Anxiety - Physical Signs

Now I’m going to focus on the physical symptoms and helpful techniques for anxiety.

There are several common experiences of the physical symptoms of anxiety. The short list is: tension, gastrointestinal issues, difficulty breathing, and chest pressure. There are others, less common; these are the most frequently experienced. Difficulty sleeping goes with the territory!!!

The most common kinds of tension-related physical problems are headaches, neck and shoulder pain, trouble breathing and chest pressure. Gastrointestinal problems include cramping and frequent urges to urinate or defecate, often including diarrhea and constipation. It helps to understand that shallow breathing creates vascular constriction, affecting many bodily functions, including cold fingers and toes, even numbness and tingling.

Chest pressure is very troubling and frightening; it’s vital to get it checked out. Most of the time it doesn’t indicate a heart condition, but it’s really important to make sure. Going to the ER is often a difficult choice – make that choice and get some clarity for yourself!!

Keep in mind that the medical staff of any ER is on the lookout for heart attacks. Many folks have told me that when the ER staff find that there is no heart problem, they often say “it’s just anxiety” and people can feel dismissed. Keep in mind that the training for working in an ER is very focused on serious heart conditions and in comparison it’s understandable that anxiety falls in a less urgent category.

Anxiety contributes to some illnesses, including asthma and IBS. It’s not usually the only cause, but it is a frequent contributing factor.

It’s frustrating, but in the longer term, helpful – to get medical conditions checked out, hopefully ruled out. Often people hope it’s a medical condition that can be treated successfully. Many are reluctant to know that symptoms are based on mental health needs, and can be helped with mental health treatment. It still is hard to accept, and many of us feel ashamed, disappointed, conflicted and many other variations, about any mental health issue. Even with all the recent acceptance of mental health in general, all of us often have a hard time accepting the need for help. The acceptance of mental health needs is RECENT, not long standing and hasn’t been part of our culture for a very long time.

Reaching out and accepting help runs contrary to the emphasis in our society on independence, self-reliance, strength, determination, etc. We all tend to have trouble admitting our insecurities, issues, and imperfections.

Deep, regular, breathing does wonders for reducing anxiety. In my practice I have seen breathing and talking help a lot, enough that medication is rarely needed. Medication may be needed and can be very helpful.

We ALL forget to breathe deeply to help reduce anxiety; no matter how experienced we may be. Anxiety interferes with good, quality, helpful thought patterns, it’s universal. Shallow breathing reduces the oxygen getting to our brains; we have all experienced better thinking when rested, relaxed, calm.  When we’re anxious,  we’re getting enough oxygen to live on, no question.  But we’re not getting enough to think clearly, to think well, to think objectively, or creatively.

It helps to develop your own ritual for better breathing. No matter how you do it, repetition is key; developing the habit helps a great deal when you’re stressed and anxious. Working on it when we’re calmer is very effective, although very hard to remember to do!  Even those of us who have worked on this for years, forget to breathe deeply when the stress level is high! It’s ok, we’re human. The best we can do is remember when we can, and use the breath work when we can.

Breathe in deeply, hold it a second, breathe out slowly and fully. Repeat many times. Deepen the breaths as much as you can – with practice you can breathe more deeply than before. How long and how many times you do this depends on how anxious you are feeling, try it out and see what works for you!

Pay attention and notice where you may be holding tension. Often our shoulders don’t move much when we attempt to breathe deeply – this may inhibit deeper breathing. Try to loosen your neck and shoulders – by raising and lowering your shoulders – this will help your breathing and help you feel more relaxed too. This is just one example – check major muscle groups and areas of your body for tension and try different ways of moving body parts and allowing muscles to relax a bit. The more you practice, the better you’ll get.

I hope you find this helpful and informative. I’m moving away from Gallup, to Corrales – not too far away – and I’ll miss Gallup and the many great folks I’ve gotten to know here. I’ll write more in the future, and will visit!!!

More About Anxiety - Thought Patterns...

Anxiety - there is so much to say! Thoughts run furiously through our minds!

David Bowie put his words and music to it:

“Pressure pushing down on me

Pressing down on you, no man ask for

Under pressure that brings a building down

Splits a family in two, puts people on streets…”

Anxiety shows itself emotionally, in our thoughts and in our physical bodies.  Let’s take a look at some of the thought patterns anxiety causes in all of us.

We’ll start with thoughts that occur to all of us, thoughts of concern - thinking ahead – “what if” thoughts. It’s natural to have concern for the future. But when those concerns spiral, grow and dominate our thinking, when we are awake and at night when we try to sleep. We have all had nights where sleep has been disrupted by persistent, worrying thoughts.

It’s one thing if this happens once in a while, or we understand that we are in a situation where this is just going to happen, for a period of time. For instance, when we are experiencing major life changes or challenges, this is to be expected.

It’s another if it seems to come out of nowhere, or we don’t understand why it’s going on. Then it often tends to get worse. When it begins to interfere a lot with our need for restful sleep and that directly affects how we feel during the day, and so it escalates and is happening more and more often, during the day, unpredictably – then we can say it’s likely to be Anxiety.

What I mean is, we all have anxiety; some of us, sometimes, have ANXIETY.

There’s not a sharp distinction between anxiety and ANXIETY – it’s a blurry area. I’ve had clients who tell me they have gone to the ER several times, even a dozen times, fearing they are having a heart attack – but aren’t - this is definitely ANXIETY!

As this illustrates, thoughts and physical feelings often happen together. I’m just focusing on the thought part for today. Usually, thoughts and thought patterns drive the physical reactions. Often, we aren’t fully conscious of the connection, tho and only feel the physical part, while the ANXIETY is strong.

So, thought patterns: as I said, what ifs, fear, efforts to make plans for the future, and worries about work issues or important relationship concerns, money and health worries are the most common sources of anxiety. The questions of control, or choice, or power, or ability to express oneself are very basic sources of inner stress, fear = anxiety. One of the main things is : What can I do about it? Often there is a fear of acting in a way that might help or improve the situation, but the fear is that taking action either won’t work, or will make things worse. So there is a very basic and deep conflict going on. Sometimes there is a lot of history to the issue, which makes it more complex – and gives us a lot more to worry about!

Things that can help are:

S ay it out loud ( to yourself or to a trusted other person)

T alk to another (trusted) person.

R ite it down, try writing in your own journal.

O ffer to help another – get your mind off your worries for a bit, they’ll be there when you’re done.

N ature – get outside, we’re lucky in the Gallup area!

G et good professional help.

It can help a lot to feel STRONG!

When you feel ready, trying to separate the tangled threads of the issue(s) or question(s) is a vital way to approach the conflict. This is best done in the day time; at night our inner resources are diminished by fatigue and the conflict is escalated in the dark. Writing it all down can be very, very helpful. At first, writing without any editing helps get it all out there, helps us to see the big picture – it’s often a lot more complicated than we realize!

Sometimes, tho,  it’s really not complicated – we know what we need to do but are scared about doing it – then it helps to write about the pros and cons, the fears, the best and worst possible outcomes.

One thought pattern to be aware of is the Yes/No split – we all tend to think in all or nothing ways when we are tired, stressed or anxious. When we are calmer, more rested, more objective – we can think outside the box! We can be a lot more creative than we give ourselves credit for…

Talking with a trusted friend or family member can help, especially if they aren’t involved in the situation. If they are, they may mean well but not totally understand the way the situation affects you.

Talking with a trusted therapist can help a lot! Often when I see someone new, they feel a lot of relief just getting it all out, in a confidential setting with a supportive person who will help them look at all the sides of the situation, mainly for themselves, but including effects that are possible for others as well.

We’ll explore the physical and emotional elements of anxiety more in the future, thanks for your interest!

PARENTS AND CHILDREN

Adults seem to forget completely what it’s like to be a child or a teen. It amazes me, and it has for many years. It’s like a big, thick black curtain comes down and what we have all lived through becomes forgotten, suppressed, repressed, unavailable, it’s hard to know what to say to describe it. Teen years especially are horribly difficult. We all feel lonely, confused, angry, sad – many intense feelings.

For some reason, I vowed to remember. I felt it was all I could do. I felt powerless. I felt hopeless often. I was in a dysfunctional family but we didn’t have those words then. It appeared to the outside world that we were “fine”. We ate, we bathed, we had a car, my father had a job, we went to school. There was no outside view of our inner world; there usually isn’t. A lot hasn’t changed at all.

All adults were kids once. How can they forget what it’s really like? I’m aware that parents want their children to be happy, successful, healthy, ok. But the level of denial of how they really feel, how life really works, it’s incredible.

On an intellectual level, I understand several aspects of parenting. Although I haven’t had children myself, I’ve worked with parents and children of all ages for many years. I do understand that having and raising children is much, much harder than anyone expects. Raising children takes enormous amounts of energy, time, patience, money, and on and on. Parents become exhausted, early and endlessly. Generally in our society the importance of parenting is overlooked and undervalued; it’s a second thought, a second job of little importance.

It gets a lot of good words, but rare acknowledgement of just how hard it is. Actually, parenting is the most important job in the world!

Due to this disregard, parents don’t often talk about how tired they are, how overwhelmed they feel, how out of patience they feel so often, so discouraged they are at times. Yes, they talk to close friends and family sometimes and get some support that way; that’s a good thing when it happens. But in the larger society, even in the online communities that do talk about parenting, it still gets short shrift. People are understandably afraid of others’ possible negative opinions of them.

Parents do open up in therapy; I’ve heard a lot about just how difficult it is, and how people’s own childhood experiences have impacted their parenting abilities, often negatively. But it takes a lot for parents, people, to seek therapy.

Then the children come next, often feeling that they are last, not first. They don’t have the ability to see what their parents are dealing with. They know that their parents are unaware of most of the realities of their lives. Although they often take advantage of this situation, and this is nothing new, they still feel gypped out of parental love, attention and understanding.

One of the major sources of these situations that no one wants to acknowledge is the two parent income producing “normal” situation now. Women have needed the ability to work for many, many years and have needed power, recognition, freedom, respect and we have just begun to use our real abilities. However, our larger society hasn’t adjusted to those changes very well. The stress level for two income families is astronomical.

Parents have always had huge levels of stress, but when only one parent worked and extended family members were nearby to help, it was very different. If as a society we had better parental leave, better child care options, more support systems for parents and children, we would be in a much better and safer place.

What about the children? What about the teens? They get lost in the shuffle, the overwhelm, the stress. There are job related issues, there are marital issues, there are financial issues, there are health issues, you name it. But the children come last when they need to be first a lot more often. Yes, they need to learn to wait, they need to learn that they won’t always get their way. But this needs to be tempered with attention, love, consideration, listening!

If we want children to really succeed as people, we need to listen to them. Will they always make sense? No, of course not. But we don’t need to correct them all the time, just sometimes. We all need to be heard, to be respected, to be attended to; these are core needs.

And everyone knows this! But if we don’t have the time and the energy to provide attentiveness to others, we just can't do it. There’s only so much time and energy, it’s more valuable than money in many ways.

Our society tends to stress achievement, competition, and money. “Security” is touted as attainable and necessary. Beyond a certain level of monetary security, it becomes addiction. There really is no such thing as security, but we don’t want to admit it. As we are being reminded often, catastrophic events happen all the time, everywhere, to everyone. Any one of us can become very ill, disabled, or killed, at any time. Instead of acknowledging these realities, we tend to deny them. We tend to strive for “security” in the form of financial wellness. “Wealth management” is the current term. It used to be just “savings”. Financial planners are helpful to a degree, but often prey on our fears. Yes money is helpful, but no it doesn’t solve all of our problems, or keep us safe.

INTROVERT EXERCISE PLAN

I recently realized that my being more introverted helped my exercise plan to work – for me! I tried telling others about it and didn’t get much interest and I couldn’t understand why! Well, duh – a lot of folks want to be around others! I’ve always exercised a lot more by myself, so I thought that’s why it has worked for me, and might work for others.

Basically, I didn’t like classes or group activities. I tried, but didn’t enjoy them. I really liked running, swimming, biking and lifting – by myself. And I resented trainers telling me what to do. Nothing against trainers!

I’ve learned to appreciate my own methods, a lot. Now that it’s more socially acceptable and recognized that being introverted is ok, I can frame it differently.

One major benefit of exercising alone is that I’ve come to be more tuned in to my body and what I feel like doing. Yes, sometimes I’m surprised by not feeling like doing as much as I thought, or the opposite, finding that my body wants to do more than planned. But generally, I’ve learned to respect what my body feels like doing.

Like basically anyone else, I’ve had experiences of coming up against an invisible wall, not to being motivated even though I know exercise is good for me. Most of us have had extended periods of time of just not having the motivation, the desire, the need or want, to exercise although we know full well that it’s good for us. Then eventually, starting up again, and wondering – well, I knew it was for the best, why didn’t I just do it?

I guess being a psychologist, I wondered more about the motivation, or lack of motivation and what was causing the blockage. The theory I eventually came to believe in is – we are too hard on ourselves. We criticize ourselves mercilessly, meanly. We think and say things to ourselves that mostly we would never say to another person.

One way of visualizing it is, when we criticize ourselves, we are putting up a wall of invisible bricks. We are unknowlingly stopping ourselves. We all have a four-year-old self who says “You can’t make me!”  So after one brick too many, we just stop. We run out of gas to keep pushing ourselves. None of this is conscious, at least at first, maybe never.

What we can do, instead, is create an inviting pathway for ourselves. We can be kind to ourselves; we can accept that some days we don’t feel much like exercise, or we feel like doing less. Rather than be mean and say, well if I don’t do 30 or 45 minutes, it’s worthless – we can say I think I’d like to do some, but not as much. I’ve honed this habit pattern for years, now I can say that I exercise because I want to and feel very good about it!

The bottom line is that the habit means more than any one workout. Doing 45 minutes once a week or once a month and feeling like crap in between doesn’t create good health. Having a reliable habit and accepting our bodies and ourselves as we are can lead to a very healthy body and mind. Regular exercise helps us emotionally and physically.

ADAPTING PLAY THERAPY FOR PARENTS

Play therapy is about allowing, encouraging and supporting free expression.

Its very challenging for parents to simply allow children to express themselves; a lot of parental responsibility is teaching and guiding. Play therapy is allowing expressions of inner feelings.  When similar activities are done by parents and children, it can lead to deeper levels of trust in communicating feelings, issues, troubles. This becomes especially important for tweens and teens. We expect significant lessening of communication in teen years; it makes a huge difference when teens trust parents enough to convey difficult feelings and situations.

Parents have tremendous responsibility to teach and guide children to make better choices. It’s extremely difficult to take a break from teaching and guiding. It’s much easier to do play therapy when the child isn’t your own. However, one of the main issues preventing better communication between parents and children when children get older is parenting patterns – teaching and guiding. Teens become especially resistant to parents “telling me what to do”. If parents learn early to restrain themselves, and let children speak through their play, perhaps they can become better listeners when their children get older.

I’ve tried many times to explain this dynamic to teens and young adults who are frustrated and hurt by parental lack of patience, lack of tolerance, lack of understanding of their feelings, thoughts, issues. By that time, though, it’s often too late for people to make changes in communication styles. Plus, understandably parents are tired. They are ready for their children to become adults, already. The adult children are too young to understand this, and feel deeply hurt by their parents unavailability. It’s very sad to see, when parents have done their best for so many years.

The drive to raise children responsibly is very, very powerful. The urge to fix the situation, to help the child feel better, be safe, be smart, be healthy is very hard to resist. However, there are many aspects to the child’s need to find their own way, to explore their own feelings, their own choices – to learn how to navigate for themselves, speak for themselves. Parents are very aware of these needs; however, our society has only recently begun to support parents in their efforts to just be there. We are accustomed to all or nothing approaches; most of us have known family members who have been very quiet but nevertheless make their preferences very well known. The gruff uncle, for example, is not unusual and is often a big help. There are many, many ways of communicating and helping children and young people, and none need be abandoned.

One example I can give of a play therapy approach is one of a toddler and mother who were involved in a car accident. It wasn’t a bad accident, neither was injured, but the toddler became highly upset about getting into the car seat. Since that was a safety and legal requirement, there wasn’t any choice for the mother, but it upset her too. When I first saw them, the child was not saying much; she had regressed in her language development, which often happens after an upsetting or traumatic event.

The child did choose cars to play with, and did crash two cars together, repeatedly. This shocked the mother. I asked the mother to be quiet and showed interest in what the child was doing. She continued to be silent, and to crash the cars. We did this for a couple of sessions without noticable improvement. Then I asked the mother to bring the car seat into the sessions. The child then was reluctant to get into the car seat initially, and continued to crash the cars into each other. Her mother and I said nothing about the car seat.  Then she began to approach the car seat, and then begun to get in and out of the car seat. We let her set the pace, and she, on her own, got in and out of the car seat, and in between crashed the cars against each other. She did these actions over and over, and I encouraged the mother to maintain a close and interested presence. I don’t recall how many sessions we had then to continue these behaviors, but I do recall that there weren’t a lot of sessions like this. The mother reported to me that the child had become comfortable with getting into and out of the car seat, and was calm and happy most of the time; she was how she had been prior to the accident. She recovered the level of language she had had previously.

So in summary, we allowed and observed the child to find the way she needed to become more comfortable with getting in and out of the car seat. We maintained close and supportive presences. We didn’t try to stop her or explain anything to her; she figured it out herself. She “worked through” the feelings she had about experiencing the accident and the loss of control that comes with any incident like a car accident. She found a way to acclimate herself, to process, this experience.

Her mother’s presence was important too. Yes, children do and do need to, experience and learn a lot on their own. As we all know, parental involvement and presence, are vital. It’s important to tell children they will be ok. It’s also important to help children learn about their own abilities, and to be present and less verbal about it. Encouraging children to become confident in themselves, their abilities to think, feel, figure things out – without always trying to teach them verbally – is also vital. We could think of this as being like an umbilical cord.

This is very hard for many, if not most parents to learn and accept. So much of the early years are so full of teaching! How many millions of times do parents have to say things like “Don’t run into the street”, “Don’t touch the stove”, “Brush your teeth”, etc., etc!!  These types of statements become so automatic, it’s very hard to alter these habits. The levels of frustration that parenting uniformly brings makes it even harder.

The need for parental self care is another topic!

ANXIETY, WHAT IS IT AND CAN IT BE HELPED?

It’s so great that mental health in general has become so widely accepted, and so many people are interested in learning more about mental health issues!

Anxiety is one of the more talked-about mental health challenges, which is very helpful for people who have anxiety, and for those who are close to or related to someone who has anxiety.

What is anxiety?  Well, anxiety is fear, a fear response which occurs in the absence of a realistic threat. This is something that happens to us all, but when it occurs a lot more often than is typical it becomes anxiety.

It’s important to recognize that the experience of anxiety is not only mental, but involves us physically and emotionally as well. It helps those of us who have anxiety and those who don’t to understand these elements.

Mental, or thought-based anxiety is frequent. It’s intrusive. It’s repetitive. We have thoughts about something we fear or worry about; these thoughts are very difficult to manage and threaten to overwhelm or exhaust us when we have them. When we have these thoughts we’re often embarrassed by them, and are reluctant to speak about them – fearing being misunderstood, judged, or worse, just dismissed by others. As a result, the anxious thoughts get worse, and spiral in on themselves, on and on.

The physical elements of anxiety include many reactions and patterns. Frequently, these include: difficulty breathing, chest pressure, rapid heart beating, numbness or tingling in fingers, toes, arms or legs, urges to urinate or defecate or intestinal distress (including or leading to IBS – Irritable Bowel Syndrome), and heavy sweating. There are other variations, these listed are the most common.

Emotional aspects include not only feelings of fear and worry. But also, feelings of shame, of feeling weak and small. We begin to feel isolated from others, afraid of being judged and found to be inadequate by those who matter most to us. This often leads to a great deal of reluctance to tell others about the experiences connected to anxiety. This easily leads to isolating more, which leads us to feel alone and that we are the only ones who have these problems. Given these swirling and compounding effects – and energy draining - it’s easy to understand how anxiety often leads to depression.

Fortunately, anxiety is one of the easiest problems to treat. The relief that comes with being able to speak freely to someone who understands and accepts your experiences is a huge relief. We are not alone! Then it becomes easier, through talking about it, to find just what contributing factors have been  making us anxious. Often these factors include: our family history (which contributes biologically and via learned behavior and reaction patterns), physical issues, history of abuse (which may mean PTSD, very much associated with anxiety), other pressures and personal issues, and more. Our being able to discuss, separate and work on these matters also helps alleviate the pressure and confusion that comes with anxiety.

I don’t mean it’s easy to work on and alleviate anxiety, I do mean that it’s very doable. Even though it’s complicated, step by step it evolves and usually is successful. Medication isn’t always necessary; anxious folks often don’t want to turn to medication and it helps to know it may not be needed. Even if it is and it’s not the main focus of treatment, it is helpful to feel that one can work on the issues and feel successful.

Finally, I have found that people who are anxious types are also quite gifted, in different ways. It helps a lot to see that part of yourself too!

MENTAL HEALTH IN THE 2020's

It’s great that mental health needs have become so much more acceptable! Now, to say that you have a mental health issue, or are in therapy, or anything related to mental health needs, is actually ok, whew! Wow, actually, this is huge! Mental health was not socially acceptable for many years, it’s now becoming a lot more acceptable, to a degree…

Many people are still, understandably, reluctant to seek help, talk about their emotional state, or needs, or concerns, no matter how large or small, no matter how immediate or long range. It’s still hard.

One of the big deal items is diagnosis. This is complicated. Many people are a lot more comfortable saying they have anxiety, or depression, or bipolar disorder, to name a few. I think this is great. A diagnosis can be very comforting, knowing there is a name, or category for what is troubling you.

However, at the same time, it can be said that diagnoses are not so clear cut. And it can also be said that a diagnosis can be helpful but isn’t the whole story.  A diagnosis is a description, rather than a scientifically based category. Did you know that the rate of agreement about a given individual’s diagnosis among mental health professionals is very low? It’s below 50% in many studies. Think about that for a moment. It’s all about perspective.

It may help to consider the history of mental health diagnoses. Diagnoses got started in an effort to communicate among professionals, and it was referred to commonly as a “diagnostic impression”, meaning an initial assessment, to be reassessed as needed, and as more information became available.

Then diagnoses became the way for mental health professionals to be recognized and accepted alongside the medical community. This was important for financial and professional regard. Mental health practices were seen as unconventional at best, “crazy” at worst. As our insurance economy grew, so did the need for acceptance along these lines. Being able to bill and be paid via insurance was seen as necessary for the financial needs and personal confidence of these early professionals.

These diagnoses were never the same as medical diagnoses. Yes, medical diagnoses can certainly be changed, as new information arrives, in any individual case. But it’s important to recognize that mental health diagnoses are descriptions – of behaviors and experiences, not of results of bloodwork or other physical assessments. There is definitely overlap, as medical diagnoses often take into account a patients’ description of their physical complaints. 

To me, it’s helpful to see us as continually evolving, whether it’s personal evolution, societal, medical or psychological. Evolution can be confusing. It is very complex, and we are complex beings. That can be comforting or anxiety provoking, depending on your point of view or emotional state. In my experience, personal and professional, I think we tend to think in binary, all-or-nothing ways, when we are stressed. It helps to take a deep breath and ask, “What else could be going on?” This can help each of us shift away from binary reactions, beliefs and fears.

The main important aspect of our current state of evolution, when it comes to mental health, I think is that feelings are being accepted as important, even vital. They are less often dismissed, diminished in importance, significance, or relevance. This is huge! We now refer to Emotional Intelligence as a real thing, this is serious progress, let’s keep it going!

EDUCATIONAL CHILD CARE – TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS!

We are all aware of several important issues facing us as a society. One major issue is the lack of affordable, close by, available, high quality child care. Parents work different hours, shifts, etc and need consistent, competent, trustworthy care for their children, of all ages.

We are a multi-cultural society and we can respect and learn from each other; we are alike in many ways and there are some significant differences too. Respect for the similarities and differences is vital. Let’s plan to respectfully give each other more info about how we operate, what we expect and more.

Another issue is unplanned pregnancies. It would be ideal if more young people were more aware of just how difficult it is to raise children. For years I have semi-seriously joked that if more people really knew just how hard it is, we would have become extinct a LONG time ago!

It would be so great if more young people took their time and planned more for having families. Young families would be more stable, and finances would be more dependable. It’s SO hard for young families who don’t have the income to support themselves adequately. Extended families are often a big help, no doubt about that at all! However, when the young families themselves have the capacity to handle all that they have to handle, extended families definitely can still help – but the stress is less.

When stress is less, people take better care of themselves and their young ones, physically and emotionally. Generally, health improves. Some physical and emotional problems are prevented or lessened with good care and attention – and less stress!

It might not be so hard to teach kids the basics about child care and early child development; they may already be learning a lot caring for younger siblings and/or babysitting. It would be a big help to fill in the gaps in what they are learning these ways.

Well, I have the beginning of an idea to address these issues; the details will be in the next Journey edition. I just wanted to put some thoughts out there and ask for your input. This is a huge project and will need a lot of valuable thought and discussion. Brainstorming will be the first stage.

Hear me out, this isn’t an easy fix. It will take a lot of planning, cooperation and conversation. The practical plan could take different forms, and it definitely won’t happen overnight.   I would really like to hear thoughts, opinions and reactions from child care workers, educators, parents and others who want to weigh in.

GENDER ROLES IN MEDICINE AND SOCIETY

I had a really bad sinus infection and reluctantly saw the need to seek medical care. I went to an urgent care facility, feeling pretty out of it. I was very aware that I had a minor medical problem, in the overall scheme of things. My ears were clogged up and my hearing was quite impaired. What I realized later was that not being able to hear well made me rely more on my sight and feeling for the situation, as I looked for ways to understand what was going on. Any time any of us has an impairment in one of our senses, or a part of the body, we gain great understanding of how significant that part of our body really is and how we tend to take all of these gifts for granted.

One of the things that became clearer from my experience was about the male and female roles that are very common in our current medical system, and in our society as a whole. What I noticed was that females were primarily office staff and nursing staff, while the physician was male. This is certainly not unusual, even though there are more male nurses now and more female physicians than in times past. I could see very clearly that the female staff were holding back, guarded, not very expressive, uncertain, with poor self-esteem. If they were encouraged more, supported more, were given different role models, they would be inclined to be more friendly, warmer, more supportive and more compassionate.

Women (and men) in health care and other fields have been trained in a system that values objectivity, a "clinical" attitude that is very emotionally detached. This has been a completely male-dominated system, with a long history of male authority. Physicians have been trained to turn off their emotions, to distance themselves from their patients, to treat the body primarily as if it was a machine, in order to be technically astute.

The traditional medical system is based on science of the past, the Newtonian model, seeing the body as a highly complex machine. A tremendous amount of scientific exploration has garnered amazing results, incredible information, treatments, surgical options, and medications. However, it has overlooked a great deal that is valuable in the realms of human contact and interaction, holistic treatment options and ancient wisdom. All of these tendencies have created a huge imbalance and many limitations in the male-female roles, which reflect the same issues int he larger society, but for the sake of this discussion mainly in the medical fields. 

As women continue to recover their power in our society and in the medical arts, and as men rediscover their emotional lives and continue their growth in participating more fully in all relationships, this imbalance will be shifted in a very positive direction. Let's keep an eye on these important shifts and contribute to growth and positive change whenever we can!

BECOMING LESS SELF-CRITICAL

I was scheduled to take a flight and set my alarm for 5:00 AM. Well, I woke up and saw with a start that it was almost 7:00 AM! For about 15 minutes I scurried around, throwing tings into their cases, thinking I could tolerate not having makeup on or hair in place if it would get me where I was going. Finally I realized that there was no way I was going to make it on time to get this plane. Wow, what a disappointment!

I called and found there was another flight I could get in a couple of hours, but it would cost me over $400 more. Reluctantly, I booked it. I began to be very critical of myself; it was something I had never experienced before. I used to be incredibly punctual, highly scheduled, and super critical of anyone who wan't the same way. A very good friend recently observed that TIME was my "weapon", that I used against myself. he gently and kindly told me that when I spoke of "not have enough time" that I practically hissed as I spoke, and that there was an intensity that often wasn't really called for in the situation I was speaking about.

That was a helpful, central observation that helped me make major changes in my expectations of what is reasonable, what is healthy, what is actually good for me, when I make my assessments of how I will use my valuable time. I became alot kinder to myself in many ways, which are outgrowths of changing my perception of time, actually putting it aside and not keeping in in my armaments.

Because of these changes, I was able to shift into looking at the positive features of the situation: I could take a shower, have coffee, breakfast, and be comfortable about getting to the airport. I would still get to my destination, with no serious problems. I had had the sleep I needed. Spending an unplanned $400 was a bite, but in the grand scheme of things, not the end of the world. Thinking of finances spread over many years, it is a blip on the radar, a painful blip, but just a blip all the same.

I was so pleased to find that I was able to be non-critical of myself, very accepting; I have an attitude about learning from my experiences how that is different from the way I was in the past. I also see the way I was before as simply a stepping stone along my path, a way that was useful and that led me to where I am now and where I will be in times to come.

If you are interested in this topic, check out a book: "Compassion and Self Hate" by Theodore Rubin, MD. I have recommended it to many of my clients. Those who have read it have found it to be very helpful and we have used the concepts in our work together. Dr. Rubin is a psychiatrist who describes his own struggles with being overweight and depressed, which was extremely revealing when he was published in the 1970's! Self Hate is a vivid way of describing self-criticism, which is rampant in our society; Dr. Rubin actually says it is "universal". It's incredibly helpful to know just how many of us are struggling with inner conflict and really awful feelings - you are not alone!

WE ARE ALL A LITTLE NUTS...

I bet you know just how this feels! This is what happens to all of us sometimes, we just want it to happen less.

When we don't take good care of ourselves and either just run out of steam or run into unexpected stresses, we hit the wall and end up feeling pretty much that we've come apart. This is just temporary and most of us have learned, oh crap I've done it again, I just didn't think it through, didn't take into account all the stuff I was trying to do, how much time and energy it really would take.

The major key element is thinking and feeling, deeply, that "I deserve- I need - I want" meaning that it is really seriously ok to relax, have some time to yourself, time to hang out with friends and family, TIME FOR YOU! When we feel we are stealing time, sneaking it, it feels like an addiction. We have an awareness running in the back of the mind, thoughts about other things that need to be done, and alot of guilt accompanying the whole song, thumping quietly, preventing real enjoyment.

One way to work on this personal issue is to craft some realistic statements that express the truth of your options. Something like: "I can relax today, I trust that with the rest I get today I'll be more in the mood to get stuff done tomorrow. I've done it this way before and it's worked out, so it should be fine". These are my words, a way that works for me; it needs to be your own words, your own truth. Just keep working on it, you'll get it and you'll love it!

Please tell me what has worked for you, I love finding new ways to share with others that really help - we can work together!