Cultivating Strong Community Ties for Better Mental Health

We recently talked about healthism–the belief that pursuit of health is the most important aspect of life; a mindset that equates healthy with good and unhealthy with bad or lazy–and how it can impede our healing. 

If you missed it, healthism, rather than emphasizing a loving self care ethic, uses shame and guilt as motivators and is limited by a narrow, inaccurate view of health. With healthism, things like mental or chronic illness are overlooked, holistic health is not considered, and it often functions as a tool of capitalism–in the sense that the purpose of healthism is often not about helping you tune into your own needs in order to tend to your own wellness, but rather about selling you some new tool to take care of your “health” for you. 

The main way this functions is by making everything the individual’s fault–your health issues are your fault because of the habits you do or don’t have, the food you do or don’t eat, or the wellness tools you do or don’t buy. 

Within healthism there is no recognition of the importance of the collective. 

We can look at that same quote from Healthism and the Medicalization of Everyday Life by Robert Crawford: 

“…healthism situates the problem of health and disease at the level of the individual. Solutions are formulated at that level as well. To the extent that healthism shapes popular beliefs, we will continue to have a non-political, and therefore, ultimately ineffective conception and strategy of health promotion. Further, by elevating health to a super value, a metaphor for all that is good in life, healthism reinforces the privatization of the struggle for generalized well-being.”

Crawford was speaking politically here, but it’s more than politics alone. The removal of the individual from the collective reduces not only political power, but your mental health, sense of belonging and purpose, physical health, access to resources, and more.

In short, community is crucial to healing! 

Why community matters to health:

To put it simply, communities are crucial to health because everyone needs a support system–health is made up of many moving parts, all of which can be tended to by different community relationships and resources. 

Communities offer not just one option, but a garden of options for support; through building relationships with friends, family, neighbors, local businesses, community organizers & artists you open yourself up to a world of possibilities. You create a world full of people who can help you creatively, financially, professionally, spiritually, domestically, medically, etc. The basic function of a community is to make sure you don’t have to face any aspect of life alone.

We live in a culture that doesn’t value community in the same way other cultures do. 

The American dream and the American work ethic demand progress, upward movement, hustle, and making a name for yourself by yourself.  The value is on what an individual can do alone, and how quickly. 

Consider American culture, where it’s common for young adults to move out of their family homes as soon as they are financially able to do so (and sometimes before), as opposed to many Eastern cultures, where it’s common for homes to be multigenerational, living together with three or more generations of family members to the benefit of all. 

That has shifted slightly in the wake of COVID, where many experienced how isolated our capitalistic values system has made us, and many are finding they long to be more active members in their communities, or have stronger community ties. 

What do strong community ties do for our mental health?

One thing strong community ties can do for us is help to decrease feelings of anxiety and depression. 

If you know you don’t have to figure a way through everything on your own, not every obstacle feels so emergent, so high stakes. There's safety in community that can help mitigate feelings of anxiety, and feelings of depression can decrease as you become less isolated. 

Strong community ties also help you to practice healing through relationships. 

Part of the work we do in therapy is the work of healing through a new, safer relationship. We’re able to come up against feelings of fear, anxiety, rage, shame, and more have someone sit with us as we find new ways to cope. Supportive communities give you the chance to write new relationship scripts in similar ways! When you’ve experienced a lack of love or safety in traditional community relationships (like family), building a chosen family through community relationships can help you to heal that wound, and learn new, healthier ways to be in relationships of all kinds. 

Being an active part of a strong community can also help you identify your values. 

It’s hard to figure out what is important to us when we’re living a life of isolation. Finding groups of like-minded people, or people with similar interests can help get your mind turning when it comes to what is important to you and how you would like to live those values through action.

Ways to build your community:

If you’re feeling lonely, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are a few ideas, some very easy, some requiring a little more intention, to start building a community around you:  

• Make time to see local friends regularly

• Introduce yourself to your neighbors

• Go for walks in your neighborhood regularly 

• Introduce yourself to anyone you see regularly who you might not know (your mailman, your barista, the person on the corner you pass every week, etc.) 

• Take a class-local artists often hold classes on their craft, libraries and recreation centers often have free, pay what you can, or affordable classes, and may know other places in the community that offer classes

• Join a club–you can find them on places like Meetup, post on your local subreddit to ask about specific kinds of clubs, or ask friends or people you know if they’re in clubs they enjoy! If you feel awkward about asking people directly, you could do something easy like post on your instagram story and ask locals to DM you with any info they have on clubs–club members are always excited to get new people interested in their events!

• Find a server of local events, subscribe to local papers’ newsletters to stay up to date with local events 

• Go to free community centers like the library; they often have a calendar of free or affordable events, may facilitate classes or book clubs, etc.

• Community gardens are becoming more popular–check for one in or near your neighborhood, see if they’re looking for volunteers or if they have social events to help support the garden

• Go to local independent shops; local bookstores often have book clubs or reading events, local record shops often have cheap local shows, indie movie theaters sometimes have discounted movie + discussion nights. Independent shops are common spots for local clubs to hold events, if there’s somewhere you like to shop, see if they have a calendar of events! 

• Find somewhere to volunteer 

• If you’re religious or spiritual, attend in person services, spiritual events, etc. 

Taking steps to reduce feelings of isolation can be hard, but you don’t have to do it alone. Get in touch with our office today to get started with one of our expert clinicians. 

Separating Healing from Healthism

A lot of language around health focuses on should’s.

What habits we should have, what foods we should eat, how much media we should consume, how we should engage with our bodies, when we should be active and productive, how active and productive we should be, and on and on and on. 

But why? And, maybe more importantly, what if in centering our health and all of those “shoulds” we were actually getting in the way of really caring for ourselves?

What is healthism?

Healthism, essentially, is the cultural idea that being healthy is the most important thing; that healthy is equivalent to good, hardworking, educated, and valuable, while unhealthy means bad, lazy, stupid, and expendable.

Healthism was an idea introduced to popularity by an economist, Robert Crawford, in the 1980s, in an essay published under the title “Healthism and the Medicalization of Everyday Life.” The essay was written in response to a cultural rise in self care movements in the seventies, but is still relevant in this new wave of individualist and commercialized self care. An excerpt from it reads: 

“…healthism situates the problem of health and disease at the level of the individual. Solutions are formulated at that level as well. To the extent that healthism shapes popular beliefs, we will continue to have a non-political, and therefore, ultimately ineffective conception and strategy of health promotion. Further, by elevating health to a super value, a metaphor for all that is good in life, healthism reinforces the privatization of the struggle for generalized well-being.”

Basically, healthism asks: if you’re sick or unwell, what did you do wrong? And the follow up: if you can’t make good or healthy choices, why should you get care?

What healthism overlooks:

There is a lot left ignored in this understanding of health. In fact, very little of your “health” is determined by personal habits. Your health is influenced by your genetics, your socioeconomic status, the environment you live in, your access to medical care and nutrient dense food, experiences of racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia, medical discrimination, bias or neglect, and more. All of these things are outside an individual's control! 

We put so much importance on individual habits and choices because those are what we can control in our day to day life, but that also makes it easy for us to be blamed for our own poor health, or sold something that says will make us better, but really only exists to make someone else a profit. 

The healthism we see on an individual level (rather than a structural level, like being denied insurance for a pre-existing condition) also often focuses more on the aesthetics of health, than on health itself. One major example of this would be the health risks fat people face just by actually going to the doctor. The anti-fat bias within “health” centered spaces is so damaging, that when actually going to attend to their health, fat patients risk having their health harmed by abusive medical professionals, who often only tell them to lose weight without actually tending to their medical needs–and without acknowledging both that rapidly losing weight is dangerous to your health or that being underweight is actually more dangerous to health than being overweight. 

The other obvious thing that is overlooked by healthism is mental health. Healthism believes your health is your responsibility, but your genetics and your brain chemistry are not within your control! While yes, moving your body and nourishing yourself are good for your mental health but mental health cannot be exercised or dieted away! That prompts the question, if you are physically “healthy” but are treating depression, are you still “healthy”? Can anyone really be fully “healthy” when we step back and think about it holistically? And if we can’t, why do we place so much importance on striving for perfect health above all else?

What shifting away from healthism can do for your healing: 

This isn’t to say your health is insignificant–when you are sick or injured or unwell in any way you deserve care and medicine and support. The rejection of healthism isn’t a rejection of taking care of yourself, but shifting the motivations behind it. 

Instead of caring for yourself because you want to be healthy so you can deserve love and care and support, can you care for yourself because you are alive and deserve it? Can you shift your habits of caring for yourself so they come from a place of love and joy, rather than guilt and shame?

Removing morality from health means when your health declines, you know your worth does not. 

When you are unwell, you have value and deserve everything you have when you’re well. Rejecting the healthism mentality means recognizing this–even if the reason you are unwell is the result of a choice you made. This means caring about and for yourself isn’t dependent on how healthy your habits are. Instead it’s coming from a place in your mind that is asking, “okay, how can I both nourish myself and feel good in this body and life?”

Want a weird, real life example of this? Look at kinksters. In kink and alternative sex communities there is an acronym RACK, which stands for risk aware consensual kink. This means that all participants understand that there is no 100% safe way to practice kink as there is always some sort of risk, even if it’s very small. But they have made themselves aware of those risks, and decided that the benefits of what they would get out of the experience outweighs those risks, so they still enthusiastically consent. 

We can think of our choices with health in the same way–you don’t always have to choose what is healthiest if another option offers something else to you; it’s about being aware and making choices based on your own needs and desires. 

Rejecting healthism also helps to ground you back in your healing. Healthism is a tool of capitalism! You don’t need to be constantly buying things to make yourself “better”; you need to tune back into yourself to listen to what your needs are, and respond to what you’re exploring internally, not what’s being sold to you externally. Take the CEO of Whole Foods saying:

“We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health.” 

We know of course, that that’s not true! Like we discussed above, there are many factors to health, very few of which are influenced by personal choice and habits. But we can also see that he’s clearly selling something to us here. He’s saying: if you want to be healthy and live a good, long life, shop at Whole Foods! But that’s not the only way to achieve health–and for people who can’t afford to shop there, that economic strain would actually impede their health. 

Rejecting healthism takes guilt away from seeking joy, and gives you back the power to determine your purpose. Instead of feeling shame over “indulging” in things you “shouldn’t” or not putting all of your effort into achieving peak physical health, you can spend your time and energy in ways that rejuvenate you. 

How therapy challenges healthism 

Healthism says: whatever health or wellness problems you have in your life, they’re your fault. If you had made better choices, you would be better off. 

Therapy says: there are so many things that make you who you are and that impact how you are. Let’s explore them and see what motivated your choices, what needs you were meeting, and give compassion to you for taking care of yourself as best as you could. It says being unwell doesn’t always come from one thing, and it’s not your job alone to be healthy or well–relationships and support systems are a huge part of taking care of yourself, and you deserve access to them. 

Shifting away from a mindset based in healthism can be hard, but we’re here to support you. Get in touch with our office today to get started with one of our expert clinicians. 

6 Safe Ways to Express Anger

How do you react when you feel angry?

For a lot of people, anger is a confusing emotion. Everyone feels anger, of course, but we often aren’t taught how to deal with anger in a healthy way when we are young. It can feel like the only way to respond to anger is through yelling or violence, but that’s a myth that stems from our anger-phobic culture. 

Why are we afraid of anger?

Think about what comes up for you when you think about anger. For a lot of folks, those memories, emotions, and sensations are related to painful or frightening experiences. Feeling painful emotions is uncomfortable, so lots of us do whatever we can to avoid dealing with them, even if we don’t do that consciously. Many of us are in the habit of repressing our anger to the point where we might not think we feel it at all. 

Our culture has one very narrow view of anger: anger can be felt by a man, and he can respond to the anger he feels with violence. Whether that violence is a yelling match, hurting themselves, or hurting others, the typical reaction to anger that we see in the media is one that is out of control and scary. Our culture follows this script and encourages anger in men, and represses anger in women. 

Many women don’t feel that they experience anger at all, because women aren’t socialized to express anger. Women are often forced to hide their anger or ignore it entirely because our society doesn’t give women the option to be angry. Think of stereotypes like calling a woman “crazy” when she’s upset about something in a relationship, or the racist stereotype of the “angry Black woman.” Anger isn’t something women are allowed to feel like any other emotion - either we are forced to repress it, or it becomes our whole identity. 

Why can’t we just ignore anger?

The problem with repressing emotions is that they never stay repressed permanently. They always come up at one point or another, often when you’re least prepared to deal with them. Repressed anger doesn’t feel good. Anger is a powerful emotion, and it can have powerful effects when it’s not properly expressed. Repressing anger can lead to major swings in mood, increased irritability, and even anxiety and depression. 

Anger is a normal emotion. We all feel it from time to time. Like all emotions, it comes and it goes, and doesn’t last forever when we allow ourselves to feel it (versus repressing it). When any emotion comes up, we can notice it and find ways to cope with that emotion. Part of the experience of an emotion is sitting through it - there’s really no way around experiencing the emotion if you want to move forward from it. Think of other emotions you feel. When you’re sad, you might cry, or cuddle a pet, or take a nap. Those are all safe ways to cope with sadness. There are options for you to express anger in safe ways too. 

Here are some suggestions for safe ways to express anger:

Use your voice

This doesn’t mean to get in a yelling match with someone. This just means to use your voice to express the intensity of what you’re feeling. Maybe this means you go for a drive in the car and scream-sing along to a playlist. Maybe it means you scream into your pillow for a bit. It could also mean talking it over with someone if that feels supportive to you. 

Get moving

Anger is an intense emotion, and can often feel like it’s bursting out of you or like it’s causing energy to build up inside of you. A great way to deal with the excess energy that often comes up with anger is to move your body and tire yourself out. Try dancing around to music that makes you feel powerful. Or maybe go for a run or a brisk walk. Any kind of intense movement that gets you moving and your blood pumping can be helpful here to work through the feeling of anger. 

Be destructive (strategically)

The urge to be violent when angry is often a way to get rid of the painful excessive energy that anger can bring. This urge can be met in ways that aren’t unsafe or scary, thankfully! Here are some ideas for how to be destructive in a safe, strategic way to help relieve some anger: 

• Safely throw or squeeze or hit or break something

• Visit a smash room and break some things

• Hit or kick a punching bag

• Squeeze play dough or a stress toy

• Knead dough or pound meat 

• Throw something soft (or maybe throw a toy for a pet to chase)

• Break down cardboard boxes

• Pound on a drum set

Practice progressive muscle relaxation

Anger can cause a lot of tension to spring up in the body. When you’re responding to anger, it can be helpful to notice where the anger is living in your body. This not only helps you identify what anger feels like so you can spot it when it comes up in the future; it also lets you know where to focus your attention for relaxation. To help you find where the anger is living in your body, you can do a body scan and practice mindfulness that engages the body, like progressive muscle relaxation. There are lots of guided body scan meditations available for free on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and Insight Timer that you can try to get in the habit of scanning your body for signs of anger. Once you’ve spotted the anger in your body, you can focus on relaxing that area. Progressive muscle relaxation can help you slowly shift your body from a state of tension to a state of calm and safety. 

Find your safe place

Anger can feel scary and out of control. When intense emotions like anger come up, it can be helpful to remind yourself that you are safe and in control of yourself. Where is a place you can go mentally to remind yourself that you’re safe? Some people choose a beach or mountains as their safe place, and others prefer a room in their house or a space from their childhood home. 

When you feel an intense emotion, imagine you’re in your safe place. If it helps, carry a reminder of this with you or save a picture on your phone to help you mentally return to your safe place. This can be helpful with lots of distressing emotions, not just anger!

Are you looking for more support in coping with anger? It’s hard to know how to express anger safely when you’ve spent your whole life ignoring it. Our therapists can help you find ways that work for you to safely process and express your anger. Get in touch with our office today to get started!

Exploring & Expressing Anger Safely

There’s no such thing as a bad emotion. 

Yes, read it again! None of our emotions on their own are good or bad. Now, that doesn’t mean that they can’t make us feel bad (or uncomfortable) in some way, but all an emotion is really doing is giving us information. And all of that information is important–even the information we don’t like to learn. 

Our feelings basically act as response cues to the environment around us. They let us know if we’re safe, if we’re valued, if our wants and needs are being met, etc. If that sounds confusing (how can a feeling let you know if your needs are being met?) let’s look at an example. Say you’ve spent an evening laughing with your friends, feeling happy. That good feeling, while it might seem basic, is telling you information! It’s letting you know:

• You are comfortable around the people you’re with

• Your true self is safe to come out in this environment

• You’re able to participate fully in the moment, indicating you feel seen and valued

• You’re fulfilled/rejuvenated by the social connections you’ve made

That all might seem obvious at the moment, but it’s actually a lot of information for one feeling to give you! Uncomfortable emotions, though we don’t enjoy experiencing them as much, give us the same amount of information. While they can feel “bad” they’re still important to pay attention to, so we can attend to our needs. 

Let’s look at anger. 

Anger is often a secondary emotion–which means if comes as a result of another, often more vulnerable feeling. While anger is what is being expressed in that case, the feeling at the root could be hurt, shame, betrayal, etc. 

However, anger still tells us a lot of information, and isn’t an emotion to be afraid to feel or express. One function it can serve is informing you when you’re being mistreated. If someone says something cruel to you and you get upset, there may be another emotion at the root, but your anger can also be a signal that you know how you deserve to be treated, but that you are presently being mistreated. That’s not a bad thing–your anger is actually looking out for you in that scenario. It’s letting you know, hey, I know this isn’t okay and I deserve better!  

Anger becomes a problem when we are so afraid of it, we don’t give ourselves space to explore or express it. If we’re under the impression that anger is bad or scary, we’re not likely to engage with it when we feel it; instead we’re more likely to feel shame and try to shove it away. Or, if our anger has been shoved aside too long, it may bubble up and explode in a more volatile way than if we had given it the attention it needed when it first appeared. 

When we don’t treat it as something dangerous, anger can be useful to us. 

Give yourself a moment to think about why you’re feeling what you’re feeling. As yourself: 

• What happened just before I started feeling this way?

• What was it that made me feel this way?

• Am I feeling angry or is there another emotion at the root of this feeling? (Insecurity, sadness, shame, etc.) 

• Does this remind me of some way I’ve been mistreated in the past?

When you’ve given yourself a chance to explore what it is you’re feeling, communicating to others what you need or what upset you will be easier. 

But sometimes we need to let ourselves feel the anger before we’re ready to pick it apart.

That doesn’t mean lashing out or having an outburst, but there are other ways to let yourself feel and express that anger without endangering yourself or others. Giving yourself time to feel your feelings before picking them apart helps you not to overanalyze yourself. 

Sometimes we’re angry because we haven’t had enough to eat or sleep and we keeping getting held up by small inconveniences, until suddenly we’re angry! In those cases, too much introspection probably won’t be helpful. You need a snack, a nap, and a moment to release the built up frustration so that you can go about your day. Some ways you can release that anger or frustration can include: 

Music: 

Whether you play an instrument yourself, or if you just like to blast it in your room and sing along, screaming along or playing loudly can help release the tension that has built up. 

Art: 

Creating art can be both a physical release by working with your hands and other materials (like painting), a way to be destructive while also creative (like collaging) and even a physical stress relief (using clay with your hands, etc.). It also allows you to express whatever it is you’re feeling without having to put words to it–there are many other ways we can communicate, and visually is one way! Using art to express anger is a great way to explore it, release it and communicate it. 

Moving your body: 

Any way you like! It could be dancing, going for a run or hike, or anything that can take that anger and use it as physical exertion so it feels like you’re expelling it out of your body. Exercising also helps to release those feel good chemicals in our brain as well, so you can literally help improve your mood by moving your body. 

Journaling: 

You don’t have to express everything perfectly in your journal, or even know what you want to write about–it’s a space all for you. You can let yourself vent when you’re mad to get it out, and later, when you’re feeling calm and settled, you can look at what was upsetting you to see if there’s anything within your control that you can do about it. 

Remember:  Anger is just a feeling, feeling it isn’t good or bad. 

Give yourself time and space to release those feelings and explore what they’re telling you before trying to communicate that with others. And while anger can be useful, communicating in anger is not, so using one of these ways to find expression or release first,  before communicating to others about what you need can help you stay grounded and focused on your own needs, 

Working with a therapist can help you understand what your anger is telling you and find healthy ways to express it. Contact our office today to get started.

3 Tips for Cultivating A More Positive Relationship With Yourself

When you think of cultivating positive relationships in your life, do you think about the relationship you have with yourself? 

The word relationship calls to mind our connections with others–with romantic partners, with friends, family members, coworkers, neighbors, etc. But you have a relationship with yourself as well–and it’s the longest relationship you’re ever going to have! That alone makes it worth it to spend intentional time reflecting on your relationship habits and where you want your relationship with yourself to go.

We’re pretty familiar with the idea of self care at this point, but an under-discussed component of self care is the ongoing attention your relationship to yourself requires. But our relationship to ourselves touches just about every part of our lives, like: 

• The way we talk to ourselves daily  

• The way we’re able to connect with others 

• The opportunities or healthy risks we take or miss out on 

• The way we take care of ourselves on a regular basis  

• The way we’re able to handle setbacks  

And while being intentional with our self care habits is a good start when it comes to tending to our self-relationship, there’s more to it than that! 

We develop our relationship with ourselves much the same way we develop all early relationships: through watching, observing and learning from the examples given to us by our caregivers. Our self-relationship is influenced both by how we see our caregivers and close peers speak to and about themselves, as well as the way we are treated within the relationships with our caregivers. 

When we’re young, we develop what is called an attachment style. There are four main types: anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, disorganized attachment, and secure attachment. Anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachments are all what are considered insecure attachment styles. A secure attachment is when someone feels secure in their ability to express what they are feeling openly, to foster emotional intimacy, etc. Those who developed secure attachments are more likely to also then be able to cultivate a positive relationship with themselves as well as others, because the building blocks are already there. 

What does that mean if you grew up in an environment where there was no emotional safety or closeness? Where you didn’t learn that it was okay to openly express yourself or your needs or address conflict? Does that mean you’re doomed to a negative relationship with yourself forever?

Not at all! 

We always have the ability to improve our relationships, especially when it comes to the one we have with ourselves. It just takes some time, intention, and care. 

Here are some tips on how to begin to adjust or cultivate a more positive relationship with yourself: 

Tip 1: Remember you don’t need to earn basic needs

You need to nourish yourself, hydrate yourself, move your body a little, and get enough rest no matter how you feel about yourself. These things aren’t related to whether you’re productive enough, or nice enough, or liked by enough people, etc. Your body can’t function without food, water, and rest! It’s best to incorporate some sort of gentle movement as well (tips for developing a caring relationship to your body even if you don’t feel love for it here), for both your mental and physical health–but this can be something as simple as putting your favorite song on and dancing around your bedroom for four minutes or taking a leisurely stroll around your neighborhood. 

Getting in the habit of meeting these basic needs, even if you don’t feel you “deserve” them, will help to improve both your physical and mental health. When we’re properly nourished we’re less easily ruled by intense emotions, we’re able to tolerate a bit more distress (small things don’t set us off) and our ability to be compassionate for others and ourselves increases when our bodies are properly taken care of. 

Tip 2: Redirect negative self talk

Negative self talk is a difficult habit to break. Ideally, it would be wonderful if you only ever thought lovely things about yourself–but that’s also a lot of pressure to put on yourself. We all get in bad moods sometimes, and sometimes our minds put thoughts out before we’re able to realize it’s not actually what we truly believe! So, while working on the practice of reducing negative self talk, it can be helpful to learn to stop and redirect negative thoughts as they happen. 

For example: Let’s say you make a mistake on something at work, and your first thought is “I am so stupid, I’m going to get fired any day, everyone here hates me.” While your brain might jump there first, if you take a moment to investigate the thought, you will find there isn’t actually any evidence to back it up. People make mistakes all of the time, so anyone can experience that at work. One mistake doesn’t put you on the chopping block, and there’s no evidence that anyone hates you! So what can you do? Take that real “evidence” and redirect that thought to something more positive, or even neutral. It goes from “I am so stupid” to “I know what I need to fix, so I can take care of this and move on.” 

Tip 3: Don’t forget your inner child

A great way to cultivate a positive relationship with yourself is to start with your inner child! If you are carrying wounds from your childhood, they can be influencing the way you view yourself, connect to others, etc. Taking time to connect with the needs, wants, and joys of your inner child is a wonderful way to be intentional about both getting to know yourself, and tending to your inner self-relationship. 

If you’re looking for more support as you develop a more positive relationship with yourself, a therapist can help suggest skills that fit your needs. Contact us today!

Learning How to Connect Emotions and Body Sensations

Learning How to Connect Emotions and Body Sensations

Do you know how emotions feel in your body? 

Emotions aren’t only felt in the mind. Our bodies react to our environments just like our brains do, and it can be helpful to connect emotions with body sensations so we can better understand what’s going on within us. 

It’s very common to feel a separation between emotions and body sensations. 

We often don’t receive much education when we’re young about emotional regulation and mental health, so lots of people don’t learn how to tune into the connection between emotions and sensations until adulthood.

Not only that, but in our culture we’re often encouraged to avoid our feelings. Think about how it’s considered a sign of “strength” to appear emotionless, especially in areas of power like politics or medicine. People cheerfully respond “Look on the bright side!” when confronted with the painful emotions of others. We’re taught that uncomfortable emotions like fear, shame, anger, and sadness aren’t as acceptable to express as positive emotions like joy, satisfaction, pride, and hope. 

It can be hard to describe what you’re feeling in your body, particularly if you have a history of using dissociation to cope. 

When you learn how to notice how your body reacts to certain emotions, you’ll be better able to spot difficult emotions when they come up before they cause distress. 

Learning how to connect your emotional experience to what’s going on in your body gives you another resource to turn to when you’re not sure what you’re feeling. If you can’t name it based on what’s going on in your head, turning to the body sensations you’re feeling can help you identify your emotions. 

So, how can you learn how to connect emotions and body sensations for yourself? Here’s a guide on how to approach it: 

Pause

Our bodies use emotions as messengers. They give us information about what’s going on in our environment, and it takes practice to tune into that communication. Give yourself permission to interrupt that communication so you can have more of a say in how you react. Taking a pause before you get carried away with an emotion gives you and your rational self a chance to intervene before things get worse. 

When you notice an uncomfortable feeling, whether it’s in your mind or a sensation in your body, take notice and give yourself space to take a few breaths. Remind yourself of the present moment, and ask yourself what’s actually going on. Taking this time to pause gives you more agency, or control, over the situation. 

Notice and Explore

Once you’ve interrupted your emotional spiral with a pause, it’s time to loop in what’s going on in your body. Do a body scan and try to notice any tension or discomfort that comes up. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Start from the top of your head and work down to your toes (or vice versa) while exploring any sensations you feel. What areas of your body are activated? 

For example, let’s say you’re feeling angry. When some people feel angry, they experience a tightness or pressure in their chest or throat. Some people feel a churning in their stomach or tension in their muscles when they’re angry. Everyone is different, so you’ll have to take the time to get to know your own personal tendencies about how you experience emotions in your body. 

Name

Have you ever heard the phrase “Name it to tame it”? This means that it’s easier to control how we react when we understand what it is that we’re feeling. When naming your emotions, it might be helpful for you to reframe your thoughts from “I am” to “I feel”. 

Why is this change important? Remember, you are not your emotions, you feel your emotions. 

There’s a difference between “I am sad” and “I feel sad,” even if it seems miniscule. The first phrase implies that we are the emotion that we’re feeling, that it is even part of our identity. The other phrase describes what’s actually happening - an emotion, sadness, has come up and you are immersed in it. 

If you’re wondering where to start when naming emotions that you might not be familiar with, using a tool like a feelings wheel (or even an emotions-sensations wheel like this one). This can help give you language to describe what you’re experiencing. Sometimes it will be easier to identify emotions based on the body sensations you feel, and sometimes it will be easier to name an emotion and then connect it to body sensations.The more you practice identifying your emotions and how they show up in your body, the easier it will be in the future. 

Give yourself resources 

Learning how to recognize and name your emotions and body sensations can help you get to the source of your feelings. Once you’ve uncovered that source, it can feel uncomfortable to sit in that emotion fully. How can you give yourself resources to help you cope in the moment? Is there anything you can do  to make things easier for yourself right now? It may also to be helpful to use your newfound emotional identification skills to use and search for any positive sensations that are happening along with what’s going on. Some resources that might help you when you’re in an uncomfortable moment are:

• Grounding practice or mediation

• Mindfulness meditation

• Reminding yourself of where and when you are (you’re safe, you’re in the present moment, not in the past). 

When you have the resources in place to help you cope, it’s easier to sit with an emotion, even if it’s intense. This is because you know that you have the skills and the resources to turn to when you need relief from those intense feelings. 

Express

Now that you understand more about what you’re feeling and where you’re feeling it in your body, you can take action to express that emotion. The way you express your emotion will likely vary from emotion to emotion and even day to day. The key is to tune into both your body and mind and try to meet the needs that they’re expressing to you. 

Are you wondering why it’s necessary to express emotions instead of just ignoring them? When you ignore your emotions or push them down, you can actually do more damage than you think. Suppressing emotions can be linked to poor communication in relationships, resentment, explosions of anger, and even physical symptoms like sleep issues or heart problems. 

People like to express their emotions in all sorts of ways. Here are some ideas to try: 

• Cry

• Scream

• Rapid movement, like running or jumping jacks

• Dance

• Sleep

• Write it out in a journal

• Talk it over with a loved one

• Play a game 

• Make a piece of art that shows your emotional experience

Learning how to connect emotions and body sensations is something that takes practice and lots of compassion. Working with a therapist can give you even more resources to take with you into the world so you can feel confident knowing that you can handle whatever comes your way. Get in touch with our office today to get started with one of our expert clinicians in. 

What is a Glimmer? Finding the Opposite of a Trigger

What is a Glimmer? Finding the Opposite of a Trigger

In mental health terminology there’s something called a trigger. 

A trigger refers to something, whether it’s a sight or smell or someone’s behavior, that triggers or provokes a trauma response. In these scenarios, Your emotional response will feel out of proportion to what you’re experiencing in the moment; but that is because your brain has interpreted some signal around you as a threat similar to one preceding a traumatic event from your past, and it’s not able to tell the differences in contexts. 

Basically, something reminded your brain of a trauma you experienced, and while brains are extremely smart they can’t always tell the difference between a present threat and a powerful memory. Common experiences that trigger folks tend to be related to things like:

• being confronted

• experiencing rejection or betrayal

• feeling unwelcome or vulnerable

• boundaries being crossed

• feeling controlled or taken advantage of

Any of these scenarios can trigger a strong emotional reaction, in this instance would be called a trigger. But did you know there is something just as strong on the other end of the spectrum? This would be something that brings back memories and feelings associated with strong feelings of joy and safety. You might not have heard of it before, but it has a name! 

This is called a glimmer. 

While a trigger can initiate a trauma response within you, a glimmer is something that can be helpful in soothing your nervous system, reinforcing feelings of safety and calmness. These aren’t just things that make us feel joy, like a funny TV show or an unexpected sweet treat in the office break room. They are actually moments that literally soothe our nervous system, that spark feelings of relaxation, and most importantly, safety. A glimmer acts as a cue that we are safe and everything is going to be okay. 

Deb Dana, LCSW, is the clinician who developed the idea of a trigger, building off of Dr. Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal theory, which was developed in the 1990s. On trauma, she says: 

“Trauma reshapes our system so that we are more prone to pathways of protection than pathways of connection.” This form protection would be one of the four trauma responses, and the pathway to it would be the trigger. But while triggers activate either the sympathetic nervous system or the dorsal vagal branch, glimmers activate our ventral vagal system. As you can see in the chart above, the ventral vagal system is where feelings of groundedness, connection, curiosity, safety, and mindfulness exist. 

In that chart, you can also see why learning what our glimmers are can be helpful. Not only will it provoke those feelings of groundedness, connection & safety, but it also helps to decrease your defensive responses. 

Finding what creates those glimmers for you allows you to create cues within yourself for feelings of safety, connection, and mindfulness. While yours will be specific to you, some common things that act as glimmers for people can be things like: 

• Petting or cuddling a pet

• A specific fragrance 

• Experiencing moments in nature (the sun on your skin, smelling the ocean or a breeze, seeing a rainbow, etc.) 

• Connecting with a stranger 

• The smell or taste of a meaningful dish or drink 

• Hearing your favorite song unexpectedly

How can glimmers become a form of self care?

Even just using the existence of glimmers as a reminder that your brain is working hard to keep you safe and contented. While triggers can make us feel out of control, glimmers help to remind us that not being in control isn’t necessarily a bad thing all of the time. We learn to accept that while there may be struggle or difficulty with the way our brains are wired sometimes, they can also do some pretty miraculous things, just for our benefit. 

They can also help you practice emotional self regulation.

While you may not know what acts as a glimmer for you now, pay attention to those moments you feel calm, grounded, and safe. What happened just before that feeling came over you? Was it the way someone behaved toward you? Was it a smell? Were you out in nature? 

Keep a list of those things that soothe your nervous system, those glimmers. Then, when you experience a moment of intense emotions, or are triggered by something, you have a go to list of things that help to regulate you. 

And on top of all of that, glimmers allow for a positive change in perspective. When you’re actively looking out for things that initiate those feelings of safety and happiness, you notice more things that bring you joy or feelings of contentment. Whether or not they’re strong enough to actually soothe our nervous system doesn’t take away the gratitude you’ll feel for it, or the benefits gratitude can have on your mindset and wellbeing. 

Remember, trauma is individual to every person who experiences it. The way it shows up for you might not be how it shows up for someone else. If you’re looking for more support as you heal after experiencing a trauma, one of our therapists can help support you. Contact us today!

4 Ways to Cope with Being Disliked

4 Ways to Cope with Being Disliked

Whether we like it or not, it’s impossible to be liked by everyone. People are too different for everyone to get along all the time, so at some point we are all going to have to deal with being disliked.

One thing we don’t talk a lot about as a culture is being okay with being disliked. It often feels painful or shocking to realize that someone doesn’t like you, mostly because the default expectation is that people will like us. When you know that someone doesn’t like you, it can be confusing to deal with them in a way that doesn’t leave you frustrated or questioning your self worth. 

There are lots of reasons why people dislike other people.

There are some sources of dislike, like racism or homophobia, that are never excusable. You don’t have to try to convince yourself that it’s okay or reasonable for someone to dislike you because of who you are as a person.  The kind of dislike that we’re talking about in this post is the kind that we all feel from time to time. 

There are some people who you just won’t get along with. You might dislike someone because your personalities don’t mesh well together, or because they were a jerk to you the last time you saw them. There are lots of reasons why people sometimes don’t get along, and learning how to deal with the discomfort that comes with that can help you in uncomfortable situations in the future. 

Here’s the thing: no one on earth is liked by everyone. 

It’s impossible! We all bring our own baggage to our interactions, and that is bound to cause tension or clashes at some point. It is possible to cope when someone dislikes you and learn how not to take it personally. 

Here are 4 suggestions for ways to deal with being disliked by others. See if any of these feel supportive for you!

Accept that no one is universally liked

Expecting to be liked by everyone you meet is really just setting yourself up to fail. In reality no one is universally liked, and the pain of trying to be liked by everyone and failing can take its toll on how you feel about yourself and how you interact with other people.

