Victoria Albina, a Certified Life Coach and Family Nurse Practitioner, dives deep into the power dynamics of our thoughts and their impact on health and well-being. She shares insights on managing codependency and harnessing thought work for emotional resilience. Through engaging anecdotes, she explains the concept of a 'belief bridge' as a tool for self-belief. Victoria also highlights the importance of clear communication in relationships, emphasizing directness over mind reading, and offers practical strategies for fostering mindfulness and gratitude in everyday life.
The podcast emphasizes the transformative power of thought work, enabling individuals to reshape their emotional responses and interactions with others.
Victoria Albina advocates for self-care as a crucial practice for reclaiming personal agency and cultivating joy amidst societal pressures to please others.
Deep dives
Transformative Self-Care Journey
Roost is introduced as a year-long self-care program aimed at individuals who habitually prioritize others over themselves. It emphasizes shifting from self-abandonment to self-partnership, highlighting that taking time for oneself is essential rather than selfish. This program provides tools, strategies, and a supportive community to help participants reclaim their time and energy, promising to facilitate a transformation towards feeling valued and in control. The core message is about the necessity of self-care in achieving a balanced and joyful life.
Importance of Thought Work
The episode delves into the concept of thought work, underscoring its significance in managing emotions and reactions to external situations. Thought work involves identifying habitual thought patterns that lead to negative feelings and taking action based on those feelings. A process is shared wherein individuals can write down their thoughts, categorize them, and reflect on the feelings and actions stemming from them. This introspective practice aids in breaking free from patterns of anxiety and perfectionism, fostering a sense of empowerment and clarity.
Managing Anxiety and Perfectionism
A practical example is provided to illustrate how to navigate anxiety during stressful situations, such as awaiting feedback from a boss. Instead of spiraling into panic from a vague request for a meeting, individuals are encouraged to dissect the situation by recognizing the actual words used and challenging their interpretations. By shifting the internal narrative from fear to a more neutral or positive stance, such as affirming personal safety, individuals can alter their physiological responses and interact with their surroundings more calmly and confidently. This principle helps reframe perceptions and diminishes the physical and emotional toll of perfectionism.
Building a Supportive Inner Dialogue
Strategies for fostering a nurturing and constructive inner dialogue are discussed, emphasizing the need to practice self-compassion and awareness. Participants are encouraged to utilize bridge thoughts to gently guide themselves from self-doubt to self-acceptance, creating a pathway to deeper self-belief. Incorporating daily mindfulness techniques, such as setting aside time for intentional pauses or using sensory engagement, enables individuals to remain grounded and present. By acknowledging and affirming their worth and emotions, they can cultivate healthier relationships with themselves and others.
Are you giving your thoughts too much control over you? Our thoughts are so powerful and have the ability to manipulate how we feel about a certain situation or person. They can even impact our health, physiological symptoms we experience within our bodies, and the level of safety we experience while navigating our lives.
In today’s episode, I spoke with Victoria Albina. Victoria is a Certified Life Coach and Breathwork Meditation Guide with a passion for helping women realize that they are their own best healers, so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism and people-pleasing and reclaim their joy.
She is also a UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, has a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College. Victoria has been working in health & wellness for over 20 years and lives on occupied Lenape territory/Brooklyn, New York City.
Victoria and I discussed how she uses thought work to tend to herself. We delved into the act of reclaiming power over words and thoughts. She shares her strategies for using the thought work intentionally and what a “belief bridge” is and how to incorporate that into your practices if you aren’t feeling confident.
Tune in to hear us explore…
Incorporating thought work on a daily basis as a means to take care of herself
Orienting yourself back to reality and the here and now
Taking the steps over the belief bridge
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