By: Lauren Spinelli, LCSW We all know about the importance of self-care - setting aside that “me time” to focus on improving our mental, emotional and physical health. However, between children, work, relationships, or just life in general, it can be hard to make it a priority and fit it into our busy lives. On average, people in the United States work almost 2,000 hours per year! That’s a lot! Since we are at our place of work so much, it’s important to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves while we’re there! Here are 5 easy, simple tips to weave self-care into your daily work routine! 1. Meditate Now, I’m not talking about setting aside thirty minutes or an hour in quiet room at work. That’s probably not possible...but I bet you have 16 seconds! That’s all it takes! 16 beautiful, simple seconds to clarity. Not only does it have a significant de-stressing impact in the moment, but it can also serve as the foundation for greater clarity of thought, heightened creativity, deeper intuition and aid in making better choices! Setting aside 16 seconds each day to meditate can actually change your brain waves and have a positive influence on your emotional health. Let’s try it right now! Observe your breath as you slowly inhale through your nostrils to the count of four. Then hold that breath in your belly to the count of four. Gently release the breath and follow it out to the count of four. Then hold the breath out to the count of four. Now return to regular breathing. 2. Schedule breaks Taking regular mental breaks throughout the day improves productivity and creativity. Long periods of concentration fatigue your brain, and giving it downtime restores your ability to problem solve and concentrate. Try to actually schedule multiple 5-10 minute breaks throughout your day. If you don’t put it in your calendar, it’s easy to skip it! Skipping these breaks and trying to plow through your work can leave you exhausted and stressed. 3. Drink water Did you know 75% of our brain is made up of water? Even the tiniest levels of dehydration can affect factors like your mood and cognitive functioning. Next time you feel that after-lunch sluggishness creeping up on you, there’s a good chance it’s due to dehydration! Actual amounts of water that you need vary person to person, but aim to drink 0.5 ounces of water per pound on a daily basis! Bring that water bottle to work and leave it on your desk so there’s no excuse! 4. Walk outside We spend about 2,000 hours a year at work, and most of that is inside at an office! Try to get outside during lunch, or even hold walking meetings. Have a phone call? Take it outside! A 2015 study done at Stanford University proved that being outside in nature “showed decreased activity in a region of the brain associated with a key factor in depression”. The study also found that that those who walked outside experienced less anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, as well as more positive emotions, such as happiness. 5. Ask for help We are all human. We all need help. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength and intelligence. Ensure you have a solid support system at work. You spend so much time there, it’s important to surround yourself with trusted colleagues! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child, teen, or adult psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.
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 At times, things seem to get really heavy for us as people and citizens of our country. Not only do we hear about horrible events day in and day out, but on both sides of the political fence, it seems that we are struggling to connect, agree, or even feel like the other “side” is worth connecting with. We are all so sure that we are right in our beliefs that we seem to only notice information that either supports our viewpoints, or information that is absolutely not true that we don’t agree with and are angry or upset about. And while this is typical for the way our brains work, something about the way social media and we as people interact, seems to fuel this disconnect. There is so much to be distressed about and we are often bombarded with this information that it can be difficult to know how to deal with it. With my own heavy heart this week, I thought it might be helpful to write a blog about how we can cope with our world.
Here are some of my ideas but I would love it if people wanted to share their own!
I hope that this list is helpful in some small way to some of you. The tension and heaviness in our world right now is real and has been ebbing and flowing as more things are being talked about that are difficult. It’s okay to take care of yourself during these times and during all times! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  By: Dr. Erica WollermanAs a new parent, I can think about parenting and my new mom life a lot. Like all day long… Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the first year of parenting and contemplating why I am like this. Why I can spend all day considering exactly what toothbrush and toothpaste would be best for Luca now that he needs to be brushing his teeth. Why I can spend so long considering recipes and what he should eat, let alone how much and when he should eat!
