Posted on by jenmcnaught

Choose your Narrator

We all have voices in our heads. They can sound like parents, partners, teachers, any other influential person in our upbringing. They can also be our own thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and the world. You can hear your narrator if you listen close to your responses to people, events or your own choices.

If you hear “That was stupid!” in an angry, condescending voice when you make a choice. That is your narrator. The should of, could of, ought to and other negative commentary. That is your narrator. A popular narrator is a parent that has strong opinions, we might even use their voice “Nice girls don’t…” or “Nobody likes…” or “You’re disgusting!” or “See, nothing good happens…”.

We usually install this narrator voice unconsciously and over time. As adults, we can be more conscious about what we allow our brains to tell us. We can deny the negative and let in more positive. We can shut down the nagging, whining, berating, hateful voice that hurts and welcome the warm, kind, accepting new relater.

We can CHOOSE our narrator

Replacing or even just renegotiating the narrator takes some conscious work. First, we really need to start listening to how we talk to ourselves. Yes, everyone has a narrator, a voice that tells our story perspective in our head. It has a lot of commentary about what goes on. Listen and pay attention to your thoughts.

TRY FREE WRITING:

  • Sit down with some paper and write about something that happened that day
  • Write your thought and how you are thinking about it now.
  • Review it, try to be objective.
  • Look for the negatives. There might a lot or hard to distinguish. “He just hates me.” “I don’t deserve” ” I’m too stupid”.
  • You also spot life views “everyone is mean to me” “work is dumb” “I hate this!”
  • Look for alternative to those negatives to replace.

Choosing the positives replacements is harder than it sounds. You have to change your perspective. Look at things differently. Do they “hate” you or perhaps just distracted, upset, or hurt? Are you really dumb/stupid or just need some help or do a little research to understand something? One incident does not equal global reality. Find a new way to say those things to yourself. Catch your negatives and practice replacing.

Change the voice to someone kind, patient and integrative with your personality. It’s important to find a voice that coincides with who you are; similar to you, accepting, loving and understanding, like a best friend!

Your narrator can sound like your hero, someone you look up, a personal “cheerleader.” That is who you need in your head. You can relate your new narrator to someone who had your back, supported you and loved you. It could be the same parent who is judgmental, just choose those good things and leave out the bad. Just like a “bad apple” those negatives do not have to ruin the whole batch.

Choosing your narrator takes time and conscious effort. Give yourself the space and time to do the work. The narrator was not formed in a week, but years and with layers. It takes a while to catch your negatives and automatically replace them, until they stop showing up altogether.

Posted on by jenmcnaught

Things to Know Before You Go

noun_176555_ccI saw this great article on Buzzfeed, which is an opinion post, where the author listed things she wishes she knew about therapy before she started. She wanted others to know how the reality of it is, or her reality. I thought it was great to see insight from the couch, as I call it. Therapy can be scary and intimidating. I hear frequently from clients they are not sure “how it is supposed to work.”  This list is helpful in that regard.

I will list just the headings and highlighted portions here. You can find the details in the full article on Buzzfeed

  • Some of the time, you’re not going to like therapy, at least, not in the way you usually like things.

    • more often than not, “having gone” feels a lot better than the actual “going.”

  • Having a space 100% dedicated to you will be unlike anything else in your life and you won’t know how you functioned without it before.

    • You just get to focus on yourself, and oh my god, it’s life-changing.

  • You shouldn’t be discouraged if you don’t have some big cinematic breakthrough. It’s more about making lots of tiny changes.

    • Don’t think of therapy as working toward that breakthrough. Instead, think of it as improving, healing, and fortifying yourself one session at a time.

  • You can mistake not liking your therapist with not liking the things they’re saying.

  • Going to therapy doesn’t necessarily mean having to face that one difficult thing you’re not ready to talk about, so don’t let that put you off.

    • A good therapist won’t push you to talk about skeletons in your closet or deep-rooted childhood issues if you don’t want to.

  • You’re allowed to push back against your therapist, and whine and rant and argue.

    • I’ve learned therapy is so much better when you’re an active participant, and sometimes that involves things getting heated and having disagreements.

  • In fact, therapy is a low-stakes place to practice all the more unsavory forms of communication, like standing up for yourself, arguing, apologizing, or being vulnerable.

  • A session can feel frustratingly short, so it helps to think about what you want to talk about beforehand. Just don’t expect to leave having covered everything.

    • Remind yourself you can keep coming to therapy for as long as you want, and you can get to everything *eventually*.

  • Not every session has to be super deep or emotional. Some days, you’re just going to want to talk about a fight you’re having with a friend or a minor work frustration and that’s okay.

  • But you have to be careful that you’re not just spending sessions ranting (unless that’s why you sought out therapy).

    • One thing that helps with this is making a list of goals for therapy and checking in with your therapist about your progress.
    • It’s called a Treatment Plan. It should be completed at the beginning and reviewed periodically with your therapist

  • Your therapist is a great person to ask, “Is it me or them?” about many of life’s complicated conflicts.

    • Luckily, a therapist is an invaluable objective resource to help figure out if you’re in the wrong or if there’s a pattern of behavior that inevitably causes stressful, bad things to happen.

  • Taking the time to jot down thoughts and reflect after each session is an extremely good way to get the most out of therapy.  (I LOVE THIS!)

    • But if you actually want to retain and put into practice stuff you’re learning, journaling after each session is a helpful tool.Some basic things that might be worth scribbling down after each session:

• A summary of what you covered

• Key lessons or things you want to remember

• What things were hard to talk about and why

• Things you either forgot to bring up or that you want to revisit next session

  • There’s no right way to do therapy.image

    • Sometimes all you need to do is find a therapist you feel comfortable with, trust the process, and go from there.

From the comments I noted two important topics

  • Be Honest. Lying only wastes your time and money.
  • You might feel worse before you feel better.
Posted on by jenmcnaught

Spiritual Practice – G

G – GRACE & GRATITUDE

GRACEhandcandle

Acceptance of God’s Love ~ Watching for gifts ~ Reading spiritual memoirs and biographies ~ Awareness of synchronicities ~ Gift of tears ~ Lighting candles

Grace, to me, is so much about living with what you got rather than envy what you do not. We are all given the gifts of body and mind. How you choose to receive and use those gifts are up to you. Grace is conducting your body and mind in a manner of gratitude and growth. Not only being grateful for your today and what you have and looking forward to new gifts and how to share them. We also grow by learning about those whom we look up to. Not only in a spiritual sense, but personality, career, political, etc. All of these lend to our sense of self and spirituality, or connection with others.

47a8247029aab1795c15cc371fd8fd9f  GRATITUDE

Gratitude journals ~ Naikan ~ Blessings ~ Greeting the dawn ~ Mealtime grace ~ Offerings

I have written about gratitude before. It is one of the aspects of “Happy” people. When we are grateful, for everyday things, we are focusing on our blessings and not shortcomings. It can be easy, especially in our culture, to get caught up in what we don’t have. This creates angst, resentment, greed, etc. Keeping a gratitude journal helps us remember that everyday we have things to be grateful for. The journal is simply writing down good things that happened that day and events, people or things you are grateful for.

Naikan is a the Japanese word for “introspection” It is a practice of self reflection, which includes gratitude. It can be a simple and easy way to include gratitude daily. It can also be a reflection of those who given to you throughout your life.

Naikan reflection is based on three questions:

  1. What have I received from __________?
  2. What have I given, what have I done for ___________?
  3. What troubles and difficulties have I caused __________?
Posted on by jenmcnaught

Spiritual Practice – F

F – Faith & Forgivenesscoexist

FAITH

Talking to God ~ God box ~ Prostration and Surrender ~ Trust Exercises ~ Personal creeds ~ Examen of consciousness ~ Participation in a Religious Community ~ Sacraments ~ Sharing Sacred Stories

Faith is about your sharing your soul/self/consciousness with a larger entity.  That larger entity could be a God, nature, unseen forces or the collective peoples of the world. However you choose to nurture your spirituality aides in your sense of connectedness to the world around you. People come together with like values, morals and believes in faith. There many ways to believe and worship. Those many options listed above are about the connection, feeling comradery and support while allowing others and your entity to take on some of your strife. If you are not religious or feel a sense of spirituality, you could find a place or activity that gives you peace and sense of safety.

forgiveness-and-freedom
FORGIVENESS

Letting go ~ confession of sins ~ repentance ~ reconciliation ~ Passing the Peace

Forgiveness is very powerful! It is also quite difficult for some people. Forgiveness includes other people who may have wronged you, grief for unmet needs and your personal transgressions. Yes! We need to forgive ourselves as much as others.

We usually relate forgiveness to “forgive and forget” when you have been hurt be others. This does not help you or them. If you have been wronged, you need to examine that instance, take responsibility for your portion, adjust your expectations and boundaries and let the anger and sadness about it go. It does not have to even involve the other person. Forgiveness of others is about YOU. You need to make peace with a wrong doing and release the power it has over you. This can be simple or complex. Letting go may need outside help in complex cases like abuse. When others ask for forgiveness, they are asking you to make them feel better about what they did. You are NOT condoning behavior or words with forgiveness. You are freeing yourself of the negative impact on you. I have written on this in more detail here.

Identifying unmet needs is tricky and can harbor some really negative feelings. People let us down. It is usually no fault of their own. Just our expectations. We can harbor some pretty negative feelings about those unmet needs. For example, if your mother suffered from severe depression and was not capable of being affectionate or even emotionally available when you were a child, you may have some anger about that as an adult. Forgiving her will allow you to let go of those painful feelings. This would entail understanding her situation from an adult perspective and accepting her limitations. Writing a letter to people you have negative feelings about (even if you never send it) can help you sort and understand those unmet needs.

Forgiveness of yourself is allowing you to see your mistakes, sins, bad choices, wrong turns, etc and letting them go. You can’t just dismiss those things from your life. All those choices are part of you and who are you today. Your personal forgiveness is about looking at those choices, what have learned from them, what might you do differently and how you can grow from that experience. Once you really understand them, you can let them go. You can allow yourself the freedom to not feel the guilt and remorse of your sins. Saying “I’m sorry”means you understand what you have done and will not do it again.

Posted on by jenmcnaught · 2 Comments

Gratitude

I have written quite a bit about gratitude. It is one of the main characteristics of happy people! What is so important about being grateful and thankful?gratitude2

 

Sometimes, we think of things we don’t have rather than the blessings and gifts we do have. That can cause us to feel insecure, sad, anxious, discontented, jealous, and lacking. Our society advertises to the part of us that is insecure. We need a certain car, make-up, shoe, vitamin, exercise machine, etc to be who we should be, ought to be, to be more. Well, that kind of scrutiny should come from within. Those people who want to sell us some stuff, even magazines about how to be better at… everything, don’t know you. They just know people and how to hit insecurity buttons.

You know you, what you need, want and “should” be. Gratitude is about recognizing what you are starting with, what your power and tools are to move forward. I work with many people who feel worthless and hopeless with no future. They have tremendous difficulty seeing what they are blessed with, even the small things. One of the tricks with gratitude is to not belittle or demean the blessings. No, “yeah, but,” “so what,” “who cares,” “not really” or any other follow up comment that may totally erase the good thing. It’s still there!

A grateful heart will open you up to new wonderful feelings, ways of seeing the world and relationships. How do you get a grateful heart? How do you find the silver lining? Start with saying Thank You, for anything, and really meaning it.

TRY THIS

Gratitude journal: Get a notebook. Everyday, yes, every single one, write down 3 things you are grateful for. They should be different things that you have to think about. Write down why you are grateful for those things. Do this for at least one month. You can continue as long as you would like or just when you need a pick-me-up.

Thank you notes: Write a heart felt thank you note to one person in your life. I would suggest one a day, everyday for 2 weeks or once a week for a year! You can email it, mail it, message it, put it in their lunch box. Make sure they get it, even if it’s on their gravestone.

Practice Gratitude and being Thankful.

Posted on by jenmcnaught

Life Rocks

I, like many others who work in the therapeutic world, liken life to a journey. The “experience” of life can teach you many things and take you many places. You have opportunities to make major decisions which would change your path. One particular analogy I work with is what happens while strolling on your particular path in life.

Often while we walk, in the life analogy and in reality, we encounter obstacles, small and large. Many are small pebbles, daily decisions, which can be easily tread past. Sometimes the life decisions are larger, likes stones or even boulders. When we encounter a stone, we must decide how we will navigate it. Do we toss it aside or behind us, try to work around or over it, which many require some effort. The stones require some mental effort. Generally if you ignore such a stone and skirt it, you may find yourself facing the same stone later in life.  So, stones, boulders, and rocks of various size will fall into your path. You will be required to ponder them and how to manage them in your way.

Many people do not know how to manage such stones, especially younger in life, and just pick them up to move on with life. These stones stay with you. You put them in a kind of “back pack,” I call it. It represents the things that you choose not to see in your past. If you just keep putting stones in there, it gets heavy, really heavy, the longer you carry it around. At some time you will have to take off the pack and go through those stones. Some might go right back in there (Nope, can’t face that now). Others, like resentment about a childhood wrong, an angry parent, bad breakup in high school, divorce, rape, abuse… They need to be addressed. Those stones get heavier with time, especially when you are trying to pretend they are not there. They impact you, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

TRY THIS:

Write a time line. This is a list of events in your life starting from birth. They should be anything big that has happened to you, good or bad. Moving, birth of sibling, parent divorce/death, new school, abuse by neighbor, graduate, married, first full time job, house fire. Get it? Write it all down, as close to chronological order as you can. Now, go back and read it, maybe the next day after you had some time to reflect.

Did you miss anything? Are you intentionally leaving events out? What things cause an emotional response (anger, sadness, irritation)? Maybe some of those things are your rocks. Now, what do you do with that stone?

Here’s are some other posts that would relate to the reflection of your stone collection:  Self talk can be a key to your belief about yourself,  past trauma and how it impacts you, and the basic of only knowing what you know.

Posted on by jenmcnaught · 3 Comments

Change of seasons can change your mood

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People are effected in all kinds of ways with the change of the seasons. Today is blustery, windy, cool, dark with the promise of rain, lots of rain. It’s fall. That means there will be less sunlight in the day, more cold weather, more darkness. I don’t mind the fall. I love Halloween, the change of colors, the cooler temperatures.

Some people dread the fall. It means the beginning of a season of depression. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), now called Depressive Disorder with seasonal pattern in the DSM 5, is the onset of depression at the beginning of a specific season, like fall or winter, which disappears at the onset of a specific season, like spring or summer. Yes, it could happen the other way around, though rare. If you start to feel more sad, irritable, sleepy or anxious and your desire to do your usual activities wanes in the shorter days. You might have SAD.

Like “regular” depression, the brain chemicals that regulate mood, serotonin, epinephrine and norepinephrine, seem to dip during the shorter days. The theory is the decrease in sunlight impacts circadiam rhythms, causing sleepiness, disruptions in sleep and drop in serotonin. Therefore, theoretically, using a UV light should help! Light therapy has been demonstrated to work well for people with seasonal patterns of depression. I have seen it work with clients who used it properly. Getting an at home UV light can be tricky. Not all light therapy boxes are created equal. Be sure to get one with full spectrum UV/UB lights. One that won’t burn you like the sun, but will give you the advantages of the light.

Depending on the severity of one’s depression, light therapy and being active socially and physically, can make all the difference. Some others may need medication to alleviate the seasonal sadness. Some people just head south and spend the winter in warmer climates.

Here is some information from NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) on SAD.

http://nami.org/Content/ContentGroups/Helpline1/Seasonal_Affective_Disorder_(SAD).htm

Posted on by jenmcnaught · 2 Comments

Trauma and your afterlife

I read a beautiful, troubling excerpt from a fiction book about what trauma does to a person. I thought “Only someone who has been traumatized would understand this.”

We call them survivors, but once the [bad guys] get you, the person you were dies, like any traumatized part of you never leaves that room, that car, that moment, and you walk forward a ghost of your former self. You rebuild yourself over the years, but the person you were isn’t the person you become. The great bad thing happens, and you become a ghost in your own life, and then you become flesh and blood and remake your life, but the ghosts of what happened don’t go away completely. They wait for you in low moments and then they wail at you, shaking their chains in your face and trying to strangle you with them.   
~Laurell K.Hamilton, Affliction

 

The trauma after effects, of any degree, can impact you at any time, with any reminder 635960697083632130-1100041933_fearof the moment, people, places, smells, times of day. Those “shaking of chains” are those sneaky fears, troubles, anxiety, depression, panic. Those inexplicable moments of irrational thought. Trauma can impact your sleep, your appetite, your belief about yourself, relationships and your life. It can hit you big or small. Do not under estimate the impact of trauma. Like the excerpt stated, you can rebuild your life and yourself, but those ghosts hang about.

Posted on by jenmcnaught

Overwhelmed!

I have been feeling this way lately, work, school starting, home projects, weeds. There is a lot. The to do list is never ending. What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? This could be the to do list, dealing with another person, managing your own emotions. There are many ways to feel overwhelmed.  overwhelmed

What are your symptoms? Do you start to forget things, become more irritable, sleep less, more headaches, body aches, feel sick, yell, throw things, cry? Anytime you notice your behavior changing due to external circumstances, it would be a good time to reign it in and examine it. What is going on?

Write it out. What is going on that is causing the feeling of being overwhelmed? Do you have too many things to do? Have you taken on too many responsibilities? Is money or time too tight? Are you taking on the responsibility for too many people? Perhaps you are allowing someone to take advantage of you, hurt you, use you or someone you love.

My first suggestion would be to take some time to list out your responsibilities and essentials. Often people feel overwhelmed when they are not managing their time well.  Using a calendar, schedule and making appointments (even for exercise, meals, and cleaning). If you make time for your duties and things you want to do, it can be easier to figure out where to put it all.

checklist.jpgThe important and urgent items would need to be first. Those with specific dead lines (work, kids to school, bills, meals). Many things are important with no specific dead line (exercise, grocery shopping, cleaning, family time). Start with those important things. You need to focus on your self first. If you find that there are several items still on the list, not under important, what should you do with them? Get rid of them, move them to a later day/date when you have more time, delegate to someone else?

If you are feeling overwhelmed and frustrated you will not be effective. You might need to give yourself 5 minutes to do some deep breathing, take a short walk on your break at work, get more rest.  Take care of yourself first so that you can think clearly and calmly about what needs to be accomplished. Some things might not be necessary, but feel important to you. What is really important?

Posted on by jenmcnaught

You attract what you feel you’re worth

Do you ever wonder why a certain kind of person always finds you? Why is it the same kind of guy/girl that you always end up dating? You don’t have good friends, they are flaky, non-commital, never pay, etc.  Do you feel like you have a sign on your head that says “I love losers!”?  Well, it really is your fault that all these people show up in your life. They literally seek you out. I will try to explain this from both sides.

You attract to you what you feel worthy of 

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That means that whatever you feel you deserve in a relationship, job, money, life, youwill attract that to you. Wait! That is not the same thing as wanting something really, really bad. Just because you want it doesn’t mean you think you actually deserve to have it. Listen to yourself very closely after you say out loud that you deserve something your really want. What happened? Did you sigh, snort, “yeah, right” “like that will happen”? Perhaps you don’t really think you deserve it.

Like attracts like

I have worked with all kinds of people. I spent several years working with sex offenders. Sex offenders, manipulators, abusers, violators of all sorts have some kind of internal radar. They can walk into a room of 20 people and find the ONE person who will “take the bait.” Some can not explain how this works, they just know. Some can spot the body language. They can just tell. Abusers tend to stay away from confident people because they stand up for themselves. They don’t allow other people to hurt them. It’s not okay. So, they gravitate to the people who thinks it IS okay to be hurt and manipulated.

EVERYONE deserves love, affection, kindness, empathy and understanding. NO ONE deserves pain, violence, betrayal, loneliness and heartache. You reap what you sow. If you hand out kindness, you should receive it. Unless you hand out kindness to sociopaths and manipulators. Then you get nuthin’. If you want to be treated the way you treat others, you must believe that you deserve it.

This kind of belief system fits with the self talk, affirmation, and visualizing your goal. You create the life that you feel you deserve. Make it better by believing in yourself and your worth. You can start globally with the belief that everyone deserves happiness and love. Include yourself in that “everyone.” List what you want in life, being realistic about what it really is that would make you feel content. Tell yourself, constantly, that you deserve those things. Put it out in the universe (as The Secret might tell you). It will come.