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Navigating Investment and Detachment

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Navigating Investment and Detachment

I’ve spent years thinking about this. I’m learning to practice it regularly and often find myself challenged by it. I talk a lot about it with people, our struggle to cultivate balance that works for us. How do we balance investment with detachment? We frequently find ourselves oscillating between the two, trying to find a balance that works for us. We do it with everything- relationships, goals, jobs, conversations, literally everything.

We come across it every day. “I want my kid to be happy. I think a), b), and c) will make him happy.” “I want my friend to have a healthy relationship, but she’s married to an idiot. She’s totally settling.” “The agency I work for isn’t optimizing their marketing tools. They’re selling themselves short!” “My brother isn’t putting enough into his retirement. He’s irresponsible, and he’s going to have to pay for it later.”
I’m far from having found the perfect equation to balancing investment with detachment. I have, however, found a few helpful tools.

Helpful Tips:

Look at how we make meaning: “a), b), and c) will make him happy.” “She’s totally settling.” “He’s irresponsible, and he’s going to have to pay for it later.” These are all assumptions we’ve used to make meaning of someone’s behavior, and we can take it to the next level. “My kid is academically talented. If she applies herself, she’ll have her choice of schools and careers; she’ll feel empowered and confident. She will have a happy and successful life. If I send her to this elementary school and keep her on this track it means that a) I’m a good parent because I want my daughter to be happy and successful and b) she will, in fact, be happy.” It’s pretty hard to detach from the outcome of something you believe makes you a good parent or that will make your child happy. Allowing ourselves some space to explore how we’ve arrived at this meaning helps us reevaluate our process. We can dig around to see how we’ve come to subscribe to our beliefs. Sometimes we’ve been caring around these beliefs and narratives for a lifetime.
It’s common for us to personalize what people do. It can feel almost as though they are doing it at or to us. “If she stops doing this, it means she respects me.” “If he does this, it means he respects me.” We become entrenched in the stories we tell ourselves about what others do. Looking at how we make meaning will allow crucial insight into what we need to do to balance our investment with detachment.

Be honest with ourselves: We can ask ourselves, “Is this for them or me? Why do I feel so unflinchingly passionate about this?” When we look at how we make meaning of something, we also need to practice honesty. Sometimes we’ll come up with the same answer that’s always felt true, “because I love them, and I want them to be happy.” Sometimes we’ll realize that it’s because we’re equating control with love or worthiness. “If they take my advice, it means they love me/that I’m worthy.” or “If I impose my advice, it means I love them.” We can come to many different conclusions. It’s important that we’re curious and honest with ourselves about our intentions. We often tell ourselves that we’re doing something because we love someone. I don’t know about you, but most people I know don’t experience lectures or micromanagement as love. Intellectually, we know that that’s probably where they come from, but it doesn’t give us a felt experience of love.
Practice compassion (with ourselves and others): By looking for reasons and ways to have compassion for ourselves and others we give ourselves space from frustration. When we understand why someone chooses what they choose or behaves in a certain way, it helps us to shift from feeling infuriated to feeling love and patience. It’s another way of making meaning of behavior that depersonalizes someone else’s choices or behavior and replaces it with empathy and understanding.

Ask ourselves how it affects us: Some people and situations affect us more than others. We might not be terribly affected by a sibling’s choice of how they choose to manage their retirement account as we are by the choices made by our employer. Luckily, even when it seems as though there’s no way around the deep effects of someone or something, we have some choices. We have a choice in how much we personalize things or in the perspective with which we align ourselves. I like to ask myself, “How does this affect me?” I like to follow it up with, “What can I do about it?” (which can be a little tricky sometimes because of ideas like lecturing someone or imposing my view seem like viable options. They’re not.) I also like to ask myself, “Am I trying to stop someone from learning from their experiences?” I’ve been surprised by how many times the answer is, “Yep, I definitely am.”
It’s hard to let go of the things that win our investment. But finding our balance between investment and detachment is a precious gift that we give to ourselves and our loved ones.
Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

 

6 Things That Are Preventing You From Balancing Your Life

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6 Things That Are Preventing You From Balancing Your Life

We receive countless messages throughout the day. Our brains are inundated with them. Many of these messages encourage us to do more, work more, achieve more, get more. We carry around devices that aid these messages. They have the capacity to immediately link us to people, limitless information, our work, our responsibilities, pretty much anything. With this much accessibility to stimulation, it’s never been easier to run ourselves into the ground than it is right now. If we’re not careful with it, it can complicate an already tricky challenge of striking the balance between work and responsibility and the rest of our lives. We can be at work, but chat with friends online, online shop, send snapchats, and read blogs. (Maybe you’re even reading this blog at work right now.) We can go on vacation, but attend conference calls with colleagues and clients, answer emails, and work on tasks. Everything can just kind of… merge with everything else. Pretty soon, we’re trying to relax when we’re at work and trying to work when we’re at home. We go to bed at 2 am and struggle to get up for work. We’re caught in an exhausting cycle. With all the distractions, messages to do more, and responsibilities we have to manage it’s hard to feel like creating a balance between work and everything else in life is even a possibility. I’d like to look at some of what stops us from creating the balance we’d like.

  • Perfectionism: The need to finish every single note, email, assignment, or task before we leave for the day. The need to return all of the voicemails. A lot of the time it’s unrealistic. If our expectation is to complete every single thing we’re tasked with every single day, we’ll find ourselves leaving work late and taking our work home with us. We have to learn to prioritize and delegate. We can’t go to every meeting someone thinks we should attend. We can’t expect to leave each day with our inboxes empty. We have to skip some meetings or send a colleague. We have to get to the first three or first five most important priorities and proceed from there. We’ll feel stuck, our of control, resigned if we try to hold ourselves to the unrealistic standards of perfectionism.
  • Getting distracted during work time: Facebook, Reddit, cat memes, texting or chatting with friends, dealing with household issues- we’ve all been there. If we often give into these distractions, we probably don’t finish all the work we would like to by the end of our work day. It also probably means that we end up taking work home with us to make up for it. If it’s just a matter of sucking it up and getting the work done, that’s one thing. If we’re feeling uninspired by our work and want to escape, then maybe we need to pay more attention to that. It’s possible we need to make an adjustment in the job or even career.
  • No delineation between work-time and off-time hours: They’re merged. Between email and list serves that come to our phones, taking work home with us, and all the apps that our jobs use to “keep us connected,” we can (and do) work anywhere, anytime. We see a notification pop up, check it out, and respond. We do this habitually. It feels as though we have to respond immediately. We start to believe that we have no say in the matter, no control over our lives. To reestablish our agency, we need to set and keep distinct work-time and home/off-time hours. Stop checking email, apps, and voicemail at 7p. Don’t check them on the weekends. Find whatever works for you and stick to it otherwise, you’ll always feel that pull to respond and your time won’t feel like your own.
  • Not enough exercise or meditation: Both of these activate the parasympathetic nervous system which helps calm us. It’s known as the “rest and digest” mechanism, and it helps slow the heart rate and relax the sphincter muscles. When we strengthen our parasympathetic nervous system, we improve our resources available to help calm our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response). Start small with 20 minutes of physical activity and 5 minutes of meditation. Build on it until you find what works for you.
  • Fixed mindset: Every so often it’s important to reevaluating our schedules and responsibilities. Does it still work for us? If we’ve taken on new responsibilities at work or home, we should try looking at the distribution to see if it feels manageable to us. Most of us can’t keep putting more on our plates without taking something off. Look at changing or reallocating responsibilities at work or home. Ask for what you need. Learn to delegate.
  • Not prioritizing time for ourselves: We need time to do what we want to do. Sometimes it’s enough to meditate or go for a swim or even take the car to get the oil changed. But sometimes that just feels like more work. Check in with yourself to see what kind of time for yourself you’re craving. Maybe you need some time with friends or time alone, a day trip, a vacation- something to change your scenery and routine. What do you think might help you to recharge?

These tips can be helpful, but sometimes just reading suggestions like these will make us want to scream or cry or roll our eyes. “Yeah, that sounds great. I’d love to have time for myself. Unfortunately, I have too many responsibilities and by the time I have a second of down time I fall asleep, or someone needs something.” And sometimes we feel like we’re already doing all the suggestions and trying all the tip variations, but still don’t feel like balance is possible. If this feels like you, let me know, and we can try to figure out next steps. I know it’s not always as easy as rearranging a few things.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

What You Practice Will Continue

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What You Practice Will Continue

Who among us hasn’t gotten fed up with some pattern to which we seemed to be unflinchingly committed and decided that today is the day to make a once-and-for-all change? We’ve bought the self-help books, read them all the way through, completed the exercises, and made a plan for ourselves. And then in a couple of weeks (if that) we’ve felt as though the book that was going to help us change our patterns (improve our relationship, help us get fit, connect us to happiness) never happened at all. It’s as though we never even picked them up. And that seems to be the best case scenario. It’s more likely that we’ve bought the books and gotten half or part-way through them and haven’t completed all (or any) of the exercises. We lose interest, lose steam, and we lose motivation to revisit them. We blame the books, ourselves, our busy schedules, other people.

This frustration is definitely not specific to self-help books. It can happen with anything- a motivational speech we attend, a heart-to-heart we have with a loved one about changing something in the relationship, a heart-to-heart we have with ourselves about not choosing the wrong people anymore. How many times have we found ourselves saying something like, “How many times do I have to tell you?!” or “How many times do we have to have this conversation?” and “I’ve tried to change this so many times. Nothing works.” It’s infuriating as hell, and it makes us feel like giving up and walking away.

And I know how it feels. I’ve had partially-read self-help books stack up on my bookshelf, too. I have also said, “How many times do we have to talk about this?!” Don’t lose heart. The human brain learns by doing, by experience. It would be awesome if we learned by doing something just one time, but we are people, not robots. In what sport do the players practice one time? In which subject do students have a one-time class? Do musicians attend one practice? Did any of us learn to drive by driving a car once? When have we ever been prescribed a one-pill antibiotic? (Actually, this one-time antibiotic might be a real thing now. I’m not sure.) Anyway, you get it.

Our brains are set up to let our sweet, little neurons flow wherever there is a synaptic connection. We strengthen those connections through use. The more we think about, practice, or experience something, the more we embed that synaptic connection. It will be the first path down which our cute neurons choose to travel. (Keep in mind that during sleep our brain experiences synaptic pruning which means that it discards all of the weak associations it has made. It identifies the strongest synaptic connection and saves them. It assumes they are most important.)

Don’t donate those self-help books quite yet. Consider rereading them. Keep having the same discussion about the distribution of household duties with your spouse. Keep trying to make the changes you’ve been trying to make. Remind yourself that, even though school might be forever out of session, studying is still a requirement for success. We study every day; we’re just not aware of it.

If I think and talk about how much I hate Brian from work, what an idiot he is, how clueless he is, I am studying how much I hate Brian. The more I think about how awful Brian is, the stronger I make that synaptic connection. The stronger the connection gets, the more important my brain thinks that information is, and the more neurons are inclined to choose that pathway. I can turn this in any direction. I can practice thinking about idiotic Brian or I can practice detaching and remind myself that his behavior isn’t about me. I can practice having important conversations about repeat-scenarios with someone in whom I am invested. I can practice the homework my therapist gives me and the exercises my health coach assigns and the exercises I read in self-help books to strengthen those neural networks. So, keep practicing, as often as you can. Keep getting back on the wagon after you’ve fallen off. It’s not as easy as a one-time fix, but it’s more realistic and sustainable.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

5 Things People with Self-Compassion Do

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5 Things People with Self-Compassion Do

Dr. Kristin Neff has defined self-compassion as having three elements: “self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.” In order to engage self-compassion, one must observe the suffering, “feel moved” by or honoring it, and find a way to comfort and care for ourselves in the moment of suffering. It is an essential resource.  And it can be elusive. We often take the well-travelled roads that we hope will lead us there- dieting or losing weight, cleanses, seeking an intimate partner relationship, applying for a job promotion, looking for ways to earn more money, effecting some huge life change. None of these are bad; in fact, they can bring us a lot of joy and satisfaction and benefit us. They just aren’t enough to improve and maintain our self-compassion.

When we have low self-compassion, we often seek out a lot of external validation, need to be liked at any cost, employ escapist tactics (substances, technology, food, shopping, etc.), accept disrespect or mistreatment from others, and are either critical of ourselves or are narcissistically defended against our own flaws. The lower our self-compassion, the more we engage in these behaviors and the lower our self-compassion plummets. It’s a real bummer of a cycle.

There are five critical behaviors to help improve your level of self-compassion. They are usually avoided by people who have trouble respecting themselves. If you suffer from a lack of self-compassion, you might read this and think, “Well, I don’t engage these behaviors precisely because I lack self-compassion. Then what?” It might seem impossible to unstick yourself from that catch-22.

I urge you to take a risk. Just try it. Try doing what people with self-compassion do and see how it feels. Just see if you feel any difference. If you hate it, and you decide you are happier with things as they were before, then that’s fine. I think you might like the results, though.

So, what are some of the tricks used by people who have self-compassion?

 

  • They set boundaries. They say “no” to things that don’t work for them. They don’t accept disrespectful treatment. They let people know the terms that are both acceptable and unacceptable to them and hold that line. They’d rather live in integrity with themselves than be liked and accepted by others.
  • They forgive themselves. People who have compassion for themselves don’t rake themselves over and over the coals if they slip up. They learn from it. They understand that mistakes are par for the course and that it’s ok. They know that they are not their mistakes.
  • They allow themselves to fail. They allow themselves to be wrong or fall flat on their faces or come in last. They understand that this means they took a risk, put themselves out there, made an attempt at something. They gather the information from the failure and try again because they know that this time, they’re approaching the task with a better understanding. (This doesn’t mean they’re happy about the failure. It might still feel shitty. It can still feel totally frustrating.)
  • They apply self-discipline. They set boundaries for themselves, too, tell themselves “no.” People with self-compassion know that they feel better about themselves when they balance fun with responsibility, health with decadence, relaxation with work. They know that they’ll feel shitty about themselves if they watch too much TV, eat too much garbage, and go to bed too late. They have a good understanding of what their effort will get them, so they apply it.
  • They honestly identify their short-comings. People who have self-compassion are honest with themselves and others about their flaws. They know that to identify where they fall short means that they are less likely to take on more than they manage. They are more likely to work within their scope of competence, setting themselves up for a better chance of success. If they make a mistake, they’re more likely to hold themselves accountable for it. People with self-compassion don’t dwell on their flaws or invisibilize their positive attributes while highlighting the negatives. They use the information about their flaws to apply themselves in their endeavors.

I know that to some this list looks daunting. I get it. Patterns are hard to break, and we engage them for a reason. If you’re dissatisfied with your level of self-compassion and would like to come up with a plan together about how to troubleshoot this, I would love to talk with you about it!

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

The Power of No

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The Power of No

To quote Tina Fey’s geniusly played character on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, “Some people are scared of conflict, but… it gets shit done.” She’s right. Conflict, when managed appropriately, gets shit done. I often use this space to talk about how to effectively manage conflict and what it looks like when conflict is mismanaged. I’d like to take a minute to sing the praises of the conflict itself. And what better way to find yourself in conflict than when you say “no”?

You and I both know you don’t want to spend 20 minutes listening to your neighbor talk about his kids when you’re just trying to get into your house after a long day. You don’t want to stay late to work on the work thing that everyone else has blown off any more than I do. And you don’t want to accept the disrespectful treatment from that friend who is a friend, but more of a nuisance. And you and I also know that we’ve said yes to all of these things. We’ve listened to the neighbor, put in work that everyone else has shirked, and accepted the disrespect for a lot of reasons. It felt easier than setting a boundary; we wanted to people-please; we didn’t know how not to engage in the first place. It’s simple, but it’s not always easy, especially at first. You have to say no. There’s no way around it.

When you accept treatment you don’t want; you’re saying to yourself and others, “You don’t have to respect me. I don’t respect me either. I’m more concerned with being accepted by you than I am with liking myself.” That’s a dissatisfying and precarious way to live. Frankly, it’s a perfect recipe for resentment.

And I get it. You might be thinking, “Ok, but if I respected myself I wouldn’t have a problem saying ‘no’ in the first place.” And you’re right. There’s no easy answer here. You just have to start saying “no.” Start anywhere. When your neighbor starts talking to you, greet him but tell him you’ll have to catch him later. Stand up for yourself at work and say that you can’t stay late either or that you don’t want to be the only person working on the project. Assert yourself with your nuisance-friend and tell him you’re not going to go out of your way to give him rides anymore.

We accept subpar treatment because some part of us believes that we deserve it. Start showing yourself that you deserve respect. Show yourself how good it feels when you assert your needs.

I also want to be respectful of what might have made you feel that you’re not allowed to say “no” or that when you do it’s not heard. Trauma can make us feel like it’s not safe to say “no” or that it won’t matter if we do because, at some point, this was true. We keep living as if it continues to be true. Whether it’s childhood abuse, domestic violence, bullying, implicit messaging from parents or other impactful relationships, there are many roads that could have led us to say “yes” when we’d rather say “no.” Working through this requires effort, and it’s totally possible to get there.

If you’d like to be able to set your boundaries and access your self-respect, I’d love to help you.

Get yourself to a place where you can set a boundary because you know your experience and feelings matter. Get yourself to a place where you trust yourself enough to say “no.”

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Defeat Dread

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Defeat Dread

What do you dread? What makes you procrastinate or immerse yourself in distraction or lose sleep or start and stop a hundred times before you actually do the thing? Some of us dread nearly everything. Some of us dread a few things here and there. (Some people don’t really dread much of anything and to you, I say congratulations, please show the rest of us how you stay so present, and this article isn’t meant for you.)

 

Many of us live in a constant state of dead (also known as anxiety); some of us are conscious of this and some aren’t. We dread things that will never actually happen, things that could realistically happen but aren’t right now, and things we can’t identify. We try out various types of behavior to manage this dread, but it doesn’t ever really abate.

 

In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety Disorders: Mastering Clinical Challenges (Butler, Fennell, Hackmann) anxiety is described as “a complimentary overestimation of the likelihood and magnitude of negative outcomes and an underestimation of internal or external resources by which catastrophe might be managed.” I love this. Anxiety/dread is the overestimation of obstacles and the underestimation of resources. It’s such an organized way of looking at anxiety and dread.

 

This overestimation of an event and underestimation of our ability to handle it manifests in the form of cognitive distortions. We find our brains swimming in thoughts like “I’ll never be in a loving relationship again,” “There is something wrong with me,” “I’ll never be able to handle this,” or “This is all my fault.” (And really that’s a tiny list of cognitive distortions. There is no limit to the thoughts we can think that will reinforce our fears.)

 

David Burns, M.D. compiled a list of the types of cognitive distortions we use. (And if you check out his book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, you might find some other useful information.) When we’re freaking out we are usually doing at least one of these:

-All or nothing thinking (black and white thinking, absolutes)

-Overgeneralization (viewing a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat)

-Mental Filter (dwelling on the negatives and ignoring the positives)

-Discounting the positives (insisting positives or accomplishments don’t count)

-Jumping to conclusions (mind reading and fortune telling- both from negative perspective)

-Magnification or Minimization (blowing things out of proportion or shrinking their importance)

-Emotional Reasoning (“I feel like an idiot, so I must be one,” or “I don’t feel like doing this so I’ll put it off.”)

-Should Statements (or “shouldn’t,” “must,” “have to,”)

-Labeling (identifying with mistakes or shortcomings. Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” saying “I’m a loser,” or “a fool.”)

-Personalization and Blame (blaming ourselves for something for which we weren’t entirely responsible or blaming other people and overlook ways that our attitudes and behavior might have contributed to a problem)

 

When we’re in them, it can be challenging to identify which distortions we’re using (or that we are using any of them at all). What to do? A helpful step is 1) slowing down and trying to identify what you are doing and which distortions you are employing so that you can gain a little bit of perspective and stop being dominated by your dread and anxiety. 2) If you’re having difficulty identifying any and it all just seems like rational thought, try getting out of your head and back into your body. Breathe deeply and notice how your abdominal muscles feel as you inhale and exhale. Notice any sensations you feel in your body and acknowledge them.

Some people find that the first two steps are enough, that once they have calmed themselves a bit and identified their irrational thinking, they are back in control. Sometimes the situation calls for more backup. When it does, you can try 3) examining the evidence that proves (or disproves) your distortion. If your distortion is saying “I never do anything right,” you can list things that you know you have done right. And even with the best tools, it’s still easy to fall down the rabbit hole of dread and anxiety. If you want to walk through it together, I’d love to tackle it with you.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Why Do I Keep Doing That?!

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Why Do I Keep Doing That?!

Sometimes we feel stuck. And it’s not always about feeling stuck in a job, a town, a daily routine, or a relationship. Sometimes we feel stuck in the way of being, stuck drinking too much, stuck in an unhealthy eating pattern, stuck in technology and devices, being passive aggressive when we would rather self-advocate, doing everything for everyone else and not having enough left for ourselves, stuck in anger, in fear, in anxiety, stuck in insecurity. We know living like this makes us unhappy, and we want to change, but it feels insurmountable, and we’re not sure where to start. When we do make moves to change, we find it hard to maintain the behavior. And when we finally learn to maintain it, as soon as we feel start connect with the belief that we can accomplish our goal we find ourselves self-sabotaging or it seems that life suddenly takes a turn and prevents us from forging on toward our goal.

In my “You Are Enough” post I talk about the messages we receive in early attachment and how they help inform the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the way we live our lives. We integrate the messages into the stories we tell about who we are, and they become agreements we hold with ourselves. We are mostly unconscious of these agreements because they were made over time, from a young age, and often under some duress.

Feeling trapped in this constant state of stuck is often about the beliefs we have turned into agreements. Merriam-Webster defines belief as “an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.” The same source defines agreement as “harmony or accordance in opinion or feeling; a position or result of agreeing, the absence of incompatibility between two things; consistency.” Our behavior is predicated on the beliefs we hold about ourselves; it is the manifestation of the agreements we have made about who we are and what we do. Our behavior is compatible with our core self-beliefs.

Let’s say someone has a core belief in herself that she is powerless. We’ll call her Julie. Julie attended a self-improvement workshop three weeks ago and had set goals to be in a loving relationship, connect to her sense of purpose, and develop and maintain a self-care program. She has been keeping up with her routine fairly regularly, but lately, her boss has been asking her to stay late at work which has been getting in the way of the goals she set at the workshop. When she comes home, she’s tired and frustrated and just wants to relax in front of the TV eating her dinner. Julie will either have to learn to set boundaries with her boss at work or pick her routine back up when she gets home from work instead of watching TV. Because at her core she believes that she is powerless, these options are not only terrifying but in direct conflict with her belief. If Julie believes she is powerless any amount of struggle might disrupt her effort. She has learned that any amount of effort is moot because nothing she can do will ever be enough to get her where she wants to be. What’s the point? The pull that Julie is feeling is to give up because once again she tried and once again it didn’t work. Yikes, Julie. I feel you.

What agreements have you made with yourself? Have you agreed not to speak up for yourself because you believe that your needs don’t matter? Have you agreed to be busy at break-neck speed because you believe that busy-ness equals worthiness? Have you agreed to pick relationships in which you feel smothered because you believe that you have to choose between extremes of either being smothered or ignored?

Once we start to notice our patterns we can start making some sense out of why we do what we do and what we need to make sustainable changes. We don’t have to feel like life just happens to us. We can stop creating our suffering.

And if you haven’t already read a book called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, I recommend doing it. The book describes in detail the impact of self-beliefs, the agreements we make with ourselves, and how to take steps toward changing our beliefs and agreements to reflect who we want to be and how we want to live.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

You Are Enough.

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You Are Enough.

As children, many of us received implicit (and often explicit) messages that it was not ok for us to just be. To some of us, it was communicated that sadness and anger are unacceptable feelings and that to be lovable and worthy we had to hide those parts of ourselves. Some of us were told to constantly strive for more and better, that we should never enjoy where we’re at or what we’ve achieved because someone else is waiting to take our place in line for the best. At some point, we might have realized that our needs and wants were not important.

As a result, we started to believe that we are not enough.

When we are bathed in a message from such a young age and for so long, it becomes woven into our fibers. Such a deep feeling of scarcity, of “not enough” can creep into many other parts of our lives. We feel there is not enough time, not enough money, not enough opportunity. We feel we are not good enough communicators, not good enough parents, not good enough partners, not good enough workers. This becomes the narrative we tell ourselves and we live by it. We have internalized the messages, the scarcity and made an agreement with ourselves that we are not enough, so we approach each situation with that belief. It informs how we participate in relationships, in challenges, at work, and in the rest of life.

It’s not that we want to live this way. We just don’t know how not to. When we haven’t been taught how to validate ourselves and our experience it’s pretty mystifying as to how that could ever work. And once we’ve been doing something for so long, it’s an ingrained pattern of thinking and doing. So, we live in various states of longing and fear.

We starve our needs and try to shape ourselves into what we think we need to be or do or look like so that we can capture the elusive feeling of being enough. We continue to do it until we are exhausted and hopeless.

If this post feels relatable to you and you’re wondering how you can start the process of breaking free from this painful cycle, read on.

 

  • You can observe. You can watch the feelings that come up and the chatter in your mind that tries to find ways to judge yourself and keep those cognitive distortions churning.
  • You can observe while beginning to reserve some judgment. Instead of following your thoughts of “Damnit, I looked like an idiot!” down the rabbit hole, you can put some space in between yourself and the thoughts. This looks more like, “Damnit, I looked like an idiot! …ok, the voice in my head is telling me I looked like an idiot.” That’s enough of a start. John Kabat Zinn devotes a whole method to finding and increasing this little bit of space. It’s called MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction), and you should Google it.
  • You can start sending little bits of compassion to the part of yourself that’s feeling inadequate. It can be in the form of thought, a feeling, words that you say out loud, or a mixture of any of these. It’s ok if it feels small and short lived. It will be at first because this is a new practice.
  • Notice as you see patterns emerge. Start tracking your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and behaviors about particularly disturbing or problematic scenarios. See if you can gather more information to get a better understanding of what happens for you and what you can do to help yourself.

 

Remember that this belief that you are/there is not enough didn’t happen overnight. It took years of training for you to believe it and live your life by it. It will take time and training to learn a new way of being. Try to show yourself some patience and stick with it.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Understanding the Difference Between Gender, Sex, and Sexual Orientation

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Understanding the Difference Between Gender, Sex, and Sexual Orientation

There are a kajillion subsets that we like to use to organize and measure certain information about society. We use socioeconomic status, age, race, ethnicity, culture, and language to name a few. We also use the subset “sex.” Sex refers to male, female, and other/intersex. From here it can get a little tricky for some people who conflate the term “sex” with the gender spectrum and sexual orientation. It’s not all the same.

While they do intersect, gender identity, gender expression, sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, and romantic orientation aren’t synonymous with one another. They aren’t lumped under one big umbrella marked “gender.”

Sex assigned at birth refers to just that- the sex someone was assigned to when they were born based on the presentation of their genitals.

Someone’s gender identity may or may not be the same as their sex. If someone was assigned female at birth and they also identify, she might use the term “cisgender” to describe her gender identity. (This term was coined around 1994 and is credited to biologist Dana Leland Defosse, “cis” meaning “on this side of.”) If someone was assigned male at birth but identifies as female, she might use the term “transgender” to describe her gender identity. (This term was coined between 1969-1971 by American transgender activist Virginia Prince “trans” meaning “across, beyond, or on the other side of”.) Not everyone identifies using the neat and binary terms of cisgender and transgender. Some people identify as agender, gender queer, gender nonconforming.

So, then what exactly is gender? Gender identity refers to woman/female/girl, man/male/boy, and other gender identities. Gender expression refers to feminine, masculine, and other. Gender is a limitless spectrum that can often be influenced by our experience of ourselves and of the world, our culture, and our sex assigned at birth. Some people identify with the sex they were assigned at birth (cisgender) and choose not to conform to the gender norms created by their culture. Some people identify as transgender and also choose not to conform to said gender norms. As many people as there are on earth is how many gender expressions there are. People identify as trans, but don’t take hormones or do take hormones, but don’t have surgery. Some people identify as cis but have surgery to alter their bodies to fit how they feel. It is limitless.

In all of this, nowhere did sexual orientation surface. This is because it’s a different part of us- different, but related. Sexual orientation refers to someone’s sexual attraction to men, women, and other genders. Romantic orientation refers to someone’s romantic attraction to men, women, and other genders. Someone can identify as bisexual, heterosexual, gay, lesbian, queer, questioning, and other identities. If someone is trans, it does not mean they identify as queer or gay or lesbian, etc. People can be trans and straight, trans and gay, trans and queer, cis and queer. We can identify as cis, straight, and romantically attracted to women. The combinations are nearly endless.

This post is by no means exhaustive on the subject of gender, sex, and sexual orientation. It’s a bit of a window out of which you might consider who you are, who we are, and the ways in which we can express this to ourselves and the world.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Come Out, Come Out Whoever You Are

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Come Out, Come Out Whoever You Are

Expressing our authentic selves can be terrifying. We risk rejection, disappointment, loss, and sometimes even violence. On the other hand, we stand to gain a life lived in integrity with who we are, more intimacy with our loved ones, acceptance, joy, and satisfaction. If we choose to stay closeted about who we are, we risk living our lives imprisoned.

There are a million ways in which we “come out of the closet” and, although they’re not all comparable, they’re all challenging to make known. We can come out as Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, GenderQueer, a survivor of abuse, polyamorous, religious, having a criminal history, a sex worker, nonreligious, an addict, recovering from an illness or disease… There is no limit.

Some closets are harder than others to come out of due to prejudices, culture climates, and phobias. It’s not always safe to make ourselves vulnerable and come out of our closets. If we live in a culture or an environment where we could suffer violence and abuse, coming out might be dangerous for us.

When we keep important parts of our identity secret, we keep a chasm between the people with whom we are in a relationship and us. There is so much we don’t share- our thoughts, our feelings, our wishes, our goals… ourselves. A part of us lives unseen and silent. Having to deny or invisibilize such important parts of ourselves often leads to isolation, depression, anxiety, low self- esteem, self-injury, and suicide.

We feel caught dangling from the precipice of the chasm. If we take the leap and reveal ourselves will we plummet and end up in the void or will we make it to the other side? Many of us spend years, decades even, dangling from this edge, afraid to make a step in any direction.

There is so much to consider when we reveal deep parts of ourselves. Will my support network continue to support me? Will I be safe? Will I be accepted? Will they still love me if I let them see who I am? Sometimes it feels like we have to give up important parts of ourselves to keep the love and support of the people close to us.

Coming out, making ourselves visible, being vulnerable is a painful process by definition. It’s the act of opening ourselves up to attack and harm, scrutiny and judgment. It’s stripping our souls of their protective cloaks and allowing ourselves to stand naked.

Ultimately, all any of us wants is to be loved and accepted. We want to know that our loved ones see us, that regardless of their agreement with and understanding of our choices they want to understand us, and that they love us. We want to know that we’re ok.

So, I want you to know that you are ok. No matter who you are, who you love, what you’ve done, who you want to be, how you want to live, as long as you are not hurting or oppressing anyone, you are ok. You are worthy of love and acceptance, and you are ok.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie