Taking Care of Your Emotional Health During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Americans are just getting settled into our new temporary normal, as we join people from around the world in staying home and social distancing to help flatten the curve of the novel coronavirus. Uncertainty is one of the most difficult situations to deal with emotionally. It can make us feel anxious, afraid or depressed. We are also isolated from some of the other people we care about, and most of our normal routines.

This situation is unusual and is impacting everyone around the world. We are grieving. There are so many losses: work, financial concerns, regular contact in person with friends and family, normal
exercise routines, the pattern of your day, and the freedom to go out and do the things you like to do. When we are grieving losses, we go through the emotional tasks of mourning. These tasks include:

1.Accepting the reality of the losses/change
2.Experience the pain of the loss/express it to someone
3.Adapt to the new environment or change

At we go through this time, it is very important to care of yourself and the people you care about.

If you have children in your home, please limit the amount of news you have on.  Adults set the emotional tone for children. Try to stay calm, be reassuring, and make sure to play. Many parents who are not teachers by profession are now in a role teaching as well as running the household and maybe working remotely from home. Be patient with yourself and with your children. Normally most parents spend 20 minutes a day with children under 18 who live at home, so this is a good time to connect. Don't overwhelm kids or teens talking about the pandemic. You may want to ask them what they already know, and if they have any questions.

Children can also learn to do some age-appropriate chores to help the family, like caring for pets, setting or clearing the table, and making their own beds. Teens can be taught other daily life skills like doing their own laundry or cooking some simple meals while you have time to instruct on this.

Creative activity like drawing, painting, dancing and music are deeply relaxing for all ages. If you have a patio, backyard or deck, planting some vegetables and flowers could be fun to attend to each day.
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Remember that teens and college students are also experiencing loss and stress. It's a big adjustment to do remote learning, and they miss the in-person contact with their friends. They are missing sports, dances, hanging out with friends, clubs, life at college and possibly graduation.

For adults and children, try to create new routines and patterns that will work for you.It's good to get up at a set time, get showered and dressed. Eat at regular set mealtimes. Try to exercise daily, even if it's dancing in your living room or walking the dog in your neighborhood while you stay at a 6 foot distance from others. Exercise helps you deal with stress. Limit the amount of news. Ease up on your expectations of yourself and others.

Create routines for winding down in the evening the last hour before bedtime. Limit caffeine and alcohol use. Don't watch the news before going to bed, as it is likely to make it harder to sleep. Instead, try winding down with reading, quiet music that you find comforting or meditation. There are a number of great meditation aps you can put on your phone, including Calm and Headspace for adults. Smiling Mind is a terrific ap for helping children meditate that is free.

If you have a partner who is going through this with you, be kind. Ask for what you need. Be appreciative. Create boundaries if you are sharing space so you can have some separate space to work or be in as well as times to connect. Communicate with your partner about what they are doing that is helpful to you. Ask what you can do to make this home confinement period easier for them. Apologize and own it if you lash out in anger or impatience. Partners will have less autonomy and more time together than normal, so learning to negotiate with each other and respect each other's needs is critically important.

If you live alone, it's key to stay connected by phone calls, FaceTime, Zoom and email. Let others know that you want to check in with them daily.

If you know older family members or neighbors, or people who live alone or are medically vulnerable or out of work, reach out to be supportive. It feels good to see that you can still help someone else.

All of this change and loss is likely to cause some people to notice that it increases anxiety or depression to a level that it impacts daily functioning. If you need support and help, know that mental health professionals are essential services and are still working and available to meet with you in person, or remotely by teletherapy ( either a phone session or video call).

Hopefully, there will be lessons learned from this difficult time in our lives. Our values and priorities will likely look different when we get to the other side of it. People and relationships may be important to us than ever. Give yourself and your loved ones as much grace as you can. Even in these difficult time with being quarantined in this coronavirus pandemic and dealing with so much loss, we can do what writer Dan Buetner calls the 4 ingredients for happiness: someone to love, something to do,something to look forward to, and something to give back. Stay well!

Letting Go of Self-Limiting Beliefs

Is your past interrupting your present? Most people carry some wounds and beliefs from childhood, where you may have had negative things said to you by parents,siblings,friends or extended family. By becoming aware of beliefs we carry that no longer serve us, we can create new options.

There may be a nagging little voice in your head that you first heard in childhood. Perhaps this negative soundtrack keeps following you around in your adult life. Pretty much everyone has some self-limiting beliefs. Becoming aware of yours will help you be able to question them when they come up. Instead of taking them as fact, you can consider that they may or may not be accurate.

Self-limiting beliefs can hold you back from developing and advancing in your career. They can also cause you to limit yourself and restrict your choices, as well as making unsatisfying relationship decisions and fear-based patterns of behavior.

Each of us have these four emotional needs ( the four A's):

1.Attention

2.Acceptance

3.Affection

4.Appreciation

When we don't get these needs met sufficiently in childhood, we develop self-limiting beliefs that help us explain why. The most common self-limiting beliefs are:

I'm not lovable just the way I am.

I'm not worthy.

I'm not deserving of happiness.

I'm not good enough.

I'm a bad person because of something I've done in the past.

Limiting beliefs cause us to limit our opportunities for growth. They shrink our happiness and joy. They keep us stuck repeating the same old unhealthy patterns in our lives and in our closest relationships.Our limiting beliefs create negative feelings, and cause us to do less self-care, be more passive and to challenge ourselves less.

One effective way to move past limiting beliefs is to recall what you were praised for and what you were criticized for in childhood. Write the down and reflect on the messages you internalized that no longer suit you.Consider creating a release ritual such as burning your list of the limiting beliefs you want to let go of, or throwing a few stones that represent the limiting beliefs into a lake or the ocean or off a mountain. Thisceremony can mark you let the limiting beliefs go.

Daily meditation is another useful technique to help you connect with your true nature and let the limiting beliefs go. Before you meditate, ask yourself these 4 universal questions:

1. Who am I?

2.What do I want?

3.What is my purpose?

4.What am I grateful for?

Letting go of outdated beliefs that limit you allows you to think  about your authentic self, what you want to experience and give to others and how you can become a better and braver version of yourself. Being aware of limiting beliefs that we accepted can help us see situations more objectively, and allow us more freedom.

Healing the Heart Through Art and Music

Art and music can both be excellent mediums to help you access and process memories, feelings and experiences. I was reminded of this while working with one of my counseling clients recently who is learning to cope with a family member's life threatening illness.

Music can be a universal resource. It can help an individual who is grieving to process the loss, perhaps by evoking memories of music that reminds you of the beloved. A chill playlist on your phone or tablet can be the perfect way to calm down for 20 minutes when you are stressed, flooded emotionally and need to cool down so you don't lash out at someone you love. Then, when your cooler head prevails, you can productively discuss the issue with the other person involved.

Music is also a creative parenting strategy. Trying to help engage preschoolers with assisting you in cleaning up? Dealing with a grumpy, tired preteen or teenager in your car after school? Looking for subtle ways to lift your mood in the morning? Wanting to create a warm, loving atmosphere at home? Creative use of music can fit beautifully in each of these scenarios. Teens love to school parents while in the car commuting about what kind of music they like, and this is a great way to build a bridge to them emotionally. If little ones are squabbling, drown them out with the score to Hamilton. Music is also a beautiful part of a bedtime routine for parents and younger children.Think outside the box on your selections.

Music reaches us in amazing and deep ways. I can remember as I began my counseling career working with hospice patients, their families and a wonderful music therapist in a hospital and on home visits. Some patients were unresponsive until the music therapist brought out her auto-harp and played hymns or songs they loved as children. Patients who were unresponsive began to move a little or respond in ways that hadn't been seen in days.

I often use art---drawing, painting, collages and art projects--- while working with children and some teens who like creative activity as a way to help them relax and be able to access feelings in counseling sessions.It can make children and  teens less self-conscious while they are sharing.

We know that art, like music, can take you into a deeply relaxed state of mind where you can free up your ability to feel and express emotion. There are places that art and music can take you that words cannot touch. Here's a little art experiment to try on your own for using art to heal.

Find a quiet place where you can work uninterrupted with some paper or canvas art board and some acrylic paint in multiple colors.

Pick two colors to work with to express your feelings.

Paint one area of the canvas to represent something that is negative or difficult in your life now, and that you hold some upset or angry feelings about.

With the second color, paint a place that represents who else is involved in the situation that is upsetting you.

In another place on your canvas, paint about the consequence of this situation that is upsetting to you or that you are holding on to anger about.

Next, consider something in your life that brings you happiness, joy or light in your life right now. Think of something or someone you are grateful for. Paint a section to represent this positive element, person or situation.

If you wish, you can either reflect on what shows up in your painting, or share it with someone you trust.

Both art and music allow us a path into our interior life and access to emotions that might not be reached just with words. In the words of Victor Hugo,"music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." Painter Georgia O'Keefe wrote of making art that, "whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing." Think of creative endeavors with art and music as a tool and a resource to explore what you are feeling, process emotions and help you shift a mood when necessary, in a healthy way.

Raising Human Beings: Creating a Collaborative Partnership With Your Child

Don't we all want to raise children who become problem solvers, empathetic, collaborative and insightful? Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." In the busyness of daily life, it can be challenging not to just handle things yourself as a parent, and remember to involve your children or teens in problem solving with you whenever possible.

Ross W. Green, PhD, has a great new book that can give you examples of how to parent to build these traits in your children. Raising Human Beings: Creating A Collaborative Partnership With Your Child (Scribner, 2016) is the most recent book by Dr. Greene, who taught at Harvard Medical School for twenty years, and now is a founding director of the nonprofit group Lives in the Balance.

Ross Greene suggests we develop collaborative relationships with our children, where we have more influence than control. We need our children's input and feedback to effectively help them solve problems. We need to watch for when our children need help, but not offer it too soon, or preempt the child's ability to learn to solve problems themselves and grow stronger.

We want to be aware of helping our children develop their own identity, separate from ours. We want them to find healthy individuation. When that doesn't happen, Ross coins it "identity foreclosure", which is when a young person doesn't explore their own self-identity, but just blindly accepts the identity defined for them by parents. Instead, we want to support our children in creating identity achievement, where they have a well-defined self-concept and identity. We want them to know who they are as an individual, and what they believe, what they value and where they are going in life.

In parenting, we play a critical role by communicating with our child in a style that can make our influence useful and constructive in their life. We also need to be open to learning about parenting, life and the world through our children's input and unique contributions. If we can be balanced, calm and centered, we are more likely to be able to influence our children positively.

It's normal to have expectations for our children. If they aren't meeting our expectations, Ross suggests we involve the child in defining the problem and brain-storming some solutions. He suggests we remember that children want to do well and generally do well if they can. We have to deal with what we are dealt as parents. Instead of the parent deciding what the problem is alone and solving it alone, we do better if we involve the child whenever possible. As I work in counseling parents do implement Active Parenting, we find this collaborative style works better and gets buy-in from your child. In this book, Ross goes through a number of situations and plays out the parent giving a punishment versus the parent and child solving the problem together which is useful.

Our long-term goal is to build a collaborative, lifelong relationship with our children, and helping them prepare to be problem-solvers themselves. It's interesting to think about your own relationship with your parents when you were growing up. Did you open up to your mom or dad when you had difficulty with something as a child or a teen? If you didn't, it may have been that they were critical, angry, judgmental or anxious. If you did, it's probably because you could count on your mom or dad listening, collaborating, asking you for your thoughts or solutions and being encouraging. Let's be those parents who can be calm and collaborative. I appreciated that the author includes the college years of parenting in a collaborative style as well.

Perhaps no other role in your life will challenge you and polish you up as much as being a parent. No other job you do is ever more important. Playing our part well as parents is key, no matter what child you get. Being open to learning and becoming a positive influence is a pattern of parenting that could become your best legacy to your family. Ross Greene's book may help you get there.

Do Your Friends Actually Like You?

A new research study suggests that only about half of perceived friendships are considered mutual. The misunderstanding could be due to our own optimism or to the limited amount of time most people have for best friends. Either way, it's worth your time to identify your own true friends! Read the New York Times article here for more information on this research.

Being Aware of Your Own Blind Spots

Here is a great tool for understanding more about your blind spots in how you perceive yourself and how you relate to others: it's called Johari's Window. It was developed by two psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. They combined their first names (ala Brangelina or Kimye) to come up with this name for their concept. It's a useful construct to help each of us become more aware of ourselves and others.

Writer Anais Nin wrote that, "we don't see things as we are, we see things as we are." Luft and Ingham designed Johari's window to help us begin to see ourselves and the people close to us in a more complete way. They constructed four quadrants of perception that are organized to look like a four-paned window. Each of the four sections represents one area of perception. Those areas are:

1. Free/Open- These are bits of information we know about ourselves and everyone else knows about us, too. This would be things that someone walking by could tell: our gender, our age range, eye and hair color. These are facts that are commonly accessible to all.

2. Hidden- This is the information about ourselves that is hidden from others, and only known to ourselves. These are our "secrets."

3. Blind- This is the area of our perception where we each have blind spots, and other people we are in relationship with know some things about us that we don't know ourselves. This is the area where tremendous growth is possible if we are open to learning more about how we are seen and experienced by our partner, our children, our parents, and others we are close to. It is also an area where feedback, if delivered well, can spur us on to be more self-aware.

4. Unknown- This is the area of understanding about things that neither we or those closest to us know about us.

If you wish, you can use the Johari's Window concept to grow yourself and your ability to integrate what those closest to you can tell you about your blind spots. When we become more fully known in a relationship over time, we ideally self-disclose, share more, and hide less of ourself with "secrets." This causes what therapists consider "deepening"of a relationship.

We can also become open to giving and asking for feedback from the intimate other. Feedback should never be given in anger or to relieve tension. The best relationship feedback is specific, descriptive, and non-judgmental. It is focused on the here and now, not the past. Don't give advice to the other person, simply share your perception of their behavior, and how it makes you feel in the relationship with them. Only give feedback if asked.

What a wonderful tool we have to use if we are willing to ask those closest to us from time to time questions like:

When do you feel closest to me emotionally?

When do you feel most disconnected from me?

What behaviors do I do that contribute to you feeling closer? More distant?

How am I doing in my relationship with you?

If we can be undefended about feedback, we can develop to be more loving, available, and connected with those who really matter. It's almost like those we love hold the information about our relational blind spots, and can guide us to become better people if we are open to it.

Perception really is our reality. Johari's Window helps us to see that there are often several realities from a relationship perspective. If we think we are always right, we are probably not taking seriously enough the growth we can make by learning about how we look and how the relationship looks from the other person's view. You might ask for a little feedback this week, and learn a little about yourself. It's a shift that will make you better, more grounded, and real.

Middle School Years Hardest for Moms

The middle school years from grades 6 through 8 are a time of big transition for families as children become teens, deal with the hormonal changes of puberty, and move from an often supportive elementary school setting to the world of middle school where parents aren't as involved at school. A 2016 study of 2,200 mostly well-educated mothers found that mothers of middle school students also struggle. Mothers report more distress and less well-being when their children hit grades 6 to 8. Mothers of infants and grown children are happiest, according to the study, lead by Suniya Luthar, a psychology professor and researcher at Arizona State University at Tempe.

Researchers expected to find that mothers of infants are similarly stressed as the levels experienced by mothers of middle-schoolers, but they are not. The University of Arizona's research team believes this might be because infants are exhausting, but are also intensely rewarding to hold and cuddle. Middle-schoolers are usually not as rewarding or cuddly. Their developmental task is beginning to make them seek individuation from parents and push parents away.

Other factors probably also impact parents' levels of satisfaction. Many parents know their children's friends, classmates and a community of other parents and teachers. When the middle school transition begins, students often interact at school with minimal parent involvement, and moms may feel more disconnected as students share less about their world, their school experiences and their friends. A number of the middle school students I see in counseling long for the independence of being dropped off to see a movie or spend time with friends without a parent accompanying them. Parents can suffer a big fall from grace, as the big need that our children had for us in younger years begins to change.

Parents' confidence in their abilities to discipline, influence and communicate with their child all decline in the middle school years. It's important not to buy in to stereotypes about teens which lump them all together as negative. Friendships with other parents of middle school age children and parenting classes can really help mitigate the sense of distress and isolation, as well as normalize the developmental parenting shifts that are happening.

Parents of middle school students need to get support from each other as less emotional rewards come in from their children. It's also important to shift and continue to connect with children, but in different ways. For example, providing space for your teen or preteen to have friends over at your home and provide snacks but remain on the periphery. Continue to reach out to connect with middle- schoolers at dinnertime and in the car, and having them teach you some things when you can.

It's been said that preteens and teens are building a house of self, and that they need to be able to set some boundaries and separation from us in order to feel they are opening and closing the doors in their house.They let us in close at times and close us out at others. It's our job as parents to be there, be loving and interested and not too needy. Keep that in mind when your sweet child asks you to drop them off down the block from their middle school or high school so no one sees you. It's a bittersweet passage that is necessary so they can begin preparing to separate from us and begin those first steps towards becoming their own person.