Changing Perspectives Blog |
Changing Perspectives Blog |
Anxiety.
Just the word itself causes many people’s chests to tighten, pulses to quicken, minds to start racing, and their breath to feel more shallow. It’s not fun. If you are one of the many people that experience anxiety on a daily basis, you are not alone. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly 20% of the US population struggles with a diagnosis of anxiety. That means that 1 out of every 5 people deals with some level of anxiety. At least you are in good company, right? Add in a pandemic that requires parents across the country to suddenly home-school their children for the rest of the school year while simultaneously having to either work from home, continue to work their normal jobs as essential employees, or struggle with hours being cut, I’m guessing that the 20% number is more like 75% theses days. How do we manage the anxiety during a global pandemic? How can we somehow find ways to control the crushing anxiety when we are quarantined in our own homes and forced to live a version of life much different than the one we had built for ourselves? How can we prevent the anxiety from becoming a very unwelcome house guest with whom we must spend our lock down? Here are 9 quick strategies to help you regain a sense of control over your anxiety, despite living in the midst of a global pandemic: 1. Let Go of Perfection Now is not the time to put pressure on yourself to learn a new language, start a new workout routine, begin that great diet program to “finally” lose the extra body weight, get your house in tip top shape, or become the perfect spouse, employee, or parent. Now is about surviving and getting through this rough time. So much of what we are collectively feeling right now is grief. Would you expect perfection, increased motivation, improved concentration, and a chipper mood if a loved one just died? I hope not — because you’d be grieving. You are grieving now too — think about the things you have lost. Are you missing face to face time with friends, dinners out with your partner, lunches with your colleagues, commutes to your job, watching your children play sports, or attending a group fitness class? If so, you are grieving. Is your To Do list not getting completed each day? Then the problem is with your list — not with you! You are expecting too much of your grieving self right now. Reset your expectations right now. There will be time to expect more of yourself but that time is not now. 2. Rethink Social Media For many of us, social media has been a bit of a lifeline during quarantine. It has allowed us to connect with our friends, coordinate birthday drive-by parades, laugh at funny tik toks from people that probably shouldn’t be tik tocking (is that a word??), and vent about our feelings. It has kept many of us quite grounded at times. But, social media has always been a potentially dark place. It is where keyboard warriors go to vent their own emotions and frustrations. It’s where name-calling is worse than any school yard could possibly be. It’s where misinformation spreads like wildfire. It’s also a place where people don’t often change other people’s points of views. Used incorrectly, it can be a place of wasted emotional energy. If your social media friends, groups, pages, or followed sites are causing increased anxiety from you or are making your own blood boil, hide them, unfollow them, snooze them, or even delete them. There is no sense getting into a conversation about it, alerting them to it, or trying to tough it out. Just delete and move on for now. Clear your social media so that it can be filled with people and stories that make you feel good — or at least don’t make you feel worse. 3. Make Room For Self Care When in quarantine, so many of the things that filled our tanks and made us feel good are now off limits. Although it may feel like you don’t need self care because life has maybe slowed down for you, because of everything going on and the heaviness that surrounds every day, self care is actually more important now than ever. What can you do for yourself? Look at your schedule and block out some time for just you. Go for a walk alone — even if your dogs and your children look at you with sad puppy dog eyes. Get in your car and go for a drive alone. Go sit in your car in a parking lot, roll your windows down, and read a book or listen to a podcast or play some music. Take a nap. Pour yourself a glass of that fancy wine you’ve been saving for a special occasion and watch your favorite movie. You may need to get creative but find a way to take care of yourself each day. There is no right or wrong way to self -care — it’s just important that you carve out the time and do something for yourself. 4. Say No After spending so much time in quarantine, many of us have gotten very good at connecting with friends and family virtually. But, what many people are beginning to experience is technology fatigue. There are only so many virtual cocktail parties, group video chats, and Zoom bingo’s we can have before we start to crave some time away from the computer and phone. It’s ok to turn down some of those many invitations you are receiving from professional colleagues, friends, and family. It’s perfectly acceptable to take some time and NOT connect. In a weird way, many people are socializing MORE now than before the quarantine. Would you be going out this many nights a week or seeing friends in person as often as you are connecting virtually with them? It’s ok to cut back a bit — even if it’s just for a few days. 5. Get Moving Physical activity can really help break up long days in quarantine. If you live in an area of the country where even walking or running outside now requires a mask and parks are closed, your best options for getting moving may now require some added creativity and planning. Maybe you could take an early morning walk around your neighborhood, apartment complex parking lot, or even do laps up and down your own driveway. Or, perhaps your best option to get moving may be inside your own home. With lots of gyms, fitness studios, and online programs finding a way to stay relevant and profitable while not able to operate their physical space, there are many free and reduced options to try online. Have you always wanted to try a Barre, Pound, Zumba, BodyPump, Kickboxing, or any other workout program? You probably can find a way to try them all within the comfort of your own home now. Imagine — no one can see you trip or stumble or struggle with any of the moves! Choose one way to get moving for at least 10 minutes each day and note how you feel after you have done it. 6. Breathe What do you do when anxiety hits you full force and you can’t catch your breath? Being able to get control of your breathing again is key. One of my favorite breathing techniques to recommend is one called Square Breathing. Think of this as breathing in a square. There are five steps to square breathing: 1. Inhale for a count of 4. 2. Hold your breath for a count of 4. 3. Exhale for a count of 4. 4. Hold your breath for a count of 4. 5. Repeat steps 1–4. The Square Breathing technique takes some practicing. You don’t want your counts to be so fast that you hyperventilate. You also don’t want them to be so slow that you almost pass out. It’s best to practice this when not feeling anxious so that you know how to do it when you need it. Take a few minutes each day to practice being aware of your breathing. It’s amazing what a few good deep breaths can do for our minds and bodies. 7. Point Out the Positive It is really easy to become overwhelmed by negative information during a global pandemic. But, I promise you, there are positive things out there too — you just may need to look a little harder to find them. Try to find and read at least one positive, funny, or hopeful news story each day. Try to watch a tv show or movie or read part of a book each week that focuses on a funny, hopeful, or lighthearted story line. In addition to seeking out the positive, you can choose to BE the positive. Before you share that negative post or meme on your social media page or with your housemates, stop and think about whether it’s worth it. Would it be better to share something funny or bright right now? How would it feel to make someone else smile or laugh right now? It’s amazing to see what can happen once we start searching for and leaning into the positives and leaning away from the negatives. 8. Focus On Your Thoughts There is a thing that many of us with anxiety do — it’s called catastrophizing. When we catastrophize, we think about the worst possible thing and worry about it happening to us or our loved ones. We wonder how we would respond and how we can be prepared for the bad thing so that we are never caught off guard. Sound familiar? Become aware of your thought patterns and when you catch yourself starting to fall down the rabbit hole of “what if,” pull yourself back to reality. Ask yourself what value this line of thinking is providing right now. Ask yourself how likely the things you are worried about happening actually are right now. If that’s not enough to stop your catastrophizing, start a “worry journal” and write down your worried thoughts there. Give yourself a limit on how long you can spend reading and writing in your worry journal and make sure you give yourself equal time to write about and think about the positive things in your life, the things you can still have hope about, and the things you look forward to doing in the future. We don’t have to let our thoughts control us. We can climb into our own brains and begin to take control of our thoughts. 9. Consider Counseling Even thought many counselors (myself included) have moved their practices to an online format during the pandemic, now is still a good time to begin counseling for the first time. Although meeting a therapist for the first time via video or phone chat may be awkward, it can be a great opportunity to vent, unload, and have someone completely there for YOU for 45 minutes each week. They can also help you explore specific strategies to help manage the anxiety you are feeling now. How great would it feel to have someone there for you every week, holding supportive space for you, and helping you to develop new strategies for coping? All without having to leave your home! Although this pandemic and resulting quarantine time may leave you feeling very alone within your own home, remember that you are not alone. There are many people out there who struggle with anxiety even when there isn’t a pandemic. So, don’t be afraid to talk about your feelings with your friends and family — it is very likely that some of them are feeling the very same way. Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of and it is not something that has to control you. With practice, you can learn how to turn down those anxious thoughts and have greater enjoyment in your life, even when you life is completely turned upside down from a pandemic.
