Suffering is uncomfortable to confront — and we are prone to run from it, recover from it as quickly as we can, or risk breaking under the weight of it. In my experience, whether professional or personal, there is no level of skill, wisdom, or empathy that truly comforts the one who suffers. But this is where the beautiful truth of redemption steps in and begins to undo the work of suffering and loss.
Have you ever set a goal and then struggled to remain focused? Or felt like the goal was so far away it was unattainable and so you were less motivated? I was recently listening to an interview with psychologist Emily Balcetis who studied how our brains can use our visual system to shape our behavior. In other words, what we visualize can help change our behaviors and motivation.
“The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” I could tell you that I love this verse, but I would be lying. Mostly, I find this verse confusing – how in the world do I “not be anxious about anything?” And yet, believe or not, managing anxiety can begin with some relatively simple steps.
As someone who made a major career change from the business world to seminary, I have had to ask myself what exactly is my identity and calling? For many years, although I knew deep down that my identity was rooted in being a “child of God,” I had been falsely identifying with my career, job title, salary, travel, etc. As I come towards the end of my seminary journey, I am beginning to understand finally that my true identity lies with my relationships.
In our human nature, we tend to reflect on the negative, the frustrating, the disappointing. We wonder why we feel grumpy, angry, or irritable and often look for detailed, extravagant, sometimes expensive ways to help ourselves feel better. Yet the antidote to our lack of joy can often be found in the simple practice of gratitude. This practice of gratitude is one that is accessible to all yet rarely used in day-to-day life without intentionality.
Written by Megan Farcas, LMHC CMHIMP (Clinical Supervisor, Senior Clinician)
We are three weeks into 2021. Take a moment to check in with yourself—how are you doing? How are you feeling? Some of us may be maintaining a sense of hope that 2021 will be better than last year. For others we’re feeling discouraged, anxious, and frustrated with how the past three weeks have been. Perhaps you made goals or resolutions that now feel futile. Maybe the ongoing winter and pandemic is leading to further feelings of isolation, sadness, and worry.
Use this moment to pause, to assess, to reset. What do you need? What can help?
Part of my training as a Certified Mental Health Integrative Medicine Provider (CMHIMP) is to look at health and healing from a wholistic approach. In sessions, I like to help clients try to reorient around ways to care for themselves in addition to addressing their emotional needs. The mind-body connection is often overlooked when trying to find ways to manage stressors, yet this connection is so crucial. Physical and emotional health are inextricably linked. In turn, if we have a hard time supporting or managing our emotions, sometimes we can reinforce self care from a different approach, by attending to ourselves physically.
Amidst ongoing challenges and stressors, here are three things you can do today to help support yourself physically:
Move Your Body
When was the last time you stood up? Stretched? Went for a walk? Danced around the house? Moving your body can help reduce stress through blood flow and increased oxygen. Movement benefits brain function—the center of our thoughts and emotions—creating new brain cells and synapses. Moving your body doesn’t have to be an elaborate goal or ordeal. It can be standing up every hour to do a few stretches or jumping jacks. It can be something fun like putting on your favorite song and dancing for a few minutes; in fact, dancing has been found to tone the vagal nerve (a cranial nerve that connects the brain to the body), thus helping reduce stress and anxiety.
Fuel Your Body
Are you giving your body the nutrients it needs, bringing awareness to hunger cues and appetites? For many, pandemic life has disrupted routines even at a basic level such as meals. Can you put more intentionality into fueling your body nutritionally? For example, foods rich in protein are made up of amino acids needed to create neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin which helps us feel good.
Rest Your Body
Lack of proper sleep is widely known to contribute to negative moods and emotions, often increasing irritability and stress. On the flip side, sufficient sleep enhances positive moods and overall wellbeing. In our modern life sleep often becomes the first thing we chip away at in the ever busy endeavor to fit more into a day. The average person needs 7-9 hours of sleep each night in order to get the proper physical, emotional, and mental rest needed—how are you doing with this? Can you adjust your schedule to support yourself in getting enough sleep each night? Small adjustments such as going to bed 30 minutes earlier can make a large difference in improving sleep habits, thus benefiting your body holistically.
Written by Day Marshall, LMHC LPC (Senior Clinician, Director of HCC Oregon)
Early in my career I was introduced to the therapeutic benefits of journaling and expressive writing. In that program, we set aside a 50 minute window each week to give our residential patients time to journal. These journal entries would often be a generator for discussion topics during individual counseling. Very often, the client unearthed a concern or belief during the journaling exercise that he or she was previously unable to put into words.
I often request that my current clients engage in expressive writing as a part of our regular counseling process. I describe this exercise as allowing the jumbled and vague thoughts and feelings that are sitting in their minds to be filtered through the writing-skills part of their brain in order to sort them out and let them be seen for what they are. The writer ‘gives air to’ or ‘lays out on the table’ beliefs, feelings or fears that they have previously never directly acknowledged. This action alone can be extraordinarily beneficial to relieving emotional distress.
Giving yourself a chunk of uninterrupted time to simply express your thoughts and experiences is a luxury lost to time for most of us. For many generations, keeping a journal was a normal part of life and provided documentation of one’s activities and opinions. In our modern age, journaling has often been set aside for the more flashy and mindless activities of screen-based entertainment. However, once we allow ourselves the time to intentionally express ourselves in writing, we discover its immense power to improve our emotional and even physical states. For example, numerous studies among patients with varying illnesses including depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, asthma and fibromyalgia have found that expressive writing has a direct positive impact on the patients’ symptoms.
If you don’t know where to start with expressively writing your feelings or thoughts, begin with a prompt. Use the prompt to get the ball rolling. For example, begin with the prompt, “If I had no fear whatever, I would . . . “ and then give yourself 30-50 minutes of uninterrupted writing time to dive deep into the process. Another example is “the most painful emotional experience of my life was. . . “ Try to consider how the experience made you feel in the moment, the impact it had on how you see yourself or others, and any lingering impacts it has had on your beliefs or behaviors. Journaling specifically about issues that cause fear, stress and anger can be very therapeutic. If you receive a diagnosis that is fearful, writing about that uncertainty can relieve some of the emotional weight of it. If you have a strained relationship, writing a mock letter to the person with whom you struggle can provide an outlet to express all of the emotions and words you have inside that may not be helpful to express directly to the person.
Expressive writing can be kept in a journal, on a private computer document, or can be ‘writing one-offs’ that are deleted or thrown away immediately after the words are put on paper or screen. There is an additional layer of potential therapeutic benefit to journaling that I will save for another post. For now, be encouraged to start! Begin with something. It doesn’t have to be extensive or profound. vEven a commitment to writing 2-4 times a week at 5-10 minute intervals in order to simply begin expressing your emotions and thoughts is helpful. Give it a try. Perhaps you’ll discover the value of it for yourself.
Written by Megan Farcas, LMHC CMHIMP (Clinical Supervisor, Senior Clinician)
"Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like 'struggle.' To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now—and to go on caring even through times that may bring us pain." — Fred Rogers
Over the years the topic of love is a constant theme in sessions with clients and conversations in my own personal life. Across relationships—innate (such as parents, siblings, family) and 'chosen' (spouses, friends, children, etc.)—we have all faced some sort of hurt or disappointment. Questions arise along the lines of "what does it look like to love someone who has disappointed me?" or "how can I love them if we disagree on so much?" In reflecting on love, I appreciate the above quote by Fred Rogers as it outlines the difficulty that loving another sometimes presents. At times the person we love may bring us pain, disappointment, dismay. Love is choosing to continue in caring amidst the difficulty and remain intentionally present.
In society and media love is often depicted as a feeling or epiphany. Yet in reality love is a choice—and not a one time choice; it is a daily, persistent choice. In his book Our Father Abraham, Marv Wilson identifies love as "a person’s good word to stick with someone, to make that relationship work; It was not merely a warm sensation" (p. 202). Love is a commitment to caring for another person who is just as imperfect as you are. A commitment that requires hard work when difficulty arises. Love means forgiving when hurtful mistakes are made. It often requires a level of sacrifice to self for the good of the other person and the good of the relationship.
As you read through this, are certain relationships coming to mind? A recent argument with your spouse? Unresolved tension with your mother? Frustrations with your roommate that you struggle to let go of? Below are some ideas of ways to put love in action amidst difficulty:
Learn to appreciate differences in the other person
You may not always see eye to eye but is that always a bad thing? Sometimes differences can lead to a better perspective.
Letting go of the little things
Not every frustration needs to lead to a blow out. Is it possible to let go of some of the resentments you may be holding? What might it look like to love the person past the 'little things' that led to the anger?
Forgiveness
Practicing forgiveness allows us and the other person to try to move forward. It provides a reset to bring ourselves back to the focus of love as a choice.
Apologize
Back to the notion of self sacrifice in loving another, apologizing can often help create a bridge towards reconnection.
The utmost picture of sacrificial love is what we see in the life and death of Jesus. He loved despite not always receiving love back, providing the ultimate sacrifice of love for the good of us all. May we strive to better understand the struggle of love and remind ourselves that love is a constant choice.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8)
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