 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.
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 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. 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.  So, a topic that comes up a lot in my work with teens is pressure. Teens often feel a lot of pressure. They feel it from their parents, their schools, their friends, their followers on social media, and from the world around them as a whole. Even before social media came to be, it was really typical, and developmentally normal, for teens to feel that the whole world is watching them. And now they have proof that the whole world is watching, or not watching them, in terms of numbers of shares, likes, comments, snaps, texts, etc. As many parents recognize, it is a whole new ball game in raising kids, particularly teens.
What I notice to be really challenging for parents of teens is knowing how much pressure is enough, too much, or not enough. There is just so much pressure on teens, but also on their parents in our current society and culture. There is far more information known about development, parenting, and what is needed to be successful in our world. And honestly, as a new mom and therapist, I would say that there is way TOO MUCH information about all of it. There are a thousand parenting books out there and if I, the parenting “expert,” feel like I should read all of them despite my years of experience, education, and training on parenting, I can only imagine the pressure other parents feel. With parenting teens, there is also the additional pressure of college plus a limited number of years left that our teens live with us. The questions arise... have I done a good job? Are they ready for the world? How are they going to do anything on their own? Will they get into college? Will they make it in the real world? I could go on and on and on because the questions and the doubts are just never-ending. This leads to a huge amount of pressure but also fear for parents. Unfortunately, this can translate to our kids as feeling that we doubt them, rather than we doubt ourselves. Regardless of how much pressure you end up thinking your teen needs in order to help them thrive as a young adult, make sure that the message you give them is that they can do it, that you believe in them, and that you never, ever doubt them and their ability to be a successful person. Showing them you have faith in them will do more than pressure ever will! But, Erica, how much pressure should I put on them??? Interestingly, there is no simple answer to the question, how much pressure is enough, where teens are considered. I believe that what is most important with teens and knowing the right amount of pressure is paying a lot of attention to who your kid is. If your teen is super motivated and puts a lot of pressure on themself without you intervening, then I think parents are in a lucky situation of really pulling back on their oversight of things. This group of kids needs independence and to be allowed some wiggle room to figure themselves out and how to manage the pressure they put on themselves. If your teen is on the less motivated end of the spectrum, you most likely need to be providing some sort of extrinsic rewards to help them with their motivation. While this might seem like “pressure,” it is really just setting things up so that in order for your teen to have the things they like (phone, computer, friend time, etc.), they have to do the things they might not want to do (schoolwork, volunteering, chores, etc.). While this discussion seems very categorical, I would actually suggest that it is just two ends of the spectrum that I am mentioning. Most kids are somewhere in between and need a nuanced approach of parent support, outside rewards, and then some level of wiggle room to make mistakes and figure out what they really want. If you feel that you need more support in figuring out how to support your teen, feel free to give our team at Thrive a call! We love working with parents to help their teens be more successful and to help them feel good about what they are doing as parents. One last note, where parents are considered in terms of how much pressure is enough, I’m going to be blunt and just say that it is almost always too much. Way. Too. Much. Pressure. From ourselves, and from others. When I write my blogs, I even worry that my voice is adding to the pressure parents feel to always do or say the “right” things for their kids and families. The truth is, we are all going to screw up a little bit and what really matters is remembering we as parents are a work in progress, and so are our kids and teens. They are just figuring life out too and we all need some grace and compassion! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  By: Dr. Erica Wollerman I can’t tell you how often the topic of being “broken” or “damaged beyond repair” comes up in my therapy sessions. I believe that asking for help in the form of therapy is one of the most courageous steps someone can take. It is incredibly brave to reach out and say that you may need more support as well as to take the time to tell your story to a complete stranger. This is why it’s a big deal to me when someone reaches out to us to start the process of therapy for either themselves or their child or teen!
Interestingly, people who are asking for help definitely typically do not feel brave or courageous. Unfortunately, our culture leads people to feel that they are weak or flawed for needing help. This frustrates me for many reasons but a big one is that it makes it so incredibly hard for people to get to a place where they are okay receiving therapy and help. So often, people tell me that they are “broken, damaged, and a problem,” when they come into therapy. It is so sad for me to hear that they feel this way but provides a valuable opportunity for us to discuss what this means and why they feel that way. A favorite topic of mine when this sentiment comes up with my clients is to share about Kintsukuroi, which is the “Japanese art of mending broken pottery using lacquer resin laced with gold or silver” (reference from Wikipedia). Essentially, this practice means that when something breaks, it is not thrown away or considered broken, trash, damaged, etc., but it is then transformed into something new and even more beautiful. I find this to be such a beautiful philosophy and completely parallel to what I notice as a therapist about people who have struggled, and at times struggled in incredibly difficult ways. People are not weak, broken, or damaged when they have experienced struggle and allow themselves to come out on the other side of that struggle. If they allow themselves to process through the struggle and to allow growth to happen despite the awful things that may have happened in their lives, they often grow and develop into someone more empathic, understanding, strong, and beautiful. This brings up the concept of post-traumatic growth, which is the personal growth that can sometimes come from trauma. While no one would ever wish for trauma or say that they are glad a traumatic event happened (I certainly wouldn’t), many of my clients do acknowledge that because of the trauma or challenge they have experienced in their lives, they are different and often “better” people in some way that they appreciate. It is like the cracks were filled in with gold or silver just like a piece of Japanese pottery. At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.  By: Dr. Erica WollermanSo, as you probably noticed in my first blog in this series, I have a lot of concerns with positive thinking and its’ attempts to tell us not to feel our unpleasant emotions or think our unpleasant thoughts. However, there are parts of “positive thinking” that I think are truly helpful and worth mentioning here and are traits of someone with resilience and more of a positive mindset. Check out the first two blogs in this series here and here!
1. Focusing more on gratitude In my eyes, focusing on gratitude and intentionally seeking ways to show or experience gratitude is so important. We can often become habitual problem finders who just focus on problems or challenges, rather than all we do have to feel grateful for. In contrast to positive thinking though, I mention gratitude more as a daily practice or habit and not a response to feeling something unpleasant. Generally trying to cultivate a mindset of gratitude looks like noticing things you are grateful for at the end of a day or week – NOT trying to focus on gratitude in moments where you are really upset or struggling. That would be just like the whole, “think positive” suggestion and likely only make you feel worse. 2. Confidence that you can manage difficult situations, experiences, struggles I believe that having a positive mindset about your life could include the confidence that you are going to be okay. That yes, life has its’ struggles, but they really do make us stronger and lead us in new and different directions which can be exciting and scary. In order to have this perspective, you have to not only remember struggles you have had, but remember that you got through them and that there were lessons learned along the way. This part of having a positive mindset involves allowing yourself to remember and process your challenges, not to feel worse about them, but to see what you have endured and how resilient you are. Yes, difficult things are going to happen. But yes, you can get through it. 3. Cultivating memories of pleasant moments, experiences, even during times of struggle This is so incredibly difficult, but so important. We need to remember that all emotions are temporary, the pleasant and the unpleasant. As such, even when we are in deep pain and struggle, we need to have the deeper knowledge that we will not always feel this way. For example, when you are grieving a loss, perhaps of a relationship, pet, loved one, life path, etc. it is important to know that grief marks the importance of that relationship in your life. That when we love, because everything is temporary, we will know loss and need to feel that loss because our feelings and grief honors the relationship or experience. Hopefully this blog rounds out our series on Positive Thinking! While I am not a positive thinking proponent, there are definitely some assets of learning to cultivate a positive mindset and work on becoming a realistic thinker. At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. By: Dr. Erica Wollerman So I must truly be a grumpy person to have not just one, but two blogs dedicated to my concerns about the positive thinking movement! Kidding, sort of! I wanted to dedicate this blog to a discussion of what to do instead for those of you who agreed with my concerns about positive thinking – or who have had the experience so many have, which is for it to just not work for them. For example, you have a bad day and reach out to a trusted loved one who tells you, just think positive, after all it could be worse. And you then, well, continue to feel terrible about your bad day and then feel even worse because you logically know it could be worse, but you still feel terrible about the day you had. If you’ve ever been there, this blog is for you!
As I mentioned in the first blog on this series (if you want to read it, check it out here!) I'd like to propose something different and what I believe to be more effective than positive thinking, which is Realistic thinking. This is thinking that lives in the middle of completely negative thinking and completely positive thinking. Realistic thinking is a way of acknowledging that things might feel really hard, painful, or difficult but they won’t stay that way. It is a way of acknowledging the truth of your pain while also knowing that pain is temporary and will end sometime. Realistic thinking accepts that life has its’ ups and downs, but tries to help you ride those waves rather than getting stuck in the undertow. I believe that as a therapist, being a realist has been an incredible gift and one that I try to share with my clients. What does realistic thinking look like in action?
If you notice that in the steps of realistic thinking, there is a lot of what I call, “holding space.” Just holding space for your emotions, struggle, thoughts, and experience and not in a critical or judgmental way, but in a curious way – wondering what is going on and allowing the experience to happen. “Holding space” is a big part of what we do in trusted and safe relationships, like in therapy, where we sit with difficult emotions together, just knowing that we are not alone. It is not fixing them. It is not problem solving. It is not positive thinking (which communicates, that feeling is too uncomfortable for me to feel with you). It is simply allowing someone to know, I am here and I care to share your pain with you. This is what I believe is the gift that the way I do therapy can bring to my clients. This is my goal as a therapist - that I help you know you are not alone in the struggle, that you are heard, understood, and on the way to growth. Even though it is painful and difficult. The path towards change and growth always is but we are on it together. At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. We love being space holders for you! 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 know, I know, as a therapist I am supposed to be all about positive thinking. For a while, I even tried out the whole “positive thinking” thing and would just try to wash away my so-called negative thoughts with positive ones. It was certainly appealing to think that if I just think “positive,” I would feel better! Honestly, it did not work so well for me and I notice in my work with people that it often leads to people feeling worse. I’m sure many of you have had this experience too, where you are talking about something difficult in your life and someone says something like, “it’ll be okay, just think positive” or another offender, “it could always be worse, or that sounds like a first world problem.” How do you end up feeling after that kind of comment? Often, invalidated, judged, and like you are totally misunderstood. Or, you might then start trying to think positive and not be able to do it (because you are a person and feelings are a natural part of life but more on that later), and then you judge yourself for not being able to be a “better, more positive person.” Somehow we have begun deeming thinking only positive thoughts and feeling only positive feelings as a goal or judgment of our worth as a person in our society.
What I find to be really interesting is how often this message of “I should just think positive” comes into my therapy sessions with clients of all ages. This focus on “positivity” tells me a lot about our current culture and thoughts about coping and mental health. Unfortunately while I think positive thinking culture and the people who advocate for it mean very well, I think the message that “if we can just think positive, everything will go away and we'll feel great” is a real problem. This message tells us that unpleasant things, emotions, situations, or thoughts essentially just need to be suffocated with positivity and to go away. Some of you may wonder why that is a problem. Shouldn’t unpleasant things just go away? I would say no, they should not just go away at all for many reasons. 6 Reasons Why Positive Thinking Can be a Problem: 1. It is not realistic: It is not possible to be positive all the time because that would mean that we avoid feelings we deem to be “negative.” However, ALL feelings are important, valuable, and necessary in life (even the uncomfortable and downright unpleasant ones). Our emotions are essential cues to our environments and we need all of them, even the ones we would rather avoid like shame, dread, jealousy, fear, or insecurity. 2. Avoiding unpleasant emotions does not make them go away: Unfortunately, our emotions do not just go away because we avoid them or ignore them. They tend to build up inside and fester and grow, becoming more challenging to deal with in the long run, though this may feel good temporarily. The analogy I like to use is of a soda bottle being shaken up, that is exactly what it is like when we hold in unpleasant emotions, at some point they will come out or we will need to do more and more to keep our semblance of control over them. Unfortunately, this can lead to even more unhealthy coping patterns such as addictions, self-injury, or damage in our relationships. 3. Positive thinking can lead to denial of our challenges: If we think that we are only supposed to think and feel positive things, we might glaze over the challenges we have had in our lives. This means that we would be less likely to share our struggles, integrate them into who we are now, and truly live authentic lives with meaningful connections with others. I believe that connecting with others in a meaningful, authentic, genuine way is not possible if we do not know how to discuss our challenges. This one actually leads right into my next reason… 4. If we avoid thinking deeply about our challenges we will also avoid getting to a place of learning from our challenges As I mentioned above, not thinking about our struggles can lead to less authentic connections with others but it can also lead to less authentic connections with ourselves where we simply try to avoid the parts of ourselves or our lives that have been less than great. As a therapist, I believe that the most important thing we can do is to look at our struggles and challenges in detail to learn from them and understand ourselves better. If we just glaze over challenges though, this learning becomes impossible and we might even keep repeating unhealthy patterns or relationships in our lives. 5. It perpetuates our happiness, or problem free life infatuation I notice that our culture seems to encourage an almost infatuation with “happiness” or not having problems. I think this is fascinating because I am of the belief that suffering and problems are inherent in being human. We are going to struggle but we are also going to have some amazing successes and you most likely can’t have one without the other. Positive thinking seems to tell you that if you just thought positively, everything in your life would be positive and you would have no problems or struggles at all. You would just be happy all the time. The challenge is that happiness is not meant to be an ongoing, persistent feeling. Happiness, like all other emotions is a temporary state. All emotions are temporary the lovely ones, the not so lovely ones, and everything in between. Who wants to spend their life feeling jealous, insecure, shame, or guilt. No one. However, without the darker side of emotions we really wouldn't have capacity for the more pleasant ones. They are flipsides of the same coin and we really do need them both. 6. It perpetuates the stigma of mental illness As a therapist, this is one of the most concerning effects of the positive thinking movement, that somehow depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive behaviors could somehow just be fixed by “positive thinking.” This grossly oversimplifies what people truly need to do to help themselves recover or manage these challenges and suggests that we can just magically think them away. As a therapist who witnesses the challenges of somebody with significant symptoms of any kind I find this to be deeply disturbing as well as deeply offensive. In sum, while I do recognize some benefits of having a positive mindset (I’ll talk more about these in my next blog in this series), I believe that the incredible push towards only positive thinking has a lot of drawbacks and negative consequences in our ability to manage, cope with, and tolerate “negative” thoughts and feelings. I'd like to propose something different and what I believe to be more effective actually. Realistic thinking. This is thinking that lives in the middle of completely negative thinking and completely positive thinking. Check out more in my next blog in this series where I discuss what Realistic Thinking looks like! 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 WollermanThe concepts of resilience and grit have been hot topics recently, particularly in the parenting, education, and psychology fields. This is for good reason as these qualities have been shown to be some of the most important traits you can help your child/teen develop in order to become successful adults. Interestingly, these are also traits that many adults are noticing seem to be lacking in some of the younger generations, which is a concern being written about all over the place online it seems.
These hot topic concepts also come up often in my office frequently, particularly when parents begin to recognize that these are character traits that their children, teens, or young adults seem to lack. I hear comments and concerns from parents due to their children or teens not being able to persist or manage their frustration during difficult tasks. Sometimes, it shows up in their inability to make decisions and follow through on them because they are fearful of their ability to manage a possible “wrong” decision. I thought it could be helpful to write a blog with my tips for ways parents can help their children build resilience and grit from a young age to help prevent some of these challenges. As a psychologist who specializes in treating individuals across the lifespan and in working with parents, I believe that I have a unique perspective on how this trait may develop in small ways over a life. Before we get into this topic too much, it might help to give some background on these concepts. Resilience I love the way resilience is described in this article on the American Psychological Association’s website – “Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress… It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences.” (You can find the original article and related information on resilience here). Grit As described by Angela Duckworth in her TED talk on grit (Check it out here!), grit is “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” I believe the most important thing to know about resilience and grit is that they are character traits that can be developed and are not innate things that we either have or don’t have. These traits result from conscious choices about how we cope with the world and how we handle the adversity that we will inevitably face in our lives. Hopefully these brief descriptions help you see just how important these traits are. Resilience is essentially the ability to continue when life is difficult and to overcome failure and Grit is the tendency to persist when the road to overcome failure becomes tough. 6 Ways to help your child develop resilience and grit: 1. Expect that life will have challenges I love that parents want to raise their children with the mindset that things will go well for them. I totally can relate to wanting to have things be smooth for your child – it is really tough to watch your child struggle! However, this idea that things will go well and that problems are the anomaly is unfortunately completely inaccurate and misguided. Challenges in life are the norm and should be expected. Therefore, we as parents can do our best job for our kids by preparing them for challenges and how to use them as learning experiences! I think normalizing challenge and struggle for your children is important and you can do that in many ways. For example saying something like, “I know that is tough, sometimes things in life will be tough for us, but we can handle it” or “Life can be really unfair and difficult sometimes, I think this is one of those times, but I know we can get through it together.” Another way you can do this is by sharing some of your own challenges with them. For example, if your child is struggling in a friendship, you can say something about how you remember what that was like for you as a child and the ways you learned to deal with the feelings you had. This will help them know they are not alone and that they are not the only ones dealing with a difficulty. 2. Allow them to experience failure This is absolutely crucial! I hear from parents all the time just how much they want their kids to be happy and to succeed. However, they often mistakenly help their kids avoid failure too much and prevent them from the learning opportunities that come with failing. This can give them the message that they are not capable to dealing with or surviving challenges. I would even take this one step further and suggest that you as a parent embrace failure. Failure means so many wonderful things – it means that you tried something new that was outside of your comfort zone, it means you pushed yourself and found your limit with something, failure means that you were brave. We often have a negative perception of failure in our culture and I would encourage us to reconsider this, especially as parents! Failure is not the worst thing by any means, it is a step on your path and a learning opportunity. (Check out my longer blog post on this very topic here). 3. Let your kids make decisions and deal with the outcomes Let’s say that your child is debating about what sport they want to play or what class they want to take in school. You know that the one they are choosing may not be entirely the best fit for them but they really want to try it. I would recommend you let them make the decision and then deal with how it turns out. Maybe they love it – great, they now made a decision that worked out for them and that’s a great learning experience! Maybe they hate it – great, now they have made a decision that they can learn so much from. The best part of them hating it is that you can then work with them on how they deal with a difficult class, teacher, sport, etc. for the duration of the semester, season, etc. Another example would be for a younger child when they choose ice cream at the ice cream shop you are pretty sure they will hate. Let them choose and then don’t rescue them from the outcome. Everything in life is there to teach us something so help them find the lesson there! 4. Don’t rescue too much or too quickly When your child is struggling with something, try not to just jump in and either do it for them, fix the problem, or correct their mistake. Try to figure out exactly where their skill level is for dealing with that situation and then support them through scaffolding, expecting them to push themselves a little bit beyond their existing skill level to deal with it. For example, when your child is completing a puzzle and feels that it is too hard, push them to work for a few more minutes before you come to help. When you come over to help, don’t just do it for them or point out where the pieces go, talk them through their process of decision making and give little suggestions that will help them figure it out on their own. The most important thing is that if you as a parent view challenges as opportunities to learn, your child will too! 5. Teach your kids to persist through challenges So when a challenging situation comes up, model for them how to deal with it in a healthy, persistent way. It helps if you have a positive attitude about life’s challenges also! Our language around challenges really matters in these situations – here are some examples of ways to talk positively about challenges:
6. Be comfortable with your own struggle and failures If you can feel comfortable with the fact that things will not always go our way in life, you will inevitably pass that message on to your child. If you expect perfection or things to go smoothly, you will pass that on to your child too. So, I think it is important that you think about your relationship with adversity while you think about how to help your child through it. If you notice that you struggle with your own failures or with being resilient or having grit, perhaps it would be a good time to work on that in yourself while you work on it with your child! Some great resources for developing more grit and resilience for yourself as an adult:
I hope that this list can be a jumping off point for you in learning how to help your child overcome adversity to develop more grit and resilience! 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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