Crap sandwich

Have you ever heard of the crap sandwich? Actually, there’s another word for it, but to avoid anyone becoming offended by the language and missing the valuable lesson, I’ll call it the crap sandwich. This is a concept I first learned when reading Liz Gilbert’s book, Big Magic. She, in turn, got it from writer, Mark Manson. The idea is this: Everything sucks some of the time. In order to get what we want in life, we have to learn to take the bad with the good.

How revolutionary is that? Consider how many of us falsely believe if we’re living our truth, finding our bliss, and sparking our joy, then life will be sunshine and skittles. It’ll be #GoodVibesOnly and #NoBadDays. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Even the biggest dreams of our heart, come with undesirable aspects to them.

For instance, if you want a relationship, you also have to take conflict, misunderstanding, and learning to compromise. If you want a baby, you have to tolerate sleep deprivation, blowout diapers, and the possibility of projectile vomit. If you want to be your own boss, you also have to accept variable pay and financially lean years as you grow your business. If you want to be a world traveler, you put up with flight delays, occasional turbulence, and lost luggage from time to time. Everything has a price. But if you truly want it, you’ll see it as worth it.

Since learning the crap sandwich concept, I find myself mentally saying, crap sandwich, as a means of accepting the unwanted parts of what I asked for. We all have to eat crap from time to time. If you absolutely can’t, then perhaps it’s not something you want badly enough. But when you can take your crap sandwich, throw some hot sauce on it, and eat it with gladness, then you know something’s really worth it. What’s that thing for you? What makes you willing to accept every moment of possible bad for all the overwhelming yumminess of the good? Crap sandwiches are part of life. Start asking for fries with it.

Gems from therapy: Is loving even worth it?

For the second installment of Gems from Therapy I thought I’d do a love edition…what, with it being love month and all. And let me tell you, my therapist, “Reba” got straight to the heart of the matter in our last session. What she said brought me to tears.

It started with me sharing a story. That’s usually how counseling starts. A client tells a story and then the counselor draws out all feelings around it. I told her that yet another couple close to me had bitten the dust. By all appearances, they would divorce. Maybe it’s my age, but last year alone I saw four marriages and about double the amount of splits. That’s just in my personal life. That doesn’t even count all the clients I’ve counseled with marriages in crisis. As someone who hasn’t been married yet but desires to that scares me. How could it not?

I shared as much with Reba, and in turn, she shared her own story. You see, Reba lost her husband to cancer ten years ago. Around the same time one of her sons was deciding what to do in his dating relationship. He had just lost his father (her husband) and he too had witnessed a seemingly happy couple married for years suddenly part ways. He went to her one day and asked pointedly, “What is the point of getting married if it only ends in tragedy? It’s either death or divorce. There’s no other way out. Why bother?” Reba looked at me pointedly and without giving me her response she asked, “What would you tell him?”

It would be a whole other blog post to comment on how masterfully executed that counseling intervention was. Suffice it to say, her son’s question was exactly what I had been pondering but hadn’t articulated. What is the point? Pain is the only way out of love. It took me a few moments to compose myself enough to respond. I shrugged and said with a meager voice and tear-filled eyes, because it’s worth it. There’s so much laughter and joy and love to experience. Even when it ends, you are better for having experienced it.

I said it and meant it. Risking is worth it. Hoping is worth it. Trying is worth it. Giving is worth it. Opening up is worth it. This view lessens the fear because the outcome isn’t nearly as important as the process. When it’s all said and done, if you can look back and say, I loved, then it was all worth it. 

Gems from Therapy: Feelings Edition

It’s a new year and I imagine a lot of you are considering therapy, perhaps for the first time ever. If so, good. I’ve been intentionally transparent about my own mental health experience and how, yes, even counselors need counselors too. I do that to normalize and demystify the process so you start to view it as any other form of self-care.

Not only is therapy great for giving you space to be and feel; it also teaches you a lot. In fact, every time I leave a counseling session I walk away with some valuable gems, a new way to look at things. That’s why throughout this new year I’ll offer periodic blog posts on gems I’ve learned from therapy. First up, is my counselor’s wise overview of feelings. For the sake of her privacy, I’ll call her Reba. Tell me if you’ve ever heard a more succinct way of understanding the complex world of human emotions.

Reba defines the primary emotions we experience in the following ways:

Anger

This is the emotional reaction when things aren’t as they should be.

Fear

This is the emotional reaction to feeling physically or emotionally unsafe.

Sadness

This is the emotional reaction to loss.

Happiness

This is the emotional reaction when things are as they should be.

According to Reba, each feeling has an action to resolve it. If we’re angry because things aren’t as they should be, we should fix it. We should find whatever is in our control to solve the problem. If we’re afraid because we feel unsafe, we should take steps to restore our sense of safety. (Note: It’s possible to feel afraid and still be safe). If we’re sad because of real (or perceived) loss, we should grieve it. Finally, if we’re happy because things are as they should be, we should embrace it and give thanks.

How does that overview help you? How does this perspective help you navigate your feelings? In light of what you feel right now, what will be your response? 

Stay tuned for future Gems from Therapy. I promise you’ll want to schedule with a therapist right away. ;)

I stress, eustress

As we get ready to wrap up 2018, I can’t help but think of all the changes there have been in my life in the last year. Most of them have been really great. Here are some of the big ones.

1.     I quit all my jobs and got a salaried position. This year when Christmas break arrives it will include paid time off for the first time in four years.

2.     I took a sabbatical from my wellness business. I needed to prioritize personal happiness over professional greatness. I had the entire summer to travel, attend special events, and truly enjoy my life rather than just stage it for social media.

3.     Probably the biggest change of all is that I fell in love this year. Swoon. If you know my story, you know what a huge flipping deal that is.

Basically, the last 11 months have been like a movie montage with Natasha Bedingfield in the background singing, “Feel the rain on your skin…” 2018 has been one of the happiest years I’ve had in a long time. Insert freak out right about here.

Freak out? Why, you might ask. Well, it’s all because of eustress. Eustress is stress that we subjectively experience as positive. It usually comes from exciting changes such as the ones mentioned above. But, you have to realize that eustress makes you stress too.

Have you been there before? Maybe it’s the anticipation of the holidays. It could the energy around your goals for the new year. It could be life transitions such as marriage, children, graduation, or relocation. These are generally seen as good things that we welcome into our lives. But they still mess up your homeostasis for a while. So, what do you do when you stress because of eustress?

1.     Understand that when things change it takes time to adapt. It doesn’t mean you’re not happy. It just means you need time to adjust to the new. Consider talking to a counselor to help you wrap your mind around all the amazing changes that are taking place.

2.     Create a new normal. Just as you developed various rituals and habits to cope with your previous life, you can do it again in your new circumstances. It also helps to carry over old grounding techniques to remind yourself that you’re still you in the new situation.

3.     A final tip to manage eustress is to intentionally practice gratitude. No, your old life is no more. Yes, you have to make room for the new. But doesn’t the blessing of the new outweigh the familiarity of the old? When you keep the blessings of the new season in mind then you can navigate them with a heart of thankfulness.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Life is crazy and hard and scary. It’s also amazing and exciting and unpredictable in the best way. When the tide turns and you experience a season of the latter, embrace it. Hold on tight with both hands. Just give yourself tons of grace and compassion if it takes time to adjust to the new. It’s okay. I stress, you stress, we all stress because of eustress.

Thanks body. I’ll take it from here.

The body remembers what the mind forgets.

-Martha Manning

Have you felt kind of down or on edge for no known reason? Maybe you think to yourself, “I’ve been tripping for like a week. What is going on?” Then, when you see a calendar, it suddenly makes sense. It’s coming up on a painful anniversary. No wonder all this emotion is coming to the surface without an obvious trigger. That’s actually a very normal, very common experience. Our conscious mind might not be actively processing an event or an experience, but our bodies have a way of making sure we don’t forget.

This recently happened to me. I kept getting emotionally triggered in the same area. Even though there was no evidence to support my worry thoughts and reactions, things still felt very sensitive for me and I wasn’t sure why. It didn’t dawn on me why until I was sharing with a friend. Ohhhh. Thanksgiving. While it’s not been a difficult holiday for me recently, it certainly had been many years ago. My “not-myself-ness” was due, in part, to the season. You see, seven years ago I was happy and hopeful anticipating the holidays too. Then, BAM!! A loss I never saw coming.

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar. Try to go easy on yourself. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. It doesn’t matter how extreme or benign you perceive it to be. If it changed you and holds any residual charge for you, then do yourself the honor of healing. Healing should include assuring your body and soul that it’s okay and you’re okay. If you don’t where to begin, join me in this prayer.

Thank you, body, for reminding me what happened.

Thank you for sounding the alarm when my conscious mind started to forget.

Thank you for wanting to keep me safe from pain.

Now that I am conscious, I’ll take over from here.

I am safe.

I am loved.

I am secure.

And even if things happen differently than I plan in life or in love, I am still safe, I am still loved, and I am still secure.

Amen. 

For resources on how grief, loss, and trauma affect the body check out the following:

Healing Through Movement: Getting Back Up After a Broken Heart, Crista Gambrell

https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Through-Movement-Getting-Broken/dp/1534776192/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542127413&sr=1-1&keywords=crista+gambrell

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, Peter Levine

https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Tiger-Healing-Peter-Levine/dp/155643233X

The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Besser van der Kolk

https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748

Anxious? Ask these questions.

Everyone gets worried and nervous at times. But it seems more and more people are battling anxiety, a persistent, generalized fear. That’s just not the place we’re meant to live. While there isn’t a formula or quick fix for anxiety, there are some questions to ask yourself to slow down your anxious mind.

Do I have all the information?

Anxious minds are good for freaking out prematurely. This is because they’re proficient in anticipating disaster before it arrives. Anxious minds react to imagined possibilities, but calm minds respond to what’s before them. Calm minds deal with facts and the reality of what is, not what might be. Therefore, it’s good practice to shift from an emotional mind state to a logical mind state by asking if you have enough information to reach certain feared conclusions.

Will anxiety change the outcome?

The next good question to ask yourself is whether or not your worry will change the outcome. If you’re waiting for test results, wondering where you stand in a relationship, or looking for a call or email about a job, will your worry and rumination do anything to change the outcome? No. Probably not. At that point, it’s out of your hands. It’s important, then, to learn to calm and soothe that anxiety because it won’t change your situation.

What can I do?

A final question to ask is whether or not there’s anything you can do. A big part of managing anxiety is about discerning your locus of control. The big, scary thing might be out of your control, but you can usually find one or two things within your control. Maybe it’s getting more information on what concerns you. Maybe it’s distracting yourself until things play out. Maybe it’s reaching out for support. Maybe it’s reflecting on what the real fear, the one underlying the obvious fear, is. If you realize you’re equipped to handle the underlying fear, then the surface level fear doesn’t pack as much punch.

I think most would agree the world can be scary and life can be unpredictable. That’s enough to make any of us fearful at least sometimes. Fear is normal and even adaptive depending on what’s happening. It can also get in the way when it emerges too often and impedes our ability to function. When it does you can regain control by asking these three questions, knowing you can handle whatever the answers might be.

I do hard things

I don’t know who the first person to say this was, but I love this mantra. I do hard things. It’s simple. It’s strong. It echoes a hardiness that’s rare these days.

In thinking about resilience do you ever wonder what makes people mentally strong? What helps them rebound when they’re knocked down? While there aren’t definitive answers to these questions, there are some helpful perspectives that allow people to cope effectively when the going gets tough.

Stuff happens

Similar to, I do hard things, Stuff happens is another simple and helpful saying. Think of how easy it is to act surprised when challenges come. We act like we’re being personally attacked. We question the reasons for misfortune, which only heaps more suffering on us. Resilient people, however, accept that good and bad are part of life for everyone. They don’t believe God is picking on them or turning a blind eye to their hardship. They believe they’re just journeying through a not-so-fun part of the human experience right now. It might stink, but they know it won’t always be this way.

Change is inevitable

Knowing things won’t always be this way might be comforting or disturbing depending on your life at the moment. If you’re struggling, then the promise of change might be the only thing keeping you going. If you’re content with things, the notion of change could feel threatening. Unfortunately, there’s no cosmic remote that allows you to fast forward beyond hard stuff and pause on the good stuff. The story of our lives is constantly unfolding at its own pace and twists and turns are part of it. Nothing lasts forever on this side of eternity and learning to embrace change can help you navigate all seasons of life.

You CAN

Lastly, you can endure the changes of life resiliently when you believe you can. You can even and you can deal. When you insist on things going a certain way and believe that you can’t handle it if they don’t, then you’re setting yourself up for a meltdown. The reality is you might not like what you’re facing. It might be extremely uncomfortable. But when you have the mindset that (enter in whatever your biggest fear is) happening would be the absolute worst thing in the world and you would never recover, then guess what? You’re less likely to recover. When you face that big scary thing if it happens, feel all the icky feelings associated with it, and decide for yourself that you can overcome, then guess what? You overcome. Hence, why they say whether you believe you can or you can’t, either way you’re right.

Life is a mixed bag and we all know it. It’s mundane, messy, and magical all in one. But we’re made for it. Think about it. Our lives are about growing and transforming into the best version of ourselves we can be. Sure, that growth might come from the magically delicious times when we’re walking on sunshine and everything’s going our way. More often than not, real character is forged during the God-I-wish-I-could-fast-forward-through-this times of pain. It hurts and it’s hard and when it is just remember, I can do hard things.