Gratitude

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With Thanksgiving approaching, now is a great time to begin practicing an “attitude of gratitude.”  Focus on being thankful for what you have, for what you have learned or gained, and the negative experiences you haven’t been through.  Be thankful for the ones you have experienced, for they have added value to your life by either making you stronger or teaching you a valuable lesson that you can benefit from and apply to the rest of your life.

1. Gratitude Journal: Keep a Gratitude Journal. At the end of each day, write down at least 5 things you feel grateful for from the day. These might include things like: a smile from a stranger, a hug from your child, an unexpected compliment, a good meal, a moment of laughter with a friend.

2. Spend Time In Nature: Go for a walk in nature. Appreciate the beauty, the quiet, the fresh air. Enjoy the magnificence of a sunset…or a sunrise if you are an early riser.

3. Gratitude Dance: Take a few minutes and begin your day with the Gratitude Dance. If your energy is flagging during the day — do it again. It will probably make you laugh — and that will energize and refresh you.

4. Appreciate Family, Friends and Colleagues: Bring to mind those close to you that you love and how you are thankful that they are part of your life. Make a note in your journal of your special people and why you appreciate them. You may want to write them a short note, send them a card, or call them to let them know how grateful you are for their presence in your life.

5. Be Grateful For You: Be grateful for you and for your life. Take a moment to notice your goodness; the caring you express to others. Do this several times a week and be grateful for your qualities and strengths. There is no one else quite like you. Honor and appreciate yourself.

Coping with Grief

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How to Handle Your Emotions

Traumatic events are a shock to the mind and body, and lead to a variety of emotions. Coping with grief takes time, help from others, and the knowledge that grieving isn’t easy.

Grief is an emotion that takes time to deal with, but you can get through it and, eventually move on. Grieving is a healthy response to tragedy, loss, and sadness, and it’s important to allow yourself time to process your loss.

Coping With Grief: The Range of Emotions

Grief doesn’t just happen after someone has died. Any traumatic event, major life change, or significant loss ” a rape, a divorce, even major financial losses ” can cause grief. Throughout the grieving process, you may find yourself feeling:

Guilty
Sad
Angry
Fearful
Disbelief or in denial
Depressed
Numb

Coping With Grief: Accepting It

Don’t try to run away from it; rather, face it head on.  Acknowledge that something traumatic has happened and that it has had a profound effect on you. Give yourself time to grieve, but seek help when you need it.

Coping with Grief: Finding Help

You may want some time alone to process your thoughts and struggle with your grief, but it’s important to recognize when you need help from others.

You might need more help if you find that, after some time, you are not able to get back to normal activities, you have trouble sleeping or eating, or have thoughts and feelings that interfere with everyday life.

A grief counselor or other therapist may be able to help you cope with grief, and finally start to move past it. Getting your grief out in the open is an important first step.

Talk about it with someone – a friend, family, a support group. Support groups can be wonderful. There, you can relate to other people who understand your situation, and you can get advice on what helped them through their grief.

Of course, expressing your emotions doesn’t have to be done out loud…write about it.  Rather than allowing thoughts to swirl in your head, put them down on paper. This is a great way of getting out your feelings if you are shy or embarrassed about sharing them with another person.

Coping With Grief: Getting Closure

Closure is also an important part of coping with grief and may help you move through the grieving process.

Depending on the event, developing a ritual to say farewell may be helpful. We have funerals when someone dies and they are a healthy step on the road to acceptance. Rituals can be helpful for other traumas as well.

Coping With Grief: When Will I Feel Better?

There is no set timeline for grieving. And unfortunately, you may never completely get over your loss. But your loss shouldn’t keep you from enjoying life, even with occasional periods of sadness.

Let yourself grieve as long as you need to. You do have to resume normal life, but know that it’s going to take awhile.

Look for small signs that you’re coping with grief and getting past it. Happy times signal that you’re progressing. When you realize that you aren’t always dwelling on the sadness or don’t think about it as frequently as you once did, that means that you’re finally moving on – at your own pace.

