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Trailtalk

Your Emotional Sherpa®

Pandemic PAUSE button: How I changed my thinking to improve my College experience

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This year has been a challenge for everyone around the world, in a multitude of ways. I can’t necessarily speak to the problems that have arisen for others, but I can talk about my experience. I am heading into my junior year at St. Lawrence University, a semester I didn’t know if I’d get to experience. And to be honest, I still won’t really know how I will attend or not attend school. College is such an informative and crucial time of life. It’s a rite of passage. My classmates and I have had to mourn the loss of our lives as we knew them. We lost our connections with our professors and friend groups, canceled sports games, and on-campus festivals are a thing of the past. These activities and routines are so essential to our experiences. But here are!
In March, I returned from spring break and found out I would be completing the semester online. At first, I was kind of excited, not going to lie. College online means I can sleep in (and in my own bed), and be with my family and dogs! That excitement lasted for about a week. Then, reality set in. It wasn’t long until I found myself starting classwork at 2:30 in the afternoon (which also happens to be my sleepy time).  I wasn’t motivated to get much done. After a few days of lacking luster, doing the bare minimum, and binge-watching my current Netflix series, I decided I needed to do something.

Here are a few Tips from the Trail from Josie:
1. Add novelty and fun into every day. I started with something small. I  make chocolate chip cookies or muffins. It gives me something to do and well, who doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies. Then to offset all the cookies I was eating, I decided I’d do my schoolwork until ten and then go work out.

2. Create routines. And, work out! Exercise is a mood elevator. Working out motivates me to find things to do for the rest of the day. I started to read (and drool) recipes by various food bloggers, and then I’d make their sweet treats or entrees. It was so much fun! And my parents enjoyed the constant fill of treats around the house. It wasn’t long before I found myself learning new things. I began painting, turning old jewelry into unique jewelry, and reading (and re-reading) all the books on my bookcase. When it got warmer out, I spent a lot of time sitting on the deck reading or taking long walks into the woods with our new puppy!

3. Explore new ways of finding joy.  What I think has been the most impactful about this experience is that I’ve had the time and space to explore new things I wouldn’t usually have been interested in doing. Boredom really can take you to some fantastic places. At first, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves, and sometimes it was stressful to always be around your family. Finding new activities was my escape, and then when I could be outside, that was my escape.

4. Be outside as much as possible. I  found I was much happier when I kept my mind and body engaged throughout the day. I grew up in the great outdoors. It’s where I feel the most grounded and clear about who I am as a human being. It’s not about doing, it is about being.

Let’s allow ourselves time to mourn the lives we once called normal. And at the same time, celebrate the fact that we  are still alive! We can even find normalcy and joy in a world of chaos!

PS: Hold loosely to outcomes. Read more here about how to live mindfully in the present moment.

Peace and good health to you, Your Emotional Sherpa.®

Self Care? Who has time?

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How many times have we heard those words? If you are a parent, that will be hard to do in an airplane emergency. We incline to rescue our children, take care of others first, and attend to ourselves after. When you spend your life as the caretaker, there comes a time when you get weary. Where’s the nurse when the nurse needs care? If you grew up taking care of people, how you feel love is tightly twisted up in caring for others. We heard what a good girl or boy we were when we did the right thing and rescued or nurtured someone in need. Of course, it feels good to get outside ourselves and love others unconditionally.  On the other hand, when it’s our only mode of operation, it is a double-edged sword. The “don’t rock the boat” kind of people and the “avoid confrontation, make sure everyone is happy” person has an impossible job. We can’t make people happy. We can’t save others from themselves. We can’t do someone’s journey for them in hopes of saving them from discomfort or failure. The more we enable, the more we suffocate the person we are trying to protect.

Turning Facetime toward ourselves is hard. Why are you telling me I am doing something wrong when I care so much about helping others? I give of myself all the time, to everyone, and you have the nerve to tell me that’s not OK?

Yup, I am. Giving to others can be an addiction like all other addictions. We have to do it because we have to prove we are not selfish. We want to make sure people know we are “good guys.” Again, feeling love is often twisted up in ways of behaving; in long-held patterns, we learned from our family of origin. Well, when is it ok and how do I know the difference?

