"What is right with you?" Pt. 19: Working with anxiety through changes.

There are a few keys to working with anxiety when going through it.  One, is to try hard to not become identified with it.  Just because you feel anxious, it does not come close to defining who  you are.  This takes some work to be able to learn to watch the anxiety, as Eckhart Tolle might say.  Two, realize that the anxiety is more of a doorway into something deeper and more important within you.  In other words, anxiety may be experienced along the way, but it is not the destination.  Your ability to tolerate more anxiety as you watch yourself go through it, rather than being too flooded by it, is an important part of change and inner transformation.  This is not always easy to do and can require someone to help us through these steps, but it can be done...  MY WEBSITE

"What is right with you?" Pt. 18: Anxiety and Change

Anxiety, like Depression is something we usually treat like something we want to get rid of.  We like to distract ourselves from it, medicate it away, form addictions to escape it, and so on.  It is usually unwanted in our 21st century minds.  However, it is far more uncommon to ask "why am I anxious?" or "what could my anxiety be telling me?"  Being open to change and trying out a new direction, or a "healthy" behavior, or taking more risks to grow, will usually bring anxiety.  This kind of anxiety is to be expected.  Change is unfamiliar, less predictable, and even at times, somewhat disorienting.  We may need someone to reassure us we are on the right track, but this kind of anxiety is often a sign that healthy things are happening.  Other kinds of anxiety may be telling us important things too, but more on that later...MY WEBSITE

"What is right with you?" Part 14: Broken Brains or Broken Hearts?

This question, the title of an Orange County psychologist, Ty Colbert's book, asks us, along with a long line of concerned mental health professionals, whether concepts like mental illness, chemical imbalance, and, whether medications are really the "cure" for our emotional difficulties.  What do our symptoms tell us?  Are anxiety, depression, loss of reality contact (psychosis), going paralyzed emotionally signs that are brain is sick or diseased?  Or are they random?  Or, alternatively, are they a signal that helps us realize that something is amiss, or needs our deepest care, etc.  In other words, are are symptoms an ominous sign, or a guidepost and beginning of the healing process?  One consideration of this latter process is the comparison of these symptoms to a fever.  When we fall ill, the fever is an uncomfortable symptom, but is also the beginning of the healing process.  It signals that the body needs to move to a whole new level of care to bring along the healing process.  More later... My Website

"What is right with you?" Pt. 10: Getting Started

Taking the first steps can be so difficult.  It can mean letting go of something.  Even if you are hurting, afraid, or very down, there can be a comfort in not doing something about it.  For instance, if you are to make a call to a therapist (say me), there is further risk.  What if you do not get the help you think you are seeking?  What will I think of you?  I mean, psychologists learn all kinds of theories.  Will he just fit what I am saying into his theory?  Will I really be heard?  Will he "get me?"  While this could happen, it can miss a very important point.  You know more about you and what is like to be you than anyone.  A friend, a pastor, or helping professional must start there...with you you are.  You are the starting point, not your friend, therapist, or pastor...at least when the focus on who is being helped is yourself.   There is the difficulty of reaching out and not knowing what will happen, but you need to listen to yourself and your experience of how you feel treated and responded to.  That is important too.  You may not trust yourself completely to do this, but you must have a least a bit to try...My Website

"What is right with you?" Part 17: Being open

Being open to experience, to life, and to relationships sounds so good doesn't it?  And who in their mind categorically says no to that?  However, there is a part of our mind that does just that.  Whether in every day life or in therapy, while we consciously want to grow and experience more, a part of does not.  This part, which we call our defense mechanisms, wants to protect us from harm.  Depending upon our personal sensitivities and varying life experiences, we may go to great lengths to shut down our very efforts to grow, to experience freedom, and to more freely relate with others.  So it turns out that we are far more conflicted than we think we are.  In therapy and other forms of growth producing experiences we need to learn about this defensive part of ourselves so we can see how that part of our mind operates and see more clearly that we have a choice.  I want to highlight one thing further about this.  This means that this "defensive" and at times, somewhat sabotaging part of ourselves is not who we are, but merely protective armor.  The essence of who we are tends to be shielded by our defenses, and in growth, we learn not only about our defenses, but how to have more flexible defenses in order to venture further in our life experience...NEXT TIME:  More on the anxiety that challenging our defenses to risk more produces...MY WEBSITE

"What is right with you?" Part 16: If so much is "right with me" why would therapy be helpful?

Many people turn to therapy because they have good intentions and goals, but are unclear on how to reach them, or may find that key keep sabotaging their efforts to reach them.  Often these ways of sabotaging are frustrating and limiting in one way, but they are also there to protect us from something.  A therapy relationship gives a person the opportunity to explore and learn about these "defenses" through the experience of the relationship.  Thus, therapy is a resource for learning in the process of a relationship.  This kind of learning cannot be found in a book, a class, or workshops.  Not that these are not excellent resources at times, but the living, careful, compassionate, intuitive, and feeling approach of mutual exploration helps us safely learn and change parts of ourselves that are not always accessible (we mean well, but we have blind spots).  The goal, which I will continue to say more about in my next entry, is to be more open to life where we have struggled to be so.  MY WEBSITE

"What is right with you?" Part 15: Another word about medications, chemical imbalances...Can medications just be written off that easily?

Are medications this easily written off (see prior post)?  Clearly not.  The prior post takes a harsh look at the lack of data supporting the ideal of "mental illness" or biological/chemical imbalances as causes for emotional problems.  However, it needs to be made very clear that our stress, emotional struggles, and so on, can take its toll on the body and may result in our having symptoms which express these conditions. From this point of view, symptoms are natural indicators of things gone awry that need help.  Sometimes this means that our minds and bodies can go into overload and that medications may be needed to help us cope until we can. Also, some individuals do not always have the resources with their insurance (this is especially increasingly so in a society and a culture that does not value healing relationships in therapeutic settings and seems more inclined towards medical model solutions such as medications), nor do we all have the finances, or psychological resources to cope with the rigors of psychotherapy.  In summary, from my point of view, medications can help.  Our body can be thrown off balance by the stressors of life and need to be held in check until, and if we can find another way through these challenges.  Thus, in this respect "What is right with you?" includes the asset that our symptoms can be to us in helping us back to health. MY WEBSITE