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Anxiety, Relationships, Self-Care, Uncategorized

i can’t prioritize

I often find myself having trouble focusing on what’s most important. Especially in the morning. My mind is racing with all of the things I want to accomplish in a day.

 It’s really hard to prioritize what’s needs to be done right away. Sometimes I can pause long enough to think about the simplest, basic needs first. I remember this hierarchy of needs that I learned about in my graduate program. The concept is that in order to get to higher levels of functioning, you have to address all of your basic needs first.
 
On Maslow’s hierarchy, the bottom level is shelter and security, food and water. The basic physiological needs. The next layer up is safety and emotional connection. Alllll the way at the top is self-actualizing – which is to live fully in what you are capable of. I would love to constantly live at that highest level and often I try to! But in order to do that, I have to make sure my home is safe and pulled together, I eat breakfast, I feel safe and secure, and I’ve connected with family and friends.

All of these habits are essential for your brain to be able to engage in creativity, new challenges, personal growth, stay healthy and to build your self-awareness. The end goal is to live into your full potential, but it all starts with your basic needs. You might notice that when you’re hungry or tired you have more trouble accomplishing challenging tasks. Or when your home is a wreck or under construction or you’ve recently moved, you may not be ready to take on a new project at work.

You may not have the energy for those bigger dreams you have for yourself. When your basic needs go unmet, your mind and body is preoccupied with those gaps in your needs. You can put off your basic needs for a while, but eventually it will all catch up with you and result in burn out, resentment, health issues, or anxiety.

So, take care of yourself, check in with your body. Attune yourself to the rhythms of your needs. The next time you find your mind racing or you’re getting overwhelmed with all of the things that need to be done, start with the basic needs first. This will set you up for success for those bigger things you want to accomplish.

Anxiety, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Uncategorized

dissociation

Chances are high that you’ve dissociated before. Most people have.

 Dissociation happens when we disconnect from ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes it can be a helpful way to unwind. Other times it can get in the way of what we want to do.
 
You may have heard that dissociation is a trauma response, and to some extent that’s true. But it isn’t always a trauma response – otherwise that would mean almost everybody is traumatized!
 
Dissociation occurs on a spectrum. On the one end, there’s the more commonplace dissociation: daydreaming during a boring lecture, getting completely absorbed in a suspenseful Netflix series, or losing track of time while playing a videogame. After a particularly rough day at work, you might catch yourself zoning out rather than concentrating on a conversation. This kind of dissociation is normal. Sometimes our brains need that time to disconnect and recharge.
 
The farther along the spectrum you go, however, the more dissociation may interfere with your day-to-day activities. Instead of zoning out every now and then, you might spend hours completely oblivious to time passing, your mind blank. Or when a stressful event occurs, you find yourself suddenly immobilized and feel lost. Sometimes dissociation can make you feel like you’re not real, or like the world around you is constantly blanketed in a fuzzy haze.
 
Dissociation is very natural. That’s why the body uses it sometimes during traumatic events. When dissociation is used to cope with trauma it can manifest in multiple ways such as:
 
  • Dissociating from painful memories to the point where you forget long gaps of your history
  • Dissociating from your body so you don’t feel physical or emotional pain
  • Dissociating from your identity so essentially the trauma “didn’t happen to me”
 
This kind of dissociation starts out as adaptive and helpful. It’s your body’s way of trying to spare you from painful sensations and feelings that are far too overwhelming to process at once. It only gets in the way when the trauma remains unprocessed, and you try to go about your everyday life again only for the dissociation to keep happening. That’s when you may feel totally disconnected from who you are, from others, and from life in general.
 
When dissociation is at the more severe end of the spectrum, you may lose track of time on a regular basis, have trouble remembering the details of your day, or come to in the middle of an activity you don’t remember ever starting. You may also feel internally conflicted about who you are, as if there are multiple sides to you all arguing over who is really “me.”
 
Regardless of where you find yourself on the spectrum of dissociation, if you feel like it’s beginning to interfere with your life, it may be time to seek support. A counselor can help you learn the skills needed for your body to reorient to the present moment and for you to find safety in connection again.
 
For more on dissociation, check out this workbook: “Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation” by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, and Onno van der Hart
Anxiety, Parenting, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Uncategorized

disruptions

I recently moved and I experienced what so many other people experience when they move, I was holding on to a lot of stuff. 
 
Some of it totally made sense because it’s stuff I used everyday or it was family photos that I inherited when my mom died.  Some of it was a bathmat that I bought years ago, never really liked but just kept or there was the bottle of Tylenol that I kid you not, expired in 2014. 
 
The disruptive occasion of moving alerted me to the need to take stock of stuff.  I had to take physical boxes and decide what I wanted to keep, what I wanted to donate and what I wanted to keep but change to make it work in my new home or to make it fit the person I have become instead of the person I was when I first bought it.
 
There are moments in our lives that are disruptive and that draw our attention to the philosophical framework, spiritual beliefs and emotional histories that drive our present, whether we are cognizant of them or not. A disruption can be many things but here are some examples:
 
-Getting married
-Getting divorced
-Adopting or giving birth to a child
-Changing jobs
-Becoming a stay at home parent
-Having a teen or older child question your families beliefs or values
-The death or aging parent or loved one
-Buying a new home and either upsizing or downsizing
-Reaching an important milestone in your career
-Having a child reach a new milestone like last kid to kindergarten or first kid to college
 
We can get lost in the business of re-orienting ourselves in one of these times that knocks us off kilter and just strap everything we have accumulated to our hearts and minds and take it into the new season with us in the midst of our grief, excitement, anxiety, anticipation and many other emotions.
 
We can look at the framework we were given as children or the faith journey we have had so far or at parenting philosophies that were helpful when our kids were babies over a decade ago and think, what of this is my core self, what of this was helpful for a season but really doesn’t fit now and what of this was never really mine, but I carried it out of family obligation or social pressure?
 
These are big questions and sorting through these kinds of things can be a difficult process and therapy can help it all feel less overwhelming and you can rebuild a more intentional, purposeful life for yourself (and your family, if that fits).
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