Your mind and body need time to grieve after a traumatic event. If you deprive yourself of the grieving process, you may find that you have more difficulty accepting what has happened or that unresolved feelings and issues may flare up later on. Allow yourself to feel sad and even selfish; eventually, you’ll find yourself feeling better a little bit at a time.

Even though part of you may always feel sad about your loss, you’ll find yourself happy and laughing again one day.

Take Care of Yourself During Times of Crisis and Trauma

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During times of crisis and tragedy, it is important to remember to take care of yourself and those close to you. The most immediate concern for most people right now is for safety. The following guidelines may be helpful:

· Try to keep routine as much as possible.
· Take care not to isolate. Talk openly about your feelings.
· Restrict the amount of media coverage that you watch, listen to and/or read. We
know that the more television coverage of a traumatic event(s) you watch, the
greater the likelihood that you may experience significant distress and trauma.
· Discuss the event with children in age-appropriate ways.
· Do not allow children to watch television coverage of the event.
· Do not listen to news reports in front of children.
· Minimize the amount of details children read in the newspaper.
· For example, to a three year old you might say “Yes, a bad thing happened far
away. But you are okay here and now”. For older children, you should reassure
them that they and your family are safe. Try to answer their questions or address
their concerns with concrete information.
· Be prepared to spend more time with your children at bedtime. They may need
more reassurance at this time.
· Know that everyone reacts differently to crisis and trauma and expect/accept
those differences – this is normal.
· Keep an eye on your family, friends and co-workers for stress reactions. If you
are concerned about how you or someone you know is reacting, call for help.

Getting Through the Grieving Process

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Emotions can be overwhelming in the midst of grief – so much so that just “getting through” each day is difficult. During this time, it’s important to remember that there are no guidelines for the recovery process. People heal in their own time and in their own way.

  • Don’t be in a hurry to get through the grieving process. Allow yourself to do what you feel you need to do from day to day.
  • Know that it is not a betrayal to the memory of your loved one to begin the healing process.
  • Honor your loved one by talking about his or her life and sharing what you will miss the most.
  • Ask yourself what the deceased would want you to do.
  • Find a meaning and a purpose for being here.

Consider the following when you experience a loss in your life:

Give Your Emotions Free Rein

Initially, you may feel as though you’re living in a fog, simply going through the motions of day-to-day life as if on autopilot. You may cry so much that your eyes feel parched. It’s OK to spend days where you do nothing but cry. Or, you may be surprised to find that you’re not crying at all. Neither reaction is right or wrong; it just is. If the latter is the case, you may feel a surge of guilt wondering why you can’t even eke out a tear for someone you cared so much about. The spectrum of emotions that you may experience is huge. It can range from shock and numbness, to fear and panic, to anger and resentment.

Sometimes this can be magnified if you have unfinished emotional business with the person who died. You didn’t get to say what you wanted to say, or you didn’t hear the “I’m sorry” or “I love you” that you desperately needed to hear. Or maybe your goodbye did happen, but not the way you planned.

It’s hard to accept that a future without your loved one is your new reality; the mere thought of it can make you feel amazingly empty and alone. The yearning for their presence may feel as if it is going to consume you. As a result, you may refuse to get out of bed, want to go off alone somewhere, or push others away. “You may think being alone will ease the pain, but it rarely does.”

You May Struggle with Your Faith
You might feel a sense of spiritual emptiness, or feel that you were betrayed by your faith, or experience feelings of bitterness, anger and disappointment in your religion. After all, if the God you believe in is so good, how could he take away something you loved so intensely? How could he allow a senseless or violent death to occur? This is painful and confusing and something many, many people experience — especially when innocent children are the victims.

Expect Guilt to Arise
Guilt may also factor in during the weeks and months after a loss — guilt over being unable to save your loved one or about just living your life. At some point you will likely catch yourself laughing or relaxing. It’s natural to actually start to feel better at some point after grieving a loss. It’s also natural to feel guilty about it. You may think, “How can I stand enjoying myself when my son is dead?” If you realize that a day has gone by when you didn’t think about your loved one (which may or may not happen in time), you may feel guilty that you’re “forgetting” him or her. If it takes a short amount of time to recover from a loss, it doesn’t mean you only loved a little. The depth, breadth, and longevity of your grief are not a reflection of how much you cared about the person.

Forgiving Yourself After the Loss of a Loved One

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If you are suffering from feelings of guilt after the loss of a loved one, even though the death was not your fault, here is advice on how to forgive yourself so that you can move on.

  • Know that it isn’t uncommon to play the “What if?” game: “What if I could have stopped it?” “What if I had only known the accident would happen?” “What if I could trade places and it could have been me who died?” etc.
  • You may also find yourself feeling guilty if you catch yourself smiling, having a good time or simply enjoying life after your loss.
  • Although there is no set timetable for grieving, if a substantial period of time has passed and you are still not allowing yourself to move on past the grieving process, allowing yourself to be crippled with guilt for something that was not your fault, ask yourself why.
  • Understand that in any situation, even one like this, people don’t engage in a behavior that they don’t get a payoff for. Is the fact that you can’t move forward a payoff in itself? If you feel the only connection that you have with the deceased is your grieving, could that be a payoff? Is the guilt a payoff? Are you punishing yourself because you feel you deserve to be punished for being a bad mother/sibling/friend/spouse because you let your loved one die?
  • If you won’t move on past the grieving process because the grief is your current connection to the deceased, ask yourself how terrible it is that your precious loved one is being remembered as a legacy of pain that you choose to carry around. You’re focusing on the moment he/she died instead of on the moments he/she lived and the joy that he/she brought to your life. Isn’t that a terrible burden to place on your loved one?
  • If you want to forgive yourself, understand that guilt is all about intention. Is there a bone in your body that wished or intended for something bad to happen to your loved one? If not, why are you feeling guilty?
  • There comes a time when you have to say, ‘Enough is enough. If I give up the pain, I’m not going to lose him/her.’ How long you grieve or how deeply you hurt does not reflect how much you loved. The fact that it’s been two, five or 10 years and you are allowing yourself to live life doesn’t mean that you love him/her any less. It doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten your loved one.
  • When you are ready to let go of your guilt and grief, it may help to speak out loud to your loved one, expressing your continued love for him/her while affirming your decision to let go of the grieving process: “I love you, but I have to let you go. I will love you until the day I die, but I’m going to let you go.”

 

How to Help Children Cope with Trauma

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Although children have many of the same reactions as adults do to trauma, they have different ways of expressing their reactions and need some special help to cope.  The following are some suggestions for dealing with the child in crisis:

    • Encourage children and teens to talk about their concerns and to express their feelings.  Some children may be hesitant to initiate such conversation, so you may want to ask what your child has heard and how they feel about it.
    • Explain the facts that you know about the event. Use simple, direct terms to describe what happened. Give factual information. You may have to explain more than once.
    • Encourage children to talk about confusing feelings, worries, daydreams, and disruptions  of concentration by accepting the feelings, listening carefully, and reminding them that these are normal reactions (any of these feelings are okay) following a very scary event.
    • Reinforce safety and security.  Let children know that tragic incidents are not common and that, day-to-day, schools are safe places.  Your child needs a lot of reassurance that you will take care of him.
    • Maintain family routines and activities.  Help children get enough sleep and maintain a balanced diet.
    • You may need to be flexible with bedtime routines. A child may need for you to stay with him while he falls asleep, he may want a night light, or to sleep with a sibling or with you.
    • If your child is fearful of going to school, if counselors know when your child is in crisis, they can frequently help.
    • Spend extra time with your children and your family.  Hugs help!

 CHILDREN’S REACTIONS TO TRAUMA

Children’s responses to trauma vary according to the age of the child.  Generally, children respond by reverting to behavior typical of an earlier developmental stage.  These responses are considered NORMAL if they are of brief (less than three weeks) duration:

  • Increased somatic complaints (e.g., headaches, stomachaches, aches and pains)
  • Changes in sleep, nightmares
  • Changes in appetite, weight loss
  • Marked changes in school performance; absenteeism
  • Lack of interest in usual activities (e.g., after-school activities, time with friends)
  • Poor concentration, sleepiness, inattentiveness
  • Increase in hyperactivity
  • Irritability with friends, teachers, events
  • Anger outbursts and/or aggression
  • Reckless or risk-taking behavior
  • Neglects about dress and appearance or health
  • Persistent sadness or depression
  • Withdrawal

 For children: 

  AGES 1-6

 Bedwetting –  Fear of being left alone

 Immobility –  Confusion

Excessive clinging – Thumb-sucking

Fear of darkness –  Inattentiveness

 Nightmares – Awakening during night

 Crying –  Inability to sleep without a light or with someone else

AGES  7-11

 Bedwetting – Nightmares

Change in sleep patterns –  Unwilling to fall asleep

Need for night light –  Fear of sleeping alone

 Fear of darkness – Irritability

Disobedience –  Loss of concentration

 Fighting –  Refusal to go to school

 AGES  12-18

 Running away –  Suicidal thoughts

  Stealing –  Sleeplessness

  School problems –  Inattentiveness

 Confusion –  Use of drugs

  Relationship difficulties –  Use of alcohol

  Aggressiveness –  Irritability

 

Understanding and Managing the Stress Response

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Imagine for a moment that you are living in the Stone Age, some 10,000 years ago. Your day largely consists of gathering food for you and your family to eat. Life is stressful, but you have no complaints. Your priorities are clear, you know how to survive, and you take pride in your ability to handle whatever comes your way.

The Stress Response

Now imagine that it is dusk and you and some companions are returning from a long, exhausting day of hunting. You suddenly encounter a small pack of startled wolves, obviously threatened by your presence. A violent confrontation is imminent. As if turned on by an unseen switch, you instinctively set in motion a torrent of physiologic, emotional, and behavioral reactions designed to maximize your chances of survival. This is the stress response.

To survive in the face of this stressor, you will need to see clearly (even at dusk), think coherently, move rapidly, and cooperate with your allies. This requires a sharp increase in blood flow and oxygen supply to your brain, special senses, and skeletal muscles. Your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises, your breathing quickens, your airways widen.

Blood is diverted away from non-essential organs such as your skin, which becomes cool and clammy. Your pupils dilate and, in case you’re injured in an ensuing battle, your immune system is suppressed to dampen the painful consequences of inflammation. Two stress hormones, produced in large part by the adrenal glands, primarily orchestrate these physiologic changes: epinephrine (or adrenalin) and cortisol.

You and your companions know exactly what to do. You coordinate your positions, raise your weapons, and prepare for a fight. Fortunately, the wolves retreat. As the danger subsides, so does the stress response, which is highly adaptable to a rapidly changing environment. As quickly as it turns on, it turns off once the threat has passed. You proceed home, a little shaken, but, otherwise, feeling fine as your epinephrine and cortisol levels return to normal.

Stone-agers in the 21st Century

Now imagine it is present day. Your day largely consists of making money so you and your family have food to eat. It is dusk and you’re getting ready to return home from a long, exhausting day at work. On your way out, your hostile boss inappropriately accuses you of a mistake you did not commit, and insists that you immediately correct the problem. While not imminently life-threatening, this blow to your integrity is enough to ignite a typical stress response, the physiology of which has not changed since the Stone Age. Wild animals no longer pose the threat. Supervisors, deadlines, responsibilities, and social injustices have replaced them.

So, what do you do?

Argue with your boss or quit your job to escape his threatening behavior? On the contrary, feeling trapped by societies expectations, you respond, through clenched teeth, “I’m sorry. I’ll take care of it.” While your Stone Age counterpart was free to fight or flee, you are forced to endure the standoff. Yours is a stress response with no place to go. Â And, unlike the retreating wolves, you are faced with similar stressors all day, everyday.

Stress and Health

A maladaptive stress response “one that essentially never shuts off” is potentially harmful in two ways:

  1. Continuous or repeated surges of excess stress hormone are detrimental to the cardiovascular and immune systems, potentially increasing your risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, recurrent infection, and other chronic diseases.
  2. As an outlet to the persistent stress, you are more likely to turn to destructive behaviors such as tobacco abuse, excessive alcohol consumption, and dietary overindulgence.

Ironically, the same stress response that could have saved your life in the Stone Age can kill you today.

So, how do you avoid the damaging effects of prolonged stress? There are two basic approaches: eliminate the stressors or minimize the stress response. Avoiding stress all together seems to be the most obvious and promising strategy. However, this is not a realistic one. Life has been stressful since the Stone Age; there’s only so much you can do to avoid it.

Adapting to the Stress

Rather than trying to hide from the inevitable, it makes more sense to moderate the harmful effects of the stress response. There are three basic ways to accomplish this:

Use the stress response. Don’t take it lying down! While your stress hormones are up, channel them into productive activities. Exercise is an ideal outlet for excess epinephrine and cortisol. Not only does regular exercise clearly benefit the cardiovascular and immune systems, it also offsets the destructive emotions often associated with the stress response, like anxiety and depression.

Alleviate the stress response. Originally, scientists assumed the stress response was involuntary – entirely out of willful control. Recently, however, researchers have discovered our ability to consciously lower our heart rate and blood pressure, raise our skin temperature, and decrease our muscle tone through meditation or prayer and other forms of mind-body interventions. Interestingly, they have also found that stress hormone levels drop during these activities.

Avoid the stress response.

By reinterpreting the impact of a stressor, it may be possible to avoid or severely restrict a maladaptive stress response. While the stress in your life is very real and unavoidable, you may have an exaggerated conception of its magnitude and meaning. Although it is entirely appropriate to have a major stress response when confronting a pack of wolves, a boss’s misinterpretation of facts need not necessarily produce a prolonged surge of stress hormones. A process called cognitive-behavior therapy can train you to think and act in ways that result in more realistic and healthier responses to stress. A cognitive-behavioral therapist will help you accept the fact that life is stressful. You will see that health will come not from avoiding life’s inevitable stressors, but by finding the resilience to adapt to its inexorable challenges.

Stop Attracting the Wrong Thing and Live the Life You Want

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It is not surprising that most of us set ourselves up for the exact situations we say we don’t want. I have worked with countless clients who struggled with the exact same problems. Some were in a job that was extremely unsatisfying, but they didn’t believe they could make a switch to a more rewarding and high-paying profession. Or, they were in a toxic relationship, but didn’t believe they were worthy of a more enriching and positive relationship. If you don’t believe in yourself and your capabilities, why would anyone else?  You are attracting to yourself exactly what you don’t want.  And, there is a fairly simplistic solution. It all starts with your self-image, and strengthening this has been neglected for some time. As soon as you start standing taller, expecting more for yourself, that is exactly what you will get. We have a tendency to place the blame on others and situations that we feel are out of our control. Well, guess what?  Turn that focus around and look at yourself. How do you talk to yourself?  How do you treat yourself?  What are the standards you hold?  Do you treat yourself with the same respect that you expect from others?  This week, do whatever it takes to lift your self-image a notch or two.

1. Start with the basics

Forget the long-term goal for now. Just focus on boosting your image a bit first. If you want more for your life, such as a more fulfilling job or a more meaningful relationship, you first need to ask yourself some questions. Why am I settling for less? What am I afraid of? Why do I feel I am in this predicament? Once you conquer these questions and face the truth, then you can move forward.

2.  Work on your image

If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be? Would it be more internal? You wish you were more outgoing or social? Or, is your focus on your appearance?  You wish you were 30 pounds lighter, or you feel you are in desperate need of a new wardrobe? You need to clarify what you would change first before embarking on the “action” part of this process. It is important to do whatever it takes to bring about more confidence. This confidence will allow you to move forward in your life with higher expectations.

3.  Action mode!

Now is the fun part! You need to act in order to create change. Thinking about everything you wish were different is not going to help you out in the long run. You need to write down action steps you can take to propel you forward. Maybe it’s signing up for a toastmaster’s group in order to put you in social situations and practice speaking in front of people. Maybe it is hiring a personal trainer to push you physically. You need to have accountability of some form to keep you motivated and on track, so bring someone on board to partner with you until you succeed.

Tips on How to Discover and Fulfill Your Dreams

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1. Stop being your own worst enemy. Be your own best friend.
2. Don’t put yourself down. Pull yourself up.
3. Don’t permit others to define who you are. You cannot be a failure without your own consent.
4. Respect yourself. Place a high value on yourself.
5. Take stock of who you are and what you’re capable of. Work on weaknesses and find new strengths every day.
6. Replace “I can’t” with “I can” and “I will.”
7. Treat yourself generously, the way you want others to treat you.
8. Be compassionate. Love yourself and others will love you.
9. Remember that you are an individual expression of God’s work. You are priceless and irreplaceable.
10. Visualize what you want from life, then, work toward it. See it, then, be it.
11. Allow time to be by yourself, with yourself. Take time to appreciate yourself.
12. Enjoy your uniqueness. Out of all the billions of people since the beginning of time, there has never been, and never will be, another you.
13. Realize that you are important to the entire world; what happens to the world begins with you.

 

Thinking of Changing Careers?

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I see clients all the time who are unhappy at work and wish to pursue other avenues. However, they don’t know how to get from where they currently are to where they want to go. They can clarify for me bits and pieces of what they would love to do, but then they get stuck. Are you in a similar position right now in your life? Would you love to change careers, but feel a bit hesitant to the process of where to begin? So many people hear others talk about ‘life purpose’, but they have no idea what their purpose is or how to reveal it. They think their purpose needs to be something extraordinary and unique. I try to simplify things so that they begin with small steps and move forward at a pace that is not overwhelming or daunting. After discussing one’s past and highlighting what brings them joy and fulfillment now in their life, a purpose will organically reveal itself over time. Individuals sometimes focus so much energy on possible future scenarios that they can’t take the first steps needed to create their dream. If you constantly worry about something that needs to be accomplished in the distance, you will slow yourself down from even beginning the journey. Let’s say, for example, you want to start your own business. If all you think about is how you are going to get enough help to manage the holiday orders, you are passing up many other tasks that need to be addressed first. Start at the beginning and work your way up. This week I want to help clarify some career options that might be fun for you to explore.
 
1. Review life story
This is your chance to review your life and pick out the highlights. Go as far back as you can and write down what stands out as far as positive memories. Is there a similar theme? Do several memories include standing up in front of people? Do many highlights include when you traveled to other parts of the world? Maybe every time you were around children you felt alive and full of energy. These highlights in your life stand out for a reason. Take a good look at what you wrote down.
 
2. What do you hate?
A tactic many career coaches use to help clients determine a possible new profession is to have them describe in detail what they hate about their current profession. You need to be extremely specific here, if you can. Do you dislike the never-ending hours and weekend hours you have to work? Do you hate sitting in a cubicle typing numbers when you are a creative person? Do you dread office politics? List everything you dislike about your current position and then, list the exact opposite for every dislike. If you hate sitting in a cubicle, the exact opposite job would allow you freedom and travel.
 
3. What do you value?
If you are going to explore new possibilities, it is important you go about it the right way. Don’t pursue a profession that is not in alignment with what you value. I guarantee you will be miserable years down the road, if you do. For example, let’s say you value family time. Then, you interview for a position that requires a lot of travel and evening hours. It may seem like the perfect job, and at the beginning, it may feel that way. However, spending a lot of time away from your family, something you value more than anything else, will wear on you over time. This job will not seem so fantastic down the road. Know what you value and then pursue professions that honor these values.