Search Results

As a new parent, I often find myself going into a trance state when I watch my 7 month old daughter play. I’m sure I am not alone in this. There’s something magnetic and magical about watching your child discover, experiment, learn, and grow. Everything is new for my daughter; she loves bath time, but her first trip to the pool? Mind-blowing. Starting solid foods was fun, but the transition from oatmeal to applesauce and sweet potatoes? The heavens opened. Her joy and wonder is unadulterated by previous experiences. Additionally, her anger and tears are also unaffected by her history. My little girl can go from laughter to screams at the drop of a hat, and to my amazement, back to laughter again just as quickly. On some level she is truly reactive to her environment; she deals with events and feelings as they happen, and adjusts herself as they change, too. The other day I watched her playing on the floor, happily cooing and definitely saying “dada” with intention (I will fight you on whether that’s a genuine reference to me, or just play noises) when she looked up, screwed her face into a grimace, and wailed. Appropriately trained by my daughter at this point, I knew she was hungry, so I got her into her high-chair, prepped her sweet potatoes, and put on her bib. Her crying escalated right up to the moment she saw that golden-delicious mush on the spoon. Suddenly, all was well again, and she cooed and laughed with all of her inherent cuteness. That’s when it hit me: my baby girl is a buddha. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful or cultural-appropriation kind of way. I genuinely mean it. According to author, teacher, and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, the word “buddha” comes from the root word buddh, or, to wake up. To become like the Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh writes that we must practice mindfulness in order to cultivate the seeds of spiritual awakening and peace that lie dormant in each of us (2007, Nhat Hanh).When we connect with the present moment deeply, authentically, and with appreciation for all with which it connects, we are developing awareness of our own experience, as well as the interconnected nature of our world. Being mindful, in its most general sense, means to be aware; aware of our feelings, thoughts, and experiences, without being attached to the past or future. When we find ourselves dwelling on the past or the future, it can contaminate our present experience. That’s one of the reasons why our sadness can trickle down and inflate into depression, or our investment in the future (supporting our family, having meaningful relationships) can escalate into anxiety. Being nonjudgmental is also a critical aspect of mindfulness; if I accept the judgment that my sadness is not good or not acceptable, I push against my experience. The more that I push against my experience, the more I hold onto it. As I grapple and wrestle with my feelings, trying to distract or force myself to feel something, anything else, I intertwine myself with my sadness. My experience of myself becomes defined by sadness. Not so with my baby buddha. She accepts her experience without judgment. She is hungry, and feels distressed. She fully feels her distress and allows it to inform her experience, but when the situation changes, she doesn’t remain attached to that distress; she allows it to pass, because the situation has changed. My daughter also doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to judge herself for feeling distressed, so there isn’t an internal wrestling match with her emotions. She feels them, isn’t afraid of them, or overly attached to them; as such, I believe my little girl has taught me a great deal about how to truly enjoy the world we both inhabit. You may be reading this and thinking to yourself, “this sounds great, but if I allow myself to fully feel everything that goes on inside me, I’ll get into a lot of trouble!” and you’d be right, if you assume that being mindful means acting on every felt experience. Being mindful, however, is not about reacting to everything you experience without thought. It’s actually quite the opposite. When we are mindful of our experiences, and fully present within ourselves, we become free to behave in a way that is consistent with our values. I can recognize that I feel angry, and even that my impulse is to yell at my boss because of that anger; if I weren’t being mindful, I might find myself doing just that! If I am able to be mindful in that moment, nonjudgmental of myself, or overly attached to my experience, I’m then free to act in a way that is consistent with my values. My anger is a tool that helps to inform my experience, and so if I’m acting in accordance with my values, I’ll speak assertively and appropriately to my boss, so that my concerns are addressed. Once the issue is dealt with, I’ll also be able to successfully move on from that experience and fully enjoy my day. I know that this sounds simplistic, but mindfulness kind of is just that. It’s incredibly simple. Just because something is simple, however, doesn’t mean that it is easy. Mindfulness is a practice, and takes deliberate effort to become an engrained part of our lives. Thankfully however, its benefits are immediate! I invite you to take just a minute, push back from your desk, and close your eyes, taking slow, deep breaths into your belly. Do this just for a minute, really allowing yourself to feel each breath; its time, its texture, the physical sensations in your nose, throat, and torso. Keep coming back to that awareness when your mind wanders (as it will) and just notice how your body changes with each deep, slow breath. It’s calming, right? Mindfulness has an immediate benefit, and put into practice regularly, can be life-changing. Text referenced: Nhat Hanh, T. (2007). Living Buddha, Living Christ. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

I’ve been learning to play the guitar for the past five or so years. Rather, a better way to say it is that I have NOT been learning to play the guitar for the past five years or so. Ever since I was a little kid, I would watch my father play his guitar, reclining on the bed or sitting on the couch, zen-fully plucking away beautiful, intricate melodies. And, ever since I was a kid, I had a longing to learn how to play that instrument. I have a deep admiration for guitarists, and especially those that can sing and play; to me, this is the height of multitasking accomplishment. When I was in grad school, I bought a guitar, determined to learn how to play. Visions of myself at beach bonfires, blissfully strumming and singing, danced in my head (never mind that I’ve never even been to a beach bonfire before.) That vision sustained me for about two weeks of daily practice; for a half hour at a time, I’d contort my fingers into odd shapes across the fret board, choppily making chord after chord till my fingers blistered and began to form callouses. And then… somehow, it would drop off. I would get overwhelmed with papers, work, and the rest of general living, and the guitar would sit in the corner gracefully collecting dust. Maybe a few months later, I’d stare at it wistfully, the old fantasies flickering to light again, and the cycle would repeat itself. The truth is, I still would desperately like to be an expert guitarist (hell, I’d settle for being a mediocre guitarist,) but my pattern of fits and starts has left me bereft of any concrete skill, aside from the basic chords. Why does this happen to us? And how do we work our way around or through it? I’m inclined to believe that the answer is two-fold: meaning making, and deliberate practice. Victor Frankl, one of the fathers of modern existential therapies (his particular brand being called Logotherapy) said in his book Man’s Search for Meaning (originally written 1946; recently published 2006) that a quote by Nietzsche, the nihilist philosopher laid a cornerstone in his own theorizing. It goes, “A man [or woman, #feminism] with a good why can endure any how.” This was particularly meaningful for Frankl, who made his observations while enduring the atrocities of Nazi concentration camps; he noticed that people who had a strong sense of purpose and drive were often more resilient than those who could not find something significant for which to endure. As a result, Frankl’s theory upon leaving the camps was focused around helping individuals find a sense of purpose for her/his struggles, which qualified and eased the suffering they felt. If we are going to bring ourselves to following through on something that has been a challenge, it can be really critical to first take some time and answer the question, “What makes [learning guitar] important to me? Why is this worthwhile?” Being able to answer that question provides a core anchor point for us to return to when our motivation or endurance fails; from the most difficult of challenges, like surviving torture, to the significantly less so, like learning a new skill. Did you know that in order to become an expert at any thing, you’d need to engage in approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice? You’ve probably heard that phrase going around thanks to psychology writer Malcolm Gladwell, who popularized the research of Anders Ericsson in his book Outliers (2008). As it turns out, that’s not quite an accurate statement. Some new research has shown that deliberate practice accounts for different percentages of what accounts for outcomes in mastery (Baer, 2014). It’s not as clean of a formula as we’d like to believe (10k hours of practice and you can be the master of anything!) however, few things in life ever are. Nevertheless, in order to be successful in an endeavor, and I believe, in breaking through a barrier to growth, deliberate practice is a critical ingredient. Without pushing ourselves to work on what feels difficult, it is impossible to move forward. So, if I detest the key of F on guitar, and refuse to push myself to do that uncomfortable work, I will never become the guitarist that I want to be. With ten thousand hours of guitar practice, pushing myself to do what feels difficult, I may never become a master; I will, however, become the best musician I’m capable of being, given the circumstances. Deliberate practice isn’t just doing what feels hard, however. It involves being strategic, ordered, and systematic in your efforts. Having a plan, and sticking to that plan is the intersection of where purpose meets the practice. With a well defined sense of purpose, and a strategic plan, there isn’t much we can’t accomplish. The only thing to do is to begin. I may regret that over five years of wanting to learn to play the guitar, I haven’t been successful, however there’s no time like the present to start the work again. There’s an old Chinese proverb I found a while back (I’m fond of quotes) that encapsulates this all nicely. It says, “the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” What are you looking to accomplish? Text referenced: Baer, D. (2014, July, 3). New Study Destroy’s Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hour Rule. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-destroys-malcolm-gladwells-10000-rule-2014-7 Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s Search For Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York, NY: Little, Brown, & Company.

When I was maybe eleven or twelve years old, I stole a pencil sharpener from the local K-mart. It was the easiest thing to do; my mom and I were out shopping (as we did) and walked through the art supplies aisle, where I admired a particularly glossy kit. You know the kind - the one that has watercolors, pastels, pencils, brushes, markers, and those fancy white erases that only true artists use? Yeah, that kind. I was in love. My mom, ever sympathetic but also mindful of the family pocket-book, acknowledged my creative hunger and said something about the set making, “a good Christmas gift.” I could get on board with that. It was late fall at the time, after all. One of the cases was opened, and a little silver pencil sharpener had fallen into the aisle. Mind you, this was the most basic kind of sharpener you could make; unprotected razor, one-size fits all opening, with jagged edges where the factory mold had separated. It likely cost all of .002 cents to make. My mom told me to return the sharpener to its corresponding kit and moved on to the next aisle. But, like Frodo and the One Ring I found myself sneakily pocketing my new 'precious' rather than returning it to the fires of Mount Doom, as I had promised. I then promptly forgot about it. It wasn’t until a few days later when my mom found it while sorting laundry that it re-entered my mind. Long, loud conversation and many tears ensued, along with frantic attempts at poor lying. It was no good; I was a caught “thief,” and I would have to make my amends. When my dad came home at the end of the day, we drove to the store where I, tearstained and sniffling, offered my pilfered goods to the manager. Out of principle, my dad bought the cardboard box the set came in (the actual set was now missing… it wasn’t a well-organized K-mart). He explained to me on the car ride home that, though the sharpener was a small, cheap thing that nobody would really miss, my theft violated an important family value. Living with honesty and integrity - in the form of “always do rightly by others” - was a humiliating $19.99 lesson that stuck with me over the years. We all have similar experiences, some less dramatic, some more so, of the moment when we gained a crystal clarity of our core values. I can think of several other times when I witnessed my family making hard decisions revolving around ideals that served as guides for our next steps. There were also times when, in my later adulthood, I found myself deliberately taking on new values to serve as guideposts for my life because I had deeply considered new information or experiences, creating something completely unique to myself. Core values create a constellation of sentiments and aspirations, around which we structure our self concept. When we make choices in alignment with those values, it is not uncommon to experience increases in life satisfaction, fulfillment, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. Violating those values can have equally detrimental effects, and as such, living out values-based lifestyles are a central component to many types of therapy (Motivational Interviewing, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Existentialism, and Dialectical-Behavioral Therapy, to name just a few). When working with individuals who are struggling with personal satisfaction, challenges, or life changes, it is an inevitability that I will at some point begin conversations around identifying and clarifying personal values. This is because there are times when we may need reminding about what we consider to be most important in our lives, but additionally, we may only have an implicit awareness of those values. It is entirely possible (and not at all uncommon) to operate on values rooted so deeply in past experience that they provide reflexive, instinctive reactions to our experiences. This can be particularly problematic if values conflict, as they sometimes do. Clarifying what is most important in our lives can reconcile some of these conflicts and promote healthier living. One of the ways that I will explore values with people is using a “Values Card-Sort” that I picked up in my training with Motivational Interviewing (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). It involves sorting 100+ cards into categories, ranging from “most important to me” on through “not important to me.” The cards have a key word and an explanatory statement on them, each representing potential values someone may hold. Through a process of evaluating, reacting to, and sorting the cards (I do a 'triple sort' process to identify the most-important-of-the-most-important) people end up with roughly 5-10 values that are what I call their “North-star Values.” Once we have made these explicit, we can begin to look at how well these values are being lived out in a person’s life, how they guide past and future behavior, as well as make meaning of a current struggle. For example, my eight "North-star Values" are as follows: 1) Spirituality: to grow and mature in the awareness of how all things are interconnected, and to become more deeply immersed in that process. 2) Love: to understand and perpetuate the experience of unconditional, healing love in my own life as well as others’. 3) Mindfulness: to live conscious and present in each moment, abstaining from judgment or over attachment. 4) Gratitude: to practice thankfulness and healthy perspectives of my experiences. 5) Integrity: to live my daily life in a way that is consistent with my values. 6) Compassion: to feel and act on concern for others. 7) Complexity: to embrace and be curious about the intricacies of life. 8) Justice: to promote fair and equal treatment for all. To know these as my core values is to be able to reasonably predict how I will react to just about any moral, ethical, business, personal, or social decision in life. For me to know them allows me to be deliberate in that decision making process, and provides check-in opportunities to ensure that I’m not off-course from being true to my self. There are other ways to figure out what your “North-star Values” are; a former client of mine made a gratitude list every night for a week, and then looked at the themes of what he was most grateful for. Those themes became his identified core values. Friends of mine and I also engage in inventories of people’s childhood experiences (known as an Adlerian Style of Life assessment) that is very effective in uncovering core values and the logic that stems from them. A quick Google search can pull up a variety of worksheets that you can use at home to go through this process, as well. Whatever approach works for you, there is a terrific opportunity to quickly add some value and meaning to your day, just by asking the question, “What’s most important to me in life, and how do I live that out?” Text referenced: Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational Interviewing: Helping people change (3rd. Ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Do you want to know what it feels like? It feels like a twisting, spinning black hole that sits in the space between your heart and your stomach. It is not darkness, it is more than that. Darkness is absence; this is matter. Dark matter that has weight, density, momentum. It is a sickening lurch inside that feels like it is both alien and native to who you are." Written expression has always been a way that I process my experience; it helps me to make sense of things, and to take ownership of my story, rather than letting my story own me. I wrote these words almost a year ago when I was struggling with an episode of depression (we all have wounds that we carry, and counselors are no exception). One of the reasons I specialize in working with people who experience depression is because I too, wrestle with it from time to time. I find that having done that work with myself, I can easily empathize with the experiences of other people in similar situations; and having come out the other side of it, I am able to believe with hope in the potential of good therapeutic work. "I feel it inside me, and my heart lurches with it; swelling tides that carry along such aches and longings. Sometimes, there is a scream that I hear ricocheting off my ribs, pushing into my throat, like a steam engine through my head. I have coated that scream with chocolate and eaten it. I have cranked up that scream and sung it with false cheer. I have worked out that scream, picking it up, pushing it down, measuring reps and increasing weight. I have all but let it out, but for fear of what it might do, I've kept it caged. Transmuted it. Denied it. There is a day when it will crest to the surface and not be contained. It must be dealt with before then." Depression is an incredibly common experience in American society. A recent statistic describes 16.2 million individuals (6.7% of all U.S. adults) across the nation identifying as having at least one major depressive episode; that's the number of people who own up to it, mind you (NIMH, 2017). There are many not identifying or sharing their experience. Of that group, the individuals with the highest rates of depression fell into the "18-25" age demographic (10.9%). Intuitively, it makes a lot of sense. Young adults find themselves dealing with opportunities, expectations, a rapidly expanding technological world, and an ever-changing social milieu. Aside from that, young adults are also working towards launching from families of origin, becoming financially independent, and forming (hopefully) lasting bonds with friends, partners, and coworkers. It's not hard to imagine how all of those factors could add up to an overwhelming experience of life that results in feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, isolation, or emptiness. As a "late stage" millennial, I can definitely relate at times. But here's the other thing: depression affects people from all age demographics, walks of life, cultures, religions, socioeconomic status, etc. etc. etc. Statistics for diagnosable depression in teens is even higher than in the adult population: 12.8% of individuals age 12-17, and highest (17.4%) for 16 year olds (NIMH, 2017). Bear in mind one other important caveat in this information; these statistics are in reference to a major depressive episode - just one depression related experience out of many (such as persistent depressive disorder, adjustment disorder, depression that's caused by medical conditions, or that is regularly triggered by the onset of menses). "The tears come more easily each day. The heaviness that weighs me down fills me up and pushes them out. They leak out in the car, in the basement, in the bathroom. During television shows and songs. The energy in the room is contaminated with it. There is a heaviness in the air that I cannot dissipate. I can only hope that those I love most cannot notice it, or are better inclined toward my moments of levity, of normalcy. I hope." The prevalence of depression makes for an insidious experience. Because so many people struggle with depression, it can be tempting to feel as though it's a "normal" part of life, and we have to "just deal with it." I can be honest with you, it has definitely been a part of my experience. The other danger in this experience is in what depression prompts us to do. One of the key features of depression is to withdraw, withdraw, withdraw. Withdraw from our relationships, from pleasurable activities, from our fulfilling challenges... to withdraw from ourselves and from life. Combine that withdrawal with a sense of societal normalcy, and you have a perfect emotional concoction for hell on earth. "I am not a mistake. I am not broken. I am not a wrong thing. I know this. I know I am valuable, and significant, and that this ugliness inside me has a purpose. I am trying." One of the steps to overcoming and living well with depression is in its injunction to withdraw. Because depression prompts isolation and disconnection, a key health ingredient is connection. Not just spending time with friends, or going to the club; we're talking deep, vulnerable connection, with people we feel safe with. This is connection that allows us to be seen, and heard, and understood. Connection also involves connecting with a sense of purpose and fulfillment - finding meaning in the struggle, and value in how it brings us closer to who we want to be in life. There are additional, more directly practical approaches to working with depression, including addressing unhealthy thought processes, engaging in specific, healing behaviors, and medical support. Each person is going to have a unique constellation of variables that will be useful to her- or himself. For me, all of the therapeutic influences for my personal and professional work stem from maitri. Put simply, maitri is "lovingkindness towards ourself and others (Chödrön, 2009)." More personally, and to sum up an explanation I really liked, maitri involves having an unconditional friendship with ourselves. It is simultaneously a goal, an experience, and a practice. When I am practicing maitri, I am gentle with myself in my low mood, and extend love and understanding towards my circumstances. When I want to withdraw from other people, or from myself, maitri practice helps me to remember just how healing connection is. When I am practicing maitri, I am able to hold my negative thoughts in suspect, and can take courage from my own self compassion. I am able to think about what I need in this moment, what is healing, and give myself a break from my more damaging expectations. And, when I am truly a friend to myself, I am able to compassionately connect with and be a friend to others. It sounds nice, right? It is; but it takes a lot of work, and support, and patience. For many people, depression can feel like a curse. But in the vein of finding meaning in the struggle, depression is an opportunity to develop maitri. Experiencing depression leaves us in a place where we are somewhat compelled to evaluate ourselves and our experience of the world. Within that process of evaluation is the opportunity to develop a perspective of love, compassion, and friendship towards ourself, bringing us into greater alignment with our values and a more fulfilling life. How can you practice being kind and a friend to yourself today? "Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." -Paolo Coelho References: Chödrön, P. (2009 September 1). How Meditation Helps in Difficult Times. Retrieved from https://www.lionsroar.com/meditation-for-difficult-times/ NIMH (2017 November). Major Depression. Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml