Stronger Than You Think

The end of the year is universally a time for reflection over how we have interacted with the different aspects of our lives. With as tumultuous and uncertain this year has represented, it may feel daunting to revisit how things may have unfolded. For most, it is been a year of finding new meaning of existing and navigating our way through life. For me, it has felt more like being surrounded by glass walls where I can see exactly where I want to go, but instead ramming my face into the barriers this year has inadvertently presented.

It is easier to recall all the ways our plans have unraveled as the year progressed. We could have been excited to seek adventure in relationships, partnerships and collaborations. Perhaps we were looking for new friendships to join in on our explorations or focused more on learning new truths about ourselves at the start of this year.

I would like to present an invitation to join me in navigating ways that we have cultivated strength this year. It may seem as though most of this time has been the antithesis of growth and progression, and yet that depends on how we define strength. Personally, just surviving the year and meeting the crucial responsibilities to stay afloat when the environment around us seems to be frantically unraveling, is something I would label as strength. Dr. Niemiec shared the following five examples of strengths we often overlook and take for granted.     

·         Character strengths are capacities for thinking, feeling, willing, and behaving. They reflect what is best in you and can be viewed as part of your positive identity. The 24 strengths (e.g., fairness, hope, kindness, leadership) in the widespread VIA Classification are the best examples of this type of strength.

·         Talents are strengths that are innate abilities, which typically have a strong biological loading, and may or may not be well-developed (e.g., intelligence, musical ability, athletic ability).

·         Skills are strengths that are specific proficiencies developed through training (e.g., learning a particular trade; computing skills; researching skills).

·         Interests are strengths that are areas or topics you are passionate about and driven to pursue, such as playing sports, engaging in particular hobbies, and working with arts or crafts.

·         Values are enduring beliefs, principles, or ideals that are of prime importance to you. Values reside in your thoughts and feelings, not behavior. E.g., your value for family, your value for hard work.

·         Learning styles are ideas or hypotheses about how people approach new material, e.g., you might be reflective in how you learn a particular subject, or you might be more interpersonal in your style because you want to receive new learnings through discussion rather than reading.

·         Resources are the one type of strength that is external. These are your external supports, such as social and spiritual connections, living in a safe neighborhood, and being part of a good family.

These five types of strengths have propelled us forward to navigate our way through times where it felt as though we are standing on shaky grounds. No matter how little, they are still strengths that have been sprinkled in all our behaviors throughout the year. Each action IS a testament to your strength. Even the detachment from the dumpster fire that this year has been for some, is an example of the innate trust that you will survive the next disappointing but not surprising setback that’s been thrown at us.

Growth of character happens during the most challenging of times. Whether it is managing your mental health to prevent spiraling into the darkest depths of what I lovingly call the “shit ditch”, or creating time to be outdoors or active in a way we haven’t made time for it before, or detaching from external negative stimuli (Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys), or allowing grace and compassion for ourselves when things do not unfold as expected or planned and finally, perhaps we have now been able to turn down the volume on self-judgment for external limitations on getting where we feel we “should” be by now. 

Some would say this is giving up or letting go of our standards; to me, it is being selective and distinguishing what is important and deserving of investing our emotional energy into. Being able to distinguish the values that require this energy is a strength. Owning where we are when it is not where you want to be is very uncomfortable. We tend to become a harsh judge of our stagnation or the time it is taking get to the end point.

Know that there is not going to be an end goal in becoming. We continue to grow and evolve with a shift in perception with every new experience or goal. Accept and enjoy each day from a moment to moment basis. By being mindful of the various moments that constitute an entire day, we are then able to see the full range in the reel of pictures. 

Not all of the moments will be breathtaking, just as not all of the experiences will be heartbreaking. In this focus of even the smallest of moments, we can start to give attention and energy into the steady, simple joys we find. It is learning to love every new transformation in our becoming that makes existing beautiful.

Comparison: The Thief of Holiday Joy

The holiday season is the perfect presentation of the romanticized view we hold of love, family, and romance (Every kiss begins with Kay!). The Commercials reflect the joy, connection, and wholesome embrace of goodwill and peace. It is also the perfect recipe for comparison and feeling slapped with the loneliness of being reminded of everything you do not have and not being where you should be.  

A common theme during the holidays is the slight despondence of where we are relationally. The pressure of either following through with the expectations of the relationships we hold, or of being involved in the societal expectations of having family and relationships. This time can really highlight our own insecurities of what is and what should be.

Naturally, we want to be with someone who accepts the person we are. In any relationship, we look for those who will make us their priority as we often do for those who are important. Ideally, we hope for people who are present and want to know and understand everything about us. We wish to have them be devoted to us and who is reliable to share life with. We wish to find a mirrored companion: someone to give you a reflection of something similar to what you are offering.

Oftentimes, the reality of the experiences we tend to have- or may have faced in the past- are less than ideal. Expectations are not met and the feeling of being cared for in the way we hoped didn’t pan out. Instead of being truly seen and fully accepted, we run into conflict, emotional turmoil or even distortion of reality in these relationships.

In an attempt at understanding where these patterns have possibly formed, think back on your childhood and how you or other members of the family were met at their return home from the day. Was the first experience of seeing a loved one enter the home met with warmth and hugs, a barrage of questions of whether the days expectations were met or was it a contemptuous feeling that seemed unsafe?  

If you’re overly cautious in romantic relationships, you may unconsciously be responding to your upbringing of a challenging relationship with a caregiver. Maybe you had an emotionally volatile authority figure who didn’t prioritize your needs, making you feel anxious and unworthy. Our responses to how we interact and engage in all relationships are based on the schemas we formed as a child.

Schemas are little blueprints of what certain things should be. If the authority figure in your life didn’t prioritize your needs, asking for your needs to be met will feel anxiety ridden and make you feel unworthy. Especially if one or both caregivers were physically or emotionally absent from your life. That feeling of abandonment would have left an imprint on your schema (life blueprint) that relationships and love are connected to loss.

These wounds can often go so deep that being hurt emotionally is all we know and what we have come to expect from a relationship. The understanding of intimacy becomes in response to being able to survive on our own. Therefore, caring for someone can feel scary and overwhelming when loving is associated with eventual pain.

We long for that emotional bond and at the same time, fear that they will hurt us and oftentimes, they do. When we give others the opportunity to decide who we get to “play” with in order to prevent being rejected or abandoned, that privilege then becomes entitlement. We hand over our power and become ensnared in the tug of war for autonomy and acceptance. Our setback comes from the dissonance between understanding a situation and knowing that just because we empathize with it, doesn’t mean we have to tolerate it. Losing yourself in the process of loving someone else isn’t love. 

Those coming from childhood dynamics of hurt, rejection (not being worthy) or abandonment can result in adult relationships that manifest as further examples or symptoms of the same types of pain. We may be in situations where it seems as though it is a good partnership, then over time the person turns out to be codependent, needy or volatile. To others, they seem charming, and we are left wondering where we are going wrong.

Another example could be inadvertently connecting with those who are jealous, emotionally unstable, controlling or easily angered as though we are triggering the dark side in the people we care for. Alternately, those we love are emotionally unavailable and do not put in the effort in understanding us on a deeper level and investing in an equal and conscious way. We chase the love and approval in the hopes that if I love you hard enough, maybe one day you will love me the same way in return.

Remember, we unconsciously choose based on what we know, and if what we know of relationships are to be distant, ambivalent, or absent, we will gravitate towards that because anything else innately feels unnatural and as a result very uncomfortable. No one would willingly choose those who perpetuate our childhood wounds and this is not a deliberate choice you make or one that we willfully attract. It is not our fault, and therefore we cannot judge ourselves for acting on impulses we were not aware of.

On the flip side it is possible that we become and take on the characteristics of our wounds. We end up being the ones who struggle with emotional intimacy, trust, vulnerability and end up pushing people away. We choose those who seem non-threatening and safe so that we are in control of how the relationship will unfold.

Identifying childhood dynamics allows us the power to be able to choose differently as an adult. It will continue to influence our view of relationships and how we naturally engage with partners, however, we can choose not to act on it and find another path of behaving. It is necessary to own these qualities and experiences from our past in order to understand how the pattern of relationships is formed. Love and commit to yourself first. Over time, the new behavior patterns will become less uncomfortable and unnatural while the healthy way of engaging will help the relationships grow and give new examples of how things can go well. Remember, the only person that can define your experience or existence is you.

Finding Passion Amidst the Struggle

This year has taught us collectively the power we hold to be resilient. For some, it has been a time for self- awareness, focus on health and family, courage to face and challenge unhealthy behavior or relational patterns, and a chance to go inward and find what we truly hold dear. For others, (myself included) it has been more of a demented roller coaster of coping, balancing roles and responsibilities and overall trying to keep a hold of the already overflowing platter of expectations to just make it through the day.

No matter where you fall on this spectrum, affirm that what you are doing, and what you have to offer is enough.

This can be a goal, a talent, a creative pursuit, digital learning, parenting, or a career that you love. When your interests become "work," it can be easy to forget why you used to love it. The job to do (and the anxiety to do it well), can soon take the place of the passion.

The process of getting better at anything is strewn with mistakes. Errors are the best teachers because it shows which element of the effort did not work and what needs to be changed.  We lose sight of the point of the struggle when we don’t check in and remind ourselves of why we have chosen this path.

 If you feel stuck, depressed, or bored, what’s typically missing is passion. Sprinkle a bit of comparing yourself to others, who you think do it "better," you've got a perfect recipe for anxiety, apathy, or avoidance.  If your mind isn’t enjoying the object of its focus, then something needs to change.

Check in with yourself and ascertain if excitement for your passions feels blocked.

In order to reclaim your passion, remind yourself what initially made you passionate about this pursuit in the first place.

Why did you choose to go into the work you do? What did you like/love about the choice you made when you were just getting started? Has perfecting your talents become something that gives you more anxiety than joy? How has this effort of following through made your life more meaningful?

If the purposeful “work” is not fused with gratitude, joy, and excitement, it can soon feel like a daily grind.

Oftentimes we forget that we are worthy to rise again, and make life as joyful, healthy, and full as it can be. Self-judgment represents the thoughts, habits, and attitudes that keep your mind in stuck. Fear, hopelessness, avoidance, procrastination, self-limiting behaviors; these are all symptoms of the fear that we are not worthy to have or experience the beauty life can hold.

Push past self-limiting behaviors about your potential and worth. Breathe new life into projects and passions long thought dead. Perhaps you need to take a break from “work” whatever that looks like for you, and create or do something just for the love of it. Allow yourself to participate in something that reignites your interests. Seek out fascinating people who share in these passions and exchange ideas.

Are you sleepwalking through life just to get to the next phase? Sometimes, when things feel overwhelming, we shut down our intake of stimuli and detach from the emotional investment and cost of meeting these expectations and demands of our daily lives. Periodically we wake up to realize we’ve become entranced. A whole day or week or month has gone by without a sense of awareness, memory, or vitality. Procrastination is often a side effect of this, however, at its root is detachment. In order to become unstuck, you must be fully conscious about what is occurring at this time. Only by being awake, mindful, and alert can you choose to establish new conditions.

When there is a disconnect between the heart and the mind, we become untethered to the reality of what we are experiencing and fall into this sense of detachment. Many times, we fixate on the future or past because of fear of experiencing the moment. Fear of pain, fear of discomfort, fear of taking responsibility, fear of letting yourself or someone you love down.

Allow yourself to feel your real feelings, especially the neglected or difficult ones. You have your unique way of being you and what you bring to the table. Mindfully embrace your talents, abilities, and your worth. The people that you want to attract will love when you are confident in who you are with all the scars, quirks, and everything that makes you, you. You will attract other individuals who are comfortable in their own skin.

It can be encouraging to receive the validation of others, but never place yourself in a position of dependency on it. Love yourself, your spirit, your unique beauty, your talents, and your abilities without the need for validation. It doesn’t matter what others think if you are happy with what you are creating in every aspect of your life, whether that is in your hobbies, career, parenting plan, or relationships. Write your own happily ever after and know that with every chapter, there will be joy, strife, conflict, and triumph. You have survived up to now with powerful resilience, so it is only fitting to say that you will continue to not only survive, but I hope you will start to thrive.

Learning To Love Yourself

Self-love begins with inner-balance and peace. We have to recognize all the experiences, beliefs, and perceptions that make up who we are. They represent the different aspects of you, which must be brought into harmony in order to regain standpoint of self-love. We can heal any wound, and free ourselves from suffering whenever we choose to view our experiences through the lens of acceptance.

Do you have difficulty with truly loving yourself? Are you able to open your heart and be completely honest about who you are, and what you feel? Are you able to look at where you are at in life right now with tolerance and inner peace?

We have two elements that make up the personality- the rational and the emotive self. Some people attribute it to the masculine and feminine characteristics of what makes up our way of being. The rational self is the part that works in the "real world." The masculine or rational part of the self wants to mentally figure everything out with a logical explanation. The emotive self represents your emotional depth and capacity to feel and works in the realm of “what could or may be” rather than focused on the “what is”.

When a person relies heavily on the rational or masculine side of self, (yours truly ha-ha), they operate from a fear of the unknown and need control, protection, and balance. Status (where am I in the process), strength and reason become their primary focus to avoid situations that threaten their sense of value and security.

Alternately, those who fall more on the emotive or feminine side of self-have the goal of keeping the peace and safeguarding what they value even at the cost of themselves. They often feel too deeply and have a hard time being able to step outside the sensitive heart and therefore is often wounded. This leads to having no boundaries which always opens the person up to harm.

Without conflict, (boundaries, speaking your truth, asking for what you need) there can never be growth. Leaning on one side over the other deprives us on elements that make experiencing the world beautiful. We need the emotive (feminine) side of ourselves to experience depth, intrigue, connection, understanding and healing. The rational (masculine) side provides balance, protection, safety, and progressive movement.  

We need to integrate both parts in order to love yourself for without accepting all that make you uniquely you, there is no love.  You have to look down on the different parts of the self with compassion, acceptance, and perspective. This is how we foster inner peace. The "rational" self (male) must understand the real “emotive” self (female) to find peace and harmony. Make peace with your feelings by being honest about where you have come from and the experiences that have shaped who you are today. It is necessary to bare it all to yourself. Oftentimes we hide our true feelings about what we have gone through to avoid being overcome with the meanings they hold.

We fall out of harmony by attaching ourselves to only one aspect of our lives and losing the perspective of us as a whole. Ruminating with emotions too much we lose sight of the world's unlimited opportunities. Concern for status, safety or how we appear to others can bring an equal measure of suffering. Practice releasing feelings of inhibition that keep you covering things up to maintain an image of strength, competency, or resilience.

Today, it's time to love yourself and everything that makes you so beautifully you. Look on yourself with wise, accepting, compassionate eyes. We all have a past and some are more tattered than others. Every experience leading up to today has shaped and influenced how you see the world today. We cannot have a hatred or resentment for who we were before we knew how to be different. We couldn’t have reacted differently without the lessons we have learned since then, so don’t judge yourself based on the person you are now. Each transformation of self is another example of the wonderment that is you- the journey has just begun.   

Personifying Your Struggles- My Lady In Black

One of the greatest things that I am able to teach is awareness. The ability to pay attention to our state of being as well as asking yourself, why am I feeling this way, what’s going on within me? We lead a life that’s so on the go, and there are times when the last thing we pay attention to is what’s happening to our bodies.

Last night, I did a meditative exercise and at the end of it I was able to realize how tense I was, how high my shoulders were. The funny thing is that I just had a massage 2 days ago, so something has happened in the past few days that I am carrying that causes the area to feel heavy and full of burden. It wasn’t until I took the time to do the meditation for me to realize how bad it had gotten in just 2 days.

Sometimes I have friends or clients tell me that they have a migraine and don’t know why, not sleeping well at all, or have moments where they can’t regulate their breathing but have a difficult time articulating the why.

Awareness is recognizing how our bodies tell us that something is wrong, even when everything seems completely normal. Awareness is also seeing that our fears/depression/anxiety/stagnation is also trying to tell us something.

Take depression or a depressive episode as an example. There is a misconception that people who are depressed are sad, cry all the time, have a hard time getting out of bed, and are incapable of following through with their responsibilities. Well, as the poster child for depression, I can tell you that’s not always the case.  

I, among other men and women that struggle with depression, often have a more atypical presentation of the symptoms and how they manifest. Ours is more “let’s see how much we can overcompensate for the feelings of depression by going a thousand miles an hour” so that we don’t have to stop. Because when we stop, we realize that something is missing, something is wrong, we don’t feel whole.

Obviously, this is a very generalist explanation of a depressive episode, however, I have learned in studying and working with depression that we have these themes of our struggles that go across our lives. Whether it’s not feeling good enough, something isn’t right, no matter how hard we try we just can’t seem to get “it”.

What is the “it” though?

It could be happiness, connectivity, companionship, success… it is different for everyone. It is these individual themes that usually trigger these depressive episodes.

I really want to focus on acceptance. Accepting that this is a part of who we are; a part of our struggle is something that we will carry with us. It’s not something to “get over with”, “get rid of” or to “focus it on something else”.

For someone that struggles with mental illness, especially depression, it is not something that we can wish away. There’s not a magic pill you can take to eliminate the source of why we experience this, it is part of a process of adjustment. There are steps that we take to adjust and recognize that there will be moments where the feeling comes back.

For me, unfortunately, depression is something that I’ve struggled with for my entire life and it’s something that I will have to continue working with for the rest of my life. The more that I work with what happens, the more that I’m aware of the symptoms and what the triggers are of these depressive episodes, the better I will be able to deal/cope with it. Over time the goal is to heal from it so the intensity of the experience regarding these thoughts/feelings will not be as strong.

The power comes from having the ability to recognize what’s happening, so we can have the power to address it.

It really is no different from any other medical conditions. If you take blood sugar for example, someone who struggles with hypoglycemia or low blood sugar. Once they get to a point where they can recognize signs that their sugar is crashing, they have tools at their disposal to take care of it and then work to it back to normal. We take symptoms and find solutions for physical health, it’s really no different for mental health.

We have to be able to recognize what sets us off, how it feels, where in our physical body this emotion lives, recognize that it’s coming and do what we need to do to fight through it. Sometimes it’s like “okay, I see you, I’m acknowledging that you’re there and I’m going to exercise, play music, eat delicious food, surround myself with people that are positive, uplifting, and supportive. And I’m going to make time to sleep more, and exercise to take care of myself.

There are other times that I just can’t.

Motivation is a slippery little bugger. Most times, this powerful drive to do what is needed is not coming. It is rare for that spark of inspiration, the internal dialogue to reflect, “I’m going to go work out and I’m going to feel better” especially if you hate running, like I do. I don’t feel excited to come to the office early in the morning and get my insurance billed. I don’t often feel driven to go clean up the dishes and make the house spotless. Especially if I’m struggling.

Motivation is not something that just happens, so one of the things that I tell my clients is that you have to just do it. It gets done because it needs to get done. You have to show up for yourself the way you show up for everything else that’s important in your life, because guess what? You matter.

That is probably the hardest thing to do, the hardest thing to recognize and believe, especially when you’re trapped in another depressive state. So, what to do?

I want you to sit back, and to personify this state of depression. Sounds crazy, I get it. But I want you to give it a name, an identity, an image. For me, depression is an elderly woman in mourning, a fashionista by the way, because everything I imagine typically is hahahah. She has a veil over her face, and she comes to visit from time to time.

So, whenever I do recognize that she’s come for another visit, I give her my attention to ask her why she here. What is she trying to tell me this time? The purpose is to go deeper in meaning with what led to this encounter again. Sometimes healing comes from just that. To be able to see a facet of yourself that you may not have been aware of, that was triggered or missing somehow.

My latest adventure with this “Victoria Grayson-esk woman”, was a few weeks ago. I felt rundown, so my body feels rundown. I felt like I’m catching something; feverish even though I don’t have a fever. I’m not sick, but this is a manifestation of this physical sense of being depleted. I’m just done. I don’t have a lot of energy for myself after a full day of the babies, work, managing the practice, homework, playtime, and then they are in bed, and I am just exhausted.

This is a different kind of exhaustion. I recognize that it’s when I don’t want to stay up after the babies go to sleep and read or catch up on my shows. It’s usually my “me time”, and I look forward to this experience. In recognizing that I don’t want to do these things, is when I realize something is off. On top of that, I watched the live action Beauty and the Beast, and I was SOBBING. My poor babies were like “mommy, it’s okay, he didn’t die.” Why am I sobbing?

A depressive episode has come knocking again, and I needed to sit down with her and ask, “okay what is it?”. My life is on point right now, my kids and I are in a great place, we are having fun together, I was able to hang out with some of my friends and catch up on girl time. I was dating someone. My family was healthy. So, what was it?

Then I realized the 2 things that my brain was picking up from Beauty and the Beast. First, my mom was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. It was manageable and the best-case scenario in a horrible situation. But it was okay. Second, I was dating this guy, things were going fairly well, but what was the problem?

The trigger here is I had just started to have a good relationship with my mom (who is my stepmom) for the first time, about 2 years ago. We started to get close, and here I am watching this movie with the kids, and everything is handled, but the thought of the cancer and the whole situation was looming. Belle lost her mother and longed for her, and here I am- I finally have that mother and it’s all of a sudden being threatened.

So, there you go. Seems pretty extreme, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. Subconsciously, it is a big deal. Once again, my body and emotions are responding to something that’s very deep-rooted, but when you looked at it from the surface everything was fine.

The second thing, Belle had just found love. Well here I am, longing for a kind of relationship with a partner that I wonder if it even exists. A place where my heart is full, and my soul is understood. Same thing with Belle! I can’t believe I was feeling all of this from a Disney movie, hahahah, but I was relating to the character and how she was feeling.

It was kind of all in my face… Well, hello there woman in black! Knocking on my door yet again out of nowhere. So, this is what my depressive episode is trying to say. It’s not something that came out from nowhere, it is there for a reason.

There is no way that I would have been able to get through to all of that- the concept of how I’m really struggling with my mother’s illness, processing the abandonment of my birth mother, and how I am still holding out hope for a partner but perhaps losing faith in the kind of person I need is actually out there. I would have not been able to piece together this particular puzzle if I hadn’t sat down and taken time to try and understand what my woman in black was trying to tell me.  

This is my challenge for you. If you are faced with emotions that are more intense than usual, try to see what’s going on. Try to personify the experience and ask it what is going on? What are you here to teach me? Then maybe you can get a better understanding of yourself.

So Loved, Yet So Alone

Here is the unfortunate truth. People will disappoint you. You will experience things that will change how you see the world forever. You’ll blame new lovers for what old ones did to you. You will lose people that you thought would walk with you forever. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll love, and you’ll feel like a fool. Everyone has a past, including you and it’s all part of the package. This is who you are, and no one should want to change you.

Acceptance is a piece that I always focus on when it comes to the people I work with as well as those who come across my path personally. I have worked my entire existence to get to a point where I am accepted and valued for who I am and what I have to offer which is why it is a passion of mine to help others find the same.

Even with all the processing, healing and work, there comes a time when we feel completely alone. We know people love us, care for us, will do anything necessary to protect us- and still there is that lingering emptiness filling our senses as it seeps into the very thread of what makes us human.

If only just telling ourselves to snap out of it and recognize all the love there is around would be enough for the heaviness to subside. Often times we fall further into that sense of self-deprecating judgement when we are unable to relive the feelings just by counting our blessings.  

This past week has been especially challenging on this front for me. With the pandemic, my entire world has shifted into putting our health as my primary focus. I have rearranged my work schedule and social life to shelter my children and have them thrive from home.

All of that fell apart when the children came home from a weekend at their father’s with fevers. Anxiety bubbles under the surface along with the ever-present anger when I am unable to prevent hardships for these babies. The following day, my eldest son was complaining of stomach pains, diarrhea, and blood in his stool. Anxiety quickly morphs into panic as I scramble to find a pediatrician that can help us in between sessions.

I felt completely helpless. If I take one son to urgent care, who will watch the other? I cannot bring any friends over, or my parents because if it is COVID-19, we are all potentially contagious and I cannot expose my loved ones to that. If I take my youngest son with us, I am then exposing him to everything else that is floating around the urgent care. I cannot leave him home alone because he is too young, and I am not sure what the doctors would find and lastly, their father had already denied any accountability on how they became sick.  

I had never felt so utterly alone and powerless.

I am accustomed to being alone and having to handle my business on my own. I thrive on being “strong” and overcoming the odds. I have always felt that I was on my own when it came to problem-solving and balancing all areas of my life. I take pride in not needing another to be able to meet my needs.

Here was a time when I felt nearly broken under the pressures of having to choose between providing care for my children and protecting them. For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t want to be the person solely responsible for keeping our little world afloat.

Oscillating between wanting power and control over the course of our existence and not wanting to be strong anymore is common. We are not meant to go through life shouldering all the responsibilities alone.

How could we cope with it all when, as in this situation, there is absolutely no one to turn to for assistance?

The first step is to calm the screaming mind and the racing thoughts.

I was catastrophizing and spiraling with all the ways I was failing in this situation. I needed to get my thoughts organized in what I believed was the issue and how to correct the cognitive distortions. In order to do that, I had to ask myself the following questions:

1-      What specifically am I worried about (the first of the myriad of problems in this situation)

2-      How likely is it that my worry will come true? Give examples of past experiences to support the answer.

3-      If my worry does come true, what’s the absolute worst that would happen?

4-      If my worry does come true, what is most likely to happen?

5-      If my worry does come true, what are the chances that I’ll be okay (or my kids in this situation)

The first obstacle to address here is what to do with my other son. By going through these answers, I was not only able to calm myself down and find a solution, I was also able to remind myself of the times when I have handled worse. Then, I was able to go through these questions with the remaining fears regarding this issue.

There are times when we feel completely and utterly alone even if there are those who genuinely care and support us. It is for this very reason that we need to learn to be confident in our own abilities and rely on the compassion we are to give ourselves first. In being able to self soothe before we depend on others to fall on.

Please don’t get me wrong, being vulnerable and leaning on others is okay. Feeling dejected and turning to loved ones to feel support is okay. I have my select group of people who have scraped my broken and mangled heart off the floor when my life had fallen apart. Social support is a necessity. It just cannot be in exchange for building the strength to care for ourselves.

If your heart hurts, it’s okay. Letting go of someone, something, an idea, or an expectation, even if it is the correct choice, can be difficult. It just means that it meant something to you.

Make peace with yourself frequently for it is with yourself that you are at war with most often. Accept what you can’t control and what seems forever to find its way to you. Stay in the current moment, and just get through today. You’ve adjusted and survived before; you will again.

Can't Seem To Get Motivated: What Gives?

The cooler weather brings with it the love of warm drinks, sweater weather and cozy blanket forts. It also drags along with it the shorter days, dreary weather, and a reluctance to get up in the morning to get moving. Just as there are the changes and transitions in the weather, there are also transitions in us. 

The transitions are at times welcomed with open arms and others are rejected with everything we can muster. Some shifts are monumental and some barely leave a mark until one day we look back and see just how far we have come.

If you look at your past in its totality, you will realize that along with difficulties there were times when you were joyful and optimistic. The past holds important clues as to what will bring you fulfillment in the future.

How do you tell the difference between avoidance and procrastination? The difference is based on the emotional value we place on these tasks. Putting them in categories will help shed light on which ones would be the simpler one to tackle.

The “I don’t want to do it” (procrastination) vs. “this gives me so much anxiety” (avoidance) categories. It’s differentiating the emotional and mental energy that it would take.

Even when there is an understanding that the tasks need to be completed, the reason it doesn’t get done is that the consequence for stalling isn’t strong enough to elicit movement towards completion.

The only way to move through this rut is understanding and processing the possible mental association we have behind them.

To help with figuring out what the underlying meaning is, write a list of demanding tasks that need to be completed in a particular time frame.

Once you have this list, I want you to separate them into two categories of what feels like avoidance and what is procrastination.

The list under procrastination could be the easiest to start with because it has the least amount of emotional attachment.

One item nearly ALWAYS under procrastination is laundry for me. I could easily say that the reason I drag my feet on this is that I don’t like it, or it’s annoying. That is the reason, but there is more to it than that.

Ask yourself why?

Just because I don’t like it, or its annoying doesn’t mean that its enough of a reason to stay stuck. There are plenty of other things that get accomplished that I do not like to do, e.g. get gas, taking out the trash, or vacuuming the floors.

WHY is doing the laundry a problem? Why is annoying or why do I not want to do it?  

The thought process goes like this: I don’t like doing it, it’s an extra time-consuming chore that takes too much energy sometimes… AND it is because it feels never ending. I cleaned up the closet, put up all the clothes, folded and put everything in drawers YESTERDAY afternoon and this morning, my son tells me the washer is nearly full.

I can’t ever get ahead of it and it feels as though even if I put in this effort, it won’t stay that way and I will need to do more in a day or two again.

So, I’ll leave the two baskets of clean clothes will stay there. Because WHAT’S THE POINT?! Hahaha

In bringing this core understanding of our motive behind the hesitation, we can use this awareness to work past it. We get stuck on these chores because we do not process the reason behind being stuck.

In realizing that the issue here with putting away the laundry is that I do not feel there is a reward for all of that effort, I can then start working on changing that outlook.

As I mentioned before, we will not follow through on a behavior if it is not something we value or if the consequence for stalling isn’t detrimental. It will get done eventually but, “eventually” creates a sense of unsteadiness and low sense of accomplishment/ achievement/ worth.

We have to work within what we value. I value cleanliness, but in my mind, the clean clothes in a basket tucked in the closet is still being clean. So, how do I make myself put away the clothes?

I had the basket next to my bed and tripped over it in the middle of the night. That was motivation enough to move the basket to the closet. That was consequence driven. I want to help you get to where the decision is desire driven so the behavior will become a habit and not constantly avoided.

We must come up with a reason that makes doing it valuable so it will get done.

•     Doing laundry because it has the shirt I want to wear, or a dress that needs to hang dry, so I can wear it on a date.

•     Getting administrative work done because I want money

•      Working out regularly because my thighs are touching again or because I only watch certain upbeat dance songs that I love when I am on the elliptical, so I make myself get on it, so I jam.

You may not value unpacking the boxes, but you may value what the end result will bring you: the room being complete, personal escape/ oasis, or curiosity of what’s been packed away; trip down memory lane.

You may not enjoy running every day, but you need the solitude that brings peace from the people in your life for that one moment out of the entire day.

Oftentimes we get stuck in the failure aspect of not getting things done which is why it is important to just take the first step towards a change. Instead of focusing on the reasons why you don’t want to do it, find what aspect of the action will make it worthwhile. Slowly let the internal messages reveal themselves to you and start your shift.

Designing The Life You Want

Your life is like a large blank canvas. Even with the limitations of where we are in life- with our background, financial status or education, life is waiting for us to create a masterpiece that depicts your heart’s desire.

This desire driven life can only be formed once we are very clear on what that would mean to us.

Despite your fears, nothing has been irreparably “messed up” yet. There is still time! Time to take the courageous journey toward what is truly fulfilling. The only caveat is, you must stop to identify what “fulfilling” is for you. If you can name your desire, you are on your way to creating it.

Are you clear on what you want out of life? If someone asks you what you want out of life, do you respond, "to be happy, or to be successful" without even knowing what that means for you?

Our sense of fulfillment is often paired with a sense of lack- as though something is missing. Perhaps what we are working towards is actually motivated by what we are running from.

For example:

Staying in this relationship is filling the emptiness in my life.  My work is filling the loneliness that I feel may engulf me. I am surrounding myself with a group of people who do not understand me, but at least I am not alone.

These examples resemble living your life from a place that is fear driven. Being afraid of the loneliness or the emptiness that’s there and using work or relationships as a distraction.

Do you think you've failed, or messed up with your life, and you that can't get it back on track?

Take the time to stop, think, and get clear about what feels as though it is missing. At times, it is easier to point out all the things that feel wrong or out of place than what we actually want to create. 

With that list of what feels as though it is missing, reframe the fear driven (what is missing and what we are running from) into a desire driven goal. 

In the previous example of staying in a relationship because it fills the emptiness, reframe that to say I am looking for elements of this relationship that makes me feel connected, seen and heard.

Think about the big picture value words first and then work on what that would look like in detail.

For me, I want a life that feels purposeful and one where I feel like there’s been a change for the better each day. I want to feel as though there was a point to today that was not just to fulfill my roles as a mother, entrepreneur, therapist or partner.

Now that I am clear on my objective, I can open myself to designing my day to meet that need in the specifics of how I choose to spend my day.

Today will be working with each client to help them find a new element of their psyche and cultivate their strength.

Carving out time to clean and organize my bedroom NOT as the chore that it can feel like, but rather with the focus that I will be able to create a tranquil space to retreat and read for a bit.

I will devote specific time or be mindful of the time in between sessions to be playful with my sons and give lots of encouragement and hugs to one while I focus on mischievous plots to throw socks or sneak up and pounce on the other.

I will reserve the last bit of the day before dinner to retreat into my bubble with a cup of tea and a book to pour back into myself and relax.

All of these things are examples of ordinary things that are purposeful and painting a picture of a day in the life I want to create.

Today, I am asking you to stop, overview, and think about where you are going. Is there something you still want to have, achieve, or be?

 If you act on what you truly want for yourself, you won't ever regret it. Acting in the face of fear proves your courage, which becomes confidence in being who you are.

Find what gives you a sense of purpose and go from there. It doesn’t matter what you do with life as far as a career path, social life, hobbies, or relationship as long as it is another reflection of your sense of purpose.

Wanting to "be happy" isn't clear enough. What does happy mean for you? What does that look like?

When you have your desires, clear in your mind, ask yourself, "Am I doing at least one thing today that contributes to achieving this for myself?

 If the answer is "No," don't beat yourself up. Get up and change it. Identify 5 actions that will help you take steps towards that goal.

You can still have all you want; you just have to be clear about what that is so you can make it happen.  

Learning To Trust Ourselves Again After Betrayal

Everyone talks about having a hard time trusting another person after a betrayal and so few discuss how difficult it is to trust ourselves as a result.

We focus on what the other person did to us and try to find ways to set up barricades to make sure this never happens to us again by someone else. We remind ourselves of the pain it has caused, the powerlessness, and the wrongness of what was done to us.

All of that is correct. We are hurt, we did feel powerless to stop it, we didn’t think they would do this to us, and it is wrong.

We then come up with creative ways to safeguard our bleeding heart. Defense mechanisms to find that power again that was taken from us through this betrayal.

Some turn to shutting out the heart, convincing oneself that we do not need another to rely on or find solace in, running from another when they get a bit too close, or perhaps putting obstacles and bringing up unnecessary conflicts when we find that we are starting to open up and allowing vulnerability to present in the form of emotional intimacy.

We put all of our energy into safeguarding ourselves from them, that we do not take the time to recognize the true damage it has caused us.

We find the ruined pieces of the trust we had in ourselves and the ability to be confident in our decisions and be secure in our own perceptions.

We believed in this person, found truth in their care and love for us, we sought safety and solace in their embrace only to find that perhaps what we thought we had in this person, was not real.

Facing the discrepancy in what we believed and what we are left with in our experiences can leave us standing on shaky ground. Without fully processing what happened, we will take part in these defense mechanisms that help protect us at the moment but prevent us from making healthy connections in the future.

If you haven’t healed from the wounds of your past, every time you think about it, your body produces the same chemicals that was present when it first happened. Our subconscious mind cannot determine the difference between what happened and what is happening now. This is why when you are thinking about a past argument, your heart rate begins to rise, and you feel the tension in your shoulders and neck again- almost as if it is happening again.

That isn’t to say that we are to avoid our hurts and try to forget about them. It means that we need to process through the pain and make sense of the experiences that led to the moment of a regrettable incident and what came afterwards. In working through and processing fully the various levels of perceptions, we can get to where the thoughts no longer hold the painful associations and the wound can heal.

It will take time to find yourself in your own world again, to make your own decisions and be confident in what we are choosing while accepting the consequences.

Learning who you were, who you are now and how to trust yourself again will begin with reintroducing the different elements of yourself that you feel are broken or damaged. Let’s be clear- you are not damaged or broken, but parts of your experiences and reactions to those could feel as though they are.

Trusting in yourself will start with introspection of what you need: What are your feelings, the perception behind these feelings and what you need to feel grounded at that moment.

Take a step back and take a look at things calmly and slowly without criticism.

For example:

I am sitting in my home office and having a telehealth session, and I am starting to feel frustrated that my cat is scratching at the door for the 5th time in the past 40 minutes.

In labeling the emotion, we can figure out why it is there and make sure it is directed or handled appropriately.

Determining the reason behind the feeling is a bit trickier. I’ve mentioned that it is because my cat is scratching at the door, however, there is a more significant reasoning behind it.

It could be that I am frustrated that she will be damaging the glass panes of the French doors, or that she is distracting my client and myself with the knocking noise it makes, or it could be that my frustration is actually at myself because it is highlighting that I am neglecting the cat just as I fear I am neglecting my kids while I am working from home.

In being able to effectively pinpoint the source of the emotion, we can provide relief to ourselves by meeting the psychological or emotional need that is behind the experience.

To come up with a plan to process and alleviate this emotion also makes us feel in charge of the situation and that we have control over where it will go. It helps to feel stable and grounded when our emotions can be overwhelming.

By taking these three steps, you will be able to sift though the tangled web of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order to effectively process through the day.

With each successful encounter of processing, you will become more confident in your values, identifying emotions, and intrinsically meeting your needs. This confidence is the steppingstone to having an unshakable trust in your perceptions, experiences and in yourself.

All We Want Is To Love And Be Loved In Return

One of our fundamental needs is to be loved. We want to be seen, heard and accepted for who we are. We wish to belong and know that there is someone there to walk beside us through our journey and that we are not alone.

For some, we are able to give our love freely and confidently, while for others, this yearning has become a pull to prove ourselves through our love.

As we grow, we form connections and associations with how we believe the world functions- our world view. In other words, we apply the “Shoulds” to people and situations in order to make sense of what is happening as well as what is acceptable to expect.  These associations are the underlying beliefs we hold about who we are and our place in the world.

What are some connections you have when it comes to the ways of loving someone? Think of IF, THEN statements when it comes to relationships.

For example:

If I choose to make a decision for myself, and I am happy, then it is coming at the expense of someone else’s feelings.

If I say that this friendship isn’t working, then I am a bad person for breaking their hearts.

One association I have struggled with is “If I love hard enough, they will eventually love me back”.

The way that I have come to understand love and loving people has been about giving them the love and acceptance I wanted for myself when I was a child that I didn’t get. I have come to equate loving with self-sacrifice. When I am giving someone else love, it is because I recognize the shadows in them that I have within. So, I pour all emotion, devotion, understanding and loyalty into them, and sit patiently hoping that one day they will be able to give it back to me.

The reason behind why I give in this way goes past the surface of I hope to get what I give in return one day. The secondary reason for this way of thinking is:

Without giving in this way: full-heartedly and often at the expense of myself, I feel as though there is not a purpose present (to help, to heal, to teach, to help them grow) and in return, I do not feel grounded and secure in my worth and what I have to offer.

So the first reason is because I know what it is like not to be fully loved and accepted, so I want to make sure they never feel it and the second, deeper reasoning is that I feel that I have nothing of value in just loving, that I need to prove this worth with how deeply I give.

When you haven’t had people in your life that made you feel like you have someone who will be there to walk through life with you, there remains a void in the realm of trust of oneself and of others.

This drive to prove our love and our worth leaves us depleted in having anything left to give to ourselves. Often times, it leaves us in a position where we avoid asking for what we need from others in fear of facing rejection or being seen as dependent and needy.

The cycle of giving too much and not having enough in return is not only exhausting, it reaffirms the deep-seated fear that we are not lovable or worthy of being loved.

It could just be that you can ask for what you want and need and recognize that it doesn’t make you a bad or less worthy person because your needs are not about the other person.

Your experience is just that- Yours. They are your own, and not attached to the experience of the other person. Their experience is based on how they see the world based on the life they have lived. You are not taking anything away from this person by choosing to do something for you. Whatever reaction they have to is based on where they are now in what they need for themselves.

The first step to changing this cycle is becoming aware of when it is happening and what it feels like for you.

Often, it is a pull to be rescuer/defender or its strong pull to be the child to be soothed.

When you feel this pull, give yourself a moment of pause to identify why it is there and what need is calling to be addressed.

The second step is learning what the shadows within you look like that you are recognizing in another that you are hoping to heal.

The final step is setting boundaries are creating a life reflective of all that is important to and surrounding yourself with those who are naturally able to provide those needs as they also share in those same values.

Over time, as you get to know yourself better and accept what makes you undeniably you, it will become easier to provide those needs for yourself and have those around you as support.

Remember, what you are contributing IS enough. Who you are IS enough. What you have to give IS enough.

Be confident in what you need and what you value. If it is not met here, it just means that this person is not part of your tribe. Allow yourself the love and acceptance you seek to make its way to you in all your relationships.

Finding Stability In The Midst Of Chaos

These days the feeling of uncertainty seems to be the only thing that is certain. As a whole, we are all embodying the feelings of loneliness, caution or fear for our and our loved ones health, instability and trapped in our circumstances of this new reality.

Uncertainty frequently brings with it feelings of anxiety and/or depression as it steals our sense of power and control over the course of where we are headed.

How do you feel when you don’t know who you are and where you stand?

How can you connect and care for others when you are not able to give that to yourself?

When we are attached to people in order to feel strong and stable, what happens when we no longer have those people?

The surest way to gain the feeling of stability is to feel grounded and secure. Feeling rooted to the ground comes from the feeling of being accepted for who you are and connected to those around who are also strong.

The root of uncertainty is fear- our lack of confidence in being able to effectively handle things ourselves.

Some believe that we need to be connected to someone in order to be stable. However, if we are reliant on someone else for that validation of strength, how do we build that confidence of being independent within ourselves?

Without this tether to the strong person, we feel weightless and unable to find footing. The source of this need is the fear that we are not going to be able to cope with the responsibility of dealing with life struggles.

The solution to feeling unstable or insecure?

Be assertive and learn to take a stand for yourself so you can feel your own strength and that you are indeed powerful.

Create a list of experiences that showcase the moments of strength from everyday moments. Having the courage to just push through the insecurity and ask for help and prove to yourself that it is okay to need assistance. Asking for help is also strength.

Our struggle with asking for emotional needs is usually based on the associations we have with them, so the next step would be to ask what are the associations you have with certain needs?

For example:

The need to feel loved and to deeply love is also associated with the fear of eventual loss.

The need for support or help is also associated with the fear of rejection being seen as inferior.

The need for comfort is also associated with the fear of becoming dependent and losing your hard-earned sense of independence.

It is necessary to separate the first need with the associated fear of consequence in order to heal.

We can love and be loved as a singular event that is not equal to the fear of losing this love. They are not the same experience, and do not belong in the same sentence- they are not connected. The act of loving is just that- loving and receiving that love. Sure, there is a possibility of loss, though that is not the same as loving and therefore, we must practice separating the two associations.

These associations and the decisions you made are based on the conditioning you received up to this point in life. The judgement we put on past experience is not fair to the person you were back then.

Who you are today, with the lessons you have learned and the experiences you have had, is what has shaped how you see the world NOW. You cannot use all of that to judge the person that you were in the past without these lessons.

We oftentimes get stuck in the self blame of “I should have done things differently because we’ve been conditioned to accept the blame. That looks like someone asking what could you have done to prevent it or saying you are the reason why this happened.

This is precisely where the feelings on instability, and uncertainty start to form and grow.

In “What I could have done differently” and “What can I do now…” there’s a place in the middle where you ask yourself “Did I have the conditioning or the teaching/ guidance to be able to do that at that time?”

Then decide if this is the path you would like to take and if it is leading you to the person you are wanting to become. Each step in understanding the why behind your actions, no matter how small, will reinforce your trust in yourself and bring with it feelings of security and strength.

We have had a lifetime of conditioning from messages learned that led to who we are now, so it only makes sense that it will take time to learn this new way of challenging your fears. Give yourself the grace to go through the unlearning of all of these associations and into who you are becoming.

Hoping Things Will Be Different, Knowing That They Won’t

Ever find yourself going to the same person for something whether it be comfort, help or understanding even though there are numerous examples showing you that they are not able to meet this need?

It could be a friend, parent, partner, ex, or coworker, and we just keep going back to them and hoping things will be different this time.

Do you feel frustrated with yourself when once again, you are let down and you just cannot understand why they fall back on the same patterns even though you’ve expressed your need to them?

And yet, we still keep going back… Why?

The answer to this is twofold:

First, we all have fundamental needs from childhood that never go away. The basic needs, physical and emotional safety, acceptance, love and belonging, and having power and control over the course of our choices.

If we are to look back at our upbringing, this need that goes unmet, probably has its root from whether those needs were met as a child.

If we were hurt, did someone hold us and soothe our wounds, or did they tell us to toughen up and be a big boy/girl?

When we were confused about a choice that was made on our behalf and a limit was set, were our voices heard and respected, or was it more along the lines being told that we are to do as we are told and not to question authority?

All of these experiences, whether great or small, shape how we perceived our needs to have been met and here is the challenge- those needs are still there as a gaping void of what should be there.  

The Should’s I am referring to here are general expectations of how our needs are to be met. For example, our parents should be someone we turn to when life gets blown to pieces, our partners should be our source of support and encouragement or our friends should be there to listen without judgement.  

These Should’s are also an extension of our values that color how we perceive the world and those in it.

Going back to how we initially started this conversation of why we keep going back to the same people for elements of our needs that do not consistently get met is where the second piece of this puzzle comes in.

Because we all have these should’s, it is east to fall into the trap of the Golden Rule: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

In theory, it is a fantastic way to live your life in alignment with your values. The issue this becomes for some people is we believe that if we love someone hard enough, they will eventually love us back.

Replace love with any other behavior, and you can see the motivation is the hope to get these needs back.

So then the cycle continues of feeling frustrated, hurt and let down that they cannot meet our needs, validating the negative belief that if we mattered enough, they would give it to us and striving to meet more of their needs so that they will eventually recognize our worth and be there for us.

Often times, we work harder to meet their needs at the expense of our own mental, physical or emotional health.

We give until there’s nothing left for us because of the underlying fear of what the consequence might be. Our parents may be disappointed in us, our partners will think that they are not as important, our friends may feel rejected.

We feel this way more often than not and would never want to be the ones to be the cause of our loved ones ever experiencing this from us.

Ultimately, we fear that those we that mean so much to us, will not accept us as we are, and we will be rejected.

It is that fear of the consequences that leaves us trapped in this cycle.

It is EXHAUSTING! A lot of emotional energy is spent in this game of chess.

This dance of trying to figure out the motives or perception of those around you in order to behave in a way to be met with the least amount of consequences.  

If only it were as simple as recognizing this pattern of behavior and NOT doing it.

Changing roles is not the same as just deciding to do it. We have to allot for the shifts in mental capacity, physical adjustments, perception changes and emotional variations until all elements of your being is in alignment with the new change.

As I have mentioned before, these needs will not go away, and so, we have to start accepting that those we keep turning to just do not have the capacity to meet these as we need them to.

There is nothing wrong with what we need and how. That is part of what makes us as who we are as the color of our hair or the shape of our eyes.

The key is finding those who are able to meet these needs naturally.

Building a village of friends, mentors, co-workers, lovers, partners who can give these effortlessly because they are similar to their values.

It is not for us to change our needs, it is for us to recognize that we deserve to be treated in this way- in the way you are able to provide these for others naturally.

It is our responsibility to accept those around us for who they are instead of who we are hoping they may eventually be- just as it is our responsibility to ask for others to accept and respect us for who we are.

My friend shared this recently: Stop going to a Chinese restaurant for Mexican food.

I couldn’t stop laughing because it is so true.

Identify your needs, where they come from and why it is important to you.

Ask for them in that manner so those around you can understand your worldview.

Respect yourself and those around you if they are not able to meet those needs and build a village for your support system that is able to meet those needs effortlessly.

This will take time, and remember that we cannot hope for one person to stand for all of them. It is too much pressure on that person, and it is too much power to hand over.

Over time, as you get to know yourself better and accept what makes you undeniably you, it will become easier to provide those needs for yourself and have those around you as support instead of relying on them to meet these needs for you.

We are in a continuum of becoming, not on a journey with an end result.

Am I Doing Enough… Am I Enough?

When our sense of accomplishment and worth comes from what we are able to achieve and overcome during the day, it only makes sense to feel ourselves drowning in self-doubt and stagnation during this pandemic.

Who are you when all the titles and roles are stripped away? When you are no longer the top office performer, Pinterest parent or the well-traveled explorer?

There are narratives that we hear played on a loop of who we are and who we should be. These tapes began their tune early in our childhoods and continue with each passing experience and new belief.

If those messages of what we learned about ourselves are being reinforced by the same patterns of behavior, it is near impossible to rewrite those beliefs with new ones.

“They” say: Love yourself, Take Charge of your life and your future, Align your life with your passions!

Those are all fantastic aspirations and ones I hope to help all of you reach. But HOW do you get there?

It first comes down to being able to identify who you are, at the core of you, without all the labels we collect as we go through life.

I am a Bangladeshi woman, divorced, in my late 30s, fierce mama of two amazing little humans, entrepreneur, award-winning author, therapist, and homeowner. If you didn’t know any of this about me, and all these titles are stripped away, does my worth get wiped away as well?

What would you see when you look at me? When you get to know me?

What defines us as a unique individual is not determined by the roles we play; they are merely an extension of what already lies beneath.

The challenge is sifting through all the years of conditioning and getting to that part of what makes us who we truly are.

Let’s start with the narratives we tell ourselves about who we are, who we should be and what we aren’t measuring up to.

In order to do this effectively, we must be able to move through different dimensions of cognition and understanding of our perceptions. Here is what I mean:

I will ask you to write out all that you are feeling thankful or fortunate for from now going back a whole month.

For some, this list will sound something along the lines of being thankful for the love of friends and family, having a job, having a place to live, being alive and fairly healthy, if not a job, then thankful to be able to pay most of the bills and having the opportunity to look for a job, and perhaps even feeling fortunate to have access to fundamental needs such as food, safety and entertainment.

This list is accurate and correct AND is what I call primary or surface level perceptions meaning, they are non-descriptive, non-emotive reflections that are generic experiences.

My request to you is to go a bit deeper into your own unique encounters and give a detailed explanation of what you mean by the original examples.

If your list shared love of friends and family, what did that mean specifically to you? Did someone call or text to show support and that they miss you, did you get to share a meal where the memory is a wonderful moment to remember and cherish? Was there a carefree exchange with inside jokes that lifted your spirit for a time?

It is the WHY behind an event that gives it meaning.

By identifying the why, or secondary perception, we can then build associations of specific instances that bring forth joy or significance in normal exchanges. Through these associations, we can then create more moments that are in alignment with what we are seeking that gives our existence purpose.

By creating days with at least one of these meaningful experiences in all elements of our life- family, social, hobbies, spirituality, romantic endeavors, or self-growth- we begin to see that what we are contributing IS enough. Who we are IS enough. What we have to give IS enough.

Impostor Syndrome

When we have spent more time than not, judging and being critical of our own abilities, it is difficult to shed the cloak of uncertainty and inferiority. I have had these moments in just about all aspects of my life from motherhood, to my career to even my writing.

At what time in your life did you feel you were strongest? Do you sometimes forget you are still that same person?

Strength is not manifested by large displays of power, but by gentle, compassionate, self-directed corrections in the form of good decisions.

You are more powerful than you may give yourself credit for. Power in the sense of how you can choose the next steps you take.

We get stuck in ruts, and sometimes it feels that we can't change something because we've been acting that way so long that it is just part of who we are. But that’s just not true. It is difficult to go against your “natural grain” of what you’ve become accustomed to being, AND it is still possible to do something different.

Despite your fears, nothing has been irreparably “messed up” yet.

At times, the issue we are actually having is not the fear of messing up, but rather the lack of confidence you have in your ability to cope when the “failure” happens.

That’s where we behave in all kinds of ways to prevent ourselves from having to experience that original pain of the “failure”.

Make a list of these behaviors. Is it that you are holding yourself back from being vulnerable? Preventing yourself from letting go of a past grievance? Keeping yourself in the safe zone of work responsibility without taking risks?

By paying attention to the self sabotaging behaviors, we can make sense of what is keeping us from getting to where we ideally want to be.

Are you clear on what you want out of life? If someone asks you what you want out of life, do you respond, "to be happy," without even knowing what that means for you?

Make a list of the different aspects that make up your life. Mine include motherhood, career, family, social life, romantic life, hobbies, spirituality, and physical health.

With this list of the different areas of your life, I want you to then write a paragraph of what this one element looks like at the moment and then underneath it, write another paragraph of the ideal version of what you would like this area to reflect. Do this for the remaining aspects.

This will not only have you reflect on where you are now, but also paint a picture of what you are working towards. Our subconscious brains respond best to imagery and our conscious brains work best with a clear understanding of the path you are wanting to follow.

Remember, it is important to have your ideal vision reflect reality. For example: In my family aspect and my relationship with my parents, it would be amazing to be able to turn to my father for empathy and emotional support. However, I cannot list this because that is expecting a change from someone who is not me. Also, my father is someone to turn to for solutions and tough love, not empathy- that is NOT who he is, so to hope to find that in him, is self-sabotage.

Instead, I can put in my ideal version to have male figures in my life who provide emotional safety and empathy when I need that kind of support. Or, to work towards turning to my father only for the other kinds of support and being able to recognize and appreciate the forms of love and support he does provide.

Once you have gone through all the aspects of your life in this way, commit to taking at least one step towards any one of these elements through action. Just one in any one of these 6 areas every day in a conscious and mindful choice. This will affirm your strength.

Acting in the face of fear proves your courage, which then becomes self-esteem.

Write them down on a calendar or notebook where you can record your movement, great or small. You can also choose to incorporate a time you faced your fear and prevailed.

Every time you meet a challenge you are afraid of, and persevere, write it down. I prefer a calendar that I can go back to and see the specific day of what I did that brought me closer to the life I want to lead.

This is written proof that you can accomplish what you once thought impossible. It will be a repository of hard evidence, proving that you can handle the issue confronting you.

Remember that you have come so far and can go even further.

Most of us are being too hard on ourselves in the quest for self-improvement. Today, be kinder to yourself when taming the unruly parts of your experience. It is important that you aren’t just courageous, but that you are also respecting who you are and what makes you strong.

Look at this moment as a snapshot of where you are on your path and be present with your life and see it as it truly is before proceeding.

What do you love about your life currently? Can you name the moments that bring you peace? Which elements do you wish would change?

Accept your life and the lessons you currently find yourself learning. Breathe in the truth of your life at this moment and give yourself the grace to recognize where you’ve been, who you are now, and the person you are working on becoming.

It's Not You, It's Me

One of the most common arguments revolve around our needs not being met by those we love. Whether those needs are emotional, physical, verbal or in how we help. These needs come from our values that are formed in the early stages of development. As we continue to grow as people, we add to our list of values with each new experience.

Who you are, what you hold dear, what upsets you, and what underlies your decisions, are all connected to your personal values.

Your values reflect what is important to you.

They are a shorthand way of describing your motivations. Together with your beliefs, they are the causal factors that drive your decision-making.

The whole point of discovering your values is to improve the results you get in those areas that are truly most important to you.

Values act as our compass to put us back on course every single day, so that day after day, we're moving in the direction that takes us closer and closer to our definition of the best life we could possibly live.

In relationships, we connect through these values and that connection grows based on the experiences we have with these shared values that make us feel seen and heard.

When the initial excitement and novelty of getting to know one another wanes and the simplicity of daily existing takes place, this is where we start to see either the strengthening of this bond as the fluidity of coexisting based on these values fortify… Or this is where the rifts and cracks in the relationship start to make themselves known.

It all comes back to the core beliefs of what makes us who we are. There are things that I hold as pertinent and crucial in life, while the same value may not be seen as so in another.

I have learned over time that in relationships, it is important to be heard, but it is crucial to be understood.

Without comprehension of the values behind my world view, my needs cannot be met in the degree I would need them to be.

Say that there is the same conversation or argument that occurs more often than not in any given relationship, whether platonic or romantic. It has been discussed, the values behind the need expressed, consequences explored and even steps taken to alleviate the hurt.

If all these steps have taken place, and the issue still resides, what then?

When do I stop? When do I stop ruminating and with the analyzing? How do I stop comparing the things that are going well or okay as a way to negate the needs that are not being met?

How would you define the difference between dwelling and processing?

Processing is to understand the root of feelings in relation to me, my values and experiences.

Dwelling is thinking about the good times, only or the negatives only without looking at the full range of what is happening and what has happened.

A simple way to check is to ask yourself what’s the point?

Having nostalgia over the good times and not looking at the full picture of when it was not perfect is the scenario, what purpose does that serve?

One possibility is to affirm that the relationship meant something to the partner, and I was not as easily discarded.

The root of this issue is seeking validation of your self-worth.

By focusing only on the positives to make up for the negatives, you are hoping to shut out the side that speaks out against your worth. If they cared for you, these comments wouldn’t happen, these actions wouldn’t repeat, the rift wouldn’t be staggering.

Acknowledging these fears, holds a mirror to the wounds you carry within. Being faced with these feels daunting and uncomfortable which is why it is easier to put the focus on the other instead of looking within.

There are so many manifestations of the lack of worth. For example, it could be that you value this person so much, and in return they see you as a joke, or that their behaviors make you feel as though there is something missing in you and you do not feel good enough or… any other variations of negative beliefs you hold about yourself.

This is not necessarily because they do not care about you or that you do not matter enough. It is sometimes just that they cannot. It is not about you. It is who they are based on where they’ve been and where they are now. Their thoughts or actions or lack thereof are always from the experiences that have colored their lens.

It is not a blame game.

If they are showing you who they are, and you are choosing to stay, you are choosing this life with them as they are.

That doesn’t make their behaviors okay, it just means they are being true to who they are.

Often times we fall for the hope of their potential instead of accepting them as they are presenting themselves.

Just as we ask for our needs to be met and for us to be seen and accepted for who we are, we must also be willing to accept them for who they are, not who we are hoping for them to be.

Many times, we get transfixed by the moments of wonderment and deny the rest of the story.

When we have set a boundary and expressed the value behind them and the consequence that occurs once these values are violated, it is left to the person to respect them.

And if they don’t? What would you do?

The intent doesn’t matter. Well intentions do not take away from the consequence of the behavior. The cut was already made, the damage done. Setting these boundaries will help teach them how not to continue hurting you.

IF the boundary is met with a comment making you feel guilty, then it is gaslighting. How can you be the villain for being upset by something this person had done to you, even after setting a boundary for it not to be done to you?

If these situations continue and the cycle begins again after a period of time, it is up to you to say this is not working for me any more based on who I am.

It is not that they are a bad person or that they NEVER met your needs. It is simply that the needs met do not outweigh the ones that are not.

Be confident in what you need and what you value. If it is not met here, it just means that this person is not part of your tribe. Allow yourself the love and acceptance you seek to make its way to you in all your relationships.

You Live, You Learn, You Strive

To learn to love ourselves, we have to first learn to accept the full range of what makes us the human that we are. We are all unique in the sense that there is no other person like us out there. Who we are, what we have to offer, the way we would, with the essence of us-no one else possibly could.

In order to make strides towards becoming who we want to be, we must accept the experiences that has made us the person we are today. All the good, bad, fair, unfair, disappointments or moments of triumph.

Everything that we encounter, teaches us a lesson. Not in a divine sort of way, but more so that every experience teaches us something new about ourselves on what we like, dislike, abhor or wish more of, needing growth or finding pride in the growth we’ve made, where boundaries need to be set or where more grace should be offered.

How often do we look at challenges in our life and recognize it as the mirror that it is?

Our experiences are all reflections of something within us that we could learn from.

I do not mean that everything that happens should hold a silver lining. Sometimes sh*t just happens based on the choices that other people have made. Just because something happened that we could derive a message or lesson that can lead to growth, does not mean that it should have happened to us.

When there is an event that takes place, check in with yourself.

What are the thoughts that are coming up for you? Can you label 5 emotions related to the experience?  Once you do, try to come up with a separate reason for the different emotions. Then…

Own them.

Here is where the practice of giving yourself grace comes to play.

Allow yourself to recognize the entire experience with the thoughts and feelings associated with them and ask yourself, does it make sense to have these come up with what you’ve experienced in life up until now?

The answer is always yes.

Given what you have experienced and the beliefs you have up to THIS point in life, it makes sense that you feel the way you do.

We react the way we do to situations with our thoughts and feelings based on the life we have led up to this point.

It makes sense for someone who has been criticized regularly and made to feel inadequate at home/school/work or that their efforts do not measure up. It is understandable to feel self-conscious when interviewing for a new position even if they have been successful in the past or if they are more than qualified.

Just because they shouldn’t feel self-conscious or panicked doesn’t mean that they haven’t been conditioned to feel as such through the life they have had.

Accepting that it makes sense does not mean that you are accepting where you are now as your fate that this is where you will remain.

Even parents, friends or partners with the best of intentions can leave micro cuts on a person with what they have said and those wounds take a long time to process and heal on the subconscious level, even if consciously we know that they didn’t mean it.

The goal is to understand how and why we think the way we do; feel the way we do and react the way we do to then evaluate how we learned to become this way. Not to assign blame, but rather from a place of recognition and understanding.

Owning where we are when it is not where you want to be is very uncomfortable. We tend to become a harsh judge of our stagnation or the time it is taking get to the end point.

Know that there is not going to be an end goal in becoming. We continue to grow and evolve with a shift in perception with every new experience or goal.

Accept and enjoy each day from a moment to moment basis. Being mindful of the various moments that constitute an entire day, we are then able to see the full range in the reel of pictures.

Not all the moments will be breathtaking, just as not all the experiences will be heartbreaking.

In this focus of even the smallest of moments, we can start to give attention and energy into the steady, simple joys we find.

It is learning to love every new transformation in our becoming that makes existing beautiful.

Coping When Life IS Unfair

One of life’s most valuable lessons, one that takes too long to accept, is that life is hard.

If we had our way, there would be no pain, things would go our way, we wouldn’t have to work as hard, and we certainly wouldn’t have to suffer. We get reality instead, a reality that tells us all too often that things are not fair and as Hal Urban said, “the world will not devote itself to making us happy”.

If we do not accept life as it is and face these challenges, it is impossible to be happy or content. Instead, we keep wishing for something that we will never get. If we accept and understand that life is hard, we can live more effectively and find solutions. It is this process of meeting our problems head on and looking for solutions that gives life its meaning.

Once we accept the fact that life is hard, we begin to grow. We can begin to see that every obstacle is an opportunity to write our future, regardless of what the past has said.

Life can and will break you.

Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either; for solitude will also break you with its yearning.

You have to love. You have to feel. It is the process of experiencing who you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.

Grief is one of those experiences that feels like it could break you.

Grief is a stalker. It lurks in the cabinets and in the waiting room at the dentist’s and behind the switch on the hall light. It twines itself inside the click of pens and the heels of socks. Tea bags are infused with it, as are cereal boxes, computer games and the mail as it is slipped through the slot.

Contrary to reputation, it never looks drab; it doesn’t care about time.  It isn’t elegant. It isn’t easy or smooth. It rises with the sun and hides in the corners of fog. Surprisingly it prefers hello to goodbye. It shows up on the beach and frayed the nerves in the manner of a gunshot or a siren whizzing by. It is big, hairy, inarticulate, possessing just one word, why. It is brain freeze and sour lemons and a knife to the belly and a thrum-thrumming of the heart- combined.

Grief makes us clumsy. Always falling and attempting to rise.

An excerpt from The Painted Drum,  resonated deep within my bones. She wrote, “And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

When it comes to grief and loss, we have to be gentle with ourselves. Grief then coping comes and goes and the stages will not follow a particular pattern.

Do not beat yourself up when after a while of “handling your emotions”, you are slapped in the face with strife again.

Acknowledge what it is, accept it as natural and own the feelings.

Swim in the feelings until your fingers get all pruney.

Taking a stance of "grin and bear it" or "push through it" doesn't allow you to experience it, or reject what's happening either. It keeps you stuck, and you experience it all over again the next time a similar situation arises.

Remember that accepting where you are today, doesn't mean that you are saying it is okay to remain here indefinitely.

Understand that it makes sense for you to feel what you are right now based on the experiences that led you here, to this very moment. Give yourself the grace to feel compassion for your experience at the moment and where you are, knowing that you have the choice to start working through it again later on today, or tomorrow.

The definition of what is your best that you have to give yourself today is enough.

Only through the process of experiencing our struggles can we begin to heal. Through that healing, we can begin to experience the wonderment of being alive and to truly live.

To process fully you must first own your experience whether positive or negative. Allow the feelings to flow over you and let it embrace all of your being. Only then can you begin to make sense of why you are having these feelings, where they come from, and what to do with them next in a manner that is not pushing them aside or pretending they don’t exist.

Remember, it is your experience and no one can define it for you. Give yourself the permission to exist as you are while you are on your path to fully achieve what you are capable of becoming.

Standing Up For Yourself Is A Skill- Not A Given

Strong people are made- not born.

 Absence of being able to effectively set boundaries is often seen as weakness, though I will ask, how are you to be expected to set strong boundaries and stand up for yourself when you were not taught the skills to do so?

Many reflect on their childhoods and exclaim that their parents made sure to teach them to “not back down, stand up for what you believe in, finish the fight, or even don’t let anyone bully you”.

 My father especially shared all of those with me and still, when it came to asking for what I need, I was unable to do so.

Standing up to strangers or walking away from it was easy enough, but setting a boundary with a loved one? No.

Often times, even when we are loved and nurtured and taught to fight for ourselves, unless that message also applies to be able to fight for our needs against our early childhood caregivers without consequence, we grow to be adults who struggle with setting strong boundaries.

 Consequence here refers to any reaction to your boundary that would make you feel as though you are mean, inconsiderate, thoughtless, selfish, hurtful etc.

Do you equate setting boundaries with loved ones with being one of the above?

As a child, if you were taught that saying no, or not right now or asking for a different outcome would mean that you are taking something from the other person, then that guilt is the cause behind the pause of setting boundaries as an adult.

While reflecting on experiences just now, were you met with an emotional response? Perhaps frustration, sadness, or defiance?

True emotions come out when you not only identify what happened but why that is an issue-

Here, many will rush to give examples to prove why the experiences are justified, and I am here to remind you that the point is not to place blame- rather to understand what has taken place to lead us to how we became who we are today.

Our parents and loved ones did the best with what they knew to do at that time.

Yet, those actions, no matter how well-intentioned, has a ripple effect on how we perceive and interact with the world today.  

So, now what?

You know where this struggle possibly stems from, so how do we proceed?

Step one is working on becoming self-aware and being able to have introspection, identify the reasons behind why we struggle with setting boundaries.

I am _________ when I set a boundary.

I am _________ when I ask for what I need.

I am _________ when I show my feelings.

I am _________ when I don’t do what they ask.

Step two is reframing the belief.

The tricky part is being able to challenge the belief with enough steps to where you do not talk yourself out of it.

Here is an example: My friend asked me over to keep her company because she has been struggling with her depression. I have had a full day of sessions that has left me emotionally depleted, my children are coming home soon and I will need to prepare dinner, I have a fractured foot that is on FIRE and my migraine is slowly creeping in.

Belief #1: If I say no, I am a bad friend because she needs me.

Belief #2: I am a therapist and equipped to handle her emotions and give support, so I should be there for her.

Belief #3: If I am not there for her now, I am selfish and self-centered because I know how hard it is for her and I would want someone to be there for me.   

What do I do?

In order to effectively challenge these beliefs, I need to have 5 examples of facts that negate this one belief and continue with each one down my list before I can come up with a solution.

 Belief #1,  I am able to give examples of all the times I have been there for her, as soon as she’s asked for it, or even times when I was able to sense her need and provide it before it became one.

Belief #2: Yes I have all of those qualities and I can be there for her, though perhaps not in person immediately, I can call her, or set up a time later in the evening or if she is willing, she can come over to my home.

Belief #3: Caring for my physical and emotional health in order to effectively provide for my children and friendships is the proper healthy way. Anything given at my expense would not be beneficial to her because I would not be able to be fully present, and even in physical pain if this migraine goes on full blast mode. My children would suffer, I would suffer, and my friend would not have the support she is seeking.

The key here is changing the belief behind what makes someone loving/a good friend and by default, if you don’t have those to offer at the moment, you must be awful.

Step three is being able to ask for what you need at the moment.

Here, I would show empathy and understanding for her desire to meet and I would offer the options in a way that is able to meet her need without it being at the expense of my well-being.

If I am saying yes to someone else whiles saying no to me at my expense, I am immediately teaching my subconscious and those around me that I will always come last.

Standing up for yourself is a skill- not a given. Even after you work through these steps, you will feel the residual guilt or shame of how you have felt up to this point. It will be uncomfortable.  

To rewrite a belief, you have to experience it enough times without consequence to replace it.

The basis of confidence is knowing what makes you worthy AND knowing that your worth does not waver based on doing for others at the expense of you.

Playing Good Cop/ Bad Cop In Parenting: Does It Work?

All parents, I can confidently say, have fallen into the parenting trap of being the good cop or bad cop from time to time.

While married, I was typically the bad cop who enforced the rules, managed the schedules and basically the one on the front line of this wonderful battle called parenting; often leading to tantrums, tears and tumultuous attempts at consistency. Our lives reflected the imbalance of maintaining structure given that I worked while the children were at school, and he didn’t make it home until dinner was close to finished.

When their father came home, he was greeted with smiles and excitement because he was, by nature, the fun playful father or in other words, the good cop.

As you are reading this you may smile in recognition of these dynamics or eve roll your eyes in resignation if these are reflections of a part of your parenting regimen. Sounds harmless I’m sure, however, these polar dynamics can instill patterns in behavior that can become challenging in fostering and maintaining healthy relationships.

Parents are different people, so of course their relationships with their children will differ and that doesn’t have to mean better or worse. What can be a problem is when parents allow their children’s temporary preferences to solidify into unhealthy roles, such as “the nice parent versus the mean parent,” “the capable parent versus the inept parent”, or “the involved parent versus the uninvolved parent.”

These types of rigid roles hurt both parents and children.

In a well-functioning family, the strongest bond should always be between the parents, being the secure base of the family to avoid the “divide and conquer” dynamic.

This difference in parenting styles, on the surface may seem to be due to personality styles. I am “type A” and therefore am more comfortable in establishing and maintaining order, and he is… Not (hahahah) and therefore seems more carefree and energetic. In my experience working as a mental health therapist, things are never as simple as they seem.

Ask yourself, why do you need to maintain structure, when sometimes it may be OK to let it flow just a bit? Why do you need understanding and leniency when a bit of a reality check might be necessary for the child? What are the underlying beliefs about this way of parenting and where do you think they come from? What needs are we fulfilling in our parenting styles for ourselves?

Understanding this element of yourself and your partner could serve in a deeper connection, emotional intimacy and strength in your role as parents.

It is the manifestation and perpetuation of these rigid roles that leads to what is called Triangulation in family systems theory. Murray Bowen theorized that people’s actions in a triangle reflect their efforts to assure their emotional attachments to important others, their reactions to too much intensity in the attachments, and their taking sides in others’ conflicts.

In other words, a triangle creates an odd man out, while two are connected against one.

Bowen theorized that a two-person emotional system is unstable in that it forms itself into a three-person system or triangle under stress. They intentionally or more commonly, unintentionally create confusion as a means of controlling the situation in a passive way.

Triangulation or establishing this good cop vs. bad cop, can become unhealthy in families when it causes undue stress on the third party and/or when it prevents, resolution of the dyad’s conflict.

There are three components to triangulation:

1. Persecutor: This label describes an individual who attacks the others who are participants in the triangle.

2. Rescuer: This is a person either within the created triangle or outside the triangle that acts as a rescuer or someone who is the “saving grace.”

3. Victim: This label describes an individual who carries an attitude, in some situations (if not all), of “poor me.” While there are cases in which the person is the victim (due to how they are being treated by others), the triangle describes a person who creates a triangle in such a way that they become the “victim.”

In a family, the strongest bond should always be between the parents and in a well-functioning family, the parental bond needs to be the secure base of the family to avoid the “good cop/bad cop” dynamic.

It may seem innocuous; however, these roles can create lasting hindrances to individuation of the child and rift in the emotional safety of all parties.

Inconsistent messages from Mom and Dad can leave kids unsure of what is expected or appropriate. Plus, they feel guilty that their behavior has caused a conflict.

Having to always be the enforcer can make one parent feel resentful toward the other. This resentment can lead to a larger drift when one doesn’t feel respected or supported in the decision-making or carrying out of the consequences.

Not only that, arguments can strain the relationship between parents, and leave kids favoring one parent over the other or making them feel as though they need to be loyal and defend one parent.

The truth is, kids need both sides of parenting. They need love, they need fun. They need boundaries, they need freedom. They need silly, AND they need “the look” every once in a while.

A united front is so important for your children’s sense of security and safety and for your relationship with your partner. Be strong and stick to the decisions you made together, and everyone will know where they stand and thrive as a family unit.

Why So Anxious?

To say these times, feel very uncertain would be a terrible understatement. Our world, humanity and economy seems to be coming apart at the seams causing great unrest and anxiety for us all.

It has become a challenge to be able to mitigate and combat the nagging negative thoughts that revolve around in our minds in these thought loops.

We as humans generally thrive in situations where there is a sense of familiarity and stability. It comes from our need for power and control, based on the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

This need for power and control is not the kind where you want to rule over others and the world, this is more along the lines of having some say over the course of your existence. What influence you would have over your outcomes.

With the novelty and the challenges that come with this new virus, the state of the economy and our movement to further human rights, the air feels laden with energy and anxiety.

Every emotion we experience serves a purpose. It doesn’t necessarily feel as thought it is beneficial, for example when there are these endless anxious thoughts circling through your head, preventing you from being productive or getting through the tasks of the day. Even with these struggles, your emotions are trying to tell you something.

Take anger for example. What would be the purpose for anger? To be destructive and aggressive? Haha no, even if for some people, it ends up that way.

The purpose of anger it to alert you to a very important value that has been violated. Or for some, the purpose of anger is a safety mechanism to ward off harm.

Anxiety is also one of those emotions that helps identify when something is off. The purpose of that nagging, incessant and shrill voice inside your head is to let you know that something is not as it should be and could potentially cause you harm.

So, what your anxiety is trying to do, is it is trying to get your attention to what is looming so that you can take care of it.

Typically, anxious thoughts are most present when things that matter to you seem to be out of your control in how you can influence or manipulate the outcome.

Those of us that are anxious about Covid-19 are nervous not only about the virus itself, but more so about the inability to discern how to handle it should you become infected.

As a single parent, the concern could be how becoming sick would negatively impact the ability to work, to physically care for your kids, to pay for the bills while you are unable to sustain an income and if you are not present, how will your kids survive?

 Here, the purpose of the anxiety is to bring your attention to these issues, not to just rob you of your peace and sleep, but rather so you can come up with a game plan to challenge these setbacks that could arise.

Anxiety cannot hold a candle to facts. The struggle is matching the intensity of the anxiety with the same level of factual challenge.

For example, as a single parent, if those are the fears that I have are giving me anxiety, I have to match it with equal responses in their weight of values. 1- negatively impact the ability to work: I would not meet anyone in person, however, if I am feeling up to it once I am on the mend, I can pick up the telehealth sessions again. 2- Who will physically care for the kids: My parents would be able to take them for the entire time or I have a group of friends who are amazing and would help out. 3- Pay for the bills when I am unable to work: everything is on auto draft and also, we will have to go into our savings, which is there for times like these.

The trick here is to recognize that nothing will be a perfect match to be as good as if you are able to handle it all per the norm. The point is finding solutions that will keep things afloat, not necessarily what is the optimal option.

Our fear here of losing control or influence is that our little universe that we have painstakingly created and nurtured will crash and burn as a result of losing our grasp on things.

We must challenge that notion with factual responses to show our brain that it won’t be as bad as are perceiving the loss to be.

When things feel unbearably shaky, we must allow ourselves the grace to not judge ourselves for not performing at our optimal level. Whether that’s keeping the laundry done, the house chores complete, or staying fully on top of our administrative work. If one day we need extra space for mental or physical recharging, that is okay. It can be made up the next day. Take care of what is crucial and recognize the need for rest.

Remember that our emotions serve a purpose. They are our friends; albeit annoying, nagging and ever incessant fear inducing friends at times. Our emotions are trying to tell us what we need. Honor your experience and listen to what it is trying to tell you. Embrace the feeling and then challenge the messages associated with it.