Those damn jeans...

The battle of weight and size and how you are supposed to look is nauseating and appears to be never ending beginning who the hell knows when...middle school? elementary school? Whatever the case, we need to break this vicious routine of beating ourselves up for our body size, shape, appearance in general. I am no stranger to roller coaster scales. I was a varsity athlete in high school followed by a love affair with pizza and beer during my first two years of college. Let's just say the "freshman 15" was a little bit more like "freshman 50". Through this process, I obviously needed to do some deep meditation to find self love and am happy to say after two pregnancies and massive fluctuations of weight, I have realized what a fluid process your exterior can take and how solid you are capable of keeping your insides.

Ideally, we like to think that as long as we are in this 1-2 pound range, then we are where we want to be. Or unfortunately, like I hear many and how I used to talk to myself, I just need to lose 10 more pounds, 20 more pounds, 50 more pounds! But guess what, no I'm not going to say, forget your goals, stay exactly as you are. Health is fabulous. Work hard to feel good, stay active and eat healthy but we have to stop punishing ourselves in the process. Do you have any idea how grand it feels to pull on a pair of jeans, button them comfortably, and have them hug the curves of your body perfectly? No? Then you are punishing yourself. Do you have any idea how empowering it is to wear clothing that does not distract you from enjoying your life, focusing on what's in front of you? No? Then you are punishing yourself. If you have clothing in your closet that is hurtful to wear, a struggle to button, then yes, maybe at one point you were able to wear it but just because something in your life has happened that has changed your physique, you do not need to force yourself to wear them now. IT IS OK TO WEAR CLOTHING THAT FITS YOUR BODY REGARDLESS OF THE NUMBER!

This is more for my ladies out there, but this evening I'm watching Eat, Pray, Love with a hearty glass of wine. (tipsy blogging-yes). There's a line where Julia Roberts is asking her friend if at any moment after she undresses in front of a man, does he excuse her from the room. No, because he's one lucky bastard to have a naked lady standing in front of him.

We have to stop worrying about what we look like and start realizing what we have to experience.

Balance

I never in a million years would have thought I would want to be a stay at home mom. This week I returned to work after a 7 week maternity leave following the birth of my second child. I now have a 23 month old girl and 7 week old girl. Tell those stats to my 23 year old self and I would say there's no way in hell I'd be able to stay home all day with THAT! As I began to make my comments here and there about not wanting to return to work, my husband absolutely LOVED to remind me of that 23 year old self. "Oh how the tables have turned!" With all of the adjustment physically, emotionally, logistically and not to mention hormonally I wasn't about to make a drastic decision to end my career in one fall swoop. Alas, I begrudgingly had to get ready for work. After I fed my youngest and got her snug in her crib for a nap, I sat in a rocking chair with my 23 month old for a few games of peek a boo and singing songs in funny voices. My husband luckily was going to be watching the girls for my first day back since our sitter was out of town. Normally I would have to seek him out to take watch but this time he had to remind me it was time to go to work.. He picked up my toddler and like a scorned child I made my way up the stairs to shower.

Before you get too depressed, this story does have a happy ending. 

As I'm driving into work I started to rack my brain thinking, "What the hell happened to me!?" And then I realized that I had just found another part of myself. Apparently it just took me about 2 years to really get here. 

I got to work, got a beautiful welcome from colleagues along with text messages and calls from family and friends checking in to see how my first day back was going. It was odd is the only way I can describe...somehow living a former life that seemed like ages ago after sleepless nights and diaper changing 24/7 just after 7 weeks.

As I laid back down in bed at 4:30am after a feeding for my tiniest angel, I began to recount the mental activity of the day and realized the excitement I was experiencing from triggering a different part of my brain. I actually did enjoy going back to work! 

...THANK GOD because that would have been rough! 

My point in all of this is to remember that we are not one dimensional. It is ok be the yin AND the yang. We can hold many parts within ourselves. The important and crucial part (for me in particular) is not to lose those parts as we experience new. So for my working moms, remember that it's ok to have that desire to tap into that side of your brain while still wanting to wipe away tears after a bad dream. And for my stay at home moms, remember that you are multi dimensional and deserve to tap into other parts of your brain. 

We all have a right to balance. Don't be afraid to experience your "other selves". It may be terrifying to branch out from what is familiar but it is so worth it. 

Creative Parenting

For some reason, as I was driving home from work last night I had a vivid memory of my childhood. One thing that my parents were very good about was having us all sit down together for dinner. Sometimes this turned into great conversation later in life but early on was pretty much a $h*t show. I was probably in the 2nd or 3rd grade and between 2 out of the 4 of us children, someone started name calling. This could be a fabricated image but I can see both of my parents tiredly spooning dinner and staring blankly out the window. After a few rounds of irritable behavior between my siblings and I, one of my parents, said, "If you're going to insult each other, at least be creative about it." Again, could be a complete fabrication, but I feel as though my brothers and sisters looked at each other confused thinking..."Is this a trick?"

Soon enough, after a few rounds of ridiculous "donkey food" "pig droppings" & "booger face" we were all laughing in hysterics. What could have turned into a screaming match, followed by upset children not eating their dinner, turned into joy and togetherness. I don't remember what was for dinner that night but I can bet that we happily ate our food for the remainder of dinner.

For all of my puzzled siblings, I don't discount that tired screaming matches happened on other night, my parents were human just like everyone else. But for a brief moment, let's give them some credit.

This whole memory got me thinking about a concept I learned in my first job at Directions for Youth and Families working with families in a social work style environment.

Misbehavior = Needs not being met

The memory I described earlier could have been a fluke but I'd like to think there was something behind it. Could it have been that whichever one of my siblings was angry that night (could have been me) forgot how to laugh with my brothers and sister and forgot that these people are my best friends. That need of inclusion may have not been met. Through this creative parenting, the needs of my siblings and I were met by feeling inclusion with each other.

It's easier to recognize this concept in infancy. The babies crying = might be hungry, might be tired, might need attention, something might hurt. Granted, I know there are outliers of cranky babies but you get my point. We tend to forget this later in life. When the 4 year old is hitting, he might be missing his need of learning how to communicate or the need of feeling special. When the 10 year old didn't do her homework, maybe she's missing the need of understanding the information or feeling empowered or confident to complete the homework assignment. Discipline means to teach rather than punish. Challenge yourself to find the missing need and meet that need rather than punish the symptom or the misbehavior.

Guest Post: The Vacation Ramblings of a High Class Bum.

Hi. I am Tom, Kate's Dad and partly responsible for the way Kate has turned out. The vacations we took to Florida around Christmas time were part of that partliness. I have just returned from another successful trip to the Keys with Gretchen (2nd wife) Nick and Emily (step-kids).  It was successful on several levels.

First of all, prior to going down, I had read a book called "Essentialism" by GregMcKeowm. Now the motorhome has seen better days and gas prices (except for the recent dip) has made it rather uneconomecal to drive, so I proposed sleeping in a tent. There was a wee bit of resistance to overcome  but I am happy to report that it was an overall successfull outcome. We need to take two twin size air mattresses next time instead of one queen and cover them with the mattress topper to eliminate the argument about the firmness of the mattress (my back likes it softer) and  in a perfect world I need to engineer a ceiling fan for the tent. But overall, we stayed dry during the one drenching all night rain and the breeze was lovely. We could do NOTHING about the New Years partiers at 330am. 

One of the places Gretchen, Nick and Emily visited this year was the Turtle Hospital. It is located in Marathon Key and cares for Green and Loggerhead turtles that are injured by boat propellers or by eating plastic. Gretchen said the stories of the turtles make you never want to buy things in plastic again. They were very interested and  sent pics to Anda (Kate's Sister) who was a "Turtle Tech" on Cumberland Island and who once saved Grechen and I from tenting there a second sweltering Georgia July night-part of that resistance mentioned above. 

Key West and the street performers were seen by Nick and Emily for their first time. One of the performers has been there for at least 10 years doing the same show. He said "If it still works, why change it?" The show lasts for about 10-15 minutes, he passes the hat and he goes home. He says that he pays 600/mo to the city of Key West in fees (20 bucks a night) I don't know if he has a day job too.  He is entertaining.  Another show featured a man with a trained pot bellied pig which was ummmm...a bit less thrilling. If I had a sidewalk "talent", I could easily see myself become a high class bum. (I would have a pension)

Gretchen and I did fight on this trip. The book "Unbroken" about Louie Zamparini, a WWII POW, was on the Kindle and the book "Boundaries" was in paperback. I was hogging the Kindle. If you read about Louie and the things he endured you will really have a hard time convincing yourself how anything you are facing is a problem. You will also have a hard time understanding how inhuman we can be to each other. 

I find that the more frazzled I become before vacation, the more I want to withdraw on vacation.......from the world. Returning home, we were getting breakfast in the microtel lobby and CNN news was on the TV. Some story about a missing airline and wreckage was playing. It made absolutely no difference in my life other than disturbing my recently reaquired Keys calm. Garbage in, garbage out.  We finished eating and headed backed to the car.  On long road trips an old duker like me is easily impressed with technology like Pandora, smart phones and automobiles that allow you to play them through your car speakers. So after listening to show tunes, 70's rock and classical music, we put in some Zig Ziglar.  There was one road trip when Kate got to listen to Tony Robbins all night. I don't remember anything in particular that Tony said, but Zig said a few things worth repeating. Probably a few things I was guilty of NOT doing enough.  He spoke of having to
hoe several rows of beans (8 miles long :) ) as an 8 yr old. He rushed through it and had to have his mother inspect it.  She said he had done a good enough job for most kids, but not for her son. He was better than that. He could do a better job.  Zig said that she had critisized the performance but praised the performer. He was glad to have learned the difference at a very young age. I am an old duker, but better late than never. That sort of goes along with the other thing he said about anything worth doing is worth doing poorly..........and by that he meant that no one is expert at anything they try doing for the first time.

Zig also likes to talk about prosperity, but I've decided that without understanding, prosperity is over-rated. I have this poster titled What is Life? with 75 or so quotations on it about life and one is from Soren Kierkegaard. Can't say I ever heard of him before but he said "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards". Now I did get an "A" in Logic in college and I think if true, that quotation means that we are pretty much going to be confused our whole lives. 

I think the trick is not to worry about it too much.....and if you do worry too much....go to the Keys for a little while.

Relationship Self-Esteem

I got to thinking the other day about how my husband and I have been together for 7 1/2 years. I know this is no feat deserving of any medals or accolades but still worth a thought of "how did we make it this far without killing each other?" I have a strong personality and my husband as well so when we've got something to say, we usually don't hold back (which can be wildly entertaining for some).

Through all of that I try to pick apart and analyze how we do make it because aside from the nastiness we throw at each other sometimes, we can find our way back to happy love (far different from angry love or sad love). 

I made an earlier post about positive self talk and training your brain to believe that you are worth everything and regardless of what you hear or go through, you can come out on the other end feeling great about yourself. I've said that if my positive self-talk was ever outwardly verbalized I'd sound like the cockiest person alive (but that's the whole point of SELF-talk not real talk).

Anyway, my point in revisiting all of this is that you can also apply those same strategies to your relationship. Nick and I probably sound like the cockiest couple if you heard our conversations. We are constantly acknowledging our ability to talk through problems and vocalize what is on our minds. We pride ourselves on building a friendship inside of our relationship. Anyone out there thinking...well that's just damn fantastic Kate but we're not able to do that in our relationship. Super! Ok not super but that's ok because just like self-talk when building your self-esteem you have to start somewhere. 

When Nick and I started dating we established what we wanted our relationship to look like. We didn't want to build resentment, we wanted to be able to tell each other everything free of judgement, we wanted to be able to compromise knowing we were going to disagree. These desires can be established at any point in a relationship. Set a new creed for your relationship! Give it a rebirth! Then something beautiful happens... A self fulfilling prophecy.

There's a promise and an investment in this new creed if you both agree on it. A few months ago I vocalized something that was bothering me that I wasn't feeling supported on. I was met with defensiveness (strong personality :D always fun) but I was able to remind him that this is not how we decided we were going to handle things. I was supposed to be able to voice my concerns and not be met with judgement but rather move towards resolution. (Trick to this is being able to swallow the defensiveness when you're being confronted as well.) With that reminder we were able to get back to what our words reminded us of what we are as a couple and the only way we could have done that is with the ridiculous cocky conversations that happen behind close doors. We don't know what the future holds but if I'm hoping if we focus on the "now", we can get to the future.

There are plenty of other communication techniques that can be worked on and applied but first let's build up the relationship self-esteem even if building on the small things.

So go ahead and fist bump your partner with a reminder that "we got this."

Therapy "Graduation"

This term was coined by one of my teen clients years ago and it made me chuckle a bit. I never viewed therapy as a program or something to "graduate" from but of course in our capitalist world of competition and achievement, it only makes sense.

Ironically, I don't agree with it. Yes, you can get to a point of feeling good and not feeling to need to process whatever is going on in your world but I don't feel that we ever "graduate" from our life problems. It is one of my favorite moments in the therapy process when a client comes in after 3 or 4 weeks and says, "well, I was sad for a day like 2 weeks ago, and then last week I got a little irritated at a co-worker so I guess I still have some work to do."

Que me, "So, you're telling me that in a 4 week span, you got "sad" for 1 day and then got "a little irritated" 2 weeks later?"

Client looking at me quizzically.

Me: "Sooooo, YOU'RE HUMAN!"

It's so interesting to me to see the night and day transformation from the beginning of therapy towards the end. All of a sudden the standards that are established are perfection. It is so important to keep balance in life. Yes, we need to be aware of what we can improve on and be aware of how we are functioning day to day but we also need to remember that if we aren't perfect in our emotional regulation everyday then we are not failures. WE ARE HUMAN. I emphasize WE because even though I preach, doesn't mean I'm perfect at it either, just ask my mother or my father or my siblings...or my friends...or my husband...oh boy the list keeps going. WAIT! I'm human! As long as we are monitoring how to resolve those moments of emotional dysfunction then we need to forgive ourselves. I'm not saying to cuss somebody out and then say, "my therapist says I'm not perfect and I need to forgive myself so whatever." No, recognize it and resolve it. But don't beat yourself up in the meantime.

We will be forever working on ourselves and that's just as healthy as any "graduation".

The Road to Self Actualization

I was inspired this evening by one of my client's which funny enough she stated, "This can be your next blog!". Congratulations! you've been my inspiration :D

I'm not sure if you know this about me, but one of the largest influences of my life and probably a majority of the reason I became a therapist is because I had an amazing therapeutic experience myself, sitting on the couch rather than across from it.

I remember walking down 17th Ave. on Ohio State's Campus heading to my next class just smiling. I couldn't contain my joy and wanted to call someone. I remember going through my phone trying to get someone to answer. Finally someone answered, my dad, and I said, "Hi!" ...he said "hello"....pause pause...waiting for the purpose of my call. I followed it up by, "How are you?" ...followed by ..."good"...pause pause...waiting for the purpose of my call. And then it dawned on me, that I had finally gotten to a point in my life that I was content enough to get out of my own head and see how someone else was doing. Obviously this was not a typical action on my part considering the confusion of the simple question "how are you?" and there being no other purpose to the call. I don't even know if he remembers this call but it was a very impacting moment for me.

This post may not seem to have much content but it's actually very important. We are covered in layers upon layers of "things" and "plans" and general dysfunction that we can't even see the things that are around us.

I know that every single time I left therapy, I felt a weight lifted and saw things a bit clearer. Seriously, just like the Claritin commercial. Tonight my client had one of those moments and it was beautiful. She was able to see something or be aware of something that she didn't even think was important in the beginning. Just like when you watch a movie or read a book for the 2nd or 3rd time, you notice something different, there are so many things going on in your life that you may not see right now but they're still there.

Do yourself a favor, attempt to clear whatever dysfunction or clouding layers that you may have in your life so that you can see what's around you and maybe even see if somebody else needs some help.

:)