Food Matters! Tip #3

Eating as you move between places can seem like not eating at all.

Are you tricking yourself by eating in transit?

Have you noticed that when you’re engaged in an activity at home or at work you sometimes get up to get a snack and eat it all on your way back to where you were? 

Walking around your home or office can be another form of distraction that prevents you from being thoughtful and intentional about your eating (See Tip #2 posted on 3/15/10).  When you put your recorded TV show on pause, or save your word documents half-way through, and go to the kitchen to get a snack  you may pick up  four cookies but arrive back at your TV with only two cookies, having eaten the other two on the way.  So when you sit down again, with only the two remaining cookies in your hand, you can “lose” count.  Eating as you walk from the kitchen back to another area of the house may also be a way of hiding your eating if a partner or friend is waiting at the TV or in the backyard to resume the activity that was paused.  Arriving with only two cookies lets you  look more thoughtful about your eating than you actually are.

To help monitor and manage your eating, try resisting eating on the run… or even “on the walk.”

 

Lay off the newly laid-off!

Job loss can result in deep grief and trauma just as much as other kinds of losses.  

Job loss often wreaks havoc in people’s lives, threatening the person’s self-esteem and self-confidence and frequently resulting in marital discord.  Divorce and forclosure are not uncommon.   The person may suffer in ways that are invisible to the observer, and you may be uncertain of how to help. 

It’s easy though to make it worse – by what we say!

What Not To Say To A Laid-Off Co-Worker (excerpts of article by Jenna Goudreau)

People who have lost their job can be devastated by thoughtless remarks such as, “You must be so scared because the job market is so terrible.”  Humor and flippancy are also easy ways to offend or alienate the recently unemployed. Co-author of Authentic Conversations Maren Showkeir (www.henning-showkeir.com) has been surprised by the flippant tone of many remarks she’s heard directed toward laid-off friends, including, “Well, join the crowd,” and, “Think of all the free time you’ll have now!”

  Showkeir suggests not minimizing the event. Someone who is already feeling tossed aside and unsure of the future is unlikely to appreciate caustic language that invalidates the gravity of the situation.  Honesty and simplicity are much more helpful. Anyone can feel awkward when facing a friend or co-worker who has lost their job, and knowing what to say can be challenging. 

The bottom line is to be intentional in your kindness.  Listen more than you talk, and when you do talk, strive to be direct and realistically helpful.

Like Maren Showkeir, I have noticed that some  people think very little of being dismissive or “flip” when someone else losses their job, but are outraged and expect support and sympathy when they themselves experience the same or a similar loss.  

 Live Intentionally; treat others as you would like to be treated.  

Website to research natural remedies

Are you using herbal and “natural” remedies?

There are both useful and useless so-called “natural” remedies.  Some have been used successfully for years and even centuries.  Others are simply benign compounds with no proven benefit.  Still others can actually be detrimental.   If you choose to use these remedies, it’s prudent to know as much as possible about what you’re ingesting. 

Kaiser Permanente recently published the link below for the use of the general public.  It’s not their website, but it appears to have a comprehensive listing of homeopathic remedies that allows the consumer to search and discover more about hundreds of compounds.  I’m re-posting it here for your convenience.

Please stay informed and act intentionally when using any type of medication or medicinal substance.

 

CLICK  HERE THEN SAVE TO YOUR FAVORITES:      http://www.naturaldatabaseconsumer.com/

 As a Clinical Psychologist I am neither trained nor licensed to evaluate, recommend or prescribe medications of any kind.  Please consult with your physician, Nurse Practitioner or pharmacist regarding any questions you have about pharmaceuticals or natural remedies.

Still crying inside…

Emotional pain can linger much longer than we imagine…

It was a few years later.  He’d done a lot of healing in our therapy sessions, and found a new path for his life that allowed him to move forward even though something inside had broken.  It was more than his heart, more than his hope.  I remember thinking that it wasn’t so much that he’s faced a change in his life, but that the ground beneath him, and inside of him, had shifted, leaving a crack where once it was solid.  Still, he had chosen to end therapy before I thought he was ready.  He said he felt positive about his future, though not exactly optimistic. 

So when he called I thought perhaps some new distressing event or experience had befallen.  It turned out that from time to time, when he didn’t expect it,  he found himself quietly, silently crying to himself – still. 

We spent another year looking backwards, looking forwards and illuminating the present.   The place where he’d broken inside had become a smaller knot, but alas, with “smaller” came an intensity that could practically bring him to his knees.  Quite simply, he still missed her, the wild and unpredictable moments and even the episodic misery she’d brought to his life.  He had thought that he’d moved on, and was reasonably adjusted to his current relationship, but there were moments, still, when he was consumed with thoughts and memories of her.  He didn’t understand why.

I though  perhaps it was more simple than he imagined.  He was feeling true grief.   She had felt like holding onto a thunderstorm, all flashes of searing heat and disturbing rumblings.  The eye of the storms had been tranquil but surreal, knowing the fierceness would return any moment. ” How could I miss that?” he mused.  “How could I want more of that, much less cry for it?”

We began again to work through his grief, and re-discovered his hopes and intentions for a future of gentle rain and balmy winds rather than unendurable storms. 

He terminated therapy, but this time with a decision that it was more of a break from treatment than an actual end.  He would try again to walk toward a new future, and come back for a check-in a few months.  He did that.  And then again.  And each time I could see more ease in his movement and hear more of a smile in his voice.

Grief has its own calendar.  Emily Dickinson’s poem says it so well.

The Soul’s Storm.

 It struck me every day

   The lightning was as new

As if the cloud that instant slit

   And let the fire through.

 It burned me in the night,

   It blistered in my dream;

It sickened fresh upon my sight

   With every morning’s beam.

I thought that storm was brief,–

   The maddest, quickest by;

But Nature lost the date of this,

   And left it in the sky.

Food Matters! Tip #2

Many of the clients I see for psychotherapy, in addition to other issues, are concerned about their eating habits and weight management. 

My “Food Matters! Tips” may be obvious to you or perhaps may bring you a fresh idea that you can incorporate into your own health and nutrition habits.  If you have any “Tips” of your own, please post a comment or send them to me (e/m: jtnphd@earthlink.net) so that I can post and share them with other readers.

TIP:    Eating while distracted leads to overeating.   This falls into the behavioral category of mindless eating.  Notice how much more of your favorite snack you eat when you’re watching TV or working on a computer.  

 It’s very much like eating the whole box of popcorn while at the movies, whereas given that same box of popcorn and asked to stand outside and eat it you might very well eat much less.

If you are trying to regulate your eating, consider approaching your encounter with food as a solo activity; focus on it, savor it, enjoy it, and stay aware of the fact that you’re eating it!  Mental satisfaction is important in achieving a feeling of contentment and fullness with the meal.   Avoiding distractions as you’re eating will enhance your mindfulness about how much you consume.   

Strive to make your eating decisions more intentional to improve your general health.  Your feeling of vitality (and perhaps your change in weight), will reflect the difference.

Looking Good From A Distance

“I See You”

These words, my client said, were the most beautiful she’d ever heard.  And when he said them she’d know it was the truth.  For the first time she’d felt that her nakedness, emotional as well as physical, had been fully seen and even more fully embraced.   He held her easily, and when she was fitful or angry he had held her even more closely.  She knew he wasn’t afraid of her sinful frailty or her vengeful strength.

But that was then.  And him.   They’d parted for reasons beyond their control and now she was married to a good man who cared for her, maybe loved her (she wasn’t sure) but who didn’t really want to see her in that raw, revealing kind of way.   She could never quite feel really safe, knowing that the stormy passion within her, if revealed, would blow their house down.   And, she lamented, it was just so obvious that he really didn’t want to know her in anything other than a superficial way.   He seemed to be more interested in seeing sports and reality shows than in “seeing” her, much less embracing her frailties.

She wanted to know how to let go of needing, wanting to really be seen and loved for all that she was – and all that she was not.

We met for the better part of a year, and talked mostly about her- her hopes, dreams, longings, resentments and of course her need to be “seen.”  She came to understand that she might never again be held or touched or tasted in that same way.  That it had been special beyond what could be expected in everyday life.   She was able to lift her eyes to her life as it was, embrace the happiness she could find in her marriage, and look forward to contentment and fun.  She decided she would do her part to make her marriage as loving and fulfilling as possible.

When i looked in her eyes and asked about what I knew, I always found a gentle tear about to fall.  But she smiled anyway and let me know she was ready to enter the new world of being seen  only through a distant lens.   She said she intended to keep her special tears to herself. 

Until they dried, and were no more.

 People choose their own path; illumination, not direction, is my job.

 

If you are struggling to live with your life as it is, and not as you had imagined it could be, perhaps it’s time to make an appointment with a professional therapist, where you can learn both to see and to “be seen” and to make decisions about what kind of life you really want to have and to work for.

When you open your own eyes to see yourself perhaps you will open the eyes of others as well.

 

Z-z-z-z-z

My client, describing herself, told me “There’s an angry girl sleeping inside me, and I’d just as well not wake her up!”

She described herself as “always trying to make other people happy”, and sadly acknowledged that she seldom thought about her own happiness.  She had, for as long as she could remember, focused her considerable energy and imagination on her family, friends and lovers.  Now having ended the last romantic relationship with more conflict than she’d expected, she wanted to learn how to end a life of resentment and anger, and to be happy for herself.  She definitely did not look or sound happy now, with her eyes downcast and clouded with inner pain.

During the initial sessions I came to understand how she’d learned her selflessness:  her mom and her dad, separated when she was young, had vied for her attention and affection.   She had tried her best to make both of them happy- and neither of them made it easy.  It became increasingly difficult when her dad began to experience serious emotional distress and expected even more, and more intensive support from her, and her mother responded with quiet withdrawal. It was never enough, but she tried beyond her capacity and beyond her years to make them happy.

Then had come the lovers, some incessantly demanding and others distracted and neglectful.  She heard herself being described with many hurtful words when she fell short, but she’d tried her best to make them happy.

She often softly cried as we talked about how one learns, and can unlearn, long-held beliefs and behaviors by finding and illuminating their anchors and antecedents, and then painfully developing new ways of thinking and acting.   She said that she couldn’t believe it was really her we were talking about.  It all made her feel silly and weak.

Slowly, as the months passed, she began to sit more comfortably, to relax into the couch, to notice more about my office.  I saw her smile as she looked on a side table with a jumble of tulips cascading down from their vase.   She asked about a painting that hangs on the wall.  Several weeks later she’d had her eyebrows threaded, and she wore a little blush on her cheeks, declaring “I used to know how to be pretty.”  And so she was beginning to look at the world around her, to regain awareness of her capacities, to reclaim her emotional strength, and yes, to feel pretty.   The growth continued, as did the unfolding of her self-confidence.   By the time treatment was ending, she laughed about her inital statement to me and said “cock-a-doodle-doo!”  as she looked at me with clear and shining eyes.

If you are experiencing  a loss of confidence, a loss of direction, and a growing resentment toward some of the people in your life, consider calling today to make an appointment.

It may be long past time for “someone special” to wake up!

 

Should I do this? Or that? Is that really the question?

I sometimes have clients ask what makes the most sense to do when they have read or heard advice about how to re-think and re-build their lives.  Often they feel faced with seemingly opposed strategies,  and don’t know which to choose.  Here’s an example:

1. Should I look within myself for happiness and success, or should I look outside of myself and seek the comfort and counsel of others?

2. If I’m feeling disconnected and discontent, is it best to go out and  become active and engaged in lots of activities, or is it advisable to go in and become more comfortable with self-affirming activities?

I help them to see that it’s not the particular choice but rather the Either/Or way of approaching the issues and indeed most challenges in life, that we should talk about.  The answer to their questions will come along with the discovery of how their dichotomous thinking is limiting their discovery of options. 

So what “should” they do?  Perhaps both.  Being flexible in our approach to events and situations allows for the most effective and fulfilling response.   Thinking only in dichotomies limits our perspective and therefore our vision of what might  be  possible,and may also constrict our emotional response to proscribed “feelings” that go along with that perspective. 

Bringing balance into our perspective and our response can make all the difference between feeling trapped into one  narrow path and feeling empowered to imagine different solutions and new combinations that each themselves present new options and, of course, new challenges. 

Choices:  the gift of life.

For all those who wander… but are not lost.

Given to me by a client who is herself a “searcher”, this passage evokes the challenge that so many, and so few, have taken for themselves.  For all of you, and each of you, women and men, young and old, I’m posting the entire preface to James Kavanaugh’s book of poetry. 

There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves by James Kavanaugh

“This is a book born in my heart, born in the pain of ending one life and beginning another, born in the excitement of the continuing search for life’s meaning.  Some people do not have to search, they find their niche early in life and rest there, seemingly contented and resigned.  They do not seem to ask much of life, sometimes they do not seem to take it seriously.  At times I envy them, but usually I do not understand them.  Seldom do they understand me.

I am one of the searchers.  There are, I believe, millions of us.  We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content.  We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.  We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.  We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty.  We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well.  Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter.  To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know—unless it be to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide.  Most of all we want to love and be loved.  We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give.  We do not want to prove ourselves to another or to compete for love.

This is a book for wanderers, dreamers and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful.  It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”

And perhaps, in the joy and struggle, and the wandering journey  of your life, this is also a book for you.