Answer these questions:

1. Do you feel angry when you are not recognized for doing a good deed?

2. Are there conditions attached to your giving? You owe me. You owe me respect or love or recognition that I am a good person.

3. Do your loved ones suffer from your giving? OMG, it’s Christmas Eve and I haven’t gotten any gifts for the family. Aren’t Toys for Tots, the Lions Club giving, and the Salvation Army bell ringing enough for you?

4. Do you have a hard time asking for help when you need it? No, I had surgery, but I am ok. I can pull a dinner party together tonight. Yes, I am homesick. Don’t bother; I don’t need anything. Then inside, you wish someone would take care of you without being asked. Mind reading and wishful thinking are common thought errors.

5. Are you angry and bitter because you never get heard? Are you a people pleaser who wants everyone to like you? It’s a tough cycle to break because when you learn new skills and do use your voice, you change the family dance, your partners get pissed and want you to go back to the original steps they find comfortable. Your loved ones might ask, why are you rocking the boat? You are a stable one in this dance. Get back to your old self and stay in step with how we’ve always done our relationships.  If you stay silent and just go with the flow, over time those unaddressed issues stay harbored in our souls, sort of like the chickenpox. The varicella virus lays dormant in our spines until we are immunosuppressed, and all hell breaks loose. We get Shingles. And, Shingles hurt worse than the original case of Chicken Pox! Get what I mean?

Tips from the Trail™

  1. Here’s the Facetime trick – turn the camera toward yourself and kindly ask yourself (more about this in another blog), how often do I say I don’t care, or agree because it isn’t a big deal? For the time being, just notice the pattern. We’ll talk about how this style of showing up in a relationship causes problems over time.
  2.  Pick your battles. The thing is, you avoid conflict and don’t know when and how to turn toward someone who’s hurt your feelings, or violated a boundary.  Many of us avoid confrontation at all costs or, in other terms, address boundary violations because we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. In turn, we get hurt, and that hurt accumulates, leading to relationship discord.
  3. Awareness is the first step in changing up our stories and improving our relationships. The next steps might require seeking support.
  4. Go for a walk and talk with a Trailtalk® therapist and learn how to retool your coping strategies and develop new relationship skills. Trailtalk therapists guide you in reevaluating various parts of your TRUE SELF to gain new competencies and an overall better sense of self. Moving from awareness to renouncing the original family dance and rebuilding new ways of showing up on the dance floor is vital in repairing our broken or damaged relationship.

I hope this helps. Please comment or ask questions if this post resonates with your current journey.  Thanks.

Life is daily. Enjoy your moments.  Happy trails! Allison

Music Speaks to My Soul

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Whether it’s playing or listening to music, many of us find solace in song. Music connects us. I like to find out what my clients listen to on a day to day basis. What’s their favorite genre? Do they follow any particular musician? When we drive in the TherapyontheFly® van, my clients connect their phones and we listen to their playlists. We explore the impact of music on our moods. Many of us can recall stages in our lives when we listened to certain bands or artists. I can think of several songs that connect me with my loved ones. When I hear different songs, I float back in time and recall great memories from past seasons of life.  The same holds true when I hear songs that remind me of sad times in my life. Some songs haunt me and I can’t listen to them to this day. Does that happen to you? Sounds, like smells, evoke strong emotions. We can access sounds and smells to improve our moods. 

What are you listening to these days? Do you have a positive playlist? That’s what we call a series of songs that lift our spirits. When I am scared or feeling insecure, I go to my positive playlist. It motivates me to question my thinking errors, get back to the present moment, and keep on keeping on.

Mike and his band, Hoi Ann, use music and intricate lyrics to illustrate scenes and emotions of everyday life. In their debut album, Cowboy, Hoi Ann investigates the presence of vices and how they weave themselves into habits and daily motivations. Mike explains:

We use a lot of imagery and metaphors to get our ideas across. For example, in the single, Edelweiss, we compare the edelweiss flower (from the Sound of Music classic) with an always present Idle Vice. As people listen, we want to invoke some thought. We want people to think about the vices in their life. Are there any in yours?

Listen to Edelweiss here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqScyqo9Sjo

Mike continues:

Beyond the songs, I find a lot of relief and meditation in the process of creating music. When life get’s hectic, and it always does, there is always a safe haven to retreat to. Some people find this in meditation, journaling, or prayer. When I can fully dive into a project and really analyze all the beats, notes, sequences, edits, etc. I find my worries have subsided, if only for a moment. It’s great. I think I work out a lot of problems as well. I write lyrics with the goal of finding clever ways to say difficult things. It helps me and I think it helps other people too.

Josie, Trailtalk’s summer marketing intern writes:

Music is different for everyone, but one thing we can agree on is that music is powerful. Music has the ability to pull back memories you haven’t seen in years, it has the ability to alter your mood, and it has the ability to bring people together. Music often provides answers to the questions we didn’t even know we had. Often whatever feeling you are feeling is described in a song, and sometimes the realization that you’re not alone in this feeling is enough to generate the strength to face it. Personally, I have found that it isn’t always the lyrics in music that elicit something in me, sometimes it is just the mood or tune of the music. The song “Are You Even Real?” by James Blake is a perfect example of this. I recently discovered this song and have been obsessed with listening to it. I think this is often the case with many people when they discover new songs, we may not know why we like it but we know it elicits some sort of joy when listening to it.

Listen to the song, Are You Even Real? here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL_-bakSRlc 

A Tip from the Trail

During this season of unpredictability, consider your current music choices. Sounds of any sort affect our moods. Background TV noise, sound machines, outside noises from sirens to construction is called disorganized sounds. I find myself agitated when I hear a cacophony of disconnected sounds. That’s when I grab my sound-canceling headphones or turn on a song that I know calms my mood.

We can learn a lot about ourselves and others based on our music choices. Let’s connect. Tell us what brings comfort to your soul? Share your favorite songs with us. Thank you and happy trails.

Here’s one of Allison’s favorite songs by Ben Howard. Listen here. 

Read more here about how music therapy changes our brains.

Happy trails until we meet again!

Part 2: Workplace Stress: How To Stay Well As We Move Back Into Our Communities

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I suspect many of you reading this are more stressed out about moving back into your communities than when we were sequestered home with our families. I know I am. My anxiety is pretty high right now.  As a mental health therapist, I have a toolbox of coping skills and still find myself time traveling to the past and into the future.

As we’ve mentioned in other posts, you are not alone. We all fall in and out of mental wellness when faced with stressful life events. We get knocked down. Most of us recover and adapt back to our average level of functioning. Unfortunately for us, this pandemic is not just one traumatic life event but rather several major losses all at once. Many of us have not adapted back to our baseline level of functioning in many areas of our lives. Then comes moving back into community in a strategic and respectful way.

The first community is my shared workspace. What should we know, and how do we manage our fears when encountering other people who have a different worldview?

Here a few tips from the trail for maintaining your physical wellness:

  • Know your workplace rights. Please talk with your employer or owner of your office space regarding their guidelines.
  • Wear proper PPE for your job. Carry a mask in your car, computer case, purse/backpack. Trust your beliefs and follow public health policies. Even if you don’t believe face masks are necessary, consider those around you and what their risk level may be.  Be courteous, be aware, and choose what works for your situation.
  • Keep hand sanitizer and wipes at your desk station so you can clean all your workstation tools before you start work.
  • Make sure your work area is at least 6 ft away from others and, if not, ask your boss/employer to accommodate new work stations.  Work from home whenever you can to minimize the risk of illness.

Here a few more tips for maintaining your mental wellness:

  • Trust yourself and what you believe regarding your and your family’s safety. Avoid focusing on how other folks choose to move forward. When you find yourself angered by others’ behaviors, STOPP (see our post for details on how to practice this coping skill) and attend to what’s in front of you. Return to the present moment.
  • Practice two-minute transition meditations. Just as it states, when you move from one task or meeting or activity to the next, pause for 2 minutes. Ground your feet and breathe. If you are familiar with the process of meditation, set you timer and practice these short, calming breaks throughout your day. Learn more about mindfulness meditation and the many benefits of regular practice here.
  • Compartmentalize your workday. Set ground rules around your texting and social media perusing during your workday. In the old days, we went to work and didn’t bring our emotional issues with us. With 24/7 phone access, many of us are emotional texting all through the day. Set up a plan with your loved ones to send a kiss emoji midday for a quick check-in. Then, turn your phone on silence. We were not meant to be working on emotional issues all day long. It’s exhausting.

Check back for more help with maintaining your mental wellness as we move into summer. Peace and good health to you and yours, Allison

Part 1: Workplace Stress: How to Stay Well As We Move Back Into Our Communities

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What does going back to work look like for you and your family? 

Some of us didn’t miss a beat regarding our workdays since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you already worked from home or have an essential job that moved to telecommuting, it may not have provoked as much anxiety. However, for many of us, this microscopic virus put all of our lives under a microscope. We got a real, upfront look at our workforce lives behind the closed doors of our home office (or kitchen table).

The ideal worker is a thing of the past. This “best case” employee, once able to work late into the night, attend social events after work, or attend early morning conference calls after a workout is now a false reality. For the past couple of months, our work environment has been confined to the comforts (or possible non-comforts) of our homes. We have become accustomed to working in our pajamas, not showering for days, and always having access to the fridge. For many, quarantine has been a breeze, a time to be spent with the family; but for others, it has not served that purpose. Many are eager to return to work as quarantine has caused financial and relationship strains on them.

Businesses are beginning to reopen and life is starting to resemble what it once did, but we know that reopening too quickly could place the lives of many in danger of COVID-19. So whether you are anxious about getting back to work so you may escape the constant distractions at home or anxious about the health risks of returning to work…you are not alone.

We know this pandemic is not going away, and at the same time, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next six months. How do we manage our anxiety with such an overwhelming unknown?

Here are a few tips from the trail to get you functioning better on a day to day basis:

  1. Seek wise counsel – Limit your news input. Many of us need to remain topical and know what’s going on. However, it’s another thing to use media to add fuel to our stress levels. Get your daily dose of information from the CDC or WHO websites and your local state and county health departments. It’s their job to protect us.
  2. Turn inward – This may come in the form of prayer, meditation, or pondering what you are most grateful for. Many of us don’t take time for self-exploration. Take time with your loved ones and talk about those three existential questions all humans contemplate throughout their lives:
    1. Who am I?
    2. Why am I here?
    3. Where am I going?
  3. Take action – Each of us has to individually weigh the risks and benefits of re-entering our communities based on our worldview. We all have different levels of anxiety and different vulnerabilities in regards to staying well. It’s not our place to judge how others are choosing to re-enter their communities. Our place is to choose our position based on the situation we are in, and how those choices will affect the lives of ourselves and loved ones. COVID-19 has given many of us the time to get clear about our core values and beliefs.

Lastly, as we have learned since the beginning of this pandemic, there is an importance in maintaining our daily routines. Whether it be as simple as cooking breakfast in the morning or connecting with friends and family in safe ways. We can find joy and a clear mind through laughter, walks in nature, and counting our blessings. Finding normalcy in a world with no clear path may provide ease with our anxiety.

 

Anxiety: I’m a Little Tea Pot Short and Stout!

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As many of us know, anxiety feels like being chased by a tiger. Our bodies are machines and don’t know the difference between a real threat versus a perceived threat. There may be no tiger chasing us, but our FIGHT, FLIGHT, or FREEZE response takes action the very same way.

Anxiety, fear, panic, and stress are degrees of the same feeling. Excitement is on that continuum as well. I’ve been skiing and felt excited, but at the same time, the ‘butterflies in my stomach’ feeling turn to fear, and then back again to the excitement. Do you know what I mean?

Our feelings (emotions) inform us. They also add depth, richness, and meaning to our lives. When we deny those emotions, anxiety ensues, much like this Tea Pot drawing (courtesy of Janie Hartmann).  Strong emotions boil and rumble just below the surface. Lucky there’s an escape route, or spout to let out low levels of emotions.

As the heat in the kettle rises (as life happens), those feelings boil over into uncomfortable levels of anxiety. When we keep the lid on trying hard to release controlled amounts of steam, it’s like being at Grandma’s house and hearing the Whistling Tea Pot in the Kitchen. The sound interrupts the conversation, and someone rushes to the kitchen to turn off the stove. The screaming whistle can only go on so long before it drives us crazy!

Holding in our emotions causes the same reaction. The kettle’s lid eventually blows off and those strong emotions get loose! Yikes! Over time our anxiety becomes palpable and spills over into our relationships. It affects our functioning and eventually wreaks havoc in our lives.

The ‘boil over’ shows up in the form of anger, a panic attack, or a delayed grief response. It’s easy to understand why some of us don’t dare feel those strong emotions. “What if I do cry now like I wanted to when Dad died a few years ago? I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.”

When we avoid strong emotions and put on a happy face as if life is always rosy, we end up reacting to little things, rather than responding to what’s really important. Someone might say, ” What up? You’re usually chill about these kinds of things. Your anger seems a bit over the top for the situation.” And, it is. Because when we don’t allow ourselves to feel a range of emotions, we will hit our threshold, and go from 0 to 10 without warning.  That’s another discussion about how people with flexible boundaries need to add some tension to their fence lines. The equal amount of Flexion and Tension in our fences offers us choices as to how we respond to our thoughts and feelings.

Emotions are meant to be felt. If we take heed and feel the feeling rather than intellectualize it or run from it, we can respond to our feelings, rather then react to them. A sign of good emotional health is having the ability to think and feel at the same time. Uncoupling our thoughts from our feelings breaks the chain reaction of reacting to an experience rather than choosing a more honorable response.

So what Tips from the Trail can help us deal with our Whistling Tea Pots?

  1. First off, we have to become aware of our dysfunctional relationship patterns if we want to change them. This is the frustrating part. We want our friends or loved ones to change because obviously, it’s their problem. 🙂 We recognize the pattern and they can’t or aren’t ready to turn FaceTime toward themselves, own it, and choose new ways of relating. When someone avoids feeling for so long, it’s not easy for them to all of a sudden become aware and decide to change.
  2. If and when we do gain insight into our maladaptive relationship patterns and desire change, then we can slowly, over time, learn to tolerate these strong emotions. How?  Try this technique called Riding the Wave of Strong Emotions.

Ride the Wave (learn more about emotional surfing @ http://www.mindfulexposurebook.com/).

You can do this anywhere. Just remember to keep your eyes open if you are driving. 🙂

a. When an uncomfortable emotion shows up, notice it, name it, and talk to yourself about it.  For example, “Ah, there’s that fear again. Stay present, Allison. No tiger is chasing you. It is a perceived threat. You can handle this.”

b. Notice where it shows up in your body. I feel it in my stomach.

c. Then, imagine you are in a warm, beautiful ocean and the soft, round swells are rising up and down. See this in your mind’s eye: See it, hear it, feel it, smell it, and taste it. Engage every sense to bring yourself into and onto the WAVE.

d. Now, instead of pushing the emotion away and distracting yourself as you usually would, allow the feeling to rise in you like the warm swell of a wave. Breathe in slowly as the tide rises, and out even slower as you drop down on the other side of the swell.

e. Stay in the WAVE for several breath cycles.  That might be four times or 10 times.  Stay as long as you can tolerate the feeling. The feeling will dissipate over time. Just notice it as it gradually decreases in intensity. Don’t judge the emotion, or beat yourself up about feeling it.  Read more in John Kabat Zinn’s book Mindfulness for Beginners to understand the power of the breath, and the power we have over how we choose to think.

f. I do this exercise when I am driving to an anxiety-provoking event. I sometimes, without warning get overwhelmed with emotion.  I’ll notice it and take the time right then to feel it full on and with regular practice that feeling’s emotional valence drops.

g. Now it’s time to Self Regulate or Mood State Change. Come back to the present – get out of the water and onto the beach. Let the emotion go and get into what’s happening around you. I do the 5,4,3,2,1 exercise. Turn on some music, take a walk, or finish driving to the meeting and:

SEE 5 things you haven’t noticed before (Beginner’s Mind concept)

Hear 4 things

Feel 3 things

Smell 2 things

Taste 1 things.

Where ever you are, enjoy this day for you only have one chance at experiencing today.  Happy trails, Allison

 

 

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