Last week, I held the first live office hour call with members of my Trans Vocal Exploration e-course. It was such a wonderful experience to see everyone's faces and hear about the things that are coming up for them while they work through this course.

Many of the students described challenges with motivating themselves to keep a consistent practice schedule. Sometimes dysphoria is too high, or sometimes there are mental blocks that we aren't even fully aware of.

A few of the students had set up 20 minute daily intervals in their calendar for practice and missed them consistently for a week. I suggested that for one week, they use that time to journal about practice and those blocks for only 5 minutes. Then substitute that 5 minutes of journaling with 5 minutes of practice and build up for there.

These are very normal experiences that many students go through, and this is why I created this printable self-care checklist.

The questions on the checklist are these:

1. How will my body tell me when I am reaching my emotional and/or physical limits? What physical sensations or feelings will alert me when I need a break?
2. What actions can I take to process feelings that may come up during this process?
3. What will I do when I feel stuck in this work?
4. Who can I invite into my life right now to support me during this process?
5. How can I find and connect with people who are also doing this work?

Obviously, you can use these questions for anything in your life that may bring up challenging feelings. This checklist is designed to help you prepare a support network for yourself as well as plan your coping strategies in advance of any big issues.

I hope this helps!