Practical Self-Care Tips: An interview with Tanya Alvarado, LMHC
As many of you know, I am an advocate for self-care and what better way to talk about self-care than with my dear friend and colleague, Tanya Alvarado, LMHC. Tanya is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with over 13 years of experience and the Owner of A New Path Counseling. Her passion and purpose is working with neurodivergent kids, teens, young adults and adults. She loves helping those individuals who don’t quite “fit in a box”.
Check out our conversation below:
BEATRIZ
I am here today with Tanya Alvarado and we are going to talk all about self-care. But before I jump into any of that, I want her to have a moment to introduce herself. Tell us a little bit of who you are. What do you do? Who do you work with?
TANYA
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am Tanya Alvarado. I work at a new path counseling. I'm a licensed mental health counselor. I work in a private practice setting, and the populations that I enjoy working with are neurodivergent kids, young adults and adults. Individuals that maybe have some diagnosis like anxiety related disorders, OCD, Tourette, and ticks and autism. So those are kind of that's my niche. I also do work with other conditions, but that tends to be the thing that I am really passionate about and I see most in my practice.
BEATRIZ
I'm so glad that you're here and like I said earlier, self-care it's a huge topic. I know a lot of people talk a lot about self-care but how do you define self-care? What is self-care?
TANYA
Yeah, I try to keep things pretty simple as far as what my brain needs in order to learn. I just consider self-care to be self love, the way that you nurture and care for yourself, mind, body and spirit. And there's many different aspects of that. It could be a physical need. It could be an emotional need. It could be setting boundaries. But ultimately, it's about how do we take care of ourselves, the relationship with self really is what we're focusing on.
BEATRIZ
I like that. I read somewhere once that we are our longest self companion. So taking care of ourselves, loving ourselves, it's so powerful. I love that definition of self-care. So why; why would we want to do self-care? Do you think it's something important?
TANYA
I think it's super important. We're in the mental health field and it promotes better mental health. So being able to have self-care promotes our minds. It helps our body, our physical health. It helps us to sleep better, to have better relationships, to manage stress better. And those are just a few things to mention. But self-care really just helps us to be healthier in all aspects of our life. So it's super important that we take that time to nurture the relationship with ourselves and what we need.
Self-Care is not Selfish, it’s Essential!
BEATRIZ
I like that you mentioned better sleep. That’s something we don’t even think about. We don’t realize how much doing self-care can impact our sleep. Sleep is so important so by taking care of our needs then we can balance other parts of our lives as well. In your career, what are some of the misconceptions that you might hear about self-care? What are some of the things that you encounter?
TANYA
Yeah, that's a great question. I think the first thing that I hear often and I'll be honest, I sometimes have been guilty of this as well, is just thinking that self-care means I'm selfish or vain for taking time to care for myself. So I will be completely honest. It's something I had struggled with thinking that, oh, does this make me vain? Or entitled? Or am I focusing too much on my health and I really had to challenge my belief system around self-care because I do believe that if we're able to care for ourselves, we're able to have better relationships with our loved ones, our families, our friends.
That self-care is not selfish. It's actually putting yourself first so that you can have a better relationship with those around you. I'm a mom, and I know that you are, too. So being a mom, this is where it's super important. If I want to have a good relationship with my children, taking the time to invest in myself, making sure that my self-care cup, so to say, is full allows me to not be running on empty so I can give to my children throughout the day. Hopefully I'm more patient. Hopefully I'm ore kind. Hopefully I'm more empathetic. Hopefully I have just more energy in my cup to give to others and I think that cup analogy is really a really great concrete example of you know what we pour in is what we're going to get out. We can give more to others and serve people more, especially in the roles that we're in. If our cup is full.
BEATRIZ
Absolutely, 100%. What are your thoughts when somebody says self-care and they think that they are not taking care of themselves because they are pampering themselves or they think the opposite, getting my nails done is my self-care. What are your thoughts on that?
TANYA
Yeah, absolutely. I think that self-care can sometimes include pampering, but I would probably challenge the person to say any time that you spend building yourself up and meeting your own needs is edifying to your relationship with yourself, maintaining your mind, your body, your spirit. So if it's doing your nails and it helps you to feel more confident and put together. If it helps you to detach, maybe from serving others. If it helps you to kind of nourish yourself absolutely, go get your nails done, go get your pedicure, go get a massage. Those are great ways to again pour into self and nourish our body, mind and spirit.
BEATRIZ
That was powerful. I really like that. What do you think it's the number one challenge that people face or gets in the way of practicing self-care?
TANYA
I think there's a couple of different things that are probably neck and neck, but probably I'm too busy. I'm just too busy to make time for it. There's not enough time in my schedule to put me on there, so I think that's one. And then the second thing is maybe I don't know what I need.I don't know how to maintain this routine. I don't know how to keep this up. Maybe the new year. There's a lot of energy and positivity and motivation, but how do I keep this up throughout the year? This lifestyle, this habit, and then the third thing I would think is, can I afford this? You know, if it's getting my nails done or having a massage. Or, you know, doing something for myself. Can I afford this self-care strategy? I think those are a few different things that I can think of that get in the way.
BEATRIZ
Common barriers to self-care:
I dont have time, I dont know what I need and I don’t know how to maintain it?
I like this alot. First, I don’t have time, I am too busy. Second, I don’t know what I need and Third, how do I maintain it. A lot of times we have that energy to do things but things like time can get in the way. What are some self-care strategies that you find effective when it comes to managing stress?
TANYA
Absolutely. Great question. I think the first thing that I personally use is time management skills. So scheduling in my self-care so that I don't forget it, where I don't miss it. I think it makes it more realistic to actually do the things we want or need to do for ourselves. So something that I personally do is on Sundays I kind of map out my week and I actually put in my self-care throughout the week so I know I'm going to have this break. I'm going to do this thing for myself, so I think that time management is the first thing to help us have a plan and a strategy for self-care. And then more specifically with skills, when I'm mapping it out, I put in there, you know whether I'm going to do a workout, if I'm going to read a book, if I'm going to have some quiet time, you know, doing things that are really good for my faith. I like to just time block certain parts of my day or my week and allocate time for self-care.
So I think that that's really important is time management and then exercise and movement. That's one of my biggest self-care strategies. I try to, you know, between three to five times a week depending on the week. And I'm not very rigid with what exercise looks like. I'm just big about movement. As long as I'm moving my body, that's considered exercise, whether it's going outside and getting some sunlight and some vitamin D, being in nature, that's really important. Whether it's doing a HIT workout or a weighted workout, as long as I'm moving my body, I know it's productive and healthy for my nervous system. Really just helping me to calm and center and ground, so those would be my top two and then probably the last one probably very simple. We all do it, but maybe it seems kind of difficult yet simple at the same time as breathing just breathing.
BEATRIZ
Breathing is so fundamental and yes we all “breathe” but its all about taking the time, being purposeful. Setting the time to pause and breathe. I love how you talked about time management being key. Identifying that self-care on the calendar but taking it a step further in identifying what it is that you're going to do during that time, even having options.
So let's say my plan on a Monday morning is to do a workout, but then something happens. My son is sick. We totally understand. It happens. What is my other option? Do I have 5 minutes to sit down and journal and express my emotions and my concern that my son is sick. Being able to set that time aside and have options when things change. Alright, my last question is what role does self-awareness play in self-care.
TANYA
Yeah, that's a great question. I love that you are asking that because I feel that self-care is really based upon the awareness of self, like the awareness of where we're at, what we need, what's happening within us because a lot of times like you said, do we intentionally take that time to pause and turn inward and do some self-introspection, because without that piece, it's really difficult to move on to the other things we mentioned earlier without really looking inward. What do I need? How do I feel? What? What's not being met right now? Because a lot of times we can't meet those needs if we're not aware of where they're coming from and what we need, quite frankly, so. I think that self-awareness is really key to self-care.
Being able to check in, what do I need right now? I didn't sleep well last night and I'm feeling irritable because, you know, my cup is not full. I'm running on empty. My child was sick last night. So what do I need? Do I need a nap today instead of that exercise? Maybe I need a 20 minute cat nap. So there needs to be that self-awareness of where am I at? What do I need today at this moment and maybe my intent was to have that 20 or 30 minute workout, but I don't have that today. But maybe when my son goes down to nap, I'm going to take a 20 minute nap too, because I need a little shut eye because that's what my need is. Today. So I think that self-awareness is key. Having that internal dialogue with self on what our needs are and being able to meet those needs, that would be the next step in planning for that. But we can't do that without that dialogue with ourselves.
BEATRIZ
Absolutely meeting the need, but we won't know that need unless we ask ourselves. It's all connected. Once we know what we need, we can communicate it to others, to our loved ones, to friends. We can communicate it to a family member. Say I'm not in a good place right now, and that's OK.
Also setting boundaries, I consider that self-care too. Being able to put that boundary in place and say, no, my cup is either empty or overflowing. I might have too much going on in my life right now or it's super empty and I cannot absorb someone else’s energy.
One last question, I know I said the previous question one was last, but I think we all need to hear this. What is something you might say to someone who is struggling with self-care?
TANYA
I think the first thing is what are the barriers? What's affecting your ability to practice self-care? Is it a belief system that we need to tackle and dismantle? Is it the practicality of not having enough time or support? Is it the lack of assertiveness skills that we need to work on? So I think it's identifying what's the barrier between you and self-care that you want. And then once we can dismantle that or build something to help support that, then we can work on a plan of action. But I think it's identifying what is really going on here that's preventing you from meeting your own needs, because without that, we can't have a plan but know there's barriers in place that will prevent you and set you up for failure. So I think that's the first step.
I think the second thing is just that mindset. Having the mindset that we need to practice self-care like when we go on an airplane and they say, put your mask on first if there's an emergency and then help the person next to you, even if it is a child, you know that is important to us, especially parents, adults caring for those who are. You need to be able to put your mask on first and then help the person next to you. This is such a great analogy to self-care. I can only give to others what I'm giving to myself.
BEATRIZ
Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. That was a really good way of wrapping up our conversation. I am glad I asked that question. Alright, tell everyone where they find you if they're interested in connecting with you and your practice, tell us a little bit of how they can connect you.
TANYA
Yeah. Well, thank you so much again for having me. The best way to connect with me is through my website, e-mail or social media. So my website is www.anewpathcounseling.com We're located in Central Florida, Oviedo specifically, but we do provide services in office and through telehealth to those individuals in the state of Florida. You can reach us via email at admin@anewpathcounseling.com or phone at 407-476-5994
BEATRIZ
Thank you so much for today. I hope everyone enjoyed everything, I know I did. I enjoyed our conversation very, very much.
