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Living on the other side

Living on the other side

August 2, 2022 by

Wondering what it takes to actually live the life you’ve dreamed of?  

What do you need to know before you take the leap into living your life differently?

The promised land, where your new story begins…

I have written here about the general arc of therapy we follow.  We have offered tips for maximizing each stage of therapy and we have written specifically about Phase Two – the grieving process.  Today, I want to write about the final phase of therapy – activating the true self you have discovered and walking in your new story.  

I have referred to the grieving phase as “the land between”, but embarking on this final phase of therapy is also a transitional season in a different way: A twilight zone between what you have deconstructed and completion of what you are constructing.  Anyone who has had a house built understands that it is a PROCESS!  One of fits and starts…which may find you living in temporary digs until the new house is ready.  Despite the best blueprints, some things just can’t be understood until you see the pieces in place and you may realize, that’s not what I thought it would be.  Back to the drawing board you go to choose a different faucet or refrigerator.  The whole thing takes time with all sorts of surprise obstacles, but perseverance leaves you with the home of your dreams.  

Moving from one house to another always illuminates your possessions in a fresh way, causing you to question why on earth you’ve kept certain things all these years.  Some beloved objects have to be released because they simply will not function or fit in the new home.  If you are living in temporary quarters, you are surrounded by the chaos of missing vital belongings that are in storage and not being able to permanently settle what you were able to keep with you.  Likewise, here are the discomforts that come with leaving behind the life you deconstructed:

  • Most of the relationships you had before therapy were chosen from the adaptive self you are shedding.  Hanging out with friends will often leave you wondering why on earth you tolerated the behaviors, talk and ways of thinking that you now see with clearer eyes.  You may find yourself regularly irritated by family members who operate out of the dysfunctional patterns you now recognize.  Bitterness and resentment become dragons requiring daily battle.   
  • These folks from your old life are used to the adaptive self you crafted and may not know what to do with who you are becoming.  They may not even like your true self, especially if you are no longer willing to offer what they used to get from you!  That rejection truly stings…
  • This season of therapy can be very lonely as you find yourself distancing from those who operate under your old rules, but you have not yet built healthy replacement relationships.  It can be incredibly tempting to return to aspects of the old adaptive self in the face of this loneliness.  Some fade out of the therapy process at this point but they cannot unknow what they have learned, making their compromise existence a cruel game.  
  • You may realize the job or career you are in is not a good fit for you.  Perhaps your job is actually a toxic environment.  Maybe the career field you spent thousands of dollars to prepare for will never align with what you now understand to be your strengths and what brings you fulfillment and joy.  Again, the decisions you made about work came from the adaptive self you are retiring, leaving you in a situation that is no longer workable.  
  • The old adaptive self is one you mastered.  You know how it works.  Saying no to the familiar is extremely difficult.   

Living in transition and setting up your new “home” comes with many challenges.  Temporarily crashing in someone else’s space is inconvenient, humbling and disorderly.  Even after you’ve moved to your new place, there’s usually a stage of, “I’ve made a terrible mistake – why did I move here?” before you start meeting neighbors and finding new favorite restaurants and local activities to love.  It’s the same when the rubber of therapy meets the road of life:

  • The new ways of thinking and behaving that will take you in the direction you want to go will feel awkward and clumsy.  Very quickly, you begin to wonder if you can really pull this new story off as you move toward new friendships, romance, faith, calling, etc.  
  • When our brains have been normed to the stimulation of dysfunctional life patterns, healthy people and activities will feel boring at best, downright unattractive at worst.  It takes time to rewire the brain to enjoy this new existence.  
  • You must retrain the people in your life, how to interact with you.  This takes work and will not likely be well received.  Conflicts will arise.  A few will make it through this process, many will fade away or depart in a fiery blaze.  Are we willing to let go of those who cannot steward well, who we are becoming?   
  • For all of these reasons, embracing the true self is terrifying.  Offering a committed “YES” to that which is true of you demands Courage with a capital C.  Remember, courage is not the absence of fear, it is feeling the fear and moving forward anyway.  That is the very definition of Phase Three therapy at Phenix!    

Many people assume that once they have done the work of deconstruction and grieving, they need only find healthy people who have also done their work and relationships will be easy-peasy.  Unfortunately, that is not the case at all.  Healthy relationships between mature individuals take work but I can promise that it is fulfilling work.  Forcing dysfunctional relationships to run is devastating work.  I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather do the fulfilling work of assessing acquaintances for core relational competencies, learning and teaching about the nuances of each others’ personalities, building trust, and allowing others to meet our appropriate needs as we meet theirs.  (Many clients find relying on others one of the most difficult steps to master.)   

Then there is an aspect of this phase that I don’t think we talk about enough: It is one thing to intellectually assent to what was lost or never provided.  It is another thing altogether to experience life as it should be – the dynamics you didn’t have before.  Such experiential understanding ushers in a new level of grieving.  This is a surreal, dual experience: moving forward in building the new story while simultaneously holding space for the sadness that comes with truly understanding what you were missing.  

The foundational principle to establishing the new “home”, the true self, the new story, is the fact that commitment and action precedes emotion.  You will not feel like doing the things that need to be done.  Yet, we do not advocate a “fake it till you make it” approach.  It’s not about bumbling around, creating a new adaptive self in hopes of getting what you want.  It is about tuning in to what is true about you and aligning your actions with that truth versus the lies your old self believed.  It’s mindfully walking in truth until your brain, body and soul have enough experience to actually believe it.  It is one of the scariest processes you will ever undertake in life.  Courage will be required in Costco-sized amounts but the payoff is worth it, just like that dream house we get to live in when the moving truck pulls away, the boxes are unpacked and the interior design has been fully executed.  All those months of planning, crisis response, expense, letting go, cleaning, organizing, learning, choosing and moving are absolutely worth all the trouble!     

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Mental Health, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Couples Therapy

March 23, 2022 by

Are you wondering if your relationship would benefit from therapy?

Trouble in relationships is not uncommon.  The pressures of the last couple of years, on top of the usual conflicts in any relationship, have sent many couples in search of assistance to address concerns.  Thankfully, the research on couples’ counseling shows much greater satisfaction with the assistance received these days versus just a few decades ago.  Add to that, a declining divorce rate in the US over the last decade, and we have a much more hopeful picture for relationships than we are generally led to believe.

Here at Phenix, we approach couples’ work differently than most practices.  We have many reasons for our approach:

1)Our mission focuses on deep transformation, not just problem-solving.  Studies show that couples can gain vital relationship skills and work on their group dynamic fairly quickly when attending therapy together – leading to increased satisfaction and less conflict.  However, what we are finding is that over time – unresolved issues within the individuals cause the couple to slip back into dysfunctional patterns, leaving them feeling hopeless and frustrated.

2) A major concern in the field of marriage and family counseling is the issue of abusive relationships.  Ethics codes for all types of therapists have been clarified in recent years to explicitly discourage couples’ therapy with relationships that include domestic violence.  Unfortunately, when couples attend sessions together, it can be difficult to detect and/or safely confront domestic violence, leaving the therapist contributing to the dangerous situation!

3) Research from John Gottman tells us the average couple waits six years after trouble begins to seek counseling.  When there is such significant lag time between onset and therapy, relational safety is most likely compromised, making openness and honesty in the therapy space together extremely difficult.  Dysfunctional habits can be so deeply ingrained that sessions become focused on simply refereeing these damaging behaviors versus the deep transformation required to create a healthy, connected relationship.  So often, we have sat with individuals wounded by past trauma or whose childhoods were devoid of relational role models, leaving them ill equipped to build a healthy relationship despite the best of intentions.  Imagine two electricians showing up to install an electrical system in a new build but they are missing their tools.  They have the skill and the knowledge – as soon as they get the proper tools, they’re ready to accomplish the goal.  Now imagine two well-meaning souls showing up to a job site for the same task when they’ve never been trained or they have a traumatic history with electricity that has not been adequately addressed.  Each person would need to attend specialized training and obtain supervised experience in order to come together to get the job done.

Overall, we have come to discover that the most efficient approach which fits our transformative style is to work with each person individually first before moving into couples’ work.  We address the underlying dynamics that attracted each person to the relational style they are in as well as the root issues which keep them participating (actively or passively) in the dysfunctional dance that brought them to therapy.  It’s both partners taking ownership and doing the hard work of unpacking their story, grieving their losses, building their loving adult selves and acquiring the needed relational tools, to build the deeply fulfilling relationship they long for. 

Not everyone wants that.  Some are perfectly happy with learning how to reduce conflict and maintain a mutually beneficial life partnership that does not demand excessive levels of vulnerability and intimacy.  That is a perfectly viable option!  Once you know what outcome you want, you can make an informed choice of therapist.

Now that you understand the options, if you are interested in the path of personal transformation that leads to deeply connected and fulfilling relationship, you’re in the right place.  Individuals can each work with the same therapist or with different therapists in the practice.  Confidentiality is maintained in this initial stage for each individual.  Along the way, sessions may occasionally involve both parties when a partner is beneficial to addressing an individual’s growth.  At a collaboratively decided point, individuals are ready to transition to couple-focused work.  They will be given full disclosure of the changes in therapeutic relationship (primarily the switch from individual confidentiality to shared confidentiality) so that they can make decisions about therapy which feel most comfortable to them.

In any case, it all starts with a free consult to ensure that we are the best fit for your needs so contact us today to get started!

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Family, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , ,

Surviving the Holidays: Parent Edition

December 20, 2021 by

 

Welcome parents!

This holiday survival guide is specifically for you, as the stressors you experience are unique. You not only are trying to take care of yourself during this time, but of all the children and extended family who are home for the holidays. So before we begin, let us take a moment to breathe. Deep inhale in, long exhale out.

Reality is, with how much stress some parents feel, moments like that are too rare.

As we dive into this blog post, I want to provide a framework for how to view this season. To start with:

You are not powerless.

So often, we assume that the holidays = stress and that this stress is just something that will take over the holidays like normal.

False.

You were not designed to be overcome by stress every holiday season. You have been placed in a position of leadership and counsel. Stress cannot overcome you if you do not allow it, because you are not powerless.

We also have to pair this knowledge with the fact that we cannot control others. 

So if that one family member decides to start their usual drama and you find yourself in the bathroom wondering how you will get through the following weeks, remember this:

You don’t have to attend every fight you are invited to.

If they choose to start up their own emotional rollercoaster in the living room, you don’t have to get on. They don’t get to have that kind of power. 

This is a great time to then practice the deep breathing (longer exhale) and take a moment to slow down. This time of slowing down gives your brain a moment to think about how you would like to respond in a way that represents your character and integrity. How to say what you want to say wrapped in love, while also setting a firm boundary that you are willing to protect.

…

Now that we have the framework set, let’s dive in to three main guideposts for this season. Remember, the goal is to thrive, not just survive.

 

Guidepost 1: You are a human being, not human doing.

Yes, it’s kind of cheesy, I know, but it’s so true. I forget where I first heard it from but it gave me pause when I heard it. I was shocked how much of my life actually fit the “human doing” phrase better. 

At Phenix, we are reading a book called Soul Custody this holiday season. The author, Stephen Smith says this on page 18, “The Chinese have two characteristics for the English word ‘busyness’, which they define as ‘heart annihilation’.” The Chinese definitely have a different perspective on busyness than the American culture does. However, I think they have a point. When we are overly busy, we miss so much.

So here is the challenge question: is your holiday season too busy?

If you notice that it is, what can you adjust or change entirely?

 

Guidepost 2: Take care of yourself

Part of the role of parenting is caring for others. However, in order to rebuild, you also have to take care of you. This looks different for everyone, but it has to be incorporated at some point. If not, our bodies usually take over and we are forced to rest. 

In the same book as mentioned before, Stephen discusses how “the word ‘care’ has its roots in a Latin word that means ‘cure’.” (p. 17)

If we listen to that connection, then caring for our souls becomes a necessity.

This time of caring for yourself has to be intentional, especially as a parent. What would it look like to incorporate small things that bring you joy throughout the day? (yes, cookies count) What would it look like to intentionally do something that makes you smile?

This doesn’t have to mean bubble baths and face masks, as mainstream media typically depicts self care. 

No, soul care is different. 

Soul care is realizing you are more than just a body that is expected to perform. You are a person, someone with worth and value. Someone with dreams and goals. 

Soul care is realizing that living a life where you feel depleted all of the time is absolutely miserable, and you don’t have to live like that.

My encouragement for you this season is to find time to rest, to regroup. Incorporate things that bring you joy.

 

Guidepost 3: Know you are not alone.

No matter how you choose to celebrate the holidays, please remember this guidepost. 

Some families right now are having their first Christmas without loved ones due to covid or other illnesses. 

Some parents have recently gone through a divorce or separation, and this is their first holiday season without their partner present. 

This season may come with mixed feelings. You don’t have to shove those down or repress them. 

If you feel like they are about to overwhelm you, like the grief is too deep to wade through, remember you are not alone. 

Grief, and emotions, are like waves (as our director, Andrea, points out). There will be times that the waves feel like they are swallowing you whole. Other times, they will lap at your ankles. However, the waves do recede. 

When you feel like a big wave is hitting, here are a few things you can do: talk to a friend, journal, draw, or do something with your hands (working on a car, gardening, cleaning) while you process. You are not powerless here. 

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Thank you for tuning in to our holiday guideposts!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.

See you in 2022!

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Family, Mental Health, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to Survive the Holidays Part 2

November 29, 2021 by

Welcome back to our holiday survival guide!

Last week, we explored how gaining awareness of ourselves and those around us is crucial in not only surviving the holidays, but thriving. 

This week, we explore the next three guideposts in surviving the holidays.

 

Guidepost 3: Time to evaluate

There are two main questions for this guidepost:

Was this Thanksgiving break a time of relaxation and reprieve (or did work become the escape)?

Overall, what do you want your holidays to look like? 

Both are great questions as we continue to dive into a holiday experience that brings rejuvenation, rest, and joy. I encourage you to journal or talk to a close friend about your answers here. Take some time and really explore them.

Thanksgiving was probably a good precursor to how the Christmas holidays will go. If it resulted in higher stress for you, this is the perfect time to evaluate what you would like to do for December. How you spend the time during the holidays matters. For many, this is one of the only breaks from work or school that they will receive all year. It is vital that there are some moments of rest.

Which leads me to the next guidepost… 


Guidepost 4: Know yourself and what you need

Here are your two main questions for this guidepost:

How do you recharge during your time off?

What can you add in during the holiday time to assist with that?

Again, Thanksgiving can be a great learning experience. If you felt burnt out or exhausted after this holiday, then you now have the opportunity and time to evaluate. How can you be creative during this upcoming Christmas vacation to add in moments of recharge and rest? 

For the clients I work with, I encourage them to add in moments that incorporate their senses, inner child, and relationships. Let me explain. Your five senses are used daily to experience the world around you. Each of us have things that we love to experience, whether that be through taste, sight, sound, smell, or touch. Adding in moments on a daily basis that bring you joy is so vital to thriving in this life. During the holidays, I know that a walk outside does wonders for my mood and stress levels. I love to hear the birds in the morning and spend time in nature. It helps me focus. For others, it is the feeling of a warm blanket wrapped around them with hot cocoa. 

This then also plays into your inner child. We are all passionate about different things. Incorporate those things this Christmas! Allow your creativity and playfulness to emerge. This can be through decorating the house, getting crafty, or implementing hobbies you enjoy (like baking cookies).

For moments that incorporate relationships, spend time with those around you who build into you, encourage you, and see you for who you are. These are the life giving moments that can happen as you take a walk with a friend, share a good meal with someone, or grab a cup of coffee since it’s freezing out. (Yes, I was born and raised in Florida. I get cold when a breeze blows.)

I would also encourage you to spend time with yourself. This is a relationship that is often neglected but so vital. Take a walk, read a good book, enjoy some yoga, build something new, or tear apart a car. This alone time is also recharging and necessary, just like the relational time with others is. 

And lastly…

 

Guidepost 5: No.

It’s a complete sentence. You are allowed to say it, especially if an environment, outing, or family member has been shown to be unsafe.

You are not obligated to attend any gathering or talk to every family member.

I know that this goes against so many things you have been told and is uncomfortable to even acknowledge. However, part of thriving during the holiday season is realizing that you can protect yourself, even here. You are worth protecting. (Read that sentence again.) You do not need to relive the childhood trauma you endured because the person who hurt you decided they want you to come for Christmas dinner. 

No is a complete sentence. 

 

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Thanks for joining me on the guideposts to surviving the holiday season.

If you have any other guideposts you would like mentioned or broken down, leave a comment below and I’ll add them into the next post.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

…

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Family, Mental Health, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Survive the Holidays (and not end up in jail) Part 1

November 22, 2021 by

Welcome one and all to our guide on surviving the holidays! (Part 1)

If you are one of those rare individuals who do not have family drama, conflict, or a long lost relative that chooses to reappear during the holiday season, that’s wonderful. For the majority of the population, the holidays seem to bring something out of those around us that we did not know was there (or that we desperately wanted to forget). Join me as we dive into not only how to survive this holiday season, but thrive. Now, thriving might still look like booking multiple therapy sessions come January, but no jail time is a win.

 


Guidepost 1: Gaining awareness

For those of you who have been in therapy at Phenix or have seen any of the Justin and Caitlin show (which will be returning for a season 2 btw), you have likely heard of the term “inner child”. For those of you who have not heard of this yet, our “inner child” is a part of us that represents our child self. The child self, when integrated, brings with it joy, spirituality, curiosity, and playfulness.

In general, our inner child loves to idealize situations and people, especially our family. It is an honest and vulnerable part of us that desperately wants our parents’ love, affirmation, and acceptance. For many people, their parents were either unable or unwilling to provide one of those qualities. The holidays then become the perfect time for the inner child to jump on the idealization train and hope that this year will be different. This is why the first step of surviving the holidays is gaining awareness of this tendency from little you. 


There’s nothing morally or inherently wrong with wanting your family’s love and acceptance. We are wired for connection and the foundational connection we crave is from our parents. However, if we continue to idealize the family members every year, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.

Which leads me to my next guidepost…

 

Guidepost 2: Gain awareness (of others)

I truly believe people can heal and relationships can be redeemed. With that belief, also comes a hearty dose of reality. Healthy relationships take authenticity and vulnerability, which requires a healthy amount of self awareness and desire to grow from each individual. Unfortunately, many families do not have relationships with each other that would be described as authentic and vulnerable. Gaining awareness of family patterns and dynamics will be vital. Here are some questions to ask:

How do the family members typically react to one another?

Is there a certain family member who consistently creates drama during the holidays?

Who becomes more stressed as Thanksgiving and Christmas inch closer? Why?

Who in the family is safe and healthy to talk to? 

Who models authenticity and vulnerability?

How is the communication level? Do family members actually talk things out peacefully, or are problems avoided until a blow up occurs? (if it ever occurs)

People typically behave in the same patterns until significant work has been done to change and heal. Depending on what you have seen from holidays past, it is a safe bet to assume this holiday will be similar. 

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Now that we have a place from which to begin, join me next week as we discuss the action steps you can take to take care of yourself during this time.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Family, Mental Health, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Confessions of a Counselor Part 2

November 15, 2021 by

I guess I am going to turn this into a mini-series (check back to last week’s blog post). Except, I am not going to a Catholic Priest to confess and then do my penance. I have done that twice in my life though. I was a child and had no idea what I was doing. Had I been going to confession during my late adolescence and 20’s, the congregation may have had to toss me in the holy water fountain and hope for the best. We all have our histories right? Right guys?! Okay, onto the topic at hand. 

Confession #2: There are parts of your dysfunctional behaviors you will keep and that’s a good thing. Wait…what!? Read on…

In therapy you may ask yourself, “Do my dysfunctional coping mechanisms have any redeeming qualities or am I just highlighting it all, hitting the delete button, and starting over?” Good question. And every counselor says, “It depends.” Confession: That’s our go to response. I will say this post is most relevant to those of you who have ventured through the first 2 phases of therapy (awareness and grief), have gotten to the other side (no small feat!), and have begun the process of developing your new story. If you are not at this point in therapy, it’s okay, because if you stay the course this will become relevant to you down the road. 

I started this blog by mentioning dysfunctional coping mechanisms and whether they have to be eliminated completely or not. To simplify this blog, let’s focus this down a bit and highlight codependency as a dysfunctional coping mechanism. 

Codependency is a common struggle for many people. Confession: I am one of these people. Codependency is really centered around a thought and behavior process where you have learned to anticipate other people’s needs, meet them, and forget all about yourself. That is until you are frustrated and become resentful of the person you are rescuing. If you want more on this – come to therapy. 

As you begin to walk out your new story you may think to yourself, ‘Wow, I have to get rid of all this codependent behavior with my new story.’ Well, not so fast. There are gold nuggets and good that can come from even the most traumatic backgrounds. Where codependency falls flat on its face is when you forget about yourself and others’ needs become more important than yours. Well, a focus in therapy would be to learn how to voice yourself and let your needs be known. This is a great and amazing goal because YOU MATTER! The gift you attained with being codependent is that you know how to read people and situations and see what is needed or missing. 

Maybe you recognize a facial expression in somebody ahead of you in line at the grocery store. When they are at the register to pay and you already know the face they are making means they are short money. Maybe you have been there before and maybe now you have the means to pay the difference and be a blessing to that stranger. Your prior codependent skill of anticipating needs will help you in situations like this. How about that person in the office that people tend to take for granted? You notice that, that person has been sad and it looks like they need a pick-me-up. So, you intentionally bring flowers and a card to their desk reminding them they matter. Again, you see the need and the hurt, so you are able to take action when appropriate. 

You see, therapy isn’t a firesale of all things you, but rather a remolding of yourself. The authentic you was/is always there, it just got covered up by life’s unhealthy happenings. Hang in there. Stay the course. Keep writing that new story.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Mental Health, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Confessions of a Counselor Part 1

November 8, 2021 by

Have you ever wondered what some of the hidden benefits or struggles are with therapy? Have you ever wondered how you came into therapy wanting to reduce anxiety, and a few months later you are grieving losses from your childhood, and seeing the world differently? You see, here at Phenix, we have a strong belief in transformational work, which is why you see the word ‘transformation’ on our website and all our social media accounts. We firmly believe in the process of long-term sustainable growth and change. Not saying there is anything wrong with solution focused approaches, but generally it is not our cup of tea. Within the deconstruction and reconstruction phases of therapy, there are goals put in place by the client. In our field we call this the treatment plan. The treatment plan becomes the flight path for the focus of therapy, but other benefits and challenges come along the way.

 

So, onto Confession #1

 

There comes a point in therapy where there is a point of no return. Not that you are forced to continue the process or that you must complete some mandatory journey, rather that your eyes and mind are now more aware than ever. You cannot unsee what you’ve already seen. You cannot unknow what you now know. The joy, pain, and sadness in the world will hit you in new ways and in ways you never thought about. Just because you stop therapy does not mean the new insights stop. 

 

Since we are heading into the holiday season, let’s use the holidays as the scenery for this first confession. Maybe in years past you have joined your family for Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas Eve adventures, but you never were able to recognize the maladaptive behaviors and functioning of your family of origin like you do now. Maybe you begin to see and sense the sadness in your brother or mom’s eyes, even though they mask it with a smile on their face. These are the things you can no longer unsee and unfeel. Sorry. What you become aware of now causes the brain to create new neural pathways and it becomes a daily part of the ‘scanning’ your mind does. 

 

It is like the old cliche’ car salespeople use when you are on the lot looking to buy a car from them. They usually say something like this, “You’re gonna be seeing a lot of these on the road.” Yea, that’s because they know your mind is now wired to be looking for the same new car/SUV as you wander down the highway. The car/SUV was always there roaming the roads with you, but they never stuck out to you because your mind never had a reason to cause it to come to your consciousness. Now it does. Has this ever happened to you? Where you went to the Ford dealership to check out a Mustang and now you see every new Ford Mustang on the ride to work. You cannot unsee the Mustangs….they’re everywhere ha. 

Again, my apologies… sorta. Awareness is a part of the journey. Gaining awareness and insight into your functioning is amazing. It gives you the power and control back in your life to begin choosing new ways of responding, behaving, etc. The more you become aware of, the more you can change. The more you realize you can change, the more hope you have of a brighter future, and after the last couple years, I think some extra hope is a good thing. Join me next week for confession #2.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Family, Mental Health, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Pandemic Combustion Prevention

November 7, 2020 by

 

Illustrate combustion

Have you about reached your limits after almost 8 months of chaos? Most of us began this season in March with some level of anxiety but a commitment to be careful and a belief that “this too shall pass”. Well. It hasn’t quite gone that way, has it? Not only are we staring down the barrel of a resurgence as winter approaches (something the experts predicted back in April), but add in social unrest, election vitriol and a complete breakdown of societal support and structure across every level. While folks have developed a routine of one foot in front of the other to get through our days, even those of us privileged enough to still have a job with the freedom to work from home, are beginning to realize that our gas tanks are near empty. With no end in sight, what is the plan?

It is time to stop and be strategic. As much as we would love to believe in the magic of a new year, 1/1/2021 will not bring with it any major changes. We are looking at more of the same for many months to come. In the coming weeks, we are supposed to figure out how to celebrate holidays without putting ourselves or others at undue risk. Not to mention – find the energy to do so. As mental health professionals, we’ve been observing all of this and feeling compelled to bring reasonable strategies to the table along with specific action steps that we can focus on as we bring this year to a close.

Mentally
Treat your brain like your favorite recipe – the ingredients you put in determine the end product.  What are your priorities in life? Is it a mission you are called to; a role that you value – leader, spouse, parent; a set of spiritual values?  What are the concepts bigger than you which should drive the way you do life?  Once you have clarity on priority – become a diligent curator of everything you consume!  The websites you visit, the people/accounts you follow on social media, the shows you watch, the books/articles you read, the videos you watch, the podcasts you listen to, the music you play…take a militant stance toward each and every ingredient being deposited in your brain.  Does each one align with the priority you identified?  If the ingredients don’t match up, the dish you end up with will not have any resemblance to what you claim to be of importance to you.  Remember quality matters as well.  Marinara made with grocery store tomatoes cannot compare to the sauce made with heirloom tomatoes from grandma’s backyard, right?

Action step: Spend a week making note of everything you take in, then sit down and make decisions about what needs to go and what ingredients are missing in light of what matters most to you.

Emotionally
Protect space in your life to notice, identify and express your emotions.  If you struggle with knowing what emotions you are experiencing, try using this emotion wheel to give you the broader vocabulary which may help you get more specific about what you are feeling.

label emotions

Or…maybe words are not your issue, perhaps it is just not feeling connected to emotion at all.  Relying less on your brain to figure it out and more on listening to your body may help.  Just sitting quietly and scanning your body to find areas of tension, relaxation, pain, discomfort, unease or any other sensation can give you wonderful clues as to what is happening emotionally.  There are very good reasons why we lose connection to our own internal life and this is where therapy may be a great idea to build back that connection.

Action step: Experiment with a daily reminder on your phone for various times of the day: try morning, mealtimes, afternoons or bedtime.  When the alarm sounds, dedicate 10 minutes to tuning in to how you are feeling and express it in some way: draw something, find a song that matches, share it with someone or write it in a journal.  By the end of the year, you will know what techniques work and what time of day is best or you will have clarity on the fact that it is time to reach out for assistance.

Physical
Seek quality information and focus on the basics over which you have control.  Choose properly qualified sources for health information. (No, your meme-posting college friend who works in banking is not a good prospect). Look for people who are on the front lines of this pandemic – treating actual COVID patients or doing the research currently – and listen to their reports. COVID-19 was first reported on December 31, 2019 globally. Ten months is a very short period of time in the world of medicine. We have to expect the information to deepen and grow each week, so taking any kind of permanent stance on what works and doesn’t is not wise. Find good sources, listen to the information for yourself so that you can make wise decisions about your health and those with whom you come in contact.  If you have friends working in the microbiology, epidemiology or infectious disease fields, ask them for recommendations.  Here are a few resources to consider as well:

Medscape Resources

Simple model of what we currently understand regarding how the virus is transmitted. Note this is based on computer modeling and assumes a person in their most infectious stage of the virus.  The encouraging news is how effective simple strategies are against this worst-case scenario!

Laurel Bristow, Infectious Disease Researcher

Samantha Yammine, PhD – Neuroscientist/Science Communicator

Kennen Hutchison – PhD Student-Neuroinvasive Virology

Action step:  Find one or two good qualified sources for pandemic research information and do your best to minimize everything else so that you can protect yourself from panic and overwhelm.  Take a look at the basics in your life: gentle nutrition, sleep and joyful movement.  These are the things over which you have the most influence.  Determine the baby steps you can take to gain progress in those areas.

Social
Abandon ‘all or nothing’ approaches to social engagement. We need each other and so we need to be flexible in creating opportunities to connect.  We are called to physically distance – we do not have to socially distance.  It is time to let go of waiting on how it used to be.  Grieve the days that are in the rear view mirror.  The ways in which we interact – both in person and digitally are changed forever.  Change is constant.  We will have some elements of contact back someday AND we will have precautions that will stay with us indefinitely.  Many of us have refused to reckon with this reality, holding out for a return to “normal” while life passes us by in isolation.  Don’t skip the grief: the reckoning, the hurt, the fear, the anger, the sadness, the acceptance…it all must be attended to if we are to avoid the subconscious consequences.   Acceptance is hard won.  It looks like intentional strategies to regain what has been lost, from new sources.

Action step: Commit to the digital tools you may not enjoy as the price to be paid for relationship: video calls, phone calls, apps.  Feel the irritations, the frustrations, whatever difficult emotions you have and move forward anyway.  Put these digital connection appointments in your calendar so that they have a chance to slowly work their way into your normal routine.  Use the information you have gained from the science community to develop reasonable strategies for in-person gatherings.  Talk to your doctor about your unique vulnerabilities.  Discuss your decisions with friends and family and find the ones who are willing to commit to the steps required for minimizing risk to yourself and loved ones.  Make those folks members of your pandemic pod and enjoy your time together!

Would you benefit from a step-by-step walk through in applying these suggestions?  Click here to download our pacing manual!  We provide the questions and worksheets to help you identify your priorities, evaluate your media consumption, manage your emotions, improve your sleep, design your pandemic pod and prioritize your relationships.  We also provide great resources for learning more about helpful phone apps, nutrition and exercise.

GET THE MANUAL HERE

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“Safe” People

September 25, 2017 by

I actually don’t like that term “safe” since it’s definition is: absence of risk. We all know that no part of life meets that definition. I think we’ll go with “safer” people. The concept has been mentioned in previous posts so I thought it time to focus on what I mean by this business of finding and connecting with safer others as we work on our own personal transformations.

You know that cliche phrase, “birds of a feather flock together”? It’s a cliche because it’s true. We attract the sort of people who match our dysfunctions. They either play the complementary role or share similar behaviors. Makes sense that as we address our dysfunctions, we would see increased conflict with our fellow birds, unless they too are willing to transform. As I mentioned in my last post, once we get past the grief of recognizing some birds will be left behind, we face the dilemma of finding new ones. How do we avoid collecting more of the same? How do we identify that which is healthier when we are in the midst of still figuring out our own healthy? There are three components which have emerged over the years in my own life as I am blessed with a tribe of safer people.

Presence
Safer people have worked on their own dysfunctions to the point that they are able to focus fully outside of themselves when they are with others. They aren’t perfect but because they’ve taken a long, hard look at their own pain, they don’t retreat into it or project it on to you when your pain surfaces. When we are with these folks, we feel connected and that their attention is focused primarily on us.

Love
This is such an overused word – it has lost specific meaning in our world. In this context, I want to define the word as ‘valuing the other’. When someone values you, they consider the ways in which they speak to and treat you. They make every effort to tangibly demonstrate care and concern; they listen to understand instead of to simply respond. Since they’ve worked on themselves, they’re well aware of their own shadow and so they offer grace for yours. Not that they allow themselves to be taken advantage of, but they don’t shame or condemn.

Keeping it real
Here’s another abused phrase. It has become a way to excuse being a jerk. It’s right up there with, “I’m brutally honest”. That’s not what I’m going for here. What I’m talking about is the person who will be authentic with you. They share their real selves and they tell you honestly, how they are affected by you and how they truly feel. So, once again, safer people don’t avoid confrontation, they don’t allow themselves to be bullied – instead, they find healthy ways to communicate what’s really going on. Because they have established their acceptance of us, we are able to hear these difficult truths and use them in our transformation process.

Hopefully, this begins to ‘flesh out’ the safer people we need to be looking for and gives you a matrix to evaluate the folks already in your life, the new ones you meet and most of all, yourself! For further study – check out Cloud and Townsend’s excellent book on this subject. Books are wonderful but they don’t hold our hands and walk us through so find a wilderness guide to help you if you’re struggling.

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Every day I’m hustlin’

September 18, 2017 by

codependent

[koh-di-pen–duh-nt]
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
Adjective 1.
of or relating to a relationship in which one person is physically or psychologically addicted, as to alcohol or gambling, and the other person is psychologically dependent on the first in an unhealthy way.
Noun 2.
one who is codependent or in a codependent relationship.

“Codependent” is so overused at this point and has come to mean just about any version of an unhealthy relationship.  I want to use a different term – one I’m borrowing from Brene Brown’s vernacular…she calls it hustling for love.

I’m referring to this business of denying or minimizing self in order to be, do or say what another person wants.  We take care of things the other should be handling in order to make ourselves indispensable.  We hustle like this because we want to be loved.  We don’t trust that we will be loved as we truly are and so we put on masks, we become something we are not, we enable, in order to be what we think will be loved.  The problem with all of this though is that when love comes our way, only our false self can receive it.  Underneath, our true self never receives love and so we spend our lives unfulfilled and lonely, even in the presence of loving others.

The issue has been top of mind lately due to many conversations with a friend who has been focusing on this in his life.  What we have taken great notice of is the fact that once awareness is gained, once root issues of self worth are tackled, the ultimate step of healing involves doing: engaging relationships from one’s new position of awareness and worth.  But what if you don’t have any “others” in your life, qualified to take the journey with you?  What if you have only gathered others who need a hustler?  Who don’t know what to do with an authentic self?  This is an issue we don’t often see anyone discussing.  All the books and articles focus on what needs to change within us and how to behave differently, but I haven’t found anyone discussing the others.  So here goes:

  • When we begin the work of examining the way we relate to others and the roots of those relational styles, we must also begin the work of identifying the characteristics of healthy “others”.  Many of us have not been exposed to enough examples.
  • We need to also brainstorm where healthy others can be found and begin to position ourselves accordingly.  This may mean new social activities or increased involvement in groups we previously marginalized.
  • We need to communicate every step of our journey to existing, important others in our lives so that they have the opportunity to come along, to adjust to who we are becoming.  If we don’t communicate, we leave them confused, defensive and possibly hurt by our internal changes.
  • “We are not ourselves by ourselves” says Peterson.  These efforts to transform our social circle will go a long way in our own self knowledge as we bring stories from our interactions into counseling.  It is a key experiential aspect of therapy!
  • When we have achieved enough awareness and worked through some of the core issues of self worth, it is time to identify a couple of healthy others in our sphere with whom we can practice being our newly authentic selves.
  • From this point forward, it is all about relating in likely opposite ways to how we have before.  It is intentional and consistent.  This process needs to be a regular topic of counseling so that there is a constant feedback loop for learning.  It is a terrifying challenge but it is the final step in true transformation.  There is no other way to permanently change the meanings we have made of life experiences.  It is a messy business filled with mis-steps requiring honest communication from which to recover.  We may need to make a few changes in who we include in our tribe which then involves a grieving process for the ones who simply do not have what it takes to enter this new territory with us.  The payoff is a level of connection and relational joy we never thought possible.  Benefits that cannot be achieved with solely internal peace and knowledge.

Now it’s your turn…What aspect of mental/emotional health is on your mind these days?  What are you currently wrestling with?  I want this space to be useful!  I’m also considering doing a weekly Facebook Live which will focus on what YOU want to hear about, so give me your feedback.

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  • Have some questions first? You can always reach out here, or email us directly at info@phenixcounseling.com