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“I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I start yet another day at my kitchen table, the place where I now can be found trying my hardest to balance the responsibilities of working from home with parenting two children and attempting to serve as their substitute teacher. Any given morning now finds me tackling clinical documentation and billing for my private therapy practice while helping my 14 year old muddle his way through assignments for 8 different subjects in a now completely digital learning environment while also debating the usefulness of responding to a journal prompt about an abandoned fort with my 5th grader.
Each day begins the same in this new Groundhog Day version of life and as I sit down at the kitchen table, I am keenly aware of the fact that I have less than 90 minutes to get at least some “school time” in for my kids before I completely ditch them and lock myself in my home office for 8 back to back psychotherapy sessions. Sure, I’ll pop out for the 10–15 minutes I have between sessions to refill my water glass, throw some food at my boys, put dogs out for a bathroom break, break up whatever dispute has started between the boys, and maybe even find time for a restroom break myself. Then it’s right back to work — headphones in, camera on, therapeutic space live and on the air. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I hold space for patient after patient who is working on the front lines of the COVID19 crisis. ICU nurses, doctors, and social workers all recounting horrible tales of what they are seeing day after day to me in our sessions. Suddenly my practice has become one filled with trauma work as I help my clients find hope, practice self care, and manage their intense fears of the virus. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I sit virtually with new moms who were already struggling with postpartum anxiety and depression and now have lost many of the lifelines we helped them to establish in our work together before the virus changed our world. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as my email and voicemail inboxes swell with former clients who are reaching out for support in light of what the virus has done to their lives. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I attempt to support patients who finally had achieved pregnancy after years of loss and failed IUD cycles and yet now have to attend doctor’s appointments alone and fear that if things get worse they may even have to deliver their babies without their partner present. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as patient after patient shares their fears about what will happen to them now that they have been laid off or furloughed or are no longer feasibly able to retire in a few months as their funds took too big of a hit. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as friends around me face grief, loss, and challenges completely unrelated to COVID19 — things like the sudden deaths of loved ones, health issues, and relationships coming to an end. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I begin to realize that I feel completely and wholly inadequate — utterly only mediocre in all aspects of my life now. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I wonder how I can possibly be the therapist my clients need when one of my ears is always listening to make sure my boys aren’t calling me to help them with something. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I question how I can be the parent my boys need when every day finds me shut up in my office with instructions for them to only bother me if there’s an emergency. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I worry about how I can be the wife my husband needs when he is continuing to manage a 24 hour/day medical service from home 2–3 days/week and then covering at least two 12–14 hour shifts each week. We are two ships passing in the night and when we finally do get to see each other we both are too emotionally spent to even acknowledge each other’s presence. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I try my best to reach out to my friends and family to offer them support and remind them that they are loved but I find my energy at the end of the day is almost completely nonexistent. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I lie awake in bed each night staring at the ceiling, wondering what will happen to us if one of us catches the virus or if my husband loses his job or if the weight of not being able to play sports and see their friends finally catches up with my boys. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” I remind myself as I realize yet again that if I am struggling this much, imagine how much more painful life is right now for others. “I’m one of the lucky ones and it is still ok to not feel ok right now,” I remind myself. Regardless of our individual circumstances, life right now is hard and is not at all like it used to be. Even if you, like me, are one of the lucky ones in all of this, it’s still ok to admit that our situation sucks right now. It’s ok to feel your feelings and wish that things were better for all of us, even for yourself. It’s ok to remind yourself that even though you may be lucky, you still can be hurting. Life sure is different these days. If you are struggling with the challenges of the current Covid-19 Pandemic and the resulting quarantine, you may find the list of podcast episodes below quite useful.
Episodes include strategies to help your children cope with their anxieties around the changes, suggestions to find a way to still focus on your relationship despite being in quarantine, how to transition to working from home, and techniques to help make homeschooling more effective and less of a challenge. Top Covid-19/Quarantine Podcast Episodes Episode 58: Managing Children's Anxieties Around COVID19 Episode 59: Stay At Home Date Ideas: A Pint Sized Perspective Episode 60: Working From Home: Navigating The New Normal Episode 61: How To Survive Quarantine As A Couple Episode 63: Schooling At Home: One Family's Perspective Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, many people throughout the country and around the world are finding themselves rather suddenly working from the confines of their own home. If you are someone who has grown accustomed to commuting to and from your office each day, working alongside others, and being away from home for 9+ hours each day, these changes are big. Huge! Gone are your long, social, chatty daily rides on the train to and from work where you often get to sit with that nice lady from that big finance firm and that kind gentleman from that non-profit education program. Gone is the hustle and bustle of the subway station after work as you dart quickly through the crowd to catch your standing room only train ride home. Gone are the opportunities to stand at your coworker’s desk and catch them up on the latest drama with the other soccer moms or the newest item on your cousin’s baby shower registry. Gone are the lunches in the break room where you belly laugh with your coworkers for 20 minutes each day and commiserate about the latest work directives. Gone are your hour long car rides alone where you can listen to whatever you want on the radio, whether you are blasting 80’s rock tunes or singling along to 90’s ballads. Things are going to look very different for a while now. Your work week filled with other people, lots of noise, and hustle and bustle is now a long 5 days filled with very little physical contact with other humans, a lot of silence, and a whole lot of stillness. At first, these changes might be a nice break from your busy work life but, after a little bit of time, you may find that you are getting antsy and would give almost anything to go back to the way it used to be pre-COVID-19. Despite the challenges of these times, though, if you follow these 10 strategies for transitioning to working from home, you just may find some joy in this new temporary normal. 1. Establish Working Hours One of the biggest challenges when working from home is that there are suddenly no clear boundaries between work hours and non-work hours. Decide what time your work day will start and what time your work day will end. If you were a commuter, you’ve now gained some extra non-work time at home at both the beginning and end of the day. What can you fill it with that will be fun, relaxing or restorative instead of just filling it with more work? Resist the pressure to start work early or “stay” late. 2. Keep Your Morning Routine It’s tempting to plan to stay in your pajamas all day (or at least your pajama bottoms if you have some video conference calls). But, resist the urge and instead continue to spend time getting yourself ready for work each morning. Take your shower, make your bed, do your hair, put on your makeup, and wear something that you wouldn’t wear at home on a Saturday morning. Doing so will help your brain to understand that there is a difference between work hours and non-work hours. 3. Set Up Your Work Space Select an area of your home where you will be comfortable setting up your work space. You may even choose to select multiple areas and move your “office” throughout the day. Be creative. Feel free to order a few things online or re-purpose some wall hangings, art, or pictures from other areas of your home. As the weather gets nicer is there an area outside where you can do some work? Make your work space inviting and personalized. 4. Take Breaks Alone When you “arrive” to work each day, take a look at your schedule and decide when you will take some breaks and then use those breaks to do something for yourself. Take a quick walk outside. Have a cup of tea in another room. Download a meditation app and do a 5 minute meditation. Read a few pages of a book. It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as it isn’t work or household chores and is something that allows you to relax for just a few minutes. 5. Spend Time With Your Children If you are one of the vast number of parents who now have children home for weeks and months at a time, you are probably feeling the pull between attending to your work tasks and attending to your children’s needs. Plot out time each day to be with your children where you are not focusing on their at-home learning. Plan to eat lunch with them or take “coffee” breaks with them. Take the dog on a walk with them. Throw the baseball around with them. Be with them and enjoy this once in a lifetime chance to be at home together. 6. Check In With Your Partner These times are going to put a strain on many relationships. Couples who are used to not seeing each other all day everyday may be in for a bit of a shock with just how much they will be seeing of each other’s faces soon. Or, maybe one member of the couple is an essential employee and can’t be working from home, leaving the other member of the partnership to be feeling a bit more of the responsibility of having to work from home while caring for kids. Maybe this new set up will leave you feeling a financial strain. Chances are, no matter what the circumstances, this is going to be stressful for many couples. Talk with each other about it and find out what you each will need in order to feel supported during this time. Have a little “staff meeting” with each other at the start of each work week and at the end of each work week where you check in about what worked and what could have gone better. Communication is key! 7. Feel Your Feelings We are living through a time quite unlike anything many of us have ever experienced. No matter how stressful your job, your commute, or your relationships with coworkers may be, having it all change so suddenly can feel traumatic at times. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself feeling anxious, angry, sad, and/or numb. Allow yourself to cry, shout into the shower water, punch a pillow, or just sit and feel nothing. There is a lot of grief in what we are currently experiencing and the only way to deal with grief is to feel it. 8. Reach Out With limited social gatherings, it is going to be very easy to find yourself feeling isolated and lonely very quickly. Make it a point to reach out to friends via text, Facetime, social apps, and even the good old telephone. Schedule group chats with your friends where you can check in together a little bit without being physically near each other. Maintaining friendships and connections may take a little more effort these days. It’s worth it! 9. Focus On Your Health It is really tempting with gyms closing and our lives turning inward for a while to open up that bag of chips and throw our diets and exercise plans out the window. The reality is that we need to do the opposite right now. Make a plan for your meals and for at home workouts. Commit to your plan with a friend or your partner and check in regularly. After all, what boosts our immune system more than taking care of our bodies with good nutrition and healthy fitness habits? 10. Change Your Social Media Many people’s inclination right now might be to limit your use of social media but I think we NEED social media right now. We need to feel connected to each other, part of something bigger. Lean into social media but do it in a completely different way. Hide, snooze, and ignore a whole lot of people for the next 30 days. If you are feeling deeply triggered, irritated, hurt, or angered by someone’s posts, get them off your feed for the time being. There’s no space for that right now. Fill your feed with lightness. Hide the news — you can find it when you need it. Post fun photos. Ask engaging questions. Talk about books, movies, and television. Share helpful tips. Post recipe reviews. Share at home workouts. Social media can be an important lifeline to each other right now if we use it in the right way. These days ahead of us are going to feel strange, challenging, and sometimes even painful. But, if we are mindful and deliberate in how we approach this time in our life, we just might find that these days could be ones filled with memories, laughter, and a renewed connection to ourselves and the people we love. Many of my blog posts center around topics like grief, parenting, and relationships but three years ago I took a risk and shared that I had made the decision to pursue Isagenix as a weight-loss plan. (Click here to read the original review). Some people scoffed and rolled their eyes but many people secretly messaged me to ask for some insight around the Isagenix program.
My initial detailed Isagenix review outlined the Isagenix weight loss program, the Isaganix company itself, and detailed my first week on the plan. Then, life happened and I never circled back around to close the loop on my experience with Isaganix. Three years later, while I am not where I want to be with regards to my weight or my physical health, I must admit that Isagenix has provided me with a much needed consistency. Despite a bunch of curve balls thrown my way (launching my own business and relying solely on myself for employment, 2 cancer scares, 2 surgeries, and an intense life changing diagnosis, to name just a few), the Isagenix program and products have continued to provide me with an easy way to center my life around healthy nutrition. As I sit here enjoying my Isagenix chocolate shake for lunch, it seems like it is time to give an Isagenix update! What I LOVE about Isagenix The Shakes. Isagenix protein shakes are the ONLY shakes I use. They are filling. They taste great - I do NOT like super sweet drinks so these shakes appeal to me because they are not sweet at all. They are easy to mix either in a shaker with water or with some milk product (I use almond milk) or blended with ice in my NutriBullet. The shakes work with whatever diet plan I am currently following. Due to a recent diagnosis, I have been attempting to follow a Whole Food Plant Based Diet and the Isagenix Plant-based shakes fit so nicely in with this plan. Additionally, at just 7 points per shake, they fit perfectly with the green Weight Watchers plan that I am trying to follow along with WFPB diet. Customer Service Over the past 3 years, all I have seen from the Isagenix back office is improvement. Their website and message have become more streamlined and clear. They have continued to expand upon and refine their products, adding product lines such as essential oils, skincare products, and a whole line of products specifically geared towards children. Their reimbursement and compensation for their consultants has not wavered and they continue to be one of the best MLM marketing companies out there with regards to how they treat and reward their consultants and associates. Shake Days One of the tenants of the Isagenix Diet is that you have two of their shakes each day, one healthy meal, and two healthy snacks. Following this plan is so convenient for me as a mother and therapist as my meals are often taken while driving from school to work to sporting events or in my 10 minutes between sessions with my patients. I don't have to think or do a lot of prep work. I just toss a prepackaged shake envelope into my work bag along with a shaker of water and my lunch is set. As for my "fork and knife meal" of the day (i.e. not a shake), it is really easy to toss together some protein source with some veggies and some healthy carbs for a meal around 350-500 calories. Each of the two snacks per day should be around 100-150 calories and the options are completely limitless. Cleanse Days By far one of the hardest aspects of the Isagenix program is getting accustomed to Cleanse Days. These are days where you give your body a break from heavy digestion and instead enjoy some of the specially formulated Cleanse for Life drink and carefully selected Isagenix supplements and snacks for 1 or 2 days. I cannot begin to explain how AMAZING I feel on a cleanse day. My brain fog is lifted, I've got tons of energy, and I feel healthy. Surprisingly, I never feel hungry! The new Peach Mango Cleanse for Life is one of the best drinks I have ever had! Getting through your first few cleanse days is a mental exercise. If you are thinking about trying it or struggling with that idea, feel free to reach out to me here as I'm happy to offer some support! Shipping No matter how hard I try to plan ahead, I always seem to find myself peering into my pantry and realizing I only have just a handful of shakes left. Ordering from the Isagenix website is so easy and within just a couple days, my shakes are at my doorstep. Truly only Amazon Prime ships things faster for me! What I Would Change About Isagenix The Cost Making that initial Isagenix purchase felt like a huge financial risk for me. But, when I actually compare the price of the program to the price of what I would spend on food at the grocery store or on take out, Isagenix really does save me money. Plus, when you choose to sign up as a consultant, you can quite easily earn enough commission each month to pay for your own Isagenix purchases. After that large initial purchase, however, I really just need to replenish items on a rolling basis each month. It's sort of like when you move to a new place and restock your essential pantry items: it's a big purchase at first but you don't actually need to buy a big container of dried basil every month or a large bottle of EVOO every week. So, big cost up front but then minimal cost moving forward! Thinking of Trying Isagenix? If you are thinking about tryng the Isagenix system, I suggest you take the leap, invest in yourself, and give it a chance. You'll never know if you'll love it like I do until you try it. Read my complete review and overview of my first week on Isagenix here. To check out some of the Isagenix products or to place your first order, click here. To chat directly with me about the program, don't hesitate to reach out to me by sending me an email or by visiting me on Instagram. Click here to read more articles about Isagenix, Weight Loss, and Health and Wellness. Everywhere we look right now we hear and see the same few words over and over again.
