Archives for 2022

Happy or depressed? Are those your only options?

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If you live in America, the land of quick fixes, you could easily believe that there are really only two feelings: happy or depressed. Thankfully, nothing could be further from the truth. If you think about it you will quickly realize that there are actually a variety of possible feelings between depressed and happy. The problem with having a black-and-white view of emotions is that anything other than happiness can feel like it requires fixing. Sometimes, the best intervention is simply sitting with curiosity and awareness. Paradoxically, if you believe you should be happy all the time, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of misery.

Pharmaceutical companies and medical marijuana purveyors are all too happy to convince you that this binary view of your emotions is correct.

All we need to do is look at the ancient yin yang symbol ☯️ to see how thousands of years ago people knew that within every joy is a kernel of sadness and within every sadness is a kernel of joy.

If you can learn to get through the day with some measure of awareness and acceptance, and recognize what a great accomplishment that is, you would probably feel more joy than if you make  it through the day and think there’s something wrong with you because you’re not laughing it up, taking a vacation, or having great sex.

What about feeling satisfied, grateful, content, and resilient? Are these simply different forms of happiness? The one thing getting through a day, no matter how you feel, teaches you is that you can have confidence in your ability to weather the storms of life. Whether you like them or not. 

Setting up unrealistic expectations about how life is supposed to feel is a short trip to unhappiness. Of course, if you can’t get out of bed, cry constantly, pick fights with people, slam your fist into a wall, or self-medicate to a harmful degree, that’s another story. 

Here’s a thought: What if we’re not supposed to feel happy all the time? What if we’re supposed to feel the full range of human emotions? They don’t call it sweet grief for nothing. The sweetness in the grief is the release of true sadness. And if you’re human, you’re going to feel sad sometimes. You might even feel very sad sometimes. 

To me, the saddest thing would be lying on my deathbed having only felt one emotion: happiness. It would be like going through life seeing everything through rose-colored glasses. Instead, most humans get to experience a kaleidoscope of emotions. We don’t like all of them, but that’s not the point. The point is to experience life on life‘s terms, not through some artificial screen that makes everything look pretty 100% of the time. First of all, there would be no contrast and contrast makes life interesting. Imagine if every movie was just one happy scene after the other. If there weren’t any challenges or difficulties for the star to navigate we would be bored out of our minds. We are the star in our own stories.

Of course, it’s natural to want to feel good most of the time. But there are all sorts of good feelings. Accomplishment, meaningful work, micro-connections with people we pass on the street, moments of spiritual ineffability, sensual, joyous, and simply being in a body, on this earth, having a human experience.

Buddhism teaches that fully inhabiting and allowing feelings, even undesirable ones, makes life less overwhelming. The sense of accomplishment you can get from surfing rough emotional seas is just a different kind of joy. Of course, that takes a lifetime of practice.

Deb Dana, a trauma therapist, likes to talk about glimmers. She encourages people to notice the tiniest thing that brings satisfaction. The light coming through a window, blueberries in your cereal, a hot shower on a cold morning, a pillow to rest your head on, a smile you share with another, discovering a new author, taking a walk and noticing something different, finishing a task you’ve been delaying, feeling seen and heard by a friend or relative…the possibilities are endless. These tiny nuggets of joy can accrue across the day, weeks, and years and help inoculate you to life’s challenges.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

When Focusing On The Breath Doesn’t Help, Try This

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While meditation can be incredibly soothing and peaceful, many people, especially those with a trauma history, find focusing on the breath triggering. Often, this activates memories of stressful times and can feel even more disturbing. If that is your experience, even if it’s only your experience some of the time when meditating, there are other ways to anchor in your body. You might find comfort, solace, safety, and serenity by focusing on different physical sensations, like:

Putting your hands on your heart.

Feeling your feet on the floor.

If standing, shifting your weight slightly from left to right , forwards and backwards, or in circles, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Placing your hands on your thighs. This can feel very stabilizing and grounding.

Using the Jin Shin Jyutsu butterfly hug. This is a different version from the one on YouTube. Here, you cross your arms over your chest with your four fingers of each hand under your armpits and your thumbs facing up on the front of your chest.

Another great way to ground in your body is to actively focus on body parts that might typically go unnoticed, like your earlobes, elbows, behind your knees, chin, sides of your calves, back if your head, etc. Here’s an example: So Hum Breath Meditation & Yoga Nidra Inspired Body Scan

Trying a mantra, with or without mala beads. You can read more about mantras here: Mantras For Emotional and Psychological Healing

The 5-4-3-2-1 mediation is also wonderfully grounding, especially if you don’t feel like focusing inward. You can find it here: Grounding Techniques To Calm Anxiety & Panic

Move your body through walking meditation (here’s one you can do at home from the Insight Timer app: https://insighttimer.com/evabruha/guided-meditations/walking-meditation-8).

Qigong (I highly recommend Jeff Chand’s YouTube videos)or yoga. Yoga With Adrienne on YouTube is another excellent, free resource.

Some aromatherapy essential oils can be very valuable here, too. You might try lavender, chamomile, cedar, birch, pine, or citrus. The easiest way to do this is to put a few drops on a tissue and breathe in the scent for a few minutes.

All of the above, as well as attending to ambient sounds around you, can ground your awareness in your body or your environment and calm your nervous system. They let you experience the joy of self-regulation and help re-balance your nervous system.

 

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

You can’t re-parent yourself but you can parent yourself.

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You can’t re-parent yourself, but you can parent yourself

While there is much talk in therapy circles about reparenting yourself, that ship has sailed. You can’t re-parent yourself. It’s impossible to go back into your childhood and give that younger you what they truly wanted. The good news is, you can parent yourself until the day you die. With enough patience, attention, and practice, you can give yourself the loving parental behaviors you wish you had received starting right now.

What would those actions look like? 

What would they sound like? 

What would they physically feel like?

How would they make you feel emotionally?

While there are some universal loving, supportive phrases that most people crave, there are also differences based on who you are now.  These might include:

Speaking kindly to yourself.

Speaking to yourself in a soothing tone of voice.

Calling yourself by an endearing name, like sweetheart, darling, my little love, honey, pet, or anything that resonates with you.

Stroking your arm, putting your hands on your heart, or tummy, holding your own hand, or giving yourself a butterfly hug. Here’s a video of a butterfly hug:   

Telling your inner parent what you’re thinking, feeling, experiencing, afraid of, desiring, or processing.

Having your inner parent say the supportive words you want to hear, whether they are encouraging, praising, reflecting your true essence, or simply loving.

Reassuring yourself you can invoke your inner parent whenever you want that unconditional love.

At first, all of this will feel forced, awkward, and unfamiliar. You may even think it’s a fool‘s errand, but it isn’t. Just imagine how different your life will be if you spend the rest of it being kind, nurturing, and supportive to yourself.  You can reliably become the refuge you seek. It will take a lot of effort, practice, and determination. There will be many times when you think it isn’t working. But you’re planting seeds and when you least expect it new sprouts will break through.

This is a different form of self-compassion. In time, it will feel authentic. Even if it doesn’t become your automatic default, you will have the tools to comfort and reassure yourself that you can handle life’s slings and arrows.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

Detach from what causes you pain and attach to what brings you joy.

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Detaching from what causes you pain and attaching to what brings you joy sounds incredibly straightforward and almost absurd to write about, yet for most people it can be amazingly difficult.

First of all, one must do a fairly fearless inventory to discern what actually brings you joy in the first place and what engenders pain. This may also sound obvious, but it isn’t. How often do you stay in situations that are unsatisfying at best, and hurtful at worst? You don’t stay in them because you’re a masochist. You keep going back to those people or situations because they are familiar. Despite evidence to the contrary you may think there is still a chance to get what you want, even though haven’t yet received it, or haven’t reliably gotten it. It’s easy to believe the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know, even though that always assumes that the next thing you choose is going to be negative.

A good way to begin a self-inquiry process is to think about a day in your life; it could be a week day, perhaps with work, or a weekend. Ask yourself:

How am I typically spending my time?

Who is with me, or am I alone?

Am I enjoying this experience?

Is it something I do frequently?

If I’m not enjoying it, what’s keeping me at it?

Is there something I might prefer to do?

Am I afraid if I don’t do this I will be alone?

What if I am alone? What would that mean?

After you’ve explored your answers, examine what’s keeping you in any situations that don’t really bring you joy.

Is it fear of change?

Is it fear of the unknown?

Is it concern people will reject you if you don’t do what they want?

Is it fear of setting boundaries with other people?

Is it fear of being alone?

I mention fear of being alone twice because it is a major concern for a vast majority of people. How many people don’t set boundaries and go along to get along, because they’re scared of being rejected? I’m sure almost everyone has been unassertive at times, and going along to get along.

As you can see, it’s not so easy to choose joy. It takes guts. As they say: No guts no glory. You have to be willing to face your demons. Those demons might come in the form of what Albert Ellis used to call love slobbism, the notion that we must be loved or approved of by every significant person in our life, and if we’re not it’s horrible, terrible, awful, and we can’t stand it. That leads to poor boundary setting with other people and putting oneself at the bottom of the list. Clearly not a way to increase your joy.

Fear of being alone is a very real issue for most people as it’s a skill not well taught in our society. The good news is that, just like any other muscle, it can be strengthened. You might actually find that you love your own company. If you don’t, that’s a whole other kettle of fish that therapy can help.

Probing one’s deepest self, whether it’s your desires, what really brings you joy and what doesn’t, is only as useful as the changes you make with that new knowledge. If you simply have the insight and don’t take it to the next level by acting on that awareness, it’s just an intellectual exercise.

Change is always scary. You don’t know what’s at the end of the new road. But not changing can feel like a slow death.

Luckily, change doesn’t have to happen overnight. It can happen in the smallest increments you can handle. In feng shui, there’s a practice that involves moving 27 things in your house. You can simply move a book from one spot to another on the same table it doesn’t have to be anything major. Merely moving 27 things shifts the energy of your space as well as your perception of it and allows other changes to follow. Similarly, doing one thing differently, like meditating using the Insight Timer app for five minutes a day, can make an enormous difference over time. It’s not only helpful for its obvious benefits but it also subtlety teaches you that you can change, and it doesn’t have to be painful or scary. It can be enlightening and exciting. After all, what’s more exciting than seeing your own potential?

It takes guts to choose joy, especially when that joy involves change, and it almost always does.

Choose you! Choose joy! Nobody knows why we humans are on this earth. Why not maximize your pleasure? I’m not suggesting you do it at the expense of anyone else’s, but there are myriad ways to enhance your enjoyment of life. Get to know yourself. Act on that knowledge. Experiment. Be curious and try new things. Pay attention to any time you seem happy, peaceful, or content. What are you doing? Keep a joy journal. Simply write down in a very succinct way, or simply list, the things that reliably bring you joy. Over months and years you will notice the same things bring you happiness. Maybe it’s being with people, or taking more time for solitary pleasure. Maybe it’s learning something new. It could be a physical activity. For some, it might be exploring your spirituality. You could volunteer your time to a worthy cause. If you put a little effort into this inquiry you will discover what truly brings you happiness. Then you can do those things more frequently.

Discovering who you are and what you want is not only good for you, but it’s good for everyone else on earth. How does that work? Well, the happier you are the more joy you can spread. In addition, you can be congruent and authentic which is a fantastic example for others to follow. It gives them a cosmic permission slip to be their true selves.

If happiness is love, then finding out what you really love in life will bring you happiness. It could be feeling part of a group, deeply knowing another person, immersing yourself in nature, or anything else. Victor Frankel, in his famous book: Man’s Search For Meaning, believed finding meaning in life, in your own unique way, brings true joy. 

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang 

Five things that fuel feeling overwhelmed. 

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Almost everyone feels overwhelmed sometimes. All it takes is a few extra stresses on top of our normal responsibilities and it’s easy to get tense, reactive, and overwhelmed. Since we can’t control all the variables in our life, the best thing we can do is not fuel the flames when we feel burdened, emotionally raw, and doubting our ability to cope.

Here are five things to watch out for as you make it through a particularly challenging time. With a little self-inquiry, a lot of self-compassion, and the intention to lighten your load, you can support yourself more wisely through a rough patch.

Perfectionism:

The desire to find the exact right response to a stressful situation or big decision, and fear of making the wrong choice, adds lots of extra pressure to a situation that’s already overwhelming. Remember that there really are no wrong choices. If you doubt me, read: No Mistakes Only Lessons. It’s also helpful to remind yourself you’re doing the best you can in this moment. It’s hard enough to make decisions when stressed, adding extra pressure will only make it feel more overwhelming.

Impatience for resolution:

Feeling overwhelmed is overwhelming. Like all discomfort, most of us want it to end as soon as possible. Unfortunately, when we push for a quick resolution, we can act in haste and repent at leisure. While it’s hard to pause and thoroughly consider all the aspects of what’s overwhelming you, especially, if you feel triggered, flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, or highly anxious, it’s probably the best thing you can do. 

As long as you believe you have to deal with everything immediately it will feel daunting.

Break up your tasks into small parts and vow to only do one at a time. Current research on multi-tasking has found that it is less productive than mono-tasking.

Unhelpful thoughts that undermine your confidence:

I can’t handle this. It’s too much. (You may not want to, but you probably can.)

I’ll never be able to cope with all this. (Take a few minutes to recall times when you handled unpleasant and difficult situations in the past.)

I shouldn’t be feeling overwhelmed. (Benign as this may sound, it might be the most unhelpful thought of all. Give yourself a cosmic permission slip to feel overwhelmed. This ultimate allowing of what is true for you now makes your roiling thoughts and emotions feel safer and more manageable. Mindfulness meditation, where you sit with the feeling even if you’re afraid it will engulf you, is the best thing you can do to re-ground.)

Forgetting how resilient you have been and still can be:

It’s so easy to lose sight of every difficulty you have faced in the past, whether interpersonal, vocational, physical, financial, or existential. During a crisis, or anything that feels like one, it’s especially important to call up other tough situations you have faced and conquered, or simply lived through, in the past.

Neuroscience tells us we’re Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive. It’s not you, it’s simply how our brains are wired. Actively recalling times when you faced your demons, even if you simply waited until they left, builds resilience. It reminds you you can deal with what feels overwhelming.

Getting hooked by your body’s chemical reactions to stress and believing they are your only truth:

When stress chemicals flood your body and mind it can feel scary and unnerving. It’s easy to have them undermine your confidence and experience in handling life’s challenges. In the midst of feeling insecure and emotionally weak, it’s crucial to remember this is temporary. What makes that especially hard is that, once your body chemistry changes, and you’re in fight/flight mode, it’s as if your pre-frontal cortex is suddenly offline. When that happens you can use an anxiety coping strategy to calm down. (Check out the anxiety section on this site.)

Or, choose to wait until the adrenaline and cortisol storm subsides. 

Resisting the urge to act once your nervous system is engaged is the smartest thing you can do. Take an adult time-out, if possible. If not, and you’re with someone who is pressuring you for an immediate response, say: I’m not in a position to give you an answer now. I’ll have think about this and get back to you.

No one likes feeling pressured. When the pressure is from external demands, and things you can’t control, like accidents, health issues, job loss, etc., perfectionistic ideas of how you “should” cope only exacerbate your stress. It’s in these moments of life slinging it’s full quiver of arrows at you that your self-compassion can come to the rescue. Ask yourself: What is the kindest thing I can do for myself right now? Then, do it. Even if you think of dozens of reasons why your can’t or shouldn’t. Make your mental health the priority. It will not only help you stay centered and calmer in the moment, but build emotional muscle for the next time you feel overwhelmed.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang 

How To Improve Your Relationships By Asking Good Questions.

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If you want to improve your relationships learn to ask good questions. Frankly, if you want to improve your life learn to ask good questions.

While research shows that we get a hit of dopamine every time we talk about ourselves, there are hidden benefits to learning more about others. Not the least of which is that the more you know about another person and the more they know about you, the greater the intimacy. The greater the sense of being seen, heard, and in the best of all possible worlds, validated.

When you think about your own interactions which way do you lean? Are you doing most of the talking or most of the listening? As obvious as it sounds, the more balanced the mix, the greater the likelihood for a true meeting of the minds and hearts.

If you’ve noticed that you do most of the talking, you may want to take a step back and focus on listening. It can be exciting to discover what others think, feel and experience. 

Asking questions with yes or no answers will not plumb someone else’s depths. On the other hand, asking questions with open-ended answers often takes the conversation into unexplored areas.

You don’t need to be a psychotherapist to learn a few simple questions that can lead to far more satisfying relationships.

Here are a few of my favorites:

What’s on your mind these days?

How are you spending your time lately?

What’s bringing you joy?

Your questions don’t need to get sophisticated, intellectual, or fancy. It’s really amazing how asking one of these seemingly simple ones can bring forth a wealth of information. And once someone gets going you can ask them follow-up questions.

The trick is not interrupting and resisting using what they say to pivot into your own experience. We all interrupt and we all go off on our own tangents. It’s not about never doing it, it’s about doing it less and being aware of when you do it.

I once read a study that showed that the happiest families were ones in which everybody interrupted each other during dinner. Clearly, you don’t want to sacrifice spontaneity to the god of rigidity; on the other hand, you don’t want to be a conversational bully.

Since most people enjoy the dopamine hit they get from talking about themselves, you can use that to your advantage conversationally. It will, as Dale Carnegie used to say, win you friends and influence people. Yet, it may not be satisfying for you. If all you’re doing is listening to other people all the time, you may feel dissatisfied, unseen, or resentful. For most people, this gets old fast. That’s why sometimes it’s helpful to just jump in with your own experience. 

If all you’re doing is asking questions all the time your conversation can feel more like an interrogation. It’s more like a dance. A dance many find difficult. Unlike a dance, one person isn’t always leading. It’s give-and-take. In the best conversations this appears to happen effortlessly and feels incredibly satisfying. There are times of pure listening and reflecting, mixed with times of spontaneous jumping in with one’s own thoughts.

Simply paying attention to your own conversational style, and that of your closest friends and family, can be a very enriching experience. Just notice if one person is dominating, or if there is an ebb and flow.

The one exception to everything I have said is if somebody is going through a really hard time. That’s when the conversation will be more one-sided to let you offer the most support. When people are going through something challenging they need every dopamine hit they can get. If venting provides some, I suggest letting them vent.

It can be fascinating to notice different conversational dynamics you have with various people in your life and to adjust your own behavior to make these  interactions more satisfying. 

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang