Post-Pandemic - Check in with yourself
by Paulina Woolley
Life has changed in ways both big and small over the last 2 years. Plans were suspended and priorities shifted as we cautiously made our way through a situation that we had never experienced.
Many of us are looking forward to getting back into the swing of things that we missed out on like planning vacations, catching up with friends and family IN PERSON, and so much more.
Some of us are beginning or have gone back to the office after working remotely for what seems like an eternity. For some, working from home has allowed flexibility in your schedule and routine and not having to drive to and from the office saving money on gas, and for others, it’s been difficult staying focused, finding the space to work and staying motivated throughout the work day.
One of the top priorities during this time is checking in with yourself, whether you are planning your next vacation, going back to the office, or just going out to coffee with a friend, I am here to talk about some quick and effective ways to mentally check in with yourself post-pandemic.
Keep a journal: this is one of my favorite self-care tips as journaling allows us to freely write about our thoughts and feelings to better understand ourselves and note any progress. It is helpful to write down some goals (short term and long term) and track your progress over time and keep yourself accountable.
Setting aside time every day to reflect: another great way to check in with yourself daily is setting aside 5-10 minutes a day to reflect on how you are feeling and what you have accomplished during the day. This is also a good time to reflect on your short and long term goals. You might not have all the answers right away, however taking some time to relax and be with your thoughts is progress.
Reach out to your community: If you are struggling, talk to someone you trust, like family, friends, or therapist. It is helpful to talk to someone who will understand or can offer some helpful advice and even validating your struggle. Sometimes it can feel like we are all alone or the only one struggling, but let me be the one to remind you, everyone has struggles whether big or small, reach out to your community of support.
Take a break: YES, you heard me, taking a break in the midst of chaos is absolutely necessary. We are human, not robots, we have feelings and emotions and sometimes we reach a breaking point. If you are feeling overwhelmed, take a break, plan that vacation getaway, get coffee with that friend you haven’t caught up with in a while, sometimes all you need is to get away from your usual routine.
Regulate how your body reacts to stress: Your body can react to stress in many different ways, both physically and emotionally. This is a good time to take some tools from your tool belt that will help you decrease anxiety and stress for example, deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and my favorite mindfulness. Here is a quick mindfulness technique I have practiced myself over the years and have found the most helpful when I am stressed. To get started, find a relaxing, quiet space, sit or lie down, and close your eyes.
Leaves on a stream:
Visualize you are sitting next to a stream. This can look any way you choose, focus on the enviorment, what can you hear, what can you see, what can you smell, and what can you touch.
Meditate on a thought or a feeling, for example, “I am stressed about going back into the office”.
Now bring your attention back to the stream. Place your thought on a leaf in the stream. You might imagine writing the thought on the leaf and placing it back into the stream and watching the lead disappear down the stream.
Continue visualizing the stream with your thoughts on leaves disappearing down the stream. Releasing thoughts that enter your mind.
Final thoughts: Learning how to check in with yourself is a valuable skill that can help with many aspects of your life. Getting back into a “normal” routine post-pandemic has been difficult for some, take that extra break during your day, plan that vacation you have been wanting to go on, and look forward to crushing your goals!
Paulina Woolley, AMFT/APCC
End of the Summer
By Ashley Nelson, LMFT
End of the summer and the start of a new school year !!!
For some, this is an exciting time where they look forward to starting a new school year and what that is going to bring. For others, it causes anxiety, fear, and worry!
Both are valid and bring about questions on how to deal with the emotions that school brings.
These questions come from both the parent and the child and I feel like we can answer them all together with some coping skills and practical tips to get your school year started off on the right foot!
Transitions are always hard and sometimes school can bring out fear and stress that can cause a ripple effect in their daily lives. This can then start to show in their behavior, the school work, and how they act at home with their caretakers. As parents, we feel when our child is having difficulties and their stress can then trickle into our emotional space and cause us stress as well! It is best to hit these fears and stresses head on and tackle them when they begin rather than towards the middle or even the end of the school year when they have had time to take root!
So, let's get started! Here are some tips that will hopefully help you and your kiddo as they make this transition!
1. Create a solid routine!
Routines help create a sense of security and can usually help reduce anxiety. When you and your littles have a set schedule and you all know what the morning is going to look like and creates a healthy foundation for the rest of your day and your kiddos day!
2. Make sure we are taking care of ourselves!
This is going to be a part of your routines and can include naps, brushing your teeth, taking care of hygiene, getting good sleep at night, and anything else that is taking care of you! Taking time out of your day for self care and connecting with each other is going to be key!
3. Communication!
Communication is HUUUGGEEE. How many times have your kids come home and you pose the question "how was your day" and they answer "fine" and storm into their room? I know how frustrating that is and it can feel like they don't want to talk to you! If we create a solid routine where communication is at the forefront and important in the home, it will create a safe space for everyone to talk about their days and how they are feeling. This will also give space for the kiddos to discuss hardships, fears, and feel secure with their parents knowing they have a safe place to land.
4. Discuss expectations!
A lot of time arguments between families are due to expectations that have not been communicated on both ends. What is it that you expect of your kiddo during the school year (this is where routine comes in as well) and what do they expect of you? If your routine is going to be homework form 4-5 with the help of one or more parent then great! that was discussed. If your kiddo needs 10 minutes alone after getting home from school to decompress, awesome! that is going to be a part of the routine and an expectation that is met.
5. Get to know the teachers!
I know it is hard to get to know teachers, especially if your kiddo goes to a big school, but it is so important to know and understand who your kiddo is spending 6+ hours of their day with! Not only that, you now have a direct line to the individual who is experiencing your child every day. This can help if there are behavioral issues, emotional issues, or even academic issues.
6.Be prepared for stressors!
This is huge. As a parent, we have to be prepared and ready for a lot of things to come our way from our kiddo being in school. Being prepared can look like a lot of things but a couple are: Be prepared for emotion shifts/ personality changes. Have some quick coping skills that you can help lead your kiddo through. And be prepared for school to be hard, annoying, or even stressful to your little one so that you can be a safe place for them to express that.
Now, here are some coping skills that will hopefully help!
BELLY BREATHING
My fav honestly. You are going to take a deep breath through your nose for 4 counts, hold it for 1 count, and exhale through your mouth for 6 counts. While you do this remind yourself or your little to relax their shoulders, hands, anything that can hold tension.
S.T.O.P
S= Stop what you are thinking or doing
T= Take a deep breath and step back
O= Observe yourself )your thinking and breathing)
P= Proceed mindfully and positively.
5 SENSES
Look for 5 things you can SEE
Listen for 4 things you can HEAR
Find 3 things you can SMELL
Find 2 things you can FEEL
Find 1 thing you can TASTE
this is a practice of grounding
I know school can be hard, but if we are prepared and ready to be there for ourselves and our littles it can make this transition back so so much easier!
And if you find yourself in need of some outside help, don't be afraid to reach out! It takes a community, a village, to raise kiddos and we would love to be there for you and for them!
Summer Wellness For You and Me
by Lanise Thakkar
Summer is here, we made it!
While this month of the year often represents a time for pausing and a time for relaxation, it can also represent lots of newness. New routines, a new pace, new transitions, new places, and more that can, yes, be fun and exciting to look forward to, and can also feel overwhelming too. I think it’s okay to admit that Summertime can still produce great stress and anxiety for us, it is not simply sunshine and beach days ahead. But how can we balance that stress and anxiety with the sunshine and beach days ahead?
I believe there are ways to balance and navigate these contrasting feelings and emotions, that it is possible to feel both excited about what’s to come and to also feel overwhelmed by what’s ahead. I think part of balancing these parts of us is about being able to recognize it’s possible to feel more than one emotion at once and that there is this beautiful practice called setting boundaries that helps us to better protect our mindset and our energy when we navigate our wellness. Boundaries say, “Let’s not say yes to all the feels at once right now, that’s too much. Instead, let’s pick and choose what is healthy and not healthy right now, what’s helpful and what’s not helpful, what can we make space for and what can we hold off on?” Boundaries are not entirely about communicating our “no’s” it’s about being mindful what our tradeoffs are and how we can better manage our “yes’s” and our “no’s.” If I choose to say “no” to overcommitting to things and overthinking about things, in turn I am actually communicating a “yes” to me time, self-care, and prioritizing my well-being. These tradeoffs are essential to navigating this season and every day life, it’s what helps protect us from exhaustion, resentment, burnout, distress, anger, and allows room to protect peace, rest, wellness, happiness, and joy.
As we flip our calendars to this new Summer season and reflect on being halfway through the year, let’s take a moment to reflect on how we want to embrace and practice caring for ourselves in the coming days. While these days may already be filled with Summer plans, activities, outings, trips, work, and responsibilities, how might we like to better balance these days ahead? What if we made meaning of this Summer season to mean greater wellness and peace for ourselves, maybe for the first time even think about how boundaries look during my Summer? How can we begin to find peace in how we spend our days and for ourselves this Summer? What can we do to maintain our health and wellness before, during, and post-a vacation? What does a mid-year refresh look like? How can we better navigate this season? How can we take better care of ourselves presently to set ourselves up well for the days to come?
A simple guide for you and me:
Summer wellness looks like honestly reflecting on how you feel and being honest about what you want and need, as well as what you don’t want and don’t need. It is about acknowledging, being attune to yourself, and getting curious about what you feel, want, and need. It’s about checking in with yourself about what’s working and what’s not working, what do I want to keep and what do I want to let go of? What do I want to commit to and what do I need to give myself permission not to commit to? How can I better prioritize myself in a way of self-care (which is simply caring for yourself) so that I do not engage in self-neglect? What would help me better manage and maintain my wellness so that I do not enter into Fall feeling burnt out?
Summer wellness then looks like honoring yourself, your thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs. One of my favorite ways to do this is by engaging and recognizing the power in doing boundary work. Reflecting on our boundaries and setting healthier ones helps us to honor ourselves by protecting our thoughts, feelings, mood, energy, time, peace and well-being.
Finally, Summer wellness looks like engaging in things that are meaningful to you and mindfully choosing what you want to invite and not invite into your life this season. Take some time to think about what you would like this Summer to mean for you. What would you like this time to look like and be?
You know what’s best for you. Honor it. This is your permission to take control of your Summer wellness.
The ABCs to Change
“Change” is something guaranteed in this life.
Even when you’re experiencing something new and positive, like moving to a new home/city/place, starting a new job, committing to a new relationship, getting married, or growing your family, you can find yourself in a muddy bucket of stress.
Oh how I can very much relate to this as I am experiencing a major life change this month.
With clients, I find myself describing the the past 26 months using an onion as a metaphor. In therapy, we are trying to get to the core of that onion as we move through the different layers in life. The thicker parts of the onion are juicier, more hearty, much like the topic at hand during each session.
The outer layer… the thin flaky outer covering of the onion attached to the weedy tips is the “stress of the pandemic”: whether it be the COVID-19 virus itself, or the idea of quarantine and social distancing, that outer layer is what is at the surface.
When we peel it off, peel it back, we are exposed to our true selves. In my work with clients, especially over the past two years, the uncovering of that outer layer is the key to examining what the important layers of focus are and to allow change to happen.
The original title of this blog was written as “New Beginnings”. As I am starting a new business in Raincross Family Therapy and experiencing a whole lot of “new” in my personal life and adjusting to the idea of everything opening up again, post-social-distancing, it seemed to fit more. But soon, as we get into the “A-B-C’s” of Change, the focus is less on the “new”.
I am inviting you to embrace change with me. What I have to offer is something simple: to let the changes and stressors that you encounter to grow you, to awaken you, and for you to avoid allowing the change to cripple you. We (the world!) have survived what could have been a crippling change in the past two years. Many of us could disagree that we haven’t survived just yet. Many we know barely made it through without experiencing emotional pain, heartache, loss, or maybe were even emotionally crippled from the stress of the pandemic.
What I have is not a solution. My ABC’s to Change are not a cure.
