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Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter

As a practitioner in the helping profession, it is my job to help people thrive. None of us can truly thrive if groups of us are being singled out, mistreated, attacked, harmed, and killed. The Black members of our communities continue to experience this.

 

It is my responsibility as a member of this community, health practitioner, and white-presenting person to use every platform I have to address issues of injustice and inequity in my community to communicate that this community cares about what happens to you and we will fight alongside you for your rights and your lives. Racism oppresses, harms, and kills.

 

Yes, all lives matter, but here in the United States, Black lives specifically are historically and consistently undervalued. It does not devalue anyone’s life to say that Black lives matter. If it offends you or is uncomfortable for you to hear the phrase, “Black lives matter,” consider the reasons why a group of people in our community feels like they need this movement. Consider why this movement is criminalized. What must their experience be like if they are so vocal about this movement? One group is saying, “All lives matter,” while another group is saying “Stop abusing and killing us.”

 

White people are often afraid to talk about racism. Many of us feel uncomfortable around it and silence ourselves. Our silence is unacceptable and is a very real, harmful symbol of our agreement that some lives are more important than others. It is a clear sign of our privilege that we are afraid to have uncomfortable conversations about race while Black people are afraid for their lives. As people who hold privilege, it is our responsibility to talk openly about racism and how we can work to eradicate it. It is our responsibility to keep learning and unlearning, growing and changing, and to be better for our community members who deserve our respect, our voices, and our solidarity.

Get Noticed

Get Noticed

Many creative and content creators have doubted their abilities to share something inventive. They’ve experienced plenty of starts and stops. Self-doubt is often an integral part of the creative process.

 

On some level, most of us experience this. Self-doubt has a way of creeping in through all sorts of corners of our minds when we’re promoting an idea, ourselves, and sharing our perspectives with the world. No matter what field we’re in, as we try to figure out what and how we’d like to contribute we feel overwhelmed by the saturation and think, “What do I have to share that hasn’t already been shared? Can I find an innovative idea to express or even an innovative way to express it?” It’s easy to silence ourselves.

 

I experienced this self-doubt when I first opened my private practice. I looked at how many listings there are for psychotherapists in my city and thought, “What?! How’s this going to work?” I felt this the entire way through building my first website, and I felt it multifold when I decided I was going to keep a blog. And now and then that doubt resurfaces.

 

I’ve been fortunate enough to have surrounded myself with experienced practitioners, mentors, and supervisors who told me different variations of the same thing- There is enough to go around. Don’t let the saturation silence your voice. There are people who need to hear what you have to say in the way you are going to say it.

 

Over the years, as I’ve reflected on their variations of this message I realized they were right. I’ve read books, watched documentaries, and completed trainings that are similar but land with me in different ways depending on the speaker and where I am in my practice and my own life. (And obviously, even this message I have been relying on all these years has been restated by the people whose advice I’ve valued most. It has never lost its impact.)

 

Broadening this perspective, we can see how many voices uttering the same message from slightly different points of view strengthen a movement and a message- Black Lives Matter, LGBT Equality, Women’s Equality, healthcare reform, and so many other critical causes. There is strength in numbers. What’s not powerful about adding to a growing movement?

 

We need to hear from each other. We need to make ourselves visible so that other members of our community see themselves reflected in us. We cannot hear a message about something until it resonates with us and not every voice or every group will resonate with all of us. So we need to hear from Black members of our community, Transgender members of our community, working single moms, upwardly mobile millennials, professional women, the neuroscience community, the spiritual communities, our youth, people with a sense of humor, people who embrace their vulnerability. I might not be able to hear the message that a 67-year-old straight, white man has to say, but I might be able to hear it from a Biracial, Queer, 67-year-old woman. I also might need to hear the same message from people across communities and identities and intersections.

You have a valuable voice and message worth sharing. You don’t have to sound like Audre Lorde or Tony Robbins or June Jordan. Stay authentic. Sound like yourself. There is enough to go around. Don’t let the saturation silence your voice. There are people who need to hear what you have to say in the way you are going to say it.

What Does “Having It All” Mean?

What Does “Having It All” Mean?

For years, women have been told that we can or cannot have it all. We’ve been told what having it all means and either how we can get it or that it’s an unattainable myth. On the one hand, having it all means we’re worthy and successful. On another, wanting it all means we’re selfish and unrealistic. There are books, articles, workshops, and classes devoted to demystifying this subject.

Recently, though, there has been a directional shift. We’re approaching a new domain in the conversation and have started to ask ourselves and each other questions about the “having it all” mentality. Who decided what “having it all” means? On what cultural values does this mentality depend and do they align with our values? What narratives do we tell ourselves about what “having it all” looks like and do they work for us?

Turns out, you can’t have it all. No one can. At least, not all at once.

What we can do is make choices. We can choose our values, how we organize our priorities and the narratives by which we live our lives. Recognizing our choices isn’t easy. I get that. (In fact, sometimes, it might not feel like we have much of a choice at all.) For generations, we have had our choices and our consent removed from our view. The human rights movement has begun to change this and continues to bring our choice and consent into sight.

So, what do you choose for your life? What would you like to prioritize? Are you looking to be partnered? Happily partnered? Having children working in a meaningful career? Are you choosing to be a stay-at-home parent? Does exercising your choice mean working in a career that allows you to travel around the world eight months out of the year? Does it mean devoting your time to your career and volunteering? There are as many possibilities as there are people.

We’ve spent years reading from and committing to memory the scripts handed down to us. I’m working on letting go of the one I’ve memorized and I invite you to do the same.

I’m moving from the goal of “having it all” to connecting to my sense of purpose and personal choice. My process is not always fixed. In fact, it changes from year to year and phase to phase. Sometimes it looks like a lot of intense work in my career. Sometimes it looks like more time spent with loved ones and volunteering and working a little less.

To let go of the weird and burdensome goal of “having it all” and start figuring out what a life of choice and purpose means to you, try asking yourself these questions:

  • What feelings, thoughts, and images are evoked by the phrase “having it all?”
  • In what ways do I connect to those feelings, thoughts, and images?
  • What are the values I was programmed to have and do they match my values now?
  • What makes me valuable? Does that work for me?
  • Do I believe that having it all makes me complete? Do I believe that not having it all makes me incomplete? How did I come to this conclusion?
  • What are my priorities and how did they make the list?
  • What are my capabilities? How do I know this?
  • What beliefs, opinions, and narratives might I need to let go of to build the life I want?
  • Can I see the choices available to me in how I think about things, how I respond to my feelings and situations, and how I identify and set my boundaries?

 

Life is full of struggle and things we want to change, but it’s also full of choices. It’s tough to recognize our choices when we’re feeling overwhelmed. If we haven’t been taught to identify and set our own boundaries, it’s even tougher. Self-awareness lends itself to the ability to identify our choices and boundaries. Identifying our choices and boundaries helps us connect to our sense of agency. When we are connected to our own agency, we can create our own meaning. We are free to define what it means to live a full life, have it all, and to do so wholeheartedly.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie                     

“I Love My Kid but Hate Parenthood.”

“I Love My Kid but Hate Parenthood.”

A while back, I wrote a post directed toward parents who regret parenthood. And I don’t just mean sometimes. I don’t mean that “Ugh, I hate this part,” feeling. I mean the whole thing, the conflict of loving their children but hating the entire process.

I’ve received a lot of feedback about it. Many people were grateful and expressed that they’d been feeling alone with their guilt and regret. Feelings are complicated, people are complex, and our culture is still learning how to accept and hold all of this. My message was that it’s ok to regret or hate parenthood, that it’s ok not to feel as though you were cut out to be a parent whether your kid is 3 months, 2 years old, 6, 10, 16, 22, or 27 years old. It seemed to resonate with a lot of people.

There’s a theory developed by Donald W. Winnicott called “The Good Enough Mother.” It was developed in the culture of the 1950s which is why it only refers to the mother. It’s more complicated than the title suggests, but basically, he tells us that parents should slowly titrate the soothing to their children’s frustration, that parents should slowly and methodically transition from immediately meeting a child’s needs to letting the child self-soothe and learn how to get their needs met. But that’s not all. Upon further study of his theory, we find that Winnicott talks about the dangers of chasing perfect parenting. He cautions that striving for perfect parenting does a real number on developing brains.

Over the years, I have seen a lot of parents, families, and children. I’ve seen parents who wanted children from the time they were children, parents who somehow found themselves suddenly parents, and parents who figured they’d want kids some day, so they had them. A significant amount of these parents realized that they didn’t like being parenthood. Not only was it different from what they’d envisioned; it turns out the whole thing (or much of the thing) felt completely contrary to everything they wanted.

These parents have struggled with regret, guilt over the regret, anger over what they feel they’ve missed, and angst over how this might impact their children. (Although, there have been some parents who swapped their angst and guilt for denial.)

These parents need to hear that they don’t have to love parenthood to love their kids.

There are a million reasons not to love parenthood- poverty, any and all of the –isms, trauma, lack of a support network, disliking our own children, resenting the responsibility and experiencing it as an unwanted burden.

If you are a parent who regrets or hates parenthood, you’re not alone. You deserve compassion and respect. I know it’s taboo to regret something society tells us is the pinnacle of love and value and meaning. If you would like therapeutic or referrals for adjunct support, please call or email me.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

What Is Mental Health? What Is Mental Health Awareness?

What Is Mental Health? What Is Mental Health Awareness?

I get these questions often enough to think introspectively about them on a regular basis. I think about how the answers have changed over time the more we learn about what humans need to be healthy and thrive in our changing world. Recently, I went online to see what other people and places were saying about mental health and mental health awareness. I was both pleased at the progress and concerned about the continued that we’re still missing the mark.

What is mental health? Is it the absence of mental illness? Is it being positive and happy most of the time? Is it never feeling a sense of dread about anything? Is it looking forward to each responsibility? The answer to each of these questions is, “No, not really.”  Like pretty much most things, mental health lives on a spectrum. Here is a list that most mental-health professionals agreed encapsulates how mental health looks and feels:

  • The recognition of one’s potential capabilities
  • A sense of control and self-direction
  • Skillful management of the stresses of life through resilience and healthy resources
  • Positive gender identity
  • Sense of humor
  • Positive cultural identity
  • Regular exercise and consumption of nutrient-rich foods
  • Emotional awareness, coping, problem-solving
  • The ability to balance a productive workflow with rest and play
  • The ability to make meaningful contributions to one’s communities
  • Connection with one’s sense of purpose
  • Connection with one’s self-worth
  • The ability to connect in a meaningful way with others
  • The ability to speak and behave from a place of competence
  • Self-care
  • Holding realistic beliefs
  • Holding healthy boundaries
  • The ability to learn
  • the ability to cope with change and uncertainty
  • The ability to ask for and be receptive to help and support

*Our potential for mental health has biological and inherited components, but the most profound component is environmental. You might imagine how poverty, racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny/sexism, classism, ableism, lack of education, abuse, violence, trauma, chronic high stress impacts our mental health, especially as it occurs intergenerationally.

What is mental health awareness and what does it look like?

  1. Being curious about someone’s behavior or response to something rather than reactive or judgmental.
  2. Understanding and acknowledging our own privilege and using it to amplify others’ (more marginalized) voices.
  3. Treating one another with dignity and respect not just because it’s the decent thing to do, but because Plato was right- “…everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
  4. Tapping into your humanity and demonstrating support. Often asking “What can I/we do to support you?” is a helpful opening.
  5. Understanding that people are complex with variation in capabilities, skills, blindspots, shortcomings, and imperfections. Someone can be an effective leader, creative, organized, and depressed or bipolar or suffer from addiction.
  6. Understanding the role that our Fight, Flight, or Freeze mechanism plays in our lives
  7. Understanding our innate Tend and Befriend as an internal resource
  8. Optimal Mental Health helps our professional and personal communities operate at their highest potential.
  9. A dip in Mental Health is an indication that some adjustment is needed either with the person, the environment, or both; these changes can be temporary, semi-permanent, or permanent.
  10. Educating ourselves about mental health parity and our state laws surrounding parity requirements.
  11. Understanding that willpower is not enough to manage sypmtoms of mental illness.

Use this information in good health, mental and otherwise.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Say It Better

Say It Better

It occurs to me every so often that my job is instrumental in helping me manage life. I’m really lucky. I get to spend my days learning about what works and what doesn’t and for whom. I get to talk and think all day about the human brain and its connection with the body, what to do when we find ourselves in various pickles, and best practices for increasing our well-being. Sometimes I don’t realize how much I take for granted. Last week, I realized how much I take for granted having a constructive conversation.

 

All the time (and I mean, constantly) I hear people say to one another, “How many more times are we going to have this conversation?” or “How many times do I have to tell you?!” or “How long are we going to have to keep revisiting this subject until you finally get it?” Most of the time the answer to that question is- however many times it takes because we don’t learn from lectures and conversations and words alone. Our most effective preceptor is experience. So, on the one hand, when a need or a goal is really important to us, and we feel it’s not being met, we can definitely count on having multiple conversations about it over and over and over. We might as well make ourselves a little more comfortable and feel a little less crazy by learning how to practice and apply effective conversation skills.

