Learning Boundaries Through a Pandemic

Photo by Avrielle Suleiman on Unsplash

Self-care equals yoga

I remember very clearly the day I realized that boundaries are not only important to my self-care, but also to my work as a therapist.

Currently working as a Marriage and Family Therapy intern (thanks Zoom!), I also hold three part-time jobs while going to school full-time. When the pandemic lockdown first took effect in Seattle, my favorite yoga teacher began offering classes online twice a week.

For several weeks I was able to manage my various work and school schedules and make it to both classes every week. Yoga was my release, my de-stressor, my therapy. I’d been attending the same class for several years. Even though I had to practice in my chaotically messy living room, maintaining that schedule through the beginning of quarantine was helping me to stay sane.

A few weeks into quarantine, I was wrapping up a therapy session and my client couple requested an appointment the following Tuesday at 6pm. My stomach lurched a little as I saw my yoga class already scheduled in that precious slot on my calendar, but being a people pleaser I went ahead and scheduled them.

I told myself, without believing a word of it, I could miss ONE class. No big deal. But it felt like a very big deal to me. Yoga is my mental health.

Choosing self-care instead

Within 24 hours, I had called the couple and rescheduled them. I would be no good to myself or to any of my clients without holding my boundaries. It was the first time in my clinical work that I hadn’t made allowances for my clients and it ended up not being a big deal at all. I was proud of myself for holding on to the two hours a week just for myself.

These many months later, I haven’t missed a class and the practice continues to help keep me grounded.

A lesson in being true to myself

This was about so much more than getting to do yoga - I was setting boundaries and setting a better precedent for my future self to follow. Living through this pandemic has often made it difficult to hold those lines between work and leisure time. When do we get a break if there is no normal schedule?

What a luxury it is for me to be able to even attempt to establish boundaries during this time! I have no children and no pets and my current employment is fairly flexible. If even one of those things was different, I can imagine there would be many more roadblocks to “me” time.

No boundary too small 

Boundaries are not always clear cut but they can be simple. Being able to say to your family “I just need 5 minutes to myself” is a boundary. Going for a walk once a day is a boundary. Making sure you don’t skip meals is a boundary. Here are more examples: logging into work only during work hours, creating a separate work space from your living space and focusing on things you can control in the midst of this very difficult time are all boundaries. 

If you don’t listen to your gut and you say yes to things you really meant no, this can have a cumulative effect on you over time. You are not just saying yes just this one time, or skipping your precious workout just this one time. Pretty soon you could be looking back and wondering what happened to the non-negotiables that kept you sane? 

Watching out for who?

If you are not firm at setting boundaries, you are basically saying, “Everything and everyone else are more important than me and I have to drop what I’m doing to accommodate at all cost!” Saying that out loud sounds extreme, but prioritizing everyone else does come at an expense; at your expense. 

Coming back to my example, it has helped me realize that I matter too. I do not always have to be available at the drop of a hat for my clients. Just because I can does not mean I should or that I want to. Clients are important, but I have my own needs and health to look after as well. I too have a family and errands and appointments and yoga. Staying on top of these areas of my life helps to renew me. Remembering this will serve me in my therapy practice and my everyday. 

Remembering you 

Today, I’d encourage you to set one boundary for yourself. Just one. You may find it liberating. Sometimes that small amount of structure can be just what you need. And, if you need help setting boundaries, our therapists are here to help. 

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Sarah Reijnen is the Director of First Impressions at People Bloom Counseling. In addition to welcoming new clients as the new client intake whiz at People Bloom, she is also in the midst of completing her  internship in Marriage and Family Therapy. She loves sunshine, paddle boarding and dogs of any kind.

Little Things You Can Do In The Morning to Make Your Whole Day Better

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

What morning routine?

I know we don’t always have time to set up our day just right with a relaxing morning routine. But if you’ve ever done a wellness routine like meditation or yoga to start your day, you have to admit that the rest of the day goes more smoothly than days that you don’t, amiright?

Rushing around in the morning, jumping straight into whatever you have to do are all recipes for disaster. Whether it’s a work meeting, dropping kids off, or taking your Spanish exams  -  if you start right and mentally prepare for whatever the day brings, the tasks become easier and everything flows. 

But you don’t always have the leisure to drop in on a morning yoga class, meditate and make a nutritious breakfast. Less time-consuming, small things also help prepare you for your day, and these are the ones that have helped me.

Choose how you spend your time

With many of us working from home, we have a little more time in the morning than we would if we had to commute to an office. Let’s make the most of this time to do what’s right for your body and mind. And then there’s the social media problem. Consider how much time you spend waste scrolling endlessly, filling your mind with fluff and custom-tailored advertising just to you. The cost-benefit analysis isn’t great when you think of the hours spent and very little gained. Consider instead devoting just a smidgen of that time to something that will help you later. 

Consciously choosing how we spend our time gives us back a bit of the control we feel like we’ve lost as the world continues to throw new apocalyptic curve balls at us.  

Let’s say you only have 10 spare minutes in the morning. Here are some ideas for how to spend it wisely.

Move your body

Do stretches, do yoga, walk the dog, or roll around on the floor with your toddler - whatever moves that sack of bones and makes you happy. If you’re feeling ambitious, teach yourself a Youtube dance, or do a pilates video. 

It can be as quick as 10 minutes, but if you do more, give yourself a pat on the back. The nice thing about movement is that there is no movement too big or too small to count - meet yourself wherever you’re at and do what your body allows, even if you’re a little creaky. What matters is that you get your blood flowing and joints loosened up for the day ahead. This is especially crucial when you’ll be sitting in front of a screen for much of the day. 

Don’t forget to stretch your...vocal chords?

I discovered a trick by complete accident recently: it turns out singing to/at my dogs distracts them from whatever bad behavior they’re up to. Let me explain. The two nudniks were rolling around like maniacs nipping each other’s necks, which is all fun and games until someone gets hurt. When one dog inevitably went too far and the other yelped, instead of yelling at them as usual, I belted out “stop! in the name of love”...you know the rest. I may have added a little booty shake. They stopped, turned and looked at me. They were at my mercy, waiting for the rest of the lyrics. 

Ever since then, I sing out my commands - mind you this has to be a forceful singing with operatic gusto. When I do, my dogs are mesmerized and mellow out. Even stranger, I noticed it mellows me out as well. I feel centered and calm after letting it all out. This is reflected in my voice after I do it.  My voice is steadier and this makes me feel more equipped to face meetings, trainings, and talk to family. 

Mental health experts have corroborated this effect: humming and vocalizing can contribute to healing trauma, notably discussed by Resmaa Menakem in My Grandmother’s Hands, his work about healing racialized trauma. I can imagine how singing would be beneficial for trauma, considering how much it helped with my stress and anxiety. 

I don’t know about you, but for me, stress fries my vocal chords. My voice gets hoarse, weak, and I have a hard time projecting. Asserting my loudest, most confident singing voice in the morning wakes up my vocal chords and empowers me to be assertive in daily life. Singing has a physiological grounding effect on the body. So go for it - sing your heart out in the shower tomorrow morning and see how you feel!

Switch out the coffee for a wellness drink

Before you start accusing me of taking your coffee away - hear me out! If you’re a coffee junkie, I only mean for this to be an occasional replacement to mix things up, or even just an add-on item if you insist on your daily coffee fix. I wouldn’t dream of robbing you of the life-giving energy juice. However! Sometimes your body craves something more replenishing. Try starting your morning with a wellness toddy a couple times a week. It takes no longer than making coffee, and it’s a good way to leave behind a tired routine. Use your favorite herbs and spices in whatever combination you like. My favorite toddy combines turmeric, lemon or lime juice, hot water, and honey. Add some chili powder if you’re the spicy type. Steep some basil or mint if you like it herby. On hot summer mornings, make a superfood smoothie instead.

My turmeric tonic is full of antioxidants and Vitamin C, has anti-inflammatory benefits, and can energize you for the day ahead. Coffee is great for that mad jolt, but a wellness toddy has longer-lasting effects to make you feel warm and centered. 

Make yourself presentable, even if just for yourself

It’s all too easy to stay in the same clothes that you slept in all day, especially for those of us working from home and when we feel like there’s no one around to stop us (or no one to impress!). But whether you have to leave the house or not, making yourself presentable in the morning is key to feeling good the rest of the day.

Even if you don’t have anything planned, change out of the PJs, and put on something comfortable but presentable that makes you feel confident. Don’t forget your face. Moisturize, put on sunscreen, do that thing that brings out your favorite feature. It doesn’t take long, and it can make a difference.

You’ll be more ready to face whatever comes your way the rest of the day. You don’t want to get caught off guard answering the door in your bathrobe, or running out for that appointment you forgot about in your pink comfy pants because you didn’t take the time to get ready earlier.

Set intentions for the day

Are you stressed about something coming up? Instead of just running into it head on and being stunned by the results, try facing it deliberately and with intention. Let’s say you have an interview or presentation you’re stressed about -  imagine how you want it to go. Visualize being in a calm state of mind when doing the task at hand.

Writing down your intentions is key. The act of writing helps make things a reality. Whether it’s because it reinforces your desires subconsciously, or because you refer back to the physical writing throughout the day, it helps organize your thoughts.

Intentions can be reminders that regulate your emotional state and help you achieve goals. This is one of my recent intention lists from a weekday morning in the last week:

• Approach things with curiosity

• Stay grounded in my body

• Find joy in the dogs, even when you worry about them

• Discipline the dog from a place of love, not anger

Can you tell the dogs have been a focal point in my life lately? They were a great outlet for me to practice my intention setting. But you can do this with anything in your life, whether it’s a source of joy, anxiety, worry, anticipation, or anything that makes you feel emotionally unregulated. These are reminders for how to approach your day to keep the freak-outs at bay. That just rhymed, didn’t it?

If you need additional support, we’re here

As always, if you need more than what this blog has to offer, our clinicians are here to help. Sometimes having a neutral person brainstorm ideas with you is better than going about it alone. If you need help filing your taxes, cleaning your house or training your dog, that’s what accountants, cleaning service and dog trainers are for. We can’t help you in those other areas of your life, but for your mental health needs, we’re here for you. 

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Karen Lenz is the Office Whiz and Insurance Guru at People Bloom Counseling. She writes blog posts as a human navigating this world, a client sitting across from a therapist, much like you. In her free time you’ll find her cooking, playing with the dogs, and fixing up an old camper that she hopes to take out to the lake this summer.

“Now Say you’re Sorry!” Everything you Need to Know about Apologies in Two Blogs - Part I

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

Welcome to humanity

We all mess up, say things we don’t mean, and hurt people we love. Emotions can make us impulsive and impair our better judgment. This is especially the case during a pandemic when we’re already stressed. We are human, and therefore imperfect beings. When the inevitable happens and we do care about our partner, we really need to work towards repairing the relationship. Repair usually requires an apology. But why is it that hearing “I’m sorry” feels so important to us? And, why is it so hard to offer up these same words to others? Harriet Lerner lays these answers out beautifully in her important work, Why Won’t You Apologize? (2018). Here is what I took away from it.

Why an apology is important: it “gifts” in more ways than one

Lerner refers to three “gifts” of a proper apology. The first is a gift to the hurt person. We’ve all been that person who is hurt, waiting for an apology. We feel unseen. We obsess, ruminate, grit our teeth, or distance when we feel wronged by another. And it’s hard to let that go until something gives. The gift of apology repairs that person’s emotional safety after a rupture in a relationship, and allows the hurt party to let go of the yucky feelings and move forward. 

Apologies are also a gift to the apologizer. It’s hard to apologize, of course...apologizing requires vulnerability. We don’t know how the other person will respond - will they accept our admission to the mistake and in turn, our imperfection? Apologizing can be scary because it can make us feel like we are giving up something, waving the proverbial white flag, perhaps providing ammo to be used against us at a later time! But in actuality, a genuine apology bolsters self-respect and self-worth because it’s a sign of maturity. We are owning the part of the interaction where we’ve messed up. If the hurt party is open enough to hear us, their respect for us might just go up a notch. 

The final gift is to the relationship. Apologies are necessary to work towards repairing relationship ruptures. All relationships have disagreements and conflicts from time to time; how frequently those conflicts arise depends on how attuned we are to our partner’s needs and sensitivities, as well as our own capacity to regulate our emotions. But it’s how the conflict is handled that counts. This is supported by literature around couples therapy, which universally stresses that ruptures are inevitable, and it’s the repair that’s most important for maintaining healthy and mutually satisfying intimate relationships. 

Genuine vs. half-assed apologies

Look, we’re not stupid. We can sense when an apology is not genuine, when the person saying the words are just trying to get it over with. Imagine the tone, “Well, SOR-RY!” or the words “I’m sorry you feel this way,” as if there was something wrong with you for feeling that way. Whether we’re the person giving the apology or receiving it, in the absence of a genuine apology that offers empathy and contrition, half-assed apologies can wreak havoc on connection. It often leaves the hurt party more hurt, upset and distant. And if it happens over and over in a relationship, it can tear apart an otherwise well meaning couple. 

Think of it as a compilation of small cuts that receive inadequate care. Without antiseptic, bandage, and attention...they scar, over and over again. One cut doesn’t do harm, but many little cuts signal a threat to our sense of emotional safety and get our defenses up. No wonder one argument leads to a totally different unresolved issue! We’re less likely to share our true feelings, make bids for closeness, and trust that our person will show up to help us heal, bandage in hand.

Learning to accept apologies

As important as the apology itself is, the hurt party needs to be willing to receive the apology,  as long as the trespass is not abusive. If we dismiss the apology by saying, “Eh, not a big deal..no need to apologize...it is what it is,” we send the message that their words or actions didn’t warrant a repair. When your partner genuinely wants to make amends, that response can come across as minimizing their efforts. As noted earlier, the apology is for the apologizer too. 

In a different scenario, if we keep shaming the person for their mistake, even when they’re genuinely apologizing, we reinforce that apologies are no good here -  aka, “Your apology doesn’t fix anything and I’m gonna stay mad at you anyways!” That’s you holding the grievance over your partner in a way they can never pay back. You’re essentially ignoring the cut or shoving it in their face without allowing them to tend to it. 

Instead, try this: thank the apologizer for the apology. “I appreciate you for owning your part. Your apology means a lot to me.” This is the most helpful response for mending the wound and the relationship. It honors the cut and opens the doors for proper healing...scar tissues don’t stand a chance here!

The 9 elements of an effective apology*

Now that we’ve covered why apologies are important, genuine versus half-assed ones and the essence of accepting apologies, let’s talk about what makes for an effective apology. 

So what exactly makes a “good” apology? Lerner highlights nine keys to an apology that works: 

1. No “buts”. “I’m sorry, but…” cancels out whatever was said prior to the “but.” It infers to the hurt party, “I’m sorry but I’m actually not that sorry.” 

2. Apologize for your actions/words, not for the hurt person’s response to those actions/words. Don’t say, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” because it implies that the hurt person is to blame for receiving the trespass as they did. Instead, we must take accountability by saying, “I’m sorry I did/said that to you.” 

3. A good apology offers restitution. In other words, try to make up for it. If you bailed on a commitment, reschedule and be sure to show up.

4. Be mindful of over-doing your apology. If you apologize profusely and don’t let up, this interrupts the repair exchange. As Lerner delicately notes, it’s annoying. What’s more, if you over-apologize and add things like, “I’m the worst, I’m such a piece of shit!” you’re victimizing yourself and requiring the hurt party to then tend to your self-deprecation. Please don’t do that, it’s unfair. 

5. There shouldn’t be an expectation that the other person apologizes as well. If you eff’d up, you eff’d up. Take ownership for your role in the conflict. If the other person also eff’d up, they should be able to come to that conclusion on their own. It doesn’t matter who started it. 

6. Mean it when you say it won’t happen again. True apologies require that you stop repeating the same harmful behavior. This can be difficult with habitual responses, but if you’re genuinely sorry, you need to make a conscious effort to stop doing/saying the harmful thing. 

7. Apologies shouldn’t be used to silence the other person. Depending on the delivery, apologies can be used to get the other person to shut up. This makes me think of the ol’, “Yes dear, I’m sorry dear, you’re right dear.” This is dismissive, disingenuous, and you’re being an ass-hat. 

8. Don’t apologize just to ease a guilty conscience. A true apology should not serve to make you feel better if it might harm the other person. It’s not an apology if it’s for the sake of your own healing. This might be the case when someone is setting boundaries and has requested that you give them space and stop contacting them.

9. Expect nothing in return. Finally, when we apologize, you shouldn’t be asking the hurt party to do anything. You shouldn’t expect forgiveness or reassurance that you are well-intended. You give the apology for the other person’s sake and that’s it. No strings attached.  

Easy-peasy, right? *Buzzer sound.* This stuff is hard AF, but such important work. In my next post, I’ll share more about our defenses during apologies and the step-by-step process on how to actually give and receive them.  

In the meantime, need help making repairs in your relationship? I’ll be here. 

*Borrowed from Why Won’t You Apologize? By Harriet Lerner, PhD (2018).

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Abby Erickson is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor at People Bloom Counseling, a Redmond psychotherapy practice. She helps people with anxiety and social anxiety learn ways to better manage their angst. She also helps people struggling with low self-esteem and body image issues be comfortable in their own skin. During her time at home, she's drawing from the challenges and wins in her own relationship to help couples and individuals feel more secure in their most important relationships.

3 Tips for Coping with the Chronic Stage of a Global Pandemic

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

From acute to chronic

July marks month five of COVID happenings in the US. We went from panic buying toilet paper to temporarily setting up work from home arrangements. Along the way, we adjusted to new rules at the grocery store and signage everywhere. We learned that schooling from home is not the same as home schooling. We might have gotten news about layoffs or if we’re still working, the ever-changing COVID policy rollouts. We order desks, laptop stands, chairs to make working from home more permanent. Clorox wipes reappear on shelves momentarily and there’s no shortage of companies selling you cloth masks. Leaving home without your face mask can feel like you’re leaving home without your phone. 

The reality of COVID

All in all, from the limited packages of chicken you can buy at the store to, “It’s the summer and I have nowhere to go!”, we’re reminded that COVID is staying, for now. While I’ve heard countless times, “Now if only this virus would go away!” or “I’m so done with this!”, we have entered the chronic stage of this global pandemic. It’s chronic in that it’s something we have to learn to deal with through the summer, into the fall and likely into 2021. Even if you don’t want to hear that, it doesn’t change what is. I see it as getting over the initial shock of, say being diagnosed with diabetes: one is still left with learning how to manage this condition.

Different times call for different strategies

The thing is, how we manage in the beginning is not how we manage now. Similar to my previous blog about building your wellness toolbox, we need different tools when we’re coping for the short-term versus planning for the long, or at least mid-haul. When the dust has settled but you’re tired of the same old same old, what are you to do? 

Here are three tips to cope with this next phase of COVID:

1. Switch things up - Nobody says your furniture has to go up against the wall, you can’t have breakfast for dinner or date night can’t be in the middle of the week. Move things around, break the unspoken rules in your own house, see COVID as an opportunity to live outside the box. 

2. Hold loosely onto projected changes - Whether it is the 50+ pages of reading put out by your district’s “Return to School Task Force,” your projected return-to-office date or version 7.0 of your work’s COVID procedures based on the latest CDC guidelines, the information is ever changing. Sure, stay abreast regarding changes and follow recommendations, but don’t get too attached. Before you know it, what’s in front of you might be replaced by yet the next best practice. 

3. Without putting you or other people’s lives in danger, do activities that make you feel just a little out of control - While it helps for kids to be out of school, life has been super structured or otherwise restricted. Planning things out, wiping things down, following social distancing rules can make you feel in control, but it can also be exhausting. Since COVID, couples have been trying out new ways to pleasure each other. Similarly, with the nicer weather, think long bike rides, SUP or kayaking.

We’re here for you

If you need help coping with this phase of the health pandemic, we got you. Our caseloads tend to be lighter over the summer. Come in now so you can get a head start into fall. We’re here for you, 100% telehealth.

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Ada Pang is the owner of People Bloom Counseling, a Redmond psychotherapy practice. She helps unhappy couples find safety and connection in their relationship. She also helps cancer thrivers and their caregivers integrate cancer into their life stories. She was looking forward to going out on her paddle board but slept in after catching Comet Neowise in the middle of the night. Next time.

Build your Wellness Toolbox to Help you Stay Sane in 2020

Photo by Bookblock on Unsplash

What a year it has been!

2020 has been a hell of a year with the health pandemic, too many COVID-related deaths, business closures, massive unemployment and pending evictions. Black and brown lives continue to matter as protests broke out in all 50 states to seek justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others. Rioting and/or looting followed in some states.

And we’re only in June.

Introducing WRAP

What do we need to do to stay sane so we can keep going? When there is so much hurt going on, we have less tolerance for more things to go wrong. Adapting from the model of Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), we can all use a wellness toolbox right now. Initially, WRAP was developed to help people with mental health struggles to live full, meaningful lives. It has since been adapted to help people with all kinds of physical and emotional challenges.

And if we are honest with ourselves, current circumstances are most certainly challenging all of us physically, emotionally and socially right now.

You may be thinking that self-care and wellness rituals only make it easier to hide from or turn a blind eye to the troubles around us. The opposite is true: do these things to help you maintain from day-to-day, so you can go out (or stay in) and continue to contribute to your life, your family, your community in the best way you know how.

The elements of WRAP

Develop a wellness toolbox

List everything you can think of that helps you feel better. Here are a sample from my list:

• Draw

• Watch a movie

• Go out for a walk

• Connect with my friends and family

• Travel

And the list goes on. List as many things as you can think of, big and small. Even ones you can’t do right now in quarantine can spark other creative ideas. Keep going until you run out of ideas.

Describe yourself when you’re well

Sometimes it’s hard to remember what you’re like when you’re feeling well. This is especially the case when you’re overwhelmed and a “hot mess”. Here is how I’d describe myself when I’m having a good enough day:

• Loving

• Focused

• Funny

• Patient

• Thoughtful

It doesn’t have to be your best day, but when you’re feeling relatively well, how would you describe yourself? Write those down. You don’t have to stop at just five qualities. Keep going.

Make a daily maintenance list

From your wellness toolbox, pick tools to put on your daily maintenance list to help you stay as well as possible. Think about these as being your absolute necessities: things you need to do everyday to help you maintain. Here are mine:

• Get at least 7.5 hours of sleep

• Eat healthy homemade meals at least two out of three meals

• Hug and kiss my husband

• Have my morning cup of coffee

• Vary my working position between sitting and standing

While these items are not the ones previously listed, they’re definitely in my wellness toolbox. I’m simply putting down different items to show you the variety. There are no right or wrong answers, only the tools that work for you. Your daily maintenance list needs to be your non-negotiables: If a day or two goes by without doing items on this list, you’ll feel it.

Make a weekly maintenance list

Deviating from the WRAP model for a moment, I’m going to add a weekly maintenance list. There are simply some things that don’t need to be done daily, but if you wait too long to get to them, the impact is greater than the activity itself. Here’s what’s on my weekly maintenance list, ideas still generated from my wellness toolbox:

• Do a cardio workout 3x a week

• Date night

• Cook 2-3x a week

• Do 1-2 loads of laundry

• Get a sushi takeout

While it’s possible to go on to list my monthly maintenance list which would involve a lot of bill payments, you get the idea. Especially during a global crisis when the day feels long and the month feels short, planning for what you’d need in the short-term can help you function better.

Identify your triggers

In a recent post, I noted what’s really going on when we’re emotionally triggered. Here’s a short video of me summarizing the same ideas:

Within WRAP, you might not be identifying all the elements of your emotional triggers. However, it still helps to know when something might be upsetting you. Do you know what gets you stressed out and emotionally riled up? Here’s my list:

• A sink full of dishes on the night I’m scheduled to cook (it’s true)

• Videos and articles of injustice against black and brown people

• Comments by POTUS deliberately trying to cause division and chaos within our country and in opposition to the rest of the world

• Self-comparison with others, even though where they are or what they have are not even things I care for

• Small quarrels with people I care about

Triggers are often unexpected, but they can also be the result of us spending too much time on social media, reading the news, or otherwise surpassing a threshold of an activity that is no longer healthy for us. Take some time to notice what your triggers are. Write them down.

Notice your early warning signs

When triggered and you find yourself feeling worse and worse, it helps to know all the early warning signs that you’re not doing well. It’s one thing to be triggered and to bounce back from it; it’s another to spiral downward and for a bad mood to linger much longer. Here are my early warning signs when I’m not doing so well:

• I get more emotional

• I default to my old ways

• I frequent the snack table

• I’m more short with my husband

• I keep to myself more

Since the pandemic, my post about A Life Worth Living: What to do When Faced with Thoughts of Suicide became the 3rd most frequented page on our website. For some people, early warning signs include thoughts of suicide. If that’s you, please get help. Tell somebody. Reach out. There are other options. We all have early warning signs that things are getting out of hand. What are yours? Take some time with that.

Make a plan to recover

When you’re losing it, the tools you use will need to be different from the ones on your daily maintenance plan. Think about the things that will help you get through these tough times. This is often the opportunity to involve people around you, if you haven’t done so already. Since the pandemic, I’ve needed to tap into my own recovery plan. I learned a few things about myself along the way:

• Ask my friends for a card or a care package

• Be honest about my needs and wants

• Allow myself the space to cry

• Talk to my therapist

• Get help from my mentors

Refer back to the earlier descriptions of you when you’re well. What’s going to help you get back to the place of feeling like yourself again? Even if you’ve slept it off but you’re feeling more or less better, I’d still encourage you to work down the list on your recovery plan. Just because you’re feeling better in a moment does not mean you can sustain it. All the dominos that led to you spiraling will not go away on their own. We need to proactively take extra good care of you. Consider this mental health first aid.

The rest of WRAP

The WRAP model goes on to encourage people to formulate a crisis plan if you can’t take care of yourself, which could include hospitalization to keep you or other people safe. There’s also a component about a post-crisis plan to help you return home safely and how to stay safe. These last elements are beyond the scope of this blog and require a conversation with a trained mental health professional.

Please, if you’re feeling suicidal, consider the following resources:

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: (800) 273-TALK (8255) or text CONNECT to 741741 in the United States.

• TrevorLifeline for the LGBTQ community: (866) 488-7386 or text START to 678678 in the United States.

• Teen Link is a confidential and anonymous hotline in WA staffed by teen volunteers trained to talk to other teens who are going through a tough time: call or text (866) 833-6546.

• Now Matters Now has many videos to help people deal with suicidal thoughts

• International Association for Suicide Prevention has a list of resources for people living outside of the US

If you need help building your Wellness Toolbox

Life isn’t always kind, especially now. If you need help building your Wellness Toolbox, we’ve got trained counselors who can help you through this difficult time. Don’t wait until you’re at the end of your rope to get help.

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Ada Pang is the owner of People Bloom Counseling, a Redmond psychotherapy practice. She helps unhappy couples find safety and connection in their relationship. She also helps cancer thrivers and their caregivers integrate cancer into their life stories. A newer item in her wellness toolbox has been drawing, more specifically, drawing her dish rack.

The Real Reasons Why It’s Hard to Communicate with your Partner

Photo by Hutomo Abrianto on Unsplash

Managing relationships is hard. It’s even harder during COVID-19. While we are quarantined, we spend more time together than ever... but for many people this proximity does not lead to connection. What gives? In my own relationship, I experience this dichotomy. As I reflect on the past few weeks, it has brought me to a better understanding of my relationship, what I want from my marriage, and how to show up in a way that delivers on what I desire.

My husband is not a mind reader!

Why is it that when my husband is working round the clock and I am feeling neglected, ignored, and missing him that I greet him with a cold, distant, grumpy shoulder? Instead of a warm embrace when he finally does get home from his new COVID-19 induced car office, I signal a very different message than the one I want to send. My feelings are hurt and I want to protect myself by distancing, avoiding, and offering up some choice passive-aggressive comments. A real joy, as you can imagine!

My husband has many talents, but mind reading is not one of them!

Protective actions – the great cover up

It’s not our feelings that are the problem, it is often the protective behaviors that result from our feelings that really mess us up in relationships. In my case, my intention is to reconnect with him, but instead, my behavior shows the opposite. When we communicate in this indirect way (to put it gently), our partners can only make assumptions about what is going on for us and how we are feeling based on our behaviors. Then they will react to our reaction and we are off to the races! As a result, we end up getting in our cycle as we call it in Emotionally Focused Therapy. Our cycle is basically our pattern of communication when we fight that leaves us both feeling stuck and disconnected.

This cycle can set the tone for the rest of the evening, or worse, the next few days.

Why it’s hard to communicate our heartfelt feelings

There are a myriad of reasons why it’s hard to say things as they really are. Sometimes a lot of emotions are wrapped up in it. The timing might not be great. Both of you have had a long day. After all these years, you just want them to have figured it out by now, which goes back to the mind reading. 

If I have to distill down the key elements that get in the way of us communicating what’s really going on, here they are:

Lack of awareness

Oftentimes we don’t really even know how we are feeling and what we are needing in our relationships. It’s so much easier to focus on our partner’s behavior and point the finger at them than it is to look inward and really pay attention to our own feelings and needs. But then we get stuck in the anger, resentment, anxiety, depression...etc. We often don’t know how to get past that. 

We develop our sense of self and other at a very young age and then develop strategies for dealing with these beliefs. James Hollis, a Jungian Analyst, calls these anxiety management strategies. These beliefs of self and other and our strategies for managing them are often out of our awareness. Unless we become more aware of our own anxiety management strategies, we can become a prisoner to our behaviors.

Strategies that no longer work

These tactics for managing our needs and getting through life were developed for a good reason. They helped us get through hard times and protected us in a world when we had little power growing up. These strategies served a purpose. They only become a problem if they start to interfere with how we go about life now. We know we’ve outgrown these anxiety management strategies when we default to them and they cause us relationship distress, loneliness, anxiety, and depression. They can be self-defeating and unintentionally damaging to our most important relationships.

How we were taught

The way we have been socialized from a young age can also interfere with our ability to communicate our feelings as well as our needs. To put simply, in a culture that values achievement, many men have learned that their value comes from solving and fixing. They often enter into a conversation with their sleeves rolled up and ready to tackle the problem! Don’t get me wrong, these are the best of intentions! It’s just not always what their partner might be looking for. It can be confusing for a man when his partner says, “I want you to be with me, not do for me.”

Women, on the other hand, are often socialized to be caretakers whose greatest value is to care for other people. Sometimes, we get the message that the needs of others are more important than our own needs. As a result, we grow up learning to deny our own needs in service to this caretaking ideal. We can feel so bad about having needs that we talk ourselves out of asking for what is important to us. When our needs are not met, the frustration that results seeps out in indirect ways. Again, it would be so much easier if our spouses could read our minds!

Then of course, women can also be socialized to fix and problem solve and men to caretake.

Vulnerability is scary and hard work

Another reason we tend to shy away from honest communication is that it can be really scary to put ourselves out there. If you share with your partner your deepest fears and needs, will they be there for you? If you let them see you for who you really are, will they still love you, stay with you, care for you? Will they take you seriously? Or will you be too much for them? 

In the face of uncertainty and possible rejection, it’s safer and easier to give them the cold shoulder. 

A fuzzy signal

When we use protective actions and words to convey our feelings instead of speaking up directly from our hearts, our signal gets a little fuzzy… and it is difficult for our partners to understand what we are really asking for and needing. We end up implying something, sometimes the opposite of what we want or need, and we get frustrated when our partner gets it wrong. That’s a no win situation. 

Someone once put it this way, “My partner was communicating with a radio frequency I wasn’t tuned into. I just heard the static.”

How I overcame

In my own case, I initially had little awareness of how I was really feeling and what I needed from my husband. Without that awareness, I couldn’t find the words to express myself. I expected my husband to know what I needed and tend to those needs, even though I didn’t know them myself. That’s a tall order!

It took all of dinner for me to realize that I miss this man and that I want to hear that he misses me too. When he spends long days at his new car office, it doesn’t mean that he prefers that over being home with me, with us. When I finally told him what was really going on, we talked about it and gave each other the hug we both needed. We got out of our cycle and we were no longer carrying the weight of our disconnection, alone. 

How you can overcome

When you find yourself in your cycle with our partner, what can you do about it? The first thing is to look inward. Slow down and notice what is happening in your body to get a better understanding of how you are feeling. Pay attention to what you are saying to yourself. Finally, notice what you tend to do. When you have made some sense of your emotions and protective behaviors, can you try to communicate those feelings and needs to your partner?

Understanding ourselves to understand our relationships

It’s only when we can turn the mirror to ourselves and dig deep into understanding what we need, what we fear and how we protect ourselves from those fears can we fully show up in our relationships. When we show up for ourselves, we can show up for the very important people in our lives.

If you need guidance learning how to show up in these ways, I know how to help you. I can walk you through these steps and help you be more successful in your relationship, but also in your work, family and other social interactions.

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Kristin O’Hara is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate at People Bloom Counseling, a Redmond psychotherapy practice. She helps couples find love and connection in their relationship. She also helps individuals struggling with depression, anxiety and midlife transitions. The hardest thing about the quarantine is helping her kids adjust to schooling from home. Their family sometimes drives far (no traffic!) for a pizza takeout. This usually becomes the most exciting outing for the week, or month.

What's Really Going on When You're Emotionally Triggered

Photo by Mike Von on Unsplash

It doesn’t take much to be triggered

We’re still in the middle of a global pandemic and it doesn’t take a lot to get triggered. People are not following social distancing rules. You and your partner can’t agree on how much precaution you need to take. Your parents don’t understand the severity of the situation. On top of all that, there are the stories of George Floyd, Christian Cooper, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. And the list goes on. 

The thing is, it’s not a matter of if you get emotionally triggered but when. When you’re triggered, it helps to slow down for a moment and notice the following*: 

1. What is your trigger? What are you reacting to? What is making you feel uneasy, riled up or vulnerable? We do not all get triggered the same way by the same things. Identify your trigger.

2. What is your body telling you? It takes a fraction of a second for an alarm bell to show up in our bodies. Where are you feeling the sensation in your body? Some people talk about their muscles tensing up, their stomach fluttering, their chest feeling heavy. Your body is trying to tell you something is off. Listen to it.

3. What do you tell yourself? What often follows is an internal monologue. “Do people know how important it is to wear masks?” “Why is my mom going out again like it’s business as usual?” “Black. People. Dead. Not. Again.” Whatever you tell yourself, notice it. 

4. What are you feeling? See if you can trace an emotion to what just happened. What are you feeling? Frustration. Annoyance. Anger. Indignant. Whatever is showing up, they’re valid emotions.

5. What else are you feeling? Feelings are like layers of an onion. On the surface, you might be feeling some emotions initially. If we were to really dig deep, we often find that there are deeper emotions like sadness, hurt, fear and pain.

6. What do you want to do? Like a knee jerk reaction, you might want to yell, to lecture your mom, to seek justice. Whatever you might want to do, know that there’s a difference between wanting to do something and actually doing it. 

7. What do you really need? Is there a resolution you’re seeking?
   “I want people to know that as a nurse, we almost lost a dear colleague and we’ve lost too many patients to COVID. The grief is too great. I don’t want to see you in urgent care. Please follow CDC guidelines.”
   “Mom, I get scared when you are out and about and not maintaining social                distancing because I don’t want to lose you.” 
   “Black. Lives. Matter. We don’t get to stop spreading this message, not even for a health pandemic. We’re tired of losing our men and women. We’re sad and we’re afraid. We need you to know that we matter, not in spite of our skin color but simply because we do. We. Matter. We are an important part of society.

Slowing down and taking notice

Often, we go from trigger to action in a matter of seconds without really slowing down and noticing what’s going on for us. When you do take stock of your trigger, your body’s response, your narrative, your feelings, your action tendencies and your needs, you might find that there are various ways to deal with an external situation that that you initially may have felt you have no control over.  Even if you were to notice just some of these elements, that’s still more helpful than none at all. 

This is an exercise that needs to be experienced, rather than intellectualized. Whether it’s a systemic problem in the world or an issue in your relationship or in your individual life, how you respond to triggers is important. If you’re feeling stuck and you need help figuring out your responses, our counselors are here to help. 

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With a heavy, heavy heart,
Ada

*Ideas borrowed from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples and individuals.

Tips for Coping with the Effects of a Global Trauma

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

While stuck at home, you’re feeling things you may have never felt before. This isn’t a typical global crisis. So much of this pandemic involves isolation, waiting, unknowns, and not much action, unless you’re on the frontlines. But the effects on the population as a whole are felt, nonetheless.

During a global crisis...

• You may feel fatigued, confused, angry, restless, sad, helpless, distracted and/or super alert.

• You may feel trapped, like life is on hold.

• You may feel safe at home.

• You may feel bad about feeling safe at home.

You may skip between these feelings constantly. You may not know how to behave or what you ought to do when you’ve been given so many mixed messages.

Even when you allow yourself to have a good laugh about all that’s going on, when you pull away from this YouTube video or that TV show, the reality is still there. 

Your routine has been disrupted, at the very least. If you’re on the frontlines, you cannot unsee what you have seen.

It’s ok if...

• You aren’t getting as much done

• You aren’t eating super healthy

• You’re not eating enough

• You’re overeating

• You don’t always show patience with your partner or children

• You’re sleeping too much

• You’re not sleeping enough

Please extend grace to yourself. This is especially important when your best doesn’t feel like your best. 

“Normal” reactions to trauma 

All of your reactions are normal. In this context, “normal” just means common; we universally and instinctually share these reactions and traits. Your reactions are human, understandable and to be expected.

“Normal” will look slightly different for each of us, but there are some recognizable universal ways that we all react to dangerous situations.

Common trauma responses, one of which is less well known

When faced with danger, whether real or perceived, humans instinctively respond in the following four ways. While they’re not neatly categorized, see if you can spot yourself in one or more of these reactions:

• Fight –  In fight mode, you may show aggression about the state of the world as a whole, but this also manifests as angry outbursts taken out on those around you for seemingly unrelated reasons.

• Flight – In flight mode, you feel like running away from the danger, but this can also show up as forms of escape: becoming hyper-focused on work, or diving into projects and tasks that distract you from all the negative events in the world.

• Freeze – When you don’t know whether to fight or flee, your brain can resort to another option: shut down and freeze. In temporarily tightening up your muscles and paralyzing yourself, you hope to be away from danger. Your brain is subconsciously playing the game of “If I can’t see them, they can’t see me.” 

• Fawn or faint – The fourth and least talked about reaction to danger is to fawn/faint. When you fawn/faint, you have no energy to fight, flight or even freeze. You feel so helpless about the situation you become co-dependent or people-please. Sometimes, this can show up as frontline workers taking on extra shifts or working beyond their limits.

Normal reactions may be common survival instincts, but they aren’t always helpful for your well being. While your reactions make sense, they can lead to anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation and worsened mental health.

It can be distressing when there is so much we have little control over and so much we don’t know. So what can we do to feel better when the world feels out of control?

Focus on what you do have control over and take it day-by-day

1. Pay attention to what your body needs. In times of stress, it’s incredibly easy to lose track of your needs to the point where you don’t notice you are hungry, thirsty, need to pee or are tired as heck. Cortisol stress levels are high, and your body needs extra care to stay in balance.

Check in with your body. Take a break, eat well, and rest when you’re tired. Do everything you need for self-care, and then some. Do everything you need for self-care, and then some.

2. Make a schedule and keep a routine. If your typical schedule has been disrupted, create a new routine around specific activities for you and your family. Pick up new activities and/or hold onto the ones you know well. Having a routine creates a sense of security, comfort and normalcy, even if the “new normal” is not what it used to be.

3. Unplug. No really, unplug. Wellness blogs have been advising us to take a break from tech since the internet was born. It’s advice we take or leave under normal circumstances, as is convenient for us. But now more than ever, it’s crucial to take a break from the (bad/confusing/alarming) news and noise. Set timers for yourself for how long you scroll or tune in. Turn instead to the tangible activities you can do at home or in nature. You might find that some of the weight of the world is temporarily lifted off your shoulders. 

The news cycle and the tweets will be there when you’re in the headspace  to return. Frankly, you won’t be missing much.

4. Practice gratitude. It’s so easy to fixate on the decaying state of the world, and to let that be the main focus of your thoughts and conversations. Make a special effort to pay attention to what IS working. Notice what’s going well, even in the small bubble of your life. There’s a big world out there, and everything about it could make us worry if we let it. Are your people healthy for now? Check. Did the sun come out? Sweet, that’s a win. Did your kids do their online homework last night? Miraculous! Did your banana bread come out perfect this time? You’re a master chef and a genius. Little things can become huge when we invite them in.

5. Help where you can. Are you in a special position to donate your time or resources? While frontline workers and tired parents understandably are excused from these activities, some people are in a unique position to give back. Many of those folks are itching to help any way they can. You can donate to local arts or buy restaurant gift cards for local hospital workers. If you are crafty, sew face masks to distribute to friends and neighbors. It’s a sense of doing something, anything to make a positive impact. 

If you haven’t been doing some of these things until now, that’s okay - what you do today matters. If you start taking small steps, you’re doing a better job of taking charge today than the day before. 

And, if you help with these things, we’re here for you. 

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Karen Lenz is the Office Whiz and Insurance Guru at People Bloom Counseling. She writes blog posts as a human navigating this world, a client sitting across from a therapist, much like you. She’s a homebody, so being stuck at home means more time for cooking, playing with the dog, and finally getting to work on house projects that she’s been putting off.

Couples in Quarantine: What to Do When your Partner is Driving you Bananas

Photo by Soroush Karimi on Unsplash

When “quality time” isn’t all that quality

Not sure about the rest of you, but this involuntary “quality time” is kicking my relationship’s ass. This, by far, is the longest and most uninterrupted one-on-one time most of us have likely had with our significant other(s). For some, maybe it’s bliss. For others, it’s frustrating as heck. It doesn’t mean your relationship is doomed forever, but you might be seeing some wrinkles and wanna iron some things out.

Your world just got smaller

The vast majority of our relationships blossomed when the world was still movin’ real fast. Maybe you were finishing up your college degree, working towards a promotion, relocating, or juggling kiddos as a single-working parent. It could have been new to cohabitate together, but independence was still an option, AKA you could leave. Now, instead of venting to your BFF over happy hour, you can go...to the other room? Not exactly the space some of us need following what Jerry Seinfeld refers to as a “spirited exchange of ideas.”

What does confinement bring out in you? 

Being confined to a certain square footage can bring out the worst, and sometimes best, in us. Maybe you are a thriving (but neurotic) home-body like myself, content with chipping away at the second round of spring cleaning… also expecting that your partner jubilantly participates :D. Maybe you need rest, blankies, and lots of internet bandwidth to support your Instagram scrolling and Hulu binges. Neither are wrong-- one does not seep of moral goodness more than the other. They’re just different, and both are okay. 

Brene Brown pointed out in her new podcast** that in times of stress and/or drastic change we tend to either overfunction or underfunction. Some of us do ALL OF THE THINGS in order to gain some false or fleeting sense of control. We organize, create, connect, and micro-manage. Some of us do ZERO OF THE THINGS. We implode internally and try to drown out the unimaginable with lots of sleep, comfort food, and maybe wine (definitely wine). When we feel overwhelmed or out of control, humans have different ways of responding. 

How to have more constructive arguments “spirited exchanges”

Mutually responsive and fulfilling relationships require both willingness to accept innate differences between ourselves and our partners, AND willingness to grow as individuals. We need to understand our emotional needs and have self-compassion for why they’re there (a huge benefit of therapy). We need to have courage and ask for these from our partner, AND we need faith that they will be willing to meet us there (therapy can also help with this). When I say meet us, I mean show up. When I say show up, I mean listen. When I say listen, I do not mean listen to respond-- I mean listen to understand. It’s impossible to hear our partner when our ego desperately fights to protect itself from shame. Instead of hearing our partner say we did a thing that was hurtful, shame creates a shit-ton of static and we hear that we are a thing that is hurtful.. This feels just ick. 

Your ego does a great job sabotaging you - but you can tame it

So what do we do when we feel ick? Try to stop it. This is our ego trying to repair itself by defending, justifying, overexplaining, or looking for faults in our partner’s story about us. While the ego’s job is to protect the “but-I’m-a-good-person” image we have of ourselves, we know it rarely leads to conflict resolution or genuine repair with our loved one. Neither party feels understood...so we try to be understood, and understood!, and UNDERSTOOD!!! until there is screaming, tears, hurt hearts, and sleepless nights. 

I was crushed (still recovering) after discovering that I, IN FACT, am capable of hurting the people I care about. Though I’d never intend to harm someone I love, I do sometimes. I am a flawed, imperfect human (SHOCK AND AWE). I don’t always say what I mean, I turn my day of poor self-esteem into a criticism grenade and throw it at my partner. It doesn’t make me a heartless butthead, it just makes me human-- makes US HUMAN. It’s a great first step to notice our protective mechanisms. Awareness and acknowledgement of the defense is a first step to learning how to respond differently. 

Get curious about yourself and your boo

There’s a lot of real crappy crap happening (and not happening) right now for all of us. Many are experiencing extreme grief, trauma, anxiety, or depression. It’s hard to be our best selves with so much unknown...so much loss...so much change...so much isolation. We’ve got differing opinions around how to best respond to this. Differences are hard. Please be patient with yourself around however you’re showing up to this, and please be patient with your loved one. Get curious about how your partner might be coping with these circumstances, how it’s impacting them. Are they over or underfunctioning? Are you over or underfunctioning? Can you talk about these things AND LISTEN to your partner with compassion...to really understand? And then… can you really apologize for your role in any hurt?  That’s for next time. 

Your SOS

If you’re having a hard time with this stuff, I can be your SOS. We can talk about your patterns and how you can get your needs met and meet the needs of your significant other. It’s ok to reach out for help. In fact, that’s one of the bravest things you can do right now, to use this quarantine time to work on your relationship, when both of you are home. Our therapists trained in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy get it, and we’re here for you to figure this out, together.  

*Some ideas from this blog was borrowed from Harriet Lerner’s Why Won’t You Apologize? Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts.

**Unlocking Us, podcast by Brene Brown.

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Abby Erickson is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor at People Bloom Counseling, a Redmond psychotherapy practice. She helps people with anxiety and social anxiety learn ways to better manage their angst. She also helps people struggling with low self-esteem and body image issues be comfortable in their own skin. During her time at home, she's drawing from the challenges and wins in her own relationship to help couples and individuals feel more secure in their most important relationships. She strongly believes feeling safe and secure with the people you rely on during a health pandemic can be just as important as having a stockpile of wine.

Why your Old Coping Skills Don’t Work During a Health Crisis and What to Do About it

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

In Washington State, it has been 7.5 weeks since the first reported COVID death and six weeks since the shelter-in-place order. This all feels like a long time ago and also only a few weeks ago. We’ve all done our best at coping, at taking things day-by-day. Whether you’re a frontline worker, employed and working from home, or someone out of work, if you find that your old coping skills are not working like they used to, you’re not alone.  

There are a number of reasons why the usual coping methods haven’t worked:

1. Your access to coping strategies is limited. If you used to grab coffee with a friend, workout at the gym, or grocery shop for fun, those coping skills are no longer available to you. Meeting virtually is not the same, it’s hard to put structure around your online workouts and you’re needing to readjust your mask while dodging shoppers who are not respecting your six feet bubble. Whatever adaptation you’ve made to cope with the added stress has its limits.

2. You’re dipping in and out of survival mode. If you feel like you’ve gotten into a routine last week, there’s no guarantee that this next week will stay the same. If you had a work crunch where your self-care went out the window for just a few days, the impact of getting takeouts, staying sedentary and feeling socially disconnected can easily be amplified during a pandemic. It can be hard to maintain your gains. 

3. You have less bandwidth for curiosity and exploration. Pre-COVID, when there isn't a global state of threat, transition and overwhelm, you have more bandwidth to approach your children’s questions, your partner’s bad day, or the problem at work with curiosity. “What’s going on?” “Help me understand…” “How do I solve this?” On the other hand, when we’re under constant threat and stimulation, even a neutral event can make the best of us more irritated or withdrawn.

Emily Nagoski, a famous sex educator, describes two opposing responses when rats were placed in a normal stress, highly relaxed or highly stressful environments. Rats tend to either approach or avoid. In her TedTalk titled, “The keys to a happier, healthier sex life,” the lab rat experiment starts at minute 5:12 -

If you’re feeling more like, “Wah! What the hell is going on?!” that makes a lot of sense.

So when your usual coping skills are not working like they used to, what do you do? 

1. Develop new ways of coping. This seems like a no-brainer, but we all have a tendency to do more of the same while expecting different results. You will visit a coffee shop again, work out at the gym and leisurely gather items on your list at the grocery store — just not now. What are some things you can do now? Can you imagine building a vegetable garden for the first time, taking walks and discovering new streets in your neighborhood, or finally dusting off your sketchbook? Is an online yoga class more tolerable with a friend? When you gather your social circle and everyone actually put on real clothes and order pizza from Tutta Bella, would that make Zoom movie night feel more “together”?

2. Be okay with some ups and downs and take baby steps. If you didn’t take care of yourself as well as you could have before, it is okay to start today. Expect that you’ll be thrown off schedule at times, and then get back on. Do you need to safeguard your Sundays to prepare for the week? How much takeout is too much? Would doing 20-minutes of a workout be better than doing none? Just as the cumulative effects of stress are felt over time, so are the cumulative effects of self-care.  

3. Reach out for help when you want it, not just when in need. If you’re used to toughing it out, now is not the best time. You don’t have to wait until you’ve hit rock bottom to ask for help. Your difficulties make sense and your friends can come alongside you to share your burdens. Dare to ask for a check-in, a card, a care package, a surprise. Be patient because it’s more effort making it to the post office, because Amazon deliveries take longer. And for once, stop thinking about giving back. Just receive and know that this is someone else thinking and caring for you. 

If you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here for you.

Warmly,
Ada