4 Tips to Become a Better Listener

Everyone wants to feel listened to and understood by the people around them, but listening well can be easier said than done. Becoming a better listener is a powerful way to improve your relationships with others, whether it’s close friends and partners or even just people you know casually. 

Think about the last time you were talking to someone and you could tell they weren’t listening. Or back to a time when you were trying to communicate something but the other person wasn’t hearing you. You probably felt annoyed or upset, right? It can be hurtful to feel like you’re not being listened to. And on the other hand, you’ve probably had moments where you were only half listening to someone. 

No one is perfect all of the time! We all have moments where we’re distracted or we’re too emotional to think clearly, and those moments can get in the way of listening well. Learning how to become a better listener can improve your relationships by helping you feel more connected to others and communicate more effectively. 

Active listening is a strategy to improve your listening skills by making listening an engaged practice. Sometimes, even when we’re trying to listen, something will go in one ear and out the other, which can leave everyone in the conversation feeling frustrated. 

Listening can sometimes be seen as something passive, but that can sometimes lead to misunderstandings and poor communication. This is especially true in distracting settings or in heated conversations. When you listen actively, hearing what is said is the primary goal instead of just getting to the end of the conversation. 

If you’re looking to become a better listener, here are 4 tips to keep in mind: 

Listen to understand, not to respond

Sometimes in conversations it is tempting to think about what you’re going to say next. No one likes to feel judged or blamed, but difficult conversations can leave you feeling that way. Remember that everyone has their own perspective and feelings, even when things are hard to hear. Don’t think about what you’re going to say next, just listen to what the other person is saying without judging. 

Make sure you do your best to not interrupt the other person. It can be hard to listen without jumping in to defend yourself or share your point of view. It’s pretty natural to want to defend yourself, but it’s not helpful to interrupt someone when you’re trying to hear and understand what they’re saying. When you’re rushing to interrupt, you’re also tuning out what they’re saying to a degree as you formulate your response. Remember that you’re listening to understand, not to respond right now. 

Jumping in before the other person has finished speaking can make it harder for you to hear each other, which can sometimes lead to talking louder or raised voices. Remember that you will have your turn to speak and you can share your side when that comes. 

Validate the other person

Communicating is hard. Validation goes a long way when it comes to listening, because it shows the other person that you appreciate the effort they’re making to communicate with you. Telling them “I’m so glad that you shared that with me,” or “I really appreciate you being vulnerable right now,” helps to build trust. Even when a conversation is difficult, finding ways to validate each other can make it more likely that you’ll have more opportunities to keep communicating.

Stay engaged

It’s important to stay engaged in the conversation for the whole time. It can be helpful to make sure you’re understanding the other person correctly by summarizing what they have said. Some people find they can understand things best by relating it back to themselves or something that they’ve experienced, but sometimes that can come across as invalidating or insincere, even if that’s not how you mean it.

Another way to show that you’re engaged in the conversation is to have open body language. Nodding your head with what they’re saying or saying things like “That makes sense,” or “Mhmm” can also keep you focused on the conversation. 

Minimize distractions

When you’re listening to someone, do what you can to get rid of distractions that could draw your attention away from the conversation. It’s important to give the other person your full attention, so make sure to put your phone away, turn down the music, turn off the tv, or close your computer. 

Multitasking while talking to someone isn’t the best way to really hear and understand what they’re saying. Sometimes making eye contact can help you focus your attention and show the other person that you’re engaged and listening, but some people find eye contact uncomfortable, distracting, or distressing. Some folks find that stimming helps them focus more effectively, so if that works for you, go for it. 

Listening effectively is a skill, and it takes practice. Do you want to become a better listener and improve your communication skills? Working with a therapist can help you learn and practice new skills to help improve your relationships. Get in touch today to get started!

Healing through Relationships: Why the Therapeutic Relationship Matters

There’s a lot of mental health advice on the internet right now. 

Take this blog for example! Our blog is full of resources, thought exercises and tips meant to help support you in your journey to better mental health. But are the blogs themselves therapy? Are the social media posts describing different mindfulness exercises to try for your anxiety the same thing as therapy?

Short answer: nope!

Long answer: therapy is so much more than the tools you learn. Therapy is comprehensive mental health care, where the relationship between therapist and client is a crucial component to the treatment and healing process.

While there are lots of differences between the tools a therapist or therapy practice may provide online and the actual mental health services they offer, the part we’re going to focus on today is a part that is often overlooked: how the therapeutic relationship itself is crucial to healing. 

That’s part of why you can’t get the same experience reading a therapists blog as you would seeing that therapist in person–while they can provide you helpful tools to practice on your own, you’re missing the practice of showing up in relation to someone and writing new social scripts based on how they’re able to hold space for you. 

Okay….what does that all mean?

Let’s go back to our example from a few weeks ago about talking to your therapist about when they’ve hurt your feelings. 

The social script you’re working from might make telling someone they’ve hurt your feelings a scary, anxiety provoking conversation. Maybe you were yelled at as a child when you got upset or expressed your feelings. Maybe you’ve never been in a relationship where someone apologized after hurting your feelings. Or maybe you’ve never been in a relationship where you were safe to express that your feelings were hurt at all. 

In therapy, you get to practice showing up and telling someone they hurt your feelings.

While it’s not quite practice practice–you’re still communicating your real feelings and it was based out of a real situation, not just a theoretical scenario–you’re still given the assurance that you’re in a safe space where you won’t be punished for expressing how you’re feeling. That makes it an easier stepping stone to use to practice expressing those feelings because you have that safety net of knowing therapy is the space where you’re supposed to come in and discuss your feelings. 

This sort of relational healing is a crucial component to good therapy–and it doesn’t just come up in the moments where you need to manage conflict with your therapist!

You’re also engaging in relational healing in therapy when: 

• You express something you feel shame about and instead of responding with anger, repulsion, or what you fear they will respond with, your therapist responds with curiosity and compassion

• You come to therapy frustrated with how something is going, and you find support in collaborating with your therapist to figure out what to do next, rather than managing it all on your own 

These are two other simple and common examples of how the relationship between therapist and client is an essential part of the therapeutic process! That’s also why it’s so important to be sure you have a safe and trustworthy relationship with your therapist.

If you’re looking for support in the process of finding a therapist, contact us and we can help personally match you to a therapist based on your needs. 

What to Do When You’re Burned Out

Do you know what to do when you’re burned out?

Burnout is something that many of us are all too familiar with, especially since the onset of the pandemic. While many of us know on some level that we’re burned out, it’s less clear what to do when you are burned out. A complicating factor with treating burnout is that it leaves you feeling exhausted, depleted, and hopeless, which can make it harder to get started doing anything that will help you feel better. Coping with burnout doesn’t have to be complicated, though, and there are some simple steps you can take to start feeling better. 

What is burnout, anyway? 

Burnout is excessive and long-term stress. It’s easy to confuse burnout with stress, but they’re a little different. Stress is generally about a specific thing or situation, and it has an end. Burnout, on the other hand, is long-term. Burnout lasts until we do something about it, even if the situation that originally stressed us out has passed. 

Anything that causes lots of stress can lead to burnout. Some situations that can lead to burnout include:

• Being a caregiver or parent

• Struggling with relationship problems

• Having to work multiple jobs

• Being in a rigorous academic program 

• Having to deal with too much at work

What does burnout feel like?

Burnout is a message from your body that you’re doing too much, going too hard, and you need to listen before you cause serious damage. As you can imagine, it doesn’t feel good! 

Some of the physical and mental symptoms of burnout are:

• Feeling cynical, helpless, trapped, or defeated

• Getting sick more frequently

• Procrastination

• Struggling with self-doubt

• Problems with concentration or memory

• Being exhausted and drained all the time

• Coping with substances 

• Becoming more detached and isolated from the people in your life

• Feeling consistently bored or overwhelmed

• Irritability 

• Loss of motivation for things that are important or meaningful to you

• Frequent aches and pains (like headaches or stomach aches)

• Changes in appetite

• Shifts in your sleeping patterns

Why is burnout so common?

Burnout is common because our culture values work/productivity above personal happiness. Our worth is often tied to our jobs and how much we can produce. Being busy is rewarded and not being busy is seen as lazy. With inflation rising and the economic unpredictability from the pandemic, many people are working more than ever and having less time to recuperate. 

Being stressed for a long period of time is harmful, both mentally and physically. Our bodies aren’t meant to be stressed for months and months on end, and when they are, it can cause problems, from mood swings to health problems like heart disease. 

Dealing with burnout takes a two pronged approach of treatment and prevention.

Burnout always has a cause, but it’s not always easy to figure out what that cause is. Understanding the cause of your burnout can be key to prevent it from happening again. Figuring out what is making you feel burned out can help you focus on relieving the symptoms of burnout so you can make yourself feel better. 

What can you do to feel better right now? 

The first step to treating burnout is to ease the symptoms and start feeling better. It might seem like there’s nothing you can change, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes there’s not much you can do about a situation, but other times you can make changes that will help you feel better. Try approaching the problem after a few good meals and a good night of rest. When you’re feeling slightly less depleted, try to think about where the burnout is coming from. 

It can feel bad to have to cancel plans or to ask for help, but remember that you’re not meant to go through life alone. Even if you feel like you’re the only one who can do certain things, you deserve to have a break too. Go through what’s on your plate and cancel or reschedule a few things. Ask for help from the people in your community. 

It can also be helpful to let people know what’s going on with you so you don’t feel so alone. Most of us have dealt with burnout at some point, and it can be comforting to know that someone has gone through something similar and come out of it. 

How to prevent burnout in the future

Once you understand a little bit more about where the source of your burnout is coming from, you can work on strategies to prevent it from happening again. If you struggle with being assigned too much at work, you can work with your boss to clarify your job responsibilities and learn how to delegate. If you are burned out from caregiving, you can call in your support system and ask for help. 

Do you tend to be a people pleaser? When you struggle to ask for help, it can lead to burnout because you feel you have to take everything on yourself. No one can do everything alone, but it takes practice to feel comfortable asking for help from your support system. 

Make it a habit to celebrate what’s going right. Our brains naturally try to focus on the negative to keep us safe, but sometimes they overdo it. It takes effort to focus on the positive sometimes, but when you make it a habit to celebrate what’s going right, it can help you feel less hopeless about the future. 

Finally, it’s crucial to give yourself breaks. Schedule time off in your calendar. Take all of your vacation and sick days. Switch shifts with people to give yourself some time away. Say no to plans when you’re overwhelmed. 

The way that we work and live in the modern world is pretty tough, and it doesn’t give us a lot of time to ourselves. It’s important to take time off regularly and use it to replenish your energy. This is hard because a lot of us spend our free time running errands or completing tasks, not resting. It can take time to learn how to really rest in a way that replenishes you, but it is possible. 

What to do when you’re burned out and can’t take a break or change jobs

Work is a frequent source of burnout. While it can be fun to imagine just leaving your job and never coming back, that’s not always possible for people. Most of us need our jobs to keep the bills paid and keep a roof over our heads. If you’re burned out at work and you can’t take a break or change jobs, you’re not alone. There are some things you can do to help feel less burned out. 

Start with setting boundaries. Talk with someone you work for like a manager or supervisor and explain what you’re experiencing. Your employer should have an interest in supporting your mental health, because employees who are burned out aren’t as productive. Your productivity doesn’t define you, but it may be something your boss cares about. Using this logic can help persuade your boss to help take some things off your plate or find solutions where they can. Try to set boundaries like when you will respond to work messages or how much you can realistically handle. 

It may also be helpful to challenge your sense of urgency. Are the things causing you stress really urgent, or do you just feel like it is? Try to assess whether you’re pressuring yourself to do too much. Remember it’s okay to have boundaries, and not everything needs to be done right away. In most situations, what is happening is not an emergency, even if the people around us are behaving like it is. 

Finally, take good care of yourself when you’re burned out. Treat yourself like you would when you’re not well, because you’re not well when you’re burned out. Get enough sleep, eat enough food, drink enough water, take enough time for yourself, do things that make you happy, move your body, and spend time with people you love. 

Burnout is unpleasant, but it is treatable. Working with a therapist can help you cope with burnout and find solutions to prevent it from happening again. Get in touch with our office today to get started.

How to Make a Coping Skills Toolbox

What’s your go-to coping skill when you’re upset or emotionally activated? 

We all have different ways that we cope in stressful or emotional times. Sometimes the ways we cope are strategies we learned when we were young to protect ourselves. Others might be skills we’ve learned as we’ve grown up and experienced different situations. Sometimes coping skills are supportive, and sometimes we outgrow coping skills that used to work. There are even times where we use coping skills that end up causing more emotional distress down the line. 

However you cope, it can be helpful to make a coping skills toolbox to use when you’re upset or emotionally activated. Keeping a dedicated container with some helpful items and reminders inside can make a big difference when you’re having an unpleasant emotional experience. Everyone is different and copes differently, so the suggestions we have for a coping skills toolbox are just a jumping off point. 

Using more supportive coping skills than the ones you’ve relied on for years can be tricky in the moment, when you’re outside of your window of tolerance and emotionally activated. It’s hard to rely on newer coping skills that we learn because the old ones are hard-wired into our brains. It takes our brains time to make the connections that help us form new habits. That’s why practice is crucial. 

One of the keys to developing new coping skills is to practice using them when you’re not already upset or emotionally activated. Your ability to think clearly lessens the further you go outside of your window of tolerance, so thinking of ways to comfort yourself in the moment can be close to impossible sometimes. Having a go-to resource that you can rely on when you’re distressed can make coping with the situation and moving forward a bit easier. 

Here are some suggestions for what to keep in your coping skills toolbox, so you can pull it out the next time you’re emotionally activated and need soothing. 

Mindfulness Exercises

When you’re upset, it is hard to focus on what is happening in the present moment. When putting together your coping skills toolbox, try adding some mindfulness exercises or activities to help you reduce your stress and worry and focus on what’s happening right now. If there’s an exercise or activity that is helpful to you, write down some instructions or a reminder of what to do on an index card or piece of paper to help guide you in the moment.

Some items that you can add to your toolbox to help you cope in stressful moments are: 

• Deep breathing exercises, like box breathing or 4-7-8 breathing

• Meditation tracks on a meditation app

• Progressive muscle relaxation exercises

• Coloring pages

• A journal to write in and a pen

Distractions

When you’re upset, sometimes the most supportive thing to do is to distract yourself until the painful or distressing emotions pass. Distraction can become unsupportive when it’s the only coping skill you use, but there’s nothing wrong with distracting yourself from time to time when you’re upset. 

Here are some items for your coping skills toolbox that may help distract you: 

• Movies to watch

• Music to listen to 

• Games to play

• Puzzles 

• A playlist of funny videos

• Hobbies, like crafting or baking

Movement Ideas

Movement can be helpful in times of high stress and emotion. Movement is not only a distraction, but it can help release feel-good hormones throughout your body that can make you feel less distressed. You don’t have to move in a way that punishes yourself or your body, but some people do find that intense movement can be really helpful when they’re super emotionally activated. 

Here are some items you can keep in your coping skills toolbox to encourage movement: 

• Yoga mat

• Foam roller or muscle massager

• Sneakers

• Gardening tools

• A list of exercise videos you like

• Guides for stretching

Calming Sensory Objects

Using your senses is a powerful way to calm down or comfort yourself during intense emotional distress. Try to engage one or all of your senses during upsetting moments by keeping some sensory objects in your toolbox. Some items might be hard to keep all in one box, so leaving yourself a reminder of what objects to grab can be helpful in the moment. 

Some ideas for sensory objects that can be comforting are:

• Candles, lotion, or other comforting scented objects

• Soft blankets or pillows

• Calming music

• A pen to click

• Fidget spinners or stim toys 

• Soft toys or a stress ball to squeeze

• Cuddly stuffed animals

• Candies, mints, lozenges, gum

• A warm beverage mix like tea or cocoa

• Silly putty or slime

• Weighted blanket

• Photos of people you care about

Reminders

If there’s a coping skill that you want to remember to use when you’re emotionally activated, write it down on an index card or slip of paper and add it to your toolbox. You can pull out the card when you need to and remember what to do to make yourself feel better. It may also be helpful to keep some affirmations handy in your coping skills toolbox that you can repeat to yourself in distressing moments. 

It may also be helpful to leave a reminder for yourself that this difficult moment won’t last forever - eventually it will pass. Emotions are like waves, and they do eventually recede, even when they’re uncomfortable. Finding ways to help yourself cope until the difficult emotions fade can help you feel more prepared for next time. 

Therapy is a great opportunity to learn and practice new coping skills that you can add to your coping skills toolbox. Get in touch with our office today to set up an appointment!