5 Reasons Why Crying is Good For You

5 Reasons Why Crying is Good For You

When was the last time you had a good cry?

Many of us think of crying as a negative thing, but crying is actually an important function, physically and mentally. Crying is an often cathartic release that can improve mood, sleep, and relationships, and lower stress levels when you’re feeling emotionally triggered. 

Not everyone is a crier. While some folks cry easily and regularly, others rarely cry, if at all. 

There are a few reasons for this. First, everyone is different, and everyone experiences emotions differently. Some people are just wired to be more sensitive to crying than others, and that’s okay. A common reason why people are afraid to cry is because they feel like if they start, they’ll never stop. If you never let yourself have the kind of cathartic release that crying can bring, you’ll start to feel overwhelmed by the emotions you’re pushing down.

Others feel that crying is a sign of weakness. It’s also important to point out the gender roles at play here. Women are far more likely to cry than men, and crying is often seen as feminine or unprofessional. According to the American Psychological Association, the average woman cries 30-64 times a year, compared to men who cry 5-17 times a year on average. These beliefs encourage people who cry easily to not be taken seriously, especially in the workplace or in leadership roles. 

Of course, sometimes crying isn’t a positive experience. Sometimes crying is a result of pain or distress that can’t be relieved by tears alone. Context matters with crying - for a good cry, it helps to be somewhere you feel safe and comfortable, rather than somewhere public or with people you don’t know well. It’s much more preferable to cry at home on the couch with your best friend than to cry in a conference room full of strangers. 

What is it about crying that is good for you? Here are 5 reasons: 

Crying relieves stress 

Not only is a bout of crying a helpful emotional release, but it can also help remove stress hormones from your body through your tears. That’s right! Tears actually have functions other than to communicate distress. Research has shown that cortisol, a stress hormone, is released in tears and that crying in and of itself may lower cortisol levels, which can reduce stress in the body. Crying also releases oxytocin and endorphins, both of which can reduce pain and leave you feeling good. 

Crying improves relationships

Crying serves an important function for infants - it alerts their caregivers that they need something. From the time we’re born, crying helps us build connections with others. Vulnerability is scary but it can bring you closer to your loved ones when you experience it together. Think of a time when a loved one was vulnerable and cried in front of you. This can often trigger empathy and leave you feeling even closer than you did before. 

Tears are good for your vision

When you produce tears, they help keep your eyes lubricated and healthy. One type of tear, called reflex tears, are a direct response to debris in the eye. These tears move whatever the dangerous or uncomfortable thing is out of your eye to keep it from becoming irritated or injured. Some people deal with chronic dry eyes, where their eyes don’t produce enough of the moisture needed to stay comfortable and see correctly. Crying can help moisten up your eyes if you struggle with dry eyes. 

Crying is a way to physically process emotions

Crying is often associated with grief and sadness, because it’s a release from those painful emotions. Crying is itself a physical way to process emotions. Our emotions are not just stored in our minds; our bodies hold onto emotion and trauma. This is why engaging the body when approaching healing work can be so helpful. When you’re emotionally activated and you’re feeling out of control, a crying session might help flush out the uncomfortable emotions so you can approach things with a clear head instead of acting without thinking. 

Crying allows you to calm down

Sometimes it’s hard to calm yourself down when you’re feeling emotionally activated. Crying is a way you can practice self-soothing, because it activates your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). When your PNS is online, your body goes into rest mode, and can help you feel more calm. This can help you feel more clear headed and lower the drive to do something out of urgency or because you’re upset. Activating your parasympathetic nervous system can also help improve sleep because it switches your body from fight or flight mode to relax mode, which can make it easier to settle down for the night. 

So, go ahead and have a good cry. You’ll probably feel better afterwards! 

If you’re struggling with your mental health or experiencing a lot of crying that isn’t normal for you, talking with a therapist can be helpful. Get in touch with our office today to book an appointment. 

6 Safe Ways to Express Anger

How do you react when you feel angry?

For a lot of people, anger is a confusing emotion. Everyone feels anger, of course, but we often aren’t taught how to deal with anger in a healthy way when we are young. It can feel like the only way to respond to anger is through yelling or violence, but that’s a myth that stems from our anger-phobic culture. 

Why are we afraid of anger?

Think about what comes up for you when you think about anger. For a lot of folks, those memories, emotions, and sensations are related to painful or frightening experiences. Feeling painful emotions is uncomfortable, so lots of us do whatever we can to avoid dealing with them, even if we don’t do that consciously. Many of us are in the habit of repressing our anger to the point where we might not think we feel it at all. 

Our culture has one very narrow view of anger: anger can be felt by a man, and he can respond to the anger he feels with violence. Whether that violence is a yelling match, hurting themselves, or hurting others, the typical reaction to anger that we see in the media is one that is out of control and scary. Our culture follows this script and encourages anger in men, and represses anger in women. 

Many women don’t feel that they experience anger at all, because women aren’t socialized to express anger. Women are often forced to hide their anger or ignore it entirely because our society doesn’t give women the option to be angry. Think of stereotypes like calling a woman “crazy” when she’s upset about something in a relationship, or the racist stereotype of the “angry Black woman.” Anger isn’t something women are allowed to feel like any other emotion - either we are forced to repress it, or it becomes our whole identity. 

Why can’t we just ignore anger?

The problem with repressing emotions is that they never stay repressed permanently. They always come up at one point or another, often when you’re least prepared to deal with them. Repressed anger doesn’t feel good. Anger is a powerful emotion, and it can have powerful effects when it’s not properly expressed. Repressing anger can lead to major swings in mood, increased irritability, and even anxiety and depression. 

Anger is a normal emotion. We all feel it from time to time. Like all emotions, it comes and it goes, and doesn’t last forever when we allow ourselves to feel it (versus repressing it). When any emotion comes up, we can notice it and find ways to cope with that emotion. Part of the experience of an emotion is sitting through it - there’s really no way around experiencing the emotion if you want to move forward from it. Think of other emotions you feel. When you’re sad, you might cry, or cuddle a pet, or take a nap. Those are all safe ways to cope with sadness. There are options for you to express anger in safe ways too. 

Here are some suggestions for safe ways to express anger:

Use your voice

This doesn’t mean to get in a yelling match with someone. This just means to use your voice to express the intensity of what you’re feeling. Maybe this means you go for a drive in the car and scream-sing along to a playlist. Maybe it means you scream into your pillow for a bit. It could also mean talking it over with someone if that feels supportive to you. 

Get moving

Anger is an intense emotion, and can often feel like it’s bursting out of you or like it’s causing energy to build up inside of you. A great way to deal with the excess energy that often comes up with anger is to move your body and tire yourself out. Try dancing around to music that makes you feel powerful. Or maybe go for a run or a brisk walk. Any kind of intense movement that gets you moving and your blood pumping can be helpful here to work through the feeling of anger. 

Be destructive (strategically)

The urge to be violent when angry is often a way to get rid of the painful excessive energy that anger can bring. This urge can be met in ways that aren’t unsafe or scary, thankfully! Here are some ideas for how to be destructive in a safe, strategic way to help relieve some anger: 

• Safely throw or squeeze or hit or break something

• Visit a smash room and break some things

• Hit or kick a punching bag

• Squeeze play dough or a stress toy

• Knead dough or pound meat 

• Throw something soft (or maybe throw a toy for a pet to chase)

• Break down cardboard boxes

• Pound on a drum set

Practice progressive muscle relaxation

Anger can cause a lot of tension to spring up in the body. When you’re responding to anger, it can be helpful to notice where the anger is living in your body. This not only helps you identify what anger feels like so you can spot it when it comes up in the future; it also lets you know where to focus your attention for relaxation. To help you find where the anger is living in your body, you can do a body scan and practice mindfulness that engages the body, like progressive muscle relaxation. There are lots of guided body scan meditations available for free on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and Insight Timer that you can try to get in the habit of scanning your body for signs of anger. Once you’ve spotted the anger in your body, you can focus on relaxing that area. Progressive muscle relaxation can help you slowly shift your body from a state of tension to a state of calm and safety. 

Find your safe place

Anger can feel scary and out of control. When intense emotions like anger come up, it can be helpful to remind yourself that you are safe and in control of yourself. Where is a place you can go mentally to remind yourself that you’re safe? Some people choose a beach or mountains as their safe place, and others prefer a room in their house or a space from their childhood home. 

When you feel an intense emotion, imagine you’re in your safe place. If it helps, carry a reminder of this with you or save a picture on your phone to help you mentally return to your safe place. This can be helpful with lots of distressing emotions, not just anger!

Are you looking for more support in coping with anger? It’s hard to know how to express anger safely when you’ve spent your whole life ignoring it. Our therapists can help you find ways that work for you to safely process and express your anger. Get in touch with our office today to get started!

8 Blogs to Help You Manage Your Emotions

8 Blogs to Help You Manage Your Emotions

We all have emotions, but we unfortunately don’t come with instruction manuals to help us figure them out. Often when we’re young, we learn certain ways to cope that we stick with until they cause us problems. These strategies you put into place as a child aren’t always the most supportive ways to manage emotions as an adult, however. It can be painful to realize that the way you attempt to regulate your emotions isn’t working for you anymore. 

Our approach to mental health at Hope+Wellness takes the whole person into view - your mind, body, life experiences, and more are all important sources of information and wisdom. Emotional regulation isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of deal; it requires a more individual approach and lots of compassion. 

We’ve written pretty extensively on the blog about managing emotions and emotional regulation. Regulating your emotions shouldn’t have to be a big mystery. To make it as easy as possible to guide folks toward resources, we’ve put together a roundup of some of our blogs that are focused on naming, feeling, and managing emotions. 

List of Emotions

“Developing a greater awareness of your emotions can help you develop ways to cope with difficult emotions that arise, make healthy decisions, enhance relationships with others, and develop a proactive sense of mastery over your life. Identifying emotions and how you feel in a given situation is often the first critical step towards figuring out how best to manage them.”

Naming Your Emotions

“Instead of feeling uncomfortable and overwhelmed by your emotions, learning to identify them not only kickstarts that self soothing process, but also helps you to unpack where that discomfort is coming from. When you know how you’re feeling, you can start to get into the why….Understanding your feelings helps you understand how they impact how you behave with everyone in your life, and also gives you an opportunity to be open with those around about how you’re feeling so they know how to best support you.”

What is Emotional Regulation?

“Emotional regulation isn’t about stopping yourself from feeling certain emotions, or ignoring your emotions and responses, but putting you back in the driver's seat when they become too powerful. Instead of being ruled by your emotions, you can learn to be informed by them. Emotional regulation skills help give you what you need to slow yourself down and respond instead of react.”

Understanding Your Window of Tolerance

“One of the most frustrating experiences in life is when your emotions feel out of control and you’re not sure why. It can make you feel disconnected from yourself and unsure of how to feel better. One way to understand what’s happening when your emotions feel out of control is to understand the window of tolerance model, developed by Dr. Dan Siegel. This model helps explain the different zones of functioning we all experience, and how we can work to more effectively regulate our emotions.”

5 Things to Do When You Feel Triggered

“When you’re constantly breaking into fight or flight mode, it’s exhausting. Looking for danger around every turn is draining, and it can leave you feeling fatigued, irritable, and distressed. Feeling a high level of stress can also cause adverse physical symptoms after a while. Our bodies aren’t designed to be under extreme stress for long periods of time, so it can be hard on your body to feel constantly ready for danger. Although a trigger can be unavoidable, there are ways you can be more prepared when they come up, so you’re not left in so much distress each time.”

3 Ways to Build Interoceptive Awareness

“We all have a level of interoceptive awareness, or the ability to understand the messages we get from our bodies. Some people have lower levels of awareness of their internal body sensations, or lower interoceptive awareness. The messages, or interoceptive signals, our bodies send us can be tricky to understand if you’re not sure what to look for, but it’s possible to increase your level of interoceptive awareness. …These interoceptive signals help us identify our emotions, which is an important step in emotional regulation.”

What are Coping Skills and Why Do I Have Them?

“Coping skills are strategies or tools that you can use to manage stressful or distressing situations. Coping skills let you decrease your level of stress and handle difficult emotions in a way that maintains your sense of internal order…Coping skills offer options for getting through moments of distress until you can find a safe place to process what’s going on. It’s not always feasible to feel and process everything you need to in the moment, especially when emotions are heightened. Coping strategies let you get through the moment until you’re able to find a safe place, like a therapy session, to unpack the situation.”

6 Tips To Help You Feel Your Feelings

“Emotions serve an important purpose. When we avoid our feelings, we’re just opening ourselves up to more distress later. When feelings aren’t dealt with, they have a way of coming back even more intensely, and often at an inconvenient time.

Emotions are messengers, but we usually aren’t taught how to decode the messages they are sending us. Even when you do understand what the message is underneath the emotion, it can be hard to know what to do in the moment when you’re feeling a distressing feeling.”

We all experience emotions differently.

If these blogs resonate with you, that’s great! If these tips don’t feel as relevant to you, that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to manage your emotions at all. You may just need different ideas or the support of a professional like a therapist to help you work on emotional regulation. 

Are you looking for more help managing your emotions? Working with a therapist can help you find more personalized ways to approach emotional regulation that work for you and your lifestyle. Contact us today to learn more about getting started.

5 Mental Health Benefits of Spending Time in Nature

5 Mental Health Benefits of Spending Time in Nature

Have you ever felt mentally refreshed after spending time outside?

The idea that getting some fresh air can be beneficial to health is not a new one. It’s go-to advice for many people, because being outside in nature actually is good for you in a number of ways. 

Physically, moving your body can help you release stress, process emotions, and feel more energized. Mentally, spending time outside in nature can leave you feeling more mindful of the present moment and connected to the world around you, which can boost feelings of happiness. 

Most of us spend almost all day staring at some screen or another, and it takes its toll on our mental and physical well-being. Our bodies haven’t evolved to support us as we sit and stare at a screen, so spending all day doing that can lead to some pretty serious aches and pains. Heading outside when you have the chance is a nice change of scenery!

Nature means different things to different people. You don’t have to be deep in a forest or at the top of a mountain to benefit from nature - you can get just as much from a walk down the street as a long hike. What matters is being present to enjoy the moment and notice what’s happening around you. 

Why is nature so good for mental health? Here are 5 mental health benefits of spending time in nature: 

Helps you practice mindfulness 

Research has shown that feeling connected with nature plays a role in how it benefits you. The more strongly you feel connected to nature and the environment around you, the more positive impact on your wellbeing.

To feel more connected to nature, practice noticing your surroundings, and using your senses to take in all the information that nature has to offer. Focus on each sense one at a time to help make sense of what you’re experiencing and as a bonus it will help keep you in the present moment to enjoy it while it’s happening. 

Lowers your stress level

Life moves pretty fast, and it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Stress is something that we all deal with, but we don't all deal with it well. Some coping skills are more supportive than others, and spending time outside might help you feel less stressed than your other options. 

For example, if you’re stressed about work, you can cope in a number of ways. Just to name a few, you could vent to your friends, zone out in front of the TV, move your body, engage in a hobby, or practice positive affirmations. You could also go outside and let nature help. 

Spending time noticing what’s going on around you - which plants are growing, what animals you see or hear, the feeling of the breeze on your face - gives you something else to focus on while you calm down. In fact, research has found that being outside lowers levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, so the stress-lowering powers of nature can actually be measured. 

Improves concentration 

If you feel like you have a hard time concentrating on things these days, you’re not alone. Research has reported that our attention spans are getting shorter with the popularity of screen time and social media. In 2000, the human attention span was measured to be approximately 12 seconds, and by 2015 it had shrunk to just 8.2 seconds. 

Fortunately, spending time outside can help improve concentration and other cognitive abilities, so when you’ve had enough screen time, try heading outside.  

Gives a sense of wonder and awe

Life is a beautiful, wonderful mystery, and spending time in nature can reinforce that. Nature is often beautiful, awe inspiring, and helps us feel connected to something larger than ourselves. When we spend time in nature, we can see the ways that everything interacts with each other and realize that we are part of the interaction too. 