 

You might remember from the 80s, the T.H.I.N.K. method for communication (which I’m not totally sure but I think might have been founded on some Buddhist principles for wise speech).

 

At some point, you probably saw the poster for it in a humanities class, at a presentation given by your Human Resources department, or on a wall in your kindergarten classroom. Decades later, most of us have forgotten the message brought to us by that wise little poster. At any rate, it said:

 

Before you speak,

 

T- is it thoughtful?

H- is it helpful?

I- what is my intention?

N- is it necessary?

K- is it kind?

 

And honestly, it’s a technique that I use every day, both at work and in the rest of life. We cannot underestimate the healing power of deliberate and compassionate communication. I’m going to break it down with some more questions for deeper self-inquiry. The T.H.I.N.K. method is always simple, but it’s not always easy.

 

T- it is thoughtful:

Have I reflected on my experience to optimize this conversation? Am I fully present for this conversation or am I feeling pretty reactive right now? Am I clear on my message, needs, experience, and feelings? Is this a good time for each of us to talk about it?

 

H- is it helpful:

Does this help the other person understand my experience? Does it help me express my feelings and needs? How will it help our connection?

 

I- what is my intention:

What do I want the other person to know about how I am feeling and what I need? What do I need from this interaction?

 

N- is it necessary:

Is what I am about to say critical to my message? Is it essential to understanding my experience?

 

K- is it kind:

Am I approaching this conversation with the utmost dignity, respect, love, and compassion for myself and the other person? If I am feeling reactive, am I trying to hurt the other person so that they feel what I feel? For both of us to get the most out of this, do I need to pause or take a longer break before I continue this discussion?

 

Sometimes it’s not possible to be this thoughtful. We’re people, and we react when we feel strongly about something. Sometimes we act or speak impulsively. And sometimes others can’t or won’t hear us no matter what. And sometimes there just isn’t time and space. Our world moves at hyper speed, and we are pretty consistently pressured by this. But when we can pause for a minute, reflect, and inquire, we give ourselves and others the gift of clarity. Over time and with practice, we find that this quality of communication paves the way a deeper insight. This is crucial for changing behavior and patterns. Go forth and effectively communicate.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

1 Tip to Stop Ignoring Your Pain

1 Tip to Stop Ignoring Your Pain

Pain is inevitable. If you’re alive, you feel pain. I write a lot about techniques and skills we can engage to alleviate our pain and suffering. There are so many options available to us, and I like to spread the word about protocols I’ve found useful. When we’re in emotional, physical, or spiritual pain, sometimes we need to apply a technique or change positions or take a medication or seek support to help ease some of our burdens.

And sometimes we need to sit with it.

This is often confusing to us because of our cultural messaging about pain. It’s categorized as “bad” and in need of immediate amelioration. It is our adversary. The way we deal with pain is to either totally stigmatize it and think we must be bad humans if we’re experiencing it or to completely normalize it and search for someone or something to help us keep ourselves from feeling it. We think “I’m in pain. I must be bad,” or “I’m in pain and I can’t handle it.” If we are in pain, we’re encouraged to throw everything we’ve got in our tool kits at it and never look back. Take a pill; take ten pills; take a vacation; move; buy something; buy everything; get rid of everything you own and live a monastic, minimal life; get a divorce; get married; do something; do anything; produce any external result.

There is a time for acting, for taking steps, for making major life changes and there is a time for inaction, for sitting with the information we’re receiving from our pain or discomfort. “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

All over the internet, in magazines, in self-help books, at workshops we can find myriad strategies for managing and relieving pain. Everywhere we look we see titles reading, “5 Quick Tips for Relieving Anxiety” and “6 Ways to Getting Over It.” I contribute to this, too! I write about tips and sometimes use catchy titles in hopes of drawing attention to tools I’ve found useful both personally and clinically. It’s great to have so many options, and it’s proficient to apply techniques to feeling better. But the answer isn’t always to do something.

It’s important that we face our pain, see it, and pay attention to it. It is important that we hear what our pain is telling us. Pain is useful. It communicates perceived danger, wounding, and injury. It contains essential information about our immediate and unmet needs.

Pain is always trying to tell us something, and it will never get its need met if we don’t figure out what it’s telling us. If it doesn’t get its need met, it will keep gnawing at us in bigger and louder (and often more uncomfortable) ways. Pain understands that a closed mouth doesn’t get fed. So, it opens its mouth and talks to us anyway it knows how. If that doesn’t work, it raises the volume of its voice and continues to raise it until we hear what it’s saying and investigate. If we treat our pain with respect, dignity, and curiosity, we will begin to understand what it needs from us. The more we understand our pain, the less afraid of it we will be and to sit with it will feel more tolerable. Eventually, our relationship to pain will change.

There are two irrefutable truths about pain: 1) We will always experience it and 2) It will always hurt. We will always experience pain because we are living beings and all living beings experience some form of pain. It will always hurt because that is the most effective way of getting our attention.

As we learn to sit with our pain we will begin to notice that our reactions to much of our pain stimuli will change from “Oh my god, I’m going to die,” to “Oh my god, I feel like I’m going to die,” and “This really sucks but let’s see what the hell is happening here,” and “Damn, I’m in so much pain. Let’s see what this pain wants or needs from me,” and so on.

If you’d like to try this on your own, I recommend experimenting with something more surface-level at first. Try sitting with a minor irritation like an itch or the frustration of waiting for a website page to load. With more substantial pain, it is wise to start our inquiry into our pain with the accompaniment and guidance of a skilled practitioner. A lot can come up, and we can become very overwhelmed very quickly. That’s kind of the thing about pain, isn’t it? Sitting with it is, well, painful.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

(Side note: I am right there with you. I also don’t like pain and still find myself avoiding it or ignoring it. No one is exempt from this process.)

Know Your Demons

Know Your Demons

Have you ever watched a thriller about demon possession? Kind of off my usual beaten path, I know, but you’ll see where I’m going with this. I promise. Anyway, I like them sometimes. Every so often, I’ll check around for a good one to watch and see what piques my interest. I’ve found that sometimes I’m drawn to thrillers that make demonic possession of someone their central plot. (Which is surprising to me because I’m not usually interested in seeking out super dark stories about evil, especially when there’s more than enough of it to be found in the news). About once every three or four years, one of these dark plotlines pulls me in and I find myself watching an unsuspecting upstander begin the struggle of (and for) their life.

 

When I find a good possession thriller, I like almost everything about it. I like the journey the character takes from being ok (or pretty ok) to decompensating to being pretty possessed most of the time to being fully possessed all the time to finding progressive healing to being stronger and more conscious than when their story started. I like the tension over “will this character we’ve all come to love make it through this?” I like the research and deep inquiry that the other characters employ in an effort to find out more about the demon that is in possession of the victim.

 

What I am particularly drawn to, what I appreciate most is that there’s always ample time given to the journey taken by the characters in finding out the particular nature of the demon and its name. When the demon is called by name, its possession breaks. The demon always gives clues as to who they are, but they’re usually abstract and steeped in about a million layers of epic composition of poetry and require a doctorate in theology. At some point, to the rest of us, it pretty much seems like a lost cause. Just in the nick of time, someone puts all of the pieces together and discovers the name of the demon. Then we feel that surge of renewed hope.

 

What I’ve noticed is that, in all of the stories that I find most gripping, there are at least five commonalities:

 

  • There is a specific name of the demon, which when finally discovered and uttered face-to-face to the demon is the only defense against it.

 

  • The possessed or loved ones of the possessed enlist help.

 

  • The demon seems to have limitless ways of manifesting itself.

 

  • Someone, whether the possessed or loved ones of the possessed, experiences self-doubt, retreats, somehow finds the motivation to throw themselves into the metaphorical fire of terror and uncertainty, and contacts the demon for a head-on battle.

 

  • The demon never really goes away. It’s still there lurking around, but now the characters have more strength, courage, willingness, and awareness to deal with it.

 

I appreciate the symbolism because darned if that just isn’t that just how life is.

 

Whether it’s depression or anxiety or addiction or a particular pattern of behavior or thought pattern or chronic pain or the fear of fear or general dispiritedness, we all go through periods of life when we feel utterly possessed by pain and completely out of control. And many of us have found release through inquiry about the name of our experience or feeling and asking for help from loved ones, peer groups, and professionals.

 

Many of us have realized that our demons never completely go away, but that our relationship with them changes, and that with each bout with and experience of those demons, we learn to sit with whatever they bring. Through this long, uncomfortable process, we’re learning that our demons have many, many ways of manifesting themselves in our lives. We’re learning to coexist in a world where demons can’t be extinguished but instead faced with self-compassion, willingness, and courage. We’re learning to stop believing the bullshit they spew in an attempt to maintain their control over us. We’re becoming more connected with ourselves and with others, with life.

 

Keep on keepin’ on.

 

Love and Be Loved,

Natalie

Learning to Stay

Learning to Stay

As a species, we’re in for some challenges. Humans have both nervous systems and self-awareness, the awareness of change, loss, and of death. We are aware that situations change and it motivates us to hold onto the situations we like and try to force a shift in situations we don’t like. We’re aware of loss so; we go to great lengths in trying to avoid it. We’re aware of death and generally fear it so, we engage in all sorts of behaviors and thinking in an attempt to gain control over it. Since everything is temporary, all of our grasping and holding and forcing and avoiding is useless. There is no lasting way for us to ever really hold onto something or someone, force a shift, or avoid change, loss, or death. And this creates a pretty uneasy sense of being.

 

Look at some of your own fear-based beliefs for a second. What makes you nervous? What are you believing when you notice the nervousness? What do you dread? What are you believing when you notice the dread?

 

We have an extensive list of strategies that we employ to avoid feeling the discomfort of these beliefs, to avoid feeling our fear of life’s fluidity. We numb. We fight ourselves or others. We seek comfort in addiction.

 

Underneath all of this struggle is the fear that we are not ok.

 

In the mythology of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama’s final challenge before he reached enlightenment was doubt. Mara, the dark deity symbol of humanity’s shadow side, our challenging emotions, appeared to Siddhartha in the form many distractions some of which were fear, pain, and lust. Finally, Mara appeared to him as doubt. Siddhartha experienced the most difficulty and discomfort with this last challenge. Siddhartha put his hand to the ground and felt the earth, calling upon it to ground him and give him strength. He looked up at Mara and said, “I see you, Mara. Come, let’s have tea.”

 

I’m always struck by this story. I find it comforting that Siddhartha, someone who had practiced for years, received years of mentoring and training and support, someone who was so well-resourced still felt the challenge of Mara, of the hard-to-feel, painful human emotions. I also appreciate that working through his last challenge involved asking for help, that he didn’t try to do it alone. And to boot, he invited the damn thing to tea!!

 

Siddhartha didn’t gain freedom from Mara all at once. It took years of practice and training. Gradually, after reaching out for help and engaging his own presence, he extricated himself. He was free.

 

On this quest for our own freedom, we learn of at least two important resources available to us as suggested by the Buddha mythology: 1) to ask for help when dealing with a challenge and 2) to be present with our experience of our process.

 

It’s so hard to keep ourselves from being swept away by the runaway train of our limiting beliefs, beliefs about ourselves and others, about the nature of the world; our fears of unworthiness; our doubt of our own lovability. Sometimes we can see this train coming for us and we freeze, unable to fight it. Sometimes we don’t see it coming; we realize we’re on it and don’t know how it happened. Sometimes we try to outrun it or fight it. One way or another, it picks us up anyway. Most of us are familiar with this cycle. Most of us know exactly what it’s like to be caught in Mara’s grip and to feel utterly helpless.

 

Asking for help is hard enough. Sitting with the discomfort, bringing presence to it is even more challenging. It requires a willing attentiveness, a moment of pause, and gentle inquiry. The sheer thought of asking ourselves gentle, inquiring questions when we’re in the middle of some kind of freak out brings with it its own uncomfortable trials.

 

Something I’ve found helpful both personally and professionally is Byron Katie’s work. It is aptly named “The Work.” She gives us four questions to pose to ourselves when we are facing the underlying doubt of our ok-ness. In those moments, Katie recommends that we ask ourselves:

 

  1. Is it true? We know that the experience of the belief feels real, but is the belief true?
  2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? What is the indisputable evidence?
  3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? What happens for you? What is it like for you? What is the impact of this thought or belief on you? On others?
  4. Who would you be without the thought? Can you sense what life would be like, what you would be like if you no longer lived your life by this thought or belief?

 

These four questions get us off to a good start in dismantling maladaptive or limiting thoughts and beliefs, thoughts and beliefs that served us at one time in our lives, but that are now crippling us. If you find it difficult to ask yourself these questions, start with this one: Am I willing to pay attention to what this experience is like for me? We can’t always jump right in so, simply bringing the intention of presence if often a good place to start.

 

I recommend first trying these investigative questions with a shallow or midlevel fear-based belief. Since we are often floating around in the experience of these thoughts and beliefs, identified with them, bringing attention and presence can be really intense. Start slow. If you’d like to apply this approach to deeper fears and beliefs including trauma, I recommend doing so with the help and support of a therapist or healer.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

How to Get SMART About Your Goals

How to Get SMART About Your Goals

Setting goals is fairly easy. Most of us experience times in our lives when we know what we want to accomplish whether it’s buying a home, getting a degree, helping to pass a bill, learning a new method of practice for work, strengthening the upper body, swimming a faster mile, and whatever else. It’s easier to know what we want; it’s almost never easy to plan the steps toward getting there. We get lost in the process, frustrated, and eventually, let it go. (And we often chalk it up to another failed attempt at something which bums us out.)

 

Many psychotherapists use a model to help clients plan and reach their goals using the SMART method. This method is attributed to Peter Drucker, business person and author, and developed by Robert Rubin, organizational psychologist and author. The protocol helps to clarify goals, ensure that they are attainable, and plan alternative strategies if they are in any way unreachable. SMART recommends that each goal we set should be:

 

  • Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
  • Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
  • Achievable (agreed, attainable).
  • Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
  • Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

 

Broken down into clarifying questions, each step helps the person identify the goal, plan the strategy, and set up accountability. Since 1981, both psychologists and business people have expanded and improved the SMART method, making it increasingly accessible to anyone. I have collected a lot of their suggestions and plugged them into this post. (If you’d like to read more about the SMART method, go here.)

 

  1. Specific

SMART works best when our goals are specific and easily stated. If they’re too abstract or murky, it will be hard to know where to put our focus, and we will probably lose motivation.

  • What do I want to achieve? What is my goal?
  • Why is this important to me? Why do I care about this?
  • Is this achievable by myself?
  • Who else is involved?
  • What limits my achievement of this goal?
  • What resources are available to me/do I possess that will help me achieve this goal?
  1. Measurable

If we have measurable goals, we can keep track of our progress which will help us to maintain our momentum, especially when the going gets tough. Tracking our progress helps us to stay grounded in our goals and the steps toward meeting them through the process.

Here’s how to make sure our goals are measurable:

  • How much/many?
  • How often?
  • How will I know when it is accomplished?
  1. Achievable

Our goals must be realistic and attainable to ensure true success. We are not looking for an impossible challenge. We are stepping outside our comfort zones to meet a reasonable goal. We must look at our limits and our resources in preparation for the terrain ahead of us.

An achievable goal will usually answer these questions:

  • How can I accomplish my goal?
  • How realistic is the goal based my limits?
  • What are the potential challenges?
  • What or who do I need to enlist to help me meet the challenges?
  • What, if anything, is outside my control that might impact my achievement of my goal?
  1. Relevant

It’s imperative that you have your own buy-in with the goals that you set for yourself; otherwise, you will most likely lose interest and wander off the path you’ve set.

Ask yourself:

  • Does this goal and what it will take to accomplish it seem worthwhile?
  • Is this the right time for me to take on this challenge?
  • If I have enlisted others, does this goal also compliment their needs and abilities?
  • Is this goal realistic for my environment?
  • Is it applicable in the current socio-economic environment?
  1. Time-sensitive

Our goals need a deadline. It’s helpful to know how much time we have to accomplish something so that we have a firm boundary in which to meet all of our deliverables. It’s really easy to get distracted by our everyday routines and to lose focus of our goals. This step will help us bring our focus back to the plan we have carefully implemented.

A time-bound goal answers these questions:

  • When is the reasonable deadline?
  • What can I do six months from now?
  • What can I do six weeks from now?
  • What can I do one week from now?
  • What can I do today?

Setting SMART goals enables us to find out why we want to achieve something and the choices we can make to get there. Often, setting up our SMART goals helps us to see that we need to tweak our expectations, ask for help, or reach a stepping-stone goal before our original goal so that we can lay the necessary groundwork. Try it out. Start with a small goal and see how it feels to use the aid of a well-researched procedure to accomplish your goal. (I use it off and on for personal and professional development goals, and it’s almost like having a little personal assistant.)

 

If you’d like support as you set and plan for a goal, let’s talk.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie