balance

Feel your Feelings Friday 

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Get unstuffed and stop sticking.  Let’s take Friday to address our feelings and being mindful of our emotions. The goals is to notice and experience our emotions and allow them to come and go naturally. That means sometimes experiencing painful emotions without turning the pain into suffering. Emotional Suffering can be created by stuffing or sticking to our emotions, and that’s out of BALANCE.  

When Stuffing our emotions, we bottle up l, ignore and reject your emotions. Emotional Stuffers try to push their emotions away. Just because we stuff or ignore our emotions does make them go away. It causes emotional build up, leading to feeling overwhelm and possible breakdown.  

On the opposite end of the spectrum, is Sticking. When we stick to our feelings, we hold on to emotions and try to keep them around. When we emotional stick, we replay stressful situations and experience the emotions over and over again. Sticking prevent are emotions to natural come and go and never provide them with the opportunity to fade. Thus leading emotions to Stick around longer than hey natural would.  

Create Balance by actually feeling your Feelings. Feeling your feelings serves as a middle group between stuffing and sticking. Trying noticing your feelings without holding on to them. Observe and describe your emotions, your sensations, thoughts and urges. Take note of how intensity comes and go. When a new emotions is ready to come in, let the emotion go and notice the new feeling.  

I hope that you find Feel your Feelings Friday helpful and beneficial to creating a balance to kick off your weekend.  Send me note let me know how “Feeling Friday” balanced you. 

Unstuffed and Not sticking, 

Shayla Peterson, LCSW



Source: DBT skills training by Jean Eich, Psy, LP

5 Myths about Emotions – Part 1 

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The roles of our emotions serve an important function and are necessary; even they are painful at times. Emotions help with motivation, information, and communication. If the way we look at emotions are faulty, it will continue to make it difficult to manage our emotions effectively. Read below for the 5 of the ten common myths that people believe about their emotions. Allow this article to challenge your beliefs to make the necessary adjustment:

1. There is a right way and wrong way to feel in every situation. This is untrue. Everyone experiences different emotions about the same event because their interpretation of that event will vary. Your emotional response will also depend on many factors, such as your involvement in the situation, your relationship to others involved your state of mind before the event took place and so on. It is important to remember that emotions are not good or bad, right or wrong; however you feel in a situation is the way you should feel.

2. It’s not good or healthy to feel angry. Myth. Anger is a natural human emotion. It serves a purpose; therefore, it is good, and it is healthy. What may not be positive or healthy is the ways that you are expressing it.

3. Happy or emotionally healthy people don’t experience painful emotions. This is not true! Even the happiest people have pain in their lives sometimes. Life is about the good and bad, pain and joy. Life is naturally going to have painful moments, regardless of how happy or well-adjusted the person is.

4. Feeling sad is weak. Again this is another myth. Emotions arise for a reason, to motivate you to change something, to help you communicate and so on. The emotion is normal and healthy. You response to the emotion might be health and if this is the case, that is what you need to focus on. What would be the healthier course of action that could help you cope with this intense emotion?

5. Painful emotions are destructive. False. It is not the emotion that is destructive. It is how you chose to act because of the emotion. For example, feeling anger does physical hurt you or anyone else, it is when you choose to act in a violent physical way because of the anger that people get hurt.

Were you able to identify any faulty beliefs that may be causing difficulties in your life? If so, I hope that you can feel empowered to start making small changes. If you found these top 5 myths helpful, don’t forget to check back in with Balancing the Circus next week for myth about emotions 6-10.

Balancing emotions,

Shayla Peterson, LCSW

Reference: Van Dijk, S. (2012). Calming the Emotional Storm:using DBT skills to manage your emotions and balance your life.

Can I get a refill? 

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Just a friendly reminder that we can help anyone else before we put our oxygen mask on first.  Allow this photo to be a visual reminder to refilled our pitcher in order to refresh ourselves and others around us.  We can not afford to neglect ourselves….our physical and mental health depends on it.  How do you plan to refill your pitcher this weekend? 