Sometimes people just don’t get along, and it’s okay to accept that. Acceptance can be freeing in many situations, especially when you’re working on being okay with being disliked. In this instance, accepting that not everyone will like you doesn’t mean that you approve of being disliked or that you agree with why someone dislikes you. It just means that you don’t have to focus any of your precious energy on fighting against reality. 

Pleasing everyone is simply out of your control. There’s always going to be someone who has a different opinion, so you might as well devote the time and energy you have to pleasing yourself, which you have more control over. 

Know that it’s probably not personal

It might feel really personal when someone doesn’t like you, but often it says more about them than it does about you. Sometimes it’s tough to remember that while you see things from your point of view, not everything is about you. People react in all sorts of ways that have nothing to do with you but stem from their environment, their trauma history, their beliefs, their personality, and even from instinct. 

We often cast ourselves as the main character in our lives, because that’s how it feels! When we all feel that we’re the main character though, it can cause tension because we feel like everything has to be about us and relate to us in some way. That’s not always the case. Some things are simply not about you.  

It can be tricky to resist the urge to assume everything is about you when you’re thinking about how other people interact with you. It takes practice to remember that everyone is out there doing their own stuff for their own reasons, and it probably has nothing to do with you. In general it’s helpful to try to see things from another point of view, which is part of why working with a therapist can be so powerful. 

Ask yourself – Do you like everyone?

Being unliked by some people doesn’t make you unlikable as a whole. It’s tempting to be defensive when someone doesn’t like you, but remember that you don’t like everyone, either. There are always going to be people who you don’t see eye to eye with, who make you feel frustrated or angry, and who you don’t like to deal with. There are even times when you just strongly dislike someone and can’t put your finger on why. We’ve all been there!

Keep in mind that if everybody liked everybody, it wouldn’t be so special when we connect with someone we care about. Also if that were true, everyone would be the same, which would be boring. Just as you have preferences about people, people will have preferences about you. 

The next time you feel like someone dislikes you, remember that there are people you dislike too. We all do it, and it’s not always personal. Remind yourself that it’s okay to not like everyone, and it’s okay to be disliked. 

Remind yourself what makes you likable 

One reason it feels painful to have someone dislike you is because it can make you question whether you’re likable at all. It’s tempting to jump right to assuming that just because one person doesn’t like you, no one could possibly like you and there is nothing likable about you. 

Taking a pause before you jump to that conclusion can help you remember what is actually true. 

What do you like about yourself? What do other people like about you? Reminding yourself of the things that people do like about you can help you feel less insecure when someone doesn’t like you. Are there things that you are proud of or admire about yourself? Do people compliment you about things? Maybe keep a list of what you like about yourself on your phone or in your journal to refer back to in moments of doubt. 

You could even keep a file of things you like about yourself on your computer or other device to look at when you feel that you’re not likable. Save screenshots of nice messages from people you care about, pictures that make you feel good about yourself, and other things you’re proud of to remind yourself that you are likable, even if you’re not liked by this one person. 

It’s not easy to deal with being disliked, and it can bring up a lot of uncomfortable feelings. If you’re looking for more support as you work through uncomfortable or painful emotions, a therapist can give you a safe space to explore and build new coping skills. Get in touch with our office today to book an appointment. 

8 Blogs to Help You Manage Your Emotions

8 Blogs to Help You Manage Your Emotions

We all have emotions, but we unfortunately don’t come with instruction manuals to help us figure them out. Often when we’re young, we learn certain ways to cope that we stick with until they cause us problems. These strategies you put into place as a child aren’t always the most supportive ways to manage emotions as an adult, however. It can be painful to realize that the way you attempt to regulate your emotions isn’t working for you anymore. 

Our approach to mental health at Hope+Wellness takes the whole person into view - your mind, body, life experiences, and more are all important sources of information and wisdom. Emotional regulation isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of deal; it requires a more individual approach and lots of compassion. 

We’ve written pretty extensively on the blog about managing emotions and emotional regulation. Regulating your emotions shouldn’t have to be a big mystery. To make it as easy as possible to guide folks toward resources, we’ve put together a roundup of some of our blogs that are focused on naming, feeling, and managing emotions. 

List of Emotions

“Developing a greater awareness of your emotions can help you develop ways to cope with difficult emotions that arise, make healthy decisions, enhance relationships with others, and develop a proactive sense of mastery over your life. Identifying emotions and how you feel in a given situation is often the first critical step towards figuring out how best to manage them.”

Naming Your Emotions

“Instead of feeling uncomfortable and overwhelmed by your emotions, learning to identify them not only kickstarts that self soothing process, but also helps you to unpack where that discomfort is coming from. When you know how you’re feeling, you can start to get into the why….Understanding your feelings helps you understand how they impact how you behave with everyone in your life, and also gives you an opportunity to be open with those around about how you’re feeling so they know how to best support you.”

What is Emotional Regulation?

“Emotional regulation isn’t about stopping yourself from feeling certain emotions, or ignoring your emotions and responses, but putting you back in the driver's seat when they become too powerful. Instead of being ruled by your emotions, you can learn to be informed by them. Emotional regulation skills help give you what you need to slow yourself down and respond instead of react.”

Understanding Your Window of Tolerance

“One of the most frustrating experiences in life is when your emotions feel out of control and you’re not sure why. It can make you feel disconnected from yourself and unsure of how to feel better. One way to understand what’s happening when your emotions feel out of control is to understand the window of tolerance model, developed by Dr. Dan Siegel. This model helps explain the different zones of functioning we all experience, and how we can work to more effectively regulate our emotions.”

5 Things to Do When You Feel Triggered

“When you’re constantly breaking into fight or flight mode, it’s exhausting. Looking for danger around every turn is draining, and it can leave you feeling fatigued, irritable, and distressed. Feeling a high level of stress can also cause adverse physical symptoms after a while. Our bodies aren’t designed to be under extreme stress for long periods of time, so it can be hard on your body to feel constantly ready for danger. Although a trigger can be unavoidable, there are ways you can be more prepared when they come up, so you’re not left in so much distress each time.”

3 Ways to Build Interoceptive Awareness

“We all have a level of interoceptive awareness, or the ability to understand the messages we get from our bodies. Some people have lower levels of awareness of their internal body sensations, or lower interoceptive awareness. The messages, or interoceptive signals, our bodies send us can be tricky to understand if you’re not sure what to look for, but it’s possible to increase your level of interoceptive awareness. …These interoceptive signals help us identify our emotions, which is an important step in emotional regulation.”

What are Coping Skills and Why Do I Have Them?

“Coping skills are strategies or tools that you can use to manage stressful or distressing situations. Coping skills let you decrease your level of stress and handle difficult emotions in a way that maintains your sense of internal order…Coping skills offer options for getting through moments of distress until you can find a safe place to process what’s going on. It’s not always feasible to feel and process everything you need to in the moment, especially when emotions are heightened. Coping strategies let you get through the moment until you’re able to find a safe place, like a therapy session, to unpack the situation.”

6 Tips To Help You Feel Your Feelings

“Emotions serve an important purpose. When we avoid our feelings, we’re just opening ourselves up to more distress later. When feelings aren’t dealt with, they have a way of coming back even more intensely, and often at an inconvenient time.

Emotions are messengers, but we usually aren’t taught how to decode the messages they are sending us. Even when you do understand what the message is underneath the emotion, it can be hard to know what to do in the moment when you’re feeling a distressing feeling.”

We all experience emotions differently.

If these blogs resonate with you, that’s great! If these tips don’t feel as relevant to you, that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to manage your emotions at all. You may just need different ideas or the support of a professional like a therapist to help you work on emotional regulation. 

Are you looking for more help managing your emotions? Working with a therapist can help you find more personalized ways to approach emotional regulation that work for you and your lifestyle. Contact us today to learn more about getting started.

4 Practical Ways to Build New Habits

4 Practical Ways to Build New Habits

Have you ever tried to build a new habit?

It can be surprisingly difficult to start doing something new regularly. Doing one small new thing a day (or not doing something) might sound simple, but our brains are complicated, so it doesn’t always end up being that way. 

Thankfully, we know a lot more about the human brain than we used to, which can help us make sense of how habits are built in our nervous system. It’s absolutely possible to build new habits that improve your life, it just takes some patience. 

Habits are “a settled or regular tendency or practice,” or something that you do without really thinking about it. It might be brushing your teeth in the morning, or taking your dog for a walk. A habit tends to be sort of automatic, and such a routine part of your life that it feels strange when you don’t do it. 

Why are habits hard to break and hard to build?

It comes down to our brains. When our brains notice that we do something over and over, they try to make life easier by making a sort of shortcut for that action. Our brains spend all day long taking action, so when they can use a shortcut, it’s usually helpful. These shortcuts are called neural pathways. 

Our brains work by sending electrical signals to our neurons from one area to another. When that path gets used over and over, our brains learn and develop a new neural pathway to send the message more efficiently. This is why after a certain period of time habits become so ingrained that you don’t even really have to think about them.  

Sometimes improving your life isn’t about adding in a new habit, but breaking an old one that is no longer serving you. Breaking habits is just as difficult as building one, because your brain wants to use that neural pathway it’s created for you. It takes time to teach your brain that you’re not using that one anymore. 

So, you want to learn a new habit? Here are 4 practical ways to build new habits:

Unlearn myths about habits

There are a lot of myths out there about habits. One of the most common myths is that it takes just 21 days to build a new habit. This might be true for some people, but it’s not the case for most. For many people, it can take months to develop a habit. If you’ve felt frustrated in the past that you weren’t able to establish a new habit in 21 days, know that you are not the problem! The expectation that we can re-wire our brains in 3 weeks is often what leads people to feel frustrated. 

Another problematic myth about habits is that they are good or bad. As with much in life, things are rarely that black and white. There's a gray area that's important to notice. 

Instead of trying to view habits as good or bad, try to assess them by whether they’re supportive or unsupportive. Does this habit help you feel good about yourself and meet your goals? Does it align with your values? Does it support who you are now, or is it no longer necessary? 

When you shift from thinking about habits in terms of good and bad, it’s easier to remove the judgment you feel and treat yourself with compassion. 

Try habit stacking

Remember those neural pathways we talked about earlier? Those shortcuts give you a built-in hack to start a new habit. A habit stack is when you put a new habit alongside one you’ve already mastered. 

So, if you’d like to develop a habit where you spend time meditating each day, try sticking it next to a habit you already do daily - like brewing coffee or charging your phone. When you’re done getting your coffee ready, jump right into meditation until it’s ingrained. It’s easier to remember to fold in a new habit alongside an established one, instead of forgetting half of the time. 

Examine barriers

A lot of times when we try to implement new habits, we only do so in optimal conditions, like when we’re feeling healthy and not too stressed. When life inevitably gets in the way of your new routine, it can be tricky to keep up! Often new habits are the first things we drop in times of overwhelm, because they’re not ingrained in the neural networks in our brains yet. So when you’re building a new habit, it’s important to zoom out and look for potential barriers that could get in the way of this new habit. 

Do you struggle to get the laundry done because you don’t have a set time in your schedule? Or maybe because you have to travel to the laundromat, and when your schedule gets busy you don’t have time? Whatever the barrier is, write it down, and try to come up with as many solutions as possible to give yourself opportunities to overcome what’s getting in the way of this new habit. Having a plan for when those barriers happen will help you feel less overwhelmed when they do pop up. 

Go slow

You’re not going to be able to completely overhaul your habits overnight. It can be a fun energy boost to start a new habit, but try to avoid the temptation to do too much at once and build your habits one at a time. 

If you try to do too much too fast, you run the risk of burning yourself out instead of being able to stick with the habit for the long haul. Work on one habit at a time so you can have time to build that new neural pathway so the habit becomes almost automatic. Once you have to think less about the habit to get it done, you can add in the next one. 

Have patience and compassion with yourself because you’re doing your best! Our brains are complicated and take more time to learn than you might like. You’re worthy of compassion anyway! 

Are you looking for more support as you build new habits? A therapist can help you discover what habits are no longer supportive for you and examine the barriers you face in implementing new ones, along with so much more. You can get started in one click!