Stop Thinking and Enjoy a Moment

If you suffer from racing thoughts, thoughts of past mistakes or bad experiences, or worries about the future, and especially if you get stuck on those thoughts and can’t break away from them, then mindfulness is something you want to learn.

Out-of-control thinking can keep you from sleeping and can make you anxious. It can cause you to avoid being alone or avoid having quiet times. It can lead you to be dependent on always needing someone to be with you or lead to your attachment to having a TV on all of the time. The out-of-control thinking controls you and keeps you from being able to relax.

Mindfulness is directing your focus to the experience of the present moment without judgment. It can be a meditation, or it can be a way to fully enjoy a moment, or it can be a way to manage thoughts and emotions. It is a way to experience reality just as it is without influence from past experience or worries about the future.

Mindfulness is a skill.

It takes ongoing practice or consistently increasing exercise like working out to build muscle. To make effective use of mindfulness, you have to train your brain. This is what is taking place in the Karate Kid movie scene of “wax on, wax off” or the time in Star Wars when Luke is in the swamp training with Yoda. It takes time and practice to develop automatic focus and concentration.

The basic way to do mindfulness is to observe with your five senses the things around you as well as your feelings and physical sensations. As you observe these things, you do so without judgment. This means you don’t think about if you are doing it right. You do not criticize what you are doing. You do not think about if you like or don’t like something or if it is good or bad. 

During mindfulness, you leave opinions out. You only observe what you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you touch, and what you taste - the five senses. This is not easy to do because our brains are constantly categorizing which is a type of judgment. So, you cannot be mindful all of the time because a functioning brain needs to make judgments. You practice mindfulness for a minute or two and try to build up to longer amounts of time so that you can be mindful when you choose.

Use mindfulness to cope or to improve experiences.

You can choose to use the skill of mindfulness at important times, like when you want to sleep, or you want to calm your mind from distressing thoughts. You can choose to fully experience an enjoyable moment which helps you enjoy living. And let me emphasize again that you have to practice regularly for it to work when you want it to!

Let's talk about using mindfulness for sleep as an example. What needs to take place is the body relaxing and the thinking brain to slow down and let thoughts go. The practice of deep, slow breathing is usually combined with mindfulness. With practice, this form of breathing signals the brain to shift into relaxation.

A typical mindfulness practice session starts with a few slow, deep breaths and then continuing the breathing and focusing attention on the breath coming in through the nose and out through the mouth. The senses notice the coolness of the breath coming in and the warmth of the breath being exhaled. It is possible to feel the breath in the back of the nose and on the top of the tongue, for example. And there is the sound of breathing. There might be a scent picked up. Usually, people close their eyes to reduce incoming stimulation.

To counter a stream of thinking, you can give the brain enough to do to keep it busy but not enough to prevent mindfulness. This can be done by counting each breath, or counting the seconds of inhaling and exhaling, and a simple word can be added to the exhale, such as thinking “relax.” 

Mindfulness helps to fully experience an enjoyable moment.

The combination of practicing gratitude and fully enjoying pleasurable moments is what leads to enjoying life. 

I am on my computer a lot, as most people are for work or scanning social media or watching videos, and so forth. How much does this keep me from enjoying my life? I tend to eat lunch or dinner while looking at my computer screen. Lately, I have been consciously choosing to turn away from the computer and be mindful when I take a bite of food. I am always eating something I like; why not give it my full attention?

Another thing I have been attending to is my time with my pet. I have a cat because I like petting the soft fur and hearing the appreciative purring that cats produce. In the morning as I am waking up, my cat generally hops up on my bed and lies near me purring his deep, rumbling purr. How often do I go down the road of streaming thoughts without noticing my cat? I have been consciously choosing to be mindful in these moments. I focus on the feel of his fur, the sound of the purring, the warmth of his body, the small vibrations his purring creates. This is a simple moment of joy. Why would I deprive myself from experiencing this moment?

Summary

Mindfulness is a skill which you must practice regularly to train your brain to focus when you want it to. You can use it for important moments to fully experience something good or to put a stop to endless thinking or to break free from worries or guilt by focusing on the now without judgment. Use mindfulness to increase your joy in living. Try to be mindful for short moments of time on a regular basis and build up to more.

Take a moment to check out my website at www.ldonreed.com 

Develop Hope and Desire

 

I often see people who have given up. They do not see a better future and they do not have the desire or the will to do the work to improve things. Those, of course, are some of the main symptoms in depression: hopelessness and lack of motivation.

Let's consider hope and desire. What do those words mean?

Hope is an expectation or even a dream that something good could happen.

Desire is a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.

Hope and desire together are fuel for motivation. You take action in the belief that it could lead to something desirable.

Positive people have hope.

I never thought of myself as a positive person. I thought of myself as being realistic and practical. But one day, I realized that I went through college and grad school because of my hope that it would lead to a career that I would like and that could support me. There were no guarantees, and I invested a lot of hard work, stress, and money! I worked hard and stuck with it. I would not have done all of that without hope and desire and a belief that it could be. 

The way to develop hope and desire is to allow yourself to dream.

While I was growing up, my family didn’t have much money. Money was tight enough that I learned to not want anything because I couldn’t have it anyway. Well, not wanting means you are not dreaming. If you are not dreaming, what reason would you have to try? 

You need to dream to develop a vision and then work toward making it happen. 

As an exercise in developing hope and desire:

1. Practice daydreaming as if there were no limits, then 
2. Go beyond and dream up the ideal. From there, 
3. Identify your actual wants. 
4. Use the wants to decide on a goal. Then, 
5. Start taking steps to learn and do what it takes to reach the goal.

There is a saying:

A dream written down becomes a goal.

A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan.

And a plan backed by action becomes reality.

Hope and desire are about wanting and expecting something good. If you are lacking hope and desire, you can develop and nurture those traits. 

Allow yourself to daydream without restrictions. Let the ideas flow. Give yourself permission. 

Once you can envision it, you can go after it!

How People Struggling with Emotional Dysregulation Can Regain Control

This article is about overwhelming emotion or, more professionally called, emotional dysregulation. A lot of people have overwhelming emotion. It takes over, they feel like they can't stop it, and it terrorizes them. It makes life very difficult. People describe it as: I'm losing it. I'm freaking out. I'm having one of my episodes. I'm having a panic attack. I can't stop crying. I can't breathe. It may be described as: I have no motivation. I'm overwhelmed. I don't care about anything. I just want to sleep. I can't get out of bed. I haven't showered for a few days. There are many more; you can probably think of some for yourself. 

Emotional dysregulation is emotion, which is experienced as more intense, more frequent, and it lasts longer than average emotions. It really stands out as something significant, maybe even extreme.

The scary thing is that it can come on without warning or apparent reason. This is because our brains build associations which happens on an unconscious level. Something like a scent or a sound or a particular gesture or an environment that is similar to something that has happened before during a moment in time where the person was really, really upset or had a strong emotional reaction becomes associated. And then in the future, when these similar experiences come along, it brings on that same intense emotion and the person has no idea why it's happening. 

One of the frightening things about it is it just comes on and the person feels out of control because they don't know when it's going to happen next. The person feels very much not in control. Many people describe it as being ruled by their own emotions. 

Types: There are several kinds of categories or diagnoses that various types of emotional dysregulation can fall within. Many people are familiar with major depression, anxiety, which can include panic attacks, rages of anger, PTSD, which stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. It results from an extremely frightening situation that made the person feel like their life was at risk. In any case, it leaves them with a combination of symptoms which include strong emotions that come on and they don't know what they're reacting to. 

Identify: Okay. What do you do with this? Looking for, recognizing, and identifying triggers that bring on the emotion is a place to start. Triggers are those subtle things that bring on the emotion unexpectedly. The key to working on it is to keep track of what was happening right before the strong emotion started. That starts to give you a clue to what the trigger might be. 

Learn skills to cope: Now, what do you do with this? It does not mean that you avoid the trigger. And it certainly doesn't mean that other people have to be careful not to trigger you. They might not even know what your trigger is. What needs to happen is to identify the trigger, develop very good skills at coping, both with the mental and emotional response, as well as the physical response to the trigger. This involves gaining skills and practicing them until it is second nature.

You want to get really, really good at it. And it's those things that are going to help you feel more in control and like the emotion doesn't rule you. It takes time. It takes practice. There can be a lot of different triggers, so it can be frustrating, and it can feel like it's impossible. But it really is not impossible. It just takes a lot of practice and awareness. If the triggers remain, many areas of life can be affected. Obviously, relationships with family and friends can be chaotic. It can be difficult. They don't know what is going on with you. You might look crazy to them. You certainly might look out of control. And they don't know what to do about it, especially if you don't know what to do about it.

Of course, strong emotional reactions can affect performance at work or at school. At the very least, it can be distracting. It can keep you from getting work done. It can cause you to miss work. It can cause you to have to run off somewhere and hide while you have the emotional reaction and you wait for it to subside. Socially, it might be difficult to make plans especially to go out in public and around people because you don't know when an emotional episode might come on. That could be embarrassing as well as frightening. Now, internally, this can affect a person's self-esteem and their confidence levels.

It also adds to stress and can affect a person's physical health. It can affect sleep. It can affect the heart, heart rate, blood pressure, immunity. People become more susceptible to colds and become fatigued. 

Ways to manage:

So again, what do you do about it? There are skills and knowledge that can put a person in better control of emotions. These include skills for managing the physical and emotional response and being able to calm oneself. There is a form of meditation in which you stay in the here and the now, instead of everything coming in upon you. 

There's a great deal of thinking that contributes to strong emotions. Many people suffer from extreme worry about what might happen in the future and this contributes to anxiety. A lot of people suffer from unhappy memories of the past, maybe regrets, maybe guilt. Bad memories come into the present and create strong emotions that really don't fit the current moment. Learning how to take a look at your own thinking and alter it so that it doesn't bring on the strong emotion is definitely within a person's control. 

How do you learn about these things? Well, you can Google it. You can find books and other reading material that explains it to you and gives you techniques that you can learn and practice. A lot of people find it very helpful to go to counseling where not only do you learn skills, but you also talk to someone and process the emotions. When you can understand the emotions, they have less control over you. For some people, it can be helpful to take a prescribed medication especially for anxiety or for major depression. Sometimes that is needed while the person goes to counseling so that they can have the energy and the mental space to actually the work that needs to be done.

Another option is my signature program, the Get on Top of Your Emotions System. People can work through the 12-week course, learn all the skills that are needed, interact with and have support from me as well as others going through the program. Having a roadmap that covers all of the components along with support and accountability in an online format can be the key to success in gaining confidence in managing emotion.

I would encourage you to not feel like you're stuck and nothing can be done. It doesn't have to be that way. There are options and choices for managing dysregulated emotion.

If you would like more information about my services, see my website here.

Support my blog, podcast, and other endeavors: 

© 2022 Lucretia Donahue-Reed M.S. 

 

 

Don't Wait Until You Feel Like It

“I don’t feel like doing that right now.” Not feeling like it could mean physically or emotionally. Physically, we could feel tired or sluggish. A poor night of sleep could leave us struggling to stay awake. We could have aches and pains. Maybe a headache or eye strain interferes. Emotionally, we could be stressed from the day. We could be sad or down. We could feel irritated. Maybe we feel “blah.” But not feeling like it could be a mental trick which is a component of procrastination. We imagine something to be harder than it is or expect it to take longer than it does. Our negative expectations lead us to not feel like doing it. Waiting until you “feel like it” can work against your progress toward goals or freeing up time for pleasure and it can leave you with that nagging feeling hanging over you.

It takes too long.

There are times when resting or taking a break is the right thing to do. But we can thoughtlessly get in the habit of delaying things by expecting to feel like doing something. This is a problem when it keeps you from reaching your goals or doing activities you like doing. I once had an art professor tell our class that art is not all about feeling pleasure and creativity. Completing a piece of art involves focus and persistence over time. Those are not common qualities people think of when they think of the “artsy” type of person. Hobbies can be easily neglected. It can help to schedule hobby time. Feeling like doing an activity can be related to your belief that you will have the quality time to spend on it.

I have had many a home decorating idea or a vacation idea go unfulfilled for years because I didn’t prioritize the planning of it. Without planning and taking action on the tasks to make the vision come to be, it remains just a daydream. But planning action steps doesn’t seem fun. Those wonderful ideas are projects that need to be planned and implemented just like ‘project management’ in business.

Doing it could lead to feeling better.

In the area of exercise, there are a number of sayings that reflect the idea that you could feel more like doing something if you just get started. “Just put on your shoes.” “Just get out the door.” “Just go to the end of the driveway.” I have altered these to fit my circumstances. “I will put on my shoes and walk to the mailbox.” “I will go to the gym and just do 10 minutes.” Usually, once I have done either of those, I find I feel better and want to continue the activity. I want to continue on to walk around the nearby park. I want to do another 5 minutes and then another 5 minutes on the elliptical.

I have found this concept works in other areas. For example, I often have headaches. Much of the time, if I have a headache at work but get involved in something that distracts me, such as running a group, my headache subsides. I could be feeling grumpy but a co-worker says something funny and lifts my mood. I could dread a busy day, but the busy-ness turns out to bring up my energy, though I don’t like to admit it!

This morning, I made my coffee and paid bills. I had procrastinated this chore, but completing it pleases me and I feel more organized.

So, when you don’t feel like doing something but you know it would be a good thing to do, just put on your shoes and get started. You will feel better.

Don’t leave it to chance. Plan activity for levels of energy.

Most people have a pattern of energy levels over the course of a day. You can match the activity you do to the type of energy available. For example, I find I am more mentally creative in the morning so that is when I will write posts and make graphics. As I wind down from that hour or two of creativity and I lose my mental edge, it is time to go for a walk or spend time at the gym. Sometimes, early in the morning while others are asleep is when I like to sweep the kitchen or fold some laundry. I find I enjoy my individual counseling sessions with my adult clients in the early evening. After 8:00 pm, though, I am on the couch and that is the time to respond to a few people on social media.

My energy levels are affected by the surrounding circumstances. For example, the time of year and the amount of daylight available is an influence as I seem to get tired earlier when it gets dark earlier. The number of people around me makes a difference. I am most creative when I am alone. And, of course, we have schedules imposed on us through work or having to accommodate others’ schedules.

Pay attention to your natural levels of energy especially on your days off from work or other imposed schedules. When you feel good, you likely will do things you enjoy. You can plan to do chores when you know your brain is less alert. You can make effective and productive use of your time and energy with a little awareness and planning.

So, don’t expect to wait until you feel like doing an activity. Plan the action steps, get started, and schedule tasks according to energy levels. Enjoy!

Your Diet and Your Mood: Vitamin D and Omega-3s

Diet is important to health and, of course, to mood management. Making wise changes to your diet is something you can easily implement. Following is a collection of some of the more verified nutrition elements which are related to improvements in mood.

Low vitamin D levels are associated with greater risk for depression. Though vitamin D is not a stand-alone treatment for depression, it is good to make sure you are getting enough. The main source is from exposure to sunlight, but this has its own risks. Taking a supplement of 1,000 -2,000 IUs is an option.

Vitamin D and Depression article

Our brain and nervous system need fats. Nerves are sheathed in nodules of fat and nerve signals move quickly by jumping along the fatty covering. A particular kind of fats found in fish, Omega-3s, have been found to ward off depression and even improve it. You can get Omega-3s by eating fish several times per week. Or you can take a supplement which contains the EPA and DHA variants. Supplements come as fish oil but also can be krill oil. (This might make a difference in taste.)

Harvard Article on Omega-3 and Depression

It is always better if you can get your nutrients from the foods you eat. Anti-oxidants are in fruits, Omega-3s are in fish, protein is in meat and nuts and beans, healthy carbohydrates are in whole grains.

WebMD Diet and Depression article

You may have heard that chocolate helps mood. So if you are a chocolate fan, this is good news! Dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate for this purpose. And limit it to only 1 oz. per day.

Chocolate and Mood

These are some of the main diet approaches to mood management which are encouraged by the medical field. There are many healthy options including drinking enough water. Be sure to research anything that interests you. And with supplements, keep in mind that there isn't oversight by the FDA, so what you are getting in the caplet isn't verified.

Three Ways to Improve Falling and Staying Asleep

Sleep is one of the most important components of being healthy. It is during sleep that we rest and rejuvenate. During sleep, our mind sorts and categorizes the day’s experiences and solidifies memories. Our muscles and tissues heal. Lack of sleep has been shown to contribute to hallucinations and mood disturbance. So poor sleep can mess up your mood, but a mood disorder can mess up your sleep. At least poor sleep accompanies most mood disorders. Getting sleep under control can be a significant aspect of getting mood under control.


Make a habit: Our brains are creatures of habit and association. You want to create habits which indicate to the brain that it is time for sleep. First, have a schedule of going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. This means weekends, too, if you have sleep difficulties. Have a wind-down routine to get ready for bed: change into sleep wear, brush your teeth, read or do something relaxing, do a sleep meditation. Some activities are best done earlier in the day. Exercise helps one to get a better night’s sleep if done earlier in the day, but can make sleeping difficult if done too close to bedtime. Also, use of electronics and viewing screens should be stopped about an hour before bed. They have been found to inhibit the production of melatonin by the brain.


Break an association: When you go to bed, if you find yourself lying there thinking and not able to fall asleep longer than half an hour, get up out of bed. As I said, our brains make associations. If every night you lie in bed thinking, your brain decides the bed is your thinking place! So, get up and move to another part of the room. Go into another room if you can. Do not turn on the TV or get onto your computer! If you are doing those things in the middle of the night, again, your brain thinks that is the time to do those things instead of sleep. Keep lights dim and do something quiet or relaxing even boring until you get drowsy, then go back to bed and try to sleep again.


Fix the environment: The sleep environment is important. The room should be dark and a little cooler than during the day. It should be quiet. If there is someone in your vicinity who snores and you have poor sleep along with a mood disorder, it is a matter of health to get away from the snoring party. Some people like “white noise” or some background noise like a fan. But again, because of association, you could find that you cannot fall asleep without the background noise, and when traveling, have to take your noise source with you. Others might not be able to sleep around you! It is best to not have any electronics emitting light in the room, especially blue light which research has shown disrupts sleep. Get the devices out of the room or cover them or put them away where the light cannot be seen. Also, turn off electronics or put them away somewhere so that you are not receiving texts or alerts during the night.


A lot of people do not like to make the changes needed for better sleep, especially stopping the use of electronics. If you are diagnosed with and seeking treatment for a significant sleep or mood disorder, however, it is important that you do everything you can to help improve your sleep.

A Blank Mind

This is a time with our economy shut down when people are feeling a lot of uncertainty and fear. In thinking about how to cope in this situation, I thought about years ago when I agreed to do a first jump with a parachute out of an airplane. Just the fact that I agreed to that means the average person doesn’t think like me! But if you can, my thought process which allowed me to do the jump could be helpful during times of uncertainty.


I had three days of in-class instruction and then the day came. Before even going up in the plane, my mind basically went blank. I talked with people and did things I needed to do, but I wasn’t thinking much. I remember someone walked by while I ate a sandwich and wondered how I could eat before a first jump. I just wasn’t thinking much, was kind of numb, and so I still had an appetite! Once in the airplane and flying, I waited as a couple of other people went before me. I think it was all so out of my experience that I was in a kind of shock or amazement. I did the jump and that is quite a fun story! 

But coping with uncertainty and fear is what this is about. Over the years, I had a few people show interest in doing a jump if I would go with them. I turned them down. During this time, I worked as a therapist with clients experiencing severe chronic pain. They were not living the life they wanted. In the group of people that I jumped with, someone broke their tailbone, someone broke several bones in his foot, and someone got whiplash. I did, too, and I still have residual issues in my neck. When people wanted me to go again, my thinking had changed. I now knew too much about the sequence of experiences involved in the jump process. I now thought about how my life could be damaged if I had a back injury, for instance. If I went again, I would be more afraid because it was no longer an ‘out-of-this world’ experience. I wouldn’t be in shocked amazement; I would think enough to be scared!

I always remember that now in times of high stress when I don’t know how things will turn out. I try not to think about it! 

I still do things to stay on track and set myself up well, but I also do a lot of distraction to get through. I stay busy, but I also go into that blank-mind mode if I can. Thinking about how badly it could go wrong is not helpful. There are times when a person just needs to keep moving forward. So as Scarlet O’Hara said in Gone with the Wind, “I can’t think about that today. I’ll just go crazy if I do! I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

Thinking Matters

Did you know that your thoughts lead to your emotional reaction which then leads to how you act?


Here is an example that I like to give:


If we were sitting in a group of people, and a rabbit was released into the middle of the group:


One person might think, “Oh, what a cute little bunny! Rabbits are so soft and sweet. I love rabbits! I want to pick it up!” As a result, that person could feel happy, warm, loving and might move to go pet the rabbit or to pick it up.


Another person might think, “I hate rabbits! They scratch and bite. Rabbits are just awful rodents. Get it away from me! Get it out of here!” As a result, this person could feel fear, anxiety, anger, disgust and might move to chase the rabbit out of the room or the person might leave the room.


These different reactions come from the way the person thinks (and past experience which shapes thinking.)

This is why, if you struggle with emotions which overwhelm you or moods which hinder you, it helps to look at your thinking. Changing your thinking can help you manage your emotional reactions.


About now in my explanation is when people jump to the injunction to “think positive!”

Now, thinking positively does have its usefulness, but it has been used so often and it just doesn’t always fit some situations. Many people feel annoyed when they hear “Think positive!” posed as a solution.


The reality is that much of our thinking which leads to unpleasant emotions is extreme. It jumps to the worst outcome. It eliminates a variety of possibilities.


Managing your emotions can be helped by changing your thinking to be more moderate and reasonable. Instead of jumping to the worst conclusion, look at the situation as it is and think of how to handle it at that time.


The next time you are in the middle of a strong emotion or are distressed in some way, slow down and ask yourself, “Am I making this worse by how I am thinking? How can I handle what is happening right now?” 

Then you can choose an action to take such as doing something distracting or getting some exercise. You can look at what is in your control and make decisions about that. 


Change your thinking to manage your emotions.

Five Steps to Find Your Motivation

I frequently hear from my clients that they are not motivated. They don’t feel like doing anything. Yet many do not like any amount of downtime. I think in some way they are not in touch with themselves or they do not like their own company. (Some have trauma and are avoiding painful, intrusive thoughts. That is another more complicated issue.) Some people stay busy with activities, often driven by shoulds and have-tos, trying to please others. Some people want to have another person interacting with them. Some people need a constant distraction such as TV, You Tube, games or social media. Society also imposes expectations that, over time, can put a person on auto-pilot meeting responsibilities, but not engaging in fulfilling activities. It is this sense of fulfillment, inherent interest or curiosity, or simply enjoying the experience that would naturally lead to a feeling of motivation.


During this time when the whole country is being encouraged to stay home, this could bring uncomfortable feelings to the forefront for many. Staying home could be a miserable experience. I think this would be a good time for people to get more in touch with themselves and more comfortable with their own company. In order to feel motivated, a person needs to look forward to something. (People can also be motivated by fear or by a threat, but this is not the kind of motivation people are seeking.) In order to look forward to something, it helps to know what you like, what you enjoy. Some people have become so out of touch that they don’t know what they like. They don’t have an opinion anymore. They don’t care. 


In order to feel more, to have a care, to want to do something, a person needs to get in touch with his/her own experience of likes and dislikes. The person needs to know his/her own opinion.


I recommend five steps to reconnect and find motivation. 

First, believe that you have the right to have an opinion. It is not selfish or bad. 

Next, stop to notice your own reactions. Start with small things such as what color do you prefer; do you actually like the food you are eating; do you feel physically comfortable; what temperature do you like the room to be? Instead of thoughtlessly going along with what others want, ask yourself if it is what you want. 

Third, voice your opinion. You don’t have to do this in a demanding or rude manner. You do not have to press for others to change in any way. Just speak up for yourself. Much of the time, one’s preferences do not even affect others. 

Fourth, take action. Purposely with intention, do things you like. Set aside time for enjoyment. 

Finally, learn to advocate for yourself in an assertive manner. Make a conscious decision about either going along with others’ desires or advocating for what you want. Assess the pros and cons.


Identify your authentic likes and dislikes and you might find your motivation.

Take Back Some Control While At Home

Exactly two weeks after my blog post saying I would be making the most of spring and summer, my state is under stay-at-home orders to control the spread of the COVID19 virus. Due to my compromised immune system, I was sent home from work even though the acute psychiatric unit is open as an essential service. Now, the weather has turned cooler than average and it is raining for several days in a row. My job still exists, so I am not in the dire straits as are many others.


These conditions - staying home, being more isolated, not productively working, uncertainty about the future – can take a toll on people’s mental and emotional wellbeing. Anxiety and depression increase. There are truly significant stressors and we do not want to deny that. However, we can do certain things to help us tolerate the situation and persevere. 


Of course, I always talk about managing one’s thoughts. I am a cognitive-behavioral therapist after all. Try not be judgmental of yourself. I am talking about the thoughts that you are worthless and lazy if you are not working and you are a failure if you can’t support yourself or your family. The appearance of the corona virus was completely out of our control. Government is closing down the places of employment. And I know it is easier said than done, but try not to think too much about the future. At least, don’t let your mind go to the extreme catastrophe. Consciously each day take some time to just be. Accept the current moment and do with it what you can. Take care of your home. Spend some time on the hobby you never have time for. Listen when/if someone wants to talk with you.


Give yourself a semblance of a schedule. At first, lounging on the couch binge watching a favorite series on Netflix and taking naps, seems wonderful. It doesn’t take long, though, until you start feeling sluggish and bored. Decide on one or two things you want to attend to that day. Block out some stretches of time to dedicate to those activities. They could be practical things that you have neglected or more self-fulfilling things. But decide how you will spend your time. You don’t have to schedule every hour, just give yourself a time period such as in the morning and in the afternoon. Identify a start time. And do take a shower somewhere in there. It will help you feel better.


Take care of yourself. You know all of the healthy advice. In particular, do try to go outside to breathe fresh air and hopefully get some sunlight shining on you even if you have to stay on your porch. At least it is spring and better weather is coming. My point is, be aware that certain conditions exist which tend to encourage depression and anxiety in particular. With that awareness, make choices to counter those effects.

A Therapist Facing Challenges Which Test Emotional Endurance

I have joined the clan of chronic illness. Don’t worry. I am not going to go on complaining about my miserable symptoms. Instead, I think it is very interesting how a therapist who has taught about cognitive distortions for over 20 years responded to some significant medical occurrences.


First, six years ago, I suddenly had a foot fracture. I had run a 10k two months before! As I was winding down from that, I took up Pilates. One day, I got into a plank position which caused pain in my toes. Then my foot swelled and it hurt to walk. It didn’t go away. The doctor said it was just the final straw on an overstressed fragile bone. The flawed structure of my foot shifted the pressure to a smaller bone when my foot landed during running. Well, that meant I really shouldn’t keep running. I was unhappy. Becoming a runner in my 40s had improved my self-image. Now, this just placed me back into the physically weak, uncoordinated, rejected role I had lived most of my life.

I healed from the foot fracture and stayed active with walking, hiking, swimming, and paddle boarding. While growing up, I was not athletic nor was I comfortable in or around water. These activities I took up independently out of my own interest and curiosity. This again contributed to improving my self-image. 

Then, I developed a chronic cough. I had learned to wait things out and they usually went away. Plus, whenever I was out on the water, I could exert myself and not start coughing. Seemed like asthma to me. But the cough got worse, louder and more forceful. I was certain I was scaring everyone around me. Over more than a year passed as my doctor tried to eliminate possible causes. Then a CT scan of my lungs produced a very alarming picture. I was rushed in to see a lung specialist the next day. Soon I met with a lung surgeon and I was admitted to the hospital for a surgical lung biopsy. 


The two nights in the hospital following the surgery were quite painful. This is where my own thinking became interesting. The pain was severe. I thought, “I can’t stand this! I can’t go all night hurting like this!” But it got worse. The pain medication caused me to vomit. “Do I take it for the pain? What if it makes me sick again? But this pain is too much!” I was hurting and could not get comfortable. The night was very long. I had the sense of despair. But I caught my own thinking and reminded myself that I was the one who taught others that your way of thinking can make the experience of pain worse. Time to take the medicine I handed out to others. I told myself I wasn’t going to die from the pain. It wouldn’t be forever. Others got through this sort of thing. I can handle it. Luckily, the pain was less the second night.


I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and began treatment. I was positive and had faith in the recommended treatment. The process to get cleared up and into remission took almost a year. But I was triumphant! I engaged in healthy activity and decided I would walk a 5k at the end of May. But as I increased my distance and pace, my foot began hurting down the side. I backed off a little and hoped the pain would go away. One day, I went for a little trail hike and knew I had to keep to a flat path and take it slow and careful. I knew this wasn’t good.

I ended up in a walking boot again with a stress fracture in a different spot. I was so upset that simply walking would cause a fracture! I was upset that I wasn’t capable of doing a 3.1-mile fun walk. This was going to be my marker of recovery from my lung issue. Nope.

I was still in the boot when it was time for a camping trip I had planned. I went camping and made the best of it. In years past, I wouldn’t have gone. Still, I was highly frustrated at my bad luck. I wasn’t experiencing the full joy of camping. Plus, a bone scan showed that I had osteoporosis years before I should. After about a decade of running which I was sure was building my bones up and protecting me, it turned out the treatment for my lung disorder may have contributed to bone weakening and loss! How could this be after all of my hard work and persistence? Why me?! I felt very discouraged and vulnerable. Then my cough returned! A CT scan again produced an awful picture. I went back on medication. Now I was knowingly taking something that harms bones in order to save my lungs. I felt trapped.


I am currently tapering down off of that. My foot has healed. Spring is around the corner. Shall I try it again? How much walking can I do? At what pace? Should I try to increase? What about hiking? Is it safe for me to go on mild natural trails? What if I mis-step? I am at risk for a hip fracture not just a foot fracture. But it seems I have some natural optimism (or the ability to distance myself from reality). I have plans to be active and to get as much enjoyment out of spring and summer as I can. My kayak and my paddle board are waiting!

Only Two Years Since I Last Wrote

It has been 2 years since I last wrote. Wow! What have I been doing? I have been starting a small outpatient counseling practice in the after hours of my job at the hospital youth acute unit. In addition, I have been developing a craft business in which I sell handmade jewelry and handmade boxes with wood-burned designs on the lids. I have also taken a trip to Jacksonville, FL and very recently to Las Vegas, NV. Last March, I had a surgical lung biopsy and was diagnosed with an immune system disorder which I now have under control. Over the summer, I made it out onto the lake with my standup paddleboard and once in the fall with my kayak. Mid-summer, there was a sudden change at my place of employment which threw myself and my co-therapist into having larger caseloads than we typically could manage. This situation continues at this time.

After all of that, I think I am ready to start writing again. Stay tuned. I am becoming more active on my Facebook business page: www.facebook.com/ldonreed and will be improving my web page: www.ldonreed.com. The physical location of my outpatient practice will be moving soon. Updated information to come.

This was just 10 days after my surgery. Kinda dumb of me. I was hurting on the drive home.

                                                                         Women's Wellness Fair

I Need a Therapist, But Who?

How do you find and choose a therapist? You do not have to go to any random person that somehow is assigned to you. You have the right to seek out a therapist that interacts well with you and has an approach which fits your needs.

Trusty referral sources who can give you a good lead include:
your general practice physician who may suggest that therapy could be beneficial to you, or
friends or family who may have worked with a therapist they liked and recommend that person to you.

You might also see advertising, blogs, social media, or web sites of a therapist which give you an opportunity to learn about the person.

If you have not been referred to someone in particular, a good place to start is with your insurance company. 

1.  Make sure you have a mental health counseling benefit and find out how much insurance will cover and what your co-pay will be. This might be most easily done by calling the customer service number on the insurance card. 

2.  Look through the counselors that are contracted to be in network with your insurance. You should be able to use the insurance web site’s search feature for a professional. Or, if you are on the phone with customer service, they might run the search and e-mail it to you. 

3.  Look at the convenience of each counselor’s business location to your home and work routes. This may seem superficial, but people are more likely to continue with counseling on a regular basis when payment is assisted by insurance and it is easy and convenient to get to the counselor in your busy life.

Choose a few therapists to call. By the way, the terms therapist and counselor are interchangeable, meaning the same thing, usually a licensed professional with a masters level degree. Other designations you will find include psychologist with a PhD or psychiatrist which is a medical doctor in psychology who specializes in prescribing medication.

Think of your search for the right therapist as an interview process. Essentially, therapy should be a team effort with you and the therapist working together. You want to find a therapist whose experience, approach, and presentation fit with you. 

There are many types of therapy methods. An effective type is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) which focuses on the present issues and helps you improve by addressing thinking patterns and practicing actions to change habits. This therapy and a more recently developed version, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), are proven treatments for many issues.

Other therapies may include art or music therapy, experiential or Gestalt therapy, trauma focused therapy, systems approach, interpersonal or therapies which access the unconscious. It is important that the type of therapy is an approach which appeals to you. Also, actually enjoying talking with the therapist is immensely helpful.

Call each of the therapists you have selected and ask a few questions such as if they work with issues like you are experiencing and what type of treatment approach they use. You might be speaking first to a receptionist. See if you can speak either by phone or in person with the therapist to see if this is someone with whom you want to work. Some will be willing to have a brief conversation free of charge to establish if you want to enter into therapy with each other.

Here are some questions you could ask:

What license do you hold with this state and what is your education? How long have you been practicing?

I have these difficult issues occurring in my life and I have these symptoms. Do you work with clients with issues like mine? What types of clients do you work with: children, adults, families, couples? What type of therapy do you use and is it helpful for my issues?

How soon could you get me in for an intake session? Do you have availability for a weekly session, more or less frequent?

What insurance do you take? Are you contracted with my insurance company? Do you bill the insurance? Do you ask that the co-pay be paid by me at each session, or do you bill me for my co-pay after insurance has paid? (If you don’t have insurance which covers that therapist, ask if they have a sliding scale fee and how fees are determined.) Are you willing to establish a payment plan?

After speaking to a few therapists and asking the above questions, determine the one with whom you would like to officially begin therapy. Call back and schedule an intake appointment. This will include a diagnostic interview. The first session is longer than the subsequent regular sessions.

Therapists will typically discuss such topics as confidentiality, nature of the therapeutic relationship, treatment goals, and how you may take a break from or end treatment.

Find a therapist that you will experience as supportive and trustworthy. They should be able to give you honest feedback, recommend skills for you to learn and practice, challenge your thinking, and guide you in growth towards your goals.

Breakdown of Reason

I have been becoming more and more distressed by positions presented in the news, on talk shows, supported by various public figures, and rights groups. I, of course, have my own opinions and would like others to agree with me. But what is truly bothering me is the profound lack of discourse based on careful gathering of information and examining the pros and cons of different courses of action. 

I see people everywhere taking up positions, often based on feelings and basic schema, and then shouting others down and rejecting those with different views while labeling them. From my education over the years, I have been encouraged to think to solve problems. I have learned effective and ineffective approaches to thinking. There is the scientific method, there are the rules of logic, and there is the gathering of supported facts, and the use and misuse of statistics. 

Speaking of statistics, everyone needs to know that correlation does not prove causation. The finding or observation that two things tend to appear together does not prove that one causes the other. There could be another factor exhibiting its influence on the first two. Often, we are not aware of or have trouble identifying the true influence. In addition, my education on the mind and human nature makes me well aware of the mistakes in thinking and the misperceptions on which we all develop our belief systems.

Though I am confident in my intellect, I am also humble enough to know that I don’t have all of the information. That is why we form research groups, create special committees on specific topics, and employ fact checkers. But even at that, we must take caution that the individuals or groups presenting their findings could be influenced by their own biases, their desire for a certain outcome.

I and other citizens of the enlightened civilization are becoming more and more disenchanted by the systems we believed in to perform the gathering of information and the developing of reasoned approaches. The American government, we were all taught, has a system of checks and balances which is very effective. The free press, unencumbered and protected by law, is there to expose the lies and ensure that the citizens have accurate information on which to form their own opinions. The citizens expect to have the right to true and accurate information, to not be kept in the dark, ignorant and subservient to those in power. The systems are not working correctly and the general public seems to be losing touch with the value of being educated and informed, of doing the hard work of thinking.

As I observe the breakdown of reason in our government, our press, and our citizens, I feel a sense of danger. I fear that others do not see it. Or those who are aware do not know what to do about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87AEeLpodnE

Are You A Happiness Hater?

Being happy seems to be an obvious shared goal for most people. People with ongoing unhappiness or distress often enter treatment with the assumed goal of feeling better, of becoming happier. But an actual fear of happiness may undermine progress. Research is finding that people have beliefs which lead to anxiety when they try to be happy. For example, some people have a sense that enjoyment leads to an inevitable fall when something happens to disrupt it. They perceive the pain of that fall to be worse when they have allowed themselves higher levels of enjoyment. Others feel uneasy with times of pleasure because there is only value in productivity, having fun is wasting time; relaxing is being lazy. They may fear negative consequences if they take time away. In fact, though evidence shows that people who take breaks, attend to only one task at a time, or who take vacation time have higher levels of productivity, society in general and many employers do not recognize this. Instead, they disapprove of and have negative perceptions of the person who takes time to rejuvenate. Some people, especially depressed people, have dampened all emotions and need to practice feeling any emotion including happiness.

The prescription is choosing to take time for relaxation or enjoyment, even briefly, and allowing oneself to experience it without judgement. I struggle with experiencing anxiety related to taking time for pleasure, and I have had to make conscious steps to counter it. I am so terrible at prioritizing fun that I was paralyzed when it came to planning it. For several years, my coworkers would claim vacation times, especially in the summer, and I would be so slow in even contemplating it, that it would be difficult to find days I could take off around what my coworkers had already planned.

Because I am so terrible at planning what I even want to do, I have taken to choosing some days around a weekend and days around my birthday during the summer even without knowing how I will spend the time. At this point this summer, this has resulted in my being able to accept an invite to spend a day with a couple of friends including going for lunch together. I just scheduled an appointment for a massage the day before my birthday. The day of my birthday happens to be a discount day for an activity I want to do, and the next couple of days there is a live music event including several bands. 

I have spent so many summers resentful at spending the entire summer inside working and missing out on nice sunny days when I live next to a lake. I finally invested in a standup paddleboard which I can manage loading and transporting myself. Now, when a good sunny day is in the forecast (we have a lot of cool, rainy days) I at least take a half day off from work, a whole day if possible, to get the board and me out onto the lake. Taking the time isn’t the whole solution. While out a couple of weeks ago, I consciously made the choice to stop, lay back, notice the warm sun, the soft breeze, the water rocking me on the board. I chose to let myself feel pleasure, otherwise, I would have made it just another workout routine for exercise!

Taking brief moments for pleasure is still a struggle for me. I feel guilty when I take a walk break in the middle of my work day every once in a while. When I arrived home from work yesterday, it was warm and nice out. I couldn’t find the motivation to go outside even though I had been inside all day. I consciously talked myself into just stepping out into the backyard for a moment. Pretty soon, the cat wandered up to me and was clearly happy I was outside. I sat in a chair and enjoyed the warm day as I sat in some shade and petted the cat at my feet. After a couple of minutes, I needed to go inside for something, but I had now had a taste of the outdoors, and I was compelled to go back out. Success!

This past Saturday, I spent time with a friend, went to a barbeque, took the scenic route there, and spontaneously decided to go shopping for a tree. In the middle of it all, I realized I had no plans at all for the day. I didn’t have a list of things to do that I felt I was neglecting. I was truly relaxed and going along with what was right in front of me. Now that was unusual for me! And nothing bad came of it; no terrible consequence for “wasting” a day. It was a very nice day.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fear-of-happiness-underlies-some-mental-illnesses/