Coronavirus Isolation Mental Health Tips

March 25, 2020 - A Shared Experience With Multiple Perceptions

I’ve heard a lot of comments about our current global circumstances, “this is surreal”, “it’s a nightmare”, “it’s like a dream”, “can’t believe this is happening”, “will we ever get back to normal?”… 

This is definitely a strange collective we are all going through.

What’s also noticeable is that we are all perceiving this experience differently, even though it’s a global happening. 

Different perceptions don’t mean right or wrong perceptions, they really are just different based on our unique histories combined with our unique personalities. 

Watch out for the temptation to judge yourself or others based on comparison. The feelings that surface for each of us are valid, but the choice of HOW to act on them is what can hurt or help. So try to pause and notice your feelings before acting on them. 

Healthy responses include articulating your thoughts and feelings either through journaling or conversations like with a therapist or confidant, and ideally in therapeutic letters. 

Therapeutic letters are letters written for your eyes only. That way you have a safe “page” where you can write to someone or something, like even to the coronavirus, and say what you need to say.  Our brains need to have that “direct” communication, even if it’s just symbolic. It helps us complete our experience rather than just let the emotions swirl intangibly inside our minds and bodies. Unexpressed emotions feel bigger than they really are! 

Most importantly, though, after you are done expressing the pent up emotional adrenaline through therapeutic writing, destroy the letter so that no one finds it accidentally, as it might end up causing unintended emotional pain for them. When we take our frustrations out on others we start a cycle of pain that often comes back to hurt us again.

PLEASE do not express your frustrations with anyone in the heat of the moment, cool down through these therapeutic tools so you can think clearly again. Stress, anger, and fear turn our “thinking” into fight or flight reactions, which causes rational thought to take a back seat. We often regret our venting later when we’ve cooled down, so try to be preemptive by dealing with strong emotions in private, and once the adrenaline recedes, then calmly have your constructive conversation. 

We are all human, filtering what we see and hear and feel through limited human sensory input. The best response is a compassion-filled response! Love is stronger than fear!

March 26, 2020 - Contagious 

The coronavirus is not the only thing that’s contagious! Both fear and calm are also contagious! Have you ever noticed this happening to you? Maybe you were fairly calm, but a scary news broadcast, thriller movie or energetic song, or even being around a person that was amped up actually started to increase your energy levels. Or maybe you were a bit nervous or uneasy, and a soothing song or being around someone who is not easily rattled helped you to calm a bit.

There is actually a scientific term for this, it’s called co-regulation. From Wikipedia, “In psychology, it is defined most broadly as a ‘continuous unfolding of individual action that is susceptible to being continuously modified by the continuously changing actions of the partner’.” In other words, a person exhibiting an anxious nervous system can increase the anxiety in those around them, and conversely a person exhibiting a calm nervous system can help calm those less calm around them.

Anxiety is a bit more contagious than calm, so calming down takes a bit of a conscious effort. For instance if you are feeling calm and begin to feel anxious when you’re around anxiety in others, try to pay attention to what is happening within your body. Just pausing long enough to notice how you are being impacted can help slow the contagion. If you don’t want to feel anxious or fearful, your body is equipped with a very cool tool, it’s called breathing. When we breathe shallow, our bodies don’t feel like they get enough air, and our heart rate increases to compensate, which is sometimes interpreted unconsciously as danger. Breathing deeply and slowly helps decrease your heart rate and sends the message to your unconscious mind that you are safe. If you are typically an anxious person breathing is a great tool to help calm the body which makes it easier to calm a racing mind. 

There are some good Yoga teachers on YouTube who teach deep breathing, so while our new normal has us all turning to the internet more frequently, consider finding ways to calm yourself down, like through breathing and Yoga, so that others around you can “catch your calm”! 

March 27, 2020 - Routines

Sometimes our routines are “thrust” upon us, like school and work and social events, but sometimes we get, to or even have, to create our own routines. When regular routines are interrupted for any reason, vacation, illness, coronavirus isolation, humans tend to feel out of sorts, in other words, a little lost. With this new isolation experience, we might be tempted to “play life by ear”, which might work for some folks. For those who need structure, like kids, developing a daily routine can significantly reduce anxiety.

Warning: Try not to make your routine so strict that you judge yourself or those you love if the routine is missed by a few minutes or varies a little. Trying out new routines will be an experiment anyway. First, it’s helpful to start by waking up and going to bed around the same time every day. Waking up routines can also be very helpful, like brushing your teeth, showering, taking your meds or vitamins, eating the same breakfast or trying a new item each day, and eating at the same time each day. Planning daily exercise, even if it’s different kinds of exercise each day, will keep the blood flowing and the biochemistry of the brain working as it is intended in your human “vehicle. Healthy brain chemistry is dependent on healthy stimulation and healthy stimulation includes exercise, as well as lots of water and a good diet. 

Routines of when to eat are helpful, too, six small healthy meals a day, using lots of raw vegetables as snacks and minimizing sugar, tend to provide healthier minds and more frequent rewards. 

Side note: Kids in particular need structure and routine. It doesn’t mean they will thank you for it or joyfully follow your plans and ideas, remember they are little humans learning to adjust and sort through a lot of emotions that can shift moment by moment and for sure daily. So even if they resist or complain, try to stick to a routine template and remember to experiment with it. Routine will be something kids can count on as constant even if they don’t show their appreciate to you. Within your meal routines, inviting them to help you prepare and cook meals will be stimulating and good family time, maybe even let them plan a meal with some guidance, that will tap into their creative expression and keep life interesting for them. 

Keeping to a routine of timing doesn’t mean you can’t be creative in what you do like for meals or exercise. Just let a semblance of structure be in place for a habit your mind can count on in a time when we really don’t know what we can count on!

March 29, 2020 - Kids

This tip is for everyone, including those who don’t have kids at home right now. Here’s why!

When uncertainty impacts humans, the temptation is to psychologically regress to a familiar stage in our lives developmentally that feels familiar, like childhood. In other words, the young scared child in all of us suddenly shows up. Notice yourself when you get scared, you might find that you act and sound and maybe even feel younger than you are. 

So, yes this mental health tip is directed toward parents with children, but might help you when “your scared child” surfaces, too. Besides, humans learn by example. You are not only your child’s protector, you are their teacher through words and actions.

Developmentally, children don’t typically find a way to express their emotions with words until they have brain development that can grasp the concept of emotions and also develop language to help them make sense of emotions. That typically happens progressively from around age 3 to age 12. One of the major tasks of parents is to teach children how to articulate their inner world, which includes emotions. If a child does not have a word for anger, they typically act on the energy that anger stimulates, like hitting or screaming. And, believe it or not, fear is the foundational emotion beneath a lot of anger. When a child is given the tools to label and articulate their emotions, they are less likely to act on them with physical expression, like aggression. 

This is not the easiest parenting task, as most of you can attest to, mainly because maybe you weren’t taught to articulate your emotions as a child. We often learn as adults the benefit of using words vs actions, but old habits of acting out “die hard”, huh? So maybe experiment on yourself first with articulation, then see if you can help your child put words to their feelings. If we don’t know that our emotions are just clues to something that doesn’t feel good, we might tend to believe we ARE our emotions. 

But, and this is huge, emotions are simply a signal from our body that 1) we might be in danger, 2) our boundaries are being busted, and/or 3) our expectations or hopes have been disappointed or may have been unrealistic to begin with.

So, check with your “inner child” first, and when you find the words for your emotions, teach them to your child so they can have an outlet like articulation. In the long run, this tool will help them avoid the emotional pain of getting in trouble for acting on their emotions instead of articulating them. Remember, “Monkey see, Monkey do”! That’s a bit of a warning, but it’s mostly a compliment!

March 30, 2020 - Self-esteem and Kids:

Self-esteem is often associated with confidence and feeling good about oneself. And is often believed to be “built” through praise and positive recognition. I want to add an avenue we don’t always think of as a self-esteem builder. It’s “problem-solving”. 

While praise and recognition are important, they really keeps the focus on approval through other’s eyes, and when the praise stops coming from an outside source, humans tend to “up the ante” (demand more attention) or look for another source, kind of like an addiction.

Problem-solving is an internal confidence builder, and builds a solid foundation of self-assurance for tackling the next problem to solve. Our education system is built on the principle of problem-solving in multiple areas, which helps kids discover their brain’s ability to figure things out. Humans love to figure things out, like mystery novels, and puzzles, even take a look at how popular crime shows are that give you little clues for “who done it” just before each commercial break. When we find the solution to a problem, we have a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, two building blocks for self-esteem.

So while your kids are being “schooled” at home, and even when it’s not official school, consider finding ways for them to problem-solve. Ask questions in such a way that they get to figure it out, rather have a right or wrong answer, like “what do you think?”, “how would you do it?”, “what are some other options?”. Believe it or not, it’s less work for the parent, because  when you give a kid a question like a mystery, they tend to entertain themselves for awhile, and you don’t have to have all the answers that you think you do. Also, while video games can be a source of tension because of too much “screen time”, they can actually be a good source of problem-solving stimulation when used as a tool and not just an entertainer.

This is also true for adults, so as you are having to get creative at home, with work, and with how to manage this “mystery” call social distancing, watch to see how you problem solve. It could give you ideas of how to help your kids problem-solve, too, which in the end helps us all to feel less helpless!

March 31, 2020 - Staying Present 

The human animal is geared toward survival. That means calling on past experiences, usually painful ones, to prepare for similar future dangerous ones. Our bodies are actually wired for this survival strategy. However, when we stay in the past psychologically and emotionally we actually tempt ourselves to interpret major events only through a negative lens, and when we live in the future, we often imagine the worst case scenarios based on a past that didn’t go so well. It’s the template for human survival, but the problem is our memories and imaginations are not completely accurate. Staying present helps us absorb the moment in detail and richness, which helps our memories of the present be more accurate when we recall these moments. The ability and choice to stay present is our biggest gift as humans.

What does staying present mean? One of the best tools I’ve been introduced to for staying present is deep breathing. When you focus on your breathing you actually notice your body, and when you notice your body, your senses come alive. When we’re stuck in the past or future, we tend to breathe more shallow, and miss what our body is sensing in the “now”. Remember the 5 senses, taste, sight, smell, touch, and hearing? We often take those senses for granted, missing what they are telling us in the present.

Over the weekend for a few moments I was stuck in the past, and worrying about the future. I took a moment outside during the beautiful weather, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Suddenly I noticed the warmth of the sun on my face, the sounds of birds, and a taste of the snack I was trying. The richness of the moment is still with me now. 

Staying present and teaching your kids to stay present (which they actually know how to do better than us adults, btw) helps the emotional rollercoaster flatten a little. Try noticing the sights and sounds of nature, your kids smiles and laughter, the taste of food, and especially your body’s state of being when you breathe deeply. The appreciation of what’s in front of you in the now, helps you see all that you have that’s good. So, let the PAST be your teacher, and plan for the FUTURE, but don’t live there. The NOW is all we’re guaranteed, anyway!!!

April 2, 2020 - Creative expression 

Humanity is wired for creative expression. This isolation has created obstacles for some, keeping them from being as creative as they were, and in ways they were before the global virus restrictions, but has actually provided innovative opportunities for others. Now I’ve heard folks say they didn’t feel creative or had never really discovered their creative expression, so now might be a perfect opportunity to try different things and see if and what might be an outlet for you. 

Creative expression doesn’t have to be conventional, like music or art, it can be anything your imagination comes up with. Cooking, gardening, exercises, hobbies, any of those offer the human animal the opportunity to act out the life energy they experience on inside. (BTW, it helps with pent up emotional energy to be creative, some of the best music and art came from emotional struggles…) When humans keep themselves from being naturally expressive through creativity, they tend to turn that energy in to something destructive.

One thing I’ve tried is taking a walk and seeing how many flowers I can find, or how many birds land in one tree. I’ve also decided to try something new each day. Yesterday I made Pretzels. Today (and probably for a week or more) I’m going to try to learn a song on the piano, a simple song, btw. A few days ago I tried doing different types of pix on my cell phone using different filters. Even posting these mental health tips is part of my creative expression, it helps me articulate what’s in my head and I’m hopeful it’s helpful for others. (FYI I’m also trying to use as many different words in one sentence as I can, trying not to repeat any, lol! Kind of hard to do!)

Let yourself observe all the creativity that is being posted by others in different social venues, maybe it will help you find your own way to be creative. Remember, creativity doesn’t have to be something huge or perfect or public, just something to try. You are full of life and life is wonderfully creative!!! Anything that stimulation imagination like playing a game with yourself will keep the “brain juices” flowing!

Feel free to share your creative outlets in the comments below, or even posts and videos from others you’ve enjoyed online.

April 3, 2020 - Thank You to the Front Line Workers

Maybe you’ve seen some of the stories about front line workers, especially nurses and doctors exhausted and scared for their own health and their families health. Those of us who aren’t required to go to our workplaces, and are even required to stay home, probably have no idea what the front line workers are going through. The fear, fatigue, frustration, and the grief, are taking their toll. As they are putting themselves in harm's way constantly for the rest of us, let’s decrease the amount of harm they face by staying healthy. We’ve been told staying healthy means staying home and staying clean, it’s not that hard compared to what they have to do! Keep this in mind, as the health care givers get ill, not only do we lose those with the skill that’s needed desperately to help those of us who don’t have that skill, but their families may lose their heroes. They are our heroes, too!  

Thank You to the Front Line Workers!

April 6, 2020 - Resilience 

What is resilience? I love these two definitions from my Apple dictionary: 1 the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity: 2 the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. 

Humans and human societies are resilient! What we are going through as a culture and as a global society is foreign and hard to navigate, yet the signs of human resilience are everywhere. Innovation, creativity, unity, courage, compassion, hard work! 

The “kryptonite” to resilience is fear. Fear clouds the rational mind, and creates tunnel vision of the “what ifs” that haven’t even happened yet. I saw a news story yesterday morning about how our toilet paper “crisis” actually happened one other time our recent history (1973) when Johnny Carson did a comedy bit on a story about “what if” toilet paper were scarce, only Johnny left out the “what if” and actually said there WAS a shortage causing a run on toilet paper. There was no shortage, just as there is no shortage now, yet fear ruled and blinded a lot of people to rational resilient thought and the store shelves emptied. Here’s a link to that story: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/remembering-the-great-toilet-paper-shortage-of-1973/#

Resilience uses the whole brain, a unique integration that problem solves and gives energy to act on what is needed and possible. Now I know fear is not going away from humanity any time soon because it is hardwired into our anatomy for staying alert and safe, but if it’s out of balance like the only focus on the “what ifs” that haven’t even happened yet, it actually creates the problems we are hoping to avoid, like toilet paper shortages. 

Resilience is the antidote to fear, it’s remembering we are all in this together and we have many gifted and creative people working on a multitude of levels to keep us all going, not just in the big picture of curing this disease, but in small ones, too, like keeping our humor and hopes alive. If you focus on being alone, you will miss the beauty of what is happening around you. If you’re having trouble getting out of the “tunnel vision” of fear, try consciously focusing on what is going right at least as much as you focus on what is going wrong!

This video might help: https://youtu.be/oilZ1hNZPRM

April 8, 2020 - Slowing Down

This may not be true for everyone, but I’ve heard from some of my clients that life has slowed down for them and their family during this “Stay at Home, Safer at Home” regimen. One couple noted that during their “busier season” their kids acted up a bit, but now that there’s less outside activity demands, and more time at home with mom and dad, the acting up has significantly reduced. They were puzzled.

Let me explain! Kids (I’m talking anywhere from birth to 18 at least) don’t have enough words for all of their feelings. But they do have actions. When an uneasiness floods their little and big bodies, they want the feelings to go away, so they act on them. Adrenaline in particular hypes all of us up, but when adrenaline doesn’t have an obvious source to identify and “fix”, it can feel like anxiety and anger, even fear. Those are uncomfortable feelings even for seasoned adults, so when a kid feels them it’s amplified due to their lack of coping skills experience, and they want the feeling to go away. Words help make feelings tangible, but if they don’t have the words, they do the only thing they know that works, they act. Actions can take the form of screaming, arguing, body movements that look aggressive, or isolation. These are all the behaviors a parent wants to avoid, and oftentimes attributes to disobedience and disrespect. Please consider a different reason for their actions.

Kids are like family barometers. When family life is too busy, their negative energy levels will rise, but when family life slows, their little nervous systems start to relax. Here’s the science - humans have two very important nervous systems, the central nervous system (CNS) and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The CNS is basically our brains. The ANS is our body’s unconscious controls for staying safe and alive when danger, real or perceived, is present (ie, flight or fight), or determines relaxation when danger has passed (ie, rest and digest). When family life is busy, kids can’t process everything at a quick pace, so their ANS perceives danger and signals fight or flight mode, and when the brain is in fight or flight mode, it doesn’t think rationally, it just moves into action and gets stressed. But when family life slows down, kids relax because they feel safe and their brain relaxes so they can process incoming data with a rational thinking brain, problem-solving, and ultimately connection with the parents. By the way, connection with the parents is the foundation for obedience. So slowing down is a ripe atmosphere for nurturing relationships.

If you like what you are seeing in your family during this slower pace, make note of the things that have slowed down for you and your family. You might even ask your kids what they are noticing, they could be your greatest teachers during this time!

April 10, 202 - Refocusing

Personalities come in identifiable patterns. In times of crises some patterns in the extremes focus on what’s going well, some on what’s going wrong, and the majority vacillate between those two in varying degrees depending on the circumstances and their emotional coping skills at the time. Lots of factors complicate what we focus on and how we react to, and in crises. 

The good news is that those reactive habits and patterns are not permanent or rigid, though they may feel that way. The key to flexibility and re-focusing is self-awareness. While changing or adjusting personality patterns from a focus that may not serve you now can be a slow process, it can be very helpful for yourself and family, especially during this coronavirus isolation. Here’s a tool I teach for self-awareness and re-focusing, it’s simply called The 5 Cs: 

The 5 C's: #1 Catch the automatic personality pattern responses by identifying them, like shame and judgment, comparison and jealousy - and "hold" them for a moment rather than jump to fix them and get the "pain" off. #2 Have Compassion for your humanity - no one is surprised your human, but you. So embrace that as humans we all have to put on armor to protect ourselves, armor that becomes our automatic go to. #3 is Curiosity - in order to find where the automatic responses come from, be curious, follow the treasure hunt to it's origins by asking questions like, "how old do I feel when I…". It’ll usually lead you to a belief system that was created when you were a child, somewhere between 5 and 12. #4 is Challenge your belief systems - when we're young we don't have all the brain development we need, so we make up belief systems that work, even if they aren't true, and sometimes these young belief systems persist into adulthood. So once you find the origin of an automatic response, articulate the belief system that you had formed in your youth and ask, "Is it true today?" And the last C is #5 Choice, which arises on it's own simply because we slowed down the automatic. With choice, you can do the same thing you've always done, or try a more conscious, present response. For a more detailed explanation, check out my video: https://youtu.be/FQX7I8rP8Qc

Focusing only on the good doesn’t change reality, and focusing only on the bad doesn’t really protect you like you think it does. So refocusing for a healthy balance of the reality of our current shared circumstances as well as finding the positives of what you have available is key to staying off the emotional rollercoaster the extremes can cause. 

April 14, 2020 - Cabin Fever 

Have you found yourself asking, "how much longer is this going to go on…" I have and I've asked it several times over the last couple of weeks, but I'm starting to ask it more frequently. And I'm sure many of you, and especially the front line workers have been wondering longer than I have.

I'm kind of a homebody, so this wasn't that hard for me to do in the beginning. This isolation was kind of novel at first, working from home and “slowing down” without guilt, but now I'm finding I'm longing for my "old life" of freedom, coming and going without a second thought, shopping and visiting. 

The things that I've discovered as most helpful to decrease my cabin fever are staying busy with projects I've needed to complete but kept putting off like cleaning closets, and planning new projects I've been wanting to do like buying and planting flowers. My son bought me exercise bands and using them always gives me emotional and physical energy. I think the biggest help for cabin fever for me is finding humor wherever I can, YouTube videos, local feel good broadcasts like Rise And Shine on 43TV, my pets, memories… 

For kids this might be a great time to teach them how to garden, plant flowers, even cook. Maybe at bedtime share family stories with them, or allow everyone to be creative and make up bedtime stories for fun. Kids have great imaginations! I don't know about you all, but I take so many pictures and videos on my phone these days that I rarely go back and look at them. This might be a good time to get out old pictures and home videos and view them, even delete a few that flopped. Changing furniture groupings and rearranging photos on the walls can change up the look of your "cabin". 

I saw a news story where some NBA players were playing HORSE via video chats. So creative! Maybe there are games you can play with others in your family groups or friends circle through video. Is anyone interested in learning a foreign language? Turn on a show with subtitles and practice with the actors, or watch a show you've watched before that you can find in a foreign language and see if you can learn the language. 

I’m aware that none of these activities changes the reality of what we are all dealing with, but it may help it be less overwhelming. So, share your own ideas of dealing with Cabin Fever if you like!

April 16, 2020 - "Just Venting" 

I'm not really going to vent, I just want to explain it. So you might be noticing, maybe even participating in some heated exchanges in your home, especially while you're all cooped up together! The origins of these heated exchanges might actually start as the need for venting that ends up getting mistaken for arguing, which can lead to heated exchanges. Then it can get interpreted as disrespectful. When two people need to vent and they vent to each other, they may not be listening to the other and then might interpret each other’s venting responses as being disagreeable.

Venting is actually a biological need both for adults and kids. It's a buildup of stress produced by adrenaline loaded thoughts and often is labeled as anger, but can include anxiety and fear as well. And that buildup needs to be discharged. Sometimes our bodies want to get the “feeling” off as quick as possible, and one of the most common human methods is through loud, passionate voices, sometimes words are involved, but sometimes just sounds, or even crying can be the discharge of the adrenaline.

This may be hard to convince parents of, but kids need to vent more than adults, and if adults don't know that, or what venting is for in kids, they may react in a way that perpetuates the "arguing" and possibly wound hearts and relationships. It's hard not to react when you're on the receiving end of venting, as it would be hard for someone on the other end of your venting, too. 

One of the best tools for dealing with venting is staying calm and open. The venting, or at least the passion that is tied to the venting will begin to dissipate as the adrenaline is spent and the rational mind comes back on line for rational dialogues, in fact, calm responses will help calm interactions return sooner than if venting and passion are challenged or punished! 

But staying calm during a blast is tough biologically and psychologically. One way to help yourself choose calm is to ask, “Is this venting really about me?” “Is my child or spouse or friend just needing to ‘blow off steam’?” “Is my need for venting really going to help or hurt my relationships?” I’ll admit, when the energy of adrenaline comes, it’s hard to ask these kinds of questions, so one way to manage the “heat of the moment”, is to devise a plan in the “cool of the moment”. Review your venting and talk with your family about past venting episodes that may have gone too far and see if in a cool, rational moment, you all can come up with some ideas to “take your corners” when you feel the frustration building.

Now, in no way am I advocating verbal abuse. You don’t have to take the heat of someone else’s barrage of verbal meanness in the name of “venting”. And this may be hard to distinguish, especially in the moment. So give yourself permission to remove yourself from their presence as best you can, or calmly ask them to calm down so you can have a calmer conversation when everyone is calm. That may not work with some folks who are very volatile, so use your judgment here! 

But with kids, approximately ages two to 18, they don’t have all the articulation we do as adults, and venting may simply be blowing off steam, not arguing. So pause long enough to find out. It’s always helpful when a parent can stay calm instead of reacting to a child’s emotional outburst, but it’s not always easy. If you do find yourself reacting more passionately than you wanted to, please consider revisiting the episode during a cooler moment with your child so you can apologize and you all can problem solve for the next time. I made this statistic up, but I believe it from my own parenting days, 80% of parenting is repair. In other words, we tend to get it right about 20% of the time, so it’s always helpful for our kids’ hearts when we do the adult thing and try to repair damage we unintentionally do through our own venting.

April 20, 2020 - Isolation Antidote

You might think the antidote to isolation is “un-isolating”, and to a degree it is. But when you can’t “un-isolate” physically, how do you counter the effects of isolation? What I’ve noticed from my own experience and the many news stories of how people are coping during this pandemic is that when we “reach out”, whether electronically, or virtually, or physically at a safe distance, or financially… we all feel a sense of community, and that is the true antidote for isolation. And it works whether we are going through a mandatory isolation or a self-imposed isolation. 

We’re all learning a lot about ourselves now that we can’t distract ourselves with all kinds of the usual busyness, and I’m betting that one of the biggest lessons being discovered is how much social contact means including a sense of purpose through serving in our community. So while self-focus can be enlightening during isolation, it can move from a healthy introspection to an unhealthy self-absorption. If that is what you are noticing in yourself or family members, consider finding ways to think outside yourself, think of others in need and reach out, to your family, your neighborhood, your community, your world... where you can use what you “have” for them, with words, or materials, or money to touch another’s soul. 

I have no desire or intent to take you on a guilt trip here, this is not a plea for you to do something you don’t feel comfortable doing. There are lots of ways to step outside of yourself and feel a sense of community that fits your gifts and means. I think the biggest key to giving or serving is that it comes from your heart, a true desire without obligation. When we’re authentic in our giving the gift is richer and felt deeper. If it’s given out of guilt or obligation, it’s often cursory, and somewhat cold. So find your heart’s desire before you “give”.

And remember, this antidote of other-focus is true not just during this mandatory social distancing, it’s true year round!

April 22, 2020 - Anger Part 1 - Three Sources 

Anger is a single word used for several bodily sensations. The energy in our bodies makes it feel like it’s just one sensation, but it’s not. Surprised? In reality, anger is an unconscious response to three main sources. Here are the shortcut words to those three sources of anger, “head, heart, and gut”. I’m going to explain them in reverse order, though, starting with the most basic, “animal” source of anger:

The Gut: Biologically we are wired to stay alive. You’ve probably heard of “fight or flight”? This is our brain’s ability to react to a “sensed” threat before our minds can process and determine if we are really in danger. In fact, it’s so automatic that our brain initiates “code red” in our body through physiological resources we might need, like adrenaline which increases our heart rate and dilates our pupils so we can - you guessed it - either fight to fend off our attacker or flee the danger. Our brain will even send blood to our arms for the fight response, or our legs for the flight response before we even know psychologically how to respond. Pretty amazing, huh? The rush of adrenaline for the fight mode will actually feel like anger that helps us feel strong and brave, and this is one source of anger we don’t want to lose. It will keep us alive! Sometimes the sensed threat by our bodies is a false alarm, though, but for the most part, we can trust our bodies to keep us alive! If we don’t know that this is a natural human animal response, we might misinterpret this source of anger, which I’ll address in part 2.

Heart: When I use the word heart, I’m actually referring to your sense of self, or boundaries. I like to use skin as an analogy here to give my clients a visual for what boundaries are. Just like when you look at a photo of yourself and someone else, or look in the mirror when you are with another person, your skin defines and distinguishes you from the other person. So you can think of boundaries as the “skin of your soul, or unseen self”. It distinguishes you from others in the sense of what and who you are emotionally and psychologically responsible for, as well as what and who you are not responsible for. It is your sense of self, or boundaries. Bottom line, a healthy sense of self maintains that you are responsible for you. And a healthy sense of self can detect when someone is attempting to cross the line of your boundaries, like controlling you, manipulating you, or giving you too much responsibility for their emotions and lives. That sense of someone crossing the line usually initiates a “code red”, too, which is an emotional resistance that feels like anger. That source of anger helps to keep us sovereign in our sense of self, so we don’t want to lose that one either. But again, it can be misinterpreted. See part 2.

Head: This is the one source of anger that can really wreak havoc on our relationships and our self esteem. It is also the one source we can explore and adjust. The head source of anger is actually filled with belief systems that set us up for expectations, sometimes realistic, sometimes not. Belief systems are often formed when we are very young, usually between 5 and 12 when our brains are in the concrete stage of development, so most of our early belief systems are very two-dimensional, in other words, we think in “black and white” terms like “right or wrong”, “good or bad”, “either/or”. The “gray”, or “it depends” type of thinking (called formal operations or abstract thinking) usually develops in our teen years. But if our belief systems don’t grow up with us psychologically, we tend to still have young concrete belief systems determining our expectations, and that is a recipe for a “code red” that is unfortunately often false and damaging to relationships. With young belief systems, we set our expectations around immature and limited perceptions, and when those expectations are not met, we give ourselves permission to be angry that someone is not doing what we want or not treating us how we want to be treated. So this source of anger is THE ONE to explore and challenge. The best way to do that is pause before acting on your anger and ask, “Is this a young expectation?”, or “Is this an expectation that is realistic for me or the person I’m angry with?” Often, our kids trigger our young expectations, and our reaction may be more of what our young self would do than our adult self. So it’s always good to pause and step away when you are feeling angry with your kids, and challenge your expectations of them. 

See part 2 for how anger can get misinterpreted and misused.

April 25, 2020 - Anger Part 2 - Giving Our Power Away

I started posting about anger because tempers seem to be flaring more the longer we are all in isolation. My hope is to offer understanding and ideas for dealing with anger in particular so that it doesn’t do damage to the relationships we treasure the most. In part one I introduced three sources for anger so that you might be able identify the source and have better tools for expressing it. While anger is one of those emotions that can be destructive to the “host” if it’s suppressed, and equally destructive to the receiver if it’s expressed unhealthily, it can be managed healthily. So I’m hoping to help you navigate through healthy avenues of identifying and expressing anger by identifying the unhealthy patterns first. This particular post is an attempt to delve deeper into the second source of anger, boundaries, unhealthy boundaries in particular, with the influence of the third source of anger, expectations/belief systems. While this will not be a comprehensive post, maybe it will provide tools and information to help make the expression of anger less damaging for everyone.

Does this sound familiar? “You make me happy!” “You make me proud!” “You make me so angry!” “You make me sad!” I’m guessing everyone has either heard or said these phrases at some point in their lives, and maybe for some these phrases are common in your home, either your home now or growing up. I want to challenge the message these phrases send, both to the one speaking them and the one receiving them by asking the question, “how can anyone make you feel what you don’t want to feel?” 

First, while I’m mainly addressing anger in this three part series, this post is true for any emotion. Emotions are powerful driving forces, providing strong feelings in our bodies, and the three strongest emotions are anger, fear, and sadness. These are normal healthy experiences humans have when struggling with loss and uncertainty, for both young and old. But as kids, emotions, or the expression of them, may have been deemed unacceptable, so it might be helpful to first ask yourself what message you received about emotions in your childhood, were they acceptable or were they judged as unacceptable. When emotions are deemed unacceptable, it is often difficult to take responsibility for them, thus the temptation is to blame others for these strong feelings. And second, what message are you sending to your kids about emotions. Unfortunately, emotions are often equated with the expression of the emotions, so it will be tricky to tease out the emotion from the temptation of how to express it. We’ll look at that in part 3. 

Next, if you recall your parents telling you “you made me feel _____”, consider for a moment how heavy of a burden that must have been for you as a child. To have an adult who couldn’t manage their own emotions, put their emotional burden on you must have felt like a heavy load, and most likely put you in a powerful position that no child really wants. Children want and need a mature and strong adult parent who can manage their own emotions so they can be trusted to hold and guide the fragile child’s evolving management of emotions. When an adult gives their child power over their own emotions, it’s too much. Kids barely can handle the strong feelings they are experiencing, so piling onto their fragile egos the adult energy of your anger in particular overloads their circuits! This is when defense mechanisms like projection start to form in order to protect fragile egos. And this is a form of “boundary weakening”. 

I understand why us parents use these shame filled phrases, in some ways we want our kids to know how they impact us. And honestly, kids do need to know how their actions touch others. But there’s a big difference between putting the responsibility of our emotions on our kids and that of teaching them their social impact. Another motivation for parents is to “steer” our kids' moral compass. If you think about it, the negative versions of the “you make me…” statements are often shame filled. And while shame is a temporary motivator to derail kids’ hurtful behavior that often gets immediate results, it is actually more of a long-term self-esteem squasher than builder, and requires a lot of repair to overcome later in life. Changing behaviors through shame does not change the heart motivations. But love does! When you change the heart through love, the behavior changes automatically.

On the more positive side of the “you make me…” statements, like “you make me proud”, are the parent’s attempts to encourage our children. An unfortunate side effect, however, can result in training our children to look outside of themselves for approval, when in actuality TRUE self-esteem and confidence comes from an internal sense of accomplishment through problem-solving. I’m all for validating a child’s accomplishments, but not with the phrase, “you make me proud or happy.” Even this can impact boundaries significantly. I’ll suggest alternate phrasing in the latter paragraph. 

Bottom line, when we believe someone else can “make us feel” anything, we are giving our power away, and in effect letting go of responsibility for our own sovereignty. It also teaches our kids to give their power and responsibility away. When we train our kids to do the same, they will believe they can’t take control over their own emotions, or actions, or even thoughts, which is so counter to our goal as parents of growing independent and confident children. And unfortunately they may be tempted to enter relationships where they are either taken advantage of because of this training, or may consistently blame their partner for their own internal struggles. This is basically the dissolving of boundaries, or even evidence of the loss of boundary development from early in life. 

If this is your experience, it’s not a hopeless place to be! Just like our skin renews itself daily, so we have the ability to daily identify and choose how to take responsibility for our emotions and set boundaries. This is where the third source of anger comes in, belief systems/expectations. Begin by discovering your belief systems and the resulting expectations so you can challenge them. Letting the “responsible-adult” in you reign over your emotions instead of giving into the “blaming-child” in you will not only help you with your personal boundaries, it will model for your children how to take responsibility for their emotions. And it will heal relationships between you and solidify healthy boundaries in them for their future committed relationships!

So here are some ideas for alternate phrases that are more healthy for taking responsibility for your own emotions, and educating your child about their impact:

“When I hear or see you ______, my heart feels _____. Emotions are OK, but we need to use words.” 

“It looks like you are feeling ______, and when I see that I feel ______”

“Your emotions are very strong right now, I’m having some strong emotions, too. Let’s take a break so we can talk when we are both calmed down.”

“I am proud of/happy for you, how do you feel about yourself?”

“I’m feeling happy right now, I like how you… How are you feeling about you when you...?”
Hint: be sure to listen to their response, it’ll give them validation and you insight into their world.

So remember, when we take responsibility for our own emotions and use words that identify our emotions, we give our kids permission to have emotions and give them articulation for their internal world. Words help everyone express emotions in a more healthy way than actions without words. I’ll explore emotions vs expressing emotions next time.