Therapy Is Not Punitive

Therapy Is Not a Punishment: Why Parents Should Avoid Using Therapy as a Consequence

As therapists, we often hear children say things like, "My mom told me to tell you what I did," or "I'm here because I got in trouble." While these statements may seem harmless, they can reveal a misunderstanding about the purpose of therapy that can unintentionally undermine the therapeutic process.

Parents naturally want to address challenging behaviors, improve communication, and help their children make better choices. Therapy can absolutely support those goals. However, when therapy is framed as a punishment or a place where adults report a child's misbehavior, it can create barriers that make meaningful growth much more difficult.

Therapy Is a Relationship, Not a Consequence

When a child is sent to therapy because they broke a rule, acted out, or made a poor decision, they may begin to view the therapist as an extension of discipline rather than a source of support.

Children need to experience therapy as a safe place where they can explore their thoughts, emotions, fears, and mistakes without feeling judged. If therapy becomes associated with punishment, the child may enter sessions feeling defensive, guarded, or resistant.

Imagine if every time you made a mistake at work, someone required you to attend therapy as a consequence. Most adults would approach those sessions with skepticism rather than openness. Children are no different.

Therapy Is Not a Courtroom

Many parents understandably want therapists to know what happened at home or school. Sharing relevant information is important and often necessary. However, there is a difference between providing context and using therapy as a venue to prosecute a case.

Children quickly recognize when a session becomes an opportunity for adults to list their failures, mistakes, or poor choices. When this happens, therapy can feel less like a supportive environment and more like a courtroom where evidence is being presented against them.

Children Need a Place Where They Are More Than Their Behavior

Behavior is information. It tells us that something is happening beneath the surface.

An angry child may be scared.

A defiant child may feel powerless.

A disrespectful child may be carrying hurt, embarrassment, or frustration.

When therapy focuses exclusively on correcting behavior, we miss the opportunity to understand what is driving it.

The goal is not to excuse inappropriate actions. Accountability and responsibility remain important. Rather, therapy seeks to understand the underlying emotions, experiences, and patterns that contribute to those actions.

Children are more likely to change when they feel understood than when they feel condemned.

Trust Is the Foundation of Effective Therapy

Research consistently shows that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes.

For therapy to work, children must believe that the therapist is someone who is genuinely interested in understanding them. If they perceive the therapist as another adult whose job is to monitor, report, or punish them, trust becomes much harder to establish.

This does not mean therapists keep secrets from parents or ignore safety concerns. It means the therapist's primary role is to help the child understand themselves, develop coping skills, and strengthen their ability to navigate life's challenges.

What Parents Can Say Instead

Rather than saying:

• "You're going to therapy because of your behavior."

• "Wait until you tell your therapist what you did."

• "I'm going to tell your therapist everything."

Consider saying:

• "Therapy is a place where you can talk about what's going on."

• "Your therapist is there to help you understand your feelings and learn new skills."

• "Everyone needs support sometimes."

• "We're doing this because we care about you, not because you're in trouble."

These messages help position therapy as a resource rather than a punishment.

The Bigger Picture

Every child will make mistakes. That is part of growing up. Therapy works best when it becomes a place where children can safely explore those mistakes, learn from them, and develop healthier ways of coping and communicating.

When therapy is used as a punishment, children may learn to fear it.

When therapy is used as a partnership, children learn that asking for help is a strength.

As parents, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the understanding that support is not something you earn by being perfect. Support is something available to you precisely because you are human.

The Quiet Power of Platonic Love

The Quiet Power of Platonic Love

When we think about love, our culture tends to place romantic partnership at the top of the hierarchy. We celebrate engagements, weddings, anniversaries, and grand romantic gestures. Yet some of the most meaningful, sustaining, and transformative relationships in our lives are often our friendships.

Platonic love deserves more recognition than it gets.

Friendships hold a unique kind of intimacy. They are often built over years, sometimes decades, of shared experiences, inside jokes, life transitions, heartbreaks, reinventions, and celebrations. They witness who we have been and who we are becoming. Good friends remember our stories, reflect our strengths back to us when we've forgotten them, and sit beside us during seasons that feel too heavy to carry alone.

There is something deeply healing about being known by peers.

Unlike family relationships, which we inherit, or romantic relationships, which often carry expectations around partnership, finances, parenting, and daily logistics, friendships are chosen. We continue showing up because we want to, not because we have to. That choice creates a particular kind of freedom.

In many friendships, our lives are not completely intertwined. We don't share mortgages, parenting responsibilities, household management, or major financial decisions. While these shared responsibilities can create deep bonds within romantic partnerships, they can also introduce stress, conflict, and competing needs.

Friendships often operate differently.

Because our lives are less entangled, there is frequently more room for acceptance. A friend can disagree with our choices without those choices directly impacting their daily life. They can support our growth without needing us to grow in a specific direction that benefits them. They can celebrate our dreams without those dreams requiring sacrifice from them.

This distance isn't a weakness of friendship. It is often one of its greatest strengths.

Friends can sometimes offer a wider lens, more curiosity, and less agenda. They can hold space for complexity. They can remind us who we are when we have become lost in the demands of work, parenting, caregiving, or partnership.

Friendships also create opportunities for something we all need but rarely talk about: shared dreaming.

Some of my favorite conversations with friends have very little to do with solving problems. They are conversations about possibilities. What do we want next? What are we creating? What lights us up? What kind of life are we trying to build?

Friends often become witnesses to our becoming.

They encourage the business idea. They read the first draft. They listen to the wild dream. They remind us of our courage when fear starts getting loud.

And then there is the simple gift of fun.

As adults, many of us become so focused on responsibilities that play quietly disappears. Friendships invite us back into laughter, spontaneity, creativity, and joy. They remind us that life is not only about productivity and caretaking. It is also about connection.

For many people, especially those who have experienced trauma, friendship can be an important place to practice healthy intimacy. Healthy friendships teach us that closeness does not require self-abandonment. They allow us to experience mutual care, reciprocity, honesty, and support while remaining fully ourselves.

Perhaps this is why friendships can feel so nourishing. They offer love without ownership. Connection without obligation. Support without control.

Platonic love may not receive the same cultural attention as romantic love, but it is no less significant.

The friends who answer the phone, send the text, celebrate the win, sit with the grief, remember the dream, and stay present across the years are participating in one of the most beautiful forms of love available to us.

If you're fortunate enough to have those people in your life, tell them.

Friendship is not a consolation prize for romantic love.

It is a profound and valuable form of love all its own.

Peace Isn't What You Think It Is

Peace isn’t what you think it is.

We’ve been taught, culturally, that peace arrives at some future destination: financial security, conflict-free relationships, and work that feels deeply meaningful one hundred percent of the time. When we finally achieve the right external conditions, then—then—our internal world will settle. We’ll feel content. Safe. At ease.

That idea is everywhere.

Across the internet, we’re told to “protect our peace” by cutting off anything—or anyone—that causes discomfort. I’m protecting my peace, bye. Taken to an extreme, this isn’t the path to peace at all. It’s a path toward increased anxiety, isolation, and disconnection.

So what is peace? And how do we actually cultivate it?

Over the past few months, a group of Buddhist monks quietly showed us the answer.

I was deeply grateful to witness the monks walking for peace as they passed through Fredericksburg. As they approached, something shifted. The air felt different. The energy softened. I could immediately access a still center within myself—everything else faded into the background. I felt grounded, solid, contained.

That moment transported me back to a transformative period in my early twenties, when I first learned what peace truly is—and how to find it.

For two years, every Friday evening, I sat in meditation with the Missionaries of Charity, the contemplative order founded by Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Their vocation was prayer and presence, and they welcomed me into their weekly meditation practice.

I didn’t earn that invitation through achievement or spiritual merit. I was invited because I was suffering deeply, and a beloved mentor brought me there. Those two years changed my life.

Each evening followed the same simple ritual: an opening prayer, an hour or more of silent meditation, and a closing prayer. Before that, I had never meditated. I didn’t know what to expect—and it was intense.

I squirmed. My thoughts raced. My body was uncomfortable. My emotions were raw. Some nights I wanted to bolt for the door. And yet, the women—like the monks—already had a relationship with peace. They sensed my struggle. Sometimes they offered a gentle smile, a whispered word, or simply shifted their breathing in a way that reminded me I could stay. That I could move through whatever discomfort or pain was pulling me away from myself.

For a long time, the only relief I felt was when the closing prayer began—because it meant it was almost over.

Still, I kept returning.

Even though meditation initially amplified my suffering, I also experienced something else: the same grounded, steady presence I felt witnessing the monks. That presence felt like respite. I felt seen—every flaw, every mistake—and held anyway, in full presence and loving kindness.

Over time, the practice softened. Meditation became less abrasive, less effortful. I felt more spacious, less attached to the thoughts and sensations passing through me. And then, quietly, I began to experience moments of true presence.

I met peace.

That peace didn’t stay confined to the convent walls. It followed me into my daily life. Situations that once triggered reactivity no longer did. Instead, I found pauses. Space. Glimpses of understanding—of my own suffering and the suffering of others.

What I learned was this: peace arises when we stay present with all of our experience. Not because we like what’s happening, or approve of it, but because we stop resisting it. We stop trying to offload discomfort through avoidance or reaction. Presence creates freedom.

I still experienced distraction. I still felt discomfort. But I could stay with it—and move through it.

The women did for me what the monks are offering us now: a living demonstration that peace is found in how we meet each moment.

The monks have walked through intense heat, pouring rain, snow, ice, and bitter wind. They’ve moved through welcoming communities and hostile ones, through support and ridicule. And still, they walk—grounded in each step, each breath, each moment, with compassion.

That is peace.

Not perfect weather.
Not perfect relationships.
Not constant comfort—physical or emotional.

Peace is presence with what is. And from that presence, you always have a choice: to move around your experience, or to move through it—with awareness, dignity, and loving kindness.

The Case for Stillness

Go, go, go. Do, do, do. Get, get, get.
That’s the energy most of us are conditioned in from birth.

Worth becomes productivity, and productivity becomes the measure of your value. If you do more, you are more. And if you aren’t striving… well, what are you even doing? Rest is something you earn, and only after you’ve done “all the work,” whatever that means.

This mindset was especially prevalent in my generation (Gen X) and remains a cornerstone of Western culture. At the same time, I’m beginning to notice small signs of a cultural shift, an increasing awareness of the cost of chronic hustle. The quiet but important questions: For what? For who? Who is actually benefiting from all this grinding and striving?

One of the many problems with this framework is that it’s deeply reductive, profoundly disembodied, and fundamentally misaligned with our wholeness. Over time, it leads to burnout, depression, and habits that numb us to the very disconnection we’re trying to outrun.

And perhaps most strikingly, this approach rarely delivers on what it promises.

Our mind–body systems are designed to move in rhythms and cycles. Sometimes that rhythm calls for effort, productivity, and forward motion. And sometimes it calls for slowing down, resting, reflecting—simply being. When we habitually override rest and slowness, we dysregulate our entire system. We lose access to meaning-making, emotional depth, and our capacity for connection, joy, wonder, and love.

This is where the magic of stillness lives.

Stillness asks nothing of you. There’s no striving, no destination, no achievement. There is only being here, now, noticing what is. That can feel deeply uncomfortable, threatening; especially if staying busy has been how you’ve survived.

The initial discomfort of stillness understandably sends many people rushing back into action.

But when stillness is practiced consistently, something shifts. Over time, your system recognizes it as a natural state. Relief emerges. You begin to feel into the fuller dimensions of who you are; separate from what you produce or accomplish. This is how we start to reclaim wholeness.

Winter, as a natural cycle, is an incredible teacher in developing a relationship with stillness. Winter embodies being rather than performing. It models quiet deepening, and restoration—not expansion, acceleration, or bloom. And perhaps most powerfully, winter reminds us how essential this rhythm is for growth itself.

Rest and reflection, when held in harmony with action and productivity, is the cycle that fuels inspiration, motivation, and meaningful engagement with the world.

So how do you begin a relationship with stillness?

Start by making peace with the fact that it will likely feel uncomfortable and maybe even pointless, at first. If you can stay with that discomfort and allow it to move through you (and it will), you’ll begin to sense the steady calm beneath all the noise.

Practically speaking, carve out 10–15 minutes a day to do nothing. (You already spend more time than that scrolling, so this isn’t about time.)

You might:

• Sit and look out a window, just being.
  
  

• Lie on the floor and follow the rhythm of your breath.
  
  

• Stand outside and simply notice what it feels like to be in your body and with your surroundings.
  
  

Daily connection with stillness helps you recognize the cues your body is always offering. You begin to notice when you need rest, when you need a pause, and—just as importantly—when you feel genuinely ready to take action.

And yes, I hear you. The demands of life are real. Being overwhelmed and under-resourced is real.
And also, there are ways to honor your inner rhythm within the chaos of your current situation, even if it’s only 5 minutes.

It may not be perfect. It may not be ideal.
But it can be enough to reconnect you with more of who you truly are.

Year End Reflections - Emotional Agility Is The Move

So often we decide, “If I get it right, if I make the right choices, then I can lock in and ride out a good life”. If you sit back to reflect on that notion, there are so many issues with it…

First off, what does get it right mean?

Who determines what right choices are, and how are those right choices measured?

Is it determined by how comfortable we are?

Then there’s the issue with locking in and riding out;  those states of being that don't really even exist.  Life changes, we change, unexpected events happen, so there's no viable pathway to lock anything in.

And then finally, a good life, what the heck is that?

What your parents told you was a good life?

What the culture, your friends, the media told you was a good life?

And how is that even determined?  

It’s understandable that we do this, our brains want certainty, thinking that translates to security.  Who doesn’t want security?  Security in your life is absolutely possible, but not by creating some external picture that you then try to control.  Security develops on the inside, it’s a deep rootedness in knowing that however life twists and turns, whatever unexpected experiences or hoped for outcomes occur or don’t come to pass, you can trust in your ability to take care of yourself, your heart and to live into your values. That type of grounded relationship to your life and yourself is the cornerstone of security.

How do you begin to build that internal sense of security?

Two words, emotional agility.

This concept was developed by Dr. Susan David, a leading expert on emotional intelligence.  She defines emotional agility as “The ability to navigate one’s emotions with flexibility, without ignoring them or letting them control you”. It is a practice of using your emotions as information to help guide you.  When you develop skill in emotional agility you become able to adapt, to be curious, to be open to change; all skills that over time support you in living a life RICH and MEANINGFUL to YOU.  You become less reactive, less rigid, less braced for the inevitable shoe to drop.

At year's end, I usually reflect on what I noticed, what I learned, what I unlearned, and how that matters to me and to the people around me both at work and at home. This year,  I’ve witnessed myself make several decisions based on emotional agility both in my business and personal life.  I moved offices and entered into a new type of business collaboration, I hired more clinicians, I began remodeling my outbuilding to move the practice to, I’ve expanded the services I offer to include retreats and held several of these groups at my home.

Each of these choices were connected to emotional agility.  Most of them were never in “the plan”. I changed course because circumstances changed, and although several of these decisions were a bit scary, I am finding security inside myself, rather than trying to control the outcomes of these decisions. I’ve witnessed countless clients connect with deep meaning, deep joy and deep forgiveness through the practice of emotional agility. I’ve felt the freedom of the practice and I’ve watched others connect to freedom by letting go of what they were supposed to do and instead learned how to choose themselves through their values in whatever situation they found themselves in. 

Emotional agility releases you from the nagging fear and anxiety centered in things needing to be a certain way, instead inviting you to explore what is happening, using curiosity to guide you through the situation. I don’t think we ever arrive at PERFECT emotional agility, nor do I think that’s the point. Developing this practice will, however, bring much more internal peace and security without resorting to avoidance, numbing, blame or control to gain what I like to call faux peace.  It will bring excitement into your experience and it will reconnect you with mystery and possibility, all of which enriches your experience of this one beautiful life you are living and we are living alongside each other.

If you want to learn more about emotional agility, check out Dr. David’s book, titled unsurprisingly… Emotional Agility.

And if you are looking for a practical way to build a relationship with yourself and your life consider our month long Introduction to Journaling, an online experience that will support you in exploring several different approaches to journaling and guide you through exploring those approaches.  We’ll also meet on zoom each week to process your experiences with the material. We start January 1, I sure hope to see you there.

Thank you for spending your valuable time reading these blogs I write and engaging with our social media, workshops and courses. I love my work and I hope it brings a little more clarity, support and hope to anyone who connects with it.  I wish each of you a year that surprises you, delights you and opens you to the awareness that you are held in love exactly as you are.

Scrolling, The Near Enemy of Connection

In Buddhism there is the concept of near and far enemies related to what are considered the immeasurable qualities of a wise, open heart. These four immeasurable qualities are:

• loving kindness

• compassion

• appreciative joy

• and equanimity

As you might assume far enemies are the opposites of these qualities, cruelty is the far enemy of compassion and ill will is the far enemy of loving kindness. Near enemies however, are more nuanced, more challenging to recognize. They share some similarities with the quality but also key differences. So you can easily think you are possessing the quality, when in fact you are actually working against yourself in developing that specific quality.

For example, the near enemy of compassion is pity.  Pity and compassion definitely include an acknowledgement of suffering and is often expressed in verbally similar ways with statements like "I'm really sorry that is happening to you.”  The key difference is that in compassion there is no separateness, there is a recognition that we all suffer and we can find ourselves within the other’s suffering.

Pity is underpinned with separateness, and a sort of hierarchy that contains the idea that it may be happening to them but it couldn’t happen to me because _________.

Oftentimes people can confuse pity as compassion, when it is in fact an obstacle to true compassion which acknowledges suffering with empathy, a connection to the suffering and a desire to relieve it from a place of shared humanity.  Pity, inferring separateness actually prevents the expression of compassion.  

Although a profoundly useful lens in and of itself to apply to any self reflection practice, I started thinking about it in terms of our relationship with devices, the internet and social media…

Clearly, we can make a case that our relationship with it works against equanimity, a calmness of being, because it involves the near enemy of craving and aversion.  We are often either craving it as a distraction or trying to avoid it because it is a distraction. I started thinking about it in terms of acting as a near enemy to well rounded living, to being, to connection.

How does it do that?

If I think about trends in my own algorithm, some frequent themes are funny dog videos, art, flower growing, yoga/meditation and psychology/philosophy centered content.

Umm, that seems pretty aligned with many of my professional and personal interests...  So how is an aligned algorithm a potential near enemy to my actual relationship with these interests in my life?

If I’m watching tons of flower growing and arranging videos, my brain gets tricked into thinking I’m engaging in those activities, and although I may be learning, I’m not fully experiencing a relationship with the interest and that is the key difference. I can’t think of a single time when I’ve finished scrolling and felt satisfaction, contentment or fulfillment; I have often felt like I’ve eaten too much junk food.

When I am outside digging, planting, fertilizing or at the store buying varieties of seeds, I’m engaging with the whole experience AND the felt sense of the experience, the overwhelm, when I’m trying something new, the uncertainty when I’m making decisions, the excitement connected to both the process and the outcome and these are the dimensions of experience that our entire mind body system needs to feel alive and embodied.

Those full experiences are what allows us to derive meaning from the relationship to the interest, widening our world, deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us in a way that scrolling through videos can’t; because there's no application, no true connection.

Does that mean I can’t ever scroll?  No, that would be aversion, another near enemy.

It means that the more I support myself in applying what I watch in connection to the experience or the hobby the more I’m in balance with both with my devices and in the practice of equanimity. I’m not craving or avoiding digital content, I’m mindfully engaging with it but investing most of my energy into the application and practice of those interests in my life.  

I believe that using this lens to reflect on your relationship with digital content will also decrease the often accompanying self criticism about the overuse of your devices.  Instead it can help you understand more about your interests, about what you may need more of in your life and a place to start engaging with those needs and experiences in your day to day life. Will that feel more uncomfortable and less pleasurable at first? Absolutely. Over time however, you will begin to notice that maybe you’re thinking about the interest more, maybe even looking forward to more engagement with it. That’s when you’ll feel it, the satisfaction and fulfillment of whole connection.

Everyone Is Creative: Reclaiming the Joy of Playful Expression

At some point, many of us begin to believe a quiet but persistent myth: I’m just not a creative person.

Maybe it came from a childhood comment, a comparison to someone else, or the belief that creativity must look a certain way—paintings in a gallery, a novel on a shelf, a flawless performance. But the truth is, creativity is not a talent reserved for the few. It’s a relationship we each hold—with curiosity, with play, with the deeper parts of ourselves.

Creativity Is Playful Connection

At its heart, creativity is a form of play. It asks us to wonder, to explore, to follow a thread without knowing where it leads. It’s not about being “good” at something. It’s about staying open.

Psychiatrist and author Dan Siegel speaks about the “plane of possibility”—a spacious state of mind where we can imagine, discover, and expand beyond our habitual patterns. Creativity is one of the most direct portals to this place. When we draw, write, move, or make music without judgment or agenda, we step into that plane of openness. And from there, healing becomes possible.

No Outcome Required

One of the most powerful shifts we can make is redefining success.
Creativity doesn’t need to produce a result to be worthwhile. The act of creating is the value. Whether it’s doodling in a journal, dancing in your living room, or writing a messy poem no one else will read, creativity reconnects us with the process of doing rather than proving.

This is where many women rediscover a part of themselves that’s been waiting quietly in the wings—permission to play, to feel, to express without needing it to “go somewhere.”

The Benefits of Cultivating Creativity

Rebuilding a relationship with your creative self can be transformative. It's not just about fun (though fun is wonderful!). It also offers:

• Stress relief – creative activities soothe the nervous system and offer a sense of rhythm and presence.

• Emotional processing – art and movement can express what words cannot, giving form to feelings that feel too big or too complex.

• Energy and vitality – engaging with your imagination can re-energize your body and mind.

• Integration of self – creativity helps bridge inner parts that may feel disconnected or unseen.

• Exploration – it becomes a sacred practice of curiosity, inviting you to meet new aspects of yourself.

How to Begin Reconnecting with Your Creativity

There’s no one right way. Start where there’s a spark—or even a flicker. Some simple ways to begin:

• Movement – gentle stretching, free dance, or walking while letting your thoughts wander

• Writing – try stream-of-consciousness journaling, a short story, or even writing a letter to your younger self

• Music or performance – hum, sing, act out a scene, or revisit an instrument you once loved

• Visual art – doodle in your journal, paint on canvas, play with color and shape with no plan in mind

Give yourself permission to be imperfect. To begin. To play.

Creativity isn’t something you have to earn. It’s something you already hold within.
It’s your birthright. A gentle power that helps you feel, imagine, and come home to yourself.

And it’s never too late to begin again.

2023 In Review Using GLAD

Arriving at the end of another year invites us to focus on introspection and self reflection.

Rhythms and cycles are woven into every aspect of our lives, from the automatic rhythm of our breath as we inhale and exhale, to the continuous cycles of the sun, the moon and the seasons.  We spend our lives entwined in these patterns, many times not exploring the power of consciously partnering with them. (And yes, this might be a teaser of a project I’m working on).

Using the end of a calendar year to reflect on your experiences of yourself and your life, the patterns, structure, choices and results, is a powerful tool for partnering with the ending and beginning of a new yearly cycle. It can also be an overwhelming exercise to consider, with thoughts similar to, “How do I review a whole year? I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.” Finding a manageable and meaningful way to begin a self reflection process can be challenging.

2023 was a transformational year for me, and even though I have developed introspective and self reflective practices for decades, I was finding that reflecting on my year in a meaningful way felt TOUGH. I kept listing events and experiences, which was helpful in acknowledging the content of the year but it wasn’t supporting my goal to find meaning. 

So I pulled out an OLD mindfulness tool; one I included in the first workshop I created years ago, Mindfulness 101.  The exercise is called GLAD and is significantly beneficial for general mood management and specifically depressive tendencies.  The exercise as originally intended suggests that you acknowledge;

One small experience you are GRATEFUL for that day

One small thing that you LEARNED that day

One small ACCOMPLISHMENT for that day

And one small DELIGHT you experienced that day.

It’s effective when practiced consistently because it broadens your perception of your experience and opens you to notice daily experiences that bring meaning and purpose to your life. I decided to adapt it as a way to reflect on my year.  I stayed with the basic approach and allowed myself to be flexible about how I described each category. If I wanted to add it more for each or wanted to summarize a category by describing a theme, then I did that.  Here’s a bit of what I came up with.

This year, what I am grateful for is the grounded awareness that I can trust myself to live within my values, even when it is painful to do so. That doesn't mean I make “right” decisions, rather it means that I can trust myself to both be responsible for the decisions I make and change course when my values indicate that I need to.  The grounded awareness of that trust has liberated me to take more risks and to be more vulnerable, trusting myself to care for myself no matter what the outcome. 

This year, I learned that the love we offer ourselves and others as well as the love that is offered to us, is what can make the difference between surviving unexpected challenges and losses and learning, growing and thriving through those same difficulties. Love as a force, filled in the gaps when I reached my capacity, it lightened my load when I could hold no more, it witnessed with kind compassion, my grief  and it preserved my connection to hope.

This year I accomplished a business restructuring to align with my current needs and I was able to make real progress on a decades long whisper in my heart, what I’ve come to refer to as a heart seed, this seed was planted during 2023 and is currently growing.  It has stretched me and unsettled me and excited me.  As all heart centered pursuits tend to do. 

This year I delighted in gathering my first crop of dahlia seeds from my own harvest.  I delighted in a few spontaneous and fun trips that made my belly ache from laughing and my feet hurt from dancing. And I delighted in a few new relationships I cultivated this year that reawakened some dormant, neglected aspects of myself that I deeply love.

If you are looking to start a relationship or perhaps deepen your relationship with New Year’s reflection, using GLAD can support you in both broadening your perspective on your year while also helping you to find meaning in your experiences this year.

Looking ahead to what is beginning; in 2024 I’m looking forward to offering a 4 part talk series aligned with each season, the first, Harnessing the Power of Winter Stillness will be offered sometime in late January.  Details about the event and how to sign up are on the way!

I’m also looking forward to so many additional creative projects both within the practice and in my personal life, and as always, I’m looking forward to walking alongside many of you as you rediscover your voice and reclaim the power of using it in support of all your selves, past, present and future.

I wish each of you a new year filled with deep authentic connection to yourself and others and real moments of joy as you continue discovering and rediscovering how beautiful you are in mind body and spirit.

Harvest Season

Let’s be real, it’s what we look forward to in our gardens and in our lives, especially if we have planted seeds with intention, care, support and weathered the storms and uncertainty of the germination and growing process.

When I think about harvest season metaphorically, I think about heart centered seeds.  Heart seeds of dreams, values and hopes.  Harvest season rewards us with evidence of those heart centered energy investments.  It confirms our hopes and fuels our dreams.

We celebrate fruition.

Unless you are experiencing a disappointing harvest in your garden or life.  One with depleted blooms, injured or diseased crops, crops that either never germinated or died earlier in their growth cycle. Those harvest seasons tempt us to avoid reflection or even connection in any sense with what contributed to a harvest we didn’t want or expect.  Of course there are factors that are outside of our control, even if we shelter our gardens filled with the seeds of our heart from storms. Even if we provide extra supports to help them weather the storms, sometimes that’s not enough and the storms will wipe out a crop despite our best efforts to protect it, to help it survive, and give it a chance to thrive.

Those are heartbreaking cycles that also provide us with opportunities to let go; to practice nonattachment to outcomes and stay engaged with a heart centered process.

Disappointing harvests are also opportunities to reflect on how you may have contributed to an outcome you didn’t anticipate.

Reflecting on your decisions and behaviors with questions like; Did I plant with intention?  Or was it more with distraction?  Did I consistently attune to the needs of those heart seeds in the garden, learning, fertilizing, watering, and supporting? Or did I engage in a more haphazard way, when I felt like it, because, I was busy? Was I disengaged because I was growing something someone else wanted that I don’t even care that much about?

Reflecting on your personal contribution to the harvest you are reaping builds capacity for growth, it desensitizes you to paralyzing shame by reinforcing your humanness, your flawed nature and it builds self trust.  Self reflection when paired with personal accountability can become rocket fuel to build consistency in heart centered endeavors. When you  become more intentional not only about what you plant but why you are planting it you then are more motivated to support those seeds into a bountiful blooming season.

This month I’ve entered a second harvest season within a year. The first, was a heartbreaking harvest season, that required acceptance of storm damage the heart seeds in this garden couldn’t withstand and reflection on how my own decisions in the planting stages influenced the probability of the disappointing harvest. It was a reckoning in which I came to understand that the new knowledge I was implementing in crop support, fertilization, and expansion, wasn’t ever going to produce the results I hoped for with this heart centered garden, the soil it was planted in was not going to adapt and evolve.

So, I changed course and utilized that new knowledge in planting new seeds, while at the same time staying consistent in caring for the emerging blooming season of one of my oldest and most heart centered seed crop.

And this November I’m celebrating the incredible blooming cycle of this aspect of my garden. I’ve witnessed the results of authentic tenacity and the true belonging that accompanies that steadfast commitment to heart seeds planted decades ago, consistently cared for, even when the care was uninformed, even ignorant to important care factors that would support the seed growth cycle more comprehensively.

These seeds still thrived.

In the blooms, I saw the strength of the roots, the impact of the learning, the fertilizing and most awe inspiring, the unique expression of these flowers in the world. It frankly took my breath away…

To witness the expression of who these blooms are separate from me and yet inextricably linked to my intention and care is an experience that confirms my beliefs in the power of love. It strengthened my own roots as a person and my vision as an intentional gardener of dreams. I’m also beginning to witness some of the newer seeds germinating into exciting seedlings of potential.

Harvest season is of course both/and.

It’s a season to celebrate the bountiful harvest and to grieve the disappointing losses. Always learning and celebrating both for the wisdom and growth potential they invite us into relationship with. What is your current harvest season about? And how are you planting your heart seeds for the next harvest cycle? Take a look at your contributions to both, it matters and so do you.

Relay Race Wisdom, a metaphor for intergenerational family patterns

One of my favorite activities growing up, in track and field as well as competitive swimming was the relay race.

I loved it because I had an individual stake in how our team performed AND it wasn’t just on me, there were three other team members that were also stakeholders in our overall performance; shared risk and shared victory or sometimes defeat.  I can still feel the jittery excitement of that baton hitting my hand as I was starting to run and the momentum of diving off the starting block when my teammate touched the pool wall.

Because of the running and swimming events I participated in, I was often third or fourth in the lineup, so by the time it was my turn, I had some information about how we were doing and what I needed to do in my leg of the race for our team. Sometimes that meant I needed to dig deep and run/swim at the top of my skill level, sometimes that meant I had the opportunity to run/swim in my comfort zone and sometimes it meant I needed to run/swim beyond what I was consciously aware that I could do.

Family patterns across generations can be explored from a similar lens.

We are each responsible for our unique adult life AND how we experience our unique life is also connected to the folks that came before us, how they were raised, the social conditioning that influenced them, the specific aspects of identity that marginalized them and privileged them and the trauma they experienced, witnessed or were raised with.

Those factors impact not only what we each see as possible for our lives; they also impact how we see ourselves, how we think about ourselves and how we process our challenges, our opportunities and our environment in general. We can’t truly experience ourselves and our life in isolation and those folks who raised us and the folks that raised and influenced them aren’t totally responsible for our lives either. 

It’s a team effort, another both/and.  We both have the responsibility of creating a life that makes sense to us AND that life is influenced by those that came before us and are around us.

Doing the work to understand that shared responsibility supports us in consciously creating our lives which involves making decisions that align with our values, our hope and our dreams.

I’m at the point in my family’s evolution where I can start to evaluate how I’ve shown up “in my leg of the race”. I can see where I’ve made up some ground from the team mates before me and I’m starting to see the challenges and opportunities my children have in their own “legs of the race” because of who they are and because of how they’ve been influenced by me and other family members.

Taking responsibility in this way, I believe, continues to hold us accountable for our decisions and invites us to stay in relationship with ourselves gently and compassionately; we aren’t in charge of the whole team, just our part. 

Mindful Movement

This week I wanted to take some time to talk with you all about one of the most important things in my life: mindful movement.  In order to fully understand mindful movement it's important to first reflect on your own life and needs, and how you can first begin to incorporate movement from there. Many of us at some point in our lives have heard about the positive benefits of incorporating exercise or physical activity into your routine. These positive benefits include things such as improving your sleep, giving you more energy, maintaining a healthy weight, strengthening your muscles, and keeping your heart healthy.  But beyond these physical benefits, regular activity can also have an immediate positive impact on your brain health in a multitude of ways.

Reduces Anxiety

Each time you engage your body in physical movement you are releasing several beneficial neurotransmitters into your brain including dopamine (increases feelings of pleasure), norepinephrine (increases blood flow and provides energy), serotonin (stabilizes mood and promotes feelings of wellbeing and happiness), and acetylcholine (plays an essential role in alertness, attention, learning, and memory).  Together all of these chemicals have been proven to work together to decrease feelings of anxiety and depression.

Improves Focus and Concentration

Julia Basso and Wendy Suzuki conducted a recent study which showed that a single workout can have an immediate benefit of an improved ability to shift and focus attention as well as improving your reaction speed.  They recommended the best exercises to create this effect are cardiovascular exercises that elevate your heart rate such as taking a long walk, running, swimming, cycling, or jumping rope.

Promotes Brain Cell Growth

One of the most significant benefits of exercise is the promotion of neurogenesis, or the birth of new brain cells. More specifically physical activity has been shown to catalyze the creation of new brain cells in your hippocampus, the part of your brain which works towards memory formation and storage. This is essential to improving cognitive function.  Physical exercise has also been shown to improve the health and function of the synapses between neurons in your hippocampus, which allows your brain cells to communicate more effectively and efficiently.

Protects Your Brain Against Neurodegenerative Disease 

In addition to aiding in the growth of brain cells within your hippocampus, regular exercise can also promote the growth of your prefrontal cortex. Your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain which is implicated in a variety of complex behaviors, including planning, and greatly contributes to personality development.  Both your prefrontal cortex and your hippocampus are the parts of your brain which are susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.  So, similarly to muscles in your body the bigger it becomes, the stronger it gets.  Now by no means will exercise cure or prevent the onset of a neurodegenerative disease, but consistent physical activity has been shown to reduce or delay its onset. Think of it like an insurance policy for your brain!

All of these things are great reasons to start working towards incorporating physical activity into your daily life.  However, exercise also creates a unique opportunity to practice mindfulness.  For me exercise is a great outlet to release pent up stress or frustrations, but even more important for me is it creates an opportunity to feel connected with my own body.  Each day that I go to the gym I focus on a specific group of muscles and while working out I pay particular attention to how those muscles are feeling.  I may notice small pains in certain areas which gives me a sign that that spot may need more of a rest or focused stretching. Or maybe I notice certain muscles are not struggling with certain exercises as they did a couple of weeks prior, which provides me with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.  Ultimately, being mindful of the way my body is moving and feeling during exercise helps provide me with a sense of overall holistic peace.  

If going to the gym and lifting weights isn’t your thing, Tai Chi, Yoga, and Qiong are great alternatives to help introduce mindful movement into your life. Tai Chi is a healing and meditative practice that combines martial art movement with Qi (energy circulation), breathing, and stretching techniques. This practice consists of a series of graceful movements with deep and slow diaphragmatic breathings performed while standing. Practicing Tai Chi has been shown to have both physical and psychosocial benefits for many different populations. Yoga, a mind-body exercise, involves a combination of muscular activity and an internally directed mindful focus on awareness of the self, the breath, and energy. This practice integrates an individual's physical, mental, and spiritual components to improve physical and mental health, particularly stress related illnesses. Yoga provides a unique opportunity for people to practice grounded mindfulness by fostering a deep connection with your breathing while also improving your vagal tone, an unconscious activity in your brain which regulates your calming and connecting response. Qigong exercise, similar to Tai Chi, consists of a series of breath practices with body movement and meditation to attain deep focus and relaxed state. Simply speaking, Qigong exercise is practiced/used to cultivate the balance and harmony of vital energy in the human body.

Another form of mindfulness that you can do during physical activity can be thought examination.  When doing a long-form or repetitive exercise like walking, running, swimming, or riding a stationary bike, something where you can allow your physical awareness to take a bit of a back seat, pay close attention to the thoughts or feelings that arise during this. A mentor of mine in grad school spoke on how she would start each of her days with mindful movement journaling.  At the start of each day, she would go for a brisk walk and allow her mind to wander towards whatever it was naturally drawn to.  Then once she returned home, she would journal about those thoughts and emotions, which helped her start each day with a feeling of mental clarity.

Exercise can be a daunting thing to incorporate in your life’s schedule, especially if it is something that is new to you, so remember not to be too hard on yourself or create too much pressure. Additionally, it is important to mention that exercise can be potentially triggering for some folks, so make sure to check in any professional you may be seeing before making any lifestyle changes. You don’t have to adopt a professional athlete’s regimen to achieve the benefits from this blog.  Any consistent movement that is an outlet for your energy and makes you feel good at the end of the day will only provide positive benefits for you!

Building Security With Both / And

Parts of Covid, at least the lockdown isolating phases of Covid, are beginning to shift AND we are also still in the midst of the ongoing pandemic; navigating reentry, recovery, and the new variant. We have resolved some of the initial uncertainty associated with this devastating illness AND we are still uncertain about how we are going to gather again safely. In my personal life, I’m dealing with the complexity of Covid in the varying roles I have in my life with confidence AND trepidation, with curiosity AND with fear, with hope AND with grief. The ways my family and practice colleagues are approaching similar issues related to Covid BOTH resembles what I am choosing AND differs from my decisions. 

All of it is real.

It’s complicated and so often in an effort to gain more control and more certainty we rush to find ways to feel more in control and more certain.  That’s where Both/And comes in handy and that is why I chose to write this blog now.  Because we are all in varying ways navigating how our lives are still somewhat isolated AND how to re engage with work, school and others, safely.

If you are working with me or have worked with me in the past then you’ve heard me say BOTH/AND, probably to the threshold of irritation.  I use this concept EVERY SINGLE DAY. 

It’s that important. 

…In fact, if I were on a desert island and could only take one perceptual tool with me, it would be this one. 

I’ll explain why. ..

Either/or thinking also known as dichotomous thinking creates a false dichotomy, often in the service of finding certainty.  It artificially narrows our experiences and our feelings into this or that categories in an effort to increase a sense of security, by thinking we understand and can decide with certainty about complex aspects of our humanity, aspects that often defy certainty. 

The problem with dichotomous thinking though is that it doesn't accurately reflect feelings and experiences.  But both/and does.

Both/and thinking, also known as non-dualistic thinking tolerates uncertainty by allowing you to make room for all of “it”, whatever “it” is.  Both/And opens us up to the possibility that you both love your partner and feel stifled in the relationship, which can be scary to acknowledge AND also liberating.  You can enjoy the security of your job AND crave a more creative pursuit. You can appreciate the companionship of treasured friends AND be annoyed by their personality quirks. You can feel grief and joy in the same space or experience disappointment and gratitude; which is a more accurate lens to explore ourselves and our relationships with.

So how can you apply this thinking tool to your life as it relates to Covid?

1. Notice where you feel uncertainty in your life right now. Maybe it's related to varying vaccine statuses in your workplace and the policies around that.  Maybe it's connected to school settings.  Maybe it’s connected to immediate and extended family situations. Maybe even all of the above!

2. Acknowledge ALL of your feelings related to the uncertainty. Especially if they seem in conflict with each other. Acknowledge, don’t judge or criticize.

3. Consciously and intentionally hold space for all of the feelings WITHOUT judgement. Here are a few examples of what that might look like. I’m happy I’m vaccinated because I feel more safe AND I am worried about my kids not being vaccinated.  I’m scared to return to the workplace because I don’t feel secure about the policies in place AND I’m looking forward to seeing more people outside of my home. I am angry that I’m still isolated from parts of my previous life that I enjoyed AND I’m really disappointed in how my family is responding to the situation. 

For me, currently, a both/and statement is; I’m grateful that my family is vaccinated AND I’m concerned about how the Delta variant is impacting everyone regardless of vaccination status. Another is, I’m excited to gather with folks again AND concerned about how to do that safely. Another related to work is, I’m grateful we have a practice management system that can allow us to work remotely if need be AND I’m concerned about how the ever changing landscape is affecting our clients.

Opening up to the complexity of uncertain situations using this approach, counter intuitively CAN increase our security, maybe not in the moment, but certainly longer term because it’s honest and it's real. So this approach helps us build distress tolerance, helps us build self trust and helps us build self confidence; all of which foster resiliency.  And resiliency is what fuels hope. And hope fuels belonging. Which is what we all are actually looking for when we are struggling to find certainty.  I think it’s actually more about a safe, secure place to belong in the uncertainty.

Mindset Obstacles to Rest & Play

When I was in graduate school pursuing my masters degree in clinical social work, I was also working, doing a field placement for my degree and raising two small kids on my own.  Needless to say, my plate was OVER FULL.  Many times I would find myself overwhelmed with papers due and exhausted. 

At those intersections, I'd often share with my then partner about how tired I was and how I “needed to just pull another all nighter and get through it,” that I “couldn’t afford the time to sleep.”  He’d very kindly and gently remind me in those moments that when I supported myself in getting a full, restful night’s sleep I’d often wake up with an intuitive approach to a paper or project and more energy and focus to get it done.

Even though there was a part of me that knew this was true, that understood why it was true, I still often resisted his suggestion. My resistant thoughts usually took the form of “I’m behind where I should be in my life, so I can’t” or “As long as I have papers and projects due, I shouldn’t rest or play.” I could only consider those as options when all “my stuff” was done. 

Of course, none of that is rational or reasonable, but it sure did feel challenging to choose to care for myself, to choose a good night’s sleep, to choose an afternoon of fun when my kids were gone and I was off work, because well, that was prime no distraction time.  Inevitably, I regretted the times I pushed myself too hard and appreciated when I allowed moments and pockets of rest and enjoyment because they replenished my spirit and restored my focus. 

As I dug deeper into that mindset I realized it was based in worth, and specifically a hierarchy of worth.  If I could demonstrate that I was worthy, ie, I had all my ducks in a straight row, then I deserved rest and fun, if I didn’t have those ducks lined up, no rest or fun for me.  It was a sophisticated system of denying my humanity and fusing my worth with productivity, which is a recipe for loneliness and burnout.  At the core, it was a conditional relationship with worthiness, or what Brene Brown means when she says, “We are hustling for our worthiness.”

Rest and play are essential aspects of our lives. When we rest, our minds and bodies detox and refuel, our body literally takes out the cellular “trash” and works to optimize our system for the next day.  Similarly, our brains consolidate memories and learning, offload stress and repair important structures and functions.

When we allow ourselves to have fun, we diminish our allostatic load, a fancy way of saying we reduce our stress quite a bit.  When we are laughing and doing activities we enjoy, alone and with others, we connect to our creativity, we broaden our lens of possibility and we reinforce hope.

So how can you begin to open up to a deeper relationship with rest and play? 

Start by noticing and identifying the resistant thoughts about rest and enjoyment in your life. As you begin to notice them, a theme will likely emerge.  Common themes are worthiness and belonging.  We aren’t worthy so we don’t deserve a break or we are inherently damaged so we don’t belong to the group who can rest and enjoy life.  Sometimes both themes appear, or other themes similar in nature arise. 

Once you have insight into the theme of resistance you can mindfully reframe your thoughts and develop baby step action plans.  For example, if the theme is centered in your unworthiness a resistant thought may be something like; I still have important work on my to-do list so I can’t take a break. In that moment, breathe and kindly shift that thought to something like; resting is important and allows me to replenish my energy, there will always be important things on my to-do list. This type of reframe works because it doesn’t ignore that you have competing priorities to manage. It acknowledges the importance of prioritizing rest to SUPPORT you in navigating your other priorities.

Additionally, taking a baby step approach toward rest and play helps you to manage the inherent discomfort involved in changing patterns. We feel comfort in the familiar so small incremental changes can often feel more manageable.

Allowing yourself 30 minutes to chat with a treasured friend, choosing a 15 minute break for some herbal tea, watching the movie you’ve been wanting to see for “awhile now”, are steps that allow you to practice choosing rest and play without experiencing overwhelming stress and anxiety. Over time you can build your rest and play muscles up to increase the time and opportunities to benefit from these restorative practices until they become a part of each day and a consistent practice that affirms you are enough exactly as you are, you are worthy of fun and rest and you belong.

What Does Support Look Like, Sound Like, Smell Like & Feel Like?

What does support look like, sound like, smell like and feel like?

This is a sensory based question I often ask my clients, because it moves them out of their head and into their body, into the felt sense of support.  Typically, it takes them a minute or two, and even some additional guided inquiry by me to begin to open up to that part of knowing.  It’s usually there, within them, they just haven’t yet acquainted themselves with it.  Uncovering a felt sense of support is powerful because it can help you to recognize care, help and protection in your body before your mind catches up and creates a thought about your experience.  The sensory data arrives first and when you que yourself to consciously connect with the sensory data you calibrate your guidance system in accessing support more attuned to your real time needs.

Here is a guided visualization exercise to assist you in developing a connection to your felt sense of support.  All you need to begin is a quiet comfortable place where you can be undisturbed for 15 minutes and a little bit of willingness.

1. Find a comfortable seated or lying down position and begin to connect with your body by noticing your breath.  Notice each inhalation and each exhalation. Notice the rhythm and process of how your breath moves and lives within you.

2. After a few moments of noticing, allow yourself to remember a time you felt support, support you offered yourself, or maybe support offered to you by someone else. The picture may even be an imagined experience of support, whatever arrives is enough and even just right to use for this exercise.

3. Now drop into your senses; what is the smell or smells in this experience of support?  Is it related to food? A place? How does the support in this experience sound?  Does it sound like music?  A comforting voice? Sounds of nature?  Really open to whatever those smells and sounds are and where you experience the sensations associated with those sounds and smells in your body.  Next notice what you see? Notice the colors, textures and sizes of the scenery.  What is touching you? Even what are you tasting?  Follow the same process as above, not only noticing those aspects of sensory information but also noticing how you feel and where you feel that in your body.

4. Next allow yourself to use your breath to breathe in the felt sense of support, expand it as you deepen your inhalation and release any resistance to it with each exhalation. Spend at least a few minutes practicing this, until it feels less awkward and more natural to expand the sense of receiving support throughout your body.

5. Wrap up the visualization exercise by spending a moment in appreciation of the time and effort you just spent in embodying an experience of support.  Affirm your intention to remain open to noticing the felt sense of support in your daily life.

Practicing simple visualization exercises like the one above, expands your ability to learn, how you respond to support, what support you may need in various situations and how to benefit more deeply from the felt sense of support.

Do You Have A Generous Mindset?

Do you have a generous mindset?

And really, does it even matter if you do?

Typically, generosity is thought of as how much are you directly giving to others in money and time. Are you donating to causes that you care about? Are you helping a friend by offering your time to listen or to help out with a specific task? If you answered yes to those, then you probably consider yourself to be generous.

...Is that the same as having a generous mindset though?

What I’m referencing as a generous mindset is a little deeper and less concrete (surprising coming from me, right?!)  While a generous mindset may include giving financial assistance or giving your time to someone you care about, it's also about the lens or perspective you are applying to yourself and others’ in the experiences you find yourself in. A generous mindset is the framing you place around something or someone. This framing can take the shape of judgement, criticism, opposition, generosity, acceptance, understanding and empathy. It can also vary depending on who’s involved and what the circumstance is at the moment.

A generous mindset matters because it assists you in cultivating safe connection with yourself and others. Giving yourself and others the benefit of the doubt or generosity of intent allows you to stay present, reducing a fight or flight response and increasing empathy, compassion and curiosity, all of which are correlated with resiliency and general satisfaction levels in relationships.  So in short, we want a generous mindset; it’s a valuable approach to life and relationships.

How exactly can you figure out what mindset is your default and how to develop more of a generous mindset.  I’m going to outline a few key strategies to start you on your way to more generosity for yourself and those around you so you can begin experiencing a deeper connection both with yourself and with others:

1.  Notice key internal dialogue phrases in response to unexpected outcomes? These may be phrases like “Of course she didn't follow through”(insert an eye roll with this one) or “Something probably came up, I’ll check in with her about my offer later”.  These thoughts, when approached with curiosity can reveal habits of mindset.

2. Notice the stories you tell yourself to fill in the blanks as a situation is unfolding. These take the form of “He did that because he doesn’t care about me” or “I’m not sure why he did that but wow, that hurt”  Noticing how you fill in the blanks, assigning intent to others actions is a wellspring of important information about your perceptual habits. 

3. Notice if your internal dialogue and the stories you create disconnect you from yourself and others or help you to stay present and curious?

If you notice that your mindset tends toward judgement and criticism you can move toward a more generous mindset by:

1. Practicing acceptance and compassion.  When you notice a mistake or misstep by you or someone else, substitute the fault finding and judgement “Everyone makes mistakes, how can I support myself or them in managing this”.

2. Responding with open curiosity, as opposed to assigning malicious intent when you notice you are offended by someone's words or actions, for example “I wonder what they are trying to communicate, let me follow up with them so we don’t create a misunderstanding.”

3. Considering how good you feel when you show up for others that matter to you and extend that opportunity to those around you that are emotionally available. If you are the type of person that instead finds themselves thinking thoughts like, “No one can help me, they don’t care” or “I don’t want to bother them with my needs”.

Learning to cultivate a generous mindset toward yourself and others allows you to deepen the joy you experience in connection not only with yourself but within ALL of your relationships. A generous mindset supports healthy communication, it helps to resolve conflicts and it improves our sense of deep belonging, all of which serve as protective factors for our mental and physical health.

Fireflies, Fear, & Freedom

Summer nights, when I was a kid, were filled with magic. Mainly so, because there wasn’t school, so that meant a later bedtime. It was light out waaaay after dinner, which meant a neighborhood kickball game until the street lights went on.

...And the grand finale of summer nights was the firefly show.

It always began the same way;

First a popsicle, then either a lawn chair or blanket, right in the center of our backyard, (because that was definitely the best seat in the house) and then watch and wait. 

Before long the show would begin, it would build slowly, a little glow on the left, then another, then three or four in unison in front of me and before long it was a captivating light show that seemed to fill our entire backyard with magic and wonder. There was no predicting its start, the duration, amount, or the beautiful light patterns that were created night after night. 

Anything seemed possible witnessing them, magic definitely seemed real. 

Inevitably, I’d want to capture the magic for myself, which led to jars, strategies and hunting them. The more, the better.  I generally caught some, and you know what. I almost immediately lost interest in them once they were trapped by me.  They seemed listless, the glow was definitely dimmed, the magic all but gone.

Years later as an adult, I wondered about fear and freedom, where magic is and where magic goes to die, both in our individual lives and in our relationships. I thought about the fireflies again, realizing that for me, what motivated me to capture the fireflies was fear. 

Fear of not having access to magic, fear of not understanding the beauty of freedom.

In acting from that fear, by trying to “capture the magic”, I actually robbed myself and them of the magic that is inherent in all of us when we are living in alignment with ourselves, our spirit, our purpose.  What they offered in their authenticity and what died when I tried to contain and control it is the magic. Witnessing that magic in their freedom could model for me the power of witnessing my own authenticity, which actually is the way to move beyond fearful reactions. 

It reminded me once again, of the wisdom in,

Let it come.

Let it be.

Let it go.

Within myself related to goals, interests, pursuits and in relationships with others.  Staying grounded in the magic of flow, whether something is arriving or leaving, is always where the magic is at.

The ABC's of Empathy for You & Your Children

Witnessing someone you love in pain is difficult. If the person in pain is our child, it can feel even more urgent to fix the pain, find a solution, and take care of whatever is going on for the person in pain,  so that everyone feels better and things go back to “normal”.

Unfortunately that method of dealing with pain, doesn’t really fix anything. It sends the message to the person in pain that:

(1.) They are alone in what they are feeling and

(2.) They aren’t capable of handling the situation.

In fact, parents who are fixers often unintentionally, raise children who feel victimized and are at an increased risk of not understanding how their actions impact others and how others feel about experiences in general, in other words, empathy.

Empathy is the ability to feel another’s emotions, to really be able to put yourself in “their shoes” so to speak.

It certainly doesn’t solve anything, BUT it does validate the person in pain AND it does help them to feel understood and connected to others, which we need to feel a sense of belonging with others.  When we belong among others we tend to think about how our behavior impacts those around us as well as ourselves, it improves conflict resolution, relationship satisfaction and even job satisfaction.

So how do we teach our kids empathy? 

First we model it.

Yes, that’s the really hard part.  We have to manage our own feelings when our children are in pain, struggling, so that we can meet them in their pain, understanding their perspective and validating their feelings.  All of that can seem scary and out of control, but it works.

I can remember a time in my child’s life, an important day, and they were deeply disappointed by another family member forgetting and simply not showing up.  My child was understandably devastated, and I was enraged. I wanted so badly to fix it, to smooth it over, to come up with a plan.

Instead, I sat on their bed and listened.

I said things like, “I see you’re hurt, and very sad, I’d feel that way too”. I also said things like “Everything you are saying makes sense.”

It was HAAAAAARRD.

My heart was breaking for them. However, after awhile my child started to say, “Ok, enough, I need to do something to enjoy the rest of my day.” I didn’t generate a solution, I didn’t swoop in to rescue, I just sat with them until they were ready to access their own resiliency and move through the pain. That was a time I modeled empathy well. There were also times, I didn’t, I assure you, but the point is, when we model empathy with our children, they understand their emotional landscape, feel safe with us as their parents, and feel more capable to handle the difficult things in their lives. That all sounds like what we want, right?

Along with modeling empathy, we can teach it by labeling emotions, asking our children what others involved in situations might be feeling, and when they are younger we can read books about empathy to them.  All of these strategies help develop our children's skill in recognizing what they are feeling, understanding what others may be feeling and in predicting how their behavior impacts others, all of which helps them successfully navigate the world of relationships. 

To help you we’ve put together a list of six books to read with your children or with the children that you love that beautifully illustrate empathy. We also have Integration Nation Episode 212: Empathy is a Magic Wand, as a resource to help you dive a little deeper into empathy skill building in your own life.

1. The Invisible Boy

2. Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler

3. I Walk With Vanessa

4. Lovely

5. Save Me a Seat

6. If You Plant a Seed
   

May we all hold our hearts and the hearts of others a little more kindly with a little more self awareness.

Meeting Yourself Where You Are: A Powerlifter's Story

Taking a deep breath, I was trying to prevent myself from crying. An immense pain was shooting through the inner part of my leg.

“I’m fine. You’re fine.” I kept repeating to myself in a futile attempt to calm myself down.

Something was wrong and I was not fine. I was in the middle of a training session for powerlifting and worked up to my top set. Once I attempted my top set- which should have moved fairly well- it didn’t even budge. Rather, a sharp pain began in my leg.

Little did I know this sharp pain was the beginning of a long journey.

Just a couple months out from my first powerlifting meet where I planned to qualify for nationals by receiving a specified total of weight lifted from squat, bench and deadlift, I was now considering dropping out. The pain in my leg turned out to be a significant strain of one of my adductors, causing it to be very difficult for me to squat and nearly impossible to deadlift. Now unable to do these two lifts that I was depending on to qualify for nationals, I was struggling to dial down my training and meet myself where I was.

I told myself that this pain was not really an injury and would go away in a few days after some extra foam rolling and hot yoga sessions.

Boy was I wrong.

Things only went downhill the more I denied things.

Finally, I decided to come to terms with the fact that I did, in fact, have an injury and I could not just make it go away by ignoring it. 

I had to actually meet myself where I was at and take care of myself. That mindset ended up being a game changer.

Meeting myself where I was involved a carefully calculated integrative approach of mindfulness based self care, nutrition, aromatherapy and physical care.

I began with being mindful of my body and it’s needs. If I went to the gym to train one day and my leg was in pain, I would reduce how much I was doing for that workout. To the contrary, if I went to the gym and my leg felt a little better- a rare but phenomenal feeling- I took it and ran with it, figuratively speaking. On the good days I would push myself a little bit more, but not to the point where my leg would hurt. Simultaneously, I incorporated specific exercises into my training sessions to strengthen my adductors without further straining them.

Avoiding stretching, because it would worsen the strain, it became a consistent self discipline practice for me to foam roll every single day. Foam rolling helped to loosen my muscles and increase my range of motion. One day, I even got a deep tissue massage. Which, LET ME TELL YOU. That deep tissue massage worked wonders on not only my injured adductor, but my whole entire body.

Incorporated into my integrative care routine to heal my adductor was the utilization of essential oils. A few times a week I would take a hot bath with epsom salt, peppermint or deep blue, marjoram, rhoman chamomile and lavender oil. Lavender and marjoram oils would promote relaxation. Peppermint, deep blue and roman chamomile oils each have properties that aid in muscle recovery and the epsom salt aided my body in detoxification.

Yoga, also played a huge role in my journey of meeting myself where I was. Ironically, I had to stop practicing yoga, because of the strain it placed on my adductor, but the meditative, mindset and breathing aspects of yoga carried over for me. Being mindful of my body and listening to it, things I learned from yoga, intensely helped me with my lifting, and life in general, while being injured.

Being injured and also being cognizant of needing to take care of myself caused me to step up my nutrition. Already I ate very well- mostly whole foods that were unprocessed, but being injured I knew that I needed to fuel maximal recovery for optimal results. To be completely honest and transparent with you, I have quite the sweet tooth.

Especially when it comes to cookies.

During this time period I would allow myself to have a couple of gluten free cookies (I have a gluten sensitivity) every couple of weeks, but overall I steered clear of sugars. Primarily I ate veggies (LOTS of veggies), fruits, chicken, turkey burger and tuna. Maybe not the most appealing diet to some people, this micro and macro nutrient packed diet plan maximally fueled my training sessions while aiding recovery from workouts and my injury.

All in all, this was a situation that threatened my ability to even compete for a few months, but with a growth mindset and meeting myself where I was I ended up being able to compete and receive first place in both my weight class and age class for my powerlifting meet.

Taking the time to take care of yourself is always worth it. Even if you do not achieve certain ideals that you expected, you will learn so much more about yourself and develop a deeper connection with yourself and others.

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Haley Mills

Instagram: @theliftingtater

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Trusting the Momentum

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you’re noticing energy building in a direction that you haven’t anticipated, haven’t planned for, or even in a way that may scare you?

If this sounds familiar, then you may also relate to the notion of just not being able to shake off the building of momentum; it’ll pop up in unexpected moments, maybe you’ll notice related topics and ideas in media, articles, conversations.

Almost as if it has a life of its own, the shift will continue building energy around it, reaching a threshold point that invites us to lean in, to jump, to turn. Which, let’s be real, is a scary process to engage in.

We are in part wired for predictability, so leaning into the unanticipated with trust, whew, that’s rough.

What I’ve come to believe and understand is that actually trusting the momentum of my life in that way is strong evidence of being “in the flow” of intention. When I’m clear on intentions, that doesn’t mean I can predict the best pathway to the fulfillment of the intention. That’s where the trust comes in, and honestly, if I’m not present in the moment, I really decrease my chances of even noticing building momentum in a particular direction.

Around 18 months ago I began to think about changing my business model to a more integrative structure to model our integrative approach, I hired Haley 9 months later (best decision ever), started the podcast (such a steep learning curve and valuable tool for people to support their health) and by the beginning of 2019 I was ready to hire another integrative therapist. Shortly into 2019, some shifts within my family revealed another important affirming process was unfolding, and at the time I remember thinking, “this is fantastic and with planning, I’ll be able to be present and show up as a support beam throughout this process, for my child, whom I love dearly”.

June came, and then, through an acquaintance of mine connected to advocacy work I’m involved in, in part because of the diversity within my family, I “accidentally” actually “serendipitously” saw a listing for our dream farmette. A place that was large enough to accommodate part of my business dream and small enough to create a family sanctuary.

My first thought, “No way, can’t even look, don’t have the bandwidth at all for this right now!”

I couldn’t shake it, and well after a seamless flow of doors opening in bizarrely unexpected ways, we now own the farmette (stay tuned for exciting workshops there in 2020) and we closed on it a week before the culmination of our family transition process and 10 days before our new therapist comes on board.

 

 

NOT THE WAY I WOULD’VE PLANNED,  AT ALL.

Yet, I’ve been able to navigate the concurrent demands of these three big things happening at once and I’m strangely grounded about it all. That’s the flow at work, so I’m gonna keep trusting the momentum and invite you to do the same.

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Ask us about our upcoming Meditation 201 Workshop and online Food & Mood Support group to help you with your momentum and journey!

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The Golden Ticket

Sometimes life throws us something we aren’t expecting- a loss, an injury.

Sometimes we invite a change into our lives with a move, new relationship, new goal or dream.  

When we find ourselves in this position, sometimes there’s a pull toward comparison with other people. A tendency to compare our inside feelings with an outside appearance, especially when we feel out of control, insecure and overwhelmed.  We may then begin to think that “we are missing something that others have”, “that we aren’t enough”, that we need the ‘golden ticket ‘ in order to feel at peace or at least marginally comfortable again.

Actually we have the golden ticket inside us already.  

It’s the golden ticket of meeting ourselves where we are with self acceptance

Ok so what does that mean?  And how do we do that when we are feeling so out of control and overwhelmed? 

It means that we allow ourselves to be exactly who we are in this situation, without judgement and without demanding perfection.  It means that we open up to the notion that there isn’t one right way to live a life, that the challenge is to authentically and wholeheartedly live the life we are experiencing.

How do we do that?  

If only there was a one size fits all blueprint that I could share.

There isn’t.  

What I can share are tools to guide you toward more self-acceptance, toward meeting yourself where you are with kindness and compassion:

1. Take a pause and notice what’s going on in your thoughts, your emotions and in your body. Notice, don’t attach.  Be curious, not judgmental.

2. Acknowledge your inherent worth, within the circumstance you are experiencing.  You have worth because you are here and you are you.

3. Let go of comparison with others, even if you have to let go in tiny pieces. LET IT GO. It is toxic and invalid.  It serves to undermine your worth, progress and unique experience of your life.

4. Affirm your efforts, however uncomfortable it may feel. Affirming our efforts increases motivation and fuels a growth mindset.

5. Embrace the awkward. Whenever we are learning there is going to be an awkward stage. Lean in.

6. Self-empathy. Integration Nation Episode 212: Empathy- The Magic Wand can help you with this.

Self-acceptance is essential for us to develop authentic intimacy with ourselves and with other people.  It releases us from the tyranny of comparison and supports us in the direction of our heart. Anything that does that merits the distinction as a golden ticket.

Take hold of your golden ticket as you meet yourself where you are at, lean in and grow.

As always. please leave any comments or questions you may have on meeting yourself where you are at in the comments or shoot us an e-mail.