Mistakes

Everyone makes bad decisions - unless of course you are perfect. Mistakes made cannot be unmade However, harm done can almost always be mitigated and the results can help fertilize your soul. On the other hand, when a mistake is denied or continues to be repeated, can become a recipe for eventual disaster.

The mind is a funny thing.  It can say "It's alright. No one will find out, no one will get hurt."  But in the meantime, what happens to you?  Are you still at peace with yourself?  Do you find yourself distancing from people you care about, or worrying about being found out?

Since mistakes are inevitable, admitting them as soon as you can and making amends is often the best course of action. However, if a mistake is big enough and serious enough, you may first need to find someone that you can trust to talk to about it. Otherwise, you will be left listening to the distorted advice of your own troubled mind.

Most people who make mistakes overestimate the amount of harm they do to others, and underestimate the amount of harm they do to themselves. It takes bravery to rectify a bad decision, but it is the kindest thing you can do for yourself. Even more importantly, taking responsibility for your mistakes helps to develop the priceless gift of humility.

Why Worry?

“I am an old man and have a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” - Mark Twain

What did you worry about a month ago? Did the things you worried most about happen the way you thought they would? After listening to people worry over a 20 year career as a therapist, I have come to believe that 90% of the things we worry about either do not happen or happen very differently. The actual bad things that do happen in a day usually were never foreseen.

The truth is, it doesn't pay to worry! Worry robs sleep, makes us unhappy and takes up too much precious energy – energy that could have been used to take care of the real challenges faced in a day.

I have a theory that worry is simply a fertile imagination gone rogue. Our complex brains allow us to anticipate what might happen in advance so we build scenarios that help figure out what we want to do in the future. We can imagine all sorts of futures before we ever actually do anything.

When imagination is under the grip of a strong negative emotion, such as fear, anxiety, anger or depression, worrisome scenarios can haunt us. Our imaginations create and recreate all kinds of trouble. But rarely do these scenes play out the way we think they will.

We can decide to deal with our emotions before they morph into worry. We can redirect our imaginations to ideas of how to be happy, healthy and helpful to others. By examining what emotions our worries stem from, we can rein in our imagination and put it to good use. So if you absolutely have to worry, worry about your own feelings. If that feels like too much, get support to help cope with what you feel.

Humility

Humility is perhaps the most precious of all virtues.  It can create a good outcome where a bad one seems inevitable.  It can save a life. It can promote peace. As is with most things that are precious, humility doesn't often come easily, and disappears as soon as you think you have it.

So how does one be humble?  I think humility is an intentional set of practices that one can get better at over time. Some ways to practice humility include:

Not wondering that someone has wronged you,

Not demanding deference,

Realizing you don't have all the answers,

Setting boundaries - admitting what you are capable of giving and what you are not,

Not doing someone else's job.

Can you think of other ways to practice humility? There are many, too many for a blog post I am sure!

A Well Lived Life

"Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself."

- Richard Bach, Illusions

When one is true to oneself, the losses and gains of the world are secondary to one's peace of mind and purpose.  Being true to oneself is the ultimate security in a world where everything chages.

Living with one's eyes open to one's inner truth takes effort, courage and conviction.  But it is the heart’s most priceless asset.

Work Anxiety

Is work eating up too much of your life? Trying to finish all your deadlines perfectly? Doing more and more with less and less heart, spirit, time and clarity? You may have work anxiety. This takes a toll on one's performance and leads to a “hollowed out” feeling that negatively affect all your relationships.

Anxiety is often behind overworking. Temporary relief can come from getting ahead in one's work, but this only raises the bar for what is “normal” for you and leads to impossible standards and from there, more anxiety.

Anxiety about work is isolating. In fact you may be getting rewarded for working too hard. To change this pattern you may need to talk to someone other than one's boss, family or coworkers.

Talking to a professional can help you sort out whether your job is actually too demanding or if the way you are doing your work is making it harder than it need be. It can introduce you to tools such as cognitive behavioral techniques, mindfulness and healthy work boundaries. It can also help you to discover the origins of anxiety. Did one grow up around anxious or demanding parents? Does your anxiety have a biochemical component? Are you avoiding a less than happy home life?

One can also find ways to cope with workplace anxiety by reading books such as “Feeling Good, the New Mood Therapy” by David Burns, or “Dare, the New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks” by Barry McDonagh.

Whatever method one uses to disrupt one's anxiety, the first step is to reach out for support. If you could do it all alone, you would have already!

Finding Control Over Unwanted Thoughts by Thought Stopping

Thought stopping is the habit of watching one's own thoughts and deciding when they are helpful or not.  If they are not, you can literally say to yourself "I chose not to have this thought" and then actively decide to think other thoughts.  It is a deliberate not going down an unhappy, obsessive path inside your head.

A lot of people feel they cannot do this simple thing.  But in most cases, they can..  Painful and intrusive thoughts are often the result of habit, pure and simple. There is no reason you have to pay attention to a particular thought just because it wants to play in the field of your mind.

Habits are ruts. You know you are in a rut with your thoughts when your thinking does not resolve a hurtful problem or situation.. You can also tell that you are caught in runaway thoughts when your your friends and family are not as sympathetic or patient with your problem as they once were.  

So try redirecting your unhappy thoughts, over and over again until you find one day you are thinking of them a lot less. If you try this without success, you may want to try going to therapy.  A supportive trained professional can give you the tools to support you in moving more quickly through your problems

What are Your Values?

Having a set of values in life is important. Knowing what you value and acting on it can enhance self esteem and self knowledge. When you can trust yourself to do the right thing, it increases self esteem and others may also appreciate your integrity.

Having a set of values can sometimes be uncomfortable, especially if you have different ones than those around you. But as long as your values are not too rigid or black and white, being uncomfortable is perhaps the price you pay to feel good when you look at yourself in the mirror.

Here are three ways to help grow one’s sense of personal values:

1) Pay attention to how your choices make you feel.

2) Notice what you admire and value in others, and consider whether you would be a better person yourself by integrating similar values.

3) Trust your gut.

Is it Hard for You to Accept?

Being able to accept help when you need it.

For some people, accepting a compliment, or favor or help when it is really needed is difficult. And the urge to “pay back” the person who helped can ruin the whole experience. Learning to accept graciously without giving into the urge to “pay back” can enhance one’s self esteem as few other thing can. In the novel, Time Will Darken It, William Maxwell writes one of the best paragraphs on learning how to accept:

“You can’t pay people back for the kindness they show you when you’re in trouble,” Dr. Danforth said emphatically. “There isn’t any way of measuring, in terms of money, what you owe them. You can go on paying them back forever, and still be indebted to them. Sometimes they don’t need any help. Or maybe the kind of help they need you can”t give them. All you can do is look around for somebody that is in need of help and do what you can for them, figuring that it will all be cancelled out some day.”

What We Tell Ourselves Really Matters!

How many times have you caught yourself saying things like:

If only I was good at. . . .I just can't get along with. . .If I only had enough money. . .

Statements like these hold us back more than anything anyone can say to us!

What are three statements that you tell yourself - and others - that make you and everyone else believe that you are inadequate?

Today, turn those statements on their heads by creating positive, empowering statements that are more true to who you really are. Such as:

I am good at. . .I am lovable when. . .I have enough money to. . .

Try this exercise and see if it works for you, then keep it up!

Warm Regards,

Cheryl Deaner, LMFT

Three Symptoms of Codependency

Codependency is often hard to understand because relationship patterns are deeply rooted and feel so natural. So where does one draw the line between healthy caring and codependency? Here are three indicators:

1) Trying to get someone else to change - this can cost considerable amounts of energy with no real payoff.

2) Being totally "fed up" with a partner, child, friend or colleague but also feeling quite attached to them. This is confusing. Anger, despair and love are not mutually exclusive, and a person can be totally caught up in this drama and not be able to take action.

3) Not knowing what you want or even need while at the same time trying to provide others with what they want and need.

What then is the reward for codependency? Usually it is tied up with avoiding fear, sadness or emptiness.. Also, obsession with another person can be a drug-like escape when one feels trapped in one’s current situation.

The good news is that codependency is a habit, and habits can be broken. If you are wondering if you are codependent, then you have already taken the first step to changing your life. Feel free to contact me, or check out CODA (CODA.org). If a loved one is involved in substance abuse, contact Al-Anon (Alanon.org). Your suffering for someone else can start to end today.

Is Someone You Know Mentally Ill?

Discovering that someone you love has a mental illness can feel awful. It may seem as though the person you have known has gone away and someone you don’t really know has taken their place.

Being around someone who is mentally ill may even cause you to doubt your own sanity. Anger, loneliness and shame may haunt you, as well as questions like is their problem a mental or physical illness? Is your behavior driving them crazy? Can trying harder to help bring your loved one back?

The National Alliance on Mental Illness, known as NAMI, is a great resource for the families and friends of mentally ill loved ones: https://www.nami.org/

NAMI’s website offers a list of symptoms that someone you know may be mentally ill. A few of these that I have seen from my practice are:

• Excessive worrying or fear

• Feeling excessively sad or low

• Extreme mood changes, including uncontrollable “highs” - euphoria

• Difficulties understanding or relating to other people

• Changes in sex drive

• Abuse of substances like alcohol or drugs

• Thinking about suicide

If you are having doubts about someone in your life, please get support for yourself to sort out what is going on for you and what steps you can take. Don’t wait for the mentally ill person to get help first. They may not have the insight or willingness to see what they are doing to themselves and those who love them.

What is Maturity?

Maturity

Eleanor Roosevelt's book "You Learn by Living" has a chapter on maturity.  Below is a paragraph from that chapter that I think nicely sums up maturity:

 "One must be willing to have knowledge of oneself.  You have to be honest with yourself.  You must try to understand truthfully what makes you do things or feel things.  Until you have been able to face the truth about yourself you cannot be really sympathetic or understanding in regard to what happens to other people.  But it takes courage to face yourself and to acknowledge what motivates you in the things you do."

How true!  Especially the part about courage.  But with courage comes contentment, and that is the best present you can give yourself.

Don't Go Back To Sleep

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you,
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want,
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is wide and open,
Don't go back to sleep.
                                                  - Rumi

When Love Feels Bruising. . .

When love feels bruising, it can be easy to want to just shut down. Yet heartache can illuminate one’s life in many new and positive ways. Strengths, goals, weaknesses and fears, both reasonable and unreasonable, are closer to the surface of our consciousness.  Longstanding obstacles may no longer seem as daunting.

Keeping one's heart open allows space for new, positive people to come into your life. It can grant you to the humility to consider options that that you would not have seriously looked at in the past. A bruised heart can respond more easily to spiritual experience, friendship, therapy and new learning It can allow you to connect with creativity and energy you may have not even realized were yours.

So when love feels bruising, be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to let new, healing energy into your life.

Mental Poverty

Mental poverty is a state in which one feels a lack, or inadequate.  Emptiness can also be a sign of mental poverty, as can avoidance.  

Mental poverty is a rut that can begin in many ways. Perhaps one's parents passed on a negative view of the world, or had a propensity to addiction. Or maybe one's sense of capacity may be impacted by a dreadful job, or through a regretful choice of mate.   Depression and anxiety can make one feel like they have nothing to give to themselves or anyone else.  These are but a few examples.

Mental poverty can be reversed. If this blog post reminds you of someone, know that they are not bound by the trap of mental poverty for the rest of their life.  The past can only control the present if it is allowed to do so.

Start today to examine the areas of your own personality that may be affected with mental poverty.  These might be reflected in such areas as gossip, fearfulness, complaining without changing, destructive habits or ignoring opportunities.  Procrastinating, or automatically feeling negative about people who are different than you are also signs of mental poverty.

To be a person means you have the gift of volition - the capacity of changing at any time. You are not a product of your past.  If you have a pocket or two of mental poverty in your life, shake them out! By doing so, you will create or and increase the abundance of your life.

Spring Is Coming

There is a joy out there as Winter slowly begins to release its grip into Spring.  How much can one bear to notice?  Is it tolerable to tear oneself away from everyday thoughts and anxieties long enough to notice the subtle and not-so-subtle moments of change?

No matter how important our worries seem today, no matter how pressing our problems, there is a part of us that remains separate and calm.  Take a moment to find that inner stillness, that inner beauty.  You will know you are seeing joy when you really notice a crocus, the sunset, or a raindrop.

Is Someone You Know Taking Advantage of You?

It is sometimes hard to see that someone you know is taking advantage of you because you may have many all sorts of feelings about them. And It can be hard to confront someone who may not realize that their behavior leaves you feeling exploited.

Perhaps you may feel sorry for someone who has a difficult past, or you may be a naturally emphatic person. You might have a pattern or care taking in relationships, but realize this person is taking it too far. Why it is happening is not as important as ending the behavior!

Here are three tips for stopping someone from using you:

1) Get over the fear you will be disliked for speaking your truth. It is more important that the behavior stop, and the person will probably respect you more in the end. Be prepared that they may initially react to what you tell them but that the reaction will likely pass.

2) Set firm boundaries about the behavior that feels wrong and don't give in.

3) Refuse to let yourself feel bad because you have to confront an issue you may have been avoiding. Sometimes people tell me they feel stupid or ashamed for letting the situation go on so long, Sometimes they feel guilty for their part in cultivating a relationship that doesn’t work for them. These feelings are can obscure reality. The reality is that when you stand up for yourself you are changing how you relate to the world and yourself in a healthy way.

When Ego Gets in the Way

Ego Can Puff One Up But Everyone Eventually Lands

An out-of control ego is blind to its destructive power, causing pain for both for its owner and others. Here are three symptoms that one is under the influence of the ego:

1. A lack of insight into how indulging one’s thoughts, words and deeds in the present moment leads to pervasive pain as well as rejection by others.

2. Unwillingness to consider the advice of those who care about you.

3. Urgency to get what one wants immediately, despite longer-term, healthier options. “I didn’t have to do it this way, but” is an example.

There are many factors that can lead to an unregulated ego.  Depression, family dysfunction, mood swings and addictions are but a few. The good news is that alternatives to behaving poorly do exist. The bad news is that under the influence of ego, those alternatives can seem insulting, dull or tedious. If a person caught in the endless pain of egotism is finally sick enough of its results to change, here are a few of the ways help regulate the ego:

1. Be willing to ask for then accept support and advice from others.

2.  Realize that everyone makes mistakes, and everyone makes a fool out of themselves sometimes.  It is part of being human and people can forgive those who can admit mistakes.

3.  Become someone you would trust to act well on your behalf.

4.  Accept professional help when needed.

5. Accept that people already see us as we are, not as we pretend we are.

6. Cultivate gratitude. Gratitude is the underpinning of the sort of humility in life that helps us learn to fall, get up, and learn from our mistakes.

Why See a Therapist When You Can Talk to a Friend?

Therapists can take you places your friends can’t go. The relationship you have with a therapist is a professional association with someone who supports you based on your own agenda.

Therapists train for many years to listen to and help people who are in distress. They deal with their client’s trauma as well as the mundane trials of the human condition. They are trained to be emotionally and mentally present. They give thoughtful feedback about problems that would worry or even frighten a friend. They keep confidentiality. They don’t have an agenda based on a personal relationship with you.

A therapist’s only job is to help you grow.

When Life Feels Like a Series of Unfortunate Events. . .

Sometimes life can feel like a chapter out of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events".  There may be a theme to the events, or your challenges may seem random.  This rather overwhelming state can appear to be an endless swamp that will entrap you, but in the end it seldom turns out to be that way after all. In the meantime, though, slogging is sometimes overwhelming. Here are three tips about how to get through this kind of time:

1)  Think about other times in your life when you were discouraged.  How long did they last?  How did you resolve things, or did time just sort them out for you?

2)  Detach.  Step back from the fatalistic story about what is going on, even it it is as compelling as a train wreck.  In Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" the most sticky and uncomfortable of journeys were in the end tests that encouraged personal growth in the characters.

3)  Don't do it all alone.  Call friends, see a therapist, go to self-help meetings or follow a spiritual path more closely.  Suffering is often lessened from something as simple as talking to another person.

To you in Your Journey,

Cheryl Deaner, LMFT 36764