For many of us, this constant news cycle can be overwhelming, tapping into our already somewhat heightened levels of anxiety. For those of us that are parents, we have an added layer of concern: how do we explain the current state of affairs to our children and provide them some sense of reassurance? While there is no magic elixir, magic wand, or secret rule book, there are a few key strategies that just might help us to decrease our children’s current worries and restore a sense of hope. 1. Be Honest As with most things, children know more than we think they do and they crave honest information. As much as I want to shelter my children from hearing about the potential bad things that could happen, now that they are in school and in sports, this is simply not a reliable option. They can potentially overhear information from an adult or directly from another child in a number of locations. When parents make the decision to provide their children with honest information, there is better control over what and how specific information is shared with their children. 2. Watch What You Say On the flip side, be mindful about what you say around children, not just around your own children, but when you are out in public. You don’t want to be that person who exposes another child to information their parents had not yet shared. 3. Consider Development Children’s emotional and cognitive capacities develop significantly throughout their childhood. Before sharing details with them, take their developmental stage into consideration. A 12 year old will want and need more specific and detailed information than a 7 year old may need. Avoid going into too much detail or overwhelming them with details. Let them guide you on how much information they need. 4. Be a Role Model Let’s face it, children learn a lot from watching their parents: the good, the bad and the ugly. Show your children that feelings like anger and frustration are normal. If you are angry, name it. Be sure to not only show your child that it is normal to feel emotions but also demonstrate acceptable ways for them to express those emotions. Avoid holding it all in and expressing it only when the children are not around. Let them in on the realness of feelings. You will be providing them a solid model for how to handle and manage life’s biggest challenges to come. 5. Reassure. Reassure. Reassure. Children need to feel safe and the adults in their lives are the ones who are tasked with that monumental responsibility. I am not advocating for you to tell your children that nothing bad will happen to them or near them ever as that would be a lie. You cannot predict the future. You can, however, point out that good stuff happens far more often than the bad stuff. Remind children of all the people and systems in place to keep them safe and all the healthy people around them. Reassure them that you would never knowingly put them in a dangerous situations. Highlight safety measures that are in place in they express fear over attending a certain event. Repeat as many times as necessary. When you think you’ve said it all enough, say it one more time. 6. Limit Media Television news, social media accounts and newspapers now provide non-stop, around the clock coverage of the virus outbreak. Pictures, video, audio clips; it’s all out there and it can quickly become too much for children. Be mindful of what children may be exposed to and consider whether it is necessary. I recall hearing accounts from 9/11 that many children interpreted the frequent replay of the plane hitting the tower as multiple planes hitting multiple buildings day after day. Even if you think your children aren’t watching the news with you or don’t see the headlines on the newspaper, think about what they may overhear from the next room or what they may see when the newspaper is left casually on a kitchen table. 7. Create an Open Dialogue Children need time to process things. It is not unusual for children to need days or even weeks to develop questions or be able to express their thoughts on difficult topics. Send your child the message that you can always find time to talk with them. Many parents have success by carving out time each night around bedtime for an opportunity for children to share their experiences, thoughts, feelings and ask questions. Some parents schedule weekly one-on-one parent/child dates at a coffee shop or fast food restaurant to connect. These conversations tend to be better received when they focus on one child at a time, rather than as a family dialogue with multiple children of various developmental stages. 8. Point Out the Positive Despite what we see on a daily basis, there are lots and lots of great things that happen locally, nationally and internationally. Seek out the good stuff and share it often with your children. Local newspapers can often be a more positive source of news, particularly for children. Highlighting the positives can also go a long way to helping children feel safe. No amount of the good stuff is too much! 9. Monitor Behavioral Changes Keep a watchful eye on your child’s behavior. Changes in sleeping and eating patterns may indicate that your child is having a hard time processing some events and information. Changes such as suddenly wetting the bed again or asking to sleep in your bed could be a normal response to stressful information. Be careful not to shame your child about changes like these. Rather, give them some time, continue to provide reassurance and keep a watchful eye. If you are concerned, reach out for support. Your child’s school, their pediatrician and local child therapists are all great resources.
Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com
7 Ways to Soothe your Shyness Shy people instinctively know that they are missing out. Shyness equals lost opportunities, less pleasure and fewer social connections. Shyness can be crippling but there are tried and tested ways to make it a thing of the past. When I was fifteen I was shy. I recall an attractive girl attempting to engage me in conversation. My shyness made me focus on me instead of her. I heard my own voice but not hers and I thought about what I was trying to say instead of what she was trying to say. The formula for shyness is "too much focus on the self" plus anxiety. To make it even more unpleasant, sometimes when you are feeling shy you experience physical sensations which 'hijack' your calm logical self. My pulse raced, my mouth dried up and I felt like the village idiot! I couldn't think what to say so I said nothing apart from making barely audible grunting noises! Cary Grant eat your heart out! When I detected pity in her eyes (or was it contempt, or boredom) I mumbled my excuse and got out of there. I hated being shy and was determined to change it. How shyness is developed and maintained Shyness really is a combination of social anxiety and social conditioning. To overcome shyness you need to learn to relax socially. This enables you to direct your attention away from yourself and gives you the space to practice certain conversational skills. In most cases, the heightened emotions of socializing when young simply condition the sufferer to respond to social events with fear, instead of excitement and pleasure. Relaxed socializing is so pleasurable, not to say productive, but it is an advantage denied to many until they learn to relax. To start reducing your own shyness, I want you to absorb the following tips and ideas and start to put them into practice: 1) Think about the way you feel and behave around familiar people you are comfortable and spontaneous around. It's that feeling transferred to new people and situations that equates to your emerging social confidence. 2) Focus your attention away from yourself. Sure, you can think a little bit about how you are coming across, but if all your focus is on your own words and feelings then you might as well be by yourself. Notice what other people are wearing and make a mental note, listen to their conversation, imagine where they might live, make a point of remembering names. Not only does this give you more to talk about, it also 'dilutes' social anxiety leaving you feeling calmer. 3) Ask people open questions. Many people like to talk about themselves and will find you interesting if you find them interesting. Ask questions that require more than a 'yes'/'no' response such as 'What do you like about this place?' rather than: 'Do you like this place?' Once they've answered use 'add-on' questions connected to the first such as: 'What other places do you like in this city.?' Next you can express your views. This is a great way to get the conversation going. If the conversation doesn't 'take' then no matter, you've done your bit. 4) Stop trusting your imagination so much! Have you ever had an imaginary picture in your mind of a holiday destination only to arrive and find the reality is different from the way you had imagined? That's how reliable imagination is. Stop imagining what others think. I do lots of public speaking and I've long since stopped trying to second guess what others think of me - it's just too painful. Besides, what a person thinks about you has a lot more to do with who they are than who you are. 5) Stop using 'all or nothing' thinking. The 'completely this/completely that' style of thought occurs when you are emotional. People who are depressed, angry or anxious see reality in terms of differing extremes, simplistic all or nothing terms. An angry person is 'right' and you are 'wrong'; the depressed person feels like a 'failure' while others are a 'success'. In reality, life is composed of infinite gray areas. So stop fearing that you might say the 'wrong' thing! Or that people will 'hate' you. Once you start to relax more socially you'll notice much less black or white thinking because anxiety actually causes you to think in all or nothing terms. 6) Take your time. You don't have to blurt things out. Ask questions and if questions are asked of you can take time to consider your response (within reason). Don't just blurt out what you think might be the 'right' answer. A slow answer is a relaxed answer. 7) Finally, use hypnotic rehearsal. Hypnosis is the quickest way to change your instinctive/emotional response to any situation. Only think about meeting others when your mind and body is relaxed. This conditions you to associate relaxation with being around new people. In fact you'll find that when you relax deeply enough often enough whilst hypnotically rehearsing being comfortable around others you'll reach the point where you just can't be shy any more! This is what I call a 'happy inability!' I now love meeting new people and suspect that my current social confidence would be unrecognizable to my fifteen year old self. Overcome shyness now at HypnosisDownloads.com Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com. Remember the early days of your relationship with your spouse?
Today, if you are like me, you and your partner are mere versions of your younger selves, focused now on things like:
The reason so many couples find themselves feeling distanced from each other at this stage of life is simple. We all have a tendency to put our romantic relationship on the back burner after marriage because we think all of the other needs and responsibilities are more pressing. The kids need you. Work needs you. Your aging parents need you. The youth sports teams needs you. Your friends need you. Your house needs you. Afterall, this is the person you are spending the rest of your life with so they will always be there beside you. It’s ok to put your relationship on the back burner right now. How exciting will it be to spend your golden years of retirement with them? What if you never get to enjoy those years? What if you make it to retirement but after spending decades focusing on others, you realize that you no longer know your partner. Worse yet, what if you realize that you no longer like each other? What if something terrible happens and you don’t get to make it to retirement age? Sure, putting things on the proverbial back burner can work for a little bit. But, what happens if you leave something on the actual back burner? Eventually it dries out, maybe burns, and becomes a failure. Marriages are the same. It’s time to take your relationship off the back burner and start nurturing it now, before it’s too late. Here are 9 ways to reconnect with your partner and put the focus back on your relationship without compromising your other responsibilities: 1. Date your partner I cannot stress enough the value of dating your partner. While you may not be able to afford to hire a babysitter for at least one night each month, you can certainly find a way to creatively date your partner. Maybe it means taking a day off from work during the day while kids are at school or at grandmas house so you can be alone. Maybe it means working out together at the gym while the kids are in the child care room. Maybe it means simply shutting off the tv, ignoring the dishes, and having a date at home after the kids go to bed. Maybe it means using your money to pay for a sitter and then having an inexpensive date while you walk around Target together. It doesn’t have to be fancy, romantic, or cost money. You just need to make time for the two of you. 2. Hold staff meetings You and your partner are essentially running a business. You’re managing a household and that inevitably means there are things like bills, repairs, and maintenance that need to be addressed. If you have children and/or pets, then you also have medical appointments and logistical considerations for others. Let’s not forget about things like laundry, meal prep, shopping, and cleaning. Would you ever expect a company to run effectively without having some type of formal and consistent check in? Marriages are the same. Schedule 30-minutes each week to check in with each other on the business aspects of your relationship. This can be a great time to compare calendars, identify breakdowns in communication, plan for next steps, and highlight accomplishments and sources of pride. You can also combine this with a date night — just make sure it’s only a portion of the date! 3. Don’t expect mind reading So often we fall into the trap of expecting our partner to know us so well that they know what we are thinking and what we need. That’s not fair to your partner or to you. Communicate your needs with your partner. If you come home expecting your partner to have started dinner but you never asked for that to happen, it’s not fair to then be angry or hurt that it didn’t happen. Don’t let missed opportunities for communicating your needs lead to built up resentment. 4. Learn your love language So often members of a couple feel as though their partner is not showing them love. In reality, though, they aren’t speaking their partner’s love language. My partner may bring me flowers and little gifts, thinking that I know it means he loves me. But, we have learned that Gift Giving is not one of my love languages. Instead, Acts of Service (things like unloading the dishwater or making a doctor’s appointment for the kids or taking out the trash) make me feel loved. Get on the same page with each other by reading Dr. Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts so you not only know how to recognize your partners expression of love for you but so that you can also more effectively show love to your partner. 5. Take vacations alone Once you’ve been able to make date nights or date days a priority, the next step is to find a way to take vacations together. This could be a big vacation like a few nights in the Caribbean or traveling through Europe or it could mean you rent an AirBnb or cheap hotel room the next town over for one night. The location doesn’t matter; what matters is that you have the opportunity to step out of your everyday life just the two of you and reconnect away from the normal routines. 6. Try new things together Remember what it was like going through all the firsts in your relationship? There is something exciting about experiencing something new with your partner and we lose that spark the longer we’ve been together. Consider taking up new hobbies or trying new things together. The options are limitless- golfing, dance lessons, hiking, reading a new book together, trying a new restaurant together. The actual thing you do doesn’t matter. The key is for it to be something new for both of you. 7. Do things that your partner enjoys It’s very rare that two members of a partnership enjoy all of the same things. Is there something that your partner enjoys that you find extremely boring? Find a way to try to do some of those things with your partner. Learn that video game they love to play. Go to the concert of the band they really like. Go to that Indian restaurant even though you don’t like that type of cuisine. Make them feel valued by showing an interest in the things that make them happy. 8. Physical connections Don’t wait for there to be a natural physical spark between the two of you. With kids and work and responsibilities and pressures and competing schedules, it’s very likely that by the time the two of you reach your bed at the end of the day, the last thing you have the energy for is sex. Those are exactly the times when you need to make a priority though. What would happen if the next time you found yourself with a fleeting thought of physical connection, you actually pursued it and put sleep or that pile of laundry off for a little bit longer? What kind of impact would it have on your relationship if your put physical connection a bit higher up on your list of priorities? 9. Lean into each other, not away When things get hard many couples lean away from each other. They complain and vent to their friends when their partner does something hurtful or irritating. They ignore opportunities to communicate directly with each other about concerns, instead leaving their relationship open to built up feelings of resentment and anger. Lean into each other during those difficult times. Have those challenging and uncomfortable conversations with each other. It’s what we do in almost all other aspects of our life, right? We have difficult conversations with our children, our friends, our coworkers, other parents on the sidelines at our kids games, and even strangers on social media. So, why won’t we do it with our partners? Is it maybe because we are leaving our relationship on the back burner, assuming we’ll have time to address it in the future? The time to strengthen your marriage is now and you can find ways to reconnect meaningfully with your partner without taking your attention away from the other important relationships in your life. Wouldn’t those younger versions of yourselves want you to make your marriage a priority now? After spending nearly a year producing podcasts on topics including grief, parenting, health and wellness, relationships, and pop culture, it can be a bit of a challenge to find the episodes that are most meaningful and useful to you. We want to make it easy for you to find the resources you are looking for without having to spend time searching and filtering.
Here are 11 of our most popular Relationship Podcast Episodes: 1. Episode 4: Do You Speak "Love"? 2. Episode 8: Improving Your Relationship 3. Episode 14: Repairing your relationship 4. Episode 19: What Does an Apology Mean to You? 5. Episode 23: The Love Map Game 6. Episode 31: Island Survivor Game 7. Episode 36: Your Last Argument 8. Episode 40: Changing Perspectives on Relationships 9. Episode 41: Relationship Kaizen 10. Episode 54: Relationship Resolutions 11. Episode 56: Relationships and Technology The elementary school drop off line is quite possibly Hell on Earth. It is here that we see the worst of our society. In this line, rules don’t matter. It is every mom or dad for themselves. Every morning in the drop off line is like a trip to a casino; except this casino doesn’t come with a fancy hotel room, free cocktails, or lavish shows. Nevertheless, just like at a casino, I get to try my luck at being a winner and I never know what I’m going to get. As I pull down the school street each morning, I brace myself for the unknown. What will the other parents do this morning?
Will I get lucky and sail to the front of the line where my well trained 10 year old can tuck and roll out of the car, shouting “I love you!” over his shoulder as he maneuvers himself masterfully out of my almost still moving car? Or… Will I get stuck backed up onto the main street where I silently (and sometimes not so silently) curse the parents in front of me who choose to blatantly ignore every rule that has ever existed in the drop off line? Will the parents in the cars in front of me actually pay attention to the school and police staff members waving them forward and pull all the way up to the front of the line? Or… Will they pull their car up to the middle of the line, get out and start walking into the school, ignoring the directions shouted to them by the teachers and police officer to get back into their vehicle and park in the parking lot? (By the way, I feel pity for those poor teachers and police officers each morning. What a dreadful way to start their day.) Will they instruct their child to unbuckle their seat belt and gather their belongings while their car glides to a stop at the front of the line, making for an almost imperceptible stop of their vehicle? Or…. Will they pull their car into the line, put it into park, and slowly get out of the driver’s seat, meandering around to the passenger’s side to help their cherubs out of the car? And will those little angels move with the slow oozing pace of a young child who has to “do it myself!!”? Will they respectfully and without any deviation follow all of the drop off line rules that have been repeatedly posted on social media, sent home with children and plastered in front of the school building? Or… Will they pull up to the curb and then take 5 minutes reviewing homework slips, giving big hugs and kisses to their child, and getting engrossed at the open passenger side door in a lengthy conversation about after-school plans? Will they complete the early morning drop off of their child without any incident? Or…. Will they stop their car self-righteously in front of the main entrance, blocking the crosswalk from the parking lot and cause traffic to back out onto the main road, inevitably making many of us late for work? The madness of the carpool drop off line is enough to drive any parent crazy, especially if you are like me and have a carefully choreographed morning that allows you to pull into work *just* in time after dropping your child off at school. But what happens when we allow this maddening free-for-all to dictate our morning? Does it mean that we then find ourselves short tempered for the rest of the morning? Do we carry that stress with us into our work or into the rest of our day with our children? How can we take away the power that damn line has over us? I found myself pondering these very questions the other day when the mom in front of me stopped right in front of the main entrance and then opened every single door of the car to help children climb out — front seat, both back seats AND the rear hatch. Each child got an individual hug and kiss, a check of their backpack and lunchboxes, and time for some exchange of words that made each child smile. The eye rolls from the other parents stuck behind them were almost audible and the mom could not have cared less about the directions being yelled at her by the school staff. While this display only held me up by about 3 minutes, I felt it physically in my body. My face turned red, my hands clenched the steering wheel tighter, and I began adding up all the extra time that was now being tacked on to my commute to work. It set off that familiar anxious chatter in my brain of all the things that could now go wrong. Now I would be stuck behind the school bus picking up kids in the next town and then I would be stuck for at least 3 light cycles at that big intersection near my work. I would not have much time to get myself prepared for my first patient and would have to wait to send that important email to my students. When I of course got stuck behind that school bus, I started to realize how silly it was to let that one mom’s goodbye to her children ruin my day. My day had only just begun. I still had hours and hours ahead of me. So what if I was a few minutes late for work? The world wouldn’t end and, truthfully, if my schedule is really that tight then I should make sure I leave the house early enough to be the first parent in that line. As I followed the bus down the main road, stopping every few houses to let on another child, I wondered if there was a way to re-frame the way I experience the drop off line. Rather than allowing myself to feel anger and frustration towards the parents who are breaking the rules, would it be possible to try to find a way to feel empathy for them? Perhaps something in their lives is so stressful, so painful, so exhausting that they simply don’t have the mental or physical energy to follow the drop off line rules. Maybe it’s all they can do to get themselves and their kids out the door on time. Maybe that mom really needed all that extra time with her kids that morning. Maybe in the grand scheme of life it doesn’t really matter that much. These days where we get to roll the dice every morning with the drop off line are going to be over soon. Soon our kids will be choosing to walk with their friends, ride their bike, or take the bus to school instead of sitting with us in that drop off line. Eventually, some day sooner than we’d like to admit, they will be driving themselves. Not too soon after that, they won’t even be living in our house anymore. Maybe these extra few minutes with them each morning are really a gift. Maybe we are winning after all. As I sat at my desk during my 10 minute break between grief therapy clients, I opened my Facebook app to scroll mindlessly for a few moments, completely unaware that my life was about to change. A photo of one of my friends filled my feed instantly. It was a beautiful photo of her, one that captured her love for all people and her genuine desire to make life better for everyone. I skimmed the headline beneath the photo quickly and my brain couldn’t compute what I was seeing. The gruesome, horrific, unreal words didn’t match the photo before me of the carefree young woman that danced the night away at my wedding or led classrooms full of preschoolers in silly songs alongside me. It couldn’t be. With a shaking finger, I clicked on the link and my brain was finally able to make the connection. We failed her. The society she worked so hard to make better had failed her, letting her and her daughter die a horrible death at the hands of the man that was supposed to love them most. It’s a fate shared by many women and now she was part of the startling statistic of women whose desire to leave their partner led to their own murders. Tears spilled freely from me in that moment. I’m not so sure she ever really knew how much her role as a mentor had meant to me or how much it had changed the course of my personal and professional life. I don’t know that I ever really told her how much I had learned from her and how much I always wished I had the courage to commit my life to making the kind of global changes that she so selflessly has made. I hope she knew how much of a ripple she had left in my life but I can never know for sure. Now it’s too late. She’s gone. Nausea swept over me and I broke out into a cold sweat as my brain began to process the terror she must have felt in her final days, final hours, and final moments as she realized she had no way to escape. As dark as it was, I wanted to stay in the moment of grief, that space of remembering her, but the clock kept ticking and in just a minute I was due to provide grief therapy to another patient. I quickly pulled myself together, fixed my face, and pushed my emotions into a far off corner in my mind so that I could hold space for someone else’s grief, hoping that I would be able to process all of my feelings later on. After leaving work that day, I briefly exchanged text messages about the awful story with some of my closest friends and shared a Facebook post not about the manner of her death but about her contributions to the world, as if somehow disconnecting the photo of her beautiful face from the horrible headline could alter reality. Then I went about my night. I sat at a friend’s kitchen counter with other moms, making decorations for a youth football championship game while chitchatting about mundane stuff. My brain both craved this simple, unemotional task and yet also wanted to reject it. I wanted to set the football decorations aside and share her legacy with everyone. I wanted to tell them about her, her work, the sheer number of lives she changed, and my memories of her from such a pivotal time in my life. But no one wants to talk about sadness or grief or loss or death. So, I didn’t bring it up and neither did any of the people there with me. Collectively and silently we somehow agreed to pretend it hadn’t happened. We minimized the reality of her death and ultimately minimized her and her life. I moved through the space of the next few days in a deeply contemplative state, as one often does when the unexpected and terrible occurs in life. Suddenly things that seemed incredibly important paled in comparison to what my friend had gone through; what her family and community were going through. My own priorities snapped into focus. Life is far too short for many of us and tomorrow is not a guarantee. So, why waste any of it on the things and the people that hurt you or don’t make your life better? What is going to matter most at the end of my own life? What will my legacy be? Do the people who matter to me know how much they matter? After a loss or trauma, the world marches on, leaving the grievers behind to pick up their own pieces, or to at least pretend they are picking up their own pieces. But, inside there is a constant loop of questions being asked and a deep yearning to be given permission to talk about their grief. The reality is that we are surrounded by hurting people all the time; people who want to talk about the sad stuff. They want us to ask them about their dead child, their murdered friend, their dying grandparent, or the struggles of waiting to find out if their biopsy is cancerous. They are craving permission to share their inner struggles about trying to find a way to make sense of the saddest parts of our lives. But, instead we throw ourselves into the things that don’t matter: small town politics, conflict in surface-level friendships, baskets of laundry that are overflowing, traffic that adds 15 minutes to our commute, gossip, drama, nonsense. At the end of our lives, none of it will matter. Imagine how much more beautiful this life could be if we all were just a little more real with each other. Imagine the benefits to being just a bit more vulnerable. What would it be like if we all focused more on real connections and sloughed off the stuff that won’t matter when we are at the end of our own lives? I wonder if the outcome would have been different if more people had done this for my friend. Perhaps it wouldn’t have changed what happened to her but maybe, just maybe, it would have given her a few extra moments of hope, comfort, and validation. We have work to do. After spending nearly a year producing podcasts on topics including grief, parenting, health and wellness, relationships, and pop culture, it can be a bit of a challenge to find the episodes that are most meaningful and useful to you. We want to make it easy for you to find the resources you are looking for without having to spend time searching and filtering.
Here are 11 of our most popular Grief Podcast Episodes:
Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com.
How neediness and emotional insecurity destroy relationships"Please, clouds, don't rain!" Not going to work, is it? And neither will trying to reassure someone who just can't be reassured. They will go on fretting, no matter how you plead. Chronic insecurity in your relationship is a major problem. Why? Because relationships really, deeply matter. Your health, your wellbeing, your happiness are affected by your relationships more than any other factor. And your most intimate relationships have the biggest effect of all. It's not just the insecure person who suffers Feeling insecure in a relationship is horrible for the one who is feeling the insecurity. The burden - of fear and obsessive thoughts, of feeling powerless, of awful awareness that all this insecurity may actually itself be destroying what you treasure most - can feel pretty unbearable. But it's also tough for the person on the receiving end of all that insecurity. The truth is that being involved with a really insecure person can be hell. This article highlighted what a common problem insecurity is I wrote an article a while back on overcoming insecurity in relationships and was inundated with feedback from all over the world. The scores of comments on the article itself were just the tip of the iceberg. My inbox overflowed with hundreds more private emails from people wracked by feelings of relationship insecurity. That article, which explores the reasons for insecurity and offers practical tips to help overcome it, eventually became the springboard for the development of the new 10 steps to overcoming insecurity in relationships course. My article was mainly addressed to those who are themselves feeling insecure in a relationship; but I also got - and still get - hundreds of emails from people who have extremely insecure partners. A common recurring theme of these accounts is how isolating it can feel to find yourself in a relationship with someone who is deeply insecure. And this is one major reason why extreme insecurity can be so damaging. Why reassuring your insecure partner is almost a lie Because 'reassurance' is what insecure people want most, and anyone can say reassuring things, it's all too easy for partners (and friends) to offer reassurances that everything is "really okay" in the relationship even when it isn't.This is a kind of denial. And - ironically - the reasons it might not be okay are often the product of the insecurity itself. Sometimes the only genuine problem in a relationship is the emotional insecurity of one partner and the effect that has on the relationship as a whole. But it's easy to fall into a pattern of always pretending everything is fine, even when the insecurity becomes really damaging. Such pretense becomes isolating and can drive partners further apart. This is how insecurity can damage or even destroy the relationship. Relationships thrive on intimacy, and intimacy stems from feeling you can safely be yourself with your partner. So what does it feel like to be in a relationship with a very insecure partner? Worrying about relationship breakup creates it Insecurity stemming from a fear of losing intimacy can actually bring on that loss of intimacy. Jake, a former client, described it like this: "I actually feel totally disconnected from Sara now. She doubts my every word, doesn't believe me when I say I've been working, and constantly misinterprets what I say. It's driving me nuts! And the angrier I get, the more insecure she gets. I can't win! I've tried being sympathetic, but now everything has to be on her terms, I have to ask myself all the time - is this going to upset her or not?" Jake told me how he had started to feel very lonely in his relationship, like he had no one to talk to, because "Talking to Sara is like walking on egg shells - will I say the wrong thing? Will she take it the wrong way?" He, like many who are close to someone so insecure, found himself getting more and more emotionally distant from Sara. He felt less able to speak to her about how he felt, and less able to relax around her. Loneliness isn't about being alone so much as feeling alone with others - because you feel misunderstood by them - and that's how Jake now felt with Sara. He'd begun to feel trapped, finding it hard to be around her but also hard not to be around her, because he knew how painful it was for her to be wondering where he was or whom he was with. The painful truth is that insecurity can lead to the death of intimacy in a relationship - the fear of losing something can actually bring about that loss. Trying to force intimacy or love - demanding to know how someone feels, what they are thinking, who they've been talking to, what they are doing - can just drive them further from you. So what should you do if you are in a relationship with a really insecure person? How to tell if you have a truly insecure partner It's vital to figure out whether the person you are with isgenuinely excessively insecure. Some jealousy and insecurity is actually normal in most relationships from time to time - especially in the early stages. Insecure people are often insecure about their insecurity, because they instinctively know how damaging it can be. But if insecurity is a constant and central feature of the relationship then, yes, it is a problem and a potential cause of breakdown. Of course you can reassure your partner, reason with them, and be gentle and loving toward them, but it's important not to make too many adaptations for them. This was the mistake Jake made. He had completely stopped spending any time with his friends without Sara. He rang her on the hour, every hour, when he had to work late. He told her he loved her so many times a day that it was more like a chore rather than a genuine expression of how he felt. And after a while the relationship no longer felt real to him. If the relationship becomes all about reassuring and not upsetting the insecure partner, you and your needs get sidelined to the point that the relationship can start to feel meaningless for you. Jake and Sara's relationship only improved once Sara herself addressed her insecurity, and learned to trust and relax more with not "having to know" what Jake was thinking or doing all the time. Her self esteem improved and, in turn, he then felt more valued, and no longer trapped or forced to behave in prescribed ways. At last he was being listened to and respected again. If your insecure partner has enough insight to know they need to change, then you really can encourage them to make those changes that could make such a difference for both of you. Ultimately, no one should have to be constantly "on call" to their partner, or emotionally isolated by them. Good relationships are reciprocal, not one-sided. They flourish when partners trust each other, accept each other, give each other space, forgive each other for failings - and enjoy each other. You and your partner both deserve that. Read more about 10 Steps to Overcome Insecurity in Relationships by Mark Tyrrell Notes
It’s that time of year again.
All around us are the sights, sounds and smells of the holidays. Stores are beginning to fill their aisles with holiday decorations and pine tree scents. Soon Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks will roll out their festive holiday cups and radio stations will begin playing the first notes of holiday music. Before we know it, Santa will be arriving in locations all around us to pose for photos with children. Already families can be seen in local parks and pretty fields taking their annual family portraits for their Christmas cards. Restaurants are advertising their holiday meal order schedules and holiday party invites have already made it to some people's inboxes. Such a wonderful and joyous time of the year. Right? Not for everyone. For many people, the winter holidays are excruciatingly painful. Either they have recently lost a loved one and this will be their first holiday season without them or the holiday season is a sad reminder of their lost loved one. When they see all the happy, smiling faces on Christmas cards, they are reminded that their loved one won’t be on any cards this season. That adorable, heart-warming commercial with the cheerful family seated around the Thanksgiving dinner table makes them realize there will be an empty chair at their own Thanksgiving table this year. While perusing their local Target, a holiday sale banner catches their eye and they see “the” perfect gift for their loved one, forgetting for just a split second that there will be no gift exchange with their lost loved one this year. Maybe you know these people. You probably do. Think about your friends, your family, your coworkers. How many of them lost someone within the past year? How many lost a very important person ever and might ache for them throughout the holiday season? Maybe this person is you and you find yourself dreading the holiday season. For those of us living in parts of the country where the sun sets earlier, leaving us in darkness from 4:30pm on, the nights can start to feel painfully long and lonely this time of year. The colder weather forces us indoors, encouraging us to hibernate. But if you have recently lost a loved one, the longer nights, colder temperatures, and holidays on the horizon can all add up to a deep, dark sadness. Whether you are the one hurting this holiday season or you know someone for whom the holidays are difficult, here are some tips to help you manage the grief that is often so palpable this time of year. 1. Honor your loved one So often our society pressures us to “move on,” “heal,” “find closure,” or “let go” of our loved ones. Those messages are wrong. We shouldn’t be letting go; we should be finding new ways to hold on to them, hold onto our memories of them, and find a new way to feel connected to them. Spend some time thinking about how best to honor your loved one this season. It could be as simple as lighting a candle or hanging a special ornament on your tree. Maybe it’s volunteering to feed the homeless, host a toy drive for children, or sponsoring a family for Christmas. Go to their favorite restaurant. Cook their famous side dish. Wear their necklace. Stop trying to forget them. Instead, embrace your memories of them. Talk about them. Say their name and say it often. 2. Allow yourself to feel It’s amazing how connected our senses are to our emotions. Just a certain smell in the air or a song on the radio can take us back to another time in our life. The holidays can do this too. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself more emotional than usual. If you need to cry, cry. If you you need to express some anger, take up kickboxing or scream into a pillow. Seriously. Let out your emotions. If you try to bottle up all of your feelings, they probably will escape at the most inopportune times — like when your child spills his glass of apple juice, someone cuts you off on the highway, or that lady in front of you tries to sneak 13 items into the 12 item or less express line at the grocery store. Feeling all of your emotions doesn’t make you weak; it makes you human. 3. Be social…or don’t It’s normal to not want to celebrate at all during the holidays after a loss. Seeing so many people laughing and filled with joy can feel surreal when your world is still spinning uncontrollably after a loss. If you don’t want to attend some of the holiday functions, don’t. You know yourself best. One word of caution, however: isolation after a loss can lead to depression and complicated grief. Sometimes it’s good to force yourself to socialize, just a little. When you do accept an invitation somewhere, though, give yourself an escape route to use if things suddenly feel too much. Give one or two friends that will be at these events a heads up that you may need to quickly duck out. This little bit of planning means that you are giving yourself permission to leave whenever you need to leave, without having to worry about explaining your quick departure to anyone. 4. Speak up For many people, their support networks kick into hyper-drive following a loss. Phone calls, texts, visits, casseroles, and cards are pouring in almost non-stop immediately following the death. But after the funeral, those types of support can suddenly come to a crashing halt. Do people suddenly stop caring? No. Many people are uncomfortable around grief and simply don’t know what to say, what to do or how to act. So, they avoid. Don’t be afraid to tell your support network what you need. It’s ok to ask for specific things like invitations to social events, regular phone calls, a visit, staying away for a while, and even practical help with things like errands and child care. In most cases, your support network will be delighted to have been given a specific way to be useful and supportive for you. 5. Be kind to yourself Watch for negative self-talk and talking down about yourself. Thinking or saying things like these ones only bring us down more: “I shouldn’t be crying like this.” “This shouldn’t bother me so much.” “What’s wrong with me” Be kind and understanding to yourself. Grief doesn’t go away. It’s always there inside you. You carry it around with you and sometimes it’s heavier than other times. It’s normal and it’s ok. Recognize that it is normal for this time of year to be more painful and challenging. This is a good time of year to try to look for the things and people that bring you hope. Do things that make you feel good and nurture yourself. Yoga. Walk. Exercise. Journal. Read. Play music. Listen to music. Start therapy. Attend a support group. Remember that you are human and deserve compassion — especially from yourself. Friendships in our adulthood can be complicated and challenging to navigate. I’m not sure why this has come as a surprise to me — I suppose I mistakenly assumed that all the hard relationship stuff would be over once I was done with middle and high school. I thought I would graduate from high school and leave all the bad hair, fashion faux pas, and drama behind. I was wrong. Adulthood is just the next level of complicated and adult friendships are just the next level of challenging. One of the most difficult aspects of adult friendships can be deciding when to end one. Sometimes, though, the decision you need to make can be pretty clear, especially if your friend is demonstrating any of the 7 tell-tale signs that the friendship is a toxic one: 1. They ghost you If you’ve ever been ghosted by someone, you know how much it hurts. One minute you are a part of that person’s life and the next it’s as if you never existed. Phone calls, text messages, invitations, and even acknowledgements in public just come to a screeching halt. Even if there have been hurt feelings or mistakes in a friendship, resorting to completely ignoring someone is just plain childish. 2. They are talking about you If word is getting back to you that your friend is talking about you in a negative way to other people or is sharing private details about you to others without your permission, that behavior indicates a lack of respect for you. You deserve better. You should be able to trust your friends to come to you directly with concerns and to be able to keep your confidential information private. 3. They hold grudges or keep score If your friend is someone who routinely brings up mistakes you made from weeks, months, or years ago to justify their own poor behavior, they are telling you that your relationship is not one that is unconditional. They are keeping score and if you mess up (which you will, because you are a human), they could hold that over your head in the future. Who needs friends that aren’t willing to forgive you for mistakes? 4. They only reach out to you when they want something When you really take a step back and evaluate your relationship, who is doing the initiating of texts, phone calls, and invitations? Are you always the one checking in on them, following up on them, inviting them to spend time together, or sharing stories? Do they only initiate contact with you when they need support or a favor? You deserve friends who give as much as they take. 5. They try to show off or make you feel jealous When you are together, either alone or in a group, does your friend often make it a point to share details, photos, videos, or stories from parties and events to which you were not invited? Are they sure to highlight how close they are with some of your other friends? Actions like that may be excusable from children, but not from adult friends. 6. They make you cry more than they make you laugh If you look back over the entirety of your relationship, do you have more memories of feeling hurt, angry, or ignored than you do of sharing joy with your friend? What is the point of a friendship if it brings you mostly pain and hurt? 7. People are telling you to walk away Are other people around you noticing some of the behaviors listed above? Are they asking you what is going on with the two of you? Are they encouraging you to cut ties and walk away? Are they telling you that you deserve to be treated better? They are right, you know. If any of these signs resonate with you and sound like your friend, it may be time for you to make a decision about where to go next in your relationship. Be honest with yourself — do you ever display any of these behaviors yourself? What level of responsibility can you accept for the current state of your friendship? Do you want to attempt to repair the relationship, change the relationship, or walk away completely from the relationship? It’s important to remember that life is too short to allow yourself to be mistreated, disrespected, belittled, or made to feel invisible. Often, when we make the decision to walk away from a friendship and we turn our attention elsewhere, we find friendships that are much more deserving of our attention, trust, and time. It’s ok to give yourself permission to want more from the people in your life. You deserve to be happy. |
About Changing PerspectivesI often find myself encouraging people to consider changing their perspective or reframe the way in which they view things. This blog is an extension of that practice and is also an opportunity for me to write from a number of different perspectives including clinician, educator, mother, friend and supervisor. Blog topics are also quite varied and changeable. Topics explored include, but are certainly not limited to, grief, parenting, health and wellness and relationships. Join me and explore a number of changing perspectives! Categories
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April 2020
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