Being Active Together (even in Winter)

When I'm working with clients in counseling for stress, anxiety or depression, we discuss how good nutrition, sleep and exercise are healthy coping skills towards managing their symptoms. I've blogged about that here, here, here and here. Staying active is important! And if you can incorporate activity in relationships, then that's even better! Doing something good for yourself with a member of your support system is a double dose of healthy coping skills! There are great ways to be active even in Winter in Raleigh! Raleigh Winterfest is going on Downtown right now and ice skating is a fun and active way to spend some time with a friend or loved one; I talked about that more in detail last week here! When it's not too cold outside, there are great places in Raleigh to walk or hike or run together. Even if it is cold, bundle up - the hat, gloves, scarf and all - and head outside. The Capital Area Greenway Trail System has trails all over the city. Umstead State Park is another great place to walk, run or hike. Lake Johnson is one of my favorites; it has some good hills to get that heart rate up! Plan some time this week to get outside and get active with a member of your support system; I bet it'll have a positive impact on your mood or stress level, or both!

Raleigh Weekend Activities: Date night, Family night, Girl's or Guy's night out!

There are so many fun things going on in Downtown Raleigh this weekend! Often times when I'm meeting with clients for counseling and we are discussing ways to enhance their relationships (whether it be their marriage, family or friendships), I hear people say, "there's just nothing to do in Raleigh." That is completely untrue! So clients end up sitting at home with their spouse, family or friends watching TV or movies. Now there's nothing wrong with some occasional TV nights or movie nights but it's good to mix things up a bit and try new experiences together. There are lots of options to take your friends, your spouse or your family to experience some winter fun together this weekend! Try a new experience together and see how it impacts your relationship, your conversations and your feelings towards one another. It's First Friday, so as always, there's lots to see this Friday night downtown in so many of the art galleries and local businesses. First Friday makes a great (and as cheap as you want it to be) date night! Also, Winterfest is going on, so there is outdoor ice skating too all weekend! Check their schedule to see all the fun options; Friday night they have a DJ and music! On Saturday at Logan Trading Company in Seaboard Station, you can shop for a Christmas tree, sing Christmas karaoke and get your kids' picture with Santa for free! Also on Saturday at the Museum of History there is a "Make it, Take it" event where you and your kids can make your own traditional NC Christmas ornament; my husband and I have done this with our niece and nephew before and it was so fun (and free!). For a little bit of cash you can see some gorgeous historic homes all decorated for Christmas on Saturday or Sunday for the 41st Annual Historic Oakwood Candlelight Tour of Homes! This is a great way to see an amazing historic neighborhood, tour some homes and spend some quality time together. Take advantage of what downtown Raleigh has to offer this weekend and share an amazing experience with your loved one(s). This is a great way to build into your relationships and make fun memories together. 

Darkness & Depression

This time of year can be hard for people for varying reasons. The holidays can be a difficult time in and of themselves. Some find themselves feeling more lonely during this time of year; others are grieving lost loved ones who won't be with them for the holidays. The time change can also be a real damper on mood due to how early it gets dark in the evenings. Some people notice that they experience more of a depressed mood this time of year simply due to the increased darkness in the evenings. It's important to soak in some sunshine when you can and to take advantage of the light hours earlier in the day to exercise or be outdoors! Continuing healthy daily routines and healthy sleep schedules are an important part of managing mood. Incorporating social activity and time with people who pour into you is another healthy part of battling depression. Being involved in something bigger than yourself is another great way to manage depression; volunteer somewhere that supports a cause you believe is worthy. Invest in yourself; take a class about something you want to learn more about or pick up a hobby you haven't touched in a while. Challenge the urge to withdraw from others and from healthy routines. Push yourself a bit and you'll find there are great benefits. Set small daily goals to accomplish. If you notice this time of year is particularly difficult for you, maybe stepping into some counseling would be a good idea. Here's an article with some more basic tips for managing depression this time of year.

Being Thankful

Thanksgiving is a great reminder to take time out and count our blessings. There are many positive things in our lives we easily and often overlook. This holiday season is a good time to slow down and take the time to think of things in our lives for which we can be thankful. Often times when I'm working with clients who are experiencing depression or anxiety, I encourage them during the course of their counseling to keep a gratitude journal; keep a list daily or weekly of things which they are thankful. This helps us to realize that we do have positive things in our lives and takes the focus off the negativity or fear. The more positive things we are filling our minds with, the less negativity can rule our thought life. This practice can help improve your mood and decrease your anxiety. Take time out this week to consciously think of things in your life you can give thanks for; make a list and share some of them with the loved ones you are with for Thanksgiving. You could make that a family tradition: to share things you each are thankful for during the Thanksgiving meal! Happy Thanksgiving!

Winter Holiday Family Fun

The Raleigh Christmas Parade is happening this Saturday morning! This is such a fun event to celebrate the holiday season. Bundle up and head downtown early to get a great spot to sit and watch the Raleigh Christmas Parade. Maybe you can make this a family tradition and each year watch the parade? Family traditions are a great way to foster good memories and enjoy each other. The holiday season is a great time to institute some fun family traditions. Let your kids come up with some ideas that would be exciting to have as yearly traditions and let them plan! When I'm working with families in counseling, we talk about traditions and family rituals that bond them together. What makes your family unique? What fun things do you do or can you start to do that will create lasting memories for you all? 

First Friday time Raleigh!

I blog a lot about First Friday because it's such a great way to enjoy time with friends, family or your significant other and enjoy downtown Raleigh at the same time! And it doesn't have to be an expensive night out either! Fall is here and the Holidays are right upon us; usually around this time there is so much going on that date night takes a back seat as do family outings. But we need to keep a strong priority on date night and family outings even during the busy Holiday season; this is something my clients hear me stress all too often in counseling. :) First Friday is a great way to do that! Bundle up and enjoy walking around various Galleries and seeing what is going on in downtown! There's also BBQ downtown this Friday night so you could make that dinner; sandwiches are only $5.00! Yumm!

Introvert or Extrovert: Which are you?

When I'm working with clients in counseling we explore where clients draw energy, whether they gain more energy from being around others or from being alone. There are many misunderstood ideas about the term introvert; often clients think if they are shy then it means they are an introvert. But this is not the case all the time. Introversion and Extroversion have to do with where you pull energy. Introverts rejuvenate by spending time alone; extroverts get charged up in the presence of others. It's helpful to understand this about yourself so you know how to refill your cup when you're drained. It's also really helpful to understand this piece of yourself in context of your relationships with others; many conflicts can be avoided when we understand this piece of ourselves and can communicate about it to our friends, family and significant others. Here is a basic overview of the difference between introversion and extroversion. If you are looking for some further info, start here!

Fall Family Fun

Fall is here according to the calendar and some days the weather says it's here too! There are lots of fun fall activities you and your family can do together. When I'm working with clients in counseling, we discuss activities and outings as a way to build relationship and create memories. Whether your family has small kids, teens or whether your family consists of you and your spouse or you and your friends, doing a fun activity together is a great way to deepen relationship and make memories! Decorating your front porch with items from the Raleigh Farmer's Market is one fun activity. Carving a pumpkin and roasting the seeds are a few others! It could be a great family tradition to head to the Farmer's Market and pick the perfect pumpkin (or two)! One year we learned how to make homemade pumpkin pie using a real pumpkin; now that was a memory maker! Something fun we've done with our niece and nephew is visit a pumpkin patch where we got to "pick" our own pumpkin and do various other festive, fall activities! There are several pumpkin patches around the area like Hill Ridge Farms, DJ's Berry Patch and Porter Farms. Do something festive and fun this fall with your family! See if it doesn't create great space for the relationships as well as some great memories to look back on!

Happy vs. Holy

I work with many clients in individual, couples and family counseling who are experiencing various struggles: depression, anxiety, grief, difficult relationships. I hear their desire to just be happy, to escape the struggle. Our culture puts a lot of value and focus on being happy. Advertising caters to that idea as does technology; we should have what we want and be happy. What if, as believers in Christ, we followed His example and chose holiness rather than happiness? What if happiness wasn't our main goal of the day and we instead chose to heartily pursue His holiness in our hearts? What would life look like? Might we embrace our struggles and find how they make us more like Him? Might we experience increased and lasting joy rather than momentary, fleeting happiness? In various other veins I have addressed this topic before in an article here and in blog posts here, here, here and here. A client shared with me this article recently and it captures this point so well. Take a moment to read; it's not too long! 

Choosing Him vs. him

I counsel many young women and teen girls who struggle with finding their identity and worth in what young men/guys think of them. If they have a boyfriend then they feel confident and worthy. But when the relationship ends they feel unworthy and insecure until the next guy comes along. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be loved and adored; we were created to be loved and to love, to know and to be known. But when that desire is put into the hands of humans and it becomes the basis for our worth and security, then we are on dangerous ground. We will never be fully satisfied or secure if we place our worth and value in other people. For my clients who are Christians, we talk about finding our worth and value in the fact that we were created by the Lord and that Christ loves us first and most! When we choose Him (Christ) rather than the "him's" of this world, we find fulfillment and joy unlike what any "him" could offer us. Here is a great article about seeking the Lord Himself rather than what His hand can offer. 

Being seen and known

The following quote from a book I'm reading (and really enjoying!), Introverts in the Church: Finding our place in an extroverted culture, really highlighted a point I make often with clients I counsel. He says it much better than I can.

There were three people in the rows in front of us who had their cell phones open during the entire movie. They were text messaging and surfing the Internet and otherwise annoying people. As I aw those cell phone screens open during the movie, I observed that the people using them were not fully committed to being anywhere during those two hours. They were physically sitting in the theater, even sitting with others who accompanied them, but their minds and hearts were scattered all over the place. They were not fully present, in terms of their attention, to the visual and auditory experience in front of them, they were not fully present to their friends and family that they were sitting next to, and they were not geographically present to the people they were text messaging. They had a hand and foot in several different places that were disconnected, leaving them as some sort of radical amputees. They were everywhere and they were nowhere. Aside from how piercingly bright a cell phone screen can be in a dark movie theater and how bizarre it is to text message during an intense and complex spy movie, I got to thinking about how handheld technology affects our sense of personal identity. So many people walk through their lives as ghosts, not fully present to anything, gliding through places and around people but not really seeing or experiencing or being seen or experienced.

We discuss the idea of vulnerability, of being known and knowing another deeply. This can be such a scary thing to do, to allow, to pursue, but is so deeply needed and desired. It's what we were made for: deep relationship. Our culture continues to find newer and faster ways of keeping us distracted and occupied and away from real, deep relationship. Do you allow yourself to be seen, experienced, known? Or do you drift through life like "some sort of radical amputee", never really being fully present anywhere? 

Raleigh Family Fun this Weekend

There are several fun events this weekend that sound fun and family-friendly. When I'm working with teen clients and their families, we focus on building family relationships, increasing healthy communication and family togetherness. We talk about creating time for conversation and creating time for fun. Here are a few ideas going on this weekend if you're looking for something to do with your family in downtown Raleigh. Staying healthy is important and how fun would it be to do that together; Marbles Museum is having "Family Fit - Zumba" this Saturday for an hour. You could take your family to that event and then stay and play at the museum! There is also a Caribbean Carnival downtown at City Plaza; this sounds like a great cultural event with lots of fun entertainment and food! Marbles is also having a day at the Mudcats. This is a great way to support the museum, meet other families, and enjoy some baseball as a family! I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone; do something new and different with your family this weekend. New experiences can be a lot of fun and connect you together as a family in unique ways!

How to Improve your Sleep

I work with many clients who experience sleep difficulties due to their current stress levels, anxiety or depression. We discuss in counseling the importance of good sleep hygiene. Some people report difficulty falling asleep; others tell me about waking up in the middle of the night and being unable to fall back to sleep. Other clients just report feeling tired even after sleeping at night. I think it's always important to talk to your doctor about your sleep difficulties in case there is something medical going on. But outside of those issues, there are some things you can do to help yourself sleep better. I've discussed in previous blog posts about taking time to rest, getting proper exercise and nutrition, the importance of sleep, and how slowing your pace of life can help lead to better mental health. Sleep is such an important piece of managing stress, anxiety and depression; without sleep it is very difficult to do those things well! Today I found a great article on ways to start sleeping better and wanted to share! It gives several (12 actually) practical steps you can take to improve your sleep hygiene. I highly recommend trying some, or all, of these! I have already picked out a couple I'm going to add to my sleep hygiene! I just tried tip #6 and got out of the office for a sun break - though there were more clouds than sun, I enjoyed my time outside and do feel a bit rejuvenated! Try some of these tips for improving your quality of sleep. 

Longing to be Heard

Working with teenage girls in counseling takes up about a third of my practice. I have been working with teenage girls in a counseling setting since April of 2007. If you would have told me while I was in graduate school or in my first job as a counselor that I would be spending the next 5+ years of my career working with teenagers, I would have laughed out loud! The thought of working with teenagers was daunting to me, scary at best. But I had a great supervisor during the years I was working to become licensed who kept encouraging me to think about working with teens. I wanted to get back to NC after living in Georgia for 4 years and of course the job I found was working with teenagers! It was quite humorous to me at the time. Now that I have been working with teenage girls and their families for over 5 years, I cannot imagine anything different for my practice. I love counseling teen girls and love working with them in a family counseling setting too. OK, out of story mode now. What I hear consistently from the teenage girls I see in counseling is that they want to be heard, they want their voice to matter, and they long to be loved deeply after being heard. Once I realized this crucial piece of information, counseling with teenagers became a powerful process. When I took time to really get to know them, to hear their voice, and to know who they were (as much as they knew who they were at the time), something happened. When I kept working to hear them, I earned their respect and our therapeutic relationship grew. They allowed me to speak into their lives and call them on unhealthy behaviors, and sometimes they actually listened to me and changed their actions. Wow, that's the power of relationship! Knowing someone deeply, being allowed to speak deeply into their life, and then seeing them make deep changes as a result. I have truly been honored to walk alongside some amazing teen girls over the past 5 years. I encourage the families I work with to aim for these deep kind of relationships too. Aim to listen long and hard and deeply. And then don't just rush to correct or share your point, just wait, be, sit. Let the teen guide you; they are struggling to know who they are and where they are heading in life. They are grasping for independence they don't yet fully understand but more than fully desire. Listen to them, let them ask you into their world, and when they do let you in (and they will!), listen well and make sure they know you love them so deeply! They long to be heard, known and loved deeply. If communicating with your teenager is difficult at best, consider family counseling. It can be such a powerful experience to improve upon your communication and deepen your relationships within your family!

A Tip for Managing Stress

Often I meet with clients who come to counseling because of the level of stress they are experiencing. They talk of feeling overworked, overwhelmed and exhausted. They talk about how stressed out they feel and want help managing that stress. One thing we discuss as a way to manage stress is to actually list out all the things that are running rampant in their mind leading to feelings of stress. Actually write all of them down: bullet point style, free write, whatever works best for you. Once they are written down, prioritize them. What things are actually of high importance and need to be dealt with sooner and what things aren't really as important and can wait a bit. For the things that are of higher importance, break them down into smaller pieces; this makes them seem more manageable and can help you be more productive also. Then list a realistic "due date" for each of the smaller pieces of that bigger important item. Choose to focus on just one thing at a time. Stay in the present with just that one item. When your mind starts to wander, acknowledge that it is straying and gently bring it back to the item you are focusing upon. No need to criticize your wandering mind; it's just doing what it's used to doing. After you've had some practice with redirecting your thoughts, it'll wander less. Think about what is "due" first? Put some energy into that one thing. Remind yourself that the other things are listed out and you will deal with them in time, but right now you are focusing on item A. Items B, C, D and E will be dealt with another day; today is just for item A. Choose to let the stress associated with those other items go; you have a plan for them and will deal with them at the proper time. Deep breathing can be really helpful here! Today is just for item A and you can get some thing done towards that item today; that will help bring down your stress level. We tend to feel overwhelmed and stressed because we feel as though we have to accomplish everything today (or yesterday). That's not true nor is it realistic. Break it down into smaller pieces and focus on one thing at a time. You'll find your stress level will decrease some. The more you practice this, the more your stress can decrease. If you have trouble with this or with managing your overall stress level, consider counseling as an option to get better tools for managing stress!

What's the goal?

I work with many clients who are going through some really difficult trials as they walk through the counseling process: grief, loss, anxiety & panic, depression, relational struggles. When I'm working with a client who is a believer in Christ we often discuss their desired end goal. We all want the trials to go away, the pain to end, the struggle to cease. But often that is not the Lord's primary goal for us. He wants us to know Him more, to showcase His glory more, to make Him known more. And sometimes that is done best by allowing the struggle or the pain to be present. Not that He wants us to hurt or takes pleasure in that; He doesn't, He grieves with us. But I'm not sure His primary goal for us is a pain-free life. I think He desires intimacy with us more than a trial-free life. And often we can experience deep, deep intimacy with Him walking through a trial, not at the end of it. It's often in the midst of the trial or grief or struggle that we can meet the Lord so closely and experience Him in a way we haven't before. Are we willing to go through the struggle, through our trials, through the grief with a different goal? What would happen if we set the goal of knowing the Lord more, experiencing deeper intimacy with Him rather than the pain going away, the sadness ending or the struggle ceasing? What would daily life look like then?

Date Night Time!

Whether I'm counseling a couple or a wife, I always encourage regular date nights as part of a strong, intimate marriage. A great professor I had during graduate school, Dr. Sytsma, has an organization called Building Intimate Marriages. On his site there are great resources for couples and individuals who are wanting to work on strengthening their marriages. I often point clients towards the "Try This At Home" section of his website. There are great date night ideas there for various types of dates such as a fun date and a working date. I highly encourage you to grab one of these and your spouse and head out for a date that will be sure to impact your marriage! If you find that to be difficult or produce tension you are unable to work through well, consider couples counseling! 

Conversation Starters

When I'm counseling couples, I often find that they don't converse much at all (or much anymore). After time of not deeply conversing together, it can be hard to pick back up with great conversation. Where do we start? What do we talk about? Those are questions I hear a lot. It can be difficult to come up with conversation topics when things in the marriage aren't going well or there are tension and hurt present. I like to point couples towards conversation starters; that way they don't have to do the work of coming up with topics of things to talk about, they can simply choose questions from the list and start talking! Here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here are various links to conversation starters; these are all geared towards married couples but couples who are not married will find that many of the questions can apply to them as well! For families and friends, these conversation starters can be great for getting to know you conversations or for deepening relationships as well; you may just have to cut some questions out and/or tailor some to be age-appropriate if you are using them for family conversation!