Categories
Feelings Mental Health Recovery Self-Care Trauma Wellness

Helpful Tools for Self-Regulation

Calm Lake (Photo credit: Moyan_Brenn)

Developing tools for self-regulation allows us to tap into our internal resources so we can be less reactive. Self-regulation will increase our ability to navigate difficult situations or work in challenging environments.  Self-regulation requires us to tap into our mind and body connection. When someone is dysregulated, they are disconnected. One of the steps to self-regulation is learning to connect with our physical sensations and our bodies. Think of it this way: When we are dysregulated, we are reactive rather than responsive. Likewise, when we are self-regulated, we are responsive rather than reactive.

 

Often times, parents have a tough time regulating their emotions. Imagine this: your child has done something infuriating—perhaps he’s lied, or she’s ditching school or doing drugs—and you respond by yelling. You are frustrated, and perhaps even triggered. You are dysregulated. At this point, you are ineffective in your parenting and your kids are apt to be dysregulated as well. You are essentially communicating with metaphorically closed fists. Stress and trauma both send the sympathetic nervous system into the fray.  However, self-regulation will engage the parasympathetic system, which is the body’s natural way of applying a salve. Your action here is to take a time out. Get yourself to a quiet space so you can begin to self-regulate.

 

The three main tools of self-regulation are:

Grounding, Resourcing, and Orienting.

 

Grounding allows you to reconnect with your emotions and physical sensations. Paying attention to your feet on the floor, or placing your hands on something solid can help you get back into your body. Taking deep breaths while you are doing this can help you track the sensations mindfully. Taking a time out when you are dysregulated is the first step to getting grounded.

 

Resourcing is the way in which you ground. We all have resources within us or outside of ourselves. Resources are tools with which we can reconnect with ourselves. For example, breath can be a resource. Your hands on your belly or lap can be a resource. Your pet can be a resource. A resource is something that helps you feel good when everything around you is dismal.

 

Orienting is a way of checking in with your surroundings. When we are not self-regulated, we check out. It can be a very disembodying experience–one that feels determinedly unsafe and out of control.  So when we orient, we do so by consciously noticing our surroundings: looking around the room, noticing where we are, where we are sitting, et cetera.

 

All of these tools help us self-regulate and all of these tools can be taught to our kids regardless of their age or stage of development. In very young children, it starts with self-soothing and bringing awareness to feelings. As kids get older, the language can shift and become more detailed. Being a teen is frightening developmental state; they experience life more intensely because of where they are developmentally. Teens can learn to slow down. Count to 10 before you respond to something provocative, or take a deep, mindful breath. You may find that what you thought you had to say changes. You may discover that what you need to say comes out softer and kinder. Using your breath this way is a means of grounding and resourcing. When we do this, we are developing skills to be in relationship with our impulses and feelings. By reinforcing this awareness, we gain opportunities to change.  Self-regulation is a doorway to self-care. In caring for ourselves, we can more aptly care for others.

 

Parents, you can act as the conduit for this shift. Your kids want to learn from you, even as they push away. By developing these self-regulating tools yourself, your kids may follow. Teach by example, not by hard hands. By doing so, you will no longer communicate with closed fits; you will communicate with open palms and an open heart.

Read this for inspiration:

Getting to the Root of it All – Hala Khouri, M.A.

Categories
Adolescence Feelings Mental Health Teen Activism

The Power of a Gratitude List

If you’re down in the dumps or having a tough time getting out of an emotional rut, making a gratitude list can help. When things are difficult, it’s not uncommon to focus on the negative, particularly when it feels like “bad” is conspiring against you. Gratitude lists are simple, straightforward, and tremendously helpful.

 

Grab a notebook, and call it your “book of gratitude,” or whatever name suits you. Commit to writing down three things every day that you are grateful for. It can be anything:

 

  • Your dog
  • Oreo cookies
  • Laughter
  • Books
  • The sun
  • Wind
  • Your best friend
  • Your mom or dad or both
  • The earth
  • The ocean
  • Your breakfast cereal

 

See where I’m going with this? A gratitude list doesn’t have to be epic or profound. It just has to contain things, no matter how small, that inspire gratitude.

 

If you want to kick it up a notch, be of service. Volunteer for an organization you believe in. We sponsor Mutt Match dog adoption events twice a month, and I have to tell you, everyone who volunteers inadvertently begins to feel some gratitude. You can:

 

  • Volunteer at your local animal shelter
  • Volunteer for an organization you believe in. Check out Do Something for some interesting and inspiring organizations young people can get involved in.
  • Do a beach cleanup. Check out Heal the Bay.
  • Volunteer for a teen helpline or get involved in peer counseling.
  • Check out organizations directly associated with your community: maybe there’s a homeless population that you want to help, or perhaps your local library offers opportunities to read to younger kids.

 

The options for service and discovering gratitude are vast and endless. Helping others inspires gratitude, and it gets you out of yourself.  Creating a Gratitude list is really the beginning of what can be wonderful opportunities to be of service and feel better about yourself.

 

Categories
Addiction Adolescence Feelings Mental Health Recovery Service Treatment

Adolescent Treatment In Malibu, California

Visions has been providing Adolescent Treatment in Malibu, California, since 2002.

We know and understand the ins and outs of adolescence, deftly differentiating between “normal” ups and downs and those that are polarizing to the family dynamic: i.e., substance abuse, mental health issues, eating disorders, and video game addiction. The trials and tribulations of adolescence can sometimes go awry, however, placing teens and their parents in situations where seeking outside help is the only solution.  Finding help and asking for help are one of the most difficult positions for a family to find themselves. At Visions, it is always our goal to be able to provide a safe, welcoming environment in which one can confront those fears and get the necessary help they need.

 

An adolescent who is self-harming, playing too many video games, using drugs and alcohol, binging or restricting from food is begging for help via their actions. I try to remember what my own adolescence was like when I consider my reactions to my own adolescent: I remember being terrified and feeling alone, but the mere thought of admitting that was verboten.  The struggles I had were very real, and the need for parental interception was extraordinarily relevent. As parents, it’s natural to feel anger and frustration because our teen is acting out, but if we can step out of the mindset of anger and blame, we may actually be able to show up for our teens in a way that is beneficial to them.  An Adolescent Treatment facility can facilitate that process. When the bridge from parent to child is paved with cracked stones, finding a treatment facility that is facilitated by a skilled clinical staff will encourage the process of mending those cracks; families will learn to create a familial foundation of healing in order to rebuild that bridge back to one another.

 

If you are worried about your child, see if any of these warning signs sound familiar:

  • Is your child away from home for long periods of time and unable to communicate where they’ve been or what they’ve been doing?
  • When they do come home, do they beeline for their room, making no eye contact or conversation?
  • Is there a profound change in behavior: is your child especially angry or easily agitated or are they showing signs of depressions or apathy?
  • Are their grades suddenly dropping?
  • Has their social circle suddenly changed?
  • Have they radically altered their appearance in some way?
  • Are their moods markedly changing?
  • Has there been an abrupt change in weight?

 

Visions Adolescent Treatment in Malibu is here for you 24 hours a day. You can reach us by email or by phone. We would love to hear from you and help your family transition to a place of health and healing.  Be well.

Categories
Adolescence Feelings Holidays Mental Health Parenting Recovery

Healing the Heart: Father’s Day

Healing. (Photo credit: WolfS♡ul)

Father’s Day came and went, but I was struck by the aftermath of the day, nonetheless, when my son sat in the midst of his anger and disappointment after his own father didn’t show up for him. When my son said, “Not only did my dad not show up, he only spent 2 minutes with me on the phone,” I felt his deflation. I felt the letdown and longing for a father that would never be. And I had a visceral memory of what that was like. However, as a parent, my role isn’t to project my past onto my son’s present. Rather, my role is to hold space for him to feel and experience that which ails him, allowing his emotions to safely ride though his body. As a parent, I have to do my work on my own. Not via my son.

 

Father’s day, like Mother’s day, can elicit a varied set of emotions for our kids and for us as parents. They can range from untended loss, or expectations, abandonment, and deep grief rising internally around parents that were never available for us, be it physically or emotionally. When I first became acutely aware of this in my own life, I did what many of us do: I spiritually bypassed the situation and filled my time with practices of avoidance. At that time, my outsides appeared to be ok, but my inner voice remained devastated. The scary part is finding our voice amidst that loss. Sometimes it wobbles. Sometimes it screams. But it’s there, waiting to come out.

 

My son found his voice yesterday; he used it well. He leaned into his resources and shared his frustrations and sense of loss. He really discovered how available his step-dad is for him, finding grounding in the emotional presence and support that has been made available to him over the last 5 years. I had the honor of baring witness to such splendor.

 

Sometimes, we find ourselves grappling with the reality of having what we need but still wanting something we cannot have: my son wanting his father to be a dad but having a step-father who gives him everything he needs. On Father’s Day, we ventured to the beach, and when Joseph dried him off and kissed his head, my son giggled and said, “My dad would never do that.” It is in these moments where we hold space for that grief I was speaking of; here is where we can allow this young man the time to process the weight of his loss while reveling in the joy of the experience itself.

 

Parenting is a process and being a kid is a process. Somewhere, we meet in the middle, knees and hearts bruised along the way. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s this: our hearts have a tremendous capacity to heal. The heart, I know, is a muscle of great resilience. It can even open to the tumult of holidays, learning to forgive and/or navigate the foibles of clumsy parents and the awkwardness of adolescence.

Categories
Feelings Mental Health Recovery

Getting Overwhelmed: Knowing Your Limits and the Limits of Others

As teachers, therapists and facilitators, we have to become aware of our own edge: knowing when we are getting overwhelmed, knowing when those in our charge are feeling overwhelmed, and knowing when we need to step back ourselves or facilitate that same process of backing off in someone else. Working with the addiction and mental health population means coming to a place of deep understanding and awareness of the subtle shifts of emotional temperatures that can occur in any given situation. The process of helping others and working with others isn’t about feeding our own egos so we can feel superior, but rather facilitating and creating a safe container for those in crisis and helping them find the willingness to take a chance at finding their own edge (trying something new and finding that sense of coming close to but not being overwhelmed) and broadening their comfort zones.

 

There are many ways in which we can recognize when someone may need to back off, or work on getting grounded. As part of a treatment team, we have to be aware of each client’s needs and these are some of the key signs we look for as well as some of the key tools we need to have in our toolboxes:

 

  1.  Look for any change in a person’s baseline behavior. Some people will talk more, and some will talk less. It’s as though some are stuck in the “on” position and some on the “off” position.
  2. Some people shut down. Are they isolating? Are they crumpled up in a ball?
  3. Actively listen to what someone is saying. If someone shares his or her difficulty, take heed, are you really listening?
  4. Know who is actually working with their edge and know what their resources are. Can they self-regulate? Do they have their resourcing (their calming tools) readily available?
  5. Facilitate time-outs. Let people know that it’s okay to take breaks from a situation that is making them feel overwhelmed. Sometimes, showing someone what a time-out looks like by mirroring it, helps illustrate its safety.

 

 

While we certainly want to push our clients and ourselves to explore and expand emotional and physical limitations, it’s extremely important we provide a safe container in which this can become possible. We are empowered to show others how to orient themselves in new situations, find their grounding, and self-regulate when they begin to feel themselves slip of out of control. We are also empowered with the loving arm of compassion and service which allows us to show someone how to ask for help and accept that help when it is offered. To teach, treat, and to care for others is a gift and an honor.

 

Categories
Feelings Mental Health Recovery

Failure: A Stepping Stone to Success

© Wikipedia

Failure doesn’t have to be a dirty word. It can also be viewed as a stepping-stone to success, be it personal or professional.  In school, for example, failing a test shows us what we don’t know and what we need to study. Sure, the grade is bad, but the opportunity to learn is alive! The need to be right all the time is debilitating – it prevents us from being teachable and from learning new things. Interestingly, failure is what allows us to grow. If you never allow yourself to fail, you limit your ability to expand beyond your safety zone.

 

When I was growing up, I was told repeatedly that I would be a failure. I thought those words were a death sentence but I know now that is far from the truth. Those words are actually something I used as the impetus to succeed and overcome difficulty. As I got older, got sober, and expanded my comfort zone, I learned something: failure was tantamount to opportunity. It was something that could be used to try again with vim and vigor. I learned that it’s ok to be wrong and it’s ok to fail.

  • Thomas Edison failed 1000 times before he successfully invented the light bulb.
  • J.K. Rowling suffered from depression, poverty, and countless struggles before her success with the Harry Potter series.
  • Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school basketball team but went on to be one of the greatest basketball players in the world.
  • Elvis Presley was fired after one performance at the Grand Ol Opry, and told he should “go back to driving a truck.”
  • Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

 

All of these people were regular folks chasing a dream. They experienced failure and setbacks, but they kept trying. When we enter recovery, we are scared and often convinced of our failure. We are scared to succeed, scared to fail, scared to change, and scared to try again, but we have to keep trying. Take that fear and kick it in the pants. You can do anything you set your mind to, you just have to try and try again.

 

I’ll leave you with this bit from Star Trek. Captain Kirk was so afraid of failure, he rigged the computer program during the Kobayashi Maru – a no-win exercise to see how people dealt with failure. Rigging a win isn’t a real win and defies the real lesson we need to learn: failure is part of finding success.

Categories
Feelings Mental Health Recovery

Eradicating Jealousy

Jealousy is the creep that hangs out in the back of our minds, chiding us when we are confronted with something we believe should be ours, be it a thing, an experience, or a companion. Jealousy is the one holding us back from enjoying what we do have, celebrating what others have and the joy that they experience. Jealously casts a shadow on our mere presence on this earth and impacts our ability to engage with the world in a way that is helpful or kind.  Jealousy can lead us to resentment and relapse and because of its complexity, jealousy is an equal-opportunity villain: it effects men and women alike and gets particularly loud when there is a perceived threat to a coveted relationship or thing.

 

A way to counteract the negative effects of jealousy and envy is to engage in the practice of sympathetic joy. In other words, find joy in someone else’s successes and accomplishments. This is not an easy feat, especially when you find yourself being suffocated by jealousy and envy on a regular basis.  It eats at you, infuriates you, and makes you self-righteous and sharp tongued. This, my friends, is where sympathetic joy is imperative. It is the act that will save your ass in the end. It’s the act that asks you to set aside your ego and be happy for someone else, despite the ache and fury within yourself. It doesn’t mean you have to throw the person a party. But it does require the elimination of gossip and character assassination.

 

When we are in the mode of jealousy, we are in the perspective of self-centeredness. We cut ourselves off from others, leaving us with a constricted, limited existence, which ultimately has no room for a sense of openhearted joy. It is, in a nutshell, a joyless state. When we are outside of jealously, a sense of belonging and communion can open up.  We open the possibility of freeing ourselves from the state of bitter resentment that will otherwise control our lives and lead us back to the drink or the drug.

 

The world is a huge place, and we cannot expect to be the director, producer, and actor for the entire production of life.  Learning to share the stage helps us to let go of our egos, and loosen our reins of control. It is possible to learn to celebrate those who reach emotional success before us or by responding with delight rather than jealousy. We are all in this together, after all, and it is to our benefit to walk this path with as much love and kindness as possible.

Categories
Feelings Mental Health Recovery Self-Care Spirituality

Forgiveness and Compassion: One Breath at a Time

Compassion (Photo credit: Sarit Photography)

Recently I was asked, “What’s the difference between forgiveness and compassion?” Unearthed from a discussion about childhood trauma, recovery, and parents, the discussion had evolved to spirituality and Buddhist practice and the ways in which we can make space for the trauma and hurt of our pasts. There is an answer, of course, but I often find that questions such as these are best answered via experiential stories. Both forgiveness and compassion require that we practice some level of self-acceptance; in order to be forgiving or able to show compassion to others, we have to be able to provide ourselves with the same thing. This, in its very essence, requires patience and dedication. Changing one’s worldview is tough, and not something most of do without some elements of resistance.

 

To forgive, we must be ready to let go of our anger and resentment toward someone or something. However, the meaning of forgiveness that I prefer is simply “letting go.” The act of compassion is the desire to alleviate the suffering of others. In other words, it is showing care for others while understanding that they are fully responsible for their actions.  It doesn’t mean that we are justifying their behavior; instead, by being compassionate, we are making space for others to have their experiences without attaching our reactions to them.  This doesn’t come easy. I can tell you from experience that the first few years of my recovery were filled with justified anger.  I couldn’t see past my own resentment and fear, hurt and trauma. There simply wasn’t space for that and I wasn’t fortunate enough to have someone in my life to teach me how to create that space. Things have definitely evolved in the world of recovery.

 

Most of us come to recovery at the lowest points of our lives, finding that addiction and mental illness have negatively impacted our self-esteem, self-worth, confidence, and self-image, among other things.  We have a laundry list of harms that have been committed against us and another list of wrongs we committed against others. As with any list, you have to check things off one at a time. However, when we are in the midst of the “fight or flight” response (survival mode), we are actually at the polar opposite of forgiveness and compassion. Try to start simply. It’s the small things that often make the biggest differences in our lives.

  • Be kind to yourself.
  • Ask for help.
  • Feel your feelings, but understand they aren’t facts.
  • Pause. When we are stressed, we get busy. It detracts from the stress, but it also disallows us to deal what’s really going on within.

 

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
Pema Chödrön

Categories
Depression Feelings Mental Health PTSD Recovery

Grief and Mental Health: Picking up the Pieces

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New trauma and despair is front and center in the US as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting unveiled the deaths of 20 children and 6 adults. The death of children is always shocking. The innocence and futures lost are rapidly exonerated from our grasp, leaving us breathless and frozen in grief. Families will begin to face the emptiness of their loss and the depth of their grief as the days continue. Additionally, the survivors, both children and adults, will potentially suffer from PTSD as a result of seeing and surviving such horrors. There will be deep sadness, depression, and self-doubt. There will be mental-health issues that need to be tended to, whether we like it or not.  Remember, grief is a staged process with no specific order or end date.

 

Mental health is once again in the headlines, screaming at us to pay attention and dive in to find a solution to a problem which is no longer able to sustain its place as the “elephant in the room.” The list of tragic and heinous events where someone possibly suffering from untreated mental health issues and acts out in egregious violence is getting longer and longer. We blame guns, we blame the parents, we blame the circumstances surrounding the events, but mental illness tends to be an afterthought or worse yet, an excuse. Parents who sit in denial of their child’s mental illness is a problem; poor circumstances and/or degenerative environments are a problem; and untreated mental illness is a problem. There are solutions to all of these problems, especially when we address them early on.

 

In the midst of our deep grief, it’s time to find a way to look at the causative factors that drives a human being to take the lives of innocent children. Our cultural denial and stigmatization of mental health is detrimental to the ultimate well being and healing of our society. In the 1980s, when the government closed several mental health facilities, placing many on the streets with their illnesses left untreated, we had a first glimpse of what mental health looks like when left out in the open: unaddressed and swept aside. This denial lends itself to putting our blinders on when it comes to the imbalances of our minds, pretending they’ll “work themselves out.” They usually don’t. The field of psychiatry has made great strides to discover and treat the varying mental illnesses that affect individuals, but the greatest barrier is typically the denial of the illness by families and the individuals themselves. We have to begin by asking for help. We must begin unraveling the stigma wrapped so tightly around mental illness and replacing it with treatment.

Some signs to watch for in your kids:

  • Often angry or worried
  • Feel grief for a long time after a death
  • Using alcohol or drugs
  • Sudden changes in weight
  • Withdrawal from favorite activities
  • Harming self or others
  • Recklessness
  • Destroying property: yours or others

The only stigma left is the stigma of denial.

SAMSHA also lists the following as types of people and places that will make a referral to, or provide, diagnostic and treatment services.

  • Family doctors
  • Mental health specialists, such as psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, or mental health counselors
  • Religious leaders/counselors
  • Health maintenance organizations
  • Community mental health centers
  • Hospital psychiatry departments and outpatient clinics
  • University- or medical school-affiliated programs
  • State hospital outpatient clinics
  • Social service agencies
  • Private clinics and facilities
  • Employee assistance programs
  • Local medical and/or psychiatric societies
Visions is just a phone call away. We are here to help!
Committed to the Family; Committed to the Future: 866-889-3665.
Categories
Feelings Recovery

Facing Our Shame

Science Fiction League (March 1958) … The Real You (July 6, 2011 / 4 Tammuz 5771) … (Photo credit: marsmet541)

SHAME
noun

A painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety” 

2“A condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute.”

Shame is that biting, gnawing feeling in your gut after a lie or petty theft, or sexual indiscretion, drunken blackout, or drugged psychoses. It is the “what the hell did I just do?” feeling we face when we walk or crawl our way into recovery. It is often the impetus for doing the same thing over and over again once we get here. Recovery doesn’t magically make it go away.  Oh, in case you were hoping for exemption, shame is impervious to age, economic status, race, gender.  If anything, it is addiction and mental health’s close cousin.

According to John Bradshaw there are two types of shame: “innate shame” and “toxic/life-destroying shame.” Innate shame is what will allow you to have discretion BEFORE you do something. The toxic/life-destroying shame usually happens later, after the act, when you can’t take it back. This emotion is the greasy residue of your reckless behaviors. Toxic/life-destroying shame is what separates you from others and from yourself. I believe this is where addiction sinks its teeth and feeds into this vicious, emotive cycle.

When we are new in recovery, the shame is overwhelming. There is regret and then more regret. There is anger about the regret and then shame for feeling the anger. Feeling dizzy yet? Being new is a dizzying experience. When we are using, we respond to our shame by using more, drinking more, starving more, eating more, cutting more. Shame begets shame. In recovery, we have the propensity to do the same thing. This time, instead of drugs and alcohol, we turn to other vices. Perhaps it’s gambling, or sexual indiscretions, or the internet. The list goes on. The shame of our actions can therefore make it more difficult to get or stay sober. Again, we have to face the shame head on. But we can’t do it alone.

If you are in treatment, you are in a remarkable place to address this. Treatment provides a safe container for the focused, internal work necessary to learning about processing shame. It allows one to begin to break the patterns of behavior that feed toxic/life-destroying shame. You learn to create boundaries for yourself–sometimes that might mean limiting contact with individuals whose knee-jerk response is to automatically shame you.  When you’re in treatment, you can face shame without falling into the chasm of addiction or a weakened state of mental health. As I mentioned, we cannot overcome this debilitating faction of toxic shame alone: we need a community of others to support us. Being in treatment provides that initial, healing community of support.

To really dissect shame and look at its underbelly layer-by-layer would take thousands of words. It’s complicated, this shame business, because it is a natural emotion living in all of us. What we must begin to do is eradicate the harmful type of shame that drives us into the vicious cycle of addiction and negative behaviors. We will come to see the shaming behavior of others and be able to protect ourselves using healthy boundaries and a firm sense of self-love.  John Bradshaw addresses this issue eloquently in Healing the Shame that Binds You. He deconstructs shame and its many faces beautifully. Once we can stare it in the face, we can stop living in the hell of addiction and begin to love ourselves for who we really are.

“Hell, in my opinion, is never finding your true self and never living your own life or knowing who you are.”

John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame That Binds You

Exit mobile version