What if I told you I had something that could change how you were thinking and reacting to things that was totally free, available any time, and useful in many difficult situations as a way of coping?  You’d probably want some, right?  Well, today I’d like to share with you a strategy for everyday living based on positive psychology research that helps to shift how we hold and process emotionally charged situations.  Cognitive Reappraisal is an intentional shift in perspective from what automatically comes to mind.  It involves changing how we think about a situation in order to change how we feel. Easy, right?  No, of course not, but with intention and focus, it can become a useful tool in the “coping with life” tool box that can reduce our overall level of distress and unburden us from unnecessary stress.

The success of cognitive appraisal reflects a basic fact of psychological life.  What and how we think about things can play a large role in shaping our emotional experience. For most people, especially people who tend to have some anxiety or depression or are prone to stress, our habitual way to interpret events is with a negative filter.  Evolution has actually trained our brain to do this in order to protect us from danger.  If we can see potential harm and anticipate it, we can do something to mitigate it. But this overestimation of negativity will lead us to feeling, well, negative.  Cognitive reappraisal is a fancy way of stepping back from this habitual response to looking at the situation from a differring perspective that can shift its meaning and reduce its emotionally upsetting impact.  For example, you just learn that your dear friend who lives close by is moving away.  Your reaction may be feeling sad, angry, and lonely.  You think about how you will miss her, remind yourself of how people tend to leave you, and imagine losing this important friendship.  Applying a reappraisal, you shift your perspective to thinking about how happy she is to get her new job, how she has been such a great friend to you and support for many years, and how you will be able to visit her in her new home or plan a vacation together to meet in the middle.  While not denying the sadness and disappointment of the situation, you balance the possible negative consequences with potential positive ones.

As a strategy useful for coping, cognitive reappraisal has a double barreled effect according to research.  It both lowers negative emotions such as sadness and anxiety and increases positive emotions associated with well being.  And because it actually alters activity patterns in emotional processing circuits in the brain, over time, it dampens excessive activation of brain centers such as the amygdala, which sends our emotional alarm signals in response to incoming information. Strong emotions limit our capacity for analyzing problems and generating possible solutions (fight/flight/freeze).  Cognitive reappraisal restores access to rational thinking and perspective taking. Researchers have shown that students with intense Math anxiety were able to improve their performance on Math tests with the use of reappraisal during the test.  Brain imaging showed that there was an increase in brain activities linked to arithmetic performance compared to those who didn’t use reappraisal.

Life doesn’t always go the way we want or expect it to.  Experts identify several questions you can ask yourself to stimulate a positive reappraisal for when things go awry.  Are you engaging in some sort of cognitive distortion, such as catastrophizing, looking at the situation in black and white terms, or personalizing a situation?  What evidence is there to support your negative appraisal – in other words, what is fact and what is fear?  Are there any positive outcomes possible for the situation?  Are you grateful for any aspect of the situation?  In what ways may you be better off from experiencing the situation?  What did you learn from it?

A simple little trick I use with myself and with people I work with is actually based on cognitive reappraisal.  Anxious people tend to get caught up in the “what ifs”.  What if I fail, what if I lose my job, what if my husband gets sick.  We anticipate all the negative possibilities.  So, I ask, what if I were to “what if” in the positive?  What if I win the lottery?  What if I meet a new friend?  What if I am the one chosen for the reward?  If we’re going to use our mind to anticipate, why not anticipate for good and not evil?

So, it turns out Monty Python was right – always look on  the bright side of life – at least more of the time.  It’s not about denying reality or truth, but actually seeing the whole truth.  There is usually good and bad in everything.  Reappraising and challenging your negative assumptions can bring about psychological resilience.  It offers a mental resource to distance from negative emotions by adding a perspective that not only dampens negativity, but enables people to think in ways that lead to adaptive responses.   Soooooooo….

… Some things in life are bad; They can really make you mad; Other things just make you swear and curse; When you’re chewing on life’s gristle; Don’t grumble, give a whistle; And this’ll help things turn out for the best; And;… Always look on the bright side of life; Always look on the light side of life; whistle whistle whistle

Summertime means so many social engagements! Some I’m invited and many I’m not.  Even though I don’t do social media (my ego is too fragile), I’m still prone to a little heart ache when I hear people talking about the fun they had doing something I wasn’t a part of.  And the weird thing is, even when I’ve made the choice not to go to something, I can still feel left out!  FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a real thing, existing long  before social media, but certainly heightened as Instagram shares images of other people vacationing or celebrating without us.  I found this article helpful about the underpinning of FOMO and how to understand it, written by people who have spent a long time studying it.  

Three social psychologists and marketing professors, Barbara Kahn, Cindy Chan, and Jacqueline Rifkin, have studied FOMO for over a decade.    What they’ve come to understand is that the pain of missing out is usually not actually related to the pain of missing the event, but relates more to missing the chance to experience the bond with friends, co-workers, or teammates that comes while engaging in the event.  So the critical part of FOMO is actually the fear of missing out on the interactions with people you value.  FOMO for a group dinner isn’t really about missing a great meal, but it’s the sense of lost opportunity to connect and make memories with people important to you.

FOMO can be thought of as a fear of not belonging.  What if your friends have a great time without you?  What if they bond and get closer to each other, where does that leave you?  The anxiety within FOMO can spiral into an almost paranoid sense of feeling left out.  In support of this, research shows that people with what psychologists call an “anxious attachment style,” those who chronically fear rejection or isolation from others, tend to experience more intense FOMO.  

Another piece of research that lends support to FOMO being more about the people bonding than the event, is the fact that people can experience FOMO even for unenjoyable missed events.  Sad and stressful events can often be emotionally bonding.  Attending a funeral, going through an initiation ceremony, or white knuckling a presentation can be intense pathways to creating social connections. Stressful events can become fertile ground for FOMO as they provide the context for developing intimacy that someone may feel left out of if they were to miss the experience. 

Understanding the root of FOMO helps us to mitigate its effect. Often the advice to avoid FOMO is to limit time on social media, reducing our exposure to events or interactions that make us feel left out.  But our three FOMO researchers developed a plan that involves going to the source of the discomfort.  Since the core of the anxiety is about missed relationships, researchers hypothesized that doing something to remind yourself of belonging would be helpful.  The reflection was a way to provide a sense of security to inoculate against FOMO.  To support their approach, researchers asked one group of people to scroll through social media until they began to feel a sense of being left out and rate this FOMO feeling.  Another group was asked to do the same thing, but before rating the level of FOMO, they were instructed to recall a time they had been socializing with close friends.  Results showed a significant difference between the two groups, supporting the positive effect of the friendship reflection as a way to reduce FOMO.

So, reminding yourself of the meaningful relationships you already have and reaffirming your social belonging in the moment may help with the rush of anxiety that is a hallmark of FOMO.  Another approach is to reframe missing an event as a source of relief, even joy.  A new wave of JOMO, or the joy of missing out, can be refreshing.  Especially if you remind yourself that your social belonging is not in jeopardy, missing an event may free up time to do other things or save money.  Especially if you attend events out of the fear of missing out, by challenging your fears, you give yourself a chance to choose what is preferable to you in your own way.  Maybe you plan a BBQ later in the week or a trip to the beach.  Creating events on your own terms may be more fun and engaging in the long run.

Looking at the roots of FOMO may help us let go of some of its power.  Have you ever been upset that you planned a great weekend get away for your family, but your kid is crying because she’s going to miss soccer practice?  Or your husband is grumpy he has to go to visit his Uncle instead of attending a game?  It helps us have compassion for the people we care about when we understand that their FOMO is about their sense of belonging with their peers rather than a rejection of us.

So think of the money you’ll save and the hours you’ll have for yourself when you can resist the urge to go do something out of fear.  And according to many authors, JOMO is not about being antisocial or oscillating, its about being able to be more conscious in how you choose your time and allowing yourself to be more present in the moment.  So maybe while you’re NOT attending something, you’ll have the time to read Svend Brinkman’s book The Joy of Missing Out:  The Art of Self Restraint in an Age of Excess. Or you can read Tanya Dalton’s The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less.  Or maybe, just maybe, if you like, order the books and choose not to read them!

If you’re like most people, getting motivated is hard.  And STAYING motivated is even harder!  When we set a new goal it’s usually with the image of how great it’ll be when we get there.  But along the way, after setbacks and off days, the finish line can seem farther and farther away.  The discouragement creeps in and our determination begins to fade.  It’s really natural to feel the work is pointless, or at least not worth the effort.  In a recent article by my favorite Slow AF Running Club leader, Martinus Evans, he addressed the question on how to stay motivated when progress feels so hard to come by.  I appreciated Martinus’ perspective and thought I would expand on it and share it with you. I also want to pay tribute to my Dad, this Father’s Day, another big man who defied the odds and pushed through what seemed to be the impossible.

Essentially, the key to staying motivated is to keep redefining what progress is.  If you only define success as achieving the ultimate end goal, it’ll be hard to feel any success along the way, and that’s discouraging.  If, however, you see elements of your progress as success, you’ll have many victories.  Reaching your ultimate goal will be the icing on the cake, not the party itself.  In other words, it’s important to look at the WHYS of your goal.  Is running a 10K simply about running the 10K, or is it about having something to work toward and along the way becoming more fit, getting outdoors more, and redefining yourself as an athlete?  Even if progress is slow, you’re still having success in the process.  

As Martinus puts it, “there are many kinds of wins.”  I love how he describes the day he ran in shorts for the first time, exposing his legs to the world, as a win.  He didn’t run his marathon goal that day, but he achieved real transformation.  He also states, “the pace of your progress does not determine its value.”  So wise!  As anyone who set out to do a big change knows, there is always way more challenge to it than you ever expected.  Marking and noticing small changes and victories as time goes by is a key to staying motivated.

Sometimes, achieving a goal can involve untangling years of conditioning and years of shame.  Or it can mean creating a more compassionate and insightful understanding of your current situation.  If change was easy, we would just do it!  No NIKE ad here!  We need to understand and honor the very small steps that lead us to a big change and remember that these small steps were actually the point in the first place.  If running the 10K was easy, you would just get up and do it, NIKE inspired, but where would the growth be in that?  Where would the transformation be?  You would still be the same person you were the day before.

As I’ve said many times in this blog over the years, yet, have to remind myself almost every day, change is a process.  But that IS the point, in reality!  We develop new habits, new identities, new relationships and new awareness when we go through the process of change. It truly is about the journey.  Ask any successful athlete, musician, or business person.  You have to find an aspect of positive engagement with the work in order to stay with it.   

Here are some tips to help support you in thinking about your goal in terms of its process.  Think about each step that you will need to achieve along the way.  Break your big goal down into small pieces that you can celebrate. Keep a journal to mark each success and reflect on your journey.  Writing about it can help you discover unexpected goals!  By journaling, you will notice growth in areas you didn’t even think about.  Did Martinus think to write down “Wearing shorts during a run” as a goal?  But it became an unexpected victory that had great meaning to him!  

Focus on quality, not speed.  Rushing can lead to superficial gains while taking your time can help build foundations.  Slow and steady progress usually leads to more resilience in facing setbacks or maintaining the gains you achieve.  Every crash diet I went on, including the famous “Cabbage diet” had initial weight  loss, but ended up being abandoned, even laughed at later.  Short cuts take away the change process and can rob you of the full benefit you were seeking that underlies the WHY of your desired goal. A healthy lifestyle is a much better path to healthy weight maintenance than cabbage soup!

This lesson became even more clear to me with my entry into the essay contest I shared in a recent post.  In setting my goal I learned some important things about myself along the way!  I realized that I wanted to share my writing, as it means a lot to me.  I also learned I want my writing to be evaluated and to get better at it.  I did in fact, through the process of deciding to enter the contest, writing the piece and submitting it, validate myself more as a “writer,” as opposed to someone who writes.  In all the ways I made myself vulnerable to take the risk of entering, it helped me stretch myself and what I thought I was capable of. All of these growth steps were really important for me, even before I learned of the results.

And hey, as I predicted, I didn’t win the $500 top prize, nor was I a finalist.  But I was listed with a few others as an “entry of note.”  Given the number of entrants and the fact that many were by published authors and creative writing instructors, my being mentioned as an entry of note made me want to sing!  I’ll put that one in my journal of unexpected wins.

So Happy Fathers Day, my Dad! Your memory is a blessing.

In my last post I addressed the issue of anger and how to keep yourself from saying or doing something you’d regret.  I shared a tool, the 5 Rs, to help you slow down and think things through before you acted.  But then, I hate to admit, I left you hanging!  So what do you do once you calm down and clarify the issue that’s upsetting you and are ready to do the final “R,” Return.  So today, I’m going to follow up with some good advice I found about how to communicate when you have a genuine issue you want to address.  Managing arguments is such a key piece of maintaining our relationships, especially with people we love the most, who also can upset us the most. Conflict can be scary and vulnerable terrain. I hope these tips will help smooth your way through some of those bumpy roads.

One of the first, and I think the most important tips, is to remember that the person you are approaching is not your enemy.  Especially when you’re in conflict with a loved one, you have to keep in mind that they ultimately want what is best for the two of you and are not trying to bring you down.  It may seem like it when they are in their own reactive mode, defensive and trying to prove their point, but remember, this is a person you love and respect.

Next, along the same lines, remind yourself that the point is not to “win”  This is not a debate competition.  The point is to create understanding.  If this is the goal,  it releases the pressure for one of you to be proven right or wrong.  The goal can be a mutual effort at rebuilding or strengthening the connection.  Essentially, the relationship should be the ultimate victor.

Despite how it may feel, there are always varying perspectives to every situation.  Each of you holds a valid perspective and a resolution will be really hard to achieve if you can’t allow the other person their experience.  You may not agree with them, in which case you can agree to disagree about certain things, but each person must give the other person the room to have their own feelings and perceptions.  

Tolerating another person’s perspective may be a challenge, but it’s a skill you can develop.  Especially when you’re motivated by the desire for intimacy, you can learn to accept that another person has a different point of view.  It doesn’t mean you’re wrong, disrespected, or belittled.  It simply means people are unique and experience things in different ways.  As long as each person remains respectful in their communications, a disagreement does not have to be conflictual.  Learning to tolerate and accept differences is a really great gift to yourself and the people you care about.  It allows you to let go and trust, rather than holding on to a potential power struggle.

Beware of the urge to be dramatic.  It’s so common to use the words “you always” or “you never” when you want to make your point.  But these types of accusations surely put another person on the defensive.  The first thing they’ll want to do is to remind you of the times they did the opposite of what you say they always or never did or said.  Also, try to avoid personal attacks.  Keep the focus on a behavior or situation that didn’t feel right, rather than attacking someone’s character or intelligence. 

Try to express things from your own point of reference (the classic “I” statement) rather than assuming you know what the other person was thinking or their intentions.  Allow each other the time and space to complete their thoughts before you respond.  Things escalate quickly when people interrupt each other.  Often, we stop listening, formulating our next attack, rather than hear what someone is saying.  Remember the talking stick? That old stick does help to stop people from talking over one another! (As long as it’s not used as a weapon.)  If interruptions are a problem for you and the other person, you can pick a “talking object” that has special meaning or even humor for you and the person you’re talking to.

And finally, it’s essential to maintain both physical and emotional safety.  When you or the other person feel things are getting out of hand, take a break.  It’s so much better to temporarily disconnect than continue to attack each other.  It may be important to discuss boundaries at a time when you’re not upset, and lay out guidelines of acceptable behavior.  When someone begins to raise their voice, when they become too emotional, or when they stop being able to hear the other person, these are all good times to step back and commit to reapproaching when things are less tense. 

Avoiding conflict can be harmful as well.  Withdrawing or refusing to talk is an act of aggression.  It keeps the other person from being seen and has a way of invalidating someone’s experience.  Forgetting, denying, or belittling are all passive aggressive ways of discharging anger and taking control.  These behaviors most often lead to resentments and the building up of bad feelings that erode trust and closeness.

In couples therapy, one of the most important indicators of a healthy relationship is the ability to “repair” when there’s been a hurtful interaction.  People fight!  We disagree!  We get annoyed and frustrated with one another.  We have times when we feel ignored, disappointed, or angry.  These are all natural parts of closely sharing your world with someone.  I’m actually a little worried when couples tell me they “never have disagreements.”  Say what?  Are you really being open with each other, able to risk having a difference of opinion or expressing your truth? 

It’s natural to have some tensions and encounter some bumps along the road!  What matters is how you handle them.  Do you slow down and proceed with caution or do you barrel through creating more turbulence?  Do you turn around and go home or do you take hold of the wheel?  Even if you didn’t create the bumps, you’re still responsible for how you navigate them.  Be safe, be patient, and be aware of just how you’re driving impacts your fellow travelers!

On my way into work this week I witnessed two drivers engage in a scary road rage dual.  They were driving erratically, cutting each other off and using “expressive gestures,” shall we say.  It was upsetting to watch as it put them, and all of us around them, in danger.  All for what, I thought?  Being slighted by someone passing you?  Or merging ahead of you?  But then I thought about the old saying, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.  I’ve hurled a few rocks myself, if I’m totally honest. And who hasn’t?  In telling my tale from the morning commute to co-workers, we all noticed how easily people lose their cool.   Did it start in the pandemic, people so isolated and stressed?  Is it the political and economic climate?  Regardless of the cause, we all could use some help with our reactions when we get upset with someone.  Especially with the people we love the most, who we tend to snap at the most as well.  So today, I’m reviewing the 5 R’s of Anger Management (from Yolanda Briscoe, PsyD), as it’s a helpful reminder that HOW we choose to respond to people is totally within our control, no matter the provocation.

Anger itself is not a bad thing, in fact, it can be really healthy.  Anger is a natural feeling in response to a perceived threat.  But often our first response, created out of our fight/flight/freeze reaction, will be actions disconnected from the thinking part of our brain.  In our quick reactions, we tend to act (including texting and emailing) without thinking through the consequences.  Most arguments or confrontations are a result of the escalation of initial reactions.  So the first R is Reaction.  Practice stopping yourself from that first reaction, knowing that NO reaction IS a reaction.  Doing nothing IS doing something.  You are preventing yourself from doing something impulsive that you may indeed regret.

The next R is Retreat.  Practice slowing things down and using breathing or counting, or whatever works, to step back and calm down.  Reducing the sense of immediate threat will help you re-engage your frontal lobe to assess the current situation more accurately.  Sometimes this may actually mean asking the other person for a bit of time to calm down.  Then Re-evaluate.  Try to be curious.  What was it that activated you?  What was behind the anger, perhaps sadness, hurt, fear, anxiety?  Ask yourself, what was it that you wanted/needed that you didn’t think you got?  Also, be honest with yourself about your potential role in the conflict.  Did you make things worse, lash out out of frustration?  Were you trying to control something/someone that you in fact, can’t/shouldn’t control?  Understanding your role can really be a powerful tool in resolving stressful interactions.  

Once you’ve gotten a better understanding of the situation, it’s time to Regroup.  You get to decide how to work with your emotions.  You can journal, use humor, talk compassionately to yourself, use mindfulness, or ask for support from others.  Praise yourself for not letting yourself get hooked by a baited situation.  Once you have thought through what you want to say or do while in a reasonable state of mind and with compassion, you can Return.  Approach the person involved but avoid blaming, attacking, or reengaging in a power struggle.  Use “I” statements to share your experience and what you both regret and desire as a way to initiate a connection to repair a broken trust.

It seems so simple and, yet, it’s so hard!  But like everything else, we can learn to slow ourselves down and develop new habits.  Research shows that learning to control our reactions offers a lot of benefits, including reducing stress, improving relationships, and enhancing our overall well being.  We impact our health by lowering blood pressure, reducing headaches and decreasing our risk of heart conditions.  For our mental health, anger management skills teach us how to communicate and ask for what we need in healthy ways.  We reduce the incidents of depression, anxiety and other emotional problems.  Overall, we improve our sense of ourselves, feeling proud and confident in how we handle our lives and our relationships.  This does in fact spread to both work and personal relationships.  Other people learn to trust us, and we can have trust in ourselves.

We all know the shameful feeling when you have to go back and apologize to someone for doing or saying something you regret.  It’s such a relief when we can prevent an action or statement, rather than having to clean up our reactive mess.  And maybe that’s a tool in itself!  Before you react to someone, imagine having to explain yourself later.  Will you feel proud of yourself or will you feel embarrassed?  The 5 R’s are a great reminder of our ability to regulate our responses and be the person we want to be. As the great psychologist and human rights advocate, Victor Frankl wrote:  Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.  Ok, so maybe SPACE is an S word, not an R word. But managing our anger well can certainly lead to REJOICING.

This post is a little personal, so be warned.   It’s also a little embarrassing.  I found myself a bit cranky this week and I wasn’t sure why. Then I was reading something that had to do with patience, which got me thinking, leading to an “aha” moment.  I suddenly had a good sense of what was getting under my skin.  My own ego!  I share my story with you in the hope that some of you can relate!

You see, there’s an online journal I like that features personal essays (they were kind enough to publish something I’d written years ago).  It had shut down for a while, but recently announced that it was back and was featuring an essay contest.  I was happy to hear of its revival, so I thought maybe I’d submit something, my entry fee and essay being a good show of support.  I’d been mulling around ideas for a topic, but nothing was coming.  Then one night, of course at 2 am, I had a few thoughts.  They were swirling around my brain keeping me from going back to sleep, so I got up to write them down, thinking I would slip back into bed a free woman.  Well, I started to write, and before I knew it, it was 5 am and I’d written an entire piece.  The words just came out of me and I was truly in that awesome state they call “flow.”  It was a total surprise!

A few days later I got up the courage to read what I’d written to see if it made any sense.  I actually was pleased that it did, and, in fact, it expressed something really important and powerful for me. It was about an experience related to my work that I felt strongly about, but hadn’t really put words to until then.  I knew the essay needed a lot of editing, but it was something I felt good about having written.  The topic was not really a great match for the contest, being so much about my work, but it was complete and would serve the purpose of showing support well enough.  Thanks to my brother, a great editor, I finished it, formatted it as requested, and along with my paypal payment, hit “Send.”

Then the month went by and I’d pretty much forgotten about it, except for telling a few people about my midnight writing surprise and feeling good about entering.  When my husband and friends offered the compliment that I might be a finalist, I really downplayed it.  That was not why I entered, I told them, which was true.  The topic and tone of the essay was not the right fit for the journal, I explained, which was also very true. It did mean a lot to me, though, that they thought I could be a finalist. And that was enough for me.

Or so I thought.

Enter the cranky mood.  The proposed deadline for announcing the finalists was approaching, “by May1st,” it said. My husband was sweet enough to ask a few times if I’d heard anything.  I checked the website, nothing yet.  They still had a few days and I kept telling myself it was ridiculous to even think about it.  But then I was irritable and annoyed at little things.  I was generally in a bit of a funk.  What was up with me, I wondered?  Then the “aha” moment about patience struck.  I was annoyed that they had kept us waiting in announcing the finalists, yes.  But even more so, I was annoyed and impatient with myself, as deep down I had a glimmer of hope that maybe I could be one of them.  The little voice inside my heart would have been thrilled to have had my essay be chosen, but I was also too embarrassed to admit it. This inner conflict around my pride and my vulnerability was causing me tension and shame.

Okay, I thought, this is an opportunity for growth (maybe I didn’t say exactly that to myself).  I need to be okay with being vulnerable by putting myself out there.  How many other people do I know who take risks and get hurt?  I admire them. How many people do I encourage and support to accept a challenge to be vulnerable?  It’s ok to want to be a winner!  It’s ok to want to have something that means a lot to me be validated!  It does not take away from the process of doing it or the joy I had in completing it. In fact it added to it.

So now, I’m living my lesson on patience.  Patience doesn’t mean liking the fact that you have to wait, it means tolerating it.  Even maybe learning from it. For me, that means opening up to allow myself to feel excited about the possibility I COULD be a finalist, even if it’s improbable.  I haven’t checked the website again.  Maybe I’ll be ready soon enough.  But for now,  I’m patting myself on the back for being the “writer in the arena.”  Reminding myself of Roosevelt’s words that “it’s not the critic who counts.”  Even the inner critic.

Easter Sunday, with the oh-so-cute little bunnies held by adorable children in their colorful outfits,  gives me the perfect opportunity to share something I found funny.  Recently, I read an article about the addition of the word “gigil” to the Oxford English Dictionary.  It refers to the overwhelming feeling of wanting to squeeze or pinch something you find incredibly cute (it’s a Tagalog word, spoken in the Philippines).  I’ve always been a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I experience that feeling pretty often and know exactly what they mean!  Learning there is a word for it made me feel less crazy.  But then I thought, why haven’t we had some word like this before?  The article went on to say that psychologists have actually done some research on this phenomenon, but refer to it as “cute aggression.”  Way to ruin something fun, psychologists!  So in today’s post I’m embracing gigil and sharing some of what we know from psychological research about this giggly experience.  Ok, so maybe psychologists aren’t all that bad.

Cute aggression was first described by researchers at Yale University.  Studies show that about half of all adults have these thoughts sometimes. Fortunately,  rarely do people ever act out these urges, and take a swipe at Bambi!  Mostly, people experiencing cute aggression might clench their jaw, grit their teeth, or feel the urge to squeeze, pinch, or bite the cute object.  Kathrine Stravropoloulos, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, recorded the brain activity of 54 young adults as they looked at images of animals and people, some images manipulated to be extra “cute” (big cheeks, big eyes).  For the entire group of participants, cuter creatures were associated with greater activity in the brain areas involved in emotion.  But the more cute aggression someone experienced, the more activity the scientists saw in the reward centers of the brain.  Scientists think that the combination of pleasure in these areas of the brain can be overwhelming to our system, and so the brain starts producing aggressive thoughts to keep our positive thoughts from running amok.  One researcher at Yale, Oriana Aragon describes cute aggression as part of a category of “dimorphous expressions of emotions.”  People who experience cute aggression also tend to be people who cry at weddings or laugh when they are scared.  By balancing a strong emotion with a seemingly contradictory expression, “individuals find a way to manage the intensity of the experience.”

There may be an evolutionary function to cute aggression, as it may help people from becoming overwhelmed and incapacitated by positive feelings of cute things, leading to neglect of caretaking responsibilities.  If you’re overcome by cuteness you might not be able to properly care for the object of your affection, so the brain needs to bring us back a bit.  In fact research shows that we’re more careful in our physical movements after viewing something we find cute. How cute is this:  In two experiments, viewing very cute images (puppies and kittens)-as opposed to slightly cute images (dogs and cats)-led to superior performance on a subsequent fine-motor dexterity task (the children’s game “Operation”). This suggests that the human sensitivity to those possessing cute features may be an adaptation that facilitates caring for delicate human young. This is from a study abstract written by Sherman, Haidt, and Coan, psychologists at the University of Virginia.

So, my urge to squeeze my mini donkeys, squish the face of my kitties, or pinch my daughters is fortunately not considered dangerous, according to the veterinarian, Dr. Laura Meyers.  “Cute aggression responses pose absolutely no danger to the human experiencing them or to the dog or whatever cute thing is triggering the reaction.  Cute aggression is just an urge and doesn’t lead to actual violence.”  She does warn that children may need to be taught not to hug or squeeze an animal too tightly, as it may cause the animal stress and the animal may become the aggressor! So go ahead and enjoy your gigil during your Easter egg hunt.  And hats off to the language of Tagalog for providing a much kinder word for these wonderful feelings of love.  Just know, they also have a word, kilig, which describes those giddy, butterfly-in-your stomach romantic feelings we also can be positively overwhelmed by!

A lot of people, including myself, are feeling “funky” of late.  There’s a pervasive sense of uneasiness that’s common among so many people I talk to.  I’ve been asking myself about it, and what’s become more clear to me is a stress related to feeling extremely vulnerable. Stress from vulnerability most often shows up as anxiety, feelings of helplessness, resentment, anger and withdrawal.  Yup. That about sums it up. There’s a layering of vulnerabilities in our current environment that’s hard to put our finger on.  It seems to be growing in all aspects of our lives and creates a sense of fear around every corner.  If we aren’t worried about ourselves, we’re worried about other people, and we should be. The reality of the many ways in which we, or the people in our community, can be vulnerable is important to name, both to understand it, and to protect those most at risk.

When talking about vulnerability, I think it may be easier to think of it as lacking a sense of safety.  Sometimes we feel unsafe because of our experiences in the past and sometimes we feel unsafe because of a threat we’re experiencing now or fear in the future.  Regardless, when we, as people, feel unsafe, our emotional and physical well being is compromised. According to researcher Chris Drew, PhD, vulnerability refers to “the state of being exposed to the possibility of harm, whether it be physical, economic, environmental, emotional, or social.  It can emerge from an individual’s inherent characteristics or from external situations and forces.” Often these factors run together and create an even more vulnerable situation, as a person may have inherent vulnerability characteristics, which then increases their vulnerability in other areas.  As I describe five general types of vulnerability, think about how these may apply to you or people around you and how this awareness may be affecting you.

One type of vulnerability is physical vulnerability, which relates to conditions affecting your physical health and strength, like aging, disability, or chronic disease.  Also included in physical vulnerability are less direct factors that may lead to being unsafe, such as lack of access to healthcare, proper nutrition, healthy drinking water, exercise, or an environment that causes sleep deprivation or exposes you to toxins or natural disaster threats.  The interaction of these became more clear to me in working in a Health Center.  Often, after a health crisis, people became very depressed.  In exploring their feelings, it’s often a profound sense of physical vulnerability that was creating a deep sense of loss and anxiety.

Economic vulnerabilities refer to insecure financial situations which may happen when you lack job security, have debt, or are over-reliant on a single source of income.  The absence of savings can create immense stress in worrying about unexpected costs.  Other factors that can lead to economic vulnerability may include lack of access to credit, lack of financial literacy, or underemployment, where you’re working in a lower paying job than your skill level or work fewer hours than you need to.  The economy has a lot to do with economic vulnerability, as recessions lead to job loss, lower wages, and lower income opportunities.

Another area of vulnerability is emotional vulnerability.  This relates to feeling insecure and unsafe in relationships, often as a result of a history of trauma or relationships where you may have been taken advantage of. Vulnerability in this area may include difficulty setting boundaries, forming healthy attachments, being overly dependent on others or not able to form connections because of distrust or low self esteem.  Often people who have low emotional intelligence misunderstand or are unable to identify their own needs and feelings or those of others.  This leads to a lot of conflict and stress in work, personal, and familial relationships.

Some people experience environmental vulnerabilities.  This refers to the susceptibility to threats from natural or man made disasters, such as fires, earthquakes, pollution, or hurricanes.  It may also include a lack of emergency facilities or the ability to prepare.  In addition, living near potential sites of pollution or toxic hazards may make one vulnerable.  Housing shortages and a lack of resources in overpopulated or underpopulated areas may also put someone at risk. 

Social vulnerability refers to social factors including discrimination, isolation, poverty and lack of community support that create risks.  This can be a result of being a part of a marginalized group, experiencing language or cultural barriers, lack of educational opportunities, being cut off from family, or experiencing stigma from being perceived as different.  A lack of mobility or transportation can be a huge barrier to job access or socialization opportunities, and living in high crime areas or in poverty can severely limit your access to resources and the availability of opportunities.  Other social factors may include a lack of representation in political processes and a lack of access to social capital in terms of networking connections.

The resources we have access to actually make a big difference in how we can survive when bad things happen.  In reviewing these types of vulnerabilities, there are risk factors and protective factors that are relevant to how vulnerable we are. Risk factors are attributes, characteristics, or exposures that increase the likelihood of being harmed or stressed.  Protective factors are elements that reduce or shield a person from potential harm.  The great truth is that we have control over some of these factors, but others, not much at all.

In reading through these five factors it’s so important to see how they’re interrelated.  Becoming ill may mean losing your job, which may mean losing your healthcare and then potentially not being able to afford proper nutrition or housing.  You may have to move and be separated from your community and social support systems.  Or living in a rural area hit by a hurricane may mean losing your house, your business, and potentially not having access to resources for rebuilding.  Being suspected of a crime may lead to not being able to afford bail, a proper lawyer, and losing your job.  This may mean being pressured to take a plea deal that may hurt your chances of employment in the future.  Or having a history of trauma may lead to anger issues, which may lead to conflict with your boss, which may lead to losing your job and not being able to pay your child support.  Our lives are complex webs of interrelated connections and consequences.  We all live in a house of cards, but some start out with weaker foundations to begin with.  

This is where I get emotional.  Some of the best protective factors that create and maintain resilience have to do with social connection and support.  Having the feeling that someone cares and understands makes a huge difference to how we can rebound from hard circumstances.  Having connections with others makes us feel important and worthy.  It gives us access to more opportunities and possibly more resources.  It gives our lives a sense of purpose and meaning.  Having someone watch out for us and look out for us really matters both physically and emotionally.  We are all vulnerable in some way.  We survive by being there for one another.

I had started writing this blog post prior to Corey Booker’s Senate speech.  I must say I was so inspired by it and it made me even more aware of how important it is that we not just watch out for one another, but speak up for one another.  It made me more certain of how power can be used to help others, but also to hurt others.  Living in fear is not freedom.  Lack of due process is not democracy.  Bullying and threatening is not governing.  We are all vulnerable when we lose the checks and balances on power that guard our safety. We all become more vulnerable when we put our heads in the sand and hope we won’t be affected.   Watching vulnerable people be mistreated is a threat to all of us.  We all go through periods of vulnerability and strength.  It’s up to the people who are currently strong to speak out for those who are currently vulnerable.  This is the only way we create true safety. 

I’ve always been a very disciplined person, and in many respects it’s served me well.  I’m great at meeting deadlines, having things organized, and following through on what I start.  But there’s always been a shadow side to this discipline, a cost to all that “productiveness” that I’ve become increasingly aware of.  My productivity is often driven by fear and a need to feel in control.  My endless to-do lists and that incessant voice inside my head takes a toll on being able to simply be present and enjoy what is happening around me.  So especially of late, I’m working on letting go and experimenting with what can happen.  In fact, yesterday, the sun was beating in on the couch in our great room.  I actually laid down in the warmth, pulled a blanket around my shoulders, and took a nap.  When I awoke, the world still existed and I felt refreshed!  The tasks I had intended to do were still there, but it didn’t really matter.  So today I’m going to share a little of what I’ve been contemplating and the inspiration I’ve been drawing from.

Many of us over-productive people are driven by an illusion that once we achieve our goal, things will be better. “I’ll be happier when…I’ll be more relaxed if only…when I get that job done…” It’s a way I distract myself from my anxiety by harboring the delusion that things will be better in the future.  It gives me an illusion of control and power, that if I work hard enough and keep focus enough, things will work out in the end.  But it also leads to exhaustion, disillusion, and a fear of falling behind.  It concedes joy in the present for a constant pursuit of a reward in the future that undoubtedly never comes because there’s always a new thing to worry about or a new challenge to face.

Life is an endless marathon of things that need fixing and tasks that need finishing.  As a result, I’m working to adopt the philosophy of the author Oliver Burkeman in his book Meditations for Mortals, which he refers to as imperfectionism.  As he defines it, imperfectionism is about “accepting that there will always be too much to do, that you won’t always feel ready, and that the future will always be uncertain.”  By embracing rather than fighting the reality of limitations and imperfections and viewing them less as obstacles, we allow ourselves to live a saner, freer, and more meaningful life.  By letting go of the pressure for perfection, we free up our time, energy, and focus for things that make us happier and more fulfilled.  By embracing our mortality, and accepting the limits of our lives. Burkeman hopes to inspire us to stop chasing after what’s impossible and to choose what’s most important to us and, as Nike says, just do it.

The author Joan Tollifson’s book title really grabbed my attention.  In  Death: The End of Self-Improvement, she writes about how embracing the loss of control that comes with aging can actually open us up to the joys of the messy and the hard things in life.  When we’re chasing after self improvement, we ignore the beauty in what and who we are now, with all our strengths and vulnerabilities.  The quest to always be better leads us to self doubt, social comparison, and envy.  Self-acceptance, on the other hand, leads us to a loving attitude and actual self-care and good health, rather than desperate quick fixes presented by the self improvement industry.  

I also love the phrase by the writer Shasha Chapin called “playing in the ruins.”  He refers to it as a sacred state in which you’re no longer denying the reality of the “scrapyard around you.” Instead of the burden to transform it, you accept the reality of it and enjoy what there is to be had there. By accepting limitations and not chasing after future goals, we can get on with life and take the risks that are available when we are freed up from trying to make life work out the way we think it needs to.  We can “play” rather than “control”.  And as Burkeman suggests, we can never get safety from life, we simply have to live in it.   

So what does this mean for day to day living?  I’m not sure yet.  The trash still needs to be taken out, I still need to get up at the alarm to make it to work on time, and tax day is approaching.  I suppose it means discerning what needs to get done for today from being caught up in the “what if” fears about the future.  It’ll mean letting go of how things “should be.”  It’ll mean being more spontaneous and trusting my capacity to be fine even if I don’t feel completely prepared.  It’ll mean ordering more take out. But the hope is it will also mean more moments of contentment and naps in the sun on the couch.  It will mean being able to linger in what feels good now without worrying about what could be.

Like any new philosophy or effort to embrace a new way of being, even this change, paradoxically, requires effort and attention.  The challenge is not to make it into one more thing I have to do.  I find myself amused that even Burkeman himself falls into the trap with his subtitle “Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.”  Really? I have to think a PR person added that in!  The point of imperfectionism is that there is no particular way we have to be, no pressure to become something different, and no solution we will ever find that will fix it for us.  Four days, four weeks, four years, four decades?  How about just FOR NOW?

Ok, it’s hard to believe, but I’ve been writing this blog for ten years!!  Say what???  Indeed!  Back in February of 2015 I had been laid off from the clinic I was working at when they closed their entire Mental Health Department.  I was feeling pretty lost, trying to figure out my next step and how I could find a new job.  My confidence was a bit shaken, I have to admit.  I suddenly had nowhere to go and while I interviewed and waited, I had some unexpected free time.  I’d been doing some writing for fun and loved the process.  It was my friend, Sherry Weinberg, who encouraged me to start a blog (thank you Sherry, for creating with me and supporting me along the way).  I had the glimmer of an idea, but it was Sherry who had learned how to set it up while helping her son write his own blog about cars.  With her technical and emotional support, I launched For-A-Change.  I had no idea at the time that I would still be writing it ten years later and what a positive experience it would be for me.  I thank you so much for taking the time to read my posts and for changing along with me.

What has surprised me the most about my blogging journey is how fresh it still feels.  I’m so lucky for how much I’ve enjoyed it!  I’ve never missed a post (first writing every week and then changing to every other week), because I’ve never been at a loss for something I wanted to explore and share.  That has been the best part for me.  I get the opportunity, through the structure of my self imposed deadline, to think about an idea I want to delve into and then allow myself the space to read, research, and then write about it.  I hope I’ve shared some helpful or thought provoking ideas along the way.  But also, I appreciate the opportunities to share some of my own personal growth with you.  A lot has changed in ten years including our county wildfires, my mother’s death, my kids’ graduations/launching, and yes, my own aging process.

And so, for my tenth anniversary edition, I ask for your indulgence in a little rant about writing.  I’ve been so surprised how much I’ve come to love it, because it surely wasn’t always this way!  Like most of you, I was exposed to writing in a format that pretty much sets you up to hate it.  We’re given assignments on topics that are dull, that are fact based, or in which we have to find right answers. Then we are graded and critiqued and asked to rewrite it.  We’re trained to write by being asked to write something for someone.  While I really do understand the importance of learning to be a good communicator and writing effectively and showing our accumulation of knowledge, we’re never invited to explore the very best of what writing can be.  Writing can and should be about expression.  It’s the art of putting our thoughts and feelings into words so that we, and perhaps someone we care to share it with, can get to know us.  Writing can be about exploration, about self discovery, and about being able to spend time with our curiosity aimed at whatever moves us.  Free writing is an amazing way to discover.  It taps into our unconscious and can enlighten us.  When we let go and follow our writing process, we can often be surprised at what connections we make and what we have to say.  It can be about big ideas and important relationships, or it can be about the most small and seemingly mundane events that make up our daily routines we often take for granted.  Writing is a way we draw attention to our lives and notice things as we record them.

In a recent article, author Elise Devlin, interviews Michael Phelps about his journaling habit.  He credits it as a key to getting his emotional world in balance.  He follows two rules.  The first is “no limits.”  He doesn’t start with any particular prompt or intention.  He simply writes about his day at the end of every day.  The second rule he follows is “document everything” – what he ate, how he feels, any interactions that made him feel weird…every little detail.  After doing it for years, it takes him about 15 minutes.  Then he takes time to review it.  He looks for clues or patterns or any bit of information that informs him about himself.  Phelps describes re-reading his entries as “piecing together the puzzle.”  He finds connections between his behavior and what he was feeling.  He finds patterns to his sleep or food intake, for example that might have gone unnoticed that might have affected his mood or attitude.  As a part of the article, the author decides to try the Phelps method of journaling.  I love how she describes it after her initial concern of having nothing to say, “It felt like one of those magic tricks where the magician pulls a never ending scarf out of their sleeve:  More and more unexpected thoughts kept rolling out.”

Regardless of what method you use, I think writing is essentially a process allowing you to be in conversation with yourself.  This level of internal dialogue and documentation allows us to go deeper into what we experience and offers us a chance to reflect without having to justify or defend ourselves.  As long as we can keep our critic out of the mix!  The most significant way to shut ourselves down or to give ourselves a case of writer’s block is to begin editing at the same time that we’re writing.  If our inner voice is evaluating what we’re expressing, it surely curtails the freedom to explore.  That’s why it’s so important to free write, following our muse, only later re-reading it.  That’s where journaling can be so liberating.  You can write and read it later, you can write and never, ever read it again, or you can write and read it moments, days, or years later.  Writing is a way to learn to stop the inner critic from editing our every thought and feeling.  It’s a training in giving ourselves permission to be who we are, with full acceptance of our totality.

For me, the process of writing has helped me uncover what I think and feel.  It also helps me to see that I can hold many different thoughts and feelings at various times, or all at the same time.  Writing gives me the awareness of my full experience and helps me integrate what can seem contradictory. And when I write, I don’t have to be completely accurate – it’s my story, after all.  And maybe that’s what I like as well about writing.  I have total control!  If I want to write a happy ending, I can.  If I want to kill off a thought or feeling, I can slash it and write the opposite.  I am the author!  The omnipotent creator of whatever I am saying.  Where else in life can I have so much control?  Maybe that’s why I love it so much! Aha!!!!  I just made the connection between my desire for control and my joy in writing. See? Self discovery in action! 

So to celebrate my 10th anniversary, I invite you to grab a pen, pencil, crayon, or a keyboard and take control.  Write away!  Whatever you want to say, whatever you want to ponder, whatever story takes up your interest.  Please, have at it!  It’s all available just for you in just the way you want it to be!  

Happy 10 Years and THANK YOU for all the time you have given me in reading my words and the support you have shown me!!!!!