 By: Dr. Erica WollermanAs many of you may know, around this time of year I like to set a word as an intention for the coming year. It is a practice that I have been following for about 5 years and have come to really enjoy and look forward to. I personally find it much more helpful than setting New Year’s Resolutions as I try to find a word that represents things that I would like to cultivate in my life. The most interesting part of the past five years in following this practice has been that, even on years where I didn’t think again about the word that I chose, I definitely grew in that area during that year. Not to get too “woo woo” about this, but I definitely think that there is something to the idea of setting an intention as long as you are listening to yourself and what you need when doing so. Plus, my intention is never something super concrete or demanding like buying a house or having a baby. I always choose something that is really in my control and is more about how I approach situations and the world. So, I wanted to share about the word I am choosing for the coming year as well as write a post encouraging those of you who follow our blog to also consider choosing a word. From what many of my clients tell me, this is a practice they really enjoy as well. So hopefully you will too! Anyways, my word this year is going to be “Enough.” I wanted to have a guidepost to help remind me that not only am I enough (as a mother, a boss, a friend, a wife, person, therapist, etc.) but my life is enough. My teeny tiny rental house is enough. My three person family is enough. My life is not just enough, but it is really overflowing with joy and love and I wanted to remember that. Another way that I plan to use this word is to help rein in my ambitions a bit. I am someone that is always thinking of the next thing… the next trip, adventure, business opportunity or goal. This sometimes leads me to struggle to feel that enough is enough. I worry if I am doing enough for my clients, my employees, my business, my family, myself, and the list goes on and on. So, I am going to work towards saying no just a little bit more and minimizing the demands I place on myself. Honestly, this year feels more exciting than ever. Only after having my previous years of balance, strength, faith, gratitude, and abundance can I now have my year of “enough.” So, I encourage anyone reading this to give some thought to developing your own tradition each year of choosing a phrase, word, or some sort of guiding intention for your coming year. If you would like to read past blogs about this topic as well – please check them out here and here! 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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 By: Lauren Spinelli, LCSWIt’s important to remember that every day can be meaningful. It’s truly a new chance to reflect, grow, and make small changes as we navigate through life. Over the years, I have jotted down little reminders, affirmations, quotes, and expressions that I've heard, read, or made up. They seem to really help me when I'm looking for more strength. I wanted to share them with you in the hopes that they will help you, too.
Lauren is welcoming new referrals and enjoys working with children, teens, and adults of all ages! For more information about her approach to therapy, check out her bio here! 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 Anxiety is a tough thing to experience during our usual schedules and lives, let alone during the high pressure and expectations of the holidays! The gift giving and receiving, pressure to make everything Pinterest Perfect, and family get togethers that are sometimes anything but jolly – is a recipe for increased anxiety and stress for all of us! So, in preparation for the festive holiday season, I thought it might be helpful to go through some ideas of ways to help manage stress this holiday season, particularly if you are a parent with anxiety.
I know these tips are a bit easier to write than they are to do for many of us. I believe that the more we as parents can get in touch with our values and what is most important to us, the more we can slow down and do things that really matter. Plus, the more we are likely to enjoy them which means our whole family will be happier! 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 WollermanWith Thanksgiving coming up next week, I thought it might be interesting to reflect in a blog about all the buzz around gratitude. I find that practicing gratitude is both personally and professionally very important, but also “all the rage” these days. It’s hard to find a self-care article that does not include practicing gratitude or to find a person that does not think they “should” practice gratitude. So, what’s the deal with gratitude? Why is it so important? Here are some of my thoughts on the topic…
One of the ways I think about practicing gratitude is as another way to bring awareness to the great things, while also holding space for the unpleasant things in life. A good metaphor for this is thinking about your life like a slightly cloudy sky. If you only focus on the clouds and rain, that is all you see but you miss the sunny parts and interesting cloud shapes! Gratitude can be the attention you give to the whole sky, instead of just the unpleasant patches of clouds and rain. So, I encourage you to try out a gratitude practice this holiday season. Particularly if you are feeling stressed and tired by all the holiday events and activities! It’s honestly pretty simple… All you need to do is pick a time of day to focus on thinking of 3-5 things you are grateful for that day. You could write them in a formal gratitude journal or just reflect on those things, either way works and will help shift your perspective! 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 Learning to own our mistakes and be held accountable for them has to be one of the most difficult and painful lessons in life. I also believe that it is one of the most important lessons, particularly for our children and teens. Often, accountability and honesty in light of mistakes and failure is a goal for parents for their children. However, we need to first model this behavior and make it a goal for us as parents. We need to recognize that we are going to screw up as parents, most likely frequently! And that when we screw up, it probably is going to hurt… We love our little ones more than anything but on a bad day, we yell at them or we say something we shouldn’t or we give them bad advice that well, goes badly for them. I could go on and on about the possible ways we are going to screw up. Newsflash parents, we aren’t perfect and we aren’t supposed to be! Do we want to be perfect parents, yes. Of course we do! Interestingly though, that would be entirely counterproductive for our kids and teens to learn about failure, mistakes, repairing relationships, and coping with our own humanity. So, when we fail, I encourage you to use it as a learning opportunity for yourself and for your kids. Own it. Acknowledge that you screwed up. And figure out how to fix it. Apologize, listen to your kid or teens side and experience, and let them know you recognize that you screwed up and will try to do better. Imagine if we lived in a world where we were all a bit more skilled at this. It would be amazing and we can be the change that leads to that world. I believe we can do it! 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 thought for this week’s blog, it might be interesting to share about the books that I find myself coming back to again and again, both for my professional life and to help support my clients, but also because I find them to be really useful in my life! 1. Daring Greatly and Rising Strong – Brené Brown These are my two absolute favorite BrenéBrown books, and as many of you know I am a huge BrenéBrown fan. Well, groupee perhaps but that’s besides the point. These books are wonderful guides and resources in living a more authentic life, particularly if you identify as a perfectionist. 2. The Whole Brain Child – Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson This book is an excellent guide to understanding your child’s emotional and brain development, and how they influence each other. It gives a ton of simple interventions to use with your kid too! 3. Option B – Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant This is a great book about overcoming adversity and building resilience. I really appreciated the way that Sheryl shared about her own personal tragedy but used it to also help others understand how to overcome challenges in their lives. It’s well worth a read! 4. Bringing up Bebe – Pamela Druckerman As a new mom and someone who lived in France for a period in my younger days, I really appreciated this book. I often reflect on American Parenting and our challenges and found many things in this book helpful in my own parenting journey. 5. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** - Mark Manson No, this book is not about how you should not care about anything! It discusses how we need to choose what we care about and make sure those things line up with our values. This is very much so in line with my beliefs as a therapist and advice I give often. Definitely a great resource! 6. The first bonus podcast – “Where Do We Begin” by Esther Perell I am pretty much obsessed with this podcast. She meets with couples for one session and edits it somewhat before posting it as a podcast. She is an absolutely amazing couples therapist and I love hearing her perspective on the challenges couples are facing. I learn more about therapy and relationships every time I listen. 7. The second bonus podcast - "Conversations with People Who Hate Me" by Dylan Marron This podcast is newer to me but I have to say, I love it! Dylan interviews and talks with people who have sent him hateful messages online in response to his social justice videos and online presence. He does such a great job of trying to understand where the other person is coming from and facilitating a dialogue about issues, while still explaining his stance and reasons behind it. As a therapist, I am very impressed with how he communicates! I hope you find this list helpful! All of these books, authors, and therapists have such amazing messages and ways of communicating that I come back to them again and again. Hopefully you will too! 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. 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.  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. |
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