I am sharing only what I suggest to others and implement in my own life. This plus much self-awareness will be essential to avoiding the crippling mentioned above.
So, ‘here goes!
A - ACTIVATE your support system.
“A” does not require you to “get a therapist”. This first step is to encourage you to assess the support system you already have and have intentional conversations about how others can be there for you. It is healthy to have a person (or a group of people) in your life who you reach out to to distract you. They might not be able to offer advice or relate to what you are experiencing, but the relationship is valuable because they spend time with you or talk to you or literally distract you to keep your mind off of the current stresses/stressors. But they key component for this person or category of people is that they need to know that they are playing that role in your life. Your needs in the relationship need to be communicated. You could say, “I really value your friendship and role in my life. I have been encouraged to activate my support system while I am going through this custody battle (enter life change/stressor) and I really appreciate when you share a meal with me and talk about celebrity gossip. It keeps my mind off of the stress and grounds me to a world outside of this messy court battle”.
In the same way, you can activate people in your life who are directly involved in helping decrease the stress. It is important to literally activate their role by communicating what you need and when. It is important that while thanking them, you remind them that the change/stress is temporary, that they will have the lower stress version of you back soon! You can say “I am so grateful that you are with me in this season. I value you as a part of my support system and I am so grateful for your friendship. I know that my needs right now have been bigger than usual, and at the end of this season, I know I will feel poured into. My hope is that after this season, I will feel like myself again, so thank you for being there for me.”
B - BALANCES & BOUNDARIES
In the season of change, it is so hard for me to say “no”. I am a go-getter. The helpful friend. The girl who doesn’t like to miss out on the fun. I have a large and loud Filipino family with a full calendar - it is rare for me to miss out on opportunities and excitement.
But…..oh, it is so important to find balance. If I want to manage my stress during this new change, I have to say “no” to the hardest person to say it to: myself. I have to “die” to the the belief that “missing out” is going to result in some kind of level of failure. I have to learn to believe that saying “yes” to pausing and resting is the key to peace and balance in my life.
There’s so many books written about the “power” of “NO”. It’s hard to disagree with any author advising how effective a “no” could be.
Last thing about boundaries: a “no” is much easier to change than a “yes”. When you first say “yes”, changing your decision to a “no” later (or worse: last minute), is proven to be a very stressful decision. In contrast, saying “no” first, but then being able to change your decision to a “yes” is a healthier route.
So, practice that “no”… Here’s some suggestions:
No thank you, but sounds lovely
I appreciate the offer, but it’s not a good time
Sounds great, but I can’t commit
I am not really into it, but thank you for asking
I am not taking on anything else right now
C - CARE for yourself!
My roles:
a therapist
a wife
a mom of 3
a professor
a supervisor
a business owner
a daughter
a sister
a friend
There’s probably more I can add to my list of roles but they do not define me. I have to ask myself, who is “Reba”? Without all of those roles, who am I? What makes me unique? What makes up “who I am”? There is so much more to who I am than “what I do”. And when you find out who you are, and you like who you are, the next step is simple": take care of you and watch yourself grow.
The self-care is unique to who you are:
What kind of music do you like? Make a playlist - play it often! Maybe even go to a concert or a live show.
What do you like to do? Do you have a hobby? Do you have a sport you love to play or watch? What makes you happy? What is something that you miss? How do you express gratitude? How do you express love? How do you describe your personality? How often do you complain? What are the things you care about? What are things that hurt you or make you sad? In what ways are you contributing to the world?
Find what works in taking care of yourself and do it regularly. Decide what that looks like for each self-care task. Maybe you always have a concert/event to look forward too each quarter or month. Big or small, schedule it and follow through.
I have endless questions about who you are. I have endless hope for you to (C) care for yourself, love yourself, and be motivated for life’s changes to grow you. The therapist that I am wants for you to find peace and balance (B) in your life and maintain it. And the extroverted Christian that I am wants you to know who your people are (A). When you feel seen by those in your life who care about you, the community, love, and fellowship will be like having valuable gems in your pocket.
Change is good. Change is needed. Change is promised to us.
Welcome the “change” in your life. Allow yourself to be changed as well.