Showing all posts tagged self-empowerment

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

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

Having Thick Skin: It’s Not What You Think

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Having Thick Skin: It’s Not What You Think

Has anyone ever given you the (often unsolicited) advice, “You need to learn to be thicker skinned”? Yep. A lot of us have been given that tip. It’s not necessarily a “bad” recommendation. I’m just not sure it’s always a helpful encouragement for a lot of the situations in which it’s been given. I usually hear that phrase being communicated to people who are sad or mad. And it sends the wrong message.

Being thick-skinned means being resilient. For example, say someone applies for a job, interviews, and doesn’t get the job. If they are thin-skinned, they will take it personally and assume it’s a direct statement about their worth as a person. Maybe it will even affect the effort they put into looking for other jobs or the confidence they exude during future interviews. If the person is thick-skinned, they will feel disappointed, and maybe a slight sting, but know that there are various reasons that explain why they must not have been the best fit for the job. Because they have resilience, they will try again with hope intact.

There are many reasons for a person to exhibit qualities of having thin skin. Different types of trauma can have an impact on someone’s ability to tap into the power of their resilience, (but this is an entirely different article). Those who can access their resilience, those who seem to have thicker skin know that, though it might add to their grit factor, adversity doesn’t define them.

So, what are a few signs that you’re accessing your own thick skin (resilience)?

You know and respect your boundaries. People who have thicker skin can hold and maintain a boundary with others. They can identify when, for whatever reason, something does not feel right for them. They know that they have a right to protect their time, their energy, their needs, and they know they have a right to do so. They don’t feel that they have to say yes to everyone for everything all the time to feel worthy.

You take responsibility for yourself. This requires a certain level of self-awareness. Those who have thick skin can assess when it’s time for them to call in the reinforcements (ask for help, take a break, delegate, etc.) without feeling like it’s a huge blow to their egos. They can see how they impact people and make adjustments when necessary.

You can say the words, “I don’t know.” When someone is aligned with their thick skin, they don’t have to have all the answers to know that they’re worthy. They can sit in the unknown without watching their confidence and self-trust diminish.

You employ acceptance. This is what helps you respect your boundaries. You have flexibility. You accept when you need help, when you need a break, and when you need a change. You don’t fight with your pain or hardship. You understand that it will pass and give way to new emotion, new circumstance. You know that your present state does not define you.

You show up for yourself. This means you take care of your mind, body, and soul. You know what you need to do to care for yourself, and you do it. When you need alone time, you take it. When you need to spend time with loved ones, you reach out. When you need to go to bed, but you’d rather watch another episode of “The Office” you go to bed. When you need to take a sick day, you take it.

 

You might notice that, in no way, have I said, “to be thick-skinned, you must not be in touch with your feelings,” or “You don’t cry or get upset.” Right, because having thick skin is not about cutting yourself off from your feelings; it’s about being in touch with those precious feelings and being honest about them, respecting them, managing them, and using those feelings as part of your guide.

We all have these qualities already inside us. Sometimes, it’s hard to feel them. The more we work at practicing these things, the more resilient we will be.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie          

When You Want to Face Your Fear

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When You Want to Face Your Fear

What are you afraid of? What fears and feelings of dread do you try to put out of your mind for as long as you can (the same ones that always seem to creep back in)?

When we look at our fears, we look at what makes us uncomfortable. We are afraid of discomfort.

The fear of being uncomfortable is what keeps us at the same job we hate, in the same relationships that we know is wrong for us. It’s what keeps us from training for a marathon, having that difficult conversation, and going on a road trip alone. It’s what keeps us from being the most us we can be. “Sure,” we tell ourselves, “I’m unhappy at my job, but to do what I really want would mean going back to school and I just…” We tell ourselves that it’s easier, better to stay in the relationship, train for the marathon later (never), and not have the difficult conversation.

We’re wrong. How is it easier to go without needs met, feel dissatisfied, and stay boxed in? How is it easier to be unhappy? It’s kind of funny how we won’t push ourselves out of an uncomfortable spot because we’re afraid that we will feel… uncomfortable.

I’m no different. I’ve not tried things I’ve wanted to try, stayed when I knew I should go, and not had the difficult conversations because it seemed easier, better not to. I was scared of being more uncomfortable or uncomfortable in a new way.

What makes me laugh a little is this: the more we tell ourselves that it’s too scary, too much trouble, too uncomfortable, the more we are training our brains to believe it, to dread it, to experience an increase in anxiety when we think about making a change. We work together in concert with our brains to stay uncomfortable.

“Awesome,” you say. “I’m unhappy, and you’re telling me I’m going to stay unhappy, and it’s my fault.” Yes and no. You don’t have to stay unhappy, and you do have a choice about which way to go.

Remember Newton’s first law of motion? “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.” If you’re moving, you tend to keep moving, and if you’re at rest, you tend to stay at rest unless something else is introduced. We notice this when we hit our stride during physical activity or when we stop what we are doing and find it a bit harder to start again.

The first thing we can do, before we do anything else, is to acknowledge that the change might feel uncomfortable and that we might want to turn around and go back. (As humans we like it when our feelings are addressed and validated.) Then we can tell ourselves that, when we get to the place where we want to stop and retreat, we will keep going. We will calm our fears by reminding ourselves that we can maintain our stride in this change by keeping pace. We’ll just keep whatever pace with which we started. As we get used to our own pace, we can pick it up a little bit, then a little bit more.

We can ask ourselves, “What’s happening right now?” Instead of thinking about how scared we are of something that may or may not happen or how much we would rather be doing something else, we can ask ourselves what is happening in that very moment, making no interpretation of or judgment about it. This will help us to keep our focus.

We might still be scared for a while. That’s ok. We have to keep doing it. Keep showing up, keep having those difficult conversations, keep training, keep applying. When we feel overwhelmed by self-doubt, insecurity, and fear, we’ll keep going. We’ll teach ourselves that we can manage our fears, that they aren’t as threatening as we once thought, and that addressing our fear is not nearly as uncomfortable as being driven by it.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Take Control of Your Insecurity

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Take Control of Your Insecurity

I have some questions for you about humor. Just think about them. How much do you notice yourself laughing throughout the day? How easily does laughter come to you? How often do you think you’re able to see the humor in situations?

I’m talking about genuine humor- not sarcasm, sardonicism, or cynicism. Sure, these approaches might make you feel witty and powerful during times when you’d rather avoid feeling vulnerable, but they require you to be pretty critical which often comes from a place of contempt. It can be difficult to benefit from the positive effects of humor when you’re using it contemptuously. There are plenty of ways to use humor in a nondefensive way.

One of the curative properties in humor is its aptitude for finding the humanity in conflict, whether it’s between you and another person, a group of people, or between you and an event. Have you ever noticed that? A joke or some other kind of levity can diffuse tension, bridge a divide, and restore compassion. When you’re using it with regard, humor is an incredibly reparative tool.

Now think about this; how often are you able to laugh at yourself? It’s great to be able to find the humor in what someone else says or does, but what about in what you say or do? What about your mistakes, perceived shortcomings, or faults? Some people find the ability to laugh at themselves elusive. They’d rather their faults go undetected and, when noticed, defend them with some amount of hostility. Usually, this promotes an increased sense of discomfort as it widens the divide in conflict.

When you allow yourself to laugh at your missteps, you immediately begin to draw your brain out of aggression, defensive anger and depending on the situation, sadness. You tap into your resilience and resource. This encourages you to be more patient, clear-headed, and less frustrated. When you are resourced, you feel more curious about your own and others’ experiences, and you are better able to connect to empathy. You are driven to strengthen the connection to another person or yourself.

Finding the humor in your mistakes takes some pressure off and gives you a little bit of breathing room. In that space you create, you’re more aware of yourself, of your choices. You can see yourself and your situation more objectively. You have less need to defend yourself because you start to see that your vulnerabilities don’t make you worthless or terrible; they make you human. You don’t need to defend yourself for being human.

So, the next time you find yourself approaching an argument (or in one), feeling defensive about something, or in conflict give yourself a chance to practice this exercise. See what kind of levity can be found in your situation. Maybe you’ll be in conflict with your partner about sharing household responsibilities. Maybe it will be during a time when you are trying to prove a point about something, and you get your facts wrong. Maybe you’ll find yourself engaged in a heated conversation with a family member about who is doing more for whom. Whatever it is, take a minute to find the humor and get some perspective. You’ll feel more appreciation for yourself and your loved ones.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

What to Do When You Feel Stuck

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I hear the words “I feel stuck,” multiple times a day. This phrase is uttered by clients, friends, family, and by people, I don’t know who are simply passing by. Sometimes these words are accompanied by fear and anxiety, other times by hopelessness and desperation, and sometimes, mild frustration. It’s clear that people are experiencing at least some portion of their lives as being lived under duress.

Most of us don’t readily see the choices available to us. (If we did, we probably wouldn’t feel stuck quite so often.) We feel confused by our feelings, and we begin to take long detours down the road of overwhelming despair. Feelings of guilt and shame make a lot of appearances here.

Feeling stuck can manifest in any aspect of our lives. The top categories most of us report a feeling of being stuck are in their jobs, relationships, in various behavioral patterns, in a feeling, financially, and in particular thought processes. We no longer experience as much enjoyment and whatever it was that drew us to these things in the first place, and we become preoccupied with our discomfort and unhappiness. And then, from there, it just feels like things get worse.

So, how do we regain sight of our choices? Well, we’ve lost site of our awareness. We’ll have to take some steps to reconnect ourselves to it so that we can move beyond knowing the feelings of “I feel stuck,” toward why we feel this and start strategizing solutions.

The first step toward reconnecting ourselves to this basic awareness is establishing our objective. What do we want? The objective can begin as something as broad as “to feel better” or “to feel unstuck,” though this is not where we will leave it. Gather as much information about the situation as possible and organize it. Find out the components that make up what we are dealing with, why, the roles of said components, and their importance. Prioritize these components.

The second step is to come up with actions, which meet our objectives. How will we get there? What will need to happen first, second, third, etc.? Taking what the first step produced; things like, what we want our situation to eventually look like, what we can control versus what we can’t. This will help us to gain perspective about the best way to achieve what we want.

The third step is to evaluate our chosen actions for potential consequences, both positive and negative. By taking this step, we can allow ourselves to become more aware of our motivations, the intricacies of our situation, and think critically about the strategies best suited for us. It provides forethought.

Once we see the choices available and the steps we can take toward making a change, we start to feel less stuck. We begin to experience our power. Sometimes we realize we don’t want to make the change at all. Other times, we recognize patterns never-before-seen patterns, and we begin to address those. We stop seeing ourselves as helpless and start to move into our capability.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

You Can Have Better Sex and More Intimacy

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You Can Have Better Sex and More Intimacy

What’s the difference between sex and intimacy? Sex is a behavior that, when broken down, includes the relationship we have with our sexuality and the way we express it. It includes flirting, foreplay, methods for attracting desired partners, different stages of arousal, and acts. There are emotional, cognitive, biological, behavioral, and sociological implications of sex and how we choose to express our sexuality.

Intimacy is a very close familiarity one shares with others. Most of us share intimate relationships with friends, family, and or partners. When we have intimacy in relationship we share our desires, dreams, feel safer exposing our flaws, and allow ourselves to be more vulnerable n that relationship. We allow ourselves to be seen more fully than our relationships in which we experience less intimacy or our more peripheral relationships.

Often, when we share intimacy with someone, our sexual relationship with that person improves. Likewise, when we have a quality sexual relationship with someone, we experience a higher level of intimacy with our partners. As both of these aspects of our relationship improve, we experience a bolstered bond that we find more nourishing, satisfying, and reliable.

Many of the clients I see, both couples and individuals, tell me that they are experiencing less intimacy in their relationship than they find satisfactory and or that their sexual relationship isn’t what they want it to be. Some feel hopeless because they feel they’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to be working. Others dread sharing their level of dissatisfaction with their partner out of a multitude of fears. The most common fears I hear are related to fear of rejection- that their partner will judge them, experience their requests as needy, too kinky for their comfort level, or hear these requests as some judgment.

When these problems show themselves in our relationships, it’s easy to remain quiet about or needs due to these fears. We become frustrated, resentful, and hopeless that our relationship will ever change. In a desperate effort to counteract their genuine desire, some people begin to look outside the relationship in various ways to treat these symptoms or completely cut themselves off from them. Many of my clients come in telling me that they think these aspects of a relationship should come easily and naturally and are confused about why they’re experiencing these problems in the first place. I reassure them that the presence of these problems does not translate into a doomed relationship, a lifetime of bad sex, or a connection capable of stunted intimacy; relationships, sex, and intimacy are not unlike many of the things we want in our lives. They take commitment both, to ourselves and our authenticity, hard work, and risk. And it’s worth the investment.

People who take the plunge and begin to explore their need for better sex and intimacy (both with themselves and with their partners) find a deepened confidence in themselves, in their relationship, and in the rest of their lives. Stick around to find out how and why.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie