At this time of year, most people, especially women, are focusing on all the gifts to be given to make friends, family, and co-workers feel appreciated.  We write cards, bake, and have a constant eye out for someone we may have missed in our calculations and lists.  Did I forget my daughter’s coach or my son’s tutor?  Do I need to get a gift for my mother’s caregiver or a support person?  I love how this process helps us notice the many people in our lives and all the ways we are a part of an interdependent caring community.  But there is usually one person we tend to neglect and it may be the most important gift of all…ourselves. Holiday season is the time a gift of self caring may be what we need the most.

Let me give you my personal example that inspired this post. I am a planner.  I make lists, lists of my lists, and have more than one calendar.  (Yes, it’s true.)  Ok, I’m a bit of an obsessive, needing to feel a sense of control having written everything down and knowing what is coming in the days and weeks ahead.  Even on my day’s’ off, I have a plan, filling the day with activities. But inside, lately, there is this little voice that speaks to me wishing for a day with absolutely no plan.  What would it be like to stay in bed as long as I like and have absolutely nothing to do all day?  The truth is, it’s been quite possible. I do have days off and my kids are now grown.  I could do it.  But the key has been that I haven’t given myself permission to do it as it feels too indulgent.

Is there a little voice inside your head wishing for something?  For some people the voice is screaming loudly, but for others it may be a faint whisper easy to miss.  Like me, it may make you uncomfortable.  The first step is to keep an ear out for it.  Like you do for everyone else, listen for a clue of something you are wanting or needing.  It may not come as a conscious thought, it may be a passing sensation, daydream, or even a feeling of envy for what someone else may be doing.  (Ok, for me, it was a judgmental thought of “It must be nice for those people who have nothing to do.”)  You can’t fulfill your desire until you know what it may be and give it space to be heard.

To get you started, here are some themes for what to listen for.  One theme is a need or desire to learn about yourself or acquire a new skill.  Sometimes there’s a secret urge to try something, but we worry about failing or looking silly. We let the potential of embarrassment or shame get in the way of taking a risk to expand ourselves in some way.  Is there a little voice longing to take a voice lesson when you sing in the shower?  A feeling of wanting to join a group to hear other’s perspectives of people who have been through a similar experience?  Especially as adults, we often ignore our own need for support or guidance or the chance to be a beginner.

Another theme is peace of mind or permission to let go of something, even just temporarily.  Sometimes we worry and ruminate about something with a belief that if we don’t focus on it, something worse will happen.  For example, someone I work with feels so guilty about a past mistake she reminds herself of it most every day.  In talking about it, she realized that she worries if she were to allow herself to stop thinking about it, it meant she didn’t care that she hurt someone.  Giving herself permission to forgive herself and trust she had learned from her experience was a liberating and loving thing to do.

And of course another big theme is time.  How many times do you find yourself saying, “someday, when I have time, I’d like to…”  When and where on the calendar is “some day”?  If you’ve found it, let me know.  I keep thinking the following year will have my “some day,” but it doesn’t seem to appear.  Certainly we don’t have the time for all of our goals, but what are the ones most important to you?  Is there a recurring idea that might really make a difference in your quality of life if “some day” was scheduled now? 

The fact is, the biggest barriers to our secret desires are usually of our own making.  Frequently it’s an old belief or judgment that is threatened by our move to change in some way. So this is where holiday indulgence comes in.  Give yourself the gift to say it out loud and do it!  Start with just one thing this giving season.  Try it on and see how it feels.  “Just this once” is still very much under control, with no need to worry about it becoming a selfish way of life.  But maybe, just maybe, it may become an important habit to allow yourself something every once and while.  And if you need my help, I will be there.  Just make sure it’s not on my day of doing nothing. But don’t worry, I am sure I can plan around it!

I’ve been noticing the theme of letting go recently and am reminded that every year around this time it becomes a focus for many people.  Perhaps it’s the sense of closing down that accompanies the change of seasons, with darkened skies and leaves falling all around us, that leads us to think about closure.  Or perhaps it’s the pending arrival of a New Year that makes us think about endings as we say goodbye to another year and prepare for a new one.  But letting go is an important process in healthy living and with Thanksgiving arriving, it can also be a path to making space for gratitude.

When we make a choice to let go of something, whether a relationship, a job, or any situation that doesn’t serve us anymore, we consciously create and formalize its end point.  We take active steps to withdraw our energy from investing any more thoughts or emotions into trying to keep something going that is no longer, or may never really have been, satisfying.  It’s a way of releasing what hasn’t been working for us and giving ourselves permission to move on.  For many people, letting go may be a recognition that something isn’t able to be fixed or mended.  Or that a person in a relationship isn’t able to change.  Whatever the history, letting go is an act of release and can open space in our lives and grant us freedom.

What many people find is that while there’s a strong element of grief in letting go, the most overriding feeling is relief.  When we let go of something that’s been a struggle, we also can let go of the resentments, anger, and bitterness we’ve been holding on to.   By clearing out what has been preoccupying us we are open to new relationships and new feelings.  We feel lighter and less burdened.  Letting go is like a psychic exhale allowing us to relax and be in the present moment.  In doing so, we create the clarity and peace to appreciate the good things we have and the abundance in our lives that may have been clouded over by our negative preoccupatons. 

Whether it’s letting go of self judgments, an old role in your family, expecting your Uncle Joe to stay sober,  or hoping your football team will win (I let go, NY Giants …until next year), I hope this Thanksgiving holiday you are freed up to fully experience the beauty you have around you and create the memories you want to keep. In making space for new expectations, turkey and pie may not be the only thing you fill up with!

After changing the clocks and heading into the holiday season, many people get nervous about falling back into some familiar habits they’ve worked hard to avoid.  It’s easy to eat more, drink more, spend more money, play more video games, in fact, do more of any of the quick comfort behaviors that ease our tension when it’s dark and cold outside. So today I want to share a tool that is quick to do, but actually powerful to use.

Judith Beck, daughter of Aaron Beck, has continued to develop her father’s work in the area of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which focuses on the connection between our thoughts and our behaviors.  Throughout our day we come across situations that act as triggers.  These triggers can be a situation (having someone cancel a plan we had), an emotion (feeling lonely), or a time of day (after work) that make us want to eat or smoke or binge watch another tv show.  These responses over time often become automatic, and we lose our sense of control over them.  We feel helpless to them.  According to the Becks, this helplessness comes from the negative thoughts we have that become a conditioned response.  We “sabotage” ourselves with thoughts that we believe to be true, such as “I can’t change,” “I’m too weak to stop,” “I deserve this,” or “I’ll have this today and start tomorrow.”  

What Beck encourages people to do is to identify these sabotaging thoughts and challenge them.  In doing so, we create a gap between the trigger and the response and offer ourselves an opportunity to alter our behavior in ways that we feel better about.  For example, you get home and head to the refrigerator, thinking “I’ve worked hard today and I’m so hungry.” Normally you would begin eating whatever you could find in the refrigerator standing at the counter.  Then you cook dinner and by the time you eat it you feel overly full and upset with yourself that you ate too much and feel uncomfortable.  Each night you come home you tell yourself you’re not going to do this again, but then when the time comes, you end up eating, telling yourself you are “too weak to change,” you “deserve the cookie,” or “I’ll eat less later.”  All of these thoughts undermine your efforts at eating healthy and end up shattering your confidence and efforts.

One of the most effective ways, Beck’s research has shown, to challenge these sabotaging thoughts, is to remember our motivations.  When we are tired, bored, lonely, or hungry, or any time we face a trigger that we have felt powerless over, we lose sight of our motivations.  We forget why we need to stay on track with our new habit and give ourselves an excuse to do what we have always done.  Whether it’s telling yourself you can’t be successful, or that this one time is ok, the desire to engage in the behavior overshadows the motivations that lead to change.  Remembering our motivations can serve as a strong deterrent to negative sabotaging thoughts.  

So, the tool, you may be asking?  It’s as simple as a 3 X 5 card.  Beck calls them “Advantages Response Cards.” It’s as simple as writing down on the card your most powerful motivations for wanting to make the change desired.  It may include wanting to be healthier, having more self respect, decreasing your sugar levels, feeling more in control, being more available to your family, etc.  Whatever gets to the heart of the reasons you are wanting to make the change, write them down.  Then, and this is the important part, read them at least twice a day.  Tuck your card in a place you will remember to read it and choose times that will be most effective for preventing sabotage.  For example, you might put a card on the seat of your car to read when you get home from work, before you walk in your door.  Or after dinner, if you tend to have a cigarette then.  You should also read them at times when you are struggling with a trigger you did not expect or when you encounter a low point in your day.

By reading your card, your mindset tends to shift between the reasons to do the behavior (because I’m weak, I deserve it, I can’t resist) to the reasons you don’t want to do the behavior.  It reminds you that you have a choice and that actually NOT doing the behavior will feel better overall than doing the behavior.  It puts you back in touch with your rational mind that does have control and can make healthy decisions.  You may be thinking, “I don’t need to make a card, I already know my motivations to change.”  This in itself can be a sabotaging thought, because while you do know your motivation, you tend to lose sight of them when the urges strike in the heat of a moment.  The cards serve as a reminder to bring these motivating thoughts to the forefront, getting you back in touch with the bigger picture. 

A tool is just that, a tool.  It only works when you use it, and it won’t always be what you need to get the job done.  But a tool is meant to be a help in your effort and to make it a bit easier.  Advantages Response Cards are inexpensive, small and easy to carry with you, and can have a lot of power without needing to be plugged in or recharged!  But if you are like me, you may need to make several copies, as losing my tools is a habit I have yet to change.

*** Just as I finished writing this blog, I read that Aaron Beck has passed away at the age of 100. May his memory be for a blessing. Many, many years ago I worked as an undergraduate in the Beck Center for Cognitive Therapy in Philadelphia. Dr. Beck was a kind man and although I didn’t have a lot of interaction with him, he always showed interest in my education.

This past week I attended (or to be more accurate, zoomed) a training funded by a grant my clinic received for treating people with problem gambling.  It was a really interesting topic for me, as to be honest, I wasn’t very aware of the issues related to this type of addiction. Like many, I had a hard time understanding how people could get themselves into such massive debt and, more importantly, how they could deceive their loved ones so repeatedly in order to continue their habit. As I learned, a foundation to treating people with a gambling disorder is understanding shame.  Once a person drawn to gamble experiences losses, they feel embarrassed, and attempt to right the wrong by gambling even more.   Ashamed to admit they’ve been losing, a problem gambler will lie to themselves as well as to others, irrationally believing they can make everything ok if they just can hit the big one (known as chasing losses).  In this shame avoiding cycle, a gambler is both driven to continue gambling and to hide it from the one they most love.

The role of shame in perpetuating gambling behavior made sense to me.  In my work with many types of problem behavior, shame is often at the root.  But actually, I should clarify, it’s not the shame itself that is the problem, but it’s what we do to avoid feeling shame that’s the problem.  Shame tends to emerge when we feel we are judged negatively and experience humiliation, feel exposed and small, and have that feeling we want to disappear.  As opposed to guilt, in which we recognize we’ve done something wrong and can seek to make amends, with shame, we feel who we are as a person is bad.  Shame makes us direct our focus inward and view our entire self in a negative light, leaving us feeling helpless and unavoidably judged with no chance for redemption.

Research shows that some people are more likely to feel shame, a trait called shame-proneness.  Not surprisingly, people who have low self esteem or who suffer from depression are more likely to experience shame.  Related to this, individuals who have experienced abuse, either in childhood or in a domestic relationship are more prone, as well.  Research supports the notion that, as in gamling disorder, shame is correlated with other psychological disorders, mostly believed to be a way of coping to avoid the experience of shame.  In fact, research shows that people who engage in these avoidant behaviors aren’t actually conscious of the feeling of shame.  It’s only in their efforts to stop the problematic behavior that they uncover the discomfort of the shame that is underlying.

D L Nathanson (1992) developed a model for how people react to shame that often leads to problematic behavior.  These behaviors, while protecting people from feeling the pain, ultimately lead to conflict in relationships.  The model is known as The Compass of Shame and includes four major coping categories that are represented as poles of the compass, each one associated with different feelings, thoughts and, and behaviors.  At the Withdrawal pole, a person acknowledges a negative judgment, accepts the judgment as valid, and tries to withdraw or hide from the situation.  This could include leaving a relationship, isolating, or even dropping out of a class.  At the Attack Self pole, the pattern is to accept the negative judgment as valid and turn the anger inward.  For example, a shamed person might call themselves stupid and do what is needed to gain acceptance by others at the expense of themselves.  In both Withdrawal and Attack the Self poles, the self is found lacking.  At the two other poles, the Attack Others pole and the Avoidance poles, individuals deflect the feeling of shame with no awareness of or acceptance of the negative self judgment or it is seen as not valid.  In Avoidance, people distance themselves through denial or distraction, as in use of substances, gambling, or other numbing behavior.  In the Attack Others pole, people turn their anger outward in blaming others and bolstering their own self esteem by making someone else inferior.

As one might guess, these patterns can be really destructive to healthy relationships.  That’s why it’s so important to identify the underlying discomfort (shame).  Often, working with people who have any sort of addiction or trauma history that leads to destructive patterns involves helping them learn to tolerate the feeling of shame and bring it out into the open.  Once it’s in the light of day, we can work to challenge the assumptions of badness and increase self esteem.  (Research shows those with good self esteem have low shame proneness, not surprising.) 

Being vulnerable is really hard, but especially in a culture such as ours that puts so much value on being successful and not being a “loser.”   It can be so seductive and thrilling to win!  Unfortunately, the odds are forever NOT in our favor (sorry, couldn’t reisist the Hunger Games reference).  Inevitably the house will win in the long run and we will have to face our defeat, both to ourselves and to other people. Yet, the shame can be so powerful, we feel compelled to cover over our shame with lies, risking what is actually most important to us.  As, ultimately, what most people come to find in holding any type of secret, is that the gamble of losing the trust of our loved ones is indeed the worst loss of all!

I have a weekly calendar that sits on my desk which I use to keep track of my daily tasks.  It helps to visually break down my life into just a week at a time, somehow giving me the illusion of control, I suppose.  But almost every Sunday I’m amazed how quickly I find myself tearing off another page as my life just seems to fly by.  And after reading a new book by Oliver Burkeman, I’m even more aware of the passing weeks and how limited my time truly is.

Burkeman has calculated the average lifespan as a mere 4,000 weeks (assuming you live to age 80).  Yes, that’s right, 4,000!  And if you want to blow your mind, calculate, like my husband did, how many of those weeks you have already lived and how many you have left! In doing so, Burkeman, throughout his book, makes the point of how important it is to use our time wisely.  What I love about the book, Four Thousand Weeks Time Management for Mortals, is that he stresses using the time more mindfully, not more “productively.”  He points out that our obsession with busyness and cramming more in a day actually takes away from our enjoyment of life. In reality, the race to do more is actually a way of avoiding making difficult choices and feeling the discomfort of grieving the things we don’t have the time to do.  

I just came back from a trip during which I was lucky enough to see the ancient ruins in Athens, Greece.  In viewing these stone relics, I couldn’t help but take notice of how quickly one civilization built its empire, was conquered, and then was replaced with another. And within each of these eras, just like we do today, the people of that time longed, loved, and created within their own 4,000 weeks.  In looking at the faces of the statues able to be preserved, you can’t help but see yourself.  Take off the robe, give them some skinny jeans and an iphone, and they would fit right in, sitting in a Starbucks today.  And if you pull back to the larger timeline of civilization, we are closer in time to one another than we tend to think.  The first modern humans appeared on the plains 200,000 years ago.  And our planet came into existence 4.54 billion years ago (give or take 50 million years).  And our planet is just one of 400 billion planets in the Milky Way alone.  

The contrast of how short a time we have and how insignificant our lives are in the big picture of the universe can be a useful paradox.  While counting our 4,000 weeks can make us feel pressure to use them profoundly, we can also use this information to relax.  It almost seems silly to think about our 4,000 weeks as much of anything of significance within the long scale of time and the breadth of the universe.   As Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul puts it, remembering that we are just a rock floating in space among billions and billions of other rocks can help us put our worries in perspective. It can help us let go of over valuing what bothers us and lessen its power over us.

Indeed, finding the balance between feeling the significance of our lives and the insignificance of our place in history can be daunting. But in fact, it ‘s also freeing to think about what really matters and allow ourselves to do more of that and less of all the other atuff.  You and only you will know about the real significance of your life, and even then, it will all be gone soon enough.  Instead of rushing around packing your day with more, slowing down and doing less may be a blessing.  We get a brief sliver of time to witness our world and engage in its beauty.  Our 4,000 weeks is truly a gift for us to be a part of this particular moment in history, with all its magnificence and triviality.

Tearing off my weekly page is taking on a spiritual element now.  A big take away from all of my historical contemplation is to not only ask myself “did I get everything done” in the week that just passed, but “was it worth it?”  Did I make the most of how I wanted to use my time?  Oh, and another take away from time spent engaging in history?  If you do want to leave something of yourself that will last well beyond your 4,000 weeks, best to build it out of rock!  

I’m heading off with my husband for a trip to celebrate our 25th anniversary that was canceled and rescheduled from last October.  I have to admit, after such a trying and stressful year, I’m extra happy to celebrate the success of making it to not only our 25th, but to our 26th!  Like many, the isolation and stresses of the past year were a challenge to our relationship.  I wasn’t always the person I wanted to be and certainly did not feel love in the way I wanted, both in giving and receiving it. And so with your indulgence I wanted to share some of my reflections on the truth about “real life love” in the hopes that I can better understand it and with the extra hope that some people may relate as well.

There is the Bible verse (Corinthians 13:4-8) recited at so many weddings that always comes to mind when I think about marriage…”Love is patient, love is kind…”  and how I should be.  But the reality is that I am not patient and not kind, at least a lot of the time.  On good days when I feel balanced and our lives feel under control, I can be very patient and very kind.  But most of the time I’m stressed to some degree, whether by external things or internal insecurities.  How patient and how kind I feel capable of tends to be in direct proportion to these other matters and how well I’m doing with them.  

Love itself is amazing.  When I can focus on it as a pure state, just as the slogans say, it is powerful and all I need.  It’s an energy like nothing else I can ever experience and makes me a better person.  It truly does fill my heart and puts me in a state of awe.  It guides me to make good choices and to put others before myself in a way that provides meaning and purpose to my life. It fills me up with gratitude and feels a little like magic, something that is beyond explanation and reason and provides a sense of “wow” to our existence.  When I’m able to stay connected to this energy, I feel as if I’m operating on another plane of existence – for me, it is a spiritual sense of connection.

But, then there’s all that I let get in the way of this.  Especially this past year, in working from home, I felt isolated and insecure.  I was worried about money and my job, people’s health and our daughter’s schooling and socializing, the state of our country and the state of the world.  With so much time by myself working from home, I started to overthink everything.  At the same time, my poor husband was trying to keep his business open and his employees working.  He was going in each day and riding waves of the unknown trying to keep things running, applying for business loans and dealing with ever changing potential crises. The counterpoint of our two experiences led me to feel lonely and “needy,” at just the time he was preoccupied and overwhelmed.  It led to tensions and hurt feelings.  While it was neither of our fault, we were both just doing the best we could in unusual circumstances, it still felt so damn personal.

And this is what I think gets in the way of love.  We are people full of fears, needs, and insecurities who long to be seen and appreciated.  Yet, we all have baggage from the family we grew up with and our old relationships. Pair this up with another human being with bags loaded down with fears, needs, and insecurities, and you’ve got a recipe for a messy conundrum – who’s perception is correct, whose need takes priority, who started it and who will apologize?  There is so much potential for conflict, it’s actually a miracle that relationships genuinely work as well as they do as much of the time as they do!

So, I guess what stands out to me is that, yes, “love is patient and love is kind”, but we, as people, are not.  And in order to make a relationship work, we have to be active in removing  the burdens that get in the way of the love that is.  But it ain’t easy.  It takes a lot of self awareness and humility, negotiating and compromising, balancing taking care of ourselves and one another.  In other words, we each must own what’s in our bags and see how it affects the relationship. And as I pack my bag for our anniversary trip, I most certainly need to keep in mind that someone else will also be there to carry it.  And this is both the beauty and the challenge of traveling life’s journey together.

Thanks to my husband of 26 years who is in fact kind, loyal, smart as heck, and funny.  He had no idea what he was getting into marrying a psychologist and, as he says, learning about all the “issues” one can have.  I am grateful for his wisdom, character, resilience and perspective that has indeed been a gift and a blessing.  And luckily for me, he’s been strong enough to help shoulder my bag through the troubled times when I could not.

This past week brought the intersection of two events for me.  One was the Jewish New Year, a holiday when we’re encouraged to reflect on our previous year and make commitments to do better in the year ahead.  The other was a trip to spend time with my brother and his family, who I had not seen for over two years due to Covid.  The combination of these two profound experiences got me thinking about how clear we can see our priorities when we have the time to think about them, but how very hard it is to keep them in our focus in the day to day.

To be honest, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, I’m always surprised by how many of my Jewish New Year vows to do better are similar to the ones I made the year before.  “Really?  Am I really working on that same thing again?”  But the answer is usually “yes, yes I am.”  For a while I’m good at being aware and motivated to make my changes.  I journal about it and notice it in my day to day.  But over time, without fail, it tends to slip into the background, until it seems like I rediscover it all over again as a new awareness that’s merely a recycle of the old ones.  

In seeing my brother after so long, it reminded me of the lessons I discovered during the pandemic about the value of time with my family, of slowing down and focusing on what really mattered to me, of voting and protesting, of noticing the effects of income inequality and climate change. But with the frustration of the effects of the delta variant and the eagerness for life to get back to “normal” again, I fear I’m already forgetting what seemed like the life changing lessons I’d learned. So much was taken away from us so suddenly, the silver lining in it all was a chance to see what really mattered. But the silver lining is already fading into the background and I’m afraid I’m losing the clarity in vision that was provided by the terrible events of a deadly pandemic.

I recently read an article by the writer Julio Vincent Gambuto on Medium that echoed my concern and really inspired me.  Apparently I’m very late to the game, as 20 million readers made his article viral back in 2020, which he followed up with two other thoughtful articles in response.  In his first article, Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting, Gambuto coins the term “The Great Pause” and describes it as an amazing gift given to us all.  He writes:  What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views.  At no other time, ever in our history, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped.  Here it is.  We’re in it.  Stores are closed.  Restaurants are empty.  Streets and six lane highways are barren.  Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story).  And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live.  Gambuto reflects on the goodness of people, helping each other, caring for eachother, standing in long lines to vote, protesting the effects of systemic racism and the effects of inadequate health care for all.  He describes the Great Pause as a vision of the possibilities that were revealed to us when we have the benefit of time.  And what he warns against is not only losing the view we were gifted as we go back to our busy lives, but even worse, the political and corporate efforts that will go to great lengths to not only distract us from our new truths, but seek to make us forget.

It is comforting to go back to normal.  The truths revealed during the last year were disturbing and took our time and our attention into uncomfortable places.  But just like the Jewish New Year offers me an opportunity each year to reset and refocus on my intended values, I hope we all can find a way to hold on to the profound revelations gained from a traumatic year.  Gambuto implores us to recast ourselves as citizens, not just consumers.  He advises us to think deeply about what we do with our time and our money.  What we click on, what we purchase, what we watch, all has reverberations for our culture and our personal lives.  He invites us to carefully choose what we put back in our lives.  It is our chance to define a new version of normal, “a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud.”  

Perhaps we can each consider a way to schedule A Great Pause on a regular basis.  For me, the Jewish New Year is an annual time out to consider these truths.  But what if I did more than just reflect.  What if I unsubscribed from all my automatic emails and advertising and carefully chose which ones to re-engage with.  What if I reviewed my calendar and more carefully scheduled what reflected my values in how I use my time.  Perhaps I could be a better more empowered consumer and citizen by paying more attention to what I allow myself to be pulled into.  There is a great desire for our attention.  It is, in fact, a commodity sold to companies and political movements.  What if I made them more accountable for their content and required them to be more truthful in their reporting, less divisive in their rhetoric, and more accountable to their environmental impact?  We, as citizens have this power.  In fact, the truth is, I don’t even need A Great Pause, just a few second pause, to make better choices each and every day.  I just need to remember not to forget.

Like a lot of people, I’m pretty sensitive.  In fact, I’ve spent a lot of my life fighting a perception that I’m “too sensitive,” including my own opinion of myself.  But what I’ve come to believe is that being sensitive is a powerful asset and the world actually needs more sensitive people!  They are often kind and compassionate and able to show a lot of empathy and caring.  But to be honest, there are times I wish I could feel things a little bit less and maybe have a little more choice in how my feelings affect me.  Just like there is nothing wrong with anger, as long as we use it constructively, I suppose there is nothing wrong with being sensitive as long as we don’t allow it to control us in reactivity.  This week, to my own surprise, I had a real lesson in this experience and it inspired me to want to write about it.

As sensitive people, we tend to have quick access to our feelings and they can be intense.  If we’re not careful, we can be triggered by our strong responses and it can color our perceptions and sabotage our being able to be present and enjoy ourselves.  While these feelings can be important messages to what we need to pay attention to, sometimes we need to be able to let things go and NOT feel so strongly.  One tool for doing this is a process called psychological distancing, meaning detaching from your experience and stepping outside of yourself in your mind’s eye.  Research and clinical experience shows it can help with emotional regulation, problem solving, decision making, and alleviate anxiety and depression.  Psychological distancing is a way to get unstuck from a feeling and find a new way to relate to a situation, often giving you a sense of power and relief.

Last weekend I was visiting my daughter who is taking classes on campus this summer.  I was having a great time until my return flight was canceled due to Hurricane Henri, which led to a series of stressful travel arrangements involving a much earlier flight, little sleep, long hours waiting in a crowded airport with angry passengers in a pandemic, and airline staff overwhelmed by things beyond their control.  I was irritated and feeling sorry for myself, sad to lose precious time I had planned with my daughter and feeling victimized by a Hurricane that was depriving me of her. But then I saw a man who looked calm and even happy.  He was wandering through an exhibit at the airport and actually seemed delighted.  Intrigued, I joined him.  The exhibit contained some interesting artifacts representing the history of flight.  While viewing these items, I found myself suddenly feeling lighter.  My goodness, I thought, what a miracle it is to fly!  How incredible it was that I could even visit my daughter at all, let alone for a weekend.  In just a few hours I could travel entirely across the country, a journey that not so long ago in history would have taken months to do at great peril.  Suddenly, to my surprise, I didn’t feel like a victim, but I felt lucky.  And my flight became a delight as I was filled with gratitude at the opportunity.

In the span of literally a few minutes, my attitude and experience of the very same event changed dramatically.  The shift in perspective helped me distance from my own emotions and see a broader perspective, one much more pleasant.  And this is the benefit of psychological distancing.  By taking a different perspective, I was no longer a victim, but a person experiencing something.  How I chose to interpret this experience had flexibility.  Yes, it was sad that I missed out on time with my daughter, but it was also amazing I could be with her at all.  In distancing, we can step outside our current experience and allow for other possibilities.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting it’s usually this easy.  In fact, sometimes it’s really hard to separate ourselves from our reactions, especially if we’re in conflict with someone and feeling overwhelmed.  Some tools to help with this I found in perusing the literature include imagining you are stepping outside yourself and watching yourself from a distance.  Another tool is literally leaning back.  Research shows that when we physically lean back it gives you a psychological sense of distance from a situation (isn’t that interesting?  We naturally tend to lean in, which limits our vision and perspective).  You can take this even further by imagining you are moving even farther away, either from someone else or your own feelings.  And finally, you can shift your perspective by imaging yourself in the future thinking back to how you would like to be in that moment.

All of these tools are meant to create a boundary between you and your feelings at the moment. Their purpose is to create space to allow you to HAVE feelings rather than BE your feelings.  But to use any of these tools, the first step is to realize you are needing to get space in the first place.  You need to notice you are experiencing something and also be aware of a desire to have more control over it. This takes an awareness that just by itself will create some space.  And one last tool that I find kind of awkward but effective is to talk to yourself in the third person.  Research shows that this can instantly create psychological space and in my opinion, helps you take yourself less seriously.  “I’m not sad and annoyed, it’s Cynthia that is sad and annoyed.”  And boy do you want to watch out for her, she is so sensitive!

Every four years we get to watch the best athletes in the world come together for the Olympics.  I am always inspired by their dedication and sacrifice and am amazed at what they are able to make their bodies do (can we even be the same species?).  But as I get older, I find myself less focused on who won the gold and more interested in the extraordinary circumstances of what some athletes have to do just to get there.  In this post I want to share an example that really struck me this year in teaching me lessons about the value of the journey over the destination and how success is absolutely relative. 

The Refugee Olympic Team first competed in 2016 in Rio.  In response to the global refugee crisis displacing millions of people, the International Olympic Committee partnered with the United Nations Refugee Agency and sponsored the training and selection of an Olympic Team for those without the benefit and security of a home nation.  This year in Tokyo the Refugee Olympic Team marched second behind Greece in the opening ceremony, carrying the Olympic flag.  The team consisted of 56 athletes originally from 13 countries including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela and competed in 12 different sports. 

Each member of the Refugee Team has experienced a type of stress and hardship that few of us can ever imagine. Every athlete has had to flee from war or persecution and lives in exile.  Needless to say, their conditions for training and participation in their sport have been most challenging.  Their daily lives consist of a constant uncertainty and anxiety about what is happening to both family and country.  For most all of these athletes, the reality is that there is little chance they will win a medal. Their victory is in the resilience that was required to compete at all. For example, one athlete, Aker Ai Obaidi, fled from his country of Iran at the age of 14 because of war.  He was separated from his family and had to learn a new language and build a new life in Austria, fending for himself and worrying if his parents had survived.  His sport of wrestling gave him an identity and a way to find routine and peace.  Of his motivation to compete, he is quoted as saying:” I’m trying to give voice to show that refugees are not bad people.” Another Refugee Team member, Yusra Mardini, actually had to use her swimming skills to pull a waterlogged boat with 18 other migrants and refugees from Turkey to Lesbos.  She and her sister fled Syria when their house was destroyed in the Syrian Civil War.  After surviving the sinking boat, they traveled by foot through Europe to settle in Germany.  She says of her inspiration to compete: “Life will move on. Life will not stop for you because you have pain, no.  You have to move on.”

What the participation of these Olympians reminds me is that each of us starts from a different place in life. Some of us are less fortunate than others in terms of resources, stability, and support, and yet, all any of us can do is play the hand we are dealt. When you’re raised in an alcoholic home or experience a major loss or illness, these traumatic events do have consequences.  And yet, we so often compare ourselves to others and wonder why we haven’t won the gold. We judge ourselves harshly and wonder what’s wrong with us.  We seldom allow ourselves the pride of resilience and a fair congratulations for the distance we have indeed come.  Each of our journeys are unique and our challenges cannot be compared.  As one woman I work with who grew up in a neglectful home put it, “when you start out a half a mile behind, you need to realize how much you’ve accomplished just by catching up to the pack.” 

Now, if like me, you’ve been inspired by the Refugee Athletes in overcoming their challenges in order to compete, take note.  The Paralympics are just about to get underway! (August 24 – Septemer 5)

It started as a curiosity.  My father-in-law, John, being a laser physicist, wondered about the nature of light and matter.  He designed an experiment in his head pondering what would happen if light were trapped in a mirrorred box.  He so enjoyed the process of his wondering that it has now spanned a 20 year journey culminating with a complex theory, formulas, a book, several papers, and a feeling of exhilaration in proposing new ideas to a field of physics that has been fairly stuck for over 100 years.  Beyond the major accomplishment of slowly developing the confidence and ability to address the unanswered questions of Einstein’s work without a PhD or institutional support, it is a pleasure to witness John’s growth. In watching my father-in-law through the years, I have seen his quest expand from a mere question, to an obsession, into a genuine sense of life’s purpose. His journey has been a great lesson for me in how a sense of purpose is so important to living a life full of meaning, connection, and well being.

Stanford psychologist William Damon and his colleagues define a sense of purpose as “a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self.”  While research has shown the personal benefits to those with a strong sense of purpose, such as a lower risk of death and an overall sense of happiness, its benefits are caused by a sense of the opposite of personal gain, but a connection to something bigger.  I remember well when John had a health emergency several years back.  While being wheeled into the room for a significant procedure, his request to my mother-in-law if something were to happen to him, was to please publish his work.  Now at the age of 80, he maintains his vitality by sharing his work for further exploration and the excitement in having made a contribution to the field he loves.

Besides a fulfilling sense of connection on a grand scale, having a sense of purpose reduces daily stress.  Those with purpose wake up with a plan of what to do each day, reducing boredom, isolation, and time spent dwelling on other matters compared to people who report a low sense of purpose.  A strong sense of purpose also makes people less vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.  And a sense of purpose can come from many different sources besides theoretical physics.  You can get it from volunteering, painting, gardening, or caregiving.  What seems to be the necessary ingredient is a pull to thinking outside of yourself and getting lost in a process that feels good just in the doing of it.  Related to this, purpose is closely linked to “flow,” the state of intense absorption in which we forget about our surroundings and ourselves.  People with a sense of purpose experience flow more frequently, and as Mihaley Czikszentmihalyi’s research shows, flow is a powerful source of well being.

Finding purpose, many psychologists believe (including me), is such a cornerstone to mental health and yet it can be elusive.  We have all heard stories about the great athletes who stop playing the game and become depressed and alcoholic.  Or the people who retire after a long and successful career, only to feel a sense of emptiness and isolation.  Experts in the area of well being encourage us that often your sense of purpose can be found in the world right around you when you begin to look for what matters to you.  They suggest reading books and articles that interest you, looking for organizations that have meaning for you, and putting the time into focusing on the things you are already doing that you wish you could do more of or that bring you awe or gratitude. 

And don’t be afraid of the pain!  Often purpose can come from making meaning out of painful events in our lives or requires taking risks in offering ourselves and our creations to others.  Rejection will happen along the way.  Even John, who was at times dismissed or discouraged because of his lack of accepted credentials by those in the field’s inner circle, has had to stay persistent and determined, often needing to reject his rejectors.  But quite frequently the fresh ideas comes from an outsider’s perspective.  And while, Lord knows, I will never have the capacity to know how to evaluate John’s theories for their scientific accuracy, I am certain the process of his creativity has produced something we all must take notice of!

For those brave enough, here are the article and video links:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353049276_A_quantum_vacuum_model_unites_an_electron’s_gravitational_and_electromagnetic_forces

https://www.quantizedwave.com/