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Why controlling our kids is not the goal and we should be working to embrace who they are instead…4/23/2021  As the parent of a particularly strong willed toddler myself, I really understand when parents tell me they just want their kids to do the things they ask of them or are supposed to do or have been taught by the parents all their lives. Believe me, I get this in every fiber of my being (especially when that thing is as simple as just put your shoes on so that we can leave and I am not late for my clients!!!! Rough morning over here haha.). While I might get it, I actively work to avoid having CONTROL be the goal in our family. I definitely appreciate and love the days when our son is more easy going and seems able to do what we ask more easily. However, I work hard to recognize that if the only reason he is doing things is because of me or my illusion of control over him, we are likely to have a bigger problem, now and in the future. You see, the goal in my eyes is to have kids figure themselves out more than anything else. For them to figure out who they are, what they like, what they want in their lives, and who they want to be as a person. Unfortunately, the more parents exert control, expectations, and decisions over them - the less the kid is figuring themselves out and the more they are figuring out how to be what their parents want them to be. This worries me both as a parent and as a therapist. Here’s why… My observation of what makes people the most miserable in their lives is not the actual feelings they have. It’s the judgment of their feelings and a lack of understanding of themselves, self-awareness, and insight that could help them figure out what they really want to be doing. The more we just go along with others’ plans for us or shame ourselves for our deepest desires, the more we lose our ability to key into our own needs, feelings, thoughts, etc. and the more likely we are to end up living lives that just are not fulfilling or enjoyable for us. When we as parents are so focused on the outcomes from our kids’ actions (or lack of actions), we lose sight of what we should be focusing on such as the following questions:
I could go on but I think that is a good start. Often, the parents we work with at Thrive become somewhat hyper focused on what their kids are doing in terms of achievement as they really really want them to be set up for success in our world. I understand why they want this and their fear of possible negative outcomes. We live in such a competitive world and environment that we can get caught up in scarcity and the idea that there are right or wrong ways to find success. Unfortunately, the hard truth is that we can not control the outcomes for our children and we certainly can not control who our children are going to be. We can not guarantee that they will be successful in their careers, relationships, or financially or that they will develop with the values or views on life that we hold dear. What we can do instead is focus on how we can help them develop their own goals, plans, dreams, and decision making skills from the security of a strong relationship with us as their parents. We do this by building on and supporting them from a kid-centric perspective, rather than a top down society or parent perspective of what they should be doing or who they should become. While this might feel strange particularly in our world of over-parenting and lawnmower parenting (that’s the one where parents mow down every obstacle for their kids), it’s just a different path to getting the outcome most parents are looking for anyways. Most parents want their kids to become responsible adults who can care for themselves. The best way we can get there is to get to know our kids in order to help us (and them) understand how they function best, what they need, how they feel, and what they want in their lives so that we can support them along the way and they can make choices that truly fulfill their dreams and deepest visions for their lives. We need to accept that we can not truly control who our kids turn out to be. That’s it… the most important parenting goal is to actually just release our illusions of control and accept the truth that our kids come into the world with their own personalities, goals, feelings, and perceptions of the world. While our illusion of control eases our anxiety in terms of wanting to be able to control outcomes for our kids, it is just not accurate or helpful. As a therapist I have watched parents try to mold and form their children into the people they want them to be and it just does not work. It makes kids miserable and honestly leads to negative mental health outcomes like worthlessness, hopelessness, and even self-injury or suicidal thoughts and actions. Anytime you find yourself as a parent feeling like you are losing control, try to recognize that the control you are losing was not real anyway. While you can definitely set certain boundaries with your kids (and I encourage you to set them), you can not change what your kids interests are, how they experience the world (like trying to toughen up a more sensitive kid), and you will be doing harm by trying to change them instead of learning and embracing who they are. 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.
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 I was talking with a colleague about the transition that so many families are experiencing this week with their kids going back to school in person in San Diego. It is such a difficult transition and it was interesting to reflect together about what makes these transitions so tough right now. I think there are so many reasons but wanted to share just a piece of what we came up with to help parents, or even students, have some context for what they are experiencing. It’s important to preface this with a basic understanding that transitions are always really tough. Even positive transitions like marriage or graduating college or a new home are so stressful and tough because of the changes they bring in your life. As humans, we inherently resist change even when we know they are positive. What is crucial to know is that any transition layered on top of other changes or uncertainties in your life are inevitably much more challenging. And here's the thing… we are still in a pandemic and many of us are just running on empty emotionally. Especially families whose kids have been home for over a year. Which leads to my first thought about why this is so hard…
The good news is that we do have practice at pivoting our expectations and working through really hard situations, particularly as a result of the past year of pandemic life. While I can’t guarantee that things will get any simpler in terms of decision making, I do think it is natural that in times of such dramatic upheaval, we are going to struggle to let go of routines. Even the ones we might not love, like doing math with our kids! The biggest question is - How can we work through this? Well, I think that the best thing we can do right now is show ourselves some self-compassion and have a lot of compassion for our kids as they go through this transition with us. Honestly, we are likely to be more anxious, emotional, and a bit on edge while the kids go back and some of us will probably cope better than others in a family. I think making sure that you can recognize the challenge of what we are dealing with and understand that it will get better gradually will also help. Sometimes it is our judgment of our own reactions that is the most upsetting so if we can hold space for any feelings and reaction we have right now that will certainly help ease this transition. We can also remember that our discomfort is likely temporary. Just like we adjusted to the way of life during the pandemic, we will eventually adjust to the odd in-between phase we are in now and find a new equilibrium. Keep in mind that we are all in this together too. Though people are having different and varied reactions to the return to school, everyone is likely to feel something in reaction to the adjustment we are experiencing! 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  It is wild to me to think about how, one year ago, I had no idea what all of us were going to be dealing with for the entire next year. Like everyone else, my family and I had plans. My team and I at Thrive had plans - big plans. We had no idea that so many of them would become absolutely impossible and that our daily lives would become as difficult as they did. During each one of my client sessions, this topic has come up more recently as we reflect on just how amazing it is that we have been living in a pandemic for just about a year. The topic of reflecting on the year we have just experienced. While for some, this reflection might feel a bit morose, I think it can be helpful for us to reflect and take note both of the challenges but also of the silver linings we have experienced. Here are some questions (and my answers!) that can help guide you and your family in this reflection. As we have gone through this year as a family, I think it can be helpful to discuss this together particularly if you have older kids who are very aware of the pandemic and changes in their life. 1. What was an unexpected outcome from the pandemic that you didn’t expect or were surprised by? For me, learning to live my life more slowly has been certainly challenging but necessary and a huge improvement overall. I was definitely one of those parents who took my kiddo everywhere and had lots of plans all the time and being forced to slow down has been nice in some ways. Granted, my goal now is to find more of a middle ground between being out and about and staying home. 2. What is your happiest moment of the past year? So who wrote this question? Oh, I guess that was me but still, that is seriously a tough one! I’ve really focused on practicing gratitude for small moments daily so it is tough to think of just one happy moment when my life has been filled with enjoyable moments with my clients, snuggles with my toddler, and truly appreciating small things like delivery and coffee! I’m going to go with the day we got our kittens as that was truly joyful but I’m sure there have been many more. 3. Have any of your relationships changed as a result of the pandemic? Yes for sure. I feel closer to my husband and our son despite the fact that being home so often has led me to also be more irritated with them and feel I need time alone in a cabin to recover! When I think about it though, I do feel that we are closer and understand each other better. I am also so much more appreciative of my friendships and relationships with my family who live out of state. It has been a solid test of how we maintain communication and relationships without plans to see each other and I think it has helped us be closer in some ways. 4. Have you felt more gratitude about anyone or anything in your life as a result of the pandemic? 1000% yes. Absolutely. I am so grateful for both the people and things that remain in my life and the things that I am missing out on (travel, friends, etc.). The saving grace for me during this time has been that after fearing everything would be taken away from me in my business and fearing that our family might not survive the pandemic, I feel grateful daily for both my career and my loved ones health. I also feel more grateful to be working in a field where, while talking about covid and what we have experienced all the time is not always fun, it definitely has helped me understand myself and the world more. 5. Have you learned anything about yourself during this time that you feel you might not have learned otherwise (or perhaps that was accelerated by the situation)? Learning that it is okay not to always do more and to be grateful for maintaining my business has been a huge lesson for me. I had very big goals last year of adding on a lot to my professional plate and it was so sad for me to give that up in the first months of the pandemic. However, since that time, I feel happier, more balanced, and more able to appreciate what I have rather than always trying to do more. I also think that I have been more present and able to just play and relax with my kiddo, which has been a true joy (most of the time, he is 3 and it’s not all sunshine and rainbows over here!). 6. Bonus question - what little conveniences are you thrilled to have and hope stay even after the pandemic? Target and other places who allow pick up from your car! It’s amazing! I hope these questions help you and your family reflect on the past year and exactly what we have gone through and how we have changed, hopefully for the better. If you or your loved ones could use some support during this time, we are still accepting new clients at Thrive! 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  If you are like me, you may have been hearing about the “pandemic wall” lately. A great question about this is - what the heck does that even mean? So, I thought we should chat a bit about it here and what you can do about it. Pretty much the pandemic wall is something that many people have been experiencing (from what I have observed and experienced myself) since January or intermittently since January or even just is popping up now. And it means simply what it says - that we are collectively hitting a wall with the pandemic. More and more we feel exhausted by the burden of living with the fear of a deadly virus. We feel exhausted by having to think about safety and sanitizing things all the time. We feel just so sick of all of this that we are more worn out, weary, anxious, apathetic even. We are lonely deep in our souls. So lonely. To put it bluntly, we are SO OVER IT. I have to say that after a year of doing this life, many of us expect to be adjusted or that it will get easier. I can’t emphasize enough that this is not how this works (unfortunately). We are an inherently social species and the isolation, anxiety, pressure, and just heaviness of the past year is taking a toll on all of us, even those who seem fine. All in all, it makes sense that as we reach a milestone in this journey and come up on a year, or enter a new year where we can no longer say, oh well that’s just 2020, that things are increasingly difficult. When we are trying to force ourselves to adjust to an unsustainable way of living our lives, we are not going to actually adjust. We can cope, we can survive, but actual adjustment is unlikely because it is by definition not sustainable. So, what do we do? Good question. Unfortunately, I don’t have any magic here. No wands, no magic to make this easier for all of us. Believe me, if I did, I would be using it! I think the hard truth is that we keep going as best we can. We take it one day at a time and do the next right thing for ourselves and our families. There are a few things that might help that process and that is this… we need to be compassionate with ourselves, allow ourselves our emotions and inner temper tantrums, and continue letting rules be relaxed when we need them to be. We can also focus on the small things that help us cope or are enjoyable, like a snuggle with a pet or child, a great cup of coffee, or doing something outside again. The little things will help us get from day to day but might not change just how over it we all are. That’s okay. We don’t need to change that part as much as we might want to. We just need to accept and acknowledge that this is still a hard path to walk. But we will keep going and try to find some hope when we can that this will be over someday. Hang in there world! 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  Around this time in 2016, I had a close friend of mine die in a car accident. It’s definitely one of the worst things that has happened in my life. I can still recall the first 24 hours of receiving the news. I was devastated. It wasn’t real, and my friends and I struggled to support each other as we all were experiencing our own grief in our own ways. Triggers flew around with no warning sign, and I was a mess. Two weeks after the accident was also his birthday. Instead of celebrating another year of his life and looking forward towards his future, we all mourned his death and the loss of our friend. I’ve experienced other losses in my life, but grief is funny in that it never really feels the same. Every situation feels different, and this one… this one has impacted me in ways much deeper and more profound than I could have ever anticipated. Every year since, I have “dark days” during those two weeks between the anniversary of his death and his birthday. I allow myself to move a little slower. I give myself a little more space to be alone or to lean on others. I let go of any expectations to overachieve. I allow myself to cry when I need to, work when I need to, and reminisce about memories shared and wonder about memories lost, the moments that could’ve been. Grief doesn’t have an expiration date. It’s not something you “get over.” It’s something you live with and move through. Grief changes you but know that your grief will change too. I’ve been able to accept my grief. Am I still sad he’s gone? Yes. Do I still cry sometimes? Absolutely. Do I wish I had more time with him? Desperately. I still wonder about what he’d say or how he’d react to something. But I also now welcome the moments that remind me of my friend because it means that he was important and that his life mattered. It means that I was impacted and that he made a difference. I believe that’s what friendship is about. Human connection, and so I find comfort in my grief because it means that his life meant something. If you know of someone who is grieving and want to give them support, the best thing you can do is to be there for the grieving person. Consider what you would want from someone (a hug, time together, distraction, meals cooked for you, etc.) and offer that but try not to expect anything from them. Since everyone grieves differently, it’s important to offer what you can but to avoid putting any pressure on them to grieve or respond in any specific way. I also think it is important that you do not try to fix grief for someone else. You might need to sit with and accept that nothing you say or do will make this time easier or happier. Grief is just hard. Period. But, it is a natural part of our lives and something we all need to wade through rather than avoid. And it is certainly helpful to wade through it with a supportive friend or family member if that person can allow the grief to exist when it is there and to subside when it is not. I often reference grief as being similar to a wave, it will come and go and the intensity can vary. While time can heal, grief never goes away but becomes more bearable. I found this article to be helpful on some tips on providing support to someone experiencing grief. https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/helping-someone-who-is-grieving.htm If you’re struggling in your grief, just know that you aren’t alone and know that we are here for you! Grief does not discriminate. It is something everyone feels it at some point in their lives. If you’re looking for some support, we are here to support you. 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  So, for those of you who have been reading my blog for a while might know that I usually set an intention for each year around this time. 2020 has certainly not been a year where many of us have been able to keep our intentions, or resolutions for that matter. I debated about posting anything about setting an intention for next year as, well, I almost don’t want to put anything out into the world that will leave me disappointed! So much of the lessons of 2020 I think have involved digging deeper into ourselves and our relationships to figure out how we deal with extraordinary situations and difficulties. My word for this year ended up being Embrace (this is after a few revisions because I started with something else I believe). And well, as much as I might not like to say it, this is exactly what this year led me to do. I spent a lot of time leaning into and embracing things that have been hard and do feel that I have learned about myself, the world, and how to be a better mom, wife, person, and therapist. Do I dare consider setting an intention for 2021? I think I do. I would encourage you to as well to be honest. I think it is important to always consider how we can lean into or improve things in our lives, even during extraordinary times. My word for next year is going to be Generous. While I am often a very generous person, particularly at work and with my team, I struggle to be generous in the way I interpret my loved ones words or actions. The narrative that I come to most easily is often not the one that is kind and generous in spirit. I would truly like to work on this and considering the fact that 2021 seems like it might start out just as challenging as 2020 has been… I think there will likely be ample opportunities to practice my generosity! If you are considering setting an intention for the coming year, I applaud you! I think it is brave right now to want things and to work on improving ourselves and our lives beyond just getting through the day. Throughout this pandemic, I have been so impressed with my clients who have kept on working through the things that come up rather than just hiding from all of it considering the immense pressures on all of us. For those of you who would rather not tempt fate and want to give 2021 some space to be an improvement on this year, I get it. I want it to be better too! And it is entirely okay not to challenge yourself if that feels like too much. We need to all be compassionate and kind with ourselves right now. This is my last blog of 2020 as I will take a break for the holidays and resume in the New Year! I hope everyone stays healthy and finds some silver linings in the messy world of ours. If we at Thrive can do anything to help support you or your loved ones, please don’t hesitate to reach out! 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  Many people think that therapists are somehow immune from struggling in the way everyone else does. I am pretty honest about this being entirely untrue - as any of you who regularly read my blog or follow me on social media would know! All of us could use a little bit of self-care so I thought I would share my favorite things that I do consistently, pretty much daily, in order to help keep myself as mentally okay as I can be… particularly as a therapist during a pandemic! I do want to just say that please, please keep in mind that self-care is not a cure all strategy. I have a healthy dose of skepticism about the “wellness industry” and how much they are pushing us all to spend on ourselves in the interests of self-care. They almost seem to be trying to sell the idea that if you engage in “this activity,” you will never feel pain again. While I definitely accept the fact that some level of struggle is just a part of being human, I do try to find ways to lessen the struggle when possible. So while engaging in self-care is not a cure all strategy to never struggle again, it can be helpful to keep yourself hanging in there… which is all many of us can do in this wild 2020 ride. I also want to acknowledge that for many people, expensive self-care items or subscription boxes are just not realistic or practical. Plus, during a pandemic, many previous forms of self-care (going out with friends, massages, shopping, etc.) are just also not realistic. Additionally, many of us, particularly parents just don’t have the time for long self-care rituals. So, for this list I kept it as simple and free as possible. Plus, this is all actually what I do to keep myself functioning for my family, clients, and business. Okay, here’s my list!
I hope this is helpful for some of you! Most of the activities I shared do not actually take that long and are pretty accessible even in the busiest households during a pandemic. If these ideas are not for you, maybe think up a few others. Maybe journaling, having coffee alone outside, reading a book, or taking a long shower could go on your list. Self-care does not need to be expensive or dramatic, often it is just little things we practice doing over and over that help us feel more grounded and centered. 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  So often, there are messages all around us that we take in unconsciously. These are messages about gender roles, what life “should” be like, perhaps what people “should” be like, and even more insidious messages about people who are either different from us or who live their lives differently than we do. The idea of understanding our unconscious biases and “programming” seems to be a hot topic and popular idea lately particularly with the rise in awareness about the divisions in our country and resulting reckoning many of us are having about race and privilege. Interestingly for me as a psychologist, helping people work on their programming is something I have done for a long time. We learn in undergraduate psychology classes that we are influenced easily by the world around us. I remember this being discussed a lot around topics like violence in the media as well as body image. However, in my day to day work with clients, the topic of messages and narratives we have taken in from the world, our parents, our communities, the media, etc. comes up all the time. The truth is, on a personal level, we all have some unconscious ideas of what we should or should not be doing or what we should or should not be like. The programming around being “good” or “bad” is something that I have talked about for years as I find it to be so problematic for kids and teens to feel shame around their mistakes or challenges (which is often what “bad” behavior is). If you are someone who is interested in doing deep work about your unconscious bias or programming you might have taken in about others or yourself, good news, therapists are here for you and can definitely help. If you want to try to do this work on your own, here are some suggestions to help you get started.
For example, my parents were not always great at managing my willful spirit as a kid. I mean, the book “raising a difficult child” was often on my mom’s nightstand and we had numerous power struggles a day. So, here I am years and many hours of therapy later plus experience working with parents and kids in therapy… you might think I would have this figured out and know just exactly how to approach my son, who is also quite willful. And here it is… I don’t. I think sometimes I do a great job at understanding him and sometimes, it is harder than I like to admit. I realized when he was a baby that I had this unrealistic expectation of myself that because I am who I am (therapist, fellow sensitive human, parent “expert”), I would never screw up particularly around managing his behaviors and emotions, or even just my reactions. And the truth is, nope. I screw up too. The important thing is that I know this is okay and have recognized that the shame I feel is just because I have programming around both being willful and sensitive as a child, but also around who I should be as a mom. All of these concepts are a lot to put in one blog but I wanted to try! I think it is so important that people not familiar with therapy can understand a lot of what those of us practicing deep work with our clients are working on week after week. Building self-awareness is honestly really intense and challenging work but so rewarding. I have seen so much growth and change not just in my clients, but in myself by challenging myself to become as integrated of a person as possible. If you would like help doing the same, please feel free to call us at Thrive! 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  For so many parents, it is so hard to cultivate a mindset of positivity towards ourselves. Particularly for those of us who are super perfectionistic and are truly trying to achieve that super-parent life that we seem to believe everyone else is living. You know, doing all the things, all the time. It’s easy to feel like we are failing when our standards are unrealistic. I find that the pandemic has exacerbated this situation for so many of us and while in the beginning, I think it felt acceptable to release expectations and let our lives be a bit different - you know, messier, or less grinding towards goals - now, 7 months and counting, I think many of us have ramped up those expectations again. I think it is important to always keep in mind the fact that being hard on ourselves is the least productive thing we can do. You see, when we are hard on ourselves about everything and truly feel like if we are not perfectly doing everything that we are failing, we end up adding unneeded guilt and shame to our lives. These feelings not only take a toll on how we are feeling but they also add in a lot of emotional labor to engage in. We either spend time avoiding those feelings, projecting them onto others, or trying to heal them. I would suggest that our time is better used by spending it on working on the way we talk to ourselves. Rather than demanding more of ourselves all the time and being relentless in our guilt when we screw up, what if we talked to ourselves the way we would talk to a small child, baby, or even kitten or puppy? Most of us, particularly parents will be kinder to others than ourselves and using a dose of self-compassion can be infinitely more helpful than anything else in terms of helping us feel calm, grounded, and confident that we can do hard things. Here are some ideas for putting this into practice… “I see that you are struggling with that, let’s take a break and come back to it.” “It’s okay to be sad, overwhelmed, angry (etc.)” “What can we do to make this situation better” “You can do this” “Eventually, things will be okay” “This feeling is temporary” The more we can approach ourselves with loving, kindness the better we will feel. And guess what, then we can also approach our loved ones with even more loving kindness as well. Plus we are then modeling for them how to manage their emotions a bit more effectively! 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL.  The world just seems like a tough place to be a person these days. Or at least our country does. Things are so divided and people really seem to believe that anyone not on “their team” is the true enemy and some sort of bad person. While I could probably go on and on a bit about the social psychology behind this (in group/out group bias anyone? Black and white thinking anyone?) OR about how this is all encouraged by social media, I think it might be more helpful to share a bit about how I try to make sense of things to help myself cope when things feel challenging. For me, the key is this… Even when the world feels like an awful place, I believe that people are doing the best they can in their situation. I try hard to remember that people are just people and that most people are genuinely trying to do the right thing, whatever they think that might be. The follow up is this… the best they can does not always look like the best that you think they should have been able to do or the best you believe you would have been able to do in their position. Sometimes the best you can do on one day is not the best you would be able to do on another day. As people, our performance, decision making, and general abilities are not always consistent from moment to moment. And for me, this is an important principle to think about more in reality and less theoretically. For example, when you hear a story about someone on paper making a mistake, it is easy to theoretically think, “well they should have done this.” Or it’s easy for a sports fan to be a critic of the plays called and the mistakes made that led to their team losing the game. However, it is a much different thing to be the person out there making those mistakes or decisions under pressure and with a million other variables that are going to impact performance. While I would most likely not be willing to bet that even a top performing player will always come through in the end when it counts, I would bet anything that they would try their best because they are working for something of significant value to them. The thing is that I also believe that people generally try their best to do the right thing… we just might not agree about what “right” means. Sports are easy examples because the goals are obvious - to win as much as possible. Life is generally more complicated than that. Our values and personal goals are not always so easy to communicate, identify, or even in our own awareness. Here’s what I have come to also believe given my line of work, there is always a reason why people do things the way they do. Plus, we are more alike than we are different. While this lens can be challenging at times, particularly in our current climate socially and politically, I find that this lens helps me make sense of things and helps me keep more of an open mind and a kind, compassionate hard with everyone even when we don’t necessarily agree about things. To help me with this, I try to ask myself what is the most generous or compassionate interpretation of this situation? Especially with the people I am closest to, I find that this is the lens that helps me understand them but also how we can connect and understand each other better. It's way better than creating a narrative in my head about how I am right and everyone else is wrong. And when I say it is better, I mean that it is better for me, my peace of mind, but also for my relationships. While we all face the upcoming turmoil that seems anticipated for the coming election season in addition to the unrest already at play in our world, I hope this is a helpful reflection for some of our readers! 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 via video sessions, 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/dsgLNL. |
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