Life's like a Tree, Sometimes Ya Gotta Prune It.

The idea of pruning has been on my mind a great deal in the past few weeks. Merriam Webster defines pruning (verb) as "to reduce especially by eliminating superfluous matter or to cut off or cut back parts of for better shape or more fruitful growth." Every spring and fall I spend a couple of weekends pruning the landscaping at my house. Partly because I want it too look nice and neat but also because the trees and hedge will grow better if all the dead and dying parts are removed. You can help shape how a tree or plant will grow through pruning, cutting low branches will keep things growing up for example. It’s funny to think that removing parts of living thing in such a traumatic way as cutting them off could actually help something become more fruitful in the future. But it’s true, every time I prune back the hedges they seem to grow taller and faster.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to spend this whole post talking about my landscaping adventures. Although there have been some dozies, but that is a different post. I bring up my adventures in landscaping because much like my hedges, we often find that we have to prune parts of our lives back or out so that we can become more fruitful and grow in the ways that we need and want to. Pruning in our lives can mean many different things, sometimes its cutting back on behavior that is holding us back. Maybe it means letting go of an activity to make room for something else that brings more joy or purpose to your life. And still other times it means that the relationships in our lives need to change or end. However, one thing is for certain, it is hard and it can be painful to prune the places in our lives that need to be pruned.

The last 6 months, for me, have been filled with pruning. Some of you may know a little of what has been going on from my previous post about letting go. If you haven’t seen it you can check that out here. But the quick rundown is that in May I had a minor house fire in the midst of a remodeling project and then in July, through circumstances out of my control, I decided to give up the goal of completing my first half marathon. Both of those events were the catalyst for some very deep reflection and ultimately pruning in my life.

Some of that pruning has come in the form of me needing to change my behaviors and choices, mainly in terms of MAKING time to take care of myself. I love my job, but it should come as no surprise that my job can be very stressful. When I was in grad school the continually beat us over the head with idea that we needed to take care of yourself, and we were all like yeah yeah we know, and we came up with these great ideas and plans (it really was good to start thinking about it then). But ya know what happened. Life happened, I forgot to calculate that I still had a life outside of my profession which includes friends, animals, house work, and caring for myself as an adult (you know eating, showering, laundry etc). All of the sudden all the time I planned or self-care got sucked up with other things.

The events of this summer FORCED me to re-evaluate how I was spending my time in the evenings. Ultimately I had to convince myself that it was okay if the dishes didn’t get done EVERY night so that I could have time to journal or color or whatever other rejuvenating things I wanted to do. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist (ssshh don’t tell anyone) so letting go of getting things done to sit and color was a challenge, but I felt SO MUCH better when I would, that ultimately that wasn’t a HUGELY painful transition or pruning in the end but it was/is still challenging a times.

My "self-care" corner of the couch :)

This summer has also caused a re-evaluation of the relationships in my life. You can learn a great deal about a person and the nature of your relationship when you are going through a crisis or a particularly challenging time. I have a fantastic support system and wonderful friends that were there for me. However there have been a couple of people in my life that have made things more difficult or have done or said hurtful things through this whole course of events. At the time I was hoping that they were just crappy in a crisis, because let’s be honest some people don’t handle crisis well and that’s okay.

However after several conversations it became apparent that there was more amiss in our relationship than just a poor response to a crappy situation. The crappy situation had just highlighted the trouble that was already there. So now I am faced with what I find to be the most challenging and painful part of pruning and that is consciously and deliberately putting space and new boundaries in place in these relationships. That’s the painful part.

I’ve been in this place before, and while everyone is different and you never know how someone is going to react I know that once the pruning is done I will be free to grow and flourish. About 5 years ago I was in a similar place with another friend. I kept putting off talking to her because I didn’t want to lose the friendship, I thought we had been through too much to not get things worked out. And I knew that what I was going to tell her was going to hurt her. It was a difficult conversation, but once it was done I felt like a weight was lifted. I didn’t realize how much that relationship was weighing me down until I did some pruning and felt the change, the growth, start to take place. I still miss that friendship from time to time (we had been friends for close to 10 years and truly had been through a lot together) but I know that I would not be the person I am today had I continued to carry that dying branch.

So as we continue to move through Fall, and the leaves change and those of us with landscaping are working to prune the trees and bushes, I pose the question, are there areas of your life that need to be pruned? And if so, what do you think is holding you back from doing that pruning? Like I said, pruning can be painful and seem like an odd way to spur growth. But I will tell you this for sure, the last 6 months have been hard for me and there have been a lot of tears, and there will probably be some more before the pruning is done but I have also grown more as a person in the last 6 months than I have in the last 3 years. And I know, things are just going to get better.

Take Time to Smile. . .Daily.

Recently I was participating in a twitter chat and the question was asked "what advice would you give someone to make tomorrow awesome?" I thought for a moment and responded "do something that makes you smile".  In all honesty, it was a response that just popped into my head and was very off the cuff.  But since then I have been thinking about it more and more.

The world we live in makes it far to easy for us to over extend ourselves and get so busy with things that we think we should do that often the things we like or enjoy doing get shoved to the side. I know that at times I am guilty of thinking "I will do that once all the work gets done." Unfortunately the to-do list many of us carry around just gets longer and we never reach the end. I mean I don't know about you but I go to work and there are phone calls, emails, paperwork, and accounting work that all needs to be done, then I come home and the yard needs to be mowed, the house needs to be cleaned, bills need to be paid and there is a never ending list of home improvement projects to work on.  It becomes easy to see how a day can go by and a person doesn't "have time" to do anything they truly enjoy.

Here's the problem with living like that.  I often encourage my clients to look at their energy reserve like a bank account.  We all have things in our lives that take from our energy, think of those as withdrawals, and we have things that restore our energy, those are deposits. If you spend your entire day doing things that take from that account without ever doing anything that adds to the account it results in a situation where you are low on energy and if you keep that up for too long it can become overdrawn. 

When we reach the low or overdrawn energy reserve we get short tempered, irritable, and tired. These are the moments when we snap at someone for asking a simple question, or we go home and lay on the couch for hours because everything feels like it's too much.

The frightening part to me is that it seems sometimes like our society puts a great deal of value on being able to live for long periods of time with little to no energy.  I can't tell you the number of times I have asked a client when was the last time they did something that they really truly enjoyed and they will stare at me for a few moments because they actually have to think about it.  To me the saddest thing is when the answer is "I don't know."

I say screw that. Being a martyr isn't cool or a fulfilling way to live.  How many of you out there remember having a Walkman at some point in your life? (If you don't because you are too young to know what a Walkman is I don't want to know) You remember what happened as the batteries in your Walkman were running out of juice? The tape started playing slower and slower until and the music got more and more distorted until they finally just died.  That is what trying to continue life on an almost empty energy tank is like.  You are still moving and kind of getting things done, but you are gradually getting slower and slower and the quality of the things you are doing is like that music, getting more and more distorted till it's not really music anymore.

This is a Walkman.

So here is what I challenge each and every one of you to do each an every day.  Do something that makes you smile and I'm talking that big I can't help but smile because it's coming from the core of who I am kind of smile. It can be anything big or small. Go to coffee or lunch with a friend, go to a movie, take time to do a hobby you enjoy, watch a funny video on YouTube, go for a walk, hug someone you love.  I could go on forever with ideas. Some days when I get home I just lay on the bed for a few minutes and pet one of the cats, I love them so much and they usually do something that makes me giggle at some point. Whatever you decide, do it, give yourself an energy deposit for the day. I'm giving you permission to make yourself a priority and if that means the vacuuming doesn't get done, ya know what that's okay it will still be there tomorrow and you will have more energy to do it :).

Since I gave that off the cuff answer to the twitter chat a while ago I have been thinking about it a lot and trying to implement it into my daily life.  At the end of my day I ask myself have you done something that makes you smile today? Sometimes the answer is yes and some days the answer is no. Hey I'm a work in progress just like the rest of you. So go forth, take on the world, and don't forget to smile :)

If you need a laugh still today watch any of the videos on this page: http://whineaboutit.tumblr.com/

Grief, Your Way is Okay

Grief. A simple word that names an incredibly complex process. Everyone has an idea of what grief looks like and what is “normal” but the reality is grief is an intensely individual process that can look very different person to person. There is no manual that tells you how to navigate grief or tells you what is “normal” or not. The reality is we only know what is best in our own grief journey and no one else’s.

One of the most significant experiences with grief in my own life started when I was a sophomore in college. In March of 2003 my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer.  Just for perspective according to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America the survival rate for 1 year post diagnosis is between 12% and 29%, and the survival rate for 5 years just 2%. Needless to say this was devastating news. Mom battled hard for just over a year before she passed away in the early morning hours of July 17, 2004, surrounded by family.

Her smile and laugh were infectious

In an instant my world had been turned upside down and I didn’t even know where to begin to process what was happening. News spread quickly around the small town I grew up in and before long there was a steady stream of people stopping by the house with their condolences, food, and the offer to “let them know if we needed anything”. Truthfully most of that first day is hazy at best and it was nice to have all the support, but I was numb, and truly had no idea what I needed from anyone. All I knew was I had a list of people I was supposed to call, we needed to go to the funeral home to make arrangements, and talk with the Pastor. Life became task oriented and just getting through the next hour, the next minute was my focus.

My sister, Mom, and Me after her diagnosis

I don’t think the grief actually set in until much later. That first week was about getting “business” taken care of and then at the end of the week my sister and I were back at our summer job. Six weeks after that my sister and I were moving back to college. We told our dad we didn’t want to go but he said “What are you going to do around here” he had to go back to work as well and we knew Mom would want us to continue our education, so we went.

Mom being. . .well. . .Mom

On the surface it seemed as though life was back to normal. Dad was back at work, my sister and I were back at school and attending classes, all the family had gone home, and the cards stopped coming in the mail.  But the reality was it was, that was when the grief process finally started for me, after all the other things stopped. I found myself wanting to call my mom and tell her something that happened that day, and my heart breaking when I remembered I couldn’t. I heard my friends at school complain about their parents and some annoying thing they had done, and found myself getting irrationally angry at them. And some days it just plain hurt to breathe. But other days were okay, I could laugh and have a good time and everything seemed normal.

This is probably the most annoying part about grief, the unpredictability. One day you can feel like your old normal self and other days you can barely muster the energy to get out of bed in the morning. It is confusing and hard to understand not only to you but to the people around you as they are trying to figure out what you need and how to best be supportive, but that is constantly changing, and because it's constantly changing you may not even be able to tell them what you need.

Early in the fall semester when I was back at school, I was lucky enough to start an internship and meet someone who would become a lifelong friend. One day she told me that while I was grieving I got to do whatever I thought was going to make me feel better if only for a moment, and if I wanted to stand on my head I should stand on my head and not worry about what others thought. (Now there are obvious exceptions to this advice, like if what is making you feel better is harming you or others, i.e. substance abuse etc.) But that moment is something that has stuck with me to this day, it gave me permission to grieve on my terms and in my way and helps me remember that whatever I am feeling is okay.

One of my favorite, Me (3yrs) and Mom

That is now the messege I try to convey to everyone who is dealing with grief. That whatever you are feeling is okay and whatever your personal grief process includes IS "normal". It is one of the things I specialize in in my practice and I can honestly tell you that of all the clients I have worked with no two have had the same grief journey. Yet they all feel societal pressure to “get over” their grief and move on with their lives, often leaving them feeling confused, broken, and like they are grieving incorrectly. You can’t grieve incorrectly, grief is a natural process and if you allow yourself to experience it and take it as it comes you will start to feel better and stronger as the days pass. And you will start to heal.

If you are in a grief process also remember the support of others is important. Although people may at times say something that comes across as hurtful or not helpful, they have good intentions and aren’t trying to be hurtful, they just want to help. But because it is such an individual process it can be difficult to know how to be helpful and they can inadvertently bring more confusion to an already difficult process. (Side note: I plan to do a part 2 of sorts to this entry talking more about how to support someone who is grieving, so sit tight for that and let me know if you have any questions you would like me to answer in that post).

Mom at Wrigley with my aunt (her sister) and cousins

It has been 11 and a half years since I lost my mom and my grief looks much different now than it did in those first days but it is still there. This past week I have been following The Cubs in the playoffs (We are born and bred Cubs fans on my mom’s side of the family) and there was a moment when they beat the Pirates Wednesday night in the Wild Card Game where my heart just shattered into a million pieces. Not only was I thinking of how much my mom would be loving this but I also remembered how she used to sit on our living room floor, cross legged, rocking back and forth, calling all the players by their FIRST names, and yelling “HEY HEY CUBBIES” whenever they had a hit or a good play. Eleven and a half years later the pain is still there but I’ve learned to live with it, it’s not as intense or constant as it once was, and it has helped shape me into the person and therapist I am today. And most importantly I got to this point in my way and on my terms.

Journaling and Why You Should Try It.

Last week I wrote on the last page of my journal. This is not a new experience it has happened a number of times since I started journaling in my early 20’s. But it’s always an oddly bittersweet experience for me. On one had I love picking out a new journal to continue my story in, but it also feels like something is ending when I finish a journal. But one thing remains the same, when I go to tuck that journal away in the box with the rest of the filled journals, I take a few minutes and flip through old entries. That time of reflection is usually interesting and serves as a reminder to me of where I have been and how much I have grown and changed in the last decade or so. As I flipped through old journals this time I got to thinking about how helpful journaling has been to me over the years and how much it has helped my clients as well.

Every journal I've ever filled :)

Journaling is one of the first things I recommend to the majority of my clients. Here are the main reasons why:

1. Bringing Clarity

This is the main reason I journal. But I also occasionally have a client that comes in and during intake struggling to put into words what they are thinking and feeling or they know what they are feeling but they can’t pinpoint what is causing that. Free journaling or stream of consciousness journaling can be very helpful in bringing more clarity or sense to what you are thinking and feeling. I encourage people to just write whatever is on their mind without concern for it making sense or flowing from one paragraph to the next. After all this isn’t a college term paper. I personally will sometimes sit down and decide I am going to journal until I literally have nothing left to say.

2. Remembering the Good

Gratitude journals have become very popular recently. People are wanting to stay focused on things they are grateful for rather than all the negatives, which can bring an excellent balance to our tendency to focus on what is going wrong. When I have a client that is not super comfortable with free journaling or tends to get stuck in a really negative place I recommend that they try structuring their journaling based on this template I got from Duff the Psych. It provides some space to free write about whatever you want. There is also a space to write 3 things you are proud of that have occurred since you last journaled and space to list 3 goals you have for that day. I have used this template before and at times it can be difficult, but that’s okay it’s supposed to be.

3. Keep an eye on yourself

Are you thinking about making some changes or setting a new goal for yourself? Journaling can be a great way to track your progress. You can track the concrete parts of your goal but you can also have space to process your emotions about the changes you are making and identify the places that are tripping you up. Journaling through the process of change can help you catch yourself when you are slipping into old patterns and help you see that progress is being made even when it doesn’t feel like it.

4. Get it out

Sometimes we truly need to just vent about a situation or how we are feeling. Journaling is a great way to do that. When you write it down you are getting it out of your brain and on the page and when you are done you can walk away having purged some of the. . .ick. Often times after a good journaling session I feel as though I have had a good conversation with a good friend. And that really is what a journal can be. . .a good friend that is always available and will never tell a soul what you said.

5. Time to Reflect

As I mentioned above I often take a few minutes to reflect on old entries when I have finished another journal. This is one of my favorite things about journaling. I can look back at where I have been and how much I have grown and changed over the years. It’s important to take this time to reflect on your journey and take note of the progress you have made and ask are you headed in the direction you want to be headed in. Whether you throw your journal out when it’s full or you have a growing box of journals tucked away somewhere (like me) take a few minutes every once in a while to flip through old entries.

My recommendation is that everyone give journaling a try and get creative. There is no rule book that says journaling has to be written word only. I think the written part is important but I have also incorporated song lyrics, drawing and collaging into my journals. Whatever I felt was going help be best express myself at the time. Recently I had a client that was a much better verbal processor than a written processor so he would do audio journal entries. Journaling options are only limited by your creativity.

So give it a shot and see what you think. If you are comfortable with free journaling get yourself a blank journal and go to town. If you are a little less sure of where to get started give the template by Duff the Psych a try, or you can go to Amazon and find tons of journals that will provide you with prompts to get you started. I will include a couple of links below to examples.  Happy journaling.