Category: Blog

So, here it is.  Part 2.  I know you think that I am going to wax eloquent about #Metoo movement and my opinions on the significance of last week’s events.  But you would be wrong.  Sure, I have opinions on that kind of thing, but “This is about us…all of us.”

So, there are plenty of great conversations and some not so great ones happening about the Dr. Ford/Judge Cavanaugh issue and I will encourage you to go look at those to have more discussion about that issue.  This blog is going to cover a broader issue that is more interesting to me.  What issue is that you ask?  Well my peeps, that would be the mental health of all us and how what we are seeing play out in the media is having a toll on us all.

If you are continuing with me from last week’s blog, you recall that I took us through an exercise of evoking emotion.  It wasn’t a long blog and the visualization was rather simple, and yet, when done right should have evoked some real emotional response from you.  (If you haven’t read that blog, go back and do it…it’s a good one, I promise).  So, think for a minute about how much of an emotional response you had last week after reading the blog and also think about what, if any, affect it had on you the rest of the day.

Why is this important Doc?  And why do you find this interesting?

Well folks, here is why.  We are steeped day to day in stress.  Good stress, bad stress, fun stress, strenuous stress…all around stress.  It comes from our responsibilities to family, friends, coworkers, and honestly to all of us.  A good stress for me is having to get up earlier than I would like to get both myself and my three and half year old ready in the morning.  She is so into brushing her teeth and picking out her clothes and showing me how big she is.  It’s darling, but it is also an extra half hour of an already crunched morning.  I am tired just thinking about it right now, and yet I wouldn’t give this stress up for the world.  A strenuous stress for me is cleaning the house, which I would love to give up if anyone is offering.

When we know our baseline is stress and then are inviting in more emotionally evoking activity into our “down time”, what do you think is going to happen?  You got it…more stress.  And how much stress do you think any one of us can take?  Well that is the really interesting part for me.  Of course, the standard answer to this is “It depends”.  But no lie folks, it REALLY depends.  It depends on how much resiliency you have built up, what your home life is like, where you work or whether you work, how your social life is, your genetic make-up, and on and on and on.

So, the upshot of my point today is, this level of conflict in our life is detrimental and if not well balanced out, it will start to leak out in ways we may not mean or want it to do.  Remember how I asked what you felt like the rest of the day after reading my blog…well, this is what I am talking about.  If you evoke negative emotion it will come out.  If you consume negative emotion it will come in.  And once it comes in, it will make its way out again.  Your resiliency will predict if that is done in a healthy way or in non-healthy and sometimes even abusive way.  And when I say abuse, I am not using that word lightly.  And I am using it in a broad sense.  We “self” abuse through negative self-talk, emotional eating, abuse of drugs and alcohol, among other things.  And we “other” abuse when we cause conflict, yell, say hurtful things, and otherwise cause relational disruptions.  This is real people.  If you have ever seen the movie The Green Mile I would liken it to the green cloud of bug like stuff that the John Coffey character would suck out of one person and then spew into another.  When that stuff was sucked in it made him sick until it was released.  And when it was released it made the receiver sick as well, unless of course it was released into the air and disbursed without harming anyone. Every time you read, watch, or otherwise engage in the “Us vs Them” conflicts that you are seeing used in all media platforms, you are sucking in some of that bad stuff.  That negative emotion has been absorbed into you and will have an impact on you or others if not disbursed in a constructive way.

Remember this as you are engaging with this emotionally laden material.  Even when the topic is a good one to be aired, the emotional toll it takes on all of us is very real.  Be mindful of this.  Take care of yourselves with it.  And do not underestimate how much of a disruption it can and will cause you if you aren’t taking it seriously.  This is the landscape in which the stress you already have in your life will be occurring.  How much of it do you want to let in?  Be intentional.  This is an added emotional need you will have to address.  Be sure it is something you are choosing and not something you are inadvertently exposing yourself to because the average American adult looks at their phone somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 times a day depending on age.

What is happening in the media is affecting all of us, whether we directly engage or not.  Because as long as some of us are engaging, all of us are in play to be affected by the negativity that can result from these conflictual interactions.  Now, here is the good news…(It’s about time, Doc because this has been a Debbie Downer blog today.)

…the positive energy of emotion works the same way.  It will spread with the same amount of fervor and I would contend is the only real solution to dispersing the negativity in a healthy way.  How you ask?  Well that will be part 3 of this series.

Did it again, didn’t I?  Looped you in for another blog.  Come on, at least you may have learned something.  And if not learned something you at least want to go watch a really good movie, The Green Mile.

‘Til next week…be well my friends.

I think that every young person in this world needs to grow up to remember the name Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.  I think every adult in this world needs to know her name.  Now, several of you have already rolled your eyes and decided to scroll down on your screen because you are so over hearing about this.  I would strongly urge you to read on.  Yes, I am long winded.  Yes, you won’t get these 5 minutes back in your life.  And Yes, Dr. Marr will leave you with something to think about that makes you maybe even want to know more. “Sure Doc” (insert sarcastic vocal tone here).

So here it is folks.  Those who know me well know that I have strong opinions on these things and I am fun to banter with about it.  Others of you may be reading things I’ve written for the first time, because some Facebook friend of yours decided to repost this.  Doesn’t matter to me why you are reading it.  I am just happy you are.

“Why Doc?  Why do we need to remember this name (Dr. Christine Blasey Ford)?” Well my peeps, courage of this magnitude only comes along once in a great while and should be respected just because of that.  Think of a time when you really got scared.  Like when you forgot to wear your pants to work (oh wait, that’s dream analysis).  Try again.  Like when you had to do something hard for the very first time and thought you might get hurt and didn’t know what the outcome would be.  Ok…you got it.  Yes I’m serious, I want you to call up a time when you were really really scared…. waiting….waiting….do we all have the image.  Good.

So, take this image of yourself being scared (do you feel the butterflies in your stomach, because that’s when you know you got a really good image) and put that scared version of yourself in a room full of politicians and media.   Got that.  No, no.  Don’t stop reading now.  I’m a psychologist, this is what I do for a living…make people feel.  And yes, it is extremely inconvenient to have to feel scared while your reading a post from this quack Doc on the interwebs but do it any way.  Seriously you’ve gotta already be a couple minutes in.  What’s a few more going to hurt?

Ok…so you’re in your image of a scary moment in your life and now you are also on public display in front of a world audience.  Right?  Get what I am doing here (of course you do, even my three-year-old has to do this because she has a quack Doc for a mom and has no problems doing it).

And now think of the most humiliating thing you’ve ever experienced.  You know, that thing that you’ve buried deep deep down and have so much shame about that you have told no one…. literally no one about…. EVER.  Yup, get that deep dark secret out, put it in the mouth of the image of you feeling scared and now tell that story to this panel of politicians, while on camera, and with all of the world tweeting, snapchatting, Facebooking (yeah…that one isn’t a verb is it?) all about what you are saying and then putting their own two cents in on what they think of your most humiliating story being told from your scared self, while in front of the COMMITTEE.

So, if you went on this journey with me and didn’t just read this to roll your eyes, what are you feeling (and there it is Doc…the quintessential therapist question)? But seriously…. what are you feeling?  I’ll tell you how I felt while I was typing this.  It got the adrenaline pumping through me and my fingers literally are shaking.  If this didn’t happen for you, you just didn’t put enough effort into it.  The biology of our fight or flight system is easily activated even by our thoughts, so go back to paragraph three and repeat.  Yes, I mean it.  Go back. We’ll wait…. still waiting….yup we are still here in paragraph seven….we won’t go on until you are here…done?  So…. what was it like (which is another way therapists ask how you’re feeling, because we just love that question)?

I hope you enjoyed this uncomfortable exercise.  I use humor to ground you through it, because really we can harm ourselves going back in our minds to scary times of our lives without the right skills to deal with it.  Our minds are that powerful.  It’s so dang cool. It’s also dangerous, so don’t do this without the assistance of your favorite therapist (and I am dead cold serious on that me peeps…dead cold!)

And there is the answer to your question, “Why doc? Why should we remember Dr. Christine Blasey Ford?”  Because, courage of this caliber is not often seen outside its captivity of the deep internal reaches of our souls.  No matter the content, no matter the subject, no matter the outcome, when someone stands up in the face of that much adversity in what I can only imagine was a horribly awful emotional and physical state and despite all that was thrown at her, stayed standing until the end…well that my friends is what we call a hero.  She will certainly always be one of mine.  I have trouble telling the dude at the phone store, “No I don’t want to get that upgrade and let you syphon more money out of my dwindling checking account”, so I have no earthly idea how much courage that took her yesterday, but it is genuinely at heroic levels. Truly awe inspiring.  Sacrifice like that my friends, is genuinely something we should all revere.  For the sake of all of us.  And make no mistake it’s about us.  There is no us and them.  There never was a them.  “Them” is a made-up construct to create a false dichotomy of either/or, because our brains try to simplify things (and sometimes a little too much).

Now…as for the subject matter of what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford did yesterday (keep repeating it…learn that name folks), I have plenty of thoughts on that too and because I am the quack Doc that I am, I absolutely know they aren’t what you would think they’d be.  I’m so unpredictable like that.  Stay tuned…more on that later (see how I did that…just shaved several minutes off your life and now you’re going to have to keep scrolling next week to find part two in this tantalizing read…. yup, that’s what I did).

Be well my friends.

So, let’s talk a little about parenting.  First off…it’s no joke!  I have children and I have helped with a ton of kids in my lifetime.  What I’ve gathered in wisdom is what I can witness to, and what I’ve studied in books has helped me in clarifying what is really at work in those little minds.  I would recommend the books “The Whole Brain Child” and “No-Drama Discipline” (along with their respective workbooks) by Drs. Dan Siegel, MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD.  These are great resources for parents with no background in the way the brain works and even for parents who do have this background.  It gives a better understanding of the what’s, why’s and how’s on the things we see our children doing. These books also give some tangible methods to use with our kids.  I’m not going to go into those in any detail here, since these lovely scholars have already done that.  So, you’ll just have to get these books.  Look at me, making recommendations with no affiliate payment for such a great plug.

Instead, I want to give you three principles to bring to your parenting.  I may flesh these out in later blogs if I get enough interest, but for now, let’s stick to these three.

1. First of course is self-care. “Doc, alright already with the taking care of myself first.”  I know, I know…you’re tired of hearing me harp on self-care. Well…too bad.  This principal is just that elementary to all we do in life.  And within our relationships, self-care is of chief importance. I’m not sure if I have spoken of the piggy bank metaphor before, but it applies here.  The idea is that we are a piggy bank.  Change goes in when we care for ourselves and our relationships, like when we have that great first cup of coffee in the morning before the kids wake up or when we have a night out away from the kids.  Change gets cashed out when things are needed, like when we have to be an adult, parent our kids, or not flick off the driver that just cut us off in traffic (this may fall under being an adult, but I felt compelled to give this its own category). Confused yet?  Ok, let me try to explain this a bit more.  You are a finite resource, meaning there is only so much of you to go around.  If you are not filling that resource back up with self-care, its depleting your piggy bank and you can only bring the change you have to pay for the hard things that are always happening in parenting.  If you have no change left, what happens is you regress into your back-up generator.  “What’s that Doc?”  It’s those instinctual behaviors and feelings that come from our fight/flight system in the brain.  If we are tired when our kids act out, we are much more likely to give them a tablet and retreat from the chaos or get in their face yelling and commanding they behave differently.  This is why it is important to take care of yourself so you have more energy to take a minute, regroup when the kids irritate you or act out of turn, decide how to address the situation, and then do that thing.  Without this energy in your reserves (put there through your own self-care) there is no number of cute things I can teach you that will help you with your parenting. No reserves…no ability to use those cute things.
2. Secondly, there is the matter of time. Time is also a finite resource, as I have spoken of in an earlier blog.  If there are so many hours in a day and so many things that need to be done, we will inevitably start to run out of time for good parenting if we don’t save time for ourselves (see #1) and for our kids. I’m going to tell you a trademark secret as a therapist for children.  You know what the single most valuable tool is when counseling kids?  Time.  The kind of time that is short in duration (only an hour tops) but high in quality.  I spend an hour a week, when I am doing therapy with kids.  And during that hour, I am giving my full attention to this child.  I am letting them do whatever it is that they desire, with what is available in my office.  When I first start to see them this lasts the whole hour, setting the stage to build a strong relationship them and I. Once a child is comfortable with me, I start to incorporate therapeutic activities. Even so, I am still allowing the children to set the time table for when we do things that they want and when we get to the therapeutic activities. Have you ever given your children a full hour of your undivided attention?  I’m not talking about an hour of your time while you are also doing something else like cooking dinner, looking at your phone, or watching TV. I mean a whole hour where they are the sole focus.  It’s amazing what just this time does.  And remember the piggy bank metaphor, well guess what…this time spent is coins in the relationship piggy bank between you and your kid.  This means when you have to cash out (usually by taking some sort of disciplinary action) that you will have the change needed to do so, without harming the relationship.  What generally happens when we run out of coins in our jar, is that we start to disconnect from our kids and then discipline of any kind becomes harder and harder, because the kids stop caring what we are asking of them…dare I say it even seems like they ignore us, or even worse, hate us.  Now, the single most important part of this step is that you are spending this time with your child NO MATTER WHAT.  It doesn’t work if it is contingent on them behaving well.  Your positive attention goes a really long way, but if you make it contingent on their behavior, especially with kids under the age of about 10, kids will automatically see your lack of engagement when they are bad as a non-verbal communication that they are not good enough as a person.  Let me say this again, they will look at your pulling away from them when they have acted poorly as meaning they are broken in some way.  This is the single most damaging behavior between child and caregiver that I see, and it’s so subtle.  We think that what we are saying is that we don’t like their behavior, but what our kids hear is that we don’t like them.  So, step two: spend quality time with your kids (doesn’t have to be long), in a one on one environment (this is especially important in families with multiple children), and that this time happens no matter what (ok…so this may have to pass my Mom’s test of “Is anyone bleeding or dead?”…if the answer is “No”, then this time should be spent with your child no matter what).
3. My third step is more about looking inward and deciding what kind of action you really are planning to take with your child. The books I reference above are great at coaching you through ways to do this, so I will just give you the gist here.  This step is about being sure you know what it is you are trying to do with your child through this interaction. So much of the time, we do what we know without thinking through what outcome we are looking to accomplish.  For example, if your child is whining and you are responding, what is truly your intent?  Are you wanting them to stop? Most likely, yes, but what else is your intent? Is it to punish them?  Is it to teach them not to do this again?  Is it to vent your own frustration with that intolerable behavior?  Be sure to really know what it is that you are trying to accomplish and then align your action with this.  So, in this example of a child whining, if what you really want to do is keep them from doing this in the future, I would suggest using this as a teaching opportunity. Get down eye to eye with them, tell them the whining is not acceptable, and then recite a line you would like them to say instead, using the vocal tone you want them to use.  This teaches a new thing for them to do and just like any newly learned skill for any of us, your child will need you to repeat this teaching lesson several times before you will see them start to use it on their own. Now, often what I hear parents tell me is that they just want the kids to stop. Believe me, I appreciate that; yet, if all you say is “Stop”, what you are actually asking your children to do is to have another way to deal with their frustration (the emotion which is most likely when whining shows up). Guess what?  They don’t know any other ways.  So, if your intent is really to make them stop, you will want to give them a replacement coping or communication skill or you will be going around and around on this with them.  Sound familiar?  So, in summary this step is about more closely examining what you want to accomplish, and then cashing in your coins accordingly to be able to come up with your own energy to do what needs to be done to accomplish this with your child. See how I did that?  Looped back around to self-care again.  “Doc, okay, okay, we get it already!”

I challenge you this week to take a look at how you are doing with these three steps and then try your best to improve in any areas that you see need it. If you are great with all these steps, I would look in the mirror…you just might be a Unicorn. Just sayin’…

Let me know if you’d like to see more on parenting.  There are so many ways to go with this topic, and I would be interested in hearing about your thoughts on this.

What is it with these school shootings?  Why do we still see so much pain and suffering among our young people? Or people in general?  What is the real cost of a society that is disconnecting from one another?  I do not claim to be an authority on these matters, but I do have some professional observations about the landscape within which these events keep occurring.

So you may have noticed it’s been a while since I last posted.  Sometimes time is needed to calm the soul a little.  I had been living in the eternal winter of Minnesota and abruptly Spring sprung and Summer is here, and my soul has been singing once again.  Sometimes even psychologists need to take some self-care time away from projects and responsibilities, so I took it.  Now I am ready and raring to go.

I recently took a trip to Seattle and was able to take a ton of awesome pictures.  The cover photo was one of those and I just love it, because it so closely paralleled a blog topic I have been mulling around in my head about connection and disconnection.  Of course, right?  A shadow drawing on the sidewalk of a person on their mobile phone.  “Of course that is about connection and disconnection, Doc…uh…err…Huh????”

“Doc you’re a psychologist, so of course you’re going to tell us phones are bad, right?” Nope.  That’s not true.  It’s missing the point when we make global statements like phones are bad.  It’s not about the phones…it’s about us.  We are disconnecting more and more.  I see this in the despair of our nation that seems to be spiraling out of control with violence and apathy.  My opinion…school shootings are not about guns any more than death by domestic violence is about anger management issues.  It runs much deeper than that.  It runs so deep that we have stopped being aware of where it is coming from and we are fighting about the wrong end of the problem.  This despair is a symptom of our disconnection…to each other and to ourselves.  “Whoa Doc!!! Them’s fightin’ words! You better be able to back this up.”

Okay, so let me start with our perceived connection.  I am not an old woman by any stretch of the imagination, but I am part of a generation that had phones connected to wires, connected to walls.  I remember my Dad being so mad at all of us stretching that cord into our bedrooms to the point of nearly ripping those cords out of the wall. I also remember fighting for who got to be on the phone in a household of siblings.  And I remember my siblings trying to pick up one of the other lines in the house and listen in.  Man that was a way to start a drop down, drag out fight.  Yet, it was the way of our world back then.  Nowadays, my children think of such things as items you will see in the history museum (not going to lie, while humorous that is also quite irritating that they think this).  “So, what does this have to do with connection and disconnection, Doc?” Well what do you think we did when we were waiting for the phone, or it wasn’t our turn for the phone, or our Dad was mad that we nearly ripped the cord out again?  Well…we went out and saw our friends in person instead.  Too much work to fight for the phone.

Today we basically have entire computers/cameras/telecommunication devices in our pockets (well lets be real…they are in our hands).  Plus there is the internet.  What a revolution that is.  We are now so connected with technological advances, how is it ever possible to be disconnected? Ah, my friends and therein lies the issue.  In a world of virtual connection, we lack more and more in actual connection.

“Alright Doc…that’s nothing new. Everyone knows that.” Do they?  Really?  I beg to differ. Here is the thing, I know that we have talked about how words have meaning in an earlier blog, however words don’t have all the meaning.  When you are talking to someone face to face there are so many other ways that we communicate.  For example, in my house we joke that mocking is our language of love.  In other words, we all speak fluent sarcasm and there are some dead pan faces that deliver these lines.  True comedians my friends.  If I didn’t see those faces and know the tone and intonation, read the body language, and ultimately feel my loving attachment to these people anytime we are in the same room together…well folks…I would think that they all hated me…a lot…like a lot, a lot.  Can’t deliver these conversations in a text or an email.  Can’t create the laughter in these statements even by phone.  No, these are truly communications that must happen in person.

And then there is the type of communication that facilitates connection, using no words at all.  Like the touch of a loving hand, a pat on the back, a hug, or a kiss.  What about the words unarticulated, yet very much said in every one of those interactions? Those won’t happen through technology at all.  Even the best of emoji’s won’t express these enough.  Now clearly we make efforts with things like emoji’s, LOLs, or GIFs, yet it just isn’t the same.  I can type out all the actions that go into embracing someone in a hug, but the words I put on the page won’t even scratch the surface of the feeling you get when someone hugs us.  What a message that can be. It won’t ever be able to translate into words, much less delivered through technology.

So what we are left with is the false sense that we are connecting, when actually we are connecting much less than when we just went outside and played with our friends, took a walk with our heads up saying hello to passersby instead of reading the text that just buzzed across our phone.  It’s actually an illusion of connection. And of course there are also the illusions of perfection that we peddle to one another.  Our Instagram lives that point out only when things are great (or at least make it look like they’re great).

And then there is the real culprit of disconnection in a technologically integrated society. What’s that you ask? Anonymity.  This one is a real silent killer and its motis operandi is to kill us slowly.  Death by Tweets. Am I right?  We can be politically fundamentalist and engage in battles of whit and will that far exceed anything we would have the guts to do in person.  And for kids it can be much worse.  In a time when their brains are just developing, when they are still impulsive, not great at thinking things through, and without any hindsight to have learned from, our kids can be even more hateful to one another. And this is the kind of environment we have been in as school shootings have escalated in frequency and intensity.

Do you know how many people I see that have social anxiety?  I see adults and children and I see far more folks in all age groups that have social anxiety than I do kids with ADHD.  We thought that was epidemic and over-medicated…guess what is happening with this anxiety epidemic?  Lots of scripts and very little teaching of how to be in public, how to have a conversation, or how to be with other people in general.  And what do you think will happen once the generations who have been raised in technology and have less in-person interaction start teaching their kids how to interact?  What will that look like?  It’s worth thinking about.

So you see, this is why my feeling is that there is more disconnection than connection these days. I don’t think phones are bad. They are plastic, glass, and wires. They have no inherent goodness or badness.  It is the user that determines the value.  So I challenge you to start thinking about how you are using these devices, or even how much.  In an earlier blog I referenced a way to do look at how to manage your time to be more in alignment with your values.  Mostly though, I challenge you to look up at the world, not down on your phone.  I challenge you to look people in the eye as you’re walking by them.  I challenge you to smile at someone, instead of sending a text.  I encourage you to pay more attention to the messages you receive that don’t have words and to give those same unsaid messages to others. Connect with people in real time, with real actions and real communication.  See what happens.  You may surprise yourself and like it more than you think.

Are you one of those folks who feels so busy all the time, yet can’t seem to get accomplished the things that you want to?  Well, join the club…and that club is big.  I have a handful of pointers here you may find helpful.  Full disclosure, I suck at this.  It’s an area I strive to be better at all the time.  I think it’s actually a chronic problem in America, so my guess is this blog may strike your interest.  You’ll only waste a few minutes of your time.\

1. Being “Busy” is Not a Commodity!

I can’t take credit for this concept and would love to give credit to the person that I heard it from, but I don’t remember his name.  It was another therapist I met while working in Community Mental Health.  Here is what it means though.  A commodity is something that is a raw material that can be bought and sold.  Items you get at the grocery store would be considered food commodities.  “So why are you calling being “busy” a commodity Doc? It’s something we do, not something we buy or sell?”  Well my friends here is what has happened in our society.  Being “busy” has a new cultural value, sometimes positive and sometimes negative.  We talk about it like it is a thing we own, such as “You think you have a busy schedule?  I have more to do than time to do it in?”  Then we start talking to each other like we have more or less of it, like it’s a competition.  For instance, “I have three kids.  Busy is just a way of life.  The more kids and the more activities the more busyness we have.”

Remember how I have talked about words being powerful, well this is a prime example of how the way we talk about things shapes how we think about them. Stop it. Being “busy” is not a thing we have (or want to have).  It is not something we should compete with one another about having more or less of. Busyness is really a reflection of where we are putting our priorities, which leads me to the next tip.

2. Get Back on Track with What Your Priorities are.

So, what are your priorities?  If you are like a basic American, you may think that it looks like this:

1. Work
2. My family
3. Me

I would strongly encourage you to take a good look at this and think about it for a while.  Be more curious about how these priorities got to be in the order they are in.  Be a Colombo in your own life (and for those of you too young to know who that is…look it up, there are great clips online).  He was the master at staying curious and asking questions about things in a way that you could finally get to the kernel of truth underneath the surface.  So, for example, when I think my life is getting out of whack like this, I start asking myself things like:

Me the therapist: “So Natalie why is work first right now?”

Me the workaholic: “Well, it’s because I want to be the best provider for my family.”

Me the therapist: “So what you are telling me is that you value your family more than work, and are using work as one way to do right by them”

Me the workaholic: “Ok.  I see what you’re saying.  So maybe my priorities are more like: 1) Family/Loved ones, 2) Work, and 3) Me”

Me the therapist: “Alright.  Help me understand why family and loved ones are so important.”

Me the workaholic: “Well I am responsible for them and need to be sure I am doing everything I can for them.”

Me the therapist: “I see.  So, you really value making sure you’re at your best so you can best be able to help those you love and feel responsibility for.”

Me as a workaholic: “Huh.  I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I guess that is true.”

Me the therapist: “So if I am hearing you correctly what you are really saying is you put yourself first in order to be the best you can for your family and one of the ways you are doing that is by providing for your family?  Am I hearing that right?”

Me the “former” workaholic: “I kind of lost sight of that order.  I guess I better think about how to pull that back in line again.”

So, after you’re finished scoffing at the fact that I talk to myself, think about how I did this.  It’s pretty easy.  It’s just exploring with curiosity (and not self-judgment) how things got out of order for myself.  I encourage you to try this and see if part of feeling “busy” all the time is you are putting the wrong things first, second, and third, which means you aren’t getting to the things that are really important to you.

3. Take an Audit of Your Time

I can’t take credit for this one either.  I recently was reminded of it by my pastor.  He was helping some of the leadership in our church think about where we are putting the bulk of our time.  A great way to start this is to get data.  If you’re an analytical person this will seem like a great idea.  If you are more of a person that goes by the “feel” of things, this will seem like a form of torture.  Do it anyway.  Just log each hour of the waking day for a week and count up your sleep time too. What you will be left with is a good snapshot of the discretionary time you have, and I am warning you, it isn’t as much as you think.  Another point my pastor was making when he mentioned taking an audit of your time, is that the average American consumes about 50 hours of media for pleasure on average.  “What the what?!?!?” How is it humanly possible to have this time?  I’ll give you a hint, you are robbing from somewhere else.  Could be less sleep you are getting, no time with your spouse, no fun time with your kids just discipline and necessary caretaking, etc.  So, try taking this audit.  Remember, there are only 168 hours in a week.  If you are sleeping your 8 hours a day, that leaves 112.  If you are working a 40 hour a week job, that leaves 72 hours (3 days of time).  If you are an average American consuming 50 hours of media outside of this time that is ONLY 22 hours left (less than one full day’s time).  So, what are you doing with that 22 hours?  And are you being too hard on yourself for not getting to 60 hours’ worth of things in this 22 hours.  Remember, I didn’t even count in travel time to/from work, daily/weekly household tasks, daily grooming, etc.  I told you it wasn’t a lot of time.  Give yourself a break and go back to #2 and realign yourself with what is really important to you in life.

