributing to the vision and maturation of a preferred future. E.g.:
What prevents / forbids me to dream?
How do I recognize unusual, perhaps grandiose, but nevertheless real opportunities?
How would my life look like and feel from the inside if what I want and dream about came true?
What would I do if I had no limits at all?
What footprint would I like to leave in the world?
What can I do to make the best of the contents of my inner world manifest in the outer world?
Do I believe that I can change my life, that I can change the world in one way or another? How do I know this?
What do I need to do and how to manifest in the world that I am striving for?

5. The questions for supporting a manifestation and creation of the preferred future. E.g.:
What is the most significant right now? What do I have to ask about?
When do I need to start moving towards the desired future?
What can support me in moving towards?
What is the smallest change I’m able to do right now?
What do I have to let go, be free from so I can live the life I want?
How can I feel calmer despite the uncertainty of the future?
What is in the gap between the way things are now and the way I want? How can I overcome this gap?
What do I have to do today?

⚡️Be careful! It has a lot of questions!⚡️

It would seem that we are all adults here and know how to take care of ourselves. We dress appropriately for the weather, observe hygiene, eat ... right? 🙄
Taking care of yourself physically is a little understandable. And what about taking care of your mental, psychological, emotional statement? What thoughts and feelings do we dress in there? What kind of hygiene do we observe? What do we let in ourselves?
Let's figure it out 😉

Your own self-care is your choice and your decisions. At the very least, this does not mean that we cannot find out, listen to ourselves, figure out questions to ourselves, at least:
Is it comfortable for me❓
Am I good, nice❓
And if there is even a grain of doubt, change and ask yourself again.

The main reason why, I believe, we do not take care of ourselves is the internal refusal to allow ourselves to do this.
As soon as we want to move towards ourselves, there is a feeling that we will inevitably lose everything external - family, partner, friends, work and control over the situation.
After all, it seems to us that it is much easier to control everything external than internal. Delicate? responsibility for an easier taken object.
And here I would ask the question:
Can all this be lost indeed❓
Do people and events belong to you❓
Is this all external stuff really worth betraying oneself❓

👉And someone will answer “yes”, and chose to live not his own life, but the life of children, a company, a partner, transferring responsibility for their lives to them ... And this is also a choice.
👉But someone will answer “no” and swipe ?right and dignity to be happy and free (read - responsible for your life).

So how do you take care of yourself? 🌿
There is no correct and uniformly correct answer here.
But there are guidelines:
✅Put yourself first and foremost in your world. And this is not about selfishness in its classical understanding, not about the virus of other people. No.
This is about the fact that YOU are the center of YOUR world.
And each person around you is his center.
First, we understand our country: тут точно country?
How I feel❓
What do I think of myself❓
What are my meeting rules❓
How do I feel about myself and allow myself to be treated❓
Then we go to contact with the other world🙂

✅ Allow yourself to manifest and assign your manifestations to yourself.
It is not someone who is to blame for your reaction, not someone else's cause of your emotions, but you chose (consciously or automatically) to react that way.
And let❗️
By accepting even your most impartial reactions, you can take control over them. After all, its yours, its exist, its appear - now you decide what to do with them.
And, for example, no other person needs to walk on tiptoe so that, God forbid, you will not get angry again and cry.

✅ Draw your boundaries, values, beliefs. As long as this niche is empty or not clear - it will be very easy to influence these and go past the boundaries.
🤨For example, you have not previously thought about the family as your values ​​or needs, and then some tactless people begin to tell you that “it's time, it's necessary, it's a family!”
And now you are already absorbed in thoughts about this, you start frantically looking for a partner, around to see happy people only in pairs and absolutely not happy singles. And this is all about the fact that someone else's belief has been planted in your consciousness. But this is also useful - we pay attention to those areas of life, values, needs that were not previously highlighted.

At the same time, it is important, for a start, to defend the border:
Is this generally about me or not❓
Is it right for me or not❓
And what is my personal experience related to this❓
What is my belief based on my experience❓
What's right for me❓

This also includes not settling for small things🙅🏻‍♀️
Do not allow yourself to assess, indicate how to live, knock out support from under your feet and measure your standards by their own standards. Everyone has the right to express their opinion, but it's up to you how to take it to heart and what kind of reaction to express. Cultivate your own beliefs and foundations - honest, reliable, right for you🌿

✅Discipline, not violence. When we take care of ourselves, choose ourselves out of self-love, we do not need to go on rigid diets, conform to the ideals of beauty, go into procrastination, “pamper ourselves”, and then continue to self-harm. No.
❤️Taking care of yourself is being an adequate parent to yourself and making choices in favor of your well-being in the long term. It means redefining everything you have, and so changing your daily life. Asking yourself: What I want for myself in a year, two, five❓
First we do the important, then the urgent. It's about prioritization.

✅ And a little contradictory to the previous point - "to be here and now".
This is not about "everything and at once in the moment", but about the reconciliation of your movement, intentions, development.
How do I live this minute, hour, day❓
What do I feel❓
What am I thinking about❓
What am I doing❓
How and with whom I spend time❓
A friend once told me: “Do you know how to eat an elephant? Piece by piece! ”🐘
After all, any habit, any path, any success consists of seconds, minutes, hours, days, small steps.

Taking care of yourself means being a hero of your life, not a victim.
And if someone accuses you of being selfish - take care of yourself and send the person ... to a psychologist😁

…let’s give yourself a chance for greatness.

Thomas Edison tried to create a lamp 1000 times.
Children fall and stumble hundreds times per day before they start to walk.
Writer may rewrite thousand pages before he shows his bestseller to the world.
But you already know it…😪

We want to understand what we must do and what won’t lead to making mistakes.
Or how to experience them, and not allow themselves to be destroyed.
The key is that it's okay to make mistakes.
⠀
But what is the feeling of making mistakes?
Nothing new - being conscious. Because conscious person knows how to be here and now. And he doesn’t waste his time on constant reasoning on what WOULD BE, how it could be changed, and on what WILL BE. Isn’t afraid, isn’t anxious, isn’t winding himself up.
⠀
Do and test❗️
What children do when they want smth very much? They see the aim and go! Because in childhood, up to a certain point, there are no barriers in the mind and the possibilities are endless!
As we grow up, we are confronted with constraints, rules, frameworks and «right / wrong» concepts. And our actions, thoughts, desires suddenly become mistaken.
⠀
What should we do if we made a mistake❓
Live it. Live emotions, give them a constructive outlet. Then - analyze.
- What exactly did I do wrong?
- What can I do to fix this?

Important⚠️
Can you fix it? - Do!
Can’t? - Let’s think about what you will be able to do next time?
Better yet, come up with several ways to solve this problem.
And then a mistake is transformed into experience.
Experience that brings benefits, development, makes you stronger, more successful, more inventive, more creative

👉What is a mistake?
In fact, this is non-compliance with the standard.
But who set it? You? It turns out that you expected something specific from yourself and didn’t live up to your own expectations. Or is there a deeper reason? And the standard wasn’t set by you, but by society. Or by you, but under the pressure of generally accepted norms?
👉Then I have a question to you: why can someone build your life and influence it? Why do you let them do this influencing on your emotions? What for? Please, ask yourself. You may even understand why you still give in to these beliefs and influences. Find your «secondary benefits» 😜
⠀
😣Often we perceive our mistakes or actions as a personal defeat. And when we think so, we try not to give ourselves the right to make mistakes. Because making a mistake is equal to personal incompetence, weakness etc. In this case, it’s better to do nothing. Because the one who does nothing is never wrong.
BUT
🤓If we consider a failure as some feedback, - everything changes! This position has an impact on all spheres of life, but especially on those where consistency and patient learning based on the knowledge of «what doesn't work» are required.

I have met it in clients’ experiences and I have wanted to ask you: do you feel the differences between adequate effort and self-violence?🤨

👉 SELF-EFFORT differs from VIOLENCE by the presence of a PLEASURE from the activity itself and / or its results.
If you don’t feel the pleasure from your activity, you commit self-violence.
⠀
A pleasure is marked with rough thoughts, sensations and feelings:
✅I want to do it
✅I see and feel a sense in my actions
✅I like doing what I do
✅I feel an important value in my activity
✅I am inspired by my actions
✅I am inspired by results that I'll get from my activity
✅I feel the joy of this action and / or the results of this action in my life
⠀
😎Effort - it’s when you go out of your comfort zone and you know why you are doing it. It’s a will, it’s a choice. It’s adequacy and awareness of actions. The efforts are not excessive. And then you feel good. You are glad you did it. You feel self-esteem, pride in your successes.
⠀
🧐You can check your condition after the committed actions, deeds.
If you have done smth what required adequate effort, the condition is likely to be good or you will feel only pleasant fatigue.
But if you have done smth with over-effort, most likely you will feel exhausted, irritated, unhappy, there will be unpleasant fatigue, a feeling of disgust.
Of course, due to different life circumstances, it is unlikely that we can completely avoid the state of unpleasant fatigue, it is important to understand why this happened, do you always need sacrifices on your part? And is it possible to somehow minimize self-violence in your life?
⠀
❗️There are also three clear signs which help you to distinguish efforts against violence (and not only on yourself):

1️⃣Time.
If you tell yourself: «It's needed right now, right here, to be done over my head», when your current physical and emotional state and availability of resources don't matter, it is a violence. You don’t see and don’t consider yourself.
If you make efforts to achieve something, you give and take yourself as much time as you need, so that you can now move at your speed in the chosen direction.
⠀
2️⃣Faith / confidence.
«What I’m doing right now is within my power».
You feel it like knowledge about your opportunities and reliance on these opportunities.
Imagine that you tell yourself: «Look, you’ve already begun! I know it’s hard, but! Your feet can move back and forth, you know how to keep your back straight, how to keep a balance, you have good focus on what you see and it means that you can go!»
⠀
3️⃣Goodwill towards yourself.
All of these are impossible if inside yourself you humiliate yourself, devalue and fight with yourself at every step.
A huge amount of energy goes not for fighting for the desired, not for supporting yourself, but to endless beating and scourging yourself.
⠀
🙏All of these signs and their absence can be seen not only in relation to yourself, but also in parent-child and partners relationships.
Every time, when you hear from other people «Move and do it! Right now! You never fulfill my expectations!» - this is it.
But now you know the right way which will lead you to effort and not violence😉

Uh, we all know well, how it feels to not choose yourself:
▪️do smth, cause it needs to be done (for who?), but it's not wanted;
▪️care about other people's opinions;
▪️choose compromises or «the lesser evil»;
▪️look other people and try to put yourself in their shoes;
▪️care about other people more than about yourself or not to care about yourself at all;
▪️try to guess other people’s emotions and reactions and take responsibility for them;
▪️help when you are not asked for it;
▪️sacrifice yourself for… (children, family, husband, job, etc.);
▪️even suffer! And you’ll be happy! (but it’s not for sure)
I guess, this list is endless🙄
⠀
But we weren’t taught «how to choose ourselves».
Because it’s not profitable for our parents and their parents; our teachers and educators: our bosses and directors: our wives and husbands etc.
This cult of «inconvenience» and «sacrifice» stuck tightly in our mentality.
Hence, there are so many stereotypes and beliefs/attitudes like «Don’t ask/beg», «Don't brag», «Stop it! People are watching!», «What will people say?!», «Don’t laugh, don’t cry, don’t shout, don’t be silent etc.» - give your examples in comments🙏
⠀
When you don’t choose yourself, you betray yourself and your body, your feelings and emotions. It can also contribute to unpleasant psychosomatic illnesses🥵
⠀
What can we do❓
✅eradicate «not your» attitudes and rewrite them to yours, through awareness and your own desires.
✅learn how to want. You can begin with the opposite - «what I don’t want» (we know it well) and lead to «so, what do I want then».
✅ask yourself: «Do I choose myself now?», «Do I decide to care about myself, my time, health, well-being?», «I do it for my own result, don’t I?» (Honestly!), «Will I refill my spent resources/time/effort to not suffer and regret?»
✅ learn to feel and to defend your personal boundaries. To be a healthy selfish person 🙃
⠀
It will be so weird and uncomfortable in the beginning. Sometimes, you may feel ashamed and guilty. But it requires trainings and awareness.
⠀
📌When you are in stress situations, in the moments of confusion, try to ask yourself: «Do I choose myself now or not?»

Hello everyone!
My name is Inna, I’m psychologist and it’s my first topic in English🙃
Today we are going to talk about the rules in a work of a psychologist.I’ve chosen this topic because there are a lot of people scared to go to the psychologist.
But we have many rules and now I am presenting the most important ones.

✅First of all, Responsibility and Competence.
It’s a must-be in any professions, especially in dealing with people.
✅Protection of client's interests.
It's about voluntariness, the desire not to hurt, and the ban on giving advice.
✅Privacy - of course!
✅Promotion of qualified psychology.This rule includes objective information that I distribute to media.
✅Professional cooperation.
I must not discredit colleagues or or any other professions who use the same or other scientific methods.
✅My personal rules also include honesty and security for my client.
I will never judge client's thoughts, feelings or behaviour.

That’s all 🙂
Thank you for reading, I'd be glad to answer any questions you have.