Care for You too, Ladies!

I work with many women in my counseling practice: single, married, divorced, kids, no kids, women who work inside the home and women work outside the home. A running theme with the women I counsel is a lack of self care. They are stressed out, burnt out, anxious, depressed or just flat out tired and they haven't been caring for themselves well. Self care is taking steps to be good to yourself, care for yourself, soothe yourself, nurture yourself, grow yourself, reflect on yourself. It's a time when you are only taking care of you. Self care isn't being at dinner with a friend and helping them through their problem; that's caring for them. Self care might look like a leisurely walk, reading a book, sitting and resting with a cup of tea, taking a class on something that interests you, getting a massage or pedicure, exercise, getting counseling for yourself individually. There's no right or wrong self care as long as it's caring for you and not others. Women tend to pour out more naturally than they tend to pour into themselves. Pouring out might look like work, career, child-rearing, taking care of the house, errands, time spent helping friends, etc. Anything we do to give of ourselves, our time, is us pouring out. Pouring out is not a bad thing at all; it's a healthy part of a balanced life. Most women love it, even thrive on it. It becomes destructive when we are not pouring back into ourselves or allowing others to pour back into us. When was the last time that an hour of your day was all about you, no one else? I know, I know..."I don't have that kind of free time." Truth is you must create it, carve it out of your day or else it won't happen. The day will slip away and you will have cared for everyone else except yourself. Some women find this kind of self care time to be selfish. It feels wrong to spend a few minutes a day on themselves. If this is you, it could be time to slip into counseling and explore this negative self talk or beliefs that prevent you from pouring into yourself so that in turn you have more to pour out into others! Take some time today, even 15 minutes and do something that pours into you, that requires nothing of you but instead gives back to you!

Giving Back at the Holidays

Christmas can be both an exciting time of year and a difficult one. All the decorations, music and festivities can be great when things are going well for you. But when relationships are difficult, when you've experienced loss or when you are depressed, holidays can be very hard. If you are experiencing a recent loss, consider reading this short article or reading some previous blogs that reference grief. If you find yourself feeling sad or depressed, here's a short article on depression and here are some blog posts about depression. Whether the holidays are an exciting time or a difficult time for you, giving back can be a powerful, wonderful thing! I encourage you to take a look at these Raleigh organizations and find a way you can use your time or your resources to give of yourself! Doing this can reduce stress, decrease anxiety, improve mood and give meaning to your grief and loss. There are so many in need and so many small but meaningful ways you can help someone else. The Salvation Army, the Raleigh Rescue Mission, the Women's Center of Wake County, InterAct of Wake County, SAFEchild, and the United Way are just a few local organizations that have a multitude of ways you can help someone this holiday season. Take some time this week and find a way to give back. Schedule time to follow through. See if it doesn't improve your mood and lighten your load! If you are having difficulty this holiday season with sadness, depression, anxiety, grief or loss, consider giving the gift of counseling to yourself! Allowing someone to walk through your difficult time with you can be such a gift. Happy Holidays!

Gratitude Improves Mood!

Thanksgiving is this week and is a good reminder to focus on being thankful for all we have! Gratitude helps improve our mood in so many ways. It takes the focus off where we aren't, what we don't have and puts it on where we are and what we do have! This greatly boosts mood and can decrease stress and anxiety too! When all we think about is what we are lacking or where we wish we were, we are dissatisfied with life and sad or angry. But when we shift our focus to the positive things about the place we are and the good things we do have, we have a more healthy perspective and our mood improves. In addition, stress and anxiety often decrease. Try making a list this week of all the things you are thankful for, all the things you do have and the things that are good about the place you are in right now. Be specific, think of small things too! For example, do you have a place to lay down at night that is safe and warm? Some people do not. Do you have clothes to wear and food to eat and a way to get from point A to point B? Many people don't. We tend to take things for granted and we need to remind ourselves that we have quite a bit! The fact that I can walk, talk, see and hear are great blessings that I often take for granted. It's good to get in the habit of being thankful for the things and abilities you do have as well as the opportunities available to you; this helps you get outside of your current situations or problems and remember that there is so much to be grateful for in your life! Happy Thanksgiving!

Teens & Stress

I see quite a bit of teenagers and their families for counseling. One of the biggest issues I see is stress - now it may also be accompanied with anxiety and/or depression, but stress is what a lot of teenagers are experiencing. What I don't often see are teens who know how to effectively handle that stress. So instead they act out, engage in sexual activity, get into drugs or alcohol, cut themselves or harm their bodies in other ways or yell and argue with their parents. What a lot of teens are saying through these actions is "help me, I'm overwhelmed and I don't know what to do!" Now this isn't the case for every teenager, but many that I see are feeling overwhelmed, under immense pressure from parents or at school, have difficulties in their friendships or romantic relationships. Perhaps they are being picked on or bullied at school and they struggle with low self-esteem. Sometimes what helps is to decrease the amount of activities teens are involved in so there's less stress. Other times they need to hear their parents say they love them and that A's are not the goal but rather trying their best is the aim. Open communication between parents and teens will often times decrease stress in a teens life when done in a healthy, supportive and positive manner. Stress is all around us; we have to know how to manage our stress or how to eliminate stress that can be eliminated. A lot of stress we bring on ourselves; maybe we are over-involved or haven't resolved conflicts with loved ones that need to be resolved. Maybe we aren't engaging in enough positive activities that we enjoy. Increasing positive activities in our life can help decrease stress for some people. We also often engage in irrational thinking patterns and negative self-talk that increase our stress. I work with clients in counseling (teens and adults) to identify their thinking patterns and the way they are talking to themselves. We often uncover unhealthy, irrational thought patterns that lead to increased stress, anxiety and depression. Also, we find a stream of negative self-talk running through clients' minds that is not helping them in any positive way! One way to decrease stress is to examine these things - thought patterns and self-talk - to determine if they are healthy and rational. If not, the next step is to identify a healthy, rational and positive alternative to the negative, irrational thought. It takes some time but the more we speak the rational, positive thought to ourselves, the less stress, anxiety and depression we experience. If your teen is experiencing stress, anxiety or depression, I encourage you to open a dialogue about that. If they are resistant to that, enlisting the help of a counselor can be a great next step!

Chasing Happiness

I hear so much in daily life (TV, movies, commercials, magazines, blogs, radio, etc) about "being happy". "I just want him/her to be happy." "If I just had (insert object, relationship, career), then I'd be happy." Chasing happiness has become something so central to our American society. I hear it all the time in my counseling office from various clients; teens, couples, families, men, women...they all claim if they could just figure this or that out, have this or that, or get rid of this or that, then they'd be happy. "Really?", I want to say. Really do you think you'd truly be happy then? Do you really think that getting him/her/it will make you happy? Of course, I tend to say those things with a bit more therapeutic tact than that. But my message is the same: do you think that getting what you want will make you happy? If happiness is your goal, will you ever truly find it and be able to maintain that state of happiness? I think not. Getting that relationship, career, object, or getting rid of either of those will not make someone happy. The way I see it, the problem is in the goal. If the goal is happiness found in the hands of other people or things, it will never last. People will disappoint us, there will always be some new object out there we just have to have, jobs are lost and interests shift. When happiness is our driving motivator, we'll always get let down. We'll always be chasing one thing or another or one person or another. As a Christian, happiness is not my goal. My goal is to know and love the Lord, to know and love others. If anything else is my goal, I'll be unfulfilled. If being happy is my goal then I'll be let down constantly. As believers in Jesus, we weren't promised happiness nor were we told that happiness should be what we incessantly strive after. We were actually told the opposite...Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) Wewill have trouble, things won't go our way, we will be let down, disappointed, suffer, hurt, etc. Those disappointments, hurts, sufferings can lead us to intimacy with Jesus and closeness with others. And in those things, there is great joy. Joy is deeper and much more lasting than happiness. Happiness tends to be based on situations and is fleeting. Joy is something that cannot be taken away by loss or change in situation. If you find yourself chasing happiness and ending up sad and disappointed more often than not, I'd encourage you to reassess your goal. Chasing happiness doesn't lead down any lasting path. Counseling can help you do that if you desire!

Get outside Raleigh!

Depression and stress can leave you wanting to stay inside, crawl in a hole and isolate. You may not "feel" like you want to do anything, but you can choose to do different. And often by choosing the opposite of what you are feeling, you'll begin to feel better. Depression says to you, "stay inside, don't do anything fun, nothing will help, it's hopeless." Stress says, "there's too much, it's all too overwhelming, nothing will help." And thus discouragement sets in. I encourage my clients seeking counseling to get outside; get some good Vitamin D (but wear sunscreen)! :) Choose to be active. Don't let your feelings decide what you will or will not do. Do something new, something fun; get around people. Take some friends, a family member or your significant other and do something outside. This weekend in downtown Raleigh's Moore Square and City Plaza is a great event called Artsplosure. There is art, crafts, music and fun stuff for kids too! Try something new, tap into some creative energy seeing all the fun art and crafts. I hope you'll get outside this weekend Raleigh!

Rest...It's a Beautiful Thing

Living in the fast-paced, bustling society we do, rest is not something that is typically prioritized or valued very highly. Yet it can be quite the antidote to stress and anxiety. Learning how to rest, learning what things are restful for you is a much needed skill and a great tool to decrease stress and anxiety. Perhaps it's reading a book, talking a walk, being outside on a beautiful day, engaging in a hobby or sitting at coffee with a good friend; whatever is restful to you, whatever rejuvenates you physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually should be prioritized into your routine. We make time for work, bills and gassing up our cars...rest should be included in the things we must do each week too! Counseling can be a great way to learn how to slow down, re-prioritize, filter through what things are actual necessities and what can go and to learn how to rest. Resting isn't always something we can just sit down and do; sometimes it takes some practice and trial and error to learn what actually "rests" us. If we have become hardened to rest and accustomed to a fast pace, learning to slow down is not easy! Certainly rest will ease the intensity of stress and decrease the anxiety or worry that is present when it is regularly incorporated into daily routine and lifestyle. So try to begin resting, being still; incorporate it in to your routine. I bet you see decrease in the stress and worry you currently experience. And if you attempt resting and it's just not helping, maybe reach out for some counseling to help! 

Change Your Mind

We often don't realize the power of our thoughts. But they are quite powerful. Our thoughts impact our feelings and our feelings often impact our behavior. Typically we get wrapped up in our emotions and let them lead the way. But we have the ability to control our thought life. We don't control automatic thoughts (the initial thought that comes popping into our minds) but we have the ability to control all the thoughts after that. We can tell ourselves rational and positive things that lead to our negative emotions decreasing and lead to an increase in positive feelings. Learning to control your thoughts will greatly impact your feelings and your overall mood. Counseling can be a great tool to teach you ways to become aware of your thoughts and learn ways to control negative thinking and increase positive thinking. A great way to start doing this on your own is to check-in with your thoughts 3 times a day for a week. During this check-in, write down what you are thinking for a few minutes 3 times a day. Then at the end of the week, take a look at your writings. I bet you find themes that you are thinking about or topics that appear frequently and often you'll find yourself to be thinking irrational, negative things. Write down positive alternative thoughts to the negative thoughts and then 3 times a day for the following week, read those. You will likely notice that you will begin to think less of the irrational, negative thoughts and more frequently think of the rational, positive thoughts that you were feeding yourself! Try it and see. For more information on this topic, you can read this article I wrote about anxiety and your thought life.

Priorities

Identifying our priorities is an important step in stress management. It's important to take a look at everything on our plates, all our responsibilities, as well as our desires and interests, and then begin to prioritize. We often set too much on our plates and we are unable to complete it all, there's just not enough time in the day; this leads to increased stress and anxiety. One small and easy step to relieving some stress and anxiety in your life is to cut something out. Not everything we do in our days or weeks is necessary. We can, if we choose, say no to something, delegate something of ours to someone else, or just cut something out all together. But it is a choice. We must decide that it is something we are willing to let go of and be OK with that. A slower pace in life is not a bad thing, it can be refreshing and something to be enjoyed! Take a look at the things on your agenda today and throughout this week or month...is there something you could let go of, say no to, or delegate to someone else so that you are experiencing a less stressful and anxious life? This is often a first step I help my clients assess when beginning our work in counseling. Therapy can be a great tool to learn about your priorities and how to create healthy balance in your life.