You are the Ringmaster

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IMG_0586Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages…..Life can feel like you are managing a circus, literally a circus attempting to balance different roles such as spouse, parent, son or daughter, brother or sister and friend. Let’s not forget the hoops we jump through for our careers. Along with juggling our feelings and past experiences that sometimes get in our way of making effective decisions.  Balancing the Circus’ missions is to provide tools to reduce the stress and create a space to produce a smoother running Circus (oops, I meant to say smoother running Life).  You are the Ringmaster or RingMistress (a female circus leader) of your life, and you get to decide the balance between acceptance and changes in your circus called, Life.  Imagine that you actually got a handle on family, work, life balance with a guest appearance mental wellness.  Let’s put on our high black boots and red top coat, because getting up and getting dress is half the battle.  Be the Ringmaster. It’s your Life!!!

 

Ringmistress,

Shayla Peterson, LCSW

I declare today to be STRESS FREE, join me

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There is so much to be stressed about, but there’s so many other things I rather fill my mind with today.  I understand that stress is a normal response to a state of unbalance.  Signs that I look for when my stress is unbalanced are in the areas of cognitive, emotional, physical and behavioral.  Our brains may react by experiencing increased forgetfulness, poor concentration, increased worrying, poor judgement and seeing only the negative.  The emotional aspect of stress may present with moodiness,  feelings of being overwhelmed, isolation, difficult to relax and increased irritability.   Physical signs of stress may include aches & pains, nausea, easily catches colds, decreased sex drive and increased heart rate.  Behavioral signs may appear in the form of less/more eating, too much/too little sleep, isolation, neglecting responsibilities and using alcohol, drugs and cigarettes to relax.   These various symptoms if not addressed can lead to increased mental health concerns as the majority of these symptoms parallel with depression and anxiety.  In efforts to increase mental wellness and prevent further stress, make an active effort to reduce stress today to improve overall mental health.   These are the ten things I chose to use today to support my mission towards eliminating stress:

  1. I will participate in some form of meditation or relaxation (4-square breathing, progressive relaxation, visualization and/or stretching)
  2. I will eat balanced meal (at least 5 servings of fruits, veggies and 8 glasses of water)
  3. I review how I typically think about stress.  Explore my “what ifs”? catastrophic thoughts? discounting the positives?
  4. I will take a break when I need one (I will leave the office for lunch).
  5. I will manage my time by planning my day so that it doesn’t run me.
  6. I will take about my troubles with close friend and end the conversation with a positive story.
  7. I will live a balanced life today.  After work, I will make time for my hobby, me-time, a social event or watch a movie with the family.
  8. I will develop a realistic goal and break it up into smaller realistic goals and then break them up into even smaller realistic goals.
  9. I will evaluate possible future stress and identify what can I do to reduce it.
  10. I will ask for help.  I will get in touch with my therapist if I’m having difficulties getting through my STRESS-FREE day.

Feel Free to use these ten ways to have a STRESS FREE day.  Note: Please do not feel disappointed if your day is not completely stress-free by using these tips, if you reduced one of your signs or decreased your symptoms of stress, you have made strides.  Let’s Celebrate our progress!!!

Balancing the Stress,

Shayla Peterson, LCSW

 

Dropping the I(ndependent) for the We

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  “You are not giving up your right to vote or to own property if you let me make you a cup of coffee” – Anonymous

A few days ago, my husband and I had a conversation about independence within our marriage. We mutually agreed that we dropped the I(ndependence) for the we(dependence). We like to think that we have coined the term (we)dependent, which has the same definition as the paradoxical term interdependence. Interdependence can be defined as the mutual dependence between things or mutual reliant on each other, such as the relationship between plants and animals. On the other end of the spectrum is being too independent in the relationship or being co-dependent in the relationship.

“All the women who are independent, throw your hands up at me” ecstatically song by Beyonce, Kelly, and Michelle, who are members of Destiny’s Child on the Charlie’s Angels’ soundtrack in the 2000’s. As I reflect back, I can’t even imagine a time when that song played on the radio, and I did not wave my hands in the air and sing along. We live in a world that praises independence. Have you own money, buy your own things, be strong and do not show anyone your weakness is the name of the game. Have we created a culture where we have a hard time adjusting to finding a medium between independence and dependence? Have we become too independent? Training yourself to be extremely independent can be a disservice because when placed in situations where dependence is required, such as a relationship, we will have no idea how to navigate in these foreign waters according to Erica Djossa in her article on The Interdependent Relationship (2012).

On the other end of the spectrum is dependence. Dependence is the core component in building a secure and lasting relationship, yet we cringe at the thought of being dependent in a relationship. A healthy level of dependency allows us to depend on another person for support. Ideally, we are able to trust other people enough to open up and feel vulnerable yet remain self-confident enough to survive conflict and rejection. In intimate relationships, healthy dependency allows us to blend closeness, passion, and commitment. When this occurs, we experience a sustaining intimacy that doesn’t threaten our sense of self. Within a healthy level of dependence, we also know that asking for help doesn’t mean we’re helpless. We are aware that it can be an empowering opportunity to grow and learn and become stronger.

An unhealthy level of dependence is label as, Codependent. Codependence is an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, you lose yourself in another person, not knowing where you end, and they begin. This type of relationship can cause problems because you start to look at the other person to complete you. Understanding your worth as an individual rather than depending on your partner would be ideal and healthy in the relationship. Darlene Lancer, LMFT described Codependent couples as out of balance and often struggle for power and control. The codependent couple displays an imbalance of power, possibly where one partner may have taken on responsibility for the other. They are often anxious, resentful, guilty and responsible for their partner’s feelings and moods. People who are involved in a co-dependent relationship try to control each another to feel okay and get their needs met rather than respect for each other’s separateness and individuality. The partners in these type of relationships often can’t tolerate disagreement and blame one another for causing their problems without taking responsibility for themselves.

We can see that being on one extreme or the other is not going to work best. Try to visualize a scale with dependence with one side of extreme independence and co-dependence on the other end. Ideally, we want to move away from the other edges towards the middle to create interdependence. Check these five quick ways to develop and maintain balance in your relationship.

1) Work on improving yourself
2) Maintaining an individual identity
3) Compromise
4) Established Boundaries
5) Use of Effective Communication

The goal is to create balance in your relationship.

By Shayla Peterson, LCSW

Unplug & Get Connected: The Power of Self Care

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  “You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.” 

All too often we neglect our own self-care. We often use the phrase such as “we have to take care of others, and then I will take care of me.” We carry around the belief that self-care is selfish. When in fact, we require TLC (Tender, Love & Care). When we do not take adequate care of our physical, mental or emotional health, we started to feel depleted, drained or frazzled. For some reason, participating in self-care is considered a luxury due to increasing workloads, school and family obligations.   In reality, self-care is an investment we cannot live without. The goal is to create a balance between selfishness and sacrifice. There are three (3) components to identifying self-care are a) Physical, b) mental/emotional and c) spiritual. The physical involves moving our bodies; the mental/emotional requires us to accept and forgive ourselves, and the spiritual allows us to practice exercising our mind and soul. Have you participated any of the three components of self-care?

Here’s a list of 30 self-care activities that you can participate in today. Over the next 30 days, I challenge you to participate in all 30 or jump around to the activities that you like the most or develop your own ideas.   Compare how you felt before with how you feel after.

(1) Eat a fruit or vegetable

(2) Get between 6 – 8 hours of sleep per night

(3) Ride a bike

(4) Call a friend or meet for lunch

(5) Try a new activity

(6) Read a Chapter from a book

(7) Get a massage

(8) Listen to music

(9) Stare up at the sky

(10) Take action on something you have been avoiding

(11) Take a lunch break

(12) Plant a flower

(13) Write in a journal

(14) Volunteer

(15) Laugh when you can

(16) Read poetry or inspiring quotes

(17) List five things you are grateful for

(18) Get a manicure or pedicure

(19) Pray

(20) Meditate

(21) Spend time away from your cell phone

(22) Eat a piece of Chocolate

(23) Stretching

(24) Dance

(25) Go for a walk

(26) Take hot shower or bath

(27) Pay attention to your breathing

(28) Snuggle under a cozy blanket

(29) Cuddle with a pet

(30) Become a tourist in your own city

 

By Shayla Peterson, LCSW

References:

Eight plus self-care ideas by Barbara Markaway, PhD at www.theselfcompassionproject.com ( June 2013)

Seven Types of Self-Care Activities for Coping with Stress by Barbara Markaway, PhD and Greg Markaway, PhD on Psychology Today (March 2014)

Top 10 Self-care strategies by Laura Schenck, MA on Mindfulness Muse (May 2011)