With the ruling of the Supreme Court on marriage equality this week and the discussions about racism following the horrific shootings in South Carolina, I find myself contemplating change on an entirely different level.  While we all go through our own personal evolutions, society changes, too.  As we saw in the exuberant tears of same sex couples whose marriages are now fully recognized, for them this change was long overdue.  For others, this change comes too fast, or is not a welcomed decision at all.  And for some the Confederate flag is a hateful symbol of racism and for other’s it represents a fundamental right of free speech. But as I watch the contrasting responses and the reactions of people on all sides of these issues, it has me thinking about the process of societal change and how we can move through it as a nation of individuals in a way that will unite us rather than further divide us.

In listening to the news and reading the paper this week, I notice that when it comes to concepts of freedom, equality, and tolerance, people can define the words in a similar manner, but end up on completely opposite sides.  It makes me wonder how this can happen.  How can one person’s true freedom be experienced as being at the expense of another person’s liberty?   How can someone demand tolerance in the name of something so offensively intolerant to others? Especially with the racist hateful murders in Charleston so fresh in our minds, I must admit, I was uneasy watching a black man on the news speaking out against giving all people the opportunity to choose who they can marry.   It was not so long ago that he was denied this very right and as a nation we are still embattled in an unending fight for racial justice.  Yet, he expressed his opinions with the passion of a person deeply entrenched in a moral crisis.  Who am I to think I can know his experience or judge his religious beliefs?  There seems no way to compromise on what feels to be our fundamental truths.

But absolutism of any kind makes me think about fear.  Whenever there is resistance to change, there is usually both a sense of loss for how things have been and a fear for how things will be.  I think younger people lead the way for change because they have less investment with the way things have been.  I also think that as a young person, changes are happening so fast within you, it’s more natural for it to happen around you.  As we age, we have more experience to think we know what the consequences of a particular change will be.  And although we do have more years of experience, sometimes this merely binds us more tightly to believing things must be as they are. Change represents a threat to a way of life that is known.  For younger people, I have noticed, the consequences of change are perceived more as possibility than defeat.

It seems inherent that if a group of people achieves a “victory,” another group will feel they have “lost.”  This polarization is a powerful force of division.  Change is frightening and losing our tradition is unsettling.  It feels like a direct challenge to our identity.  It makes us want to dig in and hold on.  But we must ask ourselves at what cost?  I can truly sympathize with the pain of fear, but can we also open ourselves up to the joy of connection when others feel understood and empowered?  Watching my gay friends embrace with the relief of feeling accepted deeply moved me.  Hearing a man express his deep gratitude for the mere consideration of the removal of the Confederate flag was profound.  It gives me such hope to see how compassion and understanding can bridge our divide and lead us toward a more equitable and loving society.

Like many others, I am so inspired by the families of the victims in Charleston.  They had the courage to open their hearts and be vulnerable, resisting the urge for retaliation and vengeance.  They serve as a great example of how we can in fact heal our divisions and move through change with grace and a commitment to respond with our most loving selves.  I can’t possibly know what it feels like to robbed of someone you love out of such cruel dehumanization. I can only imagine the strength of spirit it must take to speak of forgiveness and rise above the hatefulness.  The inspiration they offer us is truly remarkable and serves as a path to healing we can aspire to follow in this time of uncertainty and change.

Three weeks ago at the end of my blog post “The Surprising Best Predictor In Helping People Change,” I wrote about my intent to do an experiment for a few weeks.  Based on research from a conference I had attended, indicating the best predictor of change was to work with a helper who showed empathy and understanding, I set out to listen more closely to my inner dialog and see what would happen if I were more compassionate than critical with my inner voice.  It’s been a successful experience and led to some insightful results.

The first thing I noticed was how much chatter was in my head!  As I set out to listen in, I was surprised with how noisy I am.  Between purposeful thought about planning what needed to be done or about things I was working on, there was a stream of free flowing evaluative thinking.  I was like a sports color commentator offering opinions on myself after most every encounter.  The next thing I noticed was how self focused I was.  My thoughts were frequently questions like if I was a good enough listener, or if my suggestions were smart enough, or if I looked foolish.  I was genuinely surprised at how much I thought about me.  And while I’m a person who highly values self reflection, I noticed how, as I suspected, the self reflection was more self criticism than encouragement.  I started to worry if I was some kind of a “Debbie downer” compared to most people.  Was I just a self indulging masochist?  It was comforting to reacquaint myself with the psychological literature and find that, while negative self thinking is associated with depression, it’s also common, especially for sensitive, caring and perfectionistic types.

The next step of my experiment was then to replace my negative “self talk,” as it’s called, with a more empathic and understanding inner voice.  This was harder than I anticipated.  Perhaps completely replacing negative thoughts would come in time, but the first step was then just responding to my negative self talk.  But even in just doing this, I was surprised by what was required.  Criticizing was quick and easy.  Understanding myself with an empathic attitude took effort.  Switching from “you are being lazy” to “wow, you worked a long day, grocery shopped, did an errand for your mother, responded to 20 e-mails, cooked dinner, and helped your daughter paint her room – you’re tired and also sad and scared about your friend’s health – no wonder you don’t feel like going to the gym.  What else could you do instead?  What do you feel up to?  Perhaps taking a brisk walk to look at the sunset might be more reasonable and uplifting” required a lot more of me.  It definitely required more time for me to think through how exactly I felt and what I needed so that I could have compassion for myself.  I started thinking of these moments as “mini therapy” sessions, and at times, because of the effort it took, I actually found I didn’t want to do it.

But because I had committed to trying, I followed through.  And you know what?  It actually was helpful.  I did find myself feeling a little lighter, not carrying around so many self judgments and appreciating myself a bit more.  And I became quicker at separating my judgment from what I could see was a more accurate assessment given a fuller picture of my situation.  But my most surprising finding was how it helped me be more creative at problem solving and gave me more motivation.  I found compromises that I could actually achieve.  Rather than a yes/no about something, I came up with creative solutions.  For example if I didn’t feel up to writing a whole letter, rather than avoiding it, I made a list of the points I needed to cover and at least got started.  Or one time after arguing with my daughter, instead of withdrawing and blaming myself for being impatient, I realized I was reacting to feeling misunderstood by several people that day.  I went back to her and shared my feelings, ending in a hug I really needed.  In general, by being empathic rather than judgmental, I felt better about myself and had less inner power struggles of trying to force myself to do something and then feeling badly about myself when I “failed.”  And by the end of the three weeks after having some success, I noticed less resistance to engaging in the “mini therapy” when I needed it.

So I’m going to keep going.  My intention is turn my experiment into more of a lifestyle.  It was a great lesson for me and I do in fact think it helped my mood and motivation.  Not only will I be practicing what I preach to others, but I may be inoculating myself against depression.  If nothing else, I know it feels better and fits in better with the type of person I’d like to be.  As long as I have the self talk going on in my head, I might as well have it be the voice of my friend rather than my own worst enemy!

You are stronger than you think you are, and more resilient, too.  It’s just literally hard to remember it when your brain is overwhelmed by potential danger and frozen with worry.  But one simple question can help:  “What are the things that helped you in the past?”

Research has shown that our brain functioning is threat oriented.  We scan our environment for perceived danger and when we detect a threat, our limbic system, or our primal brain as it is often called, is activated.  This leads to an automatic response known as “fight or flight.”  We either do our best to escape or we lash out to defend ourselves.  Both responses produce quick reactions, which are great for protecting us from being eaten by a predator or overtaken by an enemy.  Unfortunately it’s not such a great response style for dealing with such threats as the taxes we’re afraid we can’t pay or the speech we have to give in front of a crowd.  Rather than being quick incidents, these modern day threats live long lives.  And as we replay the potential consequences of failure over and over in our minds, the threat becomes constant, as well. Fight/flight reflexes do little to help us cope with these long term constant threats, and in fact, activate body chemicals that work against us.  During our flight/flight responding, hormones are released by our limbic system meant to help us focus on the immediate danger.  In order to do so, they actually block our ability to access the part of our brain, the frontal lobe, which helps us with long term remembering,  planning and problem solving.

It’s common for people struggling with a big stressor to become bewildered when I ask how they coped with things in the past.  In fact, at first they can’t seem to recall any successes in their lives ever at all.  But then, as they continue reflecting, a smile spontaneously appears, as if they have been reacquainted with a long lost friend.  Suddenly they are pulled out of the doom and gloom of the moment and are reminded of not only the tools they used in the past, but of the comforting fact that they have already survived many moments of crisis in their lives that now seem manageable.

Remembering past success can give us the time out from our worry that we need to gain a more useful perspective. So when you or someone you care about needs help, sometimes the best thing you can do is help them remember their own strength.  By reviewing just what did help in the past, we are not only helping them form a plan for the present, but helping them reclaim the confidence in themselves they have literally been disconnected from.  Sometimes a little question can be the biggest answer.

I was writing in my journal the other day about the mixed emotions I feel as my daughter becomes a Senior in high school.  I am both so proud of her and yet, along with it, I feel a nostalgic emptiness.  I realized that I was beginning a mourning process for the eventual day, now just a year away, when she would be leaving for college.  As I read back through my words, it wasn’t until the second time through that I noticed a misspelling.  Instead of “letting go,” I had written “letting grow.”  It made me smile to acknowledge just what my inner Wise Mind was telling me.

There are so many types of letting go that we must do.  Sometimes we make the choice to let go of things as we move on to something new.  We choose a new path and, although it still may be difficult, we have the strength and the motivation to open ourselves up to a new challenge.  Letting go helps us stretch ourselves in the direction of our goal.  We create space in our lives to meet new people or learn new skills, or just have some time and opportunity to get to know ourselves better.

At other times in our lives, circumstances make it necessary to part with someone or something before we want to.  We are suddenly faced with a loss we feel unprepared for.  We must go through a long grieving process and come to terms with just how our world has changed.  Our lives can feel disorganized as we try to hold on to what we had. In fact, the letting go may not follow until a long time after the actual loss.  But usually when are ready to make the choice to let go, growth happens to fill the void.

As in the case of my daughter, I know that her transition to college will be a huge loss for me, but it is an important one for her growth.  She’ll be challenged and stimulated by a new life and more complete independence.  It will also be a period of growth for me as I have more time for myself and my husband, and more space in my life to take care of my own needs and interests.  I certainly will miss our times watching romantic comedies or the closeness I feel with her when I help her with an English assignment or we cook together.  But I have to trust it is time for our relationship to develop into something new.  Trying to hold on to how things have been will only get in the way of the opportunity to enjoy the change and be open to the positives that may come with it.  And if I’m smart, I will listen to my inner wisdom.  When I let go, I also let grow.

I recently attended an intense three day conference focusing on what helps people change.  The audience was made up of many talented social workers, psychologists, and doctors of all disciplines.  Everyone in the room was eager to hear the results of the most up to date research on the tools and methods of evidenced based health counseling.  Our laptops were open and pencils ready to take note of just what we could do to achieve the best outcomes. 

To many in the room, the biggest predictor of client change was quite surprising, however.  It did not involve a particular technique, pill, or even educational words of wisdom to give to our patients.  In fact, it was quite the contrary.  Rather than anything a health care worker could do or say, it was how they could make a patient feel. If a client felt that a helper truly listened and understood their situation and concerns, change was more likely.  Empathy, on the part of the helper, was the most effective tool.  Once a person felt accepted by a helper, their resistance to making changes would diminish, and they could achieve success by tapping into their own motivations and knowledge of their situation.

On the ride home from the conference, I started thinking about us – all the people with good intentions who are trying to make changes and keep tripping up.  I started thinking about my own internal voice that I speak with when I try to coach myself through a day of a thousand choices.  Is it empathic?  I would not say so.  Does it convey empathy and understanding?  Not usually.  In fact, my voice is often quite judgmental, punitive, and negative.  And I would guess, from experience in talking to others, this is true of how many people talk to themselves.  “My gosh you’re lazy, get up and move your body,” “You should have gotten that done,” or “Why do you even bother to eat healthy now, you know you’re just going to blow it later.”  Sound familiar?

So I am going to do an experiment.  For the next few weeks, I’m going to try to talk to myself with empathy and understanding.  My hope is to reduce my own resistance and to stop acting like the rebellious teenager acting out against my inner critical voice.  I know from experience that empathy works with my clients, and research now shows its effectiveness with most people.  So why not use it for myself?  If this sounds hard to do, or like something from the twilight zone, perhaps the first step is just to listen to yourself.  What does the voice inside say to you?  How do you respond?  And, as some might say, is it “working for you”?  We might just find that, like most people, we prefer kindness to shame and feeling understood to being judged, even from ourselves.

Ever hear that you have to be “all in” and “give 110%” if you’re going to be successful?  Although it would be great to have that level of commitment, for most of us normal human beings, “all in” is a fleeting experience.  More likely we have conflicting thoughts and feelings.  And in fact, I have found that rather than getting down on ourselves for these feelings,  acknowledging our ambivalence helps us better cope with it and reduces the risk that mixed emotions undermine our efforts.

Despite truly wanting to reach a goal, most of us hear frequent voices of temptation or regularly wrestle with doubt.  We want to lose weight, but we really want the cookie.  We want the relationship to succeed, but we are really angry with our partner.   By thinking in dichotomous absolutes, such as needing to being “all in” or “giving 110%,” we create either/or situations for ourselves.  If I want the cookie, I can’t be successful at dieting.  If I am angry with my partner, he is not a good man.  Trying to live in absolutes, we back ourselves into a corner and act in ways that are also absolute or create unnecessary disappointment in ourselves.

In making peace with our ambivalence, we open up space for holding conflicting ideas.  We can have one feeling AND another, rather than either/or.  By making room at our table for all types of feelings, we can sort through them and find a way to behave that best represents our long term true desires.  I want to lose weight, but I am hungry and that cookie looks good.  Wanting the cookie does not mean I am not doing a good job at dieting and does not mean I must eat it, either.   I’m less likely to give up completely if I have choices.  Being angry with my partner does not mean he is an awful person or that I must change him or leave the relationship.  By being able to stay in touch with my love as well as my anger, I have the best chance of working through our problem and staying connected in the process.

Learning to tolerate contradictions can help us act less impulsively and expand our understanding of the totality of our situation.  Much of the work I do with people in psychotherapy is helping them expand their capacity to experience conflicting emotions, because life and relationships are complicated.  Being “all in” feels good in the moment, but accepting our ambivalence gives us the flexibility to “stay in” for the long run.

This is the time of year when young people amaze me the most with their end of school year performances, competitions, and final exams.  In watching them, it reminds me how often they have to publically “put themselves out there” to be judged and evaluated, critiqued by teachers, coaches, and all of their peers.  They get chosen or rejected for roles, having to sing solos or dance in front of a crowd.  They get praised or yelled at in gearing up for a big game.  And they prepare for challenging exams where they will be graded in comparison to the scores of all their friends and classmates.  All in one day!

As adults we tend to lose touch with this risk taking way of life, especially when it involves being evaluated in areas we know are not our strengths.  We become experts in our fields and comfortable with being the ones in charge, either in our parenting or professional lives.  We hide out in well established routines that protect us from failure or embarrassment.  Some of us even live through our children, pushing them to do better, while we sit safely on the sidelines.  I remember one particular parent at a swim meet yelling at his son while he was racing in the toughest stroke, the butterfly.  The father was literally standing over the pool, potato chip bag in hand, shouting for his son to “pick up the tempo.”  (Extreme, yes, but we all do it to some degree.  Exhibit A:  Me sitting on my couch eating while I yell at my New York Giants to work harder to score a touchdown.)

By staying in our comfort zones, we rob ourselves of the ability to grow.  Besides becoming psychologically rigid, we may actually be putting ourselves at risk when we avoid being evaluated when we need to.  We might not measure our blood sugar and learn about diabetes or not share with someone that we are depressed.  Having a beginner’s mindset with a willingness to receive feedback is an important attitude for successful change.  Fortunately, like many habits, these skills can be developed.  The more often we do it, the easier it gets.  By committing to take a risk, we face our vulnerability and give ourselves the chance to feel the satisfaction in working to achieve a goal or become just a little bit better than we thought we could be.

So, I challenge us all to stretch ourselves a bit.  Enter a contest or race, sign up for the next level of a class you normally take, or start up something completely new.  Yes, your heart will race and you’ll have butterflies in your stomach, but you’ll also feel pride, be stimulated, and become more emotionally flexible.  You might even enjoy being freed up from expectations.  Like our kids, we may just learn to be brave again!

When I was in graduate school studying child development I learned about the term “good enough mothering.”  It was coined by Donald Winnicot, a British pediatrician, in reaction to the Freudian tone of mother blaming.  Winnicott observed that as long as a child was taken care of with basic love, responsiveness, and safety, most kids develop just fine.  Even though I didn’t have any children at that time, it relieved my fears about future parenting by thinking all I had to be was “good enough.”

Now that I’ve been a mother for almost 17 years, I still remember that phrase well, but with a quite a different perspective.  I realize being “good enough” is actually really hard!  Mothering is a challenging role, and just when I think I have found a groove in how to be with my kids, they change.  And I change.  It is a constant challenge to know when to step in and when to let go, when to follow advice and when to trust my instincts.  I want my children to grow up self-reliant, but I want them to feel supported.  I need to trust their choices, but I want to protect them from dangerous consequences.  The world has become so complex, the challenges of society so intense, good enough mothering often doesn’t feel good enough.  Surely Winnicott never had to deal with Instagram!

But one of the biggest lessons I’m learning as I parent is the importance of “good enough” in giving myself and my kids some space.  Good enough is a way of knowing when it’s time to let go.  Good enough gives me permission to take care of myself.  And good enough is asking myself to honestly answer the question, is this about my daughter, or is this actually about me?  Our children, especially our daughters, can be triggers of a mother’s fears, regrets, and unfulfilled desires.  Recognizing what is my issue and what is the issue at hand helps me think clearly and respond with less reactivity.  It also helps me focus on myself rather than try to control someone else.

I can’t say I am good enough at being good enough, but it helps me to try.  So many of the families I have seen for therapy have so much to deal with, trauma and poverty with long histories of abuse and neglect.  It takes time and hard work to untangle all the needs and fears.  But they have taught me that listening and understanding go a long way in building trust between people who are willing.  Good enough does not mean giving up on our children or not being accountable for our actions. But it does mean doing what we can with compassion and respect for both our children and ourselves.

Happy Mother’s Day to All the Good Enough and Even Better Mothers!

Although I’ll be posting my regular blog on Monday, I wanted to honor my Mother with this Mother’s Day post. 

You are never too old to learn from your Mother. Watching my Mom face change has taught me about humility, humanity, and what it is to have things happen to you completely beyond your control.

A few years after my Dad’s passing, my Mother was diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a progressive degenerative neurologic disease.  For the last five years she has slowly endured the loss of her physical coordination and strength in a slow and yet unpredictable decline.  She is an independent woman who built her life around being active, traveling, and being in charge.  Her mind still very much wants to do all of these things, but her body is no longer able.  She can no longer eat the foods she wants to eat or live in the split level home she built and cherished for 40 years.   She can’t participate in her aerobics classes or prepare a holiday meal.

My Mother has had to adjust to needing assistance for everything she does.  It is so painful for her to be dependent on others for the simplest of things, having to rely on someone to anticipate her needs or, even more difficult for her, having to ask for their help with a voice that is losing the strength to be heard.  I know she would prefer not to have to, but my Mother is learning to adjust to her situation, swallowing her pride and giving up control in order to live safely.  She has had to let go of the plan she had of being the “woman at the gym in her eighties,” and now just hopes to be a woman who lives to be eighty.  It has not been easy and not without a lot of frustration.  And for me, I wish I could say I’ve been as gracious as I’d like to be or as patient.  It hurts me to see her struggling and to watch helplessly as she faces increasing challenges in taking care of her basic needs and feels like she is losing the woman she used to be.

But I applaud her for getting up each morning with the will to live another day and I am grateful for her ability to laugh at the circumstances I know might also make her cry.  She is brave and she is determined.  She’s a fighter and she is holding on to as much of herself as she can (leopard print wheelchair bag!).  The silver lining of this otherwise cruel disease is being able to offer her a place she can live more comfortably and the reassurance to know she is not alone.  I am also getting to see another side of my mom, one who is vulnerable and lets me comb her hair.  Another gift is being connected to a world of quiet caregivers, children taking care of parents, husbands taking care of wives, and being inspired by their dedication, authenticity, and selflessness.

I know, Mom, that I need to be more compassionate at times and that I need to stop thinking I know what you need.  Please know that I am grateful for the opportunity this new chapter affords for us to be closer.  We are learning to accept each other and grow in the process.  Taking care of you is surely a way I can say thank you for taking care of me, and a way I can step up to be a better person, a daughter that you can still be proud of.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.  No matter the circumstances, you’ll always be my Mother, and you’re never too old to need your Mom.

Talk about change!  I’m writing this blog post in support of Bruce Jenner and of a society I’m hoping has changed enough for a woman like her to live safely in it.

As a girl I cheered for Bruce Jenner as the World’s Greatest Athlete.  She was the epitome of what was deemed masculine, being both a superstar athlete and good looking.  But since then I hadn’t thought much about Bruce Jenner until a few years back when she appeared as part of the Kardashian (I never thought I would use that name in my blog) drama.  While I can’t say I was a fan (ok, in fairness, I never watched the show) I would see snippets of Bruce Jenner in tabloids looking rather sad and lost.   She looked more like a defeated ghost of a man than a champion.

So when I heard a promotion for the interview with Diane Sawyer, I watched it, in part selfishly wishing to reclaim my respect for Bruce.  Although I worried it would be just more tabloid drama, I was slowly pulled in by a watching a human being so completely genuine and authentic.  I thought about her bravery in opening up to her family and the public, and the genuine risk she was taking for a backlash of emotional and even physical violence.   It was a relief to see her family support and how relaxed and finally at ease she seemed.  I was really moved by her long and painful journey in claiming her identity and, more importantly than earning my respect, finally achieving self-respect.  Diane Sawyer asked her about the impending change of beginning to dress and live as a woman, and Bruce tells her, so assuredly, how it is only a change for others.  For her, she is finally being who she has always been.

While her transparency is important to me in learning how to support the transgender community, I can’t help thinking how we can all relate and be inspired.  Every one of us has twisted ourselves in some way to conform and be accepted.  We hide our true self with a false self that protects us from rejection.  It takes many of us a long time to shed our shells and expose the tender skin we live in.  There are so many people seeking the safety of therapy rooms, on-line connections, and support groups to secretly try on their real identity.  So I write this in support of Bruce Jenner, and all who claim their right to live peacefully as who they are.  Being rejected for our true self is crushing to our esteem, but hiding ourselves from ourselves is soul crushing.  Let’s celebrate not only Bruce Jenner, but the change that creates a world more welcoming for Bruce and all of us just like her, hoping to live as who we are without fear.