I’ve come to the conclusion that this is clearly insanity. Motherhood induced insanity perhaps. I would say it’s sleep deprivation related but we are one of the lucky families who has a baby who sleeps and sleeps pretty well. So this leaves me considering why I am clearly insane… Here’s what I came up with. I think that our parenting culture gives parents the sense that they are somehow entirely responsible for everything about their child. (And yes, part of that is obviously true for those of you thinking, yes, Erica, that is clearly obvious.) What I mean is that parents think that everything they do matters SO much in the long run that it becomes hard to know what to do. There are thousands and thousands of parenting books, resources, and blogs online that there are just so many opinions out there about how to be the best possible parent for your child. It becomes really overwhelming to figure out what is truly best for you because there are so many opinions out there. Add in the fact that most of these theories and strategies give you the sense that you can almost curate qualities in your child that you want, and it is a dangerous combination of parents feeling completely in control of their child not just in the present but for everything in their life. Enter parenting guilt and anxiety anyone? Interestingly as a therapist, I LOVE working with parents. So much so that working with parents is a big part of my practice. Most of the parents I work with are absolutely amazing people and amazing parents. However, most of them think that their child is struggling because of things they (the parents) did. What I tell them is that there is no way of knowing this for sure and that while our choices as parents obviously matter, there are going to be things completely out of our control. As a parent, this idea is totally anxiety provoking. Partially because none of us want to watch our kids struggle and also because we get this message from current American parenting culture that we are totally in control of what happens for them and in their lives and development. The thought is: if you parent this way, your kid will be like this. This makes me think that perhaps our culture and current approaches towards parenting breed anxious parents. I have to say that I am much more anxious than usual as a parent. If you didn’t know that my overthinking I was talking about is definitely a sign of anxiety (and perfectionism), that’s what that is! That is me obsessing and trying to control the world for Luca. The most interesting experience for me as a parent has been the comingling of my work and my home life. I can’t say my opinions have changed about parenting but I do definitely think that my personal experiences really help me understand what the parents I work with are going through. I can’t help but think that if I, as a psychologist who specializes in children, teens, families, and parenting, feel this entirely lost at times and unsure of myself, what does everyone else feel? Anxious, worried, stressed, overwhelmed, sad, lost? I think many of us feel all of these things regularly. And then we, like the good students we are and the parents trying desperately to do a good job, research and read and listen to podcasts and exhaust ourselves trying to make the “right” decision. And then these books and parenting theories tell us that yes, there is a “right” decision and not just that, but there is a “wrong” one that leads to terrible outcomes. Here are some of the truths about parenting I try to keep in mind while I am anxious about how things are going:
I try to also remember that my biggest goals for parents that I work with at Thrive is to help them understand and communicate their love to their children in more effective ways. We talk about how they communicate and how they repair things when they mess up. And we hold space for the fact that none of us are perfect and that this is okay. I imagine that if we all had some faith that things were going to be okay for us and for our kids, we would be much less anxious as a culture and group. I’m working on it myself and would love to support any of you in working on it too! First, let’s all take a deep breathe and for goodness sake, put down Facebook and Google searches! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. By: Dr. Erica Wollerman As a new-ish mom and owner of a small business, I am far busier than I ever really have been in my life. Seriously, I’m even busier now than in grad school, completing a dissertation, and working three jobs in undergrad. The challenge for me now though is that my busy life is filled with a lot of things that I feel I have to do so that I can be the best me I can be in all the areas of my life. I really want to bring my best version of myself to my work for my clients and Thrive team members as well as to my family and friends! I especially want to be my best self for my little man Luca. I was chatting with another new-ish mom friend of mine recently and we were talking about our to-do lists. We had a lot of complaints you would expect – they are so long and never feel done. The interesting part is that on our to do lists are things like, well, I need to read a chapter in my book at night so that I can sleep well, or, I need to go for a walk and stretch so that my back does not hurt. The conclusion that we drew was that even self-care feels like another item on our to-do list! For women who are already overwhelmed, this is even more overwhelming and makes the activities we are “supposed” to enjoy, feel like tasks to check off rather than “self-care.” I started thinking about the idea of self-care and how it has become such a buzz word in our culture, especially therapist culture. While I think self-care is obviously important, I also think there might be a better way than the way I am doing it. Which is essentially, a mad, moderately perfectionistic dash towards wellness. Here’s a snapshot of my brain: Luca goes to bed at 7pm so I am going to rush home as soon as possible from work to spend time with him until 7, do all the household things that need to get done in that time while I spend quality time with him so that at 7, I can maximize my time and either go for a walk or do some work leftover from the day, or spend time with my husband, or do my nails, or watch a show, or take a bath, etc. Even better if I can do multiple things at once, right? Some of my mentality and tendency towards a frenzy of productivity comes from having an appreciation for time that only comes after not having any while you have a newborn. Some of this comes from having a deep appreciation for what ingredients I know help me be a better functioning person. I tend to do really well when things in my life are balanced and I have some time alone reading, some time to exercise, some time with work, and some time with my family each day. Oh and I like a clean house with things seeming somewhat orderly. While I have been mulling this over, I have realized that the crucial ingredient to my self-care is for it to feel like a choice and to be something I take the time to enjoy. While maybe I still rush home to see Luca, spend time with him while also cleaning up the house and dinner, so that I have time to do more things that fuel me in the evening… the key is to be more mindful of the choices I am making and present focused during all of the tasks. The key is to truly appreciate whatever I am doing at any given moment and to find it something to enjoy, rather than to just check off a list. Sometimes it helps me to remember to tell myself, I “get” to do this, rather than I “have” to do this. Small changes in our self-talk really can influence the way we feel about our lives! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. By: Lauren Spinelli, LCSW I am so happy to be joining the Thrive Therapy team! I am a licensed psychotherapist and am truly excited to do work I’m passionate about. I feel so grateful that I have the privilege of helping others overcome obstacles and reach their goals! I knew I wanted to be a therapist and help people from a very young age. My interest was sparked as I was growing up with my older brother and learned of his diagnosis of autism. I became increasingly interested in his various methods of coping and treatment. I saw the positive impact therapy had on my brother, and I always wanted to be able to help people the way he was helped. I received my undergraduate degree from Boston College where I studied psychology and human development. Knowing this field was for me from a young age, I went right on to obtain a Master’s in Social Work, also from Boston College, with a concentration in clinical mental health. I have had many experiences helping people overcome different life challenges and obstacles. Some of my experiences include working at a special services school with children, working as a counselor at a charter school, working as a therapist at an afterschool program with young children, working at an intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization program with adults, working at a crisis stabilization unit with adults and working at a suicide and sexual assault hotline. As you can tell by my varied experiences, I absolutely love working with all ages! It is so exciting for me to watch people at all stages of life change, heal, grow, and achieve their goals! I look forward to doing meaningful and transformative work at Thrive Therapy Studio! A note from our founder about Lauren: I am so happy to welcome Lauren to our team at Thrive. She impressed me right away with her warm, caring, and enthusiastic approach to helping children, teens, and adults! I found that we shared a connection right away in our therapeutic approach and helping from a strong foundation of a therapeutic relationship with a good mix of support and challenge along the way. If you would like to read more about Lauren, please check out her Bio here! Please feel free to reach out to Lauren directly at 858-480-9638 or through our main Thrive phone number at 858-342-1304 if you are interested in working with her or another Thrive therapist! Lauren is now accepting new referrals for children, teens, couples, and adults for evenings and weekends!  By: Dr. Erica WollermanAs a follow up to our recent blog about social media (from Panicha McGuire, check it out here!), I thought it might be helpful to give parents some ideas about how we can help kids and teens think critically and relate to social media differently. I find that so many of us, particularly some of the teens and kids that I work with, seem to be just consuming media and social media without really thinking about it, challenging it, or facilitating a dialogue about it. Especially with the “meme” culture we have going on. I have teens that I work with who seem to only communicate in memes without any real awareness of where the quotes came from, why they find them funny, or what they really mean. While it’s all very entertaining, I think we should all exercise some critical thinking and perspective taking when scrolling social media or just watching TV. The reality is that what we watch, read, and are exposed to affects our emotions, thoughts, and perception of the world.
Here are some of my basic tips in how parents can support their kids in thinking critically about social media:
Ok, I know that is a tough list. It sounds so simple but it’s very easy to not do any of those things as a parent, especially considering just how busy we all are these days! Here are some suggestions of questions and ways to approach these conversations: “Hey, I heard about filters on SnapChat, can you show me your favorite? Oh wow, that is amazing! Look how good we look! You know, that makes me think that maybe all the pictures I see on TV, magazines, and maybe even Instagram have been edited like this… do you think that’s possible?” “Have you watched that show 13 Reasons Why? I’ve been hearing that there is a lot of mixed opinions about it… what do you think about it?” “You know what I noticed the other day is that the days that I spend more time on facebook, instagram, etc, the more I feel grumpy, unhappy with my life, or annoyed. It just seems like everyone else is having the best time all the time! Do you ever feel that way?” If they say that they do, you could share that you try to remember that everything on social media is curated and not representative of a person’s total life, just the parts they want to share. And maybe it’s not ALL the time that you do this, but just sometimes. Anything could help plant a seed that helps your child/teen (or yourself) remember that social media is not representative of real life for most people, images are very curated, and all of it is designed to distract us from our face-to-face interactions so that the companies creating the media products can make more money! If you would like to talk with a Thrive therapist about your or your teen’s use of social media, please give us a call! We love helping families through these issues! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  So, a topic that comes up a lot in my work with teens is pressure. Teens often feel a lot of pressure. They feel it from their parents, their schools, their friends, their followers on social media, and from the world around them as a whole. Even before social media came to be, it was really typical, and developmentally normal, for teens to feel that the whole world is watching them. And now they have proof that the whole world is watching, or not watching them, in terms of numbers of shares, likes, comments, snaps, texts, etc. As many parents recognize, it is a whole new ball game in raising kids, particularly teens.
What I notice to be really challenging for parents of teens is knowing how much pressure is enough, too much, or not enough. There is just so much pressure on teens, but also on their parents in our current society and culture. There is far more information known about development, parenting, and what is needed to be successful in our world. And honestly, as a new mom and therapist, I would say that there is way TOO MUCH information about all of it. There are a thousand parenting books out there and if I, the parenting “expert,” feel like I should read all of them despite my years of experience, education, and training on parenting, I can only imagine the pressure other parents feel. With parenting teens, there is also the additional pressure of college plus a limited number of years left that our teens live with us. The questions arise... have I done a good job? Are they ready for the world? How are they going to do anything on their own? Will they get into college? Will they make it in the real world? I could go on and on and on because the questions and the doubts are just never-ending. This leads to a huge amount of pressure but also fear for parents. Unfortunately, this can translate to our kids as feeling that we doubt them, rather than we doubt ourselves. Regardless of how much pressure you end up thinking your teen needs in order to help them thrive as a young adult, make sure that the message you give them is that they can do it, that you believe in them, and that you never, ever doubt them and their ability to be a successful person. Showing them you have faith in them will do more than pressure ever will! But, Erica, how much pressure should I put on them??? Interestingly, there is no simple answer to the question, how much pressure is enough, where teens are considered. I believe that what is most important with teens and knowing the right amount of pressure is paying a lot of attention to who your kid is. If your teen is super motivated and puts a lot of pressure on themself without you intervening, then I think parents are in a lucky situation of really pulling back on their oversight of things. This group of kids needs independence and to be allowed some wiggle room to figure themselves out and how to manage the pressure they put on themselves. If your teen is on the less motivated end of the spectrum, you most likely need to be providing some sort of extrinsic rewards to help them with their motivation. While this might seem like “pressure,” it is really just setting things up so that in order for your teen to have the things they like (phone, computer, friend time, etc.), they have to do the things they might not want to do (schoolwork, volunteering, chores, etc.). While this discussion seems very categorical, I would actually suggest that it is just two ends of the spectrum that I am mentioning. Most kids are somewhere in between and need a nuanced approach of parent support, outside rewards, and then some level of wiggle room to make mistakes and figure out what they really want. If you feel that you need more support in figuring out how to support your teen, feel free to give our team at Thrive a call! We love working with parents to help their teens be more successful and to help them feel good about what they are doing as parents. One last note, where parents are considered in terms of how much pressure is enough, I’m going to be blunt and just say that it is almost always too much. Way. Too. Much. Pressure. From ourselves, and from others. When I write my blogs, I even worry that my voice is adding to the pressure parents feel to always do or say the “right” things for their kids and families. The truth is, we are all going to screw up a little bit and what really matters is remembering we as parents are a work in progress, and so are our kids and teens. They are just figuring life out too and we all need some grace and compassion! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  By: Dr. Erica Wollerman I can’t tell you how often the topic of being “broken” or “damaged beyond repair” comes up in my therapy sessions. I believe that asking for help in the form of therapy is one of the most courageous steps someone can take. It is incredibly brave to reach out and say that you may need more support as well as to take the time to tell your story to a complete stranger. This is why it’s a big deal to me when someone reaches out to us to start the process of therapy for either themselves or their child or teen!
Interestingly, people who are asking for help definitely typically do not feel brave or courageous. Unfortunately, our culture leads people to feel that they are weak or flawed for needing help. This frustrates me for many reasons but a big one is that it makes it so incredibly hard for people to get to a place where they are okay receiving therapy and help. So often, people tell me that they are “broken, damaged, and a problem,” when they come into therapy. It is so sad for me to hear that they feel this way but provides a valuable opportunity for us to discuss what this means and why they feel that way. A favorite topic of mine when this sentiment comes up with my clients is to share about Kintsukuroi, which is the “Japanese art of mending broken pottery using lacquer resin laced with gold or silver” (reference from Wikipedia). Essentially, this practice means that when something breaks, it is not thrown away or considered broken, trash, damaged, etc., but it is then transformed into something new and even more beautiful. I find this to be such a beautiful philosophy and completely parallel to what I notice as a therapist about people who have struggled, and at times struggled in incredibly difficult ways. People are not weak, broken, or damaged when they have experienced struggle and allow themselves to come out on the other side of that struggle. If they allow themselves to process through the struggle and to allow growth to happen despite the awful things that may have happened in their lives, they often grow and develop into someone more empathic, understanding, strong, and beautiful. This brings up the concept of post-traumatic growth, which is the personal growth that can sometimes come from trauma. While no one would ever wish for trauma or say that they are glad a traumatic event happened (I certainly wouldn’t), many of my clients do acknowledge that because of the trauma or challenge they have experienced in their lives, they are different and often “better” people in some way that they appreciate. It is like the cracks were filled in with gold or silver just like a piece of Japanese pottery. At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  By: Panicha McGuire, M.A.Instagram (IG) is one of the top social media platforms that most young adults and teens are using; however, it could potentially do more harm than good. Although IG is great for self-expression and creativity, it has also been associated with anxiety, cyber-bullying, and FOMO (“fear of missing out”) according to a recent study.
You may have heard words and sayings such as insta-worthy, #squadgoals, #nofilter, and do it for the ‘gram. Young people are spending more time on their social media accounts than ever before. Seeing your friends constantly enjoying picturesque vacations or showing off their new Yeezys can actually make people feel like they are missing out and promote comparison amongst their peers. These posts can create unrealistic expectations and low self-esteem. It creates an illusion that everybody’s life is far better than your own because only the good parts are shown. No one talks about the behind-the-scenes before the filter was added because it probably took the user 30+ tries to curate the photo of that mouth-watering blueberry scone. But it’s all worth it if you get more followers and likes because it gives you a sense of belonging, a sense of community. I know you might be thinking, "But Panicha, back in my day… this wasn’t a problem." Now before you tell yourself or your teens to uninstall IG, is technology really all to blame? Because if it’s not IG, it’ll be something else. Let’s dig a little deeper. Social comparison has always been a part of our culture, particularly a part of teen culture. Have you ever thought about whether someone’s life was better than yours or perhaps worse than yours? Does it make you evaluate your life choices such as your career or relationships? If Mary Sue is having a baby, then, should you? We have always been comparing ourselves to a standard or an ideal image of what others find preferred or attractive. So, if IG is here to stay, what can we do about mental health? Because simply protecting our youth from using social media isn’t going to solve the problem. There have been many suggestions for social platforms to work towards solutions such as algorithms that identify when someone is showing signs of depression through their internet searches or some magazine companies taking a lead on showing unedited photos on their covers. Here are some ideas of what you can do or recommend your teens to do: 1. Focus on gratitude and appreciation. Sometimes when you get sucked into a rabbit hole of scrolling through different posts, you can easily forget the here-and-now. Focus on the things YOU are currently doing and can enjoy. 2. Look at an image non-judgmentally. Try thinking about facts instead of using positive or negative words. Instead of “I wish I had money to go to Bali too”, say “Looks like the person is enjoying their vacation”. Or instead of “I wish I was that fit”, say “The person is athletic”. This can become a good tool when you begin to stir up some feelings towards an image. 3. Think about the root of the issue. Is Mary Sue having a baby really the problem? Or what about that one friend who seems to be going to a different country every month? Try asking yourself If those feelings are stemming from something else. Think about what could cause you to not feel as worthy or feel less-than. Are there areas of your life that is not making you happy? Or are you feeling like you have to meet certain expectations? 4. Follow different people. Sometimes the best method is to unfollow the person that we choose to compare ourselves to. Are certain posts making you feel less about yourself every time you scroll through? Take control of those comparisons and follow people who actually make you feel good. But also remind yourself, that those curated photos of their amazing vacations aren’t what their life really looks like. At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  By: Dr. Erica WollermanSo, as you probably noticed in my first blog in this series, I have a lot of concerns with positive thinking and its’ attempts to tell us not to feel our unpleasant emotions or think our unpleasant thoughts. However, there are parts of “positive thinking” that I think are truly helpful and worth mentioning here and are traits of someone with resilience and more of a positive mindset. Check out the first two blogs in this series here and here!
1. Focusing more on gratitude In my eyes, focusing on gratitude and intentionally seeking ways to show or experience gratitude is so important. We can often become habitual problem finders who just focus on problems or challenges, rather than all we do have to feel grateful for. In contrast to positive thinking though, I mention gratitude more as a daily practice or habit and not a response to feeling something unpleasant. Generally trying to cultivate a mindset of gratitude looks like noticing things you are grateful for at the end of a day or week – NOT trying to focus on gratitude in moments where you are really upset or struggling. That would be just like the whole, “think positive” suggestion and likely only make you feel worse. 2. Confidence that you can manage difficult situations, experiences, struggles I believe that having a positive mindset about your life could include the confidence that you are going to be okay. That yes, life has its’ struggles, but they really do make us stronger and lead us in new and different directions which can be exciting and scary. In order to have this perspective, you have to not only remember struggles you have had, but remember that you got through them and that there were lessons learned along the way. This part of having a positive mindset involves allowing yourself to remember and process your challenges, not to feel worse about them, but to see what you have endured and how resilient you are. Yes, difficult things are going to happen. But yes, you can get through it. 3. Cultivating memories of pleasant moments, experiences, even during times of struggle This is so incredibly difficult, but so important. We need to remember that all emotions are temporary, the pleasant and the unpleasant. As such, even when we are in deep pain and struggle, we need to have the deeper knowledge that we will not always feel this way. For example, when you are grieving a loss, perhaps of a relationship, pet, loved one, life path, etc. it is important to know that grief marks the importance of that relationship in your life. That when we love, because everything is temporary, we will know loss and need to feel that loss because our feelings and grief honors the relationship or experience. Hopefully this blog rounds out our series on Positive Thinking! While I am not a positive thinking proponent, there are definitely some assets of learning to cultivate a positive mindset and work on becoming a realistic thinker. At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. |
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