“The Softened Startup” according to the Gottmans

I’m reprinting a brief article I received from the Gottman Institute about how to approach your partner with a complaint without the complaint getting experienced as a criticism, or an attack on their character. This “softened startup” is an approach I’ve been advocating for years to couples, but I thought it was very succinctly captured in the Gottman’s article. Here it is:

• hurt
• abandoned
• attacked
• left out
• etc.

• “when I’m not invited to virtual happy hours with your friends,”
• “when you don’t read the articles I send you,”
• “when we don’t have dinner together.”

• “to know what your preferred evening schedule looks like and how I can be a part of it,”
• “to feel like you’re interested in the things I care about,”
• “to spend some quality time together this week.”

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Life Is Not on Hold!

Here is a post I just received and got permission to reprint from Cindy Giovagnoli, a wise old soul, world traveller, photographer, artist and writer. See what you think:

Our lives are not “on hold”

Oooooh, do I have a doozy of a conversation to have with you today! 

Not everyone’s going to like this, but I think you’ll get it.

Sooooo…

There is a single phrase that keeps popping up in conversations with friends and clients, and I keep seeing it written as part of social media posts and in emails from people and companies I follow. 

And it’s a big fat ugly lie that I want to address head on.

The phrase?

That our lives are “on hold” during this pandemic.

Which, of course, they absolutely are not.

I know what you’re going to say, and yes, a lot of plans and projects and ideas are indeed on hold.

But plans and projects and ideas are not our lives.

They are part of our story, of course, but not its entirety.

Not even a little bit.

Every day the minutes and hours continue to tick away.

There is no “pause” button happening right now. No one yelled “freeze!” and the world stopped on its axis.

Ask any human who has suffered the unthinkable and they will tell you that there is no such thing.

The world marches on. The seasons change. The days pass whether we agree that that is the fair thing or not.

Our lives are never, ever “on hold” no matter how much we might beg for a time-out to catch our breaths.

But here’s the thing.

That is okay.

I’m not saying that it always feels okay, because it sure as shit doesn’t.

But it IS okay.

On a long enough timeline, everything is okay one way or another.

And here’s another thing. It’s the thing I really want you to take away from what I’m saying today.

You still have agency in your life unless you choose to relinquish it.

You have choices about how you spend each one of those minutes, hours, days- they are not “on hold.”

You always have and it’s as true now as it ever was.

Some choices have been taken off the table without our consent and we don’t like that.

Nobody does. 

Of course we don’t like that. 

But there are still plenty of choices left there for us. 

Feel whatever you feel— don’t shove your feelings away or pretend they don’t exist.

AND ALSO make conscious choices about what you do.

Those things are not mutually exclusive.

We can take ownership of our actions.

We can take ownership of our choices.

We do not have to relinquish the agency we have over our lives.

There is a lot in this world I cannot control. 

The truth is that there always has been. ALWAYS.

I choose to stay empowered.

I choose to decide how I want to spend my minutes and my hours and my days.

Sometimes those choices will look “productive” and sometimes they won’t.

Sometimes those choices will be to engage with people or tasks that “distract” me from other things I want.

But the choices are mine to make and I will strive to make ones that best serve the life I want for myself.

I wish the same empowerment and agency for you.

Stay curious out there.

Cindy

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Life in Coronaland

Most everyone in the world, for some time now, has been experiencing the anxiety, losses, uncertainty, and constraints of social distancing related to Coronavirus. We know we’re living in an apocalyptic scenario, we hear all the gory details on the news and from each other every day. The people who seem to be surviving best in this new “normal” are the hard-core introverts, and even they are weirded out. I am not a cryer, but have done my share in the last few weeks, so I get the trauma in all this.

However, there are also some pretty bizarre and funny things going on which I think it would be therapeutic to notice and share. We’ve gotta find some humor amidst this crisis, so I will be doing my part here to spread the word about what’s laughable and inspiring in our current reality.

First installment:

“Big Night Out – Suicidal Grocery Shopping at BJ’s”

After a few weeks of this self quarantining my husband and I noticed a serious lack of freezer paper, cheese and Half and Half. We could deal with staying at home 24/7, being online 24/7 for all work and social contacts, the losses, the ongoing experience of Russian Roulette about who would die next, but no freezer paper? No cheese? No Half and Half for the gallons of coffee we’ve been drinking? No way!                 Besides, it was Friday night, and time to go out!

I’d heard from a few clients who are high up on the medical chain that yes, we should be wearing face masks to protect each other, but my idea to strap a huge towel around my head wasn’t so great – too much possible absorption of respiratory droplets for me while being socially altruistic. They both were adamant that glass or plastic face shields are what docs use in certain surgeries and risky situations. And yes, a motorcycle helmet would be fine. So, here I am above, following medical wisdom, preparing for our Friday night foray to get “desperately needed” supplies at BJ’s Wholesale Club.

Imagine Darth Vader walking around in front of you in a store. It was the perfect setup for social distancing! People around me probably thought I was either a psycho or someone about to rob the place, so nobody came near, even the customer service people who ordinarily assist when you’re useless at the Self Check Out line, as I generally am. It didn’t help that I was also wearing a giant scarf to seal the bottom opening of the helmet, so my hair was plastered down with sweat and the plastic shield was all fogged up from the heat condensation. Then at BJ’s you have to look for half boxes to pack your groceries in – uh oh, cardboard! More Coronavirus droplets about to pounce! My solution was to get this Big Night Out over and done with at top speed so my immune- compromised husband who was waiting in the car, wouldn’t worry that I’d succumbed to evil Covid-19. Of course it was pouring outside, and he’d parked right in front of the store, way too close to other people who were loading up their cars. He was less than 6 feet away from them, ready to help me! Of course I starting shrieking warnings at him from inside my Darth Vader getup, now soaked from the rain as well, so those people also backed off. (Handy)……….

I think the “insanity posture” may be very effective for our Covid-19 existence.  It certainly worked when I lived in Manhattan, would be coming home from work on the deserted subway late at night, and approached by some menacing creep. I’ve never carried any weapon except the ability to appear totally crazy, loudly shouting out psychotic rants, which I’d witnessed at Bronx State Hospital where I’d worked on the ward with folks who were in a different state of reality. Nobody wants to screw with an insane person, so in my later middle-of-the-night homeward bound subway rides I never got mugged or attacked. Shady characters would always back off. It was my perfect New York defense. If you’re not too self conscious I’d highly recommend it when clueless people get within 6 feet of you nowadays, especially the friendly ones.

The good news is that we had our Big Night Out and now have lots of freezer paper, cheese and Half and Half.                 Hallelujah!

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Moving forward with therapy amidst Covid -19

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Some insight about managing your anxiety amidst Covid-19

ADOBE STOCK IMAGE; GLOBE STAFF ILLUSTRATION

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a Globe Magazine special report, appearing in print on Sunday, March 29.

You might think that this is a terrible moment for someone with a clinical anxiety disorder. But here’s the thing: It’s like the rest of you have finally caught up with me. Hyper-vigilance? Insomnia? Catastrophizing? Extreme fear of uncertainty? Welcome to my Isle of Dread. Care for a cocktail?

I’m kidding, sort of. Panic disorder and extreme health anxiety have alternatively propelled and paralyzed me for two decades. For the most part, I exist as a fully functional human being thanks to 10 milligrams of Lexapro, an insightful therapist (now available on video chat), and long-practiced behaviors that keep me even-keeled.

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But many friends, thankfully never touched by the cold paws of anxiety, are now asking me how to deal. They don’t know what it’s like to awaken each morning wondering what kind of mood they’ll be in, or to contemplate whether today will be the day that mortality — in the form of a rash, a lump, a tremor — descends. They have never gasped for breath, ridden the acidic wave of heart palpitations and clammy sweats, and clawed for reassurance like a feral cat only to retreat into a mind that offers no solace, only more questions.

Most people move through the world assuming it has a veneer of predictability, or what psychologist Luana Marques calls a “thin veil of certainty.” We are not wired to deal with open-endedness; under normal circumstances, for example, we can feel fairly certain when we go to the grocery store that we’re not going to contract a virus. That has changed.

“But uncertainty is there all the time, and we just don’t feel it,” says Marques, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Anxiety sufferers know this intimately. You might be realizing it for the first time.

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Please know that it will be OK. What I’ve come to learn over the course of 20 years is that you really can master your anxiety. I’m not a New Age guru or a doctor; I’m just a person who’s ridden it out. Here’s the trick: Don’t deny it. Accept that you are absolutely, 100 percent going to feel awful sometimes. I know, I know — the world is rife with mindfulness apps, breathing strategies, glamping retreats, and drugs aplenty to keep your unease at bay. These have their place. We cannot live in a state of heightened vigilance at all times.

But engaging with discomfort is its own therapy, too. It’s the most un-American thing ever, yet: You must sometimes feel bad. So accept the anxiety. Don’t blunt it; summon it. This sounds counterintuitive, I know, but anxiety isn’t a mark of shame to hide from people whom you assume are far more resilient than you. (They’re not.) It will continue to bounce on your shoulders like a thorny goblin until you grab it, stare it in the face, and have a firm chat.

“The first thing I’ve been making people understand is that anxiety is a normal response to a threat,” Marques says. “We want to run away from discomfort, but pushing anxiety away makes it worse. We’re living in times when most of us are comfortably uncomfortable at a minimum. Understand that by embracing our emotions and labeling them, we can ride the wave a little more smoothly.” It’s like surfing. You’ll be jostled by the ocean, tossed around, and eventually tumbled back onto the shore.

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Of course, this is all academic until you’re hiding under a weighted blanket scrolling Twitter, wondering about that tickle in your throat. A behavioral way to cope is by doing something action-oriented, Marques says: cooking dinner with your kids, going for a walk. You’re forcing your brain to deal with what’s right in front of you.

Yet those of us with anxiety disorders also know that the only way out is by sitting with the discomfort until it dissipates. It’s like stepping into a hot tub and staying there until the water grows lukewarm. Acknowledge that you’re scared, and then tell yourself that you’ll sit, and you’ll breathe, and you’ll exist — yes, you will exist, minute by minute — until the feeling goes away. And, of course, reach out for professional help if you feel you need it.

Frame it as what we’re being asked to do in quarantine, on a smaller scale. Your mind is your own private bunker. You can’t just get up to leave, but when the door finally opens, think how much stronger you’ll be.

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