Archives for 2016

Audio Journaling: The Healing Power of Your Own Voice

November 23, 2016 by Nicole Urdang

One is one’s own refuge. Who else could be the refuge?
The Buddha

For years I have wanted to tape a recording of all the things I wish I could say to each and every one of you. Every compassionate, kind, gentle, patient, accepting, affirming, understanding, appreciative, and supportive thought to make you feel as good and right in yourself as you possibly can. I let this idea steep for years. Luckily, waiting was the right choice since I found something better to share with you.

In an interview on the Sounds True podcast between Tami Simon and Cheri Huber, Cheri raved about her process called Recording and Listening. You simply record yourself saying anything you think will help you. It could be gentle reminders of your resiliency, nurturing words of compassion and support, lists of things you are grateful for, meaningful quotes, or anything you wish were being said to you, or wish had been said to you as a child. Hearing yourself say these things out loud is far more powerful than anyone else saying them to you.

As I always like to experiment with new techniques before I suggest them, I downloaded a free app called Voice Recorder from Tap Media Ltd. It is so incredibly simple and intuitive to use I was recording in no time.

At first, this may seem awkward and you might not know what you want to say. Take a few slow, deep breaths into your heart and just see what comes up. As you continue to record things you want to hear you will get more comfortable with the process, even if you think you dislike the sound of your own voice. Be patient, it’s a new skill set.

Of course, half of this practice is actually listening to what you recorded. You can listen any time you want an emotional boost, a reminder of your resiliency, a connection to the part of you that helps you feel safe, or you crave some unconditional self-acceptance. It can also be very helpful to listen before you go to sleep as your defenses melt into unconsciousness and you can open up to really hearing every loving, supportive, emotionally generous thought you have for yourself.

To jump start this practice just go to one of the following chapters on this site and record whatever parts of it you find most helpful:

Affirmations for self-empowerment and emotional freedom

Quotes to life by

Litany of love

Poems

Manifesto for emotional self care

Manifesto II: How to write yours

It’s OK Sweetheart

Linda Graham, MFT, has a beautiful protocol that allows you to create a resource called The Compassionate Friend in your mind. This friend imagery can be reinforced through an audible recording that feels supportive, safe and loving.

Here are her slightly modified instructions:

Picture someone older, wiser, truly loving, kind, and nurturing. This may be a real or imaginary person. They care about you deeply.

Imagine what they look like and how it feels to be with them.

Imagine how you greet them. Do you hug, shake hands, bow, or something else?

Imagine how you will talk with them: sitting, walking in a park, across from them, next to them, etc.

Imagine talking with your compassionate friend about something that’s worrying, bothering, or distressing you. What you will say and how they will respond with gentleness, interest, respect, curiosity and compassion. They may hold or hug you, or not.
You notice what it feels like to be listened to, understood, and truly heard

Imagine what you would like to hear from your compassionate friend have him or her say those words.

Imagine taking in those words and feeling soothed, comforted, calmed, and safe.

Notice what this whole experience had felt like to you.

When it’s time to say goodbye to your compassionate friend notice how you do that.

You have created a resource in your own mind that you can call up anytime you want extra support.

Kristin Neff’s Self Compassion Break:

Put your hand on your heart. This activates the release of oxytocin and makes you feel safer, and say the following to yourself:

This is what’s happening. A moment of suffering, anger, sadness, physical pain, loneliness, anxiety, or grief.

Everybody experiences these feelings.

May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I accept myself in this moment exactly as it is. May I give myself all the compassion I need. (Keep repeating these phrases until you feel your emotional equilibrium returning, and your contraction begins to open up and feel spacious.)

Another practice from Linda Graham you can record and listen to until it becomes automatic:

May I be kind to myself in this moment.

May I be kind to myself in any moment.

May I be kind to myself in every moment.

Last but not least, when you’re feeling upset ask yourself: “What would I wish someone would say to me right now?” Record those caring, kind, patient, gentle, supportive, understanding words and listen to them as often as you can. They are incredibly grounding, and give you a new perspective when you are drowning in negative or scary thoughts.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

Music playlist to help you through a Divorce or Break-Up

November 23, 2016 by Nicole Urdang

Here’s a list of songs designed to make you feel better during a divorce, break up, or anytime you need a lift.

Some are funny, some cathartic, all a balm to soothe your soul.

Juice Newton LOVE’S BEEN A LITTLE BIT HARD ON ME

Sterling Harrison DON’T YOU MESS WITH MY MONEY

Chantal Kreviazuk WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

Mary Chapin Carpenter I FEEL LUCKY

Allison Moorer RING OF FIRE

Chase the Sun YOU GOTTA GO

Mary Chapin Carpenter HE THINKS HE’LL KEEP HER

Warren Haynes SOULSHINE

The Whites KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE

Linda Ronstadt YOU’RE NO GOOD

Mary Chapin Carpenter THE BUG

Joe Cocker WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

The Strange Familiar COURAGE IS

Huey Lewis & the News I WANT A NEW DRUG

Yello OH YEAH

Big Brother and the Holding Co./Janis Joplin PIECE OF MY HEART

Erin Jaimes with John Mc Vey & the Stumble DON’T MESS WITH THE MESSER

Bonnie Raitt I CAN’T HELP YOU NOW

Marvin Gaye SEXUAL HEALING

Carol Woods and Timothy T. Mitchum LET IT BE

K.T. Tunstall HEAL OVER

The Strange Familiar COURAGE IS

Snatam Kaur LONG TIME SUN

Amy Conley I’VE GOT PEACE LIKE A RIVER

Jack Johnson I SHALL BE RELEASED

Sophie Milman SO LONG YOU FOOL

Jimmy Cliff I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

Carole King BEAUTIFUL

Simon & Garfunkel AMERICAN TUNE

Bonnie Raitt REAL MAN

Meghan Trainor LIPS ARE MOVIN

Susan Tedeschi DON’T THINK TWICE

Aimee Allen ON VACATION

Brigid Kaelin FUTURE MR. USED-TO-BE

Lucinda Williams CHANGED THE LOCKS

Bob Marley THREE LITTLE BIRDS

Michael Franti & Spearhead GOOD SH*T HAPPENS

Johnny Nash I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

Don’t underestimate your ability to handle life’s challenges

October 12, 2016 by Nicole Urdang

Anxiety, anger, or any other negative emotional reaction is often triggered by underestimating your ability to handle life’s challenges and overestimating the severity of a possible negative outcome. In the midst of a crisis or life transition it is all too easy to be thrown off course. Whatever sense of emotional terra firma you felt can suddenly morph into quicksand. At those times, it’s important to remember your brain is hard-wired to ferret out all possible negative consequences and present them in rapid succession.

This hard wiring is known as the negativity bias. As unpleasant as it feels to be flooded with negative outcomes in a given situation, it’s actually what preserved the human race through millennia. Your brain comes equipped with an internal system looking for danger 24/7. In the days of wooly mammoths and saber toothed tigers this was a great boon. Now, not so much.

In addition, humans have a natural tendency towards one trial learning. When something really bad happens your memory automatically encodes it to last, just so you will be extra alert to the possibility of it happening again in the future and as prepared as possible.Happy things are wonderful but not necessary for your safety, so they don’t get encoded as quickly or deeply.The more traumatic the event the more thoroughly it gets wired into your memory.

While that unconscious process has been very helpful historically, in day to day life it can lead to a lot of anxiety and hyper-vigilance.

The good news is some researchers believe you can shift this innate negativity-positivity template by focusing on everything good. A 5:1 ratio is supposed to do the trick. While it won’t erase the negative memories, it can make you feel more emotionally balanced and shift your outlook.

The irrefutable fact is you have managed to live through every daunting thing that ever happened to you. Those experiences may have been super challenging, even physically or emotionally painful, but if you’re reading this, you are still alive. When life seems uncertain and you feel off kilter it is important to remember you are resilient. These days, there are a plethora of studies trying to quantify and parse out what makes someone resilient. The fact is being alive is unassailable proof you survived. That’s resilience. Whether you went through the experience kicking and screaming or with great equanimity and grace, at the end of the day you were still standing.

The following are a few techniques for dealing with those times when you think you won’t make it.

Decades ago, Dr. Albert Ellis coined the term: discomfort anxiety to describe the intense anxiety you can feel when anticipating any unpleasantness, whether in a relationship, at work, medically, financially, or socially. He suggested asking yourself:

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

Then, “What is the likelihood of that actually occurring?”

The final task was to imagine yourself coping with that outcome. Actually getting curious about how you would handle it, finding similar situations in the past you navigated and lived through, and even imagining different ways you could deal with this new challenge. It’s like training for a marathon, only this training is psychological and builds emotional muscle.

Another technique to help you remember your inner strength and coping capacity is to write a list of some major issues you have faced, whether vocational, medical, relational, financial, or emotional and how you dealt with them.The more you can remember and list, the better, as each will remind you of your flexibility and resilience which tamps down feeling overwhelmed and out of control.

There will be some days when you might simply let the hours pass without doing any major intervention, allowing what happened and just inhaling and exhaling. Even if you have successfully used some tried and true interventions in the past, like breath work, reframing your thoughts, or yoga nidra to calm your nervous system, this moment may be differently challenging and call for the super compassionate approach of soothing yourself with calming, loving words, plenty of rest, and healthy food. Getting through it and experiencing your emotions along the way is the holy grail.

There are times, though, when the only control you have is how you choose to react. People get divorced, lose jobs, have serious illnesses, lose loved ones, and experience financial reverses. Often there is nothing you can do about those shocking, tumultuous experiences. Grieve, rant, rave, cry, let your emotions flow.

Last but not least, ask for help. A friend, family member, neighbor, therapist, church mate, or a stranger on a hotline, can be there to support you. Asking for help when you need it takes guts, and only adds to your repertoire of coping skills.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

Why Do Most Therapists Care So Much About Your Childhood?

September 16, 2016 by Nicole Urdang

“What’s past is prologue.”

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

The thing about the past is that it’s not the past.

Irish saying

People are often deterred from starting therapy because they think they will have to dredge up unpleasant things from their childhood, which can feel daunting. Yet, childhood experiences will surface, as they typically influence your present relationships. That doesn’t mean you have to excavate every disturbing event from your past, but it usually includes dealing with the issues and patterns that keep paying undesirable emotional and behavioral dividends in the present.

If you are working with a seasoned therapist you trust, the journey is fascinating. After all, who or what is more interesting than you? Good therapy helps you develop compassion for whatever you went through, as well as appreciation for how resilient you are, both of which can lift your spirits.

It’s perfectly natural to have some anxiety about retrieving unhappy childhood memories as you might fear being flooded with feelings of worthlessness, rage, depression, and anxiety. Fear of being retraumatized and feeling as helpless as you did growing up is a real concern that deserves attention. Therapy can help you manage those concerns, while only going as fast as you feel safe to go.

No matter how inconvenient and annoying it is to have childhood issues still affect you as an adult, it makes perfect sense when you think about it. Imagine you plant a tree. Every year as the sapling grows you force the trunk in another direction. One year you bend it to the right, the next you bend it to the left. After a decade you let it grow straight. For the entire life of that tree its base will be jagged. No matter how big and strong the trunk grows, the base will never be straight. The tree is incredibly healthy, but its early years are still obvious to anyone looking at it. Humans are far more complex than trees, and can cover up the effects of their early years in myriad ways; yet, those childhood experiences exert an influence.

Another reason therapists care so much about your childhood is evidence gleaned from the Adverse Childhood Experiences study (ACE) which showed definite links between the amount of adverse childhood experiences and an increased incidence of health, mental health issues, and social problems. You can take the ACE questionnaire here: http://www.acestudy.org/the-ace-score.html. (You can read more about the study here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-ellen-stevens/the-adverse-childhood-exp_1_b_1943647.html)

Of course, you did not need to have major traumatic childhood experiences to have issues. New research talks about the difference between what researchers are calling “little t” and “big T” trauma. “Little t” are things like incessant put downs, devaluing you as a person, snide remarks and sarcasm, while “big T” usually refers to war, rape, childhood sexual and/or physical abuse. Their findings show how anything that feels like family betrayal can actually be worse, long term, than cataclysmic events. The theory is family betrayals, or betrayals by an intimate, go to your very core and make you feel unsafe. Unsafe in your body, unsafe with people you desperately want to trust, and unsafe in your world. After all, if you can’t trust your family, whom can you trust?

It’s healthy to avoid pain, and revisiting traumatic experiences can be difficult. Luckily, there is a therapeutic technique called Internal Family Systems therapy that is both gentle and deep. It greatly limits the chances of being flooded with unpleasant or disturbing memories and their attendant emotions. IFS allows you to get to know your various parts, how they might be polarized, and whom they are protecting (vulnerable child or teen parts that still carry heavy emotional burdens). In addition, it helps you appreciate all the creative ways your protective parts have been trying to keep you safe, even when some of them have used alcohol, drugs, random sex, gambling, hoarding, etc. to keep your emotional Mount Vesuvius from erupting.

If the idea that you have a multiplicity of internal parts seems alarming, think of all the times you said something like: “Part of me wants to go to the movies, but part of me knows I should study for that exam tomorrow.” It’s second nature to notice different parts of you that want different things. What is less intuitive is how some parts use extreme behaviors, emotions, and thought patterns to protect you from feeling shame, grief, inadequacy, worthlessness, etc. IFS puts you in the driver’s seat. You control how fast you want to go, and if you start to feel flooded with an unpleasant emotion your therapist can help you unblend from the part creating it.

Of course, IFS is not the only path to freedom from the effects of adverse childhood experiences and trauma. Mind-body practices like yoga are extremely helpful in creating a new internal landscape, while fostering a different relationship with your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations.

Philosophical approaches like Buddhism can help you sit with unpleasant emotions, watching them come and go with curiosity and interest, knowing they won’t last. Buddhist techniques also help you reframe whatever painful experiences you might have so you can see and experience them differently.

For those of you who have often thought people should just stop blaming their parents and get on with life, I am not suggesting anyone blame their parents. This is simply a way to explain how childhood experiences have a long term influence. While you can work wisely with them and feel better, it’s impossible to completely overcome their effects.

“Your suffering is your benefit,” is a Buddhist phrase often invoked as a reminder of the hidden gems in even the worst pain. Tibetan Buddhist monks go even further with their practice of seeking out suffering. No, they are not masochists, they simply believe suffering ignites the fire of compassion for yourself and others. Just as in the Buddhist practice of loving kindness, or metta meditation, you start with yourself.

For more information and guidance about metta meditation see these links:

http://www.buddhanet.net/metta_in.htm)

Loving-Kindness Meditation

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

Missing what you don’t really want

August 11, 2016 by Nicole Urdang

How is it possible to miss something you no longer wanted?

Nyozi Adiche “Americanah”

We are hungry for what we have grown out of.

Mirabai Starr “Caravan of No Despair”

It seems so counter-intuitive to miss something you no longer want, yet it makes perfect sense once you consider the complicated nature of relationships and desires. Since no relationship is ever 100% good or bad, there can be a part of you that wants all the good things back. A part that misses the connection, history, habit, or feels lonely and grief stricken. In addition, that inner balance, between attraction and aversion, shifts in a nanosecond depending on your mood, hormones, blood sugar levels, and state of mind.

It is almost impossible to truly want or shun something 100%. Understanding there is, at least, a smidgeon of ambivalence in every preference makes the notion of missing something you mostly don’t want far easier to comprehend.

When a relationship ends you mourn for all your dashed hopes, the many fantasies you constructed about your future, and the loss of a constant companion. You don’t necessarily miss the person, in toto, though you will probably miss aspects of them.

Mirabai Starr says it well when she says you are hungry for what you have grown out of, as it implies you may not consciously realize you have grown out of it. Yet, the unconscious mind knows and shows you in dreams, not-so-secret longings, physical symptoms, and words that seem to tumble out of your mouth unbidden.

The same concept applies when you notice how your habitual ways of perceiving life, surroundings, friends, family, work, etc. get in the way of your deeper joy in the bounty of the moment, of thinking whatever you have is enough. What American hasn’t fed at the trough of longing? Advertising inundates you with desire for desire’s sake, so how could you possibly not crave things you don’t really miss or even truly want? Society trained you to constantly yearn for things and feel dissatisfied with whatever you have or experience in any given moment. This vague longing can easily infiltrate your life and lead to feeling depressed, anxious, worthless, and angry. It’s an easy step to believing the return of your absent partner will fill the void, heal you, and make you whole again.

Yes, something is missing. You have experienced a huge loss. Society led you to think you can fill the void with acquisitions and accomplishments. While those feel good in the moment, their joys often fade. Wanting what you have, being grateful for everything, even the sorrows that bring you to your knees, is a more reliable path to inner peace, self-acceptance, and embracing life on life’s terms. It’s the rare person for whom those are achieved and sustained with a new car, new spouse, or new job. Feeling your grief, even your longing, fully is the answer, even though it can seem excruciating in the moment.

It’s also easy to conflate missing a specific person who is no longer in your life with missing a fantasy you may have been nursing for years. Those fantasies are fed by the media and the unhelpful tendency humans have to compare their insides with other people’s outsides, which can lead to feeling bereft, inferior, or inadequate. How much grief comes from just thinking your life doesn’t measure up to someone else’s, even if you really don’t want what they have? (See Compare To Despair on this site.)

To make things even more complicated, you may not miss the person you divorced or broke up with but miss having a mate, or the companionship. Sometimes, especially when you are triggered and feel grief-stricken, your emotional brain can hijack your pre-frontal cortex where all the higher level thinking happens. This makes it all too easy to confuse a general longing for something indescribable with a specific longing for someone or something, both of which you may not actually want should they suddenly appear.

Addiction plays a role in this pattern of desiring, too, as a brain accustomed to craving can sometimes substitute something else to quiet the inner cacophony. How often have you wanted deep connection with another person but chose eating, TV, porn, shopping, drinking, drugs, gambling, etc., instead? You probably didn’t really want those things; yet, if you limit them or remove them from your repertoire you may miss their short-term alleviation of deeper desires for connection, calm, or meaning.

Cravings seem to demand satiation. Yet, taking the time to sit with them in non-judging awareness, feeling all their physical sensations, lets them subside. One way to see this in action is to get a piece of paper, pen, and a timer. Number the page from 1-15. On a scale of 1-10, where one is the least and 10 the most, rate your level of craving every minute for the next 15 minutes. You will probably notice slight shifts in their intensity. This proves how you can manage what you don’t like without giving in to your desire du jour, and shows you that your craving was not 100% intense 100% of the time. All things wax and wane, including desires.

Like cravings, habits (including being habituated to a relationship) can form quickly. It takes a certain amount of unhappiness with them to motivate change, and an awareness that part of the recovery process, if you let the habit or person go, is the feeling of missing what you no longer want. Give yourself time. Be patient as you become aware of space in your life where that person or addiction used to be. You can still be hungry for your original longing to connect deeply with another, to feel more alive and whole, or for relief from inner demons. The difference is now you realize there are better ways to accomplish those goals.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

What Ambiguous Grief Teaches Us About The Lingering Effects Of Loss

July 3, 2016 by Nicole Urdang

“I don’t like to use the word acceptance, but I think we can be comfortable with what we cannot solve.”

Pauline Boss, Ph.D.

Psychologist and family therapist Pauline Boss talks about “ambiguous loss” and the futility of thinking about closure with deep grief. There is no closure, she argues, when you can’t really put a period at the end of the sentence. When you lose someone through a senseless tragedy like 9/11 where there is no body to recover and bury. More prosaically, when you lose someone through divorce, addiction, or estrangement and they are still alive but disconnected from you. In these situations it is common to experience protracted grief and a sense of loss that seems pervasive and on-going.

What makes that particular kind of grieving even harder to bear is our society’s tendency to sweep sad and unpleasant things under the rug with the harsh and inherently blaming comment, “Aren’t you over that already?” No one fully recovers or gets closure if their child commits suicide, or their husband is MIA, both ambiguous losses. They are able to go on because they find meaning in life.

As a society we could all help each other by recognizing the lingering effects of grief, all grief, not just the ambiguous kind, and stop pathologizing anyone who still grieves years after a divorce or death. Healing happens, but its trajectory is different for each one of us.

Certain connections are so deep, like that between a parent and child, that there is no way to fully heal after they are torn apart through death, Alzheimers, divorce, estrangement, or uncertainty (those cases where someone is MIA or a body is never recovered). The least we can offer people dealing with loss is compassion and the refrain, “I am so sorry you’re going through this.” There is nothing you can say to make it better. All you can give is sincere caring, your presence, a hand to hold, or a hug.

One of the best ways to go forward if you are dealing with grief is to acknowledge that sadness may always be a part of you; yet, you can still find meaning in life. How you do that depends on your proclivities. It might be crocheting blankets for newborns if you had a miscarriage, participating in one of the many walks or runs for different diseases, sending care packages to men and women deployed overseas, or anything that feels useful to you.

Another path to greater peace is through mindfulness. Pay attention to whatever is happening now, whether you are drinking a cup of tea or folding laundry. This deliberate focus can imbue each minute with purpose and meaning. Noticing beauty in the natural world, a painting, music, or someone’s smile is another way of reconnecting with life. In her book Love 2.0, author Barbara Fredrickson says these micro moments of connection can be powerfully felt as love, even among strangers. The smallest positive interaction can infuse your day with a sense of warmth that lifts your spirits and satisfies your need for connection. The trick is to cultivate more of those moments by looking for them and being grateful when they occur.

Whatever you feel, the most important thing to do is allow all your emotions and let them carry you into unchartered territory. Then, they can flow through you, as opposed to being stuck inside festering. You might even find yourself understanding the term “sweet grief,” as fully experiencing your grief can feel sweet. It’s still heart rending, but in its depth there is a tiny sense of fulfillment. Perhaps, that unexpected sweetness comes from realizing you loved someone so much and felt so incredibly connected that you are capable of mourning so completely. That ability, to give yourself over to all your emotions, can be amazingly healing. Be brave, your body, mind, and spirit were created to handle all life’s vicissitudes, including great loss.