Category Archives: Mental Health

All Things Delightful

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It’s a brand new year — and you know what that means? A slew of articles in every media source you can find telling you about how to make and keep your resolutions. For the most part, I have heard it all before, but there was one article that truly caught my eye. It surrounded the idea of taking delight in the every day.

What a wonderful word: Delight!

I have to admit, I am over the idea of looking for things to be grateful for and writing my five grateful things down every day. I have practiced this for years and, yes, it has allowed me to see the good in my life, even trained me to look for it, and then to count my many blessings. I don’t want to knock gratitude, but I suppose I am looking for something novel this year.

Now, the idea of looking for something, some act, some one that delights. That feels like an altogether different bent on how I view my days and what makes them up. No longer am I counting my blessings, but I am thinking about my days through the lens of delight.

Did the taste on my tongue delight me?

Did a certain color that I run into delight me?

Did someone surprise me, i.e. delight me?

Is there an extraordinary moment that feels delightful?

Oh the list of questions could go on and on. Delight is different from gratitude. With gratitude, you could write down the same five things every day and be set, i.e. health, family, friends, employment, hobbies. That’s just a broad list example. I always tried to be more specific in my gratitude journal, but the truth is you don’t have to be. If I was having a bad day, for instance, that list would do.

However, what delights me is something that we can also be grateful for, but does not equate solely to gratitude. We are looking for delight in our every day life. We are looking for those things, people, experiences that bring us great pleasure. That is different. All things we delight in we may be grateful for, but not all things we are grateful for delight us.

I wish you a year of great pleasure captured in many delights. Here’s to not only receiving it, but also giving it out far and wide. We all need to be delighted!

Holiday Gifting

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Holiday gifting. Does it bring you delight to see all the gifts under the tree or dread? Or would you love to see all the gifts if there wasn’t all the work and expense that had to be done to produce such a scene?

I was at a comedy show recently and the comedian was talking about her Mother announcing that they were cutting back on gifts and that everyone should do the same. How would you feel if someone said this in your family? Gifting is over! Of course, the comedian went on to say her Mother had ordered her a bunch of stuff and so actually the gifting was on — it just sounded good to say at the start of the season.

I get it — holiday gifting is a fundamental part of most Christmas traditions. People grew up with gifts and want to give and receive gifts as adults. To not have a pile feels — well — just wrong. However, I had the opportunity this particular holiday season to doe exactly that and not buy any gifts.

Well, I bought a few presents for people who I knew could use some holiday cheer. However, my annual list of “have to buy for these people no matter what” stopped. As I have been walking through the season it feels tremendously freeing to not have any gifts to have to buy as well as strange. How can I possibly walk through a department store and not buy bunches of stuff to give to people? It’s so much a part and parcel of who I am and how I celebrate the holidays. Well, it all feels odd.

Such an experiment is not for the faint of heart. I almost feel like I will be dreading Christmas morning with nothing to give or receive — and yet there are different things that I want this year that really can’t come wrapped in a box with a bow. Gifts of love, presence, kindness, opportunity, persistence, striving, and more that I want in my life more than any goods.

And that is what I am giving myself this year — as well as to my family and friends. It’s less expensive in some ways and more expensive in others. It’s me and my life that I am crafting that I seek to shape not in the direction of commercial goods, but into a direction of crafting a life I am happy to lead.

Maybe it’s too radical to ask you to join me this year, but perhaps something to hold in mind for next season. If the thought of not buying gifts for your loved ones gets you upset, defensive or afraid, it’s probably right where you need to be.

Here’s to gifting — gifts that can be seen and unseen. I’m in the latter category this year.

Gratitude

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Gratitude

Gratitude. It’s November. Tomorrow, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in America. The idea of giving thanks is baked into our culture — along with the pies. Now is the time to count your blessings.

I remember a few decades ago — it must have been back in the 90s — when expressing gratitude and actually chronicling what you were grateful for in a formal journal could really aid in people feeling more satisfied with their daily lives. Also, it became a way to cultivate the mindset of looking for things to be grateful for in one’s life each and every day.

I’ll admit I drank the proverbial Kool Aid and bought that journal and for years — literally years — I wrote down five things I was grateful for each and every day. And, yes, it was a practice that had me looking and finding the good in each day. I filled reams of journals that could attest to the fact that I had a life that I should be grateful for.

I never thought I would get away from that perspective — and would keep it going all the days of my life. But, I think all of those gratitude journals set me up for living life with a certain bent toward being grateful in my life. I departed my town and went traveling and stepped away from all of the gratitude giving journaling, but I still kept the spirit alive in my heart and how I met life.

All this to say, gratitude, gratefulness, giving thanks is a spirit within not necessarily a practice that needs a gold star. If you are here reading my words, I am grateful you are here. It’s in the spirit of my writing right now. Let’s not forget, it’s not about the doing of writing down what we are grateful for, but rather an orientation toward life that sprouts from this that is important. The former can help cultivate the spirit, but should never be used to guilt or attack yourself if you aren’t keeping the practice.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Mattering

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Mattering

Mattering. To matter to another.

I never even heard of this concept until I read an article in the NYT about it.

Mattering is not just that you belong to a group of family, friends, and/or like-minded individuals, but that you also matter to them. The article hones in on mattering to a group because of what you do and/or contribute. This sounds well and truly valid. You do something, people notice and appreciate that act, and you come to matter to those people. This is then part and parcel of how we build our sense of self.

All true, and yet I have problems with all this doing.

As a therapist, I hear many stories people relate about their doings in the world — and either how they feel they matter or do not matter to others when they are doing all this stuff. Yes, just because you are doing does not mean you are mattering — and therein lies the problem.

I like to think about mattering in terms of our being state. We matter to others because of who we are not because of what we do. If we are always trying to do to matter, it can really lead to disappointment. First, your banking on someone else to notice what you are doing, appreciating it, and telling you you matter because of it — which keeps us doing for them. What if the other does not perceive all of your doing in this benign way?

Second, you could have gotten the message that you hold no value unless you are doing. So you do more and more hoping to matter more and more — and the cycle becomes never ending because the needs of others and organizations are never ending. Talk about a straight path to burnout.

Third, it almost feels taboo in society to simply be without doing. To hold value just for who you are. If we can matter for our being, then what can we do? Well, we have choice to decide what we will or won’t do and not just find worth in endless doing for others. We can simply be. That almost feels impossible today to not be doing for someone or some cause. To claim value in mattering because you are you.

The foundation is to matter for who you are and then to have choice in what and how much you do. This also provides agency to not let others dictate your worth, but to recognize you have worth without doing a thing.

You matter for being who you are first and foremost.

Possible Selves

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Possible Selves

Possible selves?

To me, the idea conjures up opening up to possibilities that we can become. And I think that is what this recent article in the NYT was talking about. A metaphor for how we can potentially reinvent ourselves at any point in our lives. It also seems to be along the lines of the fiction book The Midnight Library, where the protagonist pulls a book from the library shelf which is a path she may have taken in her life.

It’s an intriguing concept. There is who we are in the “here and now” moment which is largely defined by what we do for a living and then there are all the roads that we have not taken. Many times these are roads that hold no interest for us, or we have no talent in, or it just never occurred to us to think about a path for ourselves given who we are, where we have come from, and how we have crafted our life to date.

The idea of imagining different walks of life for ourselves is not only an imaginative exercise, but allows us the freedom to think about different ways of living our lives. When we make any shift in what we do, all of a sudden things looks different, fresh, new. Perhaps our schedules change. Perhaps we head back to being a student for a time. Perhaps we meet different people in different environments. The idea is that it is possible and we can bring our self to this possibility.

This is not something that happens overnight, of course. But it does begin with imagining. If you are unhappy or dissatisfied with how you are spending your time with your job/career, what is it that you are drawn to intuitively? Perhaps it is more than one thing. Once you have this in mind, take a walk down a day on this path with your possible self. What are you doing? Who are you with? How does the day flow? You can set out on these paths as many times as you like — but always hold that it is possible.

It strikes me that we get shot down from even starting on any type of new path for ourselves as we do not believe fundamentally that it is possible. Once we begin to imagine and fantasize about the possibility this can lead us to take the next steps if we find we are truly drawn to another way of working or creating a career for ourselves.

Do not be daunted. Believe in possibility. Believe in yourself. Believe in your possible selves.

The Doctor Is In

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The Doctor is in

The Doctor is in. Or so they say.

Having recently moved from Seattle, WA to the New York City area, one of the most difficult parts of the process has been finding a whole new slate of service providers. From a dry cleaner to a veterinarian to a stylist and beyond, uprooting one’s self when one had it so organized and lock step (after many years) has felt like one of the most challenging parts of my move, as well as one of the most unsettling.

To have to rebuild a whole new cadre of service providers who I feel comfortable with for me and my family has been daunting. And, by far, the most challenging one to find is a Doctor for me. One of the most important people you need in your life. Immediately, upon moving, this is a person you need to fill your scripts and to get an appointment with if you get sick and, of course, to have the annual physical with.

I hear many people report that it is so difficult to even talk to a Doctor that often people avoid making appointments to just not have to deal with the whole thing, i.e. one’s health. Within the medical profession there are many Doctors who do not understand how intimidating they are to the average person. Consumers know they are paid by the minute, very expensive, often are not taught to think for themselves even as they are treated as “Gods” in society, i.e.e those who have every answer that you need about your health.

I don’t blame people for never wanting to go to the Dr. and, when/if they do, the intimidating experience it can be. Still, it is your health — my health — we are talking about here and so persisting to find a Dr. that is a right fit for you is worth the journey.

For me, it has been exactly that. A journey. First off, I had it very good with my Doctor in Seattle — a long term relationship of 17 years. She was an internist who also did all of the necessary female examinations — all in one Doctor. She was about my age and so we also aged together. I always called her Doc as I knew very well she was not my friend, but she was sound, solid, and also looked at me as a unique individual, not just a part of American adult stats.

To leave her was devastating — especially with what I have met with here in NY City. Knowing that I need to find a Doctor, but I also needed time to do so, here are some tips, if you too are transitioning (for any reason) to a new Doctor:

  1. Make sure to have seen your regular Doctor just before you need to transition. This way your health records will be up-to-date, blood work done, all tests run via people you trust, scripts issued for you to fill before you start the journey to seeing someone new.

2. Print off your health records or have your electronic medical record available for your new Doctor to review.

3. Set up a “meet and greet” consult with a new Doctor. This can serve as a time to meet a new Doctor and let them learn about you through your medical records as well as you, yourself. After all they are treating a person. This also gives you the chance to meet this Doctor. Do you like him or her from the start? Do you feel comfortable expressing your voice? How do they view you — as you or as a statistic? Are they pushing tests? This is a great opportunity to see if you like this person generally and feel they get you and your medical concerns, conditions, and more.

4. Don’t stop. If this particular Doctor is not a good match, set up another “meet and greet” consult. This can be painful for a couple of reasons. One, we just want to have a Doctor on board already. Second, consults cost and so finding the right Doctor through such consult appointments may be pricey. However, this is your health. Fighting through these painful parts is important for your care.

5. If you have a “meet and greet” consult and, although you don’t like the Doctor, you can still get your scripts refilled, antibiotics if you are sick, or any other number of isolated things one needs without creating an ongoing relationship with the Doctor. You may also need this interim step as you find your way to a new Doctor.

6. Trust that you will know who is a good fit for you and your health needs. Listen carefully, attune to your own mind and body as you sit with a new provider. Are you relaxed? Comfortable? Can you speak easily and freely with the person? Do you feel heard? Keep a close connection to self and you will intuitively know if someone is or is not the right match. If the person isn’t, take heed and don’t look back.

People often have a difficult time persisting in finding a new Doctor for themselves. For me, it has taken the better part of six months to find the dentist, the dermatologist, the internist. I am still on the journey, but I have plenty of time. So do you.

Real Self Care

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Real Self Care
Real Self Care is All You Need

Real self care — that’s the new title of self care. Apparently, not all self care is equal according to a new book by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included), and reviewed in the New York Times recently.

Yes, it’s another book on self care. Another thought on how to care for one’s self — this time the real way. I am not sure self care can actually be categorized as real or not real — if one is caring for one’s self then it’s self care. Buy, hey, authors have to have an angle and this is hers.

For Dr. Pooja, it is about aligning one’s self care with one’s values. In this way, yoga, crystals, baths may be just what you need. I think she is seeking to encourage women to think about what they value in their lives and then use these values to care for self. Don’t just take the yoga class because someone has told you it’s a good way to care for your self. Rather, check in with one’s self and ask yourself, “Is stretching in yoga poses a way to actually take care of myself — or not?” If not, then move on.

The author wisely recognizes — as so many of us do — that self care is just another billion dollar industry trying to get their share of the capitalist pie. It’s OK to support the industry as long as it is actually really about your self care — thus the idea of “real self care.”

There is one part of Dr. Pooja’s suggestions that I really liked — her imaginative exercise of thinking about a dinner party you would throw to learn what you values actually are. I never thought of this type of exercise as a way to get at what one values, but I suppose it does. Are you interested in a small gathering or a large one? Is it pot luck or formal? What’s on the menu — take out or something you spent the day cooking? What music are you playing and what games/activities are you throwing into the mix? This is very helpful to see what motivates one in life.

How would you answer these questions? For me, I tend to like more people than less, I love to set a table or make a pretty table for the group, I mix in store bought foods with easy-to-cook dishes (I want to have fun too!). If children are there, I love to have games for them to play or at least give them my Labrador who loves to play with kids. Oh, and i love a good party favor.

How does this translate into real self care?

It seems to me that I value sharing time that is fun and creative with people whom I am close to of all ages. If I choose to spend time in this way then I am caring for myself. Makes sense to me as a way to get at what real self care looks like.

Of course, it’s not the only way and if you feel good about spending your money in the self care industry that is fine too. When it comes to self care, follow your bliss, and make the time to do so on a regular basis.

To Be Selfish — or Not?

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To be selfish -- or not?
Selfish or Selfless?

To be selfish — or not? That is the question.

I am always reading the news and find myself stumbling upon articles around mental health, which, of course, catch my attention. This week it was an article in the Times about The Benefits of Wise Selfishness. I had to laugh out loud as I read how the article had to spin selfishness (something our society judges as a bad thing) into something that is OK to be these days. Actually necessary.

I tend to agree with this article, but I wouldn’t call it “wise” but rather absolutely necessary and critical to our own mental health. And it is mind boggling to me that people feel that it is wrong to think about themselves and hold their interests in mind. Like everything, just because we are thinking about ourselves does not mean we can’t also think about the other.

If you think about it, in the airplanes, during the safety instructions, parents are always told to put on their own oxygen mask on before putting it on their child. Intuitively, we must be cared for before we can offer care to another — even our own child in this case!

It is important that we hold ourselves in minds throughout our days that make up our lives. That we are living out of alignment with who we are, our values, our bliss, our boundaries, and more. It may sound selfish, but I don’t see it that way, I would actually argue if we cannot hold ourselves in mind and take care of our desires, needs, and wants we really cannot extend that to another in an authentic and true way. When we turn our backs on our own selves to be selfless there is something inauthentic about how we are doing for others — rather than it springing forth from a full well of ourselves, it is motivated by a turning away from ourselves to sink into the other, perhaps putting their needs above our own.

This is then applauded by society. This type of person is so selfless and does for others with asking for nothing in return for themselves. What exactly is going on here is where my mind goes? Why is it so difficult for the person to be with herself and be there for one’s self? Often the message is you are selfish and bad for thinking about yourself.

Ah, selfish, selfless — such judgements on people and situations which we hardly know the truth of it at all. It isn’t wise to be selfish and it isn’t unwise to be selfless. We love to organize our minds with things being all good or all bad. The truth is holding yourself in mind is mentally healthy and then allows for us to be there for others that are authentic and true to who we are as we are also held in mind alongside the others we are holding in mind. This can be in parallel and does not need to be an “either/or” situation.

Let’s all practice remembering ourselves first as a basic tenet of good mental health. From there, it’s up to you how you would like to do or not do for others. Selfish, selfless — it’s time to drop these judgments.

Word Games

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Word game, anyone?

Word games — do you play them? It used to be games like Scrabble and the NYT Crossword Puzzle — but now there are many more options. It seems like the game Wordle has made us all a fan of word games. Well, that one is quick, even if not always easy, and provides quick satisfaction of being competent in knowing your 5-letter words.

I was never big into word games, but I can see how they keep one’s mind sharp, provide an interesting distraction to calm one’s mind, and can be entertaining during an otherwise boring day. People have taken to sharing their results on social media as well. People comment on how hard or easy it was for them as well — without giving away the answer. (This all has to do with Wordle, of course.)

Recently, I have heard some people say they are using word games as a distraction away from their problems to the point that they cannot focus on what they really “should be focusing on” — often something that is a difficult change process. They see the word game as taking them away from the issues they have at hand, rather than helping. Of course, word games offer a calming and interesting distraction and can often be grounding during a time of personal upheaval.

It is not a bad thing to use word games as an object that takes one away from the worries/changes/anxiety and more at hand. I often see it as a part of one’s change process. Distracting one’s self from always holding the worry in mind feels important. It allows unconscious parts of ourselves to step in and be with the issues at hand. Our mind is turned off from the worry and directed elsewhere which allows for more space to open up and work things out.

I notice how hard people are on themselves for taking pleasure — often for long periods of time — in something like word games. Relax. Word games may not only serve as a puzzle for you to solve, but also a place for other parts of yourself to work out your own puzzle you may be in. Distractions can be very helpful in this way.

There are many distractions out there. If you are choosing a word puzzle, chances are your mind is sharp, you seek to feel competent in an everyday puzzle, and (often unknown to self) are trusting that other parts of your self are working out your own personal puzzle.

Even I Wordle — every now and again.

Freudenfreude for the Other

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Freudenfreude for the Other
Freudenfreude or Schadenfreude — how do you relate?

Freudenfreude for the other — I will admit it, I had never heard of this term. Of course, I know about its opposite — Schadenfreude — essentially taking glee in another’s bad news, misfortune, tragedies, and more. Why do people get so much satisfaction from secretly seeing someone come upon problems in her life?

We probably have felt it ourselves and we certainly have been on the receiving end — that comment, that lack of empathy to our plight, and more. We can sometimes pick up that someone is actually happy about our troubles. It is troubling to pick up on this when it happens, but it is a phenomenon. Interested to learn more? Check out this book.

So, I was very surprised to learn another — more uplifting concept – Freudenfreude, when I read this article in the New York Times recently. This is a term that is about cultivating joy for another regardless of our own circumstances. Some very solid examples are highlighted in this article. The author describes Freudenfreude for the other as based on being joyful regardless of our own circumstances. This is why it can be so difficult — easy to do when we feel good about our lot in life and very difficult to do when we feel envy, jealousy, and other negative emotions when someone’s success feels threatening to us in some way.

A concept such as this one provides us an opportunity to reflect and see how we feel about another’s success? Is it a threat to you? Are you genuinely happy for someone else’s success or is it a mask? When someone is doing poorly for any reason, do you delight in it in some way? How do you orientate to the other when their news comes up. Do you hold a consistent pattern or does it change based on what is going on in your life.

The article is all around cultivating more Freudenfreude in one’s life. Some solid suggestions, but a couple of them advise “seeing other’s success as a community success” and “your own success as a communal effort.” I will say I have an issue with these pieces of advice. Why must it be about you and why must what you do be about the other? Isn’t the point to feel good for another for what she has done and also owning our own accomplishments as ours. Of course, both often involve the other, but it feels like we should be able to stand on our own two feet with feeling pride for ourselves and for the other as an individual. These pieces of advice remind of current parenting techniques, where everyone gets a prize.

The truth is not everyone gets a prize all the time. Being able to sit back and genuinely feel good for another no matter what is going on in our own lives and to expect others to feel this for us in turn is a mark of maturity and something to strive for — and it may cultivate more joy in your own life.

Fredenfreude for the other — and for ourselves.