4. Take Care of You! Schedule it in to Your EVERY DAY!  I Mean It!

All joking aside, self-care is pivotal to all this working.  You may not arrive at the same values I did in the example in #2, but I want you to really think about better prioritizing yourself.  You are a finite resource, just like your measly 22 hours of discretionary time each week (approximately).  If you are not taking care of this resource it gets depleted.  If it gets depleted there is less of it to use.  Math is not my best subject, but even I know if you are only subtracting eventually you go bust.  So, remember to put into yourself.  It doesn’t have to be a lot of time, but I would encourage at least 30 minutes of your day dedicated to doing something that just lifts your soul.  Now this might be media related, like watching your favorite Netflix show, yet I’d encourage you to think outside the box on this one.  Get creative.  Sometimes its 15 extra minutes to take a bath instead of a shower in the morning, or 10 extra minutes to smell the hair of your little one after they have finished their bath as you read them a book before bed, or a phone call to your bestie to laugh your behind off at the latest antics your everyday life brings you.  Whatever it is…do as Nike has trained us to…Just Do It.

5. Last, But Never Least…

You’ve now done a great job of taking assessment of what your priorities are and where your time is going.  You’ve started to change your language about being “busy” and shift your mindset to how to best use your precious time.  You are remembering to honor that your biggest resource can be your biggest vulnerability if you are not attending to it, and you are taking time each day to lift yourself back up and replenish this finite resource.  Now that you’ve got all this going for you, re-arrange your time.  It’s that simple…”Uh Doc. I’m sorry but nothing about this is simple.” Ok, I agree. You have to be intentional on this, but new habits can form in about three weeks.  Take that discretionary time and rearrange it to better fit getting your needs met in the order you value having them met.  Sure, that means some sacrificing, yet it is well worth it.  When we are working in alignment with what our purpose and values are in life, we feel better about our time.  “Busy” becomes just another four-letter word.

What child while dreaming of what they want to be when they grow up says, “I can’t wait until I grow up and don’t suck!”?  Answer, NO ONE…EVER!!!  Our dreams as young ones usually involve being superheroes, royalty, and occasionally even something more down to earth, like a firefighter, doctor, or police officer.  Then we get a little older and we realize that some of the fantastical dreams may be out of our reach (it was a sad day for me when I realized that animals would only talk to Dr. Doolittle and my zoologist dream may not come true after all), yet we still keep dreaming.  I wanted to be a medical doctor. Then I met Chemistry and thought…what about a psychologist? I’ve been listening to my friends and family for years, so how hard can that be.

In all seriousness, though, when I work with folks in therapy the thing that speaks the loudest to me is whether they are still dreaming…still hopeful that there is something out there for them in life. When this goes, it is usually because helplessness and hopelessness have crept in.  Sure, sometimes we call it being adult, pragmatic or realistic, yet in reality losing sight of our dreams or feeling that dreams cannot be attained is truly crippling. If I ask a client, what kinds of things do you look forward to or where do you see yourself headed, and I get a response like, “I don’t know Doc.  I’m not really sure what my goals are.”  This is when I know that there is work to be done.  Because really, no one looks forward to just not sucking.  We may want to have relief from our pain, a reprieve from low self-esteem, or an ability to think more positively, but these are not the goals.  These are byproducts.  Good byproducts, but not the star we wish to reach for. And certainly, not what we thought we were going to be when we grew up…someone that doesn’t suck.

“So Doc, what next? I’ve come into your office looking to make this depression go away or to learn how to make my anxiety less of a burden in my life.  How do I accomplish this if I am not focused on fixing it…on not sucking?”

Well my friend, the short answer to that is, find your way back to your hopes and dreams.  Find your way back to aligning with what you want in life.  Dream. And don’t just dream…DREAM BIG!!!  Why? Because feeling better comes when we have a focus to feel better about.  Feeling better hardly ever comes when our focus is just to feel less bad then we do at present.

“Ok Doc.  So how do I dream again, when there is rent to be paid, food to put on the table, work (that I don’t even like) to be done?  I love your optimism that it is as easy as dreaming again, but my life just isn’t that easy.”

I hear you.  And you’re right, life isn’t that easy.  My push back to you, is that neither are dreams.  Neither are goals that are worth sacrificing for.  Neither is failing on your way to meet those dreams and goals, only to have to get back up and keep at it.  None of that is easy.  The silver lining is, when we work hard and meet a goal, we feel good and it’s because we worked so hard for it and know that it is a true accomplishment.  If we feel good, chances are we are sucking less.  So, my challenge to you, my friends, is to stop looking to suck less and start remembering what you wanted to be when you grew up. Or start thinking BIG about what new and exciting thing you want to accomplish (even if you have no reasonable clue where to begin). Because dreams are not built to be easy and we are not well-oiled machines.  If this was the case, anyone could accomplish the dreams we have. No! Dreams are meant to push us beyond ourselves and will help us to be people well beyond someone that just doesn’t suck.

It’s like the old saying goes, “Shoot for the stars and you may just reach the moon.”

Happy 2018!!  And with the New Year, comes New Year’s resolutions.  Right?  How many of these have worked out for you across the years.  It’s tough to do, right?  After a while we can even start to feel ineffective at making things work.  Well, I’d like to get you off to a good start with these 5 secrets to making your New Year’s resolutions stick.

1. Tie your resolution to your own values!

What do you mean doc?  What I mean by this is make sure that whatever resolutions you have chosen are tied to things that you truly value, not what others value for you or that society tells you that should value.  Case in point.  The #1 resolution almost every year…lose weight.  It’s a decent goal and can be attainable.  However, it is also a goal that is laden with cultural values of needing to be be thin to be attractive, healthy, etc.  If this is your goal, ask yourself why you want to make this your resolution.  Is it because you value yourself over other things in your life and need to put yourself first this year?  Or is it because you want to fit into those jeans gathering dust on the top shelf in your closet?  If it’s the later, my guess is this resolution is rooted in a cultural value and not one of your own. Now, that is not to say that you may not value what the culture does, but beware.  As the comedian Lily Tomlin once said, “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”  If all you are trying to accomplish is to meet the status quo, it may be an empty value.  If on the other hand, you love your family and friends dearly and want to live to be 102, then getting healthy may mean you get thin.  In that example, the value the goal is tied to is spending time with family and friends (not being thin because American culture tells you that’s valuable).

So how do I know what my values are doc? Wow…that’s a biggie.  Sometimes our values are things taught to us in our families of origin, communities, cultures, and faith communities (just to name a few).  Ultimately though, they are things that we continue to value ourselves.  I don’t think all of us still ascribe to all the things we were taught as kids. So here is a quick test.  What are the things that get you charged up the most (positively or negatively)?  What are the kinds of things that you would “go to bat” for?  Maybe it’s that competitive nature of yours.  Or maybe it’s that you are always willing to take on more to help others. Now, once you figure out what things get your charged up, ask yourself, why is that?  What need of my own is that serving?  For example, with those of us that are competitive is it because being the best is our value? Or, is it that being the best was a value of our family of origin that we would like to move away from? For those of us who are always willing to help someone else, is it because we find value in service? Or, is it because we don’t know how to say no and displease others?  This line of questioning can help you get to the bottom of what your values are.  Once you’ve got these, be sure that they tie back to your resolutions.   You are bound to be more successful if your goals have meaning for you, rather than your goals being meaningful to others.

2. Make your goals measureable.

This one seems very simple, yet it is very important and often forgotten in my experience.  Here is what I mean.  To go with our earlier example of losing weight, if your goal is just that…to lose weight…won’t you attain it after you have lost 1 pound?  While 1 pound of weight loss would actually meet the criteria of losing weight, I am guessing it would be far from what you want to really accomplish.  So, for this step, all that is needed is a little more specificity.  You could phrase it more like this, “I’ll know I have met my goal of losing weight when I ______.”  In that blank, could be any kind of measure.  It may be a set weight limit, a set size you want to fit into (like those dusty jeans you have on the shelf), or it can some way that the weight loss makes you feel (e.g. have more energy, sleep through the night, etc.).

3. Set your goals in small attainable increments.

So, this one goes hand in hand with the step above.  It seems pretty intuitive, yet I am never surprised when I hear folks struggling with this one.  Let’s face it.  We want accolades.  We like praise.  We strive to accomplish things and are disappointed if we miss the mark.  But what if our mark is way too high. For example, in our example weight loss goal, if we want to accomplish losing 25 pounds in the first month, we will likely be killing ourselves for a slim chance of attaining the goal.  Plus, I am guessing if we want to go that fast with this goal, we probably are off in step one (tying our goals to our values) as well.  We will be much more successful and much more engaged if what we are working towards is in stepwise attainable increments, possibly with rewards at each step.  We love positive reinforcement.  So, if the goal is to lose 25 pounds, we could reward ourselves for each 5-pound milestone.  Like a new workout outfit or a new cooking utensil that will help us in our continued goal of a 25 pound weight loss.  We do better with ongoing encouragement, than we do with a long term goal with little to no reward on the way to the goal.

4. A “Not” goal is NOT a goal!

This is an absolute No! No! in my book.  Alright doc.  So, what is a “Not” goal?   Here are some examples of “Not” goals.

            I will not eat sugar anymore.

            I will not cheat with snacks between meals.

            If I am tired and don’t want to exercise, I will not give into my laziness.

Goals are not things we are NOT doing, they are things we ARE doing.  When you are setting your goals in small attainable increments, make sure you don’t fall into the “Not” goal mistake.

5. And last but certainly not least, don’t forget to FAIL.

Yes, you heard me right.  Don’t forget to fail.  Failure is a hardwired step in the brain’s learning process.  It’s how we know where the boundaries are to what we are learning and how we solidify the steps that we must recall.  When young kids learn to talk, one of the most common (and possibly cutest) error they make is to add “ed” to all past tense verbs.  For example, instead of saying “Mom, look how I ran” a toddler might say “Mom, look how I runned”.  In a literal sense, this is a grammar failure, but in a global sense this is a necessary part of the language learning process.

So, don’t forget to fail.  Or maybe I should say, don’t forget to get back up and keep going, learning from your necessary failure.  Don’t be scared to make changes to your goals either.  You may find that the measureable goals, in attainable small increments, are inching you away from your ultimate goal.  In those cases, readjust.

I will leave you with a quote that I think best summarizes this last step.  I wish you all well in this New Year.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” 

The Man in the Arena, by Theodore Roosevelt, an excerpt from the speech “Citizen in a Republic”

Merry Christmas Eve!  I waited until today to release my blog for the week, because I wanted to talk a little about giving and receiving.  What better time of year to do that than now, right?  So, let me start off with some questions.

What was the gift you brought to your corner of the world this year?

What gifts did you receive this year?

Were these gifts the ones you asked for or that were asked of you?  Or were they complete surprises (good or bad)?

What have you learned from your gifts, both given and received, and how will they impact you going forward?

Hmmm…those should get your mind stirring a bit.  What was the first thing to pop in your head as you read them?  Did it go something like, “What gift did I bring to my corner of the world?  Come on doc, the holidays are about hustle and bustle and who got the biggest and best present.  It’s completely commercialized. There is no gift here at all, other than a pain in my rear!”

Feel free to want to virtually slap me right now. Or write your wittiest and most sarcastic comment to me.  Believe me, I get it.  It is a commercialized season, because as I noted in my “What’s in a Word?” blog, we are marketed at from birth until death in America.  Tis’ the season to buy, buy, buy to fill the void in our lives, right?  But we all have felt how empty that can be.  The anti-climactic gathering of wrapping paper off the floor and playing with our new things for a few days or weeks. Then it’s back to the grind, right?  Or, maybe you just don’t have the money to keep up with all this commercialism and you are feeling the weight of not living up to this hype.  It can be particularly hard when you have children that watch the Christmas specials and think that that they’ve been on the “Nice List” all year, so surely Santa will be bringing the new (insert the item of desire in the blank).  So, what happens when Santa doesn’t?  It’s possible to believe that you weren’t good enough.  Or to become a hardened cynic to this commercialized holiday. And all sorts of other possibilities in between.

So here is my challenge for this week (well actually it’s my challenge to you for this coming year).  I want you to think about those questions I posed at the start of this blog.  I want you to really meditate on these.  Why?  Because, I would contest that Christmas is not about what we get under the tree.  This holiday season in general, no matter what it is that you celebrate, isn’t really about material things.  It is about us!  You read that right.  This season can be a reminder to us that we have something to bring to this world.  It’s also about honoring each other, by learning to be better receivers of the gifts others have to give us. Whether the gifts you have received and given felt good or bad; or were stingily kept to yourself and those you care about, because your time is valuable and you are not obligated to give to those who haven’t deserved it; or you have poured yourself out over and over again and are now feeling depleted; and all of the variations and/or combinations of these. Whether it is any or all of these, there is a lesson to be learned in giving and receiving. And it’s one that our communities are so hungry for right now.

I know I know, I am waxing eloquent again and keeping the good part of the message for last. Hey, you must have read some of my other blogs and are getting to know me better;)

So, “Pray tell doc! What the heck are you getting at?”

Here is what I am getting at. The gift is not the material item that you receive or give. It’s about what the action of giving and receiving does to us. Especially giving and receiving when it is not deserved or expected. This kind of giving and receiving is the most precious of all, because it offers love to one another and to ourselves.

And what if the gift comes in the form of pain? What about when we have been withholding our gifts from the world, hording them for ourselves? If this is the case, then look a little deeper. What is the message in this? Is it that in hording our gifts we are feeling less and less connected to others and less and less deserving of their love and affection?  Or, have we not received well, the gifts we were given?  Maybe because they came in the form of a message we didn’t want to hear, or because the gifts were given through the vehicle of emotional pain. And now we are feeling isolated and bereft, not worthy and accepted…and certainly not loved.

Gifts will come in all shapes and sizes.  In all gradations of feeling good and feeling bad.  If we resist these gifts they will keep coming back to us, until we learn to receive them, invite them into our hearts, and know the true purpose they have to offer us.  And if right now you are thinking to yourself that you know someone that has not been looking at her or his painful gifts in the right way…STOP!  Look internally at whether being in that situation with this person has you not looking at a painful gift you don’t want to accept for yourself. It’s very easy to slide into seeing when this happens to others, yet struggling to see that when we see it in others it may be a reflection that it is actually happening in ourselves.

Take a hard look.  Challenge yourself to give more, to receive more, and to be more mindful of the real meaning behind these gifts.  When a gift comes in the form of hurting, insult, or some other negativity…challenge yourself to see the real message. The one that shows you what there is to be learned here. And don’t be a Scrooge. Give away those gifts. We are only here for a while and we will gain more from what we give away than what we ever receive really.  And believe that you are worthy of these gifts.  There is a reason they have come to you.  Take them in, cherish them, and use them the way they were intended to be used.

I will leave you with a poem that hangs in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta.  Someone reminded me of this poem in recent week and it really sums up the meaning of giving and receiving, I think.  What are your thoughts?  I’d love to hear from you.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

-this version is credited to Mother Teresa, based on The Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith