"We accept the love we think we deserve."

I finally got to sit down and watch The Perks of Being a Wallflower, written and directed by Stephen Chbosky. I knew I was going to be intrigued by the movie just from the trailer and highlight of the quote "we accept the love we think we deserve." I had NO idea how much depth this movie would have and how emotionally invested I would become. Honestly I don't know why I'm surprised by this. I was an emotional person prior to having a child and now almost anything can make me sob like a blabbering baboon. Unstable? no...I know when I can release and when to keep it together. Anyway..NOT ABOUT ME.

This beautiful beautiful quote means so much to me and I believe it is the core of so many of the presenting issues that I discuss on a daily basis while in session. 

"How do I FIND these people to get into a relationship with?"

"Why is my friend such a jerk to me?"

"My boss just feels like she can bulldoze me on a daily basis!"

Ok, I will start with that not all of these presenting issues are solved by one simple quote but it's a good starting point. Just like any other subject and therapy sessions, a thousand different elements come into play.

It is so crucially important to define for yourself what you believe you deserve. Define what you require in people in your lives. I have a past post about expectations which may appear to contradict this concept but everything in balance. I encourage every single client of mine to create a list of the "must-haves" for personal relationships. I think what is missing is what you will not stand for. Many girls for instance, have on their list, must be nice, have a job, want a family... yadda yadda yadda. The particulars are what is missing I believe. I want you to be specific about what you deserve...

For example:

My mate will respect my professional decisions and career aspirations
My mate will not attempt to manipulate my feelings

My mate will communicate with me regarding concerns about our relationship

Initially, your partner may not have all of these on the list. No I'm not saying CHANGE your partner but know what you are looking for so that if by chance your partner is willing to listen to your relationship aspirations and attempt to meet those needs, you will be prepared. With that being said, be open to your partners needs as well. You may have not envisioned particular needs by your partner but may come to the conclusion that it's no big deal to meet their needs as well! And that my friends, is communication of needs and dedication to working together in a respectful partnership.

My dad may not believe that I listen to anything that he says but one thing stands out to me when discussing relationships. Early in my marriage I wanted things to be "50-50" to make sure that I wasn't being taken advantage of and that things were FAIR. What I failed to realize was that I was focusing not only on what I was giving to the relationship but what I was receiving. My dad said that a relationship will only work when each partner is putting in 100%. Logically this makes absolutely no sense right? Umm...Herlloooo...that makes 200%! Besides this tiny detail, we need to make sure we are giving 100% in our relationships as well as engaging in relationships with others that are willing to give 100%. And that 100% standard can only come when you set it.

Disconnect from the need to be heard and defined.

“Disconnect from the need to be heard and defined. Go out into the world, leave distractions behind.”

Post inspired by this video-
http://blog.petflow.com/a-video-everyone-needs-to-see/#eQbAvVllb2tTpbql.01

 I realize as I begin this post the hypocrisy of it all but the reality is that this message may not get to as many as I’d like without the use of social media and technology. Obviously this is not an original thought with being inspired by this video and we’ve heard many make an effort to highlight the fact that we lack actual physical interaction with the ease and comfort of typing our thoughts onto a screen rather than sharing them in person. Again, please know that I recognize the hypocrisy. This video has been circulating Facebook for quite some time and I always passed by it to get a quick glance of the next breaking news post someone posted underneath it. Turns out, it really gives a nice wake up call to how much time we spend on our screens rather than interacting.

 My post is not another groundbreaking wake up to get off social media but to rather look at how we feel based on using social media. I look at it as a drug or any other stimulant that anyone is very capable of getting addicted to but can also be ok in moderation. … not like heroin or meth. (“But my therapist said meth in moderation was ok!”) No. I’m talking about a parallel of a glass of wine in the evening. We feed into social media because it rewards us for positive things that we say. We instantly get affirmed with a “like” or a comment telling us exactly what we are hoping to hear. Just like any other addiction, I challenge you to evaluate what you are seeking when posting to social media and what might be missing in your daily life that you feel you like affirmation from the world. Let me again recognize that I am not on any pedestal and that this whole concept is a challenge for me as well.

 To make another comparison, health food vs. junk food. As much as I would like to say this is no challenge for me either, I’d be lying. I have experienced that eating correct portions of healthy foods rather than binging on double stuffed Oreos (sweet mother of pearl I just got a craving), makes me feel a thousand times better in the long run. Just as when I sit on social media and maybe get a “like” or two or three…or four…HOW MANY MORE CAN I GET! I instantly get gratified with the response and endorphins start firing and I’m rewarded and I want to do it again. Just like any other instant gratification…this fades and I’m waiting around for the next moment to get a hit. Just like drugs, just like double stuffed Oreos. I need to make the conscious decision to socialize, have coffee with a friend, listen to what is happening in someone elses' life, go for a run, take my dog for a walk, or play with my daughter. These activities, like eating my vitamins and protein or going to be sustainable and long lasting. Leaving me with a sense of fulfillment rather than waiting for my next hit of instant gratification.

 What if you don’t have a dog, or a child, or a partner or even friends? Put yourself in an opportunity to create those connections. I know this may be difficult but it’s worth the challenge. And if you are having trouble with that, I bet a therapist would be wiling to help you along the way ☺

The Circle of Life and everything in between

It's been a while so I may be a bit rusty. I need to get back into the swing of things so this post is a conglomerate of thoughts that I'm attempting to put into one theme but aren't all of my posts. 

Recently, phases has been a reoccurring thought. When looking at childhood you might hear parents say, "oh were in this phase or were in that phase." The terrible twos, the pre-teen years, the teen years!, the exploration finding yourself college years..." And then that's where it ends. We somehow make exceptions for rocky periods in our life but only until the age of 22. Past 22, good luck. If you're experiencing a rough patch then you must be terrible at life! Sarcasm.. Stay with me. What we as as adults must understand is that we will be entering a new phase every so often until the day that we die. That sounds super dramatic but it's the truth! 

Whether it be parenthood, marriage, change is career, relationships changes, family struggles or something that doesn't even fit into a category... We need to remember that this too is just a phase. Forgive yourself for not being perfect and remember that just like you got through learning how to not pee your pants.. You'll learn how to work out the current phase.

I can't take credit for a beautiful analogy that was made by Amy Batchman but she describe the similarities between birth and death. To enter the world... Your loved ones experiences contractions. Short painful periods that slowly build the closer a child gets to entering the world. During death we experiencing similar "contractions" of short painful periods that may not go away but will lessen in frequency over time. 

Life, beginning with birth and ending at death will always have phases. Allow yourself some grace in understanding that "this too shall pass."

Overall Picture

Aaaaand I'm back. I apologize for the brief recess in activity as I'm sure all of you couldn't go on functioning without waiting for my next monumental thought :) It has been a rough couple months for me with multiple changes and adjustments....new life...death...transitions and such. After taking a much needed mental health break from my own mental functioning, my brain was able to start ticking again with free thought.

So, where my mind lead me to today is the purpose of what I do and why I do it. With my husband coming from a retail position professionally, his goal is to have as many repeat customers as possible and for as long as possible. From a business standpoint I should have this same mentality as well. However, fundamentally and morally I don't think I have follow this concept in order to be doing my job effectively. We have heard the old adage, "If you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, If you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime." With this in mind, my personal and professional goal is not to help each client to work through each individual problem but rather to look at the bigger picture to identify the method in which the problem occurred.

I work with a volatile population that unfortunately lives in a constant state of chaos, unfortunately. We may think, oh that's just those people that can't figure out how to live their lives. False. Yes, individuals are definitely better off with larger support system, higher income, access to resources and so forth. If you are blessed enough to have these circumstances, congratulations, you have a greater chance at surviving chaos than others. However, do not put yourself on any pedestal because you still have work to do just like everyone else in this world. In order to "teach how to fish" one must look at the common denominator in continuing problems rather than varying factors.

For example, one might say to themselves, "EVERYONE is driving me insane! At work, people are constantly picking apart the work that I do, when I come home, my husband is just always getting on my nerves, my children cannot stop fighting with each other AND I am still not in the car that I told myself I would be driving at this age!"

There are several different factors in this that could be picked apart bit by bit. Exploration of work environment, marriage counseling and communication techniques, parenting skills, and personal expectations. Addressing each issue would be "giving a fish." What we need to do is address the underlying issue that may be affecting this individual's perception of chaos in each area of their life. A therapist can significantly help you with processing through your thoughts and emotions but if you give it a try you might be able to find your answer on your own. Think about the common denominator in all issues that may arise. Is this something that you can change about yourself that will effect all of these different areas? Are you not listening to something that your body is trying to tell you or are you not communicating a feeling that you didn't even know you had. Practice mindfulness and internally investigate. This will teach you how to fish rather than eating your TV dinner and calling it a day.

Music for Brain and Body

My go to resource is music. As as child I always hated Sunday afternoons because my parents refused to have anything other than classical music or Gregorian Monk chants piping through the house. This was supposed to help us wind down and focus for the week by completing all of our homework that we obviously didn't start until Sunday at 6pm. To this day, whenever I hear chanting or classical music I am instantly transported back to laying on my living room pale blue carpet in front of the fireplace trying to figure out my stupid algebra homework. As I'm sure I will say multiple times through this journey...son of a....they were right. It helped put my body at ease and helped me hone in on the present and what was in front of me.

To transport this concept to modern day relaxation I feel as though I have found a gold mine through Pandora. Enya ..ya know the amazingly proclaimed billionaire music genius... is my go to girl. The smooth tones and quiet meditation background provides a soothing environment for any feeling that is going on.

One of my greatest therapeutic moments so far is when a 17 year old female client told me she was watching one of her friends become angry at lunch and she said "you need some Enya in your life." I couldn't help from busting out laughing but SHE GOT IT! She will still say, "you're going to make me listen to Enya while were doing this huh?" and I will say.."Yep!"

It is like kryptonite. The moment I turn on Enya Pandora, I see their brains begin to work, or their posture begin to relax.

To tie a few concepts together, once we have realized what emotion we are feeling and recognize that we need to cope somehow to deal with that feeling, we need to resort to our toolbox to find what will work. To this day, whenever I feel my chest begin to tighten and my thoughts begin to race, I recognize I am experiencing anxiety. I go to my mental "toolbox" of coping skills, find Enya Pandora, lay flat on my back on the floor with palms facing upward, close my eyes and breath deeply. With each breath, focus on releasing the tension of one particular muscle until every part of your body is heavy to the ground. The sounds are not to be focused on but rather help remove the distraction of silence or external noise. Don't believe it will work? Give it a try and fill me in on how it went.

Coping

Coping is a beautiful thing. If you are anything like my teenage clients you might be saying, "what's... Cop (like a policeman) -ing". And then I saying "Co-ping" like collaborate. No, what am I saying, I don't say collaborate at all. Once we get past the pronunciation of coping, we dive into the wonderful world of making it through.

One major key point to recognize here, at least in my opinion, is that coping may get us through but we may not be out of the gate. Dependent on the situation, coping may be a means of maintaining functionality but we must be careful not to use it as denial. I've had plenty of teenagers tell me, "yeah I got so mad at my brother... He made me feel this (tiny space between fingers) big in front of my friends". I then say, "How did you respond to that?" (Assuming the goal is anger management). Enter client response, "I just played video games by myself for a couple of hours and then I was fine."

Fantastic, you didn't push your brother down the stairs and were able to control yourself. You coped by removing yourself from the situation and you made it through. But we are not done yet. We have merely pushed the feeling deep down to where it is unrecognized or due to being distracted by shooting zombies. In my book, coping gets you from A to B on an A to C journey. Once we have made it through to function appropriately in whatever setting we are in we need to face the emotion that we needed to distract ourselves from momentarily. In this case, our friend here felt maybe a little bit embarrassed, betrayed, and hurt my his brother. In order to face the root of the problem we need to communicate the issue at hand. Looks like its time for a little brotherly heart to heart. If this means mediation by mom or dad so be it. To take it a step further we need to communicate how we feel rather than pointing the action the other person took to give you that feeling response. Rather than "I can't believe you said all that stuff in front of my friends!" We need to share, "I felt embarrassed when I heard you say (specific statement) in front of my friends, and somewhat betrayed because you are my brother and I thought we were here to protect each other."

"You statements" cause defensiveness.
"I statements" communicate feelings.

But until you are calm enough, whether that be coming down from anger, anxiety, sadness, or fearfulness, cope in any healthy way you can. That doesn't mean go finish a 5th of vodka or sleep for 16 hours. Everything in moderation.

Just a hint, breathing works wonders ;)

Expectations

To start off, I hope you recognize there is no rhyme or reason to my postings nor is there a schedule. I wait until something strikes me as important to share. I'm passionate about therapy (hopefully right?) and only want to share my thoughts if they are meaningful.

The theme of my sessions and personal life this week has been expectations. Perspective can instantly change how you feel about about a situation or person. It is absolutely incredible how much power each person has if they could recognize how they view the world can change their life. To give a personal example, today is Valentine's Day: a day filled with flowers, chocolates, poems and love letters. We only think of it this way because that is how our society has labeled it and what we have come to expect. Now, brace yourselves because this could be interpreted as incredibly negative but hear me out. What would the world look like if we changed our expectations? What if we didn't expect roses and chocolates or poems or love letters? What if instead we created our own version of excitement? My husband and I decided to get hot wings for dinner on our first Valentine's Day together. I couldn't tell you the explanation for it but for whatever reason, we decided to boycott the flamboyant romantic evening of candles and rose petals and GOT WINGS! Yeeeah! We recreated the expectation for the holiday and created our own perspective of how to celebrate our relationship. Today we "got wings" for the 5th year in a row and plan to get wings for every Valentine's Day for the rest of our lives. Some of you (ahem, my father) might be saying, "Well now you have just changed your expectation to something different and you're going to be disappointed if you don't go next year!" True statement, however, in my opinion, there is a difference between planned tradition and unrealistic expectation.

Traditions are an important part to stability and structure. These I would consider to be realistic expectations due to all parties involved having the same understanding of said events. Unrealistic expectations become problematic when we set standards for others that they may not be able to carry out. Again, GRAYSCALE, there is never a right or wrong answer because then you could argue that you are lowering the bar or not believing in others to succeed to whatever standard is set! Have I lost you yet? Meditations of a therapist, I could go on forever...

To make myself clear, we have to observe our thoughts to recognize what expectations we set for others and recognize if these standards are merely setting ourselves up for disappointment or do we need to change our perspective.

Example:

Expectation - "My boyfriend is going to get me a bouquet of Lilies (because he knows me so well...duh!) and then probably take me out to a super nice dinner."

Result -"My boyfriend got me roses for Valentine's day...He knows my favorite flower is a Lily! Ugh, so disappointing"

Altered Expectation - "It would be really sweet if my boyfriend got me something but I know he's been working all day.. I wonder what I could get HIM for Valentine's Day" (Focus only on what you can control - See Post 1)

Altered Result - "Oh my gosh! I can't believe he took time to get me flowers even though he was so busy! I hope he enjoys what I got him!"

When we change our expectations and alter our perspective on situations, our entire feeling world can change and we can come to appreciate what we receive, or Hell, even feel better about giving to others rather than focusing on receiving.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone...

Expect Nothing...Be Grateful for Everything and in the mean time.. All we can do is keep breathing...