Self-Care Lessons from Regenerative Braking
My family recent got our first electric vehicle. It’s been fun to get used to all the new ways EV’s work and gamify our commute to see how much battery we use or save. One of the exciting features of hybrids and electric vehicles is the concept of regenerative braking. It’s normal and good to need times to stop and recharge our batteries (this is part of why the importance of sleep cannot be overemphasized for our mental and physical wellbeing). Between re-charges, regenerative braking offers us a more holistic, and often realistic path forward. Our daily lives are full of moments that require us expending energy, and moments that restore our energy, sometimes even in the same experience! Self-care following regenerative braking encourages us to keep a mindful balance of our internal battery life, pushing and exerting when required, and then leaning into something restoring or slowing down
Therapist’s Top Trauma Book Recommendations
Therapy is a big investment of time, energy, and financial resources. And while I whole heartedly believe that therapy can be a profoundly healing experience that equips people with tools to live healthier, more fulfilling lives, it really is what you put into it. Merely attending a 50 minute session each week isn’t going to magically change your life. The winning combination is a willingness to show up and do the work in session, and implement those changes throughout your week.
One of my favorite recommendations for my counseling clients is to supplement our work with some intentional reading. By adding some adjunctive therapeutic reading (psychobabble term: bibliotherapy) on certain topics you want to change, then working to make those incremental changes can really help your healing process. So here are my most recommended therapy books about trauma.
5 Minute Guided Lightstream Visualization
These are challenging times accompanied by lots of uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and big feelings. Give yourself the gift of this 5 minute guided meditation to help acknowledge your feelings while also inviting relief so you can feel more grounded & present. Add this in your tool belt for mental health resources and take it with you when you need it.
How a Therapist Deals with Coronavirus Pandemic Anxiety
My graduate school training did not offer a class on navigating pandemic anxiety. In fact, much of therapists’ training surrounding anxiety treatment has to do with things that are irrational, unlikely to happen, and blow out of proportion. And yet here we are in a global pandemic that requires serious attention & communal behavioral change, all without panic.
It’s a hard balance, right? As I write this, we in the Bay Area are in a 3 week (possibly longer) shelter in place ordinance. The news, social media sites, and conversations are absolutely saturated with COVID-19 updates, predictions of economic recessions, and fear. A lot people feel overwhelmed, including therapists.
Here’s how I’m dealing with my pandemic anxiety:
100+ Things You Can Do During Social Distancing
The situation & recommendations regarding COVID-19 are rapidly evolving, including recent widespread closures of schools, workplaces, and large gatherings. We are all navigating a healthy response that avoids unnecessary panic & us vs them thinking while taking socially responsible steps to take this pandemic seriously. This means we may all be spending a lot of time at home, and perhaps feeling a bit sir crazy. Wondering what in the world to do while home while honoring social distancing?
Coronavirus Response
We have all been inundated with news surrounding the spread of the coronavirus & its impact on our communities, events, workplaces, schools, etc.. It's normal to feel some anxiety connected to this. I am continuing to monitor the recommendations of local public health agencies. For now it's business as usual in the therapy office.
In the office I'm implementing a few new practices to be extra careful:
How to Find a Therapist, Counselor or Psychologist in Dublin, CA
You want to check out therapy. You know it would be good for you. You’ve had friends rave about how helpful their therapist is and you’ve seen them change for the better. Naturally, you’re curious. And of course, you know there are a few things you could probably work on, too. But you have no idea how in the world to find a good therapist. Especially in a place like Dublin, Pleasanton and the greater Bay Area, where there are many therapists, how do you sort through to find the right fit for you?
Befriending Our Ugly Parts - Part II
Last week we talked about how to identify & befriend those unsightly reactions in us that we’d rather not have. Today we’ll dive a bit deeper, using imagery to foster deeper compassion & understanding. Get yourself comfortably seated, then slowly work through the questions below. You can mindfully walk through this imaginatively or journal through your responses.
Befriending Our Ugly Parts
The best way to manage those unsightly parts of ourselves is actually to befriend them. Yes, even that one you hate. Hating ourselves for a certain reaction rarely creates change.
“Parts” language comes from a therapy modality called Internal Family Systems. We can really get into the weeds on this, but the basic theory is that we all have many parts of ourselves that are performing different tasks for our overall good. The parts always intend well for us, even if their actions seem to backfire. Often these parts of ourselves are working to protect us in some way and fear that if they don’t do what they are doing (pleasing others, being critical, being a perfectionist, acting suspicious, etc.) that something bad would happen.
Setting Intentions for The New Year
A few year back, I wrote a blog post about claiming a word for your year. Unlike previous resolutions, this is a practice that I’ve maintained! But beyond my success rate, this tradition has surprised me in its impact. It’s even a practice that others have adopted & adapted for themselves. Beyond surface goals around weight or health, claiming a word or phrase for your year is a discipline of setting and honoring intentions. I’ve noticed this practice has anchored me and kept me mindful in a way other goals or resolutions have fallen short.
Playing Opposite Day with Depression
Remember when you were a little kid and you’d have opposite day? Whatever someone said to do, you’d do the opposite. This fun (sometimes annoying) little game may offer some insight into how to battle depression.
Stick with me here…
Depression is tough. During a depressive episode you feel down, hopeless, critical, unmotivated, tired. You desperately want connection and understanding with others, but you also want to stay in your bed watching Netflix and not see anyone at all. When you’re in a grounded place, you can battle the negative thoughts, but when you’re feeling depressed they sound so compellingly true.
Enter - Opposite Day.
Growing Healthier Through Self-Talk
Words are powerful. The Bible compares the power of words to a spark that can cause a wildfire (perhaps a metaphor too close to home for us Californians) or a small rudder than can control an entire ship. Whether our words are spoken aloud or only thought, they have a huge impact on our emotions and behavior. Self-talk is the pyscho-babble term for how we speak to ourself (fancy huh?). Whether we speak kindly or harshly to ourselves can have a big impact on how we feel and act.
How To Reduce Anxiety Through Rational Thinking
Anxiety is not always rational. In fact, one of the infuriating things about anxiety for super logical people is knowing that their anxiety “doesn’t make sense”, and judging themselves for not being able to stop feeling anxious. If you can park the self-judgment (unhelpful thinking styles of labelling, personalizing, or “shoulds”), logical thinking can be very effective in reducing anxious thoughts The key is to identify where your thoughts may be distorted, unhelpful, or irrational so you can replace them with more true thoughts.
Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Battling Anxiety
One of the most effective ways to reduce anxiety is to use your mind to catch & replace unhelpful thinking. The thoughts that accompany (and fuel) anxiety are distorted, but have juuust enough truth that they sound compelling. If you’ve ever experienced heightened anxiety, you know how quickly anxious thoughts can spiral. Here’s the trick...don’t believe everything you think.
Anxious thoughts are usually driven by a few unhelpful thinking styles. We all utilize these unhelpful thinking styles or cognitive distortions from time to time. Here are the five most common distorted thoughts that I see fuel anxiety:
All the Trophies
When I was in the bleary eyed state of being a brand new mom, I was convinced I would never successfully leave the house before 10am ever again. As I dove into this ever changing rhythm (and all the equipment that goes with it), I began offering myself mental trophies for any small, personal successes. Got somewhere within 20 minutes of the start time? Trophy! Showered? Trophy! Left the house? Trophy! Made it through a rough day? All the trophies!
3 Ways to Battle Shame
If we slow down to pay attention, we see the many small moments our shitty first drafts fight for our attention. It can be as simple and subtle as the moment your spouse looked away from you when you came out in your new sweater for the first time (SFD: He thinks it looks bad on me, I’m not good enough), or the look that stranger gave you walking Lake Merritt (SFD: She heard what I said and is judging me), or the drop of your stomach when a group of coworkers make lunch plans without you (SFD: They don’t like me, I’m a tag-a-long). Once those everyday shame moments are in our awareness, how do we battle it?
Sh*tty First Draft
I recently had a scuffle with a friend that left me spinning. I felt consumed by it, it seemed every waking moment I was rehashing and replaying our conversation, trying to make sense of our argument. The more I tried to shake it, the more I found myself thinking about it. I became more and more anxious, unsure, and critical of myself. I felt a pull to smooth it over. Unconsciously, I went to an old, familiar story that my worth is dependent on whether people are pleased with me. My anxiety was oozing out of my shame exposed behind my likable, charming armor. In her research on vulnerability & shame, Brene Brown calls this reaction “The Shitty First Draft”. We all have a shitty first draft. It’s our knee-jerk, go-to story we tell ourselves when we feel vulnerable, shame, or fear. So how do we break the cycle?
Externalizing the Problem
Beginning to externalize the problem is all about separating ourselves from the issue. Externalizing language asks questions of the problem like, in what context does that _____ usually occur? What types of things happen right before _____ takes over? What does _______ tell you to do? For example, rather than saying “I’m depressed,” you may say “Depression really got me today,” or “I really gave into Depression’s tricks last week.”
Tools for Emotional Regulation
One of our best weapons for emotional regulation is a tool we always have with us - our breath. There are a number of ways we can use breath to help us soothe when we feel activated. Breathing helps access our parasympathetic nervous system rather than continuing to live in our fight, flight or freeze sympathetic nervous system. Here are a few simple exercises for you to try when you feel emotionally overwhelmed.