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 I know that might feel like a dramatic title but from what I am seeing and feeling in the world, I’m sadly not sure it is that off base or dramatic. So many of the people, particularly parents of young children, feel like they are just drowning. Drowning in zooms, drowning in snuggles, drowning in needs, demands on their time and attention and love. The list just goes on and on. We are also drowning in our emotions right now. I know the holidays coming up has brought up a new awareness of just how much we have had to give up or sacrifice for this pandemic and to try and protect ourselves and others. There are a lot of words for what we are feeling, pandemic fatigue, compassion fade, but most of us just feel plain exhausted and overwhelmed. And on the worst days, it’s hard to feel hopeful that we can get through this. Particularly for people with the most unsustainable situations. The parents who are juggling stay at home learning while also working from home. The parents of kids with special needs without the services they normally rely on for support. The teens and young adults who don’t know how long it will be until they can make more concrete future plans again. As a therapist, so much of what I see and am spending my sessions on are topics that are just not “easy.” And that’s in normal times! But right now, during a pandemic, sessions are so often about big systemic challenges we are dealing with that just feel unsolvable. Inequity… the pandemic… how can we possibly change the world when we are so tired from our day to day lives to do anything else? This is such a tough place to be right now and what I wanted to consider is a way to frame it differently. I think most of us recognize just how tough this is and have been using every possible coping skill to try and make it better somehow. However, I think that perhaps we aren’t really going to make it better. We are just going to endure and persist through this challenging time in our world. The analogy that I found myself reaching for this week in particular was that we are essentially all on sinking ships and we are just trying to plug as many of the holes as we can so that we can not sink before help arrives. You see, I don’t think it is realistic for our goal to be that we are going to be at pre-pandemic levels of happiness or joy or anything like that. I think we can hope for some days that are reasonably good and less days that are terrible. That seems like a doable and realistic expectation. And it’s also less overwhelming to think of the small things that we can do to fill our small holes causing our ships to sink. For me, I fill them with daily walks and gratitude practices, trying to stay present with my kiddo and new kittens, making lists of things to do but not being overly focused on doing them if I don’t have it in me, reading books for fun, and limiting my news and focus on the world. So, while I am not sure I have any real answers to the challenges we are facing, I propose that each of us may have within us some small answers to how we endure until we can actually solve more of these big picture problems. I think focusing each day on ways we can slowly stop our boat personally or our families boats from sinking might be a start! 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.  As a therapist, business owner, and mom myself, I have reflected often on the relentless nature of modern parenting. The standards and ideals many of us hold very dear and genuinely feel are important, if not vital, are challenging in our typical lives. Now we have the challenge of living during a global pandemic which is placing an unreasonable amount of pressure on parents, particularly parents of kids who are not entirely independent and working parents. We are also getting mixed signals in the world about how to handle this… do we relax our expectations? Do we just need to get even more efficient and sleep less to get everything we need to get done? Do we need more color-coded charts perhaps? I am of the belief that we likely will need to relax our expectations of ourselves in order to survive this situation as well as we can. We are just not going to be able to meet every deliverable at work, be our best parenting selves 24 hours a day, and have our lives look up to our ideal standards (whatever that might be for you). Without the government stepping in and providing more relief to parents, this is an unsustainable situation for most of us. While we might be able to do it for a short period of time, when we start talking about many many more months, parents deservedly start wondering what in the world are we going to do? The choices many parents are facing feel pretty grim as none of them feel like the “right” thing to do. Many of us have the privilege that we have not had to face a list of options that all feel terrible but are the only things we can do in a given situation. What a rude awakening we are having! Here are some of the questions parents are facing…
Additionally, parents are feeling so mixed about almost any choice we make. When all of the choices have very clear negatives but there is not one that is guaranteed to be better/easier/manageable, it puts us in an uncomfortable position. Often, I would say we are faced in the most direct way possible with the truth that we cannot do it all. Definitely not right now, and I would argue most likely not ever because the standards have always been unrealistic. However, in order to cope and survive, we as families are having to lower our bars even more, which is uncomfortable particularly for those of us who are perfectionistic and already felt that we were not entirely doing things “ideally.” I wanted to write about this as I feel that parents need to know they are not alone. So many of the parents I speak to feel alone in this and like they are the only ones struggling. I am here to tell you that you are not. This is really hard and most parents I know are really having a hard time. Our coping is going to need a dramatic overhaul in the coming weeks. It is likely not going to be good enough to just take 5 minutes for yourself a day or to throw yourself even more into color coded charts. We are going to need to take some deep looks at our lives, values, and priorities and make some really tough decisions. While there are certainly no quick fixes, and often there are going to be no “right” or “perfect” or even “good enough” answers, we need to work on how we relate to ourselves through this situation. The kinder, more compassionate, and gentle we can be with ourselves – the better. While I may not be able to solve the challenges your family is facing, I can offer some thoughts of ways to work in some self-compassion.
In times of transition and change, the most important thing for all of us is to try to be flexible and understanding with ourselves. We need to re-define our parenting ideals and make it okay for parents to be imperfect and to have that be okay. I always tell clients in my office that perfect parents are not welcome or even helpful for kids. Kids and teens need us to be imperfect and to show them how to relate to our challenges and mistakes with compassion so that they can do the same. If you are struggling in this situation to communicate the way you want with your child or maybe you are losing your patience, being inconsistent, or whatever other “parenting no-no” you are having – work on repairing with them and with yourself. Talk to them and let them know you love them and are trying your best. Most of all, hang in there parents. This is really hard and there is a crazy amount of pressure on us these days. Let’s not add to it ourselves with even more expectations! As always, we at Thrive are here for parents and teens, particularly during this unprecedented time in our world. We want to help you make the most of the pandemic but also help you cope with it if you are struggling. Please make sure to balance any advice you are taking with a healthy dose of self-care and realistic expectations! 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. Dr. Erica Wollerman shares all about what people are truly looking for while in a place of struggle. I’ve been reflecting a lot about how things have been going for many of us, particularly those of us who have been struggling to manage our stress or feelings during the current pandemic and shelter in place orders. Which is possibly, all of us at one time or another. I think this situation is highlighting the challenges our society has had with many, many things and how we handle emotions is really just one of them. It is, however, a big one. Especially right now and especially for those of us who access our emotions more readily. I had some thoughts about what others could do to help and wanted to share them! The biggest suggestion I have is this… Be the person who cares to listen to the truth when you ask someone how they are. Be brave enough to just listen rather than trying to fix it. Especially now... our world feels lonely and even those who are surrounded by people might feel unseen and unheard. Let’s hold off on any problem solving for a while as it places pressure on us to have what just IS, not BE. I personally am well equipped to help people experience their emotions mostly because I am a therapist and it is literally what I do all day. While it can be a challenge, it is valuable beyond measure for people to feel connected, seen, head, and understood. I am personally of the belief that this is what most of us are truly craving while we are in a place of struggle. Unfortunately, when people offer suggestions too quickly, it takes us out of a place of connection of equals and puts us in a place of feeling that emotions are to be avoided and need to be fixed. It can create an expert-subordinate kind of dynamic that just does not feel like connection but like you are in trouble for your emotions or shouldn’t have them. For example, recently I was sharing about my grief related to changes in my life due to the coronavirus pandemic. I have been preparing to create and launch an online course (surprise!) for many months and have had this planned to roll out this year. Unfortunately, due to the current situation and our lack of child care it is just not realistic for me to continue working on this right now. I was sharing about how sad this is and have heard a lot of suggestions and comments that sound like this…
While these comments and suggestions were genuinely meant to be helpful and supportive - they were after all encouraging me towards my goals - they did not feel helpful or supportive but like more pressure that I don’t need. As a recovering perfectionist, I’ve struggled with managing expectations of myself during this time of change and transition. It has happened so quickly that I first resented the changes and held so tight to my previous goals. This just led me to feel so much anxiety and pressure. Why? Because my previous expectations and goals are no longer realistic. I’m able to work maybe 60% of the time I was before and comparably to other parents with young kids, that’s actually amazing. I’m lucky to do that. However, I still have a business to run and clients to see and a family to help support emotionally and financially and that means that some of my other goals are just going to have to be on the back burner for a bit. This doesn’t mean I am giving up, not managing my time well, or that there is some solution for this that I couldn’t find (and need someone else’s help to find for that matter) – it means I am accepting reality on its terms. If someone tells you something is just not realistic for them right now, believe them. Honor their pain and struggle that it took to tell you that and hold space for them to be sad about the conclusion they drew that is inevitable. I know this is uncomfortable because a lot of us like to believe nice ideas about life like, “you can do anything.” I’m here as a mama-business owner- and generally tired person saying, nope. I can’t do anything. It’s not worth the stress or burnout so I am just going to do what is possible and enjoy the process as much as I can. This has been a theme in my sessions with clients recently too. More of us, particularly those of us characterized as sensitive, need less problem solving and more genuine support. We just need someone to listen and hear our pain and struggle, not someone to help us take it away. There are two things people are looking for in emotional conversations…
Unfortunately, when you meet emotion and a search for connection with problem solving all you end up with is disconnection. Feeling less understood. And for me I also have to then renegotiate my new expectations with myself all over again because not only do I have perfectionistic tendencies that I work on daily, I also have people pleasing tendencies. This is a time of change for many, especially those of us who struggled already to have reasonable expectations of ourselves. For those of you who love a perfectionist, please be gentle in your support and suggestions. I know it does not feel like you are doing anything when you just listen and confirm that our lives are indeed challenging, but this is EVERYTHING when someone is emotional. 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.  By Panicha McGuire, LMFT, RPTBy now you are probably running out of ideas of things to do with your child when you’ve been confined with each other for weeks. Or, you’ve probably seen Frozen II for the 100th time. Although we all hope to get back to normal soon, this may be a good opportunity for you to take a step back and practice becoming emotionally closer to one another. These are some activities that will help elicit open dialogue with your child, help you learn more about each other’s likes/dislikes, and some are just plain fun.
Fun Tip - These activities can be parent(s) vs children which will help siblings’ bond and learn to work together! As always, we at Thrive are here for parents and teens, particularly during this unprecedented time in our world. We want to help you make the most of the pandemic but also help you cope with it if you are struggling. Please make sure to balance any advice you are taking with a healthy dose of self-care and realistic expectations! 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.  There is no easy way to tell a teen that schools might not even go back to session this academic year as many of them are struggling with dealing with feelings of loneliness and frustration at having to stay home with their families right now. This is so understandable considering that teens are at an age where they are going to crave connection with their peers, not with their families. I think that there is no easy way to deal with the feelings of loneliness that are going to come up for teens as a result of social/physical distancing. What I mean is that I don’t think teens are magically going to feel better until this situation is over. However, I think there are some things parents can do to support them and help them get through this situation.
From there, your goal is to elicit ideas from your teen as to how they can get through this situation. You can offer ideas, but try not to make them one big to do list of things they need to accomplish. I think one byproduct of having a slower pace in our lives is that our teens can get some much needed down time right now. Let’s encourage that and allow them to figure out new things they might want to try or new ways to connect with friends. If you are struggling in parenting your teen or your teen is struggling, please reach out for help! We are offering video therapy sessions throughout CA and have openings for new clients today! 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.  By: Dr. Erica WollermanWell, here we are facing yet another week of social distancing and living with the challenge of parenting during a pandemic! As many other writers have also commented on, this is a time where we are all likely to have a variety of reactions but most likely we are also feeling exhausted. Exhausted with the daily changes we ae having to make and the dramatic impact staying home, often with our entire family, is having on our emotional health. The reason for this is because we are all experiencing collective trauma and anxiety from the fears we have for our world, ourselves, our families, as well as grief related to what was and what we are unsure about for the future. Most of us have not experienced a struggle like this in our world, especially one without an end date. I have to say, this is hard. It’s hard for all of us and it seems to be impacting people in such a variety of ways that I thought it might be helpful to share a bit about what I feel might help our teens and the parents of teens get through this. As I have mentioned in past blogs about the Covid-19 pandemic, we need to come to a place where we can embrace this new reality so that we can learn to cope with it. Unfortunately, our teens may struggle with this even more than we do at times. I can tell you, a cooped up and isolated teen is not a fun person to spend time with. Here are some ideas specifically to help parents with teens at home who are practicing social distancing.
I hope this is helpful for our readers right now! As always, my goal is to be a calming and helpful voice in the storm that can be parenting and my office is here to help for those who would like to talk more about parenting or who would like support for their teens. We are accepting new clients for video therapy sessions today! Click here to download our Free Guide that goes along with this Blog! 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. "I don’t know about you but this is my first f****** global pandemic". -Brené Brown I was looking for a podcast this morning and stumbled on Brené Brown’s new podcast, Unlocking Us. For those of you who don’t know, I am a bit of a fan or her work. Okay, I’m totally obsessed with it! Her above statement perfectly captures what we are all dealing with and the inherent complexities of living through this time. I wrote the below blog post all about the grief process as it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. I hope you all enjoy it as it is a bit more open and vulnerable than my usual (which is great that I found a perfect Brené Brown quote to go with it considering she is my go to champion of vulnerability even when you don't want to. As I have been working with my clients, consulting with my family, friends, and colleagues, and checking in with my own emotions, I have recognized that the process of adjusting to our new normal as we try to #flattenthecurve and engage in social distancing reminds me so much of a grief process. As a therapist, I am familiar with grief and how it pops up in our lives during times that do not necessarily include death. Grief is involved in any sort of ending, new beginning, phase of life, and even happy days. For example, when you become a parent you are overjoyed at the gift of the precious baby you now have but you might also feel overwhelmed with grief for the life you used to know. As I have sat with my own emotions and explored those of others during this unprecedented time in our world, there has definitely been a process of grief and loss. I remember just a week or two ago, which feels like MONTHS ago, feeling like everything was happening so quickly and everyone seemed so anxious and I felt like it was not even happening. I now recognize my feeling that this might be an overreaction both as a product of my own misinformation and lack of understanding of the situation we were in but also as a process of denial. I honestly have been working so hard in my life on so many of my goals, that I didn’t want any of this to be real. Particularly as a business owner, this situation was enough to make anyone want to hide with a blanket over their heads. The next wave of emotions was definitely some level of resentment. I honestly resented the people around me, even my husband whose judgment I trust, for telling me life as we knew it was over and would be for a longer time than any of us are prepared to sit with. Taking my son out of daycare and moving my therapy practice online have been changes that it truly took a lot of time to process. I found that I personally needed to allow myself some space to just be sad and to grieve all of the things I feel like we are losing…. My son’s experience with his trusted and beloved daycare providers, our upcoming vacation, all of my client’s progress and consistency in sessions and in therapy, my own progress in building our business, and our freedom to do what we enjoy doing – which is generally not staying home. I also felt like I needed some time to readjust from “building and improving” my life and my business to “survival mode.” Simultaneously, I have recognized my privilege in this situation. I work in a business that can use video and telehealth for sessions and our business will continue. It will continue differently but we are able to cope with this. So many businesses and people are not and I feel that sense of injustice in our world keenly. I have also been so grateful for my family situation and feeling so well supported by my colleagues, family, and friends. Never have I cherished our new home and backyard more than I do these days with a toddler to entertain! Never have I been so grateful for all that I have in the world. I found that my path to acceptance of our situation came from allowing myself time to just feel all of these things. To feel overwhelmed, sad, and to truly grieve everything that is happening. The loss of life, people’s livelihoods, and our ability to move through our world freely. I needed to let myself just feel these things and my feelings about them. During this time, I tried not to think too rationally about how I do believe that we can figure these things out. I just let the feelings come and embraced them willingly. I let myself cry freely and think all of my biggest fears and just let my awareness sit on the fact that we don’t know how long this will last. I repeat, our futures are not known and we honestly can’t do much in terms of planning. While some may find this freeing, many of us are going to find this anxiety provoking. To go from working towards goals and planning events to just getting through the week is going to be a challenge and struggle for many. It certainly has been for me. While I truly believe in our ability to come back from this both as individuals and as a society, that is truly so scary to not know so many things about what that process might look or be like. I feel like many of us are even bargaining in this grief process. I’ve said it myself, and heard many others say things like, “I can do this for 2 weeks but no longer.” Guys, we need to sit with the truth in this situation to allow ourselves to come to a place of coping. The more we fight reality, the more we are also delaying our own acceptance and coping. The world as we knew it is changing and it is now up to us to accept this, figure out a new normal, and allow ourselves to recognize that we don’t know anything about what the future will hold. This is a wave that could crush us if we are not careful. We could get lost in the unknown and fear. I encourage you to know this and choose to dip your toes in the pool of your emotions but to then also let yourself allow some light in. Other than days when the grief wave just takes hold of me, I am going to be mindful of my thoughts and choose to believe that we will get through this and that our resilience as a people will be a powerful force in light of this pandemic. I truly believe that our struggles can bring about change and growth and am hopeful that this might not be different even now. If you or your loved ones are struggling to cope, our office is still offering telehealth (video) therapy sessions throughout California. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you feel we can be supportive during this time. Our therapists have availability and can offer flexible schedules even for those who are working from home while trying to learn how to homeschool your kids. From the bottom of my heart, I hope all of our readers are hanging in there and adjusting during this time. We will continue to post resources and tips for our readers to help us all cope with the days ahead! 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.  By: Dr. Wollerman As many people are making dramatic changes to their lives to try to #flattenthecurve in our country while we deal with this pandemic, therapists are making changes as well. Most of us are moving towards video session and our practice is no different! Starting next week, we are going to be only offering video sessions for our clients until it is reasonable to start up in person sessions again and we feel comfortable doing so without concern of transmitting Covid19. As the leader in our practice, this was a tough decision for me for many reasons. One, I really want to support my clients and love doing so in person. Two, I really didn’t want this choice to impact people’s access to care particularly during a time where so many of us are understandably feeling stressed, anxious, and even depressed. Three, I also genuinely believe in how calming it can be to have some normalcy in our lives when the world feels like it is falling apart. Upon reflection, I realized that while I am feeling all these conflicting feelings about it, people might be feeling conflicted even about attending sessions. We all know that there has been a variety of responses to Covid19 and some people continue to feel that we are all “over-reacting.” However, there are also those who are working hard to change their lives in the interest of protecting the most vulnerable in our society. Once I got used to the idea of changing our life and the way we offer our services, the more I realized that this is valuable coping in a time when things are unstable. Perhaps the more we learn to roll with the challenges life hands us, even when they are HUGE like right now, the more we all learn how to refocus on what mattes and how we can connect and cope together through this unprecedented time in our world. So, I had my first client video sessions in the past few days and realized that this is actually such a great way to connect with my clients! We luckily had very few tech related issues and the sessions felt almost exactly the same as in our office. My clients loved it and I felt thrilled to be able to continue to provide services without feeling any conflict around if I could possibly be exposing my clients to something dangerous. For those of you on the fence about telehealth, I thought I would share some pros with you!
These are just simple things that were fun today. The most important reason to continue with telehealth is that you don’t need to cancel your personal growth just because everything else in our world is cancelled. You can still work on yourself, how you are managing the unknown of this situation, and find support. Plus, we are all not sure how long this situation will last and it is going to be important for all of us to schedule in self-care. I feel that many parents in our world who are suddenly home schooling while working, are going to feel the pressure to be in survival mode throughout this situation. I would encourage you to consider the harm and stress of that. Carving out an hour a week to find support and a time for you, is most likely going to be crucial in maintaining this situation as long as we need to. We at Thrive would be thrilled to help any Californians during this time and are no longer limited to the bounds of who can drive to our office. We are hopeful that this will help extend the people we are able to help, particularly during a time of such challenge and uncertainty in our country. We are even working on strategies of things to do with younger kids in telehealth and ways to continue our work with the whole family! From our Thrive family to your family, we hope everyone is hanging in there and we look forward to supporting 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. We will be posting ongoing information to support our families and community during the Covid19 pandemic. Please stay tuned and let us know if there are questions we can help answer! |
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