🌀On the importance of doing a thorough Brain Dump to release and let go of your unexpressed grief, rage, disgust and other negative feelings. You cannot do a Spiritual or Cognitive By-Pass!
🌀Tears are the language of grief, and messy, hard crying jags are on the road to wellness.
🌀After reading this article, I will never again say “Everything happens for a reason” (out loud). Mea culpa, mea culpa…
Instead of feeling trapped inside your home or apartment, what if you started to see this as a temporary retreat? Can you turn this victim consciousness into a victorious consciousness? What if you are being called to live, move and have your being refined in an enclosed space for a few months to evolve to a new level of consciousness?
This appears to be a global retreat. We are all being called to stay home and go within, on many levels. The only real choice we have on this Earth is HOW WE RESPOND OR REACT to stress and crises. Moment by moment…victim or victor? With ease or anxiety? We choose, again and again.
I’m not going to list or catalog all the ways you can go inside…because you are smart, and have been aware of mindfulness techniques, prayer, contemplation, meditation, relaxation techniques, Reiki, yoga and much more. There are many paths up that mountain to deepen your awareness, increase your insight and have more inner peace. I’m just here to remind you of what you already know.
“Lisa, I know nothing about going inside myself. Where should I begin?” When I hear this, I often invite my DBT Skills Students to use my 2-2-2 Method of Transformation.
What is the 2-2-2 Method? The broad brush here is you spend two minutes connecting within, two minutes reading something inspirational and two minutes writing. You can do these in any order. To feel successful and build momentum, set a timer for six minutes each day for your practice. If you stay in the process for six minutes, you’re good, even if you don’t tap each category perfectly. The idea is to set your intention and do the best you can.
Meditation: Spend approximately 2 minutes sitting quietly, doing some kind of paced breathing. During this time, consciously seek to access your inner Wise Mind, Higher Power, Ha Shem, Christ Consciousness, Allah, Great Spirit, Buddha Nature, any label will work that is meaningful to you.
Reading: Spend approximately two minutes reading from a personal growth book, inspirational literature, Scripture, angel cards, your DBT book or whatever devotional or uplifting material you have handy. If you have no inspirational literature, this will be a fun shopping trip for you. Ask around, especially if you know someone who you admire for their mental and spiritual wellness. See what they are reading. Take a risk and read it too.
Writing: Finally, do two minutes of writing (in your journal or DBT worksheet). You can just write what you are observing in your mood. My favorite format for basic brief journaling is to write a fear list, do a quick brain dump and just get it out of your head onto the page. Then make a gratitude list (6-10 items or so). Then make a to do list. Then if there’s still time, freestyle and just let it rip. See what comes out of you.
The 2-2-2 Method gives you a structure – but it is flexible – again, you can do these tasks in any order. If you do this daily practice, this will help you advance and make a big difference over time.
If the timer goes off and you want to do more, that’s fine. But the six minutes a day minimum will be great for building momentum here.
Gentle Note: If you’re too busy to invest six minutes/day on your personal evolution, you are too busy. Dial down your Netflix, YouTube, Videogame and other streaming activities. You are worth it! Just six minutes/day will compound over time and create amazing changes in you and give you a life worth living.
Also, do NOT try to do this perfectly! Allow some wiggle room on the 2-2-2 precision. It’s not exact, although sometimes it can be.
The 2-2-2 Method will give you a satisfying structure to add to your day. Truly, this is such a good time to start a 2-2-2 practice and build from it. Over time, you will see this move to longer sessions, and will feel deeply nurtured and empowered by it.
In closing, I appreciate Lynn Ungar’s approach to this pandemic…
We are all struggling to feel safe, stable, useful and effective during this pandemic challenge. I know for sure that when I feel peaceful and useful, everything else falls into place.
Feeling peaceful and useful is the foundation for a great life…trying to be “happy” or “ecstatic” all the time is worthless to me. Happiness is fleeting, and as much as I love ecstasy, it also does not last long enough. Being peaceful and useful, however, offers long term gains, which often bloom into happiness and sometimes the ecstatic joy of living.
HOW DO WE BECOME MORE PEACEFUL DURING THE PANDEMIC?
There are many different paths of coping as you trudge up this pandemic mountain, the question is which path works for you. I suggest you keep trying these methods — and others — to see what works. Over time you will have a colorful tool kit with many different coping methods that you can use as needed.
Today’s tip has some useful skills for increasing your tolerance to distress and anxiety. There are two key principles at work with the TIPP skills.
⭐First, every thought becomes a chemical reaction in your body. Change your thoughts, change your experience of your life. Mind/Body medicine works both ways.
⭐Second, “the issues are in your tissues.” When you release the stress and toxins in your flesh, bones, muscles, skin, you feel a tremendous mental release and relief.
Let’s start with the empirically verified TIPP Skills for quickly changing your body chemistry:
Source: Adapted from Linehan, M. (2015).Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets. New York: Guildford Press. P. 329.
Let me unpack these TIPP skills and add in my suggestions:
Temperature – you can create what’s call the “The Dive Response” in a few ways. The Dive Response will lower your blood pressure and relax your nervous system. Ways to shift temperature include:
Set up a bowl of cold water and dunk your face into it for as long as you can hold your breath. Do this a few times, until you feel relief.
Take an ice pack, wrap in a towel and place on your cheeks, brow, neck.
Hold ice cubes in your hands.
Freeze a lemon or orange, and squeeze the frozen citrus. Provides cooling effect plus aromatherapy.
Take a washcloth and moisten with cold water, but it on your brow (better effect laying down.)
Intense Exercise – in addition to the jumping jacks, push ups, running, walking fast, fast dancing, Vinyasa and Ashtanga yoga etc, I recommend the “Cross Crawl.” You can do this standing up or on the floor. This is a movement that gets your heart rate up super fast, can be done in place, and in five minutes you will feel the shift and release. It also provides excellent mental stimulation and has been shown to improve memory, creativity and focus as the cross-lateral activity heightens the exchange between the left and right hemispheres of our brains.
“Therapeutically, cross crawl refers to any intentional cross-lateral activity in which you cross the mid-line of the body, such as touching opposite hand and knee or foot. Performing this movement builds the bridge between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, allowing for electrical impulses and information to pass freely between the two, which is essential for physical coordination as well as cerebral activities, such as learning language, reading, and hand-to-eye coordination.” (Source: https://www.yourtherapysource.com/blog1/2019/06/16/cross-crawl/)
Paced Breathing – Whether you do the “Take 5” method, which is inhaling to count of five, holding for 5 and then exhaling to 5, or any variation of slowed down breathwork, it will work. The only way to do this wrong is to not do it at all! When we do this in my DBT Skills Groups, I add on the physical hand movement of placing the dominant hand on the heart area and the other hand on the naval area. Touching these two power centers (Solar Plexus and Heart chakra) has an additional calming effect. The body feels more centered and cared for, a sense of compassion flows, and we feel we are doing useful self-parenting in this position. This is also considered the Reiki I position, which begins a deeply relaxing sequence of psycho-spiritual events in the body.
Paired Muscle Relaxation – This is when we begin to scan our bodies head to toe or toe to head, and start to tighten and release muscle groups. This can be done sitting or lying down. It is most effective to inhale, tighten, hold for a few seconds, and then release. I sometimes like to pair the muscle contractions with cognitive suggestions, e.g. Breathe in harmony, breathe out chaos. Breath in unconditional love, breathe out fear. Breathe in acceptance, breathe out anger.
You can find many free versions of Paced Breathing and Paired Muscle Relaxation at Insight Timer, and all over the internet. Insight Timer has versions as short as 2 minutes, and as long as 90 minutes for each of these processes. (I also have a few videos on YouTube concerning Body Scans and Paced Breathing as well.)
May these TIPP Skills enhance your Coronavirus Retreat today!
I’m excited to announce that we are hastening slowly to transform the world from the inner to outer, one DBT student at a time…
Up next: we will be exploring Mindfulness & Emotion Regulation skills from March 11 – June 17, 2020.
For all groups (Adults, Teens, Mastermind Groups) we have a minimum of six and maximum of 10 students.
The Emotion Regulation module has four sections:
Understanding and Naming Emotions
Changing Emotional Responses
Reducing Vulnerability to Emotion Mind
Managing Extremely Difficult Emotions
The Mindfulness material includes:
Learning to be a good observer
Being non-judgmental
Staying in the present
Practicing being effective
Accessing Wise Mind (aka higher self, higher consciousness)
Understanding Reality Acceptance and detaching from negative or critical thoughts.
As DBT founder Dr. Marsha Linehan says, “It is difficult to manage your emotions when you do not understand how emotions work. Knowledge is power.”
We learn to cope better with social anxiety issues, negative thinking and get out of the Blame Game.
We learn to abstain from the “Compare and Despair” syndrome.
We practice “Face it, trace it and erase it” as we work the DBT Skills and grow stronger and wiser with effective emotional regulation and expression.
We learn to access “Wise Mind” and regain our center, remain calm. We learn to take a stand for our peace, and become bulletproof to bullies, nastiness and others’ negative remarks.
We learn to practice Radical Acceptance, as needed, and problem solve when possible. We are no longer victims.
Lisa Wessan, LICSW
DBT Skills Trainer
If this sounds good to you, please get in touch with me to start your enrollment process.
For exact dates, fees, insurance, FAQs, location, DBT videos and more details, please visit www.lisawessan.com or call 978.710.8039.
“Everyone experiences ambiguous loss if only from breaking up with someone, or having aging parents or kids leaving home. As we learn from the people who must cope with the more catastrophic situations of ambiguous loss, we learn how to tolerate the ambiguity in our more common losses in everyday life.”
– Pauline Boss, Ph.D.
In my immediate family, several of my nearest and dearest have battled with cancer over the years…both of my paternal grandparents, may they rest in peace, my dear first cousin Stephanie (may she live to be a super centenarian) and my delightful and fierce Aunt Yvette (known as “Auntie”), who is currently receiving hospice care. It has been a long and grueling journey with cancer for all my loved ones.
Sometimes I struggle with feeling powerless, and living so far away from my family in Sarasota, FL. When they lived in New York, it was so much easier to visit. Sadly, I can’t make frequent visits to Sarasota. The only “power” I do have is to send intentional healing and loving energy to my Auntie and family…and to practice radical acceptance so that I will function with some measure of inner peace here in my world.
For a while, my Auntie was in and out of the nursing home while she battled her cancer and other complications from treatment. Her life was severely compromised by her illness. As harsh as this has been is for her, since April 2015, I have also been witnessing how Auntie’s dying process is affecting everyone around her.
My cousins are fraught with anxiety and grief. Others in my family are a hot mess, watching Auntie dying so slowly, not being able to process their feelings and find some relief. Some people get trapped in the “Blame Game,” and are always looking to find ways to defocus their pain by pointing at others.
We are all coping with the ambiguity of Auntie being here, yet not here. She is no longer resembling her true self as we knew her. Sometimes she is delirious, sometimes she is too weak to talk. As her body deteriorates, she is no longer living the full and robust life she once enjoyed.
This pain we are all experiencing has a name…it is called Ambiguous Loss. “Ambiguous loss is a loss that occurs without closure or understanding. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, and thus complicates and delays the process of grieving, and often results in unresolved grief.” (Wikipedia)
There are a variety of types of ambiguous loss. One type is when people go missing and the body is never found. For example, a person does not return from a sailing trip, or from a hiking excursion, or war, or they are kidnapped. Their loved ones still feel a lack of closure because the body was not found. “Maybe they will return…” lingers in the mind.
After 9/11, all of us in NYC were processing personal and professional ambiguous loss for all of our New Yorkers who were lost in the pile of bodies that were never recovered.
Another kind of ambiguous loss is when people experience a new emotional boundary that hurts. This happens when people get divorced, or when someone ignores you, stops talking to you, shuts you out of their life. Any kind of break-up creates ambiguous loss, because the person is still here, yet not here. They are alive, but dead to you. This is considered more painful loss than when someone actually dies.
Medical illness and addictions cause ambiguous loss.
Ambiguous loss also occurs when a loved one has Altzheimers or dementia, and they no longer recognize social connections. Similarly, when someone is very ill, such as my Auntie. We have ambiguous loss because the illness is transforming our loved one into someone other than the person we always knew. We are mourning the living remnants of our loved one while she is here…so excruciating and bitter.
When someone is living with an addiction, this too causes their personal relations to deteriorate and they are not fully present for their loved ones. Again, they are here but not here.
I have a friend who had a beautiful daughter in Cambridge, MA, who chose to be homeless. Her daughter was an alcoholic. My friend tried all methods of intervention and help. Nothing worked. My friend suffered with ambiguous loss for so many years. Her daughter was a pianist, absolutely lovely. She died a few years ago, at 35, and it was one of the most heart wrenching tragedies I experienced. My friend is still recovering from this painful loss.
Learning to live a good life with ambiguous loss
I recently listened to a wonderful and insightful podcast interview with ambiguous loss pioneer Pauline Boss, Ph.D., who originally coined the term “ambiguous loss.” Krista Tippett hosts Dr. Boss on her podcast, On Being. You can listen here:
I prefer the unedited versions of Tippett’s interviews, because there are sometimes fascinating nuances that are deleted to make the long form interview fit into an hour. But I’m sure whichever one you listen to will be rewarding💙
One of the ideas I took away from Dr. Boss’ talk was that we will never have complete closure from our ambiguous losses, or from our complicated grief. What we can do is become more adept at processing our negative feelings and difficult thoughts. Dr. Boss has some wonderful suggestions on the process.
Cognitive restructuring, which can be learned, is a big part of the solution. Dr. Boss’ stories and explanations are very helpful in deconstructing the different kinds of ambiguous loss that we all have in our lives.
Even though I learned about ambiguous loss and complicated grief in graduate school, it seems I keep deepening my understanding of it every year. I learn more about ambiguous loss from clients who are struggling with painful divorce, adult children with addictions, my Auntie’s battle with cancer, harsh racial and homophobic incidents and for all the ongoing loss of freedoms in the world that never seems to subside.
Fun fact: Ambiguous loss is clearly part of our psychospiritual journey — for it forces us to grow and move to new levels of compassion and acceptance of things we cannot control. “Lack of power, that is our dilemma,” says Alcoholics Anonymous (Bill W., 1976). Yes, in our culture, we seek to control, cure, fix and manage everyone and everything as much as possible. We don’t like messy endings.
Yet what I have come to know, is that true mastery of life is being able to live in ambiguity with peace, even joy. My life is far from perfect…yet I am more often feeling positive, grateful, uplifted, inspired and anticipating good interventions that will transform it.
If we can learn to live in that “not knowing” place and be peaceful — that is a vast improvement on “hating ambiguity” and perhaps yelling at G-d or the Universe, or twisting into knots over why bad things do happen to good people…again, very messy, so annoying.
The truth is, when it comes to matters of love, there is no closure. As they say at the Grief Toolbox, “Closure is not part of the grieving process, nor is it necessary for healing. A connection formed in love can’t be closed.” Dr. Boss confirmed this with her years of research on ambiguous loss, leading to her forthcoming book on “The Myth of Closure.”
As Dr. Boss discussed in the interview, our Western culture wants neatly packaged endings and for everyone to move on as quickly as possible. There is plenty of ignorant shaming that goes on, as in “Aren’t you over that yet?”
Sadly, our culture does not tolerate ambiguous loss very well at all. It requires more Eastern, dialectical thinking. To be able to say non-binary statements such as “She is alive, but also dead,” “He is not here, but he is possibly still alive,” or “She looks like Auntie, but this is not Auntie anymore,” requires a leap from dualistic thinking to a more dialectical thinking which allows us to embrace opposite beliefs without sinking into a deep depression or disruptive anxiety vortex.
Solution Focused Suggestions
For today, I invite you to learn more about ambiguous loss, and start to apply these non-dualistic, non-binary, dialectical thinking ideas to your situation.
Listen to the podcast above, and learn some skills to help process your ambiguous grief.
Perhaps find a good therapist who can help you learn to cope better with your struggles. Good news: coping skills can be learned!
Learn to laugh at the absurdities, paradoxes and incongruities of life (Gavin, 2010; Wessan, 2013).
Practice your Distress Tolerance skills …join a Dialectical Behavior Therapy group. You may then find it easier to work through the painful moments, and allow yourself to live in ambiguity with, dare I say it, some joy!
For some people, the holidays are a very joyful and exciting time of year. More parties, celebrations, shopping and gift exchanges coupled with lots of social stimulation. It’s all good…for them.
But for others, who feel painful pressure to have “forced fun” and may not have strong intimate connections, lack financial resources, struggle with illness or addiction, these times are fraught with deep loneliness and uncomfortable feelings of “Compare and Despair” (Wessan, 2011). For this group, we are entering “The Red Zone.”
The Red Zone runs through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve…and perhaps for many Valentine’s Day is also included in this over stimulating, emotionally charged, addiction riddled time of year.
When I was younger, single and living alone in New York City, I experienced the holidays as my Red Zone. I loved my circle of friends, but many of them were married or had moved far away. They were not available for the holidays. I found my loneliness was most acute during this time of year.
As part of my coping with loneliness, for many years I went away for New Year’s weekend to Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center, in Craryville, NY. Pumpkin Hollow is a beautiful place, with magical trails on lush Berkshire hills and a thoughtful and sensitive staff. They used to facilitate a wonderful Silent Retreat over New Year’s weekend (I noticed now they have one in late January and May).
There were moonlit walks in the woods, we ate delicious gourmet organic vegetarian meals , danced around a huge campfire, hugged trees and meditated together in the silence. The facilitators artfully helped us work through all the activities in silence, and I remember every year being amazed at how little language I really needed to get by and still feel peaceful and content.
For me, it was a relaxing and restorative weekend in the Berkshires, but I also I had to process some difficult feelings.
Forgiveness 101
Being in the Silence can be a powerful cleanse, as so many distractions are removed. The Silence gives us time to deeply work through some acceptance and forgiveness issues, serving as a “Mental Laxative,” as Iyanla Vanzant is known to say (Vanzant, 2013). This is a perfect time to take a moral inventory of ourselves, and notice where we need to improve.
Moral inventories vary, but at their core, we make a list of the people we have harmed, consciously or unconsciously. Then we make a list of the ways we hurt ourselves, consciously or unconsciously. Finally, we make a list of our fears and regrets. (The only way to do a moral inventory wrong is to not do it at all.)
All of this then requires a deep and thorough forgiveness practice, ultimately letting go of all of it. Then it is done. We have a fresh start.
You can use this Forgiveness Prayer to help you get started. Practice Suggestion: Read it into your Smart Phone’s Voice Memo app (or tape recorder) very slowly. Pause 5-10 seconds between each line. Save it, and then play it back to yourself with your eyes closed, allowing yourself to feel it deeply. As faces and names to forgive bubble up in your consciousness, you can make a note of them to add to your lists.
For all those we have harmed, knowingly or unknowingly, we are truly sorry. Forgive us and set us free. For all those who have harmed us, knowingly or unknowingly, we forgive them and we set them free. And for the harm we have done to ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly, we are truly sorry. We forgive ourselves and we set ourselves free. ~ Author Unknown ~
Afterwards, we may also need to talk to a few people and apologize for our behavior (or in some cases neglect). Hard Fact: In order to really feel healthy, whole, clean and strong inside, it is essential to give our inner emotional pipes a good Roto-Rooter cleaning by resolving any awkward or tender hurts. Apologies and amends need to be in the process. Fun Fact: Asking for forgiveness is the final piece in our quest for inner calm, or should I say, the Final Peace?!!
But you don’t have to go away for a whole weekend to give yourself an effective Mental Laxative…you can carve out some time each day, or each week, to sit quietly and review your life to forgive the imperfect moments. What worked well? What did not go so well? Whom did you judge too harshly? Even taking a brief inventory of your emotional interior will have huge pay offs in the long run.
One more Mental Laxative Practice Suggestion: set a timer for 10 minutes. Do as much of your list making as you can in that time, and then stop. It will be enough. Do this on a weekly basis, or more frequently if you are ready. Ten minutes of taking a Mental Laxative twice a week is a great beginning, perhaps once over the weekend and once during the week? Do what feels right for you.
As you progress, this could ideally become a daily activity…and who would you be if you had no resentments, anger, unresolved grief and rage? You would bloom on in a whole new way.
In addition, I believe that holding onto negative thoughts and unresolved anger, resentment, fear and grief will fester within, and eventually manifest into some kind of physical illness and/or mood disorder. We need to keep all of our pipes clean! Digestive pipes and emotional pipes, which actually work together in the big picture.
As the hallowed halls of the Mindfulness research and Functional Medicine have taught us, every thought becomes a chemical reaction in our bodies. Please note, the Mind-Body connection is not philosophical, theoretical or conjectured. It is grounded in science (Turner, 2014).
We need to be aware of this and carve out the time to release and let go of our negative and stinking thinking. If we don’t, it will just putrefy within, and poison our relationships as well.
What is Reflective Listening?
Being heard is so close to being loved, that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable. – David Augsburger
Another worthwhile activity to do if you find yourself being in the Red Zone now is to volunteer your time, talent and special treasure in places that will appreciate you.
Before I became a therapist, I used to volunteer at a Suicide Hotline called HELPLINE, at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York, which for me, was an exhilarating service. It was founded by the late, great Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, may he rest in peace. (There is also an excellent Blanton-Peale counseling center located at Marble, with wonderful psychospiritual therapists on staff, see reference below).
Most Hotlines have a fascinating and useful training program which enhances all human relationships. I first learned the power of Reflective Listening in my 10-week HELPLINE training, and it transformed my life.
Reflective Listening is being able to let someone else talk and just be present for them, listening quietly. When they pause, then you reflect back the essence of what they have just said. This feels very soothing and loving to the agitated talker. The person feels so validated by your Reflective Listening, it is often enough to help them get “off the ledge.” Listening is a form of loving each other that soothes, heals and restores us.
Learning Reflective Listening was the bulk of my HELPLINE training, plus there was also a lot to learn about making referrals and gaining trust.
Coming from a culture of chronic interrupters and non-listeners, I had learned some ineffective communication habits over the years, which I continue to strive to improve. The impulse to speak out and interrupt is fierce, but knowing that it compromises relationships and hurts people helps me to zip my lip, as best as I can. For today, I remain a humble work in progress, that’s for sure.
My hope for the future is that the Hotline’s training program is something that will be taught to all humans by the sixth grade. Similar to the skills learned in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT, which should also be part of elementary school education) during training we learned about interpersonal effectiveness, mindfulness, distress tolerance and emotion regulation. These skills give us the foundation for better emotional balance, and allow us to be more present for others’ pain and suffering, as well as our own.
Ask yourself the magical question, “How can I be useful today?”
I understand that a Hotline gig may not be your cup of tea. Volunteering at a soup kitchen, animal shelter, nursing home, botanical garden, museum, Indivisible, MoveOn or anywhere can also be very uplifting during the Red Zone.
Nursing homes always need a river of volunteers to help with feeding, reading, translation services and transporting non-ambulatory residents . I learned this when I was in graduate school, as one of my internships was at the Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged in the Bronx. I was facilitating several therapy groups each week, but there was a huge volunteer staff that coordinated all these helpful tasks for the residents. I was so impressed with the volunteers’ compassion and zeal to help these nursing home residents.
Yes, there is a time for self care, and then sometimes it is better to focus on others’ needs more than your own, to take a break from the painful ME-ME-ME inner dialogue you might be having.
Transparency is Healing
Finally, being in the Red Zone totally in secret is just exhausting and no fun. Be honest and authentic about your feelings — transparency is healing — and see who matches your energy. You might find a few people who also feel put upon and even hate the holidays — great — these will be your Red Zone buddies and comrades in getting through the muck of the season.
Make it a point, however, to be victorious together, e.g.”let’s stay sober and clean through this nightmare,” or “This too shall pass. How can we be useful today?” or “Let’s go for a hike and get away from the shopping madness.” Complaining is draining, so it’s important to find ways to support each other to rise above the chaos of the season.
Being able to laugh about it, the complete absurdity and paradox of Christmas especially, is so refreshing. Whenever I see huge displays of gifts and glittery objects everywhere tempting us to buy-buy-buy, I chuckle to myself and think “What would Jesus say about all this? Would He be happy with this display?” Yikes.
I’m not judging, nay, nay, I actually love the glittery Hand of G-d in all of this (Wessan, 2012). But you know the commercialization of Christmas becomes excessive and downright irritating at times — so I like to take a step back and think about the real reason for the season…our awesome connectivity, celebrating our Oneness, and the mystery of the Numinous in our lives.
Another reason is the magnitude of working through the bittersweet feelings of existence together and being brave enough to peacefully co-exist in this tumultuous world. We can acknowledge the dialectical paradox, that sometimes we want to live and sometimes we don’t, but we choose life anyway. We need to be courageous during this time, knowing that we are struggling in the Red Zone while “everyone else” seems to be having the best time ever.
In Conclusion
For this holiday season, The Red Zone, I encourage you to try something different:
Experiment with a daily or weekly Mental Laxative experience, or go away on a retreat for more in depth forgiveness work.
Volunteer somewhere that will give you a chance to focus on someone else, take a break from “Poor me, Poor Me, Pour me a drink” thinking.
Give honesty a chance, come clean and tell a few people how you really feel. Defrost some of that hidden grief, rage, loss, loneliness, “Compare and Despair” and all the inner stressful thinking that puts a damper on your days.
I promise if you follow some of these suggestions you will feel lighter, brighter and perhaps, dare I say it, even more peaceful during this relentless Red Zone.
Good health is wealth, go for it!
References
Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills (DBT). This is a four part psychoeducation program that covers Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, Distress Tolerance and Interpersonal Effectiveness. It takes one year to complete the curriculum.
Turner, K. (2014). Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds. New York: Harper Collins.
Vanzant, I. (2013). Forgiveness: 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything. Carlsbad, CA: Smiley Books.
Blanton-Peale Institute and CounselingCenter, New York, NY, for individual, family and couples counseling. Accepts most insurance. Highly recommended for quality psychospiritual therapy. Founder: the late great Reverend Norman Vincent Peale.
Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center, Craryville, NY. Owned and operated by the Theosophical Society. Organic vegetarian food served from their own farm, non-dogmatic, beautiful retreat center. Highly recommend, especially the retreats on Therapeutic Touch, and the Silent Retreat.
The full scope of Interpersonal Effectiveness focuses on improving communication, learning to set healthy boundaries, learning to validate self and others, gaining confidence in asking for what you want, enrolling others to help you in your dreams and goals, and letting go of toxic relationships.
Below is a sample of one of my lesson plans for Interpersonal Effectiveness. (This is one segment from 14 classes on this topic.)
Preventing Compassion Fatigue
It can very often be difficult to say no to people who make demands of us, and if we say no, we can get caught up in self-critical thoughts leading us to feel guilty. To avoid feeling guilty, we just keep on saying “yes” to every request.
Someone asks us to do something:
We can learn ways of saying “No” that don’t lead us to think self-critically or feel guilty. For example:
I’m sorry but I really can’t take on anything else at the moment.
I’m quite busy right now. Perhaps another time.
I’d like to help you out, but I just don’t feel up to it at the moment.
Thank you for asking me. You’re a nice person, but I don’t want to go out with you.
I don’t need a new roof (double glazing, vacuum cleaner etc). I’m happy with what I have thank you.
If the person seems to have trouble accepting your “No,” then just keep repeating yourself, over and over if necessary. Be a BROKEN RECORD! Practice what one of my students calls Polite Perseverance…You might have to add the word “No” to the beginning of those statements, perhaps with some emphasis on that word. For example:
No. I’m sorry but I really can’t at the moment.
Be wary of those self-critical thoughts afterwards. Practice challenging and/or dismissing them, by telling yourself:
I explained to them why I couldn’t do it.
It’s not my responsibility.
It would only end up upsetting me if I agreed to it – this is best for me. If I feel less tired and not resentful, then I might be a better position to help them out next time.
They’re just thoughts – I don’t need to pay them any attention (then put your focus of attention on something else).
The following dialectic affirmations about control and esteem can be helpful for finding that balance.
I cannot control some things but I am not helpless.
I cannot control other people but I am not helpless.
I am not responsible for those things I cannot control.
I accept those things in myself that I cannot change.
I can make positive choices for myself.
My strengths and abilities deserve my appreciation. Appreciate those abilities you have.
Create your own affirmations by completing the following sentences:
I am not powerless, I can ___________________________________________________
I have the right to refuse ___________________________________________________
I am not helpless, I can _____________________________________________________
I deserve to _________________________________________________________________
Remember, a wise person once said “Repetition is the mother of skill…” so aim to repeat these phrases at least twice a day, with focused energy, enthusiasm and passion!
The DBT Program in my office covers these modules:
DBT Core Mindfulness [focusing skills]
Distress Tolerance [crisis survival skills]
Emotion Regulation [de‐escalation skills]
Interpersonal Effectiveness [‘people skills’]
During class, we explore the act of saying “No” and turn these into powerful “Moves” to help you build new neural networks in your brain. We combine neurology, physiology and cognitive restructuring to do this, and sometimes add music and dancing to ramp up our energy. This helps you develop a fresh new response more easily and will become your “new normal” response to people’s inappropriate or untimely requests.
One of my favorite sources for excellent international (and national) news coverage is a magazine called THE WEEK. It is chock full of great executive summaries, plus the editors of THE WEEK have a healthy sense of humor. They express their humor in many ways, such as with their weekly sidebar/column, “Only in America.” They also have a column for “Good week for/Bad week for” which always gives me a good chuckle, again based on fact checked news stories.
My best laughter therapy from THE WEEK often shows up in The Week Contest, when they ask us to help name something, or label something, or describe something useful to help sort out the news.
The most recent Contest was about creating a new diagnosis for dealing with the current political climate…here are the results, for your therapeutic laughter du jour:
Source: THE WEEK, 10/21/16, page 38:
Last week’s question: The American Psychological Association has found that more than half of Americans identify the 2016 presidential election as a significant source of stress in their lives. Please come up with a psychological term that describes the unique feeling of anxiety induced by this race.
RESULTS:
THE WINNER: “Sufferage” Phyllis Klein, New York City
SECOND PLACE: “ADHD (Another day with Hillary and Donald)” Don Walker, Lexington, Mass.
THIRD PLACE: Democrazy Peg O’Neil, Bloomingdale, N.J.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
“Strep vote” Ken Kellam III, Dallas
“Campains” Valerie Resnick, New York City
“Polliosis” Dorothy L. Delman, New York City
“POTUS parting depression” Robert Koshiyama, San Francisco
“Boast rhetoric stress disorder” Ken Liebman, Williston, Vt.
Now there’s a word for it – I used to call it Techno-Despair – but Digiphrenia is all about coping with information overload. Is this in the DSM V? Not sure yet.
In the 21st century, true success will come to those who can FOCUS and abstain from all the pinging distractions…here’s to practice and more practice.
The Lighter Side of Transformation 