We can walk on ground that’s been there for millennia, and gaze up at trees that have been growing for hundreds or even thousands of years. Nature can inspire gratitude, wonder, and awe, which are all beautiful parts of being alive. 

Changes your perspective 

Nature can give us a perspective that is otherwise too abstract for our minds to understand. We often think of time in terms of the human lifespan, but nature is on a different timeline. Nature takes her time, and the bigger picture is slowly revealed. 

Think of the Grand Canyon, which started with water flowing in a river on a flat plain, and slowly dug away at the rock to form one of the most beautiful canyons in the world. Nature doesn’t worry about anyone else’s timeline. Day by day, you probably couldn’t see the changes in the rock, but after thousands of years, the difference is clear. 

Zooming out and thinking of the big picture can help you manage worries and uncomfortable feelings, because you know they won’t last forever. 

So, the next time you have a few minutes, get outside. See how it feels!

Spending time in nature has many mental health benefits, and it’s a coping skill you can keep in your mental health toolbox for when you need it. If you’re looking for other skills and tools to help support your mental health, working with a therapist can help you find what works for you.  

Understanding Your Window of Tolerance

Understanding Your Window of Tolerance

Have you ever felt like your emotions were out of control?

One of the most frustrating experiences in life is when your emotions feel out of control and you’re not sure why. It can make you feel disconnected from yourself and unsure of how to feel better. One way to understand what’s happening when your emotions feel out of control is to understand the window of tolerance model, developed by Dr. Dan Siegel. This model helps explain the different zones of functioning we all experience, and how we can work to more effectively regulate our emotions. 

Why do my emotions feel out of control? 

It can be scary or frustrating when your emotions don’t seem to match up with what’s happening in real life. This can happen for a number of reasons. Sometimes, people have a tough time regulating their emotions or connecting with them at all. It can be scary to feel intense emotions, 

Sometimes, we have an intense reaction to something and it’s not always clear why. 

It can be hard to remain grounded in the present moment when you’ve experienced trauma. Traumatic memories can be brought on by seemingly harmless triggers, and research shows that our brains don’t know the difference between something happening in the present and recalling a traumatic memory. Even if you rationally know that your trauma is not happening in the present, your brain can’t tell the difference, which can cause extraordinary distress. 

One way to help understand what’s happening when your emotions feel out of control is through the window of tolerance model. 

We all have ranges, or windows, of what we’re able to tolerate psychologically. In some states of mind, we’re better able to cope and regulate our emotions than others. 

The window where you are able to regulate your emotions and stay grounded in the present is called your window of tolerance. In this zone, you experience a balance of hyperarousal and hypoarousal. You’re right in the sweet spot where you’re able to react rationally, regulate your emotions, and cope with what’s going on. If you’ve heard of the fight, flight, freeze or fawn responses, that may help you visualize what happens in the different states of arousal. 

Visualizing your window of tolerance

Imagine a thermometer. One of the old school kinds, with a mercury reservoir at the bottom. This thermometer represents  our ability to regulate our emotions.  At the top, we have hyperarousal, in the middle is your window of tolerance, and down at the bottom is hypoarousal. 

What does it feel like outside my window of tolerance?

Hyperarousal is a state where anxiety, racing thoughts, panic, or hypervigilance have taken over. Hyperarousal is also known as the fight or flight response, where our nervous systems give us a boost of energy to flee or fight in the face of a threat. It used to come in really handy when we were hunter-gatherers, but in modern times it can cause a lot of distress. 

Hypoarousal, on the other hand, is a state of numbness, dissociation, and disconnection. You may know it as the “freeze” response, which causes you to surrender or shut down. This response is also automatic, from our nervous system when we face a threat of some kind. When you’re in this state, you might feel numb, zoned out, or depressed. You might experience dissociation or feel like you’re not present in your own body. 

What does it feel like in my window of tolerance? 

The middle section is the window of tolerance - the state where we’re better able to cope. When we’re in our window of tolerance, it’s easier for us to process intense emotional situations. You’re more easily able to access your rational side, which can help with emotional processing and decision making. When you’re in your window of tolerance, you feel calm, alert, relaxed and capable of handling what comes your way. You feel more capable of engaging with others socially or making decisions. You feel at ease instead of on edge, and energized instead of drained. 

Moving toward your window of tolerance

Once you recognize that you’re outside of your window of tolerance, you can start taking steps to move toward that more regulated state of mind. If you’re hypoaroused, there are things you can do to increase your state of arousal so you move away from the feelings of numbness and toward feeling like yourself again. The same is true if you’re hyperaroused - there are coping skills you can use to decrease your level of arousal so you feel less panicked and out of control. 

Learning how to regulate your emotions can take practice. Working with a therapist can help you take a look at your emotional responses and figure out new ways to cope that better support you and your mental health. Get in touch with our office today to get started working with an expert therapist. 

5 Things to Do When You Feel Triggered

5 Things to Do When You Feel Triggered

You’ve probably heard the word “triggered” before - it’s everywhere these days. Whether it’s a trigger warning or someone explaining that they’ve been triggered, more and more folks are becoming aware of the effects their emotional responses have on their day to day life. 

You may have experienced this yourself at some point. Have you ever had an experience where something happened, and your emotional reaction seemed way out of proportion with what was going on? 

An intense emotional reaction can be distressing. It’s a lot of work, mentally and physically, to be upset, and when a trigger comes seemingly out of nowhere, it can really throw you for a loop. 

What does being triggered mean?

When someone is triggered, that means that they are experiencing an intense emotional reaction to something. Triggers can be almost anything - something someone said or did, a smell or noise, a memory

Triggers don’t always have to be negative! There are times when something triggers a strong emotional response of joy, excitement, or happiness. However, it’s more common for people to be talking about a negative or unpleasant emotion when they discuss triggers and how to avoid them, because it’s much more uncomfortable to feel distressed than it is to feel happy. 

We have strong emotional reactions sometimes as humans, like when someone you care about passes away. When something is really emotional, we are wired to have a strong reaction to it. However, not every situation will cause such a strong reaction. When people find themselves having really strong emotional reactions to situations that don’t call for it, it can be upsetting. 

A trigger is something that is hard to avoid in daily life. Anything can be a trigger for someone, because everyone’s experiences are different. That’s why triggers are so hard to avoid - they’re a part of everyday life and relationships.

Things that trigger folks tend to be related to things like:

• unpleasant memories

• being confronted

• experiencing rejection or betrayal

• feeling unwelcome or vulnerable

• boundaries being crossed

• feeling controlled or taken advantage of

Any of these scenarios can trigger a strong emotional reaction.

What does being triggered feel like? 

When you’re triggered, it can feel intense. Many people experience an increase in their heart rate and breathing rate. You may also feel like your head is spinning, start to break out in a sweat, or feel like your stomach is upset. 

When your body is triggered, it goes into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode to help protect you. It’s an automatic reaction that comes from our evolutionary history, and was originally designed to keep us safe.

This high level of emotional intensity can be uncomfortable to experience on a regular basis. 

When you’re constantly breaking into fight or flight mode, it’s exhausting. Looking for danger around every turn is draining, and it can leave you feeling fatigued, irritable, and distressed. Feeling a high level of stress can also cause adverse physical symptoms after a while. Our bodies aren’t designed to be under extreme stress for long periods of time, so it can be hard on your body to feel constantly ready for danger. 

Although a trigger can be unavoidable, there are ways you can be more prepared when they come up, so you’re not left in so much distress each time. Here are some ways to cope when you feel triggered: 

Remind yourself where and when you are

A trigger is something that can throw you back into a painful or traumatic memory without much warning. When this happens, it can be hard to make sense of what is really happening, and what is your memory. Orienting yourself to the present moment can be helpful when you’re feeling swept up in a painful memory. 

You can do this in a few ways. You could look in the mirror and remind yourself that you’re grown up now and that you’re safe. Some people use things like tattoos or scars to remind themselves that they’re not a younger version of themselves. 

If you feel like you’re having an experience outside of your body, try to gently use your senses to check in with the present. Grounding exercises can be helpful here, such as using your senses to bring yourself back to the present. 

Remember that feelings are morally neutral

You aren’t a bad person for having intense feelings. It can be hard to deal with intense emotions, especially when they’re coming up all the time. Remind yourself that it’s okay to feel what you feel. Feelings are morally neutral, they aren’t good or bad. This doesn’t mean that you can’t want to change your feelings. It just means that the emotions you feel don’t say anything about your value as a person. You’re allowed to have feelings, so don’t be hard on yourself for having them. 

Take a break if you can

Being triggered is intense and overwhelming. If you’re able to, try to get yourself to a nice quiet space where you can calm back down. 

Try using your breath to slow your mind back down. Being triggered can also make you feel like you’re short of breath, so it’s important to make sure to focus on breathing in and out, nice and slow. Spending a few minutes regulating your breath can go a long way toward calming you down. It’s hard to make choices when you’re in an emotionally heightened state, so giving yourself time and space to calm down can make a difference. 

Try to find some humor

Being triggered or being reminded of something traumatic isn’t funny. But sometimes there are ways to find humor in what’s going on around you. Finding something to laugh about can help diffuse the tension of what you’re dealing with and make you feel less distressed. Is there anything silly about what’s going on? Can you take a moment and laugh at yourself a bit? 

Use affirmations

Another way to interrupt the trigger response is to use affirmations or self-talk. The way you talk to yourself matters. A lot of us are way meaner to ourselves than we think, and when you’re in distress those mean thoughts can be excruciating. When your mind starts to do its own thing and criticize you or you feel like you can’t handle something, try to interrupt it. You can use affirmations consciously to shift your thinking. Try saying to yourself, “I’m doing the best that I can right now,” “I am safe,” or “I know I can handle whatever comes my way.”

Are you looking for more ways to deal with triggers or other strong emotional reactions? Working with a therapist can help you learn more about what specifically is a trigger for you and how you can deal with those triggers in a way that works for you. Contact our office today to get started.

How to Motivate Yourself to Do Boring Life Tasks

Do you struggle to motivate yourself to do boring life tasks?

We know that self care is not the commercialized version we so often see. (That’s often actually a form of self soothing; providing ourselves with something nice to ease the discomfort or distress of a situation. We talk about the difference between the two a little bit here.)

But, essentially, self care is about developing a life and forming habits that take care of your physical, mental, and emotional needs. 

Which isn’t always as fun as the bubble bath, treat-yourself version of “self care” that we sometimes think of! 

In fact, many ways in which we care for ourselves are very boring chores, such as: 

• Making a grocery list of foods that fill you and make you feel good (physically and emotionally–emotionally nourishing foods are also important, there should be joy in the task of eating too!) 

• Refilling prescriptions

• Remembering to take medicine 

• Making doctors appointments when something is wrong

• Cleaning your home; making sure your space is tidy enough not to inhibit your daily life or get you sick 

• Prioritizing time with people who make you happy and leave you feeling rejuvenated 

• Finding a method/system for remembering appointments

Some of those are more fun than others–seeing our friends for example, isn’t a very hard one to motivate ourselves to do. Making doctors appointments and cleaning our house, however, isn’t really all that fun! Tasks like those, which are important to a healthy, happy, and well rested life, often go neglected because it really is just so hard to find the motivation to do those things–especially when we’re living in a world prone to burning us out already. 

And we’re now also facing the obstacles that come with the winter season. Many of us struggle even more this time of year due to the short, darker, colder days. We’re getting less sunlight and our brain is producing more melatonin because of that, which means we’re more likely to be tired all the time! 

So how can you motivate yourself to do boring self care tasks?

Stop all or nothing thinking: 

Is there a pile of dishes sitting in your sink? Maybe it’s been there for days and it just keeps getting bigger? And now, the bigger it is, the more daunting the task seems? Stop telling yourself you need to do it all at one time. Life is rarely all or nothing. 50% is pretty much always better than 0%! Tell yourself you’ll just start those annoying tasks (dishes, laundry, grocery prep, etc.) and after ten minutes or so, if you want to stop, you’re allowed to. 

Getting started is often the hardest part, especially when the task itself is so massive it feels like even if you start you’ll never finish.  When you tell yourself “I don’t have to finish the dishes, I just have to start them” you’re easing that pressure. Chances are? You’ll realize doing the dishes isn’t actually that bad and you’ll just finish them. And if not? Then some of your dishes are clean now when they weren’t before! 

Select part of the day to be “productive”

You’re not going to want to spend the whole day on boring tasks. If it’s hard to even get yourself started, you’ll never want to dedicate a whole day to it!  Instead, find ways to split the day into productive and non-productive chunks. Give yourself a starting time (“I’ll take a look at my to do list and decide what’s realistic to get done today at 1pm”) or a cut off time (“I’ll try to get what I can done before 3pm, but after that I’m going to rest.”)

Have a “life admin” buddy

Can you coordinate with a friend who might also struggle to get some boring self care done? Maybe the two of you can have cleaning dates where you help each other clean each other’s homes, or meal prep days where you cook or grocery shop together. You could start a monthly “tradition” of getting together to go through your calendars for the month and make sure all your appointments are in there with reminders and any info you’ll need for them. While the tasks themselves might not be fun, having a friend there can add in some joy (maybe even get you looking forward to it!) or just assure you that you’re not the only one who needs a little extra help with these “life admin” tasks sometimes. 

Give yourself a reward

There’s nothing wrong with making boring tasks more appealing with a treat! Maybe when you go grocery shopping, you could stop by the bakery section and pick yourself up a fresh baked treat as a reward for getting groceries. Another idea could be to make plans with friends after appointments you don’t enjoy (see a friend for lunch after a doctor’s appointment, etc) to make them more appealing! While you might not enjoy actually going to the doctor, making it a “rule” that you get something fun in return can help make it a more positive experience overall–and might help you to stop putting it off. 

If you're looking for more support, our therapists are trained in modalities like cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) to help you move from feeling hopeless to feeling empowered.

What are Coping Skills and Why Do I Have Them?

What are Coping Skills and Why Do I Have Them?

Have you ever heard the term “coping skills” and wondered what that means? Coping skills are pretty popular these days as a buzzword on social media and health websites. There are lots of great tips out there on how to use coping skills, but it’s harder to find information out there about what coping skills are and why we develop them in the first place.

Coping skills are strategies or tools that you can use to manage stressful or distressing situations. Coping skills let you decrease your level of stress and handle difficult emotions in a way that maintains your sense of internal order. 

Most of us have coping skills in one way or another - getting through life is hard, and we all need ways to support our journey.

Coping skills or strategies are a way to manage stress both in the moment and long-term. Stress can cause all kinds of negative problems, like irritability, heart problems, and sleep disturbances. 

Coping skills offer options for getting through moments of distress until you can find a safe place to process what’s going on. It’s not always feasible to feel and process everything you need to in the moment, especially when emotions are heightened. Coping strategies let you get through the moment until you’re able to find a safe place, like a therapy session, to unpack the situation. 

Coping skills come in two basic forms, problem-based and emotion-based. Some people also conceptualize coping skills as being short term, to get you through the moment, or long-term, to help maintain balance in your life. 

As the name suggests, problem-based coping skills come up when there’s a problem or situation that you need to deal with. Problem-based coping skills can also be useful for long-term coping. For example, if you find yourself chronically tired, a problem-based coping skill would be to develop a nighttime routine that works for you. It may take time to implement, but establishing the habit of getting a good night’s sleep can help prevent future stresses from overwhelming you. Emotion-based coping skills allow you to take care of your feelings when things are out of your control or when you’re overwhelmed in the moment. 

Someone who grows up in an emotionally abusive home would probably rely more on emotion-based coping strategies. Since the person being abused has no control over the abuse, emotion based coping skills can help them deal with the abuse until they can escape it. However, problem-based coping skills may be helpful to them when they are at an age where they can leave the abusive home. 

Here are some common coping strategies that people use to deal with tough situations: 

• Negative self talk

• Catastrophizing or other cognitive distortions

• Worrying

• Escaping through books, media, and imagination

• Self-soothing with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, etc.

• Compulsive behaviors like shopping or gambling

• Numbing out with alcohol or drugs

• Getting too much or too little sleep

• Self-harm

• Reckless behaviors, like driving too fast

While all of these coping skills can provide relief in the moment, these are not all supportive habits in the long term. Sometimes, the coping skills we use to protect ourselves get out of control. This can happen when folks rely on things like substances to cope, for example. 

Lots of times, people refer to certain coping skills as ‘healthy’ or “unhealthy”, although more helpful terms might be supportive or unsupportive.

Many of us developed coping strategies to get through hard times, like trauma or mental illness. Those coping skills allowed you to survive. It’s okay if you had to use coping skills that aren’t supportive long-term. Whatever coping skills you’ve had to use in the past, they’ve allowed you to keep going to where you are today. There’s nothing to be ashamed of! 

Although the coping strategies you’ve used up until now  might not be ideal for you currently, you are don’t have to view them as unhealthy. You can instead decide that you’re looking for coping strategies that are supportive of where you are right now, instead of relying on ones that have gotten you to this point so far. You can even go so far as to thank your old coping skills for helping you stay alive until now. If you’re looking to find some new coping skills that are more supportive of where you are now, you have options. 

It can be helpful to have a list of coping skills ready to go for a time when you’re feeling distressed or overwhelmed. When you’re in the moment, it can be hard to think clearly, especially when you’re upset. Having a list handy helps take away the need to come up with ways to support yourself, so you can just jump right in to using your coping strategies. 

Here are some coping strategies that you may find more supportive long-term:

• Progressive muscle relaxation

• Grounding techniques

• Breathwork

• Meditation or mindfulness practice

• Taking a bath

• Spending time outside 

• Cooking or baking

• Being creative

• Gardening

• Gentle physical movement

• Playing with a pet

• Listening to music

• Drinking a warm beverage

• Reading 

• Setting boundaries

• Going to therapy

If you’re looking for more support as you explore your coping skills and establish new ones, a therapist can help suggest skills that fit your needs. Unpacking your history of coping skills with a therapist can be a helpful way to identify what’s working and what isn’t! 

How to Move Through Grief with Kindness and Self-Compassion

How to Move Through Grief with Kindness and Self-Compassion

By Jamie Glidewell, LICSW, LCSW-C, LCSW, APHSW-C

“It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens” ~Pema Chodron

We will all weather the different storms that grief brings to us across our lifetime.  Grief is certain and inevitable and it can be an intense, emotional, scary and difficult experience and it can bring a multitude of emotions and a host of physiological symptoms and side effects as well.

To complicate our personal and unique experiences of grief, we live in a society that is generally dismissive of the grief experience which can exacerbate feelings of loneliness and isolation.

If there was ever a time to be kind to ourselves, it would be during the different seasons of our grief.

However, it is not uncommon that we become highly self-critical and particularly unforgiving to ourselves while we are grieving.

Common critical thoughts or sentiments that come up are worries that we are grieving incorrectly, that our grief is taking too long, that something is wrong with us, that we handled things poorly with our loved one, dwelling on what could have been different, thinking about the things we should or shouldn’t have done, the list goes on. Some complicated feelings that can accompany our grief are feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame, and regret; any combination of these emotions can exacerbate grief and also impact anxiety, sadness and depression.

Softening the hard edges of grief

There is not an antidote for grief but there is an approach that can soften the hard edges of our grief. This approach entails meeting yourself with kindness and self-compassion.  The goal is not to push aside, dismiss or ignore your feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame or regret.

More so, it is to treat yourself and talk to yourself in the same way that you would a trusted friend.  It is showing up for yourself amidst your pain and allowing yourself to hold two things at the same time. For example, it is acknowledging that you may feel guilty for the way you spoke to your loved one before they died, while also holding the truth that you are human and were doing the best you could at the time.

What exactly is self-compassion?

Does this sound too vague or ambiguous at first glance?  It may help to pause here and take a deeper dive into understanding what exactly is self-compassion.  Dr. Kristin Neff has spent her life’s work researching self-compassion and creating a base of knowledge that supports the understanding that self-compassion can increase motivation, happiness, self-worth, can foster resilience, and reduce psychological distress (Neff & Germer, 2018).  There are three components to self-compassion, and they include self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness (Neff & Germer, 2018):

1. Self-compassion relates to being able to sit with the discomfort of our pain and suffering without resorting to self-judgement, criticism, blame; it relates to being able to meet these difficult and dark moments with our eyes and hearts open and with a tone of sympathy and kindness; talking to ourselves the way we would a friend or loved one. 

2. Common Humanity relates to understanding and embracing the idea that we are imperfectly human and that part of this human experience involves the inevitability of pain and suffering. Common humanity reconnects us to each other during these difficult times instead of falling into the trap of withdrawal and isolation.

3. Mindfulness involves cultivating and maintaining an awareness of how we are doing and what we need in this moment and the next. It involves recognizing the feeling and sitting with it, essentially riding the waves of emotions as they come. This encourages a more balanced approach that doesn’t dismiss what we are feeling and also doesn’t exaggerate it.

How to put self-compassion into action with grief

Given that self-compassion involves kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, the question becomes how to best apply it to your experience of grief. Below are some helpful ways to meet grief with compassion

• Meet your grief with kindness. 

  • Be curious about what you are feeling and look out for the roadblocks of guilt, blame, shame and try to recognize the ways these emotions are impacting your overall experience with grief.  Realize there is room for forgiveness, even self-forgiveness in grief.

• Remember that suffering and grief are both an important and inevitable part of being human.

  • Remember that you are not alone in these painful moments.  Community can be a helpful way to process your grief and support groups (in-person, virtual, online, or through social media platforms) can bring deep meaning, connection and a felt sense of being understood. You will learn, and grow and change around your grief and even if you can’t feel this right now, trust your fellow humans who are right here beside you.

• Be present in your grief.

  • Ride the waves of grief as they come and trust that by sitting with the pain and difficult emotions it will allow the room you need to survive what sometimes feels intolerable and insurmountable.  By being mindful of your emotions you can also be attentive and caring to yourself, this circles right back to self-compassion and offers the opportunity to be gentle, sympathetic and kind to yourself as you grieve.

This approach encourages clarity and perspective that informs a gentler approach through your grief and actually increases the resiliency to feel the intensity of the emotions such as sadness and longing without them being overshadowed or squashed by the shame or guilt. Spending less time beating yourself up gives you more space and energy to grieve and take care of yourself while grieving. 

Expressions of self-compassion

Sometimes people ask how exactly they can express self-compassion to themselves; in other words, how they can practice self-compassion each day. Some specific expressions of self-compassion include the following:

• Trusting yourself

• Giving yourself permission to grieve fully and deeply

• Slowing down

• Remembering to breathe

• Allowing yourself to rest

• Giving yourself grace when you struggle with focus, motivation, attention (or anything else, as things that were easy before the loss may be wildly difficult or unavailable to you right now)

• Finding a creative outlet

• Letting people know what you need from them

• Practicing self-forgiveness

• Being kind to yourself! Watch out for the self-criticism. Rather than beating yourself up about things, instead simply notice self-critical thoughts and release them when they come back around (as they naturally will). 

• Physical acts of self-compassion: placing a hand on your heart and feeling the warmth and pressure of your hand, giving yourself a hug, squeezing your hands together.

Above all, be patient with your grief and be patient with the journey towards self-compassion.  They both take time and self-compassion takes practice.

References: Neff, K., & Germer, C. K. (2018).The mindful self-compassion workbook: A proven way to accept yourself, build inner strength, and thrive. Guilford Press.

3 Coping Skills for Managing Depression

Are you finding your depression hard to manage?

For many people with chronic depression, the severity of that depression waxes and wanes. While there may be consistent symptoms you need to manage day to day, when you hit a severe depressive episode those symptoms can worsen and be more difficult to manage. 

And while regular therapy and medication are an excellent treatment plan for chronic depression, it can be helpful to have a few coping skills of your own to use in times like these when you need some extra care. 

If you’re unsure if what you’re experiencing is depression, here are a few signs to look out for: 

• Depressed mood

• Feeling empty or numb

• Loss of interest or pleasure things you used to like

• Fluctuations in weight

• Problems with sleep (too much or too little)

• Feeling restless 

• Feeling irritable

• Loss of energy

• Feeling worthless

• Excessive or inappropriate guilt

• Trouble focusing on tasks

• Indecisiveness

• Thoughts of self-harm or suicide 

When you’re in a deep depressive episode it can be extremely difficult to get yourself to do things. That’s why things like regular therapy and medication can be so important to the treatment of depression. They act as the foundation, to help provide you with steady support as you manage a chronic condition. 

But there are small actions we can take to help ourselves when we find ourselves in a dark place. While none of these things are magic cure alls–none of them are going to magically cure your depression overnight–they are healthy coping tools you can use to make it easier to get through those times. By utilizing them, while you may not be “solving” your depression, you will be incorporating actions that can help your energy levels, your care for yourself, and help you to not feel so overwhelmed by whatever symptoms you’re experiencing. 

Incorporate Gentle Movement:

Exercise is one of the most frequent suggestions for depression coping tools. But you don’t need to have a gym membership or even do an arduous workout in order to get the benefits that exercise provides. Instead, focus on movement that is gentle and enjoyable–or if not enjoyable then at least bearable. It shouldn’t be an activity you dread or struggle to accomplish. Keep it simple: go for a walk, play with a pet, turn some music on and dance a bit, go outside and garden, etc. 

Socialize:

When you’re feeling depressed, it can be very easy to self isolate. And that is for a lot of reasons! You might not feel like you have enough energy to see people, you might be feeling worse about yourself than usual which can make being around friends less enjoyable, your normal activities might not hold as much excitement for you, you might be feeling embarrassment or shame at your current state (as depression often leads us to struggle caring for ourselves and our hygiene). All of these things (and others) make being social while you’re depressed feel impossible and pointless. We understand! However, while getting started is difficult, allowing yourself supportive socialization can be beneficial! 

Think about it like taking a shower: It seems like a chore, and for whatever reason, motivating yourself to get into the shower is always arduous. But once you’re in there you realize you actually do feel better, getting clean and fresh! The same sort of thing can happen when socializing during a difficult time. While working up the energy and the motivation to do it can seem just about impossible, actually being around people who love and support you does make a difference. 

Add Small Amounts of  Variety and Joy into Your Life: 

Getting stuck in a rut can exacerbate the feelings that come along with a particularly bad depressive episode. But as we discussed above, motivating yourself to do anything while depressed is difficult! So here, we recommend baby steps. Just try to do one thing each day that is different to the day before. Maybe change the room you eat a meal in from day to day, or walk around your neighborhood with a different route. Even small amounts of variety can help mitigate that feeling of “same day, forever” that so often comes with depression, adding small amounts of brightness to your day. 

If you're looking for more support managing depression, our therapists are trained in modalities like cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) to help you move from feeling hopeless to feeling empowered.