I came across this beautiful saying today, one that seems just so on point given the many unexpected changes we have experienced as individuals, families, nations, and really, as a collective global community. So much of the distress and disappointment we struggle with is tied to our own expectations. But, when we can grieve what we expected and come into the present moment, we will come to acceptance, relief – and even joy. You are probably thinking this is easier said than done and I truly hear you. Therapy is a safe and supportive space that can help you through such a transformational process. I hope you find this quote as soothing as I do.
Category Archives: Mindfulness
Body-Based Therapies in Talk Therapy
I came across this piece in Medium that is very timely. Always develop, always continue to grow! This is exactly why I continue to train in body-based therapies, such as Brainspotting and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Our experiences leave imprints on our bodies, not just our minds. In fact, research shows that almost 80 percent of experiences leave their mark in our bodies and the nonverbal parts of our brains, leaving us feeling stuck. Tapping into the body in talk therapy sessions helps to get “unstuck” and enhances growth and healing.
Holistic Psychology: What Is It Anyway?
As a holistic psychologist, I am quite fortunate to work with children, teens, adults and couples as they work to strengthen various areas of their lives, whether quieting ineffective thoughts and replacing them with positive self statements, learning new behaviors and ending unsuccessful behaviors, accessing and regulating emotions or healing from recent or longstanding trauma. In my work with clients, I do this using comprehensive body based and brain based approaches usually missed by many practitioners. For example, appropriately credentialed health coaches or yoga instructors are taught to help people heal by entering the body, they do not have the required training to integrate cognitive or brain based approaches. Likewise, many mental health practitioners work to help clients resolve the same trauma or negative experiences through cognitive based or talk based therapy. In reality, neither in isolation is enough. There is now definitive research to suggest that the mind (brain) and body are inextricably tied and must both be integrated into meaningful healing. To do so effectively and responsibility takes significant training and experience. With that in mind, I recently found a few articles that, in different ways, begin to speak to this critical point.
In the article, “Can Psychiatry Heal Itself?” John Horgan discusses a Harvard historian’s position that psychiatrists need to focus more on helping people and far less on making money. He focuses on “Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness” by historian Anne Harrington. What immediately struck me about Horgan’s post was the decision to choose a piece that is in fact very metered in its criticism of psychiatry in comparison to the positions laid out by other authors. As a psychologist, I found Harrigan’s indictment of this arena quite startling and damning for precisely this reason.
The post by Horgan provided a brief meandering through the field of psychiatry, noting that the “psychobable” of Freud was to be replaced by good biological theories of and treatment for the brain. Meaning what? You guessed it…drugs. Thorazine, Valium, Lithium, and Prozac were touted as bringing psychiatry into a truly scientific discipline. However, in her work, Harrington stated that this narrative is clearly false. I do agree with Harrington’s position that the bio-psychiatry of the 1980s and 1990s “over-reached, over-promised, over-diagnosed, over medicated, and compromised its principles.”
In her book, Harrington outlines the history of the development of psychiatry and, through its failures, the opening for psychoanalysis. As a psychologist practicing in the 21st century, I have nothing to say on the later account. In my view, psychoanalysis has long been irrelevant and not worthy of discussion here. I can see, however, why modern bio-psychiatrists are Harrington’s current target. As prescriptions for psychiatric medications have soared over the past few decades, their limitations have become abundantly clear. While appropriate and effective use is, in reality, limited in comparison to the ever rising prescription rate, the adverse side effects, including weight gain, addiction, agitation, and suicide itself , really beg the question, is this worth it? Harrington clearly believes not. And, in many cases, so do I.
It seems that some psychiatry insiders are also saying that the answer to this question may be no. I was heartened to read the transparency that Steven Hyman (Director of the National Institute of Mental Health from 1996-2001) and Thomas Insel (Director of the National Institute of Mental Health from 2002-2015) display by maintaining that psychiatry has not moved the needle in a positive direction to help those millions struggling with mental illness, whether by reducing suicide rates, hospitalization rates, or improving recovery overall.
Harringtons”s book concludes with a number of calls to action, if you will, for modern psychiatry, including:
- to admit its mistakes and its tendency to follow the money instead of the human suffering
- to overcome its reductionist view and meaningfully collaborate with social scientists and scholars in the humanities
- to listen more carefully to self described “survivors,” or those successful in mental health treatment
- to focus on severe mental illness and allow psychologists to treat the “worry well” that does not need medication
I agree with Harrington, who states that this last step requires tremendous professional ethics and courage on the part of psychiatrists. It is asking them to focus on the appropriate patient, thereby slashing their market share and their income. So, where does that leave you, you might ask? Well, as psychiatry works to fix itself, or not, be encouraged that holistic psychologists work to assist you in changing your physical activity, looking at quality and quantity of food intake relevant to quieting symptoms of depression, anxiety, or inattentiveness, and integrating body based approaches to change and healing. While medication is, of course, needed and valuable in some instances, for most the battle cry really must be “Mind Fixers, find an experienced holistic psychologist and fix yourselves!”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/can-psychiatry-heal-itself/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-food-that-helps-battle-depression-1522678367?mod=e2fb
Mindful Aging
Today I thought we could explore what it means to age mindfully. Many people are familiar with mindful breathing, mindful eating, even mindful working. But what does it truly mean to age mindfully? As we begin exploring this together, I would like to ask that you start by sitting in a comfortable position, either in a chair or on a cushion on the floor, with a straight but relaxed back. When you’re ready, and only if you wish, gently close your eyes. Allow your shoulders and head to rest easily, bring a soft smile to your lips, and feel the weight of your body centered and grounded. Now take a few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling, to transition you from wherever you were a few moments ago to where you are now…..
Take a few moments to inhale deeply and exhale slowly, filling the lungs up with air and then simply letting go…
Now relax your breath so it is natural and easy. Simply follow your natural breath, inhaling and exhaling, noticing that each breath has two parts; it rises and it passes away…..The breath is always appearing and disappearing. Take the time to notice the rising and the passing of each breath……
For the remainder of this practice, please take several moments to focus your attention on just the exhale, or the passing of the breath….Each time an inhale shifts to an exhale, follow the breath all the way to its completion. Hold your attention there. With mindful awareness let go of each breath as it moves through you……
Now gently rest your attention and bring your awareness back to your full, natural breath. Focus on the inhale and exhale. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and bring your attention back to the room.
Through mindfulness practice, we learn that we can breath, eat and work mindfully. As I hope the above exercise will make clear, we can also age mindfully. Getting older is not easy…memory fades, the body slows down and the world responds differently, and not always gently. But we cannot trivialize or try to ignore these challenges, as they are real and can be frightening. But if these changes are minimized or resisted, it is sure to foster suffering. Instead, remind yourself of impermanence….thoughts come and go, feelings rise and pass away, breath begins and ends. Everything changes both in and outside of you. No one can stop change, but can only change how we respond to change! In this sense, impermanence can be a teacher, changing how we react to reality. Instead of resisting aging, we can embrace it with openness. We can flow from one year to the next, from one phase of life to the next, much as you just did with your breath. In this way we are open to the wonderful things that come with age, including wisdom from the life lived, patience that comes through experience and adversity, and the wonderful decline in caring what others think of us!
and i said to my body. softly. ‘i want to be your friend.’ it took a long breath. and replied ‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.’
— .. (@nayyirahwaheed), December 5, 2018
Learn to Argue Successfully, Just in Time for Valentines Day!
Discussions about the mind/body connection have made their way into mainstream society. Research examining areas including stress, medical illness, and emotional expressiveness clearly has found that there are connections between physiology and emotion.
So, it should not be all that surprising to learn that recent research has found that arguing poorly with loved ones negatively impacts not only our emotional health, but our physical health as well. A 20-year longitudinal research study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley has begun to uncover some of the long-term health effects of arguing poorly. While angry outbursts predict cardiovascular problems, shutting down emotionally is tied to muscular skeletal problems including stiff muscles or back problems. Even though many people feel that conflict is a part of intimate relationships and life in general, the way we respond to conflict and choose to communicate during these times of stress may literally be a matter of life and death in the long run.
The good news is that there are a number of practical and highly effective strategies that you can use to reduce the feelings of stress and overwhelm during conflict. All of these tools incorporate getting to know yourself and your partner better. You will learn the patterns that lead to your emotional outbursts or tendency to shut down or retreat, which will ultimately allow you to pause and take more control of your emotions and behaviors. This, in turn, can help you stop building your case against your partner, which represents living in the past. Instead, you will learn to live mindfully, reducing the levels of intensity and drama in your interactions. The following practices can be used to help you and your partner begin to argue well:
Mindfulness Truly Matters
Mindfulness is a practice that, like awareness of the mind/body connection, has filtered into mainstream society. This is a good thing, as research has now shown that mindfulness helps us to slow down and be calmer in situations that trigger us and make us emotionally dysregulated. Being calm and taking pause are, of course, most difficult in circumstances in which we are provoked. But, it is precisely at these times when slowing down and not reacting on impulse and prior conditioning is critical. Instead, you may work to take pause by taking a breath, taking a walk, learning guided meditation, or counting to ten before responding. This allows you to become more aware of what is going on internally for you; you can identify the feelings you’re having and help calm them. Instead of ruminating on your thoughts, you can notice that you feel angry, disappointed or hurt without judgment or justification. From this calmer place you can feel your feeling but do the right thing anyway (not react based on the feeling). You can choose your response based on the desired outcome for your relationship. As you work to strengthen your daily mindfulness practice, you will begin to treat yourself with patience and compassion. This, in turn, will help you provide the same to your partner and better understand his/her needs and perspectives. If you would like to work with some meditation exercises, please feel free to visit
www.drkristinschaeferschiumo.com/blog.php
Understand Your Triggers
When you are triggered emotionally, your brain is flooded with cortisol that makes it more likely that you will lash out. Instead, you may take a mindfulness approach to the physical sensations, feelings, thoughts and images you experience in the moment when triggered. For example, you may feel very hurt by your partners lack of communication during the work day; mindfulness may help you uncover that there is more to that hurt than the current interaction. One of the reasons that emotions are so heightened when triggered is that an event from the present is triggering powerful and painful emotions from the past. For example, if you were criticized or belittled as a child it is more likely that you may react more strongly to perceived criticism in your present. Likewise, if your partner experienced an erratic or temperamental caregiver as a child, she or he may grow to be a defensive adult or may react negatively to feedback that is presented with high levels of emotion.
Through mindfulness practice, you will learn to get on top of your triggers and reflect on the early links to your powerful emotions. This will help you gain perspective on your current interactions and react in a calmer, more appropriate fashion.
Listen To Your Partner
It’s so important to take the time to truly get to know yourself and your partner. An important piece of this is understanding what triggers you and working to be more compassionate both with yourself and in your communication with your partner. To do this, stop arguing your case and take in your partner as the person he or she is. This means not assuming what your partner thinks or feels, not judging, and not putting words into her or his mouth. Instead, it means hearing your partner out when she or he has something to say.
Do not fall into the trap of believing you or your partner can mind read, as this leads to believing your perceptions are reality. In fact, you may interpret behaviors in a way that is way off base. Instead of making what are often dangerous assumptions, approach your partner and ask to hear her or his perspectives. Instead of focusing on flaws in the perspective or communication, look for elements of truth in what your partner says. This does not mean that you have to agree with him or her, but rather that you are trying to understand why she or he has a particular perspective. Staying calm and open creates a safe place for your partner to be open and honest about her or his experiences as well.
Be Willing to Be Wrong
In every relationship, it is important to remain open to the possibility that our views may not be right or wrong, but just different. Again, let’s take that example of your partner not communicating with you during the work day. You may feel hurt and begin to listen to that negative inner voice that says you are not important enough or that your partner is sick of you and wants something else. By the time your partner arrives home you are hurt, angry and revving for a fight. But now imagine that your partner’s perspective is completely different; perhaps he or she was completely overwhelmed with work but in fact was also missing you. But as you attack your partner for the conclusions you’ve already reached, you may find that she or he is completely taken aback, calling you silly or overly sensitive, or retreating into silence. A confrontation in which neither person is willing to hear out or empathize with the other tends to snowball. Instead, own your reactions and present your feelings without blame or self-righteousness. Your partner will be more able to hear your experiences and empathize with your feelings, and you theirs.
Learn To Be A Calm “Story” Teller
When you truly listen to your partner, you communicate interest and compassion. This allows your partner to feel heard, valued and more likely to be open to hearing your perspective and experiences. Then, there is room to tell your story calmly and without blame or criticism. For example, instead of saying, “you didn’t reach out to me at all from work today, I don’t matter, you don’t care,” you could say, “when I didn’t hear from you, I doubted myself. I’m realizing I’m disappointed when we don’t connect. How about you?” In addition, pay attention to what you communicate not only with your words, but with your tone of voice and body language as well. Saying you’re “fine” while ignoring your partner or slamming things around your home communicates that you are anything but fine.
As you learn to be open, calm, and direct, you avoid putting words in your partners mouth or making him or her feel defensive. Instead, you are telling your story, or your truth, clearly communicating your needs without blaming, complaining, or being the victim. This warmth and openness makes it more likely that your partner will reciprocate in kind. As you learn to remain open and honest, helping your partner do the same, you are learning to argue well and to increase the quality and number of the days of your life.
Mindfulness Meditation Exercise (Podcast episode)
I wanted to take just a moment or two to discuss the idea of integrative health. Research studies are now bringing our attention to what many already know, which is that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. So whether we’re working to become better parents, decrease our stress levels, improve our focus, or our responses to physical pain, it’s very clear that this needs to be accomplished through a multi-pronged approach. I have attached a brief meditation exercise to help bring your attention to the connection between the mind, body and emotions.
Please feel free to use this meditation as a tool and to use it as often as you’d like. I would ask that when you practice these meditations you do so in a quiet place where you will be uninterrupted. Additionally, if you are driving a car or operating machinery, I ask that you not participate in the meditation at that time. I hope you find this exercise helpful and a source of comfort.
Floating Leaves on a Gentle Stream (Podcast episode)
How often are you bothered by persistent, troubling thoughts? Research clearly shows that our negative thoughts cause more symptoms of distress and disease than difficult circumstances themselves. The Floating Leaf exercise may help you in taking the first step in decreasing your negative, ineffective thought patterns and increasing your sense of calm and well-being.
Mindfulness
In these hectic and, at times, highly stressful times, it is difficult to find time to be mindful and present throughout our experiences.
It is important to our mental health to dedicate time for ourselves to relax, take a step back, and be present with what we’re doing. Mindfulness is a way to be fully present in our actions and thoughts in a nonjudgmental manner. At times, it can be difficult to truly enjoy our experiences because our minds are so preoccupied in thoughts of the future instead of being focused on the here and now. Practicing mindfulness techniques can help you stay focused in the present and increase your productivity, assisting you in working toward your goals. Below are some tips to being more mindful throughout your day.
-
- Learn to meditate. Meditation can work to calm the flow of constant thoughts you may experience, which can greatly help you to focus on the present. Dedicating one minute per day to sitting quietly while focusing on your breath can be a great way to begin your journey of becoming a more mindful person.
-
- Deep breathing/pay attention to your natural breath. Practicing breathing techniques is a great way to enhance your mindfulness around the feelings you experience pertaining to your body. It is also a great way to enhance your relaxation skills.
-
- Do one thing at a time. Instead of multitasking (which we now know does not actually exist), work to stay present by focusing on doing one thing at a time. This can lessen your anxiety and tendency to experience rapid, future oriented thoughts and nervousness.
-
- Choose an affirmation that you connect with and repeat it to yourself when you find yourself drifting out of a present mindset.
-
- Don’t allow your thoughts to wander for too long. If you find yourself losing focus, that’s ok. Allowing your thoughts to wander throughout the day is completely normal. When you notice your thoughts wandering, just gently bring them back to the present or to the desired focus.
Being mindful takes practice. Don’t be discouraged or give up. If you find you are struggling with an issue in your life or would like to work on incorporating mindfulness techniques into your life, we are here to help!