Couplespeak™ Blog
If your experience of 2020 and early 2021 feels like the above image, you’re not alone! No matter what side of the political fence you’ve embraced it has been a year of loss, constraints, hopelessness, helplessness, hatred, anxieties and extreme division, often among members of the same family, or among friends. Not only have most of us faced differences which have felt toxic and relationship-breaking, but a daily onslaught of information and news about catastrophic events, happening now, or about to unfold. I think there has been a collective experience of trauma in this country, and probably in many places around the world. Covid 19 illnesses and deaths, loss of income, loss of faith in the System, violence, racism, uncertainty.
To that point I’m encouraging everyone to pause and reflect on a few things:
How have you been coping and how well has it served you?
- Over-drinking or drugging?
- Isolating?
- Reviewing the horrors frequently with peers who get it?
- Over-eating or over-indulging in comfort foods or sugar?
- Targeting your loved ones with rage-outs?
- Overspending on Amazon?
- Denying anything unusual is happening and proceeding without any cautions or adjustments?
- Over-working and sacrificing sleep / self care rituals?
- Over-thinking and going to catastrophic conclusions?
In my psychotherapy practice I’ve seen how people’s responses to the trauma either exacerbate or alleviate some of the stress, bring people together for support and meaningful action or tear them apart. Depression and anxiety are off the charts now as people struggle with feelings and thoughts that can become runaway trains in response to such triggering events.
So, instead of going through a long list of more functional coping mechanisms I’m encouraging you all to begin by examining the strategies you’re already using and taking an honest look at how well these strategies are serving you. If they calm and energize you, at what cost to yourself or others? If they provide relief, how momentary or enduring is it? Do your coping mechanisms give you any sense of meaning, agency, or connection to others whom you respect and trust? Are you finding any joy amidst all this madness? Are you protecting your mental and physical health, or has that been one price of how you’ve tried to manage?
All meaningful change begins with Contemplation, so give that it’s due. Then, if you decide to seek out different coping tools you’ll be readier to use them intentionally, creatively and effectively.
In a previous BlogTalkRadio podcast I delved into some strategies for living more fully amidst the Covid 19 pandemic. I discussed the physical and emotional challenges everyone faces, as well as the symptoms people were experiencing only a few months into the crisis.
In this subsequent episode I’ll go deeper with my ideas for how to be more intentional with effective attitudes and behaviors which I’ve observed are helping my friends, family, clients, and myself to stay afloat emotionally, even feel happy and connected amidst this pandemic.
Tune in at 7 PM EST on Thursday, October 29th live at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/SusanLager to hear about 7 key tools to help you and those you love thrive, even with all the uncertainty and loss associated with Covid 19. Feel free to join in live by phone toll-free at 1(800)-497-9046 with questions or concerns. If you can’t make the live podcast you can stream it anytime on BlogTalk Radio. One way or another, I hope you’ll tune in!
Don’t miss this next BlogTalk Radio podcast!
In this 20 minute episode I’ll share my insights about some of the common sources of holiday related anxiety and stress, and how being proactive and intentional can transform the season.
If you have a history of some really negative experiences related to the holidays, and struggle with how to make it all more manageable, even magical, then this episode is for you! I’ll help you see how some simple planning, realism, and clear boundaries can make all the difference. You’ll see how you alone, or you and your spouse may have the power to turn it all around to meaning, connection and joy.
Call in live with questions or comments at 877-497-9046. If you can’t make this (first ever) Sunday night podcast while it’s happening, you can stream it at your convenience anytime at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/SusanLager.
Hope one way or the other you can join me!
Susan
Who wants to get up at the crack of dawn, leave a cozy, warm bed, get into a workout outfit and head to the gym for an hour of exertion and sweating?
Who wants to spend a Saturday doing the books and paperwork for their self-owned business, instead of listening to music, romping in the woods, or hanging out, eating and drinking with the people you enjoy?
Who wants to come home after eight grueling hours at the office to walk the lonely dog, answer twenty overdue emails, and cook dinner on demand?
Who wants to spend a whole beautiful Sunday afternoon in July visiting a sick friend who’s in the hospital an hour away?
Unless you’re an obsessed athlete, a compulsive accountant, a precise rule follower, or an unconscious co-dependent, you’ll probably be thinking “NOT ME!”
So, the big question becomes: how do you get yourself to honor your “Shoulds”? How do you motivate yourself to do the right thing, taking care of the not-so-fun parts of your life which require attention? How do you attend to your connections and responsibilities to your friends and family when doing so may be tiring, and not very glamorous or convenient?
Here are two of the six useful tips I’ve learned and shared with clients which I’ll be discussing in the 20 minute podcast on Wednesday 4/3/19 at 8:30 PM EST:
1. Connect with your deeper, less momentary motivation. Think about the big picture and why doing this thing is nagging at you? Will you be creating a big mess by avoiding it? Will someone else get hurt or offended if you blow this thing off? Is there a health issue which needs to be addressed in some regular way? Or, is this “Should” an unnecessary, illogical, guilt-driven piece of head noise?
2. Try to automate this activity if you can, as with exercising daily.Build it in and make it part of your schedule. By doing this you reduce conflict by pre-empting some bargaining on your part. When you automate things you spend less time thinking about how boring or annoying they may seem, (like brushing your teeth). The Nike company made multiple millions with their “Just Do It” slogan for good reason!
So, if you relate to this issue and want the other four tips about pushing yourself when it’s the grown up thing to do, tune into this brief podcast at BlogTalkRadio.com/SusanLager
*If you’d like to join me live on the air with questions or comments call into the studio at 877-497-9046.
So, here’s a pretty gruesome picture of my poor thumb almost severed. Before you vomit or faint, please read on, so you can avoid creating a similar mess. (This is less of a story about blood and pain and more about how it happened).
My husband and I live in a lovely 40 year old home which has needed some window work for about the last 15 years. The windows are beautiful, all wooden framed and large, but all are what’s called “guillotine” windows. Guillotines used to be used for chopping off people’s heads, mostly during the French Revolution. When you’re referring to a window that way it unfortunately functions in the same manner – if you don’t hold onto the top window while opening the bottom one, whatever is underneath gets chopped off, in this case almost my whole thumb, as per the nasty picture above. Fortunately, I got to the ER in time for the docs to sew the laceration back together, and now, three weeks later it’s all in one piece again.
The moral of this little story, however, is that my husband and I used avoidance and denial about the window problem for many years rather than doing our research and finding out if, in fact, they all needed to be replaced (to the tune of about $30,000.) or if we could have them repaired (cost: $3000. and one intact thumb). We just pretended the problem wasn’t really one, as we routinely positioned blocks of wood to keep windows open, or hammered top windows shut. It felt like one of those totally un-fun expenses, like getting a new septic tank or a new well, so we avoided it. The irony is that I pulled this little stunt at the beginning of the evening of my husband’s birthday, so we “celebrated” him in the ER this year.
If you too have any issues which you’ve been coping with through avoidance and denial, it might be time to ask yourself what the ultimate price may be for your “problem solving” strategy. How might you be victimizing yourself in the long run? Who else might be negatively effected if you keep pretending the problem isn’t really such a big deal? Might you be making a mountain out of a mole hill the way we did? Do you too have any body parts which might ultimately be compromised if you keep putting things off?
Think about it, and figure out some real solution to the problem…
Humbly,
Susan
