Category: Mental Health tools

What is Your Focus?

 

I got new glasses last year. I have been using reading glasses for a few years but this year I took the plunge and got old lady glasses. Yep progressive lenses, this way I can read all the time not just when I have my reading glasses with me.

This got me to thinking about the things that I focus on. Have you noticed that the things you focus on seem to get bigger? This is especially true with negative thoughts. Once the thought comes into my head that something is scary it just starts growing and growing. Pretty soon everything I think about is now focused in fear.

What about when you decided to start making healthier food choices? Soon all you can see are the treats that you want to eat. Or that the lunch you made can’t be as good as a drive thru burger.

What happens if you decide to change the focus of your thoughts? Instead of focusing on the thought that everything is scary I can be truthful with myself that what I am trying may be scary but it is something that I choose to do. Or the drive thru thought, if I change my focus to looking at how I feel when I get that drive thru burger or how I feel when I eat the lunch I made making the choice may not seem like I am losing out on something yummy.

I know that I make it sound so simple: Just change your thoughts! The truth is it is simple but it isn’t easy. It takes work everyday to change the focus of your thoughts. The good news is that it is like a muscle. The more that you practice changing your thoughts the easier it gets to focus on the good things in your life.

If you need help with a specific thought that has been bothering you please contact me. I would love to help you learn how to change that thought.

PS Yes I really do have my Christmas decorations still up!

When to volunteer…

The years during the worst of the anxiety I quit doing anything that didn’t have to do with my job, my family or my church. I stayed home where I was “safe” and didn’t need to expend extra energy. Because I didn’t have the extra energy to spare.

The last few years I have been adding in some extra things that I cut out. Because I want to and also because I know it is important to keep stretching myself to do hard things. The one area I am still struggling with is doing thing I know are good but I don’t want to do.

My son is a Senior this year. (Que the tears!) There is a fundraiser this weekend for the Senior Grad Party. I know they need help because I just looked at the sign up sheet. And the purpose of the Grad Night Party is a good one, to keep kids from drinking. But I just don’t want to go. Is that enough of a reason not to go?

Sometimes I think it is. I have learned to check my schedule and make sure that I am not over-committing myself. When I do over schedule I get run down and anxiety attacks are more prone to happen. This week is a little busy but not out of the ordinary.

I also check to see if the event is going to be emotionally draining. Honestly, I don’t think that I will volunteer to help the night of the Grad Party. It is an all night party and I do not do well with sleep deprivation. So this is something I can help with to make the Party a success.

This is how I make decisions. Often writing it out like this to help myself see what I am feeling. Many times I just think I don’t want to do something but I am not sure of why. When I am able to write it out I see what is actually going on in my mind. I signed up to help because it is something that I can do.

How do you make decisions about how you will use your time?

Dealing with Travel Anxiety

A few weeks ago I flew to Palm Springs to attend my sister’s wedding. I was excited to see her and my family and to have some sunshine during a very gloomy few weeks here in Idaho. One thing I knew I would have to deal with is travel anxiety. It has been a long time since I flew and even longer since I did it by myself. I was nervous about being on my own but over the weekend I came up with a few tips to help myself and hopefully others when traveling.

One of the most important things to remember about anxiety is that no one else knows you are nervous. Although it feels like the anxiety is shooting out of your body and everyone should be able to tell you are freaking out they really can’t tell. My family are the only ones that have an idea that I am having an anxiety attack. So don’t worry about what other’s may be thinking, it really doesn’t matter anyway.

As much as you can while you are traveling get in some movement. If you have time between flights walk around. Being able to move your body will help to work some of the nervousness out. Plus it is good for you and helps when you have to sit for long periods of time in cramped space.

I always bring way too many things with me to “work on”. I have finally gotten a smaller purse that I can’t carry books and my lunch in. But when I travel I carry a lot of stuff. I have a notebook for writing down thoughts I want to get out of my head. I bring a project I am working on, usually a crochet project. The repetitive motion helps to calm me and I have something besides my own thoughts to occupy me. I always have lotion and essential oils with me. My favorite right now it tangerine. You can see why I usually carry a big purse. Oh and of course something to read. Having a Kindle has drastically reduced the size of my bag.

Finally, when I have gone on long trips I have brought notes with me. I have notes from family and friends that I bring to remind myself that I am loved and that I don’t need to believe the negative thoughts. If you need a letter like this please message me. I would love to send you a letter to help strength you.

The trip was wonderful. The wedding was beautiful. I was able to enjoy myself and I made every flight I needed to. Although it is scary to do something out of my normal routine it is good for me too. It reminds me that anxiety doesn’t control me.

Change is Change

Change is change and change is hard. Even when you choose a change it can still be hard to handle all of the emotions that come along with the change. I decided last month that it was time for me to change. So I am leaving a job I have had for almost 19 years, starting a business, and looking for a new job. All of these are choices that I have made and changes that I want but I have noticed that in some ways I have not been handling the changes very well.

I decided that I didn’t want to keep going down this road of stressing about what was coming and instead to take back control of my life and emotions.

One of my favorite ways to take back control is to make lists. I love lists because I can see everything that I need to do. I had a friend tell me yesterday that she calls her agenda her stress agenda. She calls it this because it has everything in it she is stressed about so then she doesn’t need to think about it anymore. I have started calling my list my own stress agenda. Writing things down gets it out of my head and it doesn’t keep circling and making me worry more.

Another tool you can use is to talk to someone you trust. My son and I were talking the other day about what was bothering him. He knew what he needed to tell himself to deal with the stress but he just needed a sounding board to get the feelings out. Sometimes just getting the words out gets the stress out of your mind. You are then able to move forward with whatever you need to do.

Taking care of yourself physically is also important when you are under stress. Sugar and caffeine can make your body bounce between high and low energy throughout the day. This can make it more difficult to deal with stress because your emotions are all over the place. As much as I would rather eat chocolate I know that when I am struggling it is the time to nourish my body with good food. I am not 100% at this but I am getting better. I can definitely feel a difference when I am eating good food because my body feels better.

Remember that stress is just a feeling. You can let it come and go quickly through your body. Today I caught myself saying I am so stressed. I stopped and told myself, I am feeling stress and it will pass. I was able to let the stress pass through me instead of holding on to it. Just because you are feeling something doesn’t mean you have to keep holding on to it. Hold on to the positive feelings and let the negative ones pass through your body.

Finally, get enough sleep. Take a nap when you can. Let your body rest when you are feeling overwhelmed. Even a 5 minute rest listening to peaceful music will help to reset your brain to deal with the stress.

Change is change. Change good and bad can cause stress in your body. Knowing how to take care of yourself can help to deal with the negative effects of stress. How do you take care of yourself when you are feeling stressed?

Hi my name is Janna…

And I am a people pleaser.

I have spent YEARS trying to make everyone happy. Twisting myself into what I thought other people wanted is what caused the majority of the anxiety. I constantly try to figure out what other people will expect and then figure out how I can meet that while I do all of the other things that people want.

I just want people to like me.

It hasn’t mattered if I like me. It hasn’t mattered if I am doing something I enjoy as long as I know the people around me like me.

I am changing.

I know that making people like me is my Achilles heel. So I pay attention to how I am reacting to people. I am reaching out more to make friends. I pulled away from everyone for a long time because it was too hard to continue to be everything to everyone. Now I am working to figure out how to be friends with people without making them like me.

I think I am doing better. I am happy to have friends over. I am learning how to do small talk. (Which is not easy for this introvert!) I follow my husband’s example with how to talk with people. I am even reaching out to people more.

The one thing I still hate to do is tell someone no.

I still try to do everything that I am asked to do. Espically when the person asking never asks for help. I want to do everything to be able to serve them. But sometimes I just have to say no. I am learning that saying no doesn’t mean the other person is going to hate me. They may be disappointed and it may cause them to have to do more work. But if it does cause them to hate me then they weren’t a real friend to begin with.

Letting someone be disappointed in me is tough. But I am learning that I am tougher. I have learned that when I do need to say no I feel the disappoint that I can’t help them. It is so important to feel my feelings. If I just push them away then they come back stronger in a panic attack. I remind myself that I am still a good person even if I couldn’t help them. I remind myself that they are not angry with me although they may be disappointed. But I am not responsible for how they feel, I can’t control their feelings. If the feelings are very strong I will journal them to get them out. Then I go and do something else to get my mind off the disappointment.

If you are a people pleaser I challenge you to step back just a little bit. (I was going to challenge you to go say no to someone but that may be too big of a challenge to start with.) Let your kids do something for themselves, don’t answer that text as soon as it comes in, take 5 minutes just to breathe and collect yourself before heading in to work. Taking tiny steps back from people pleasing will help you to take better care of yourself.

I would love to hear what you did today to take a step back from people pleasing!

Using Questions to Change Your Life

I love questions! I ask a lot of questions and always have. I think I was one of those annoying toddlers that asked why every 5 seconds. I love to know why. I love to know why something works the way it does, why someone choose the path they choose, I especially love to know why someone thinks the way they do. I have learned that questions can change your life but you have to ask them correctly.

When I am experiencing a panic attack too often the first question I ask is “Why is this still happening to me?” This question doesn’t do anythng to help me stop the panic attack. All it does is make me feel worse because I am frustrated and upset about having a panic attack. If I instead ask, “What was I thinking about before the panic attack started?” I can begin the process of ending the panic attack.

If I am having a problem communicating with a friend I can ask myself, “What is wrong with me?” Putting all of the focus and the blame on my shortcomings. If I instead ask, “What choices am I responsible for that lead to this problem?” The focus is off of my shortcomings and what I think I did wrong and instead focusing on problem solving to fix whatever may have happened.

In these two examples you can see how different questions can be. One type of question we can use to put ourselves and others down. This type of question doesn’t do anything to help solve and problem. They can, however, do a lot to destroy our peace of mind and sense of self.

The second type of question focuses on finding solutions. They also take the focus off being a “bad” person. This type of questions helps us to problem solve and to look at the problem more objectively. Making it easier to find a solution for the issue facing us.

I love questions. But really I love good questions. I love questions that lead me to change and joy. I love when I can help others to change their questions to better serve them. Do you have a negative question you have been asking yourself? How could you change it to a postive question? If you need help I would love to help you, comment or message me and I will help you change your questions!

Support during Grief

Grief has been on my mind lately. I have been watching friends and family deal with loss. Grief is hard and can be lonely. Even if someone has had a similar loss, it is never the same. I think that is why it is hard for us to reach out when we see someone hurting. We know we don’t really understand how the other person is feeling.

But reaching out is important because it helps the person suffering. Because this has been on my mind I have come up with a few ideas for reaching out to someone suffering from a loss.

One of the most helpful things I have been told is to talk about the person that was lost. So often we are afraid of hurting the grieving person more that we don’t mention the person they lost. But they are going to hurt anyway, being able to hear other’s memories and experiences with their loved one helps them to keep their memory alive. It helps them know that other people still remember their loved one. It helps them feel less alone or like they need to hide part of themselves.

One of the stages of grief is anger. But it is hard to be angry at someone who is gone, we often feel guilty for being angry. Being a safe place that someone can express all they are feeling will make the grief easier to bear. That means that we are willing to listen as the grieving person talks. Don’t be afraid to just sit and listen. Or just sit and be with the grieving person.

Also, there will be many people that come to offer support shortly after a loss. But don’t forget about the grieving person, remember to check in on them weeks and months after a loss. They often feel forgotten or left behind when the world moves on and they are still grieving.

Finally, don’t set a time limit for when you think they should be done grieving. Grief changes and it isn’t always so intense but it can return as you go through different stages in your life. Let the grieving person express how they feel no matter how long it has been since a loss.

If you or someone you know needs support there are helplines you can reach out to: the Crisis Textline text ‘help’ to 741741 and the grief hotline (800) 448-3000. It is important to reach out to help when you need it. Life is precious love the people around you today.

Be Uncomfortable

I am always on the look out for new ways to deal with anxiety. I hate the anxious uncomfortable feeling that comes when I am doing something new or difficult. I want to find the magic cure that will make it so I never have to feel that way again. I think I have finally found it!

The cure? Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. There is a new book out called “Needing to know for sure”. In this book the authors discuss how to get out of the loop of always checking on things or always having to do more research before you make a decision. Basically they are teaching how to stop the anxiety cycle.

I have not read the book yet but I am excited to find out more. They have a four step process for dealing with anxiety. The second step is to embrace the feeling of uncertainty. For most of my life I have been trying to figure out how to calm the feeling of uncertainty. I want to feel confident and unafraid. As a child I would get so scared when my parents were gone I would make all of my siblings go to the neighbors house, often late at night, just so I could be reassured by an adult. (Everyone had to come so that nothing bad would happen to the ones left at home.)

During the worst of the anxiety I would call my husband at least once a day so that I could get reassurance from him that everything is OK. I wanted him to calm me down so that I didn’t have to keep feeling so uncomfortable. And it would work for a little bit but then something else would happen and I would need to check in with someone to calm me down.

Seeking for constant reassurance actually increases the need to seek for reassurance. Because you feel calmer for a little while your brain convinces you that seeking for help is the only way to calm yourself. That is why step two of this program is so important. Learning to be uncomfortable for a little while actually decreases the number of panic attacks faster than seeking reassurance.

In this new book they teach that getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is a key to moving forward with anxiety. Going forward even though you feel scared teaches the brain that there isn’t anything to be afraid of. The brain can’t tell the differences between a true threat and one that we imagine. That is why when we feel afraid the gut reaction is to run. That is why we seek reassurance.

However, when the threat is not actually something that will kill us we have to learn how to feel the fear. To do this acknowledge to yourself that you are feeling afraid or uncomfortable. You don’t have to pretend you are feeling fine when you aren’t. As you know I love lists so I make a list of why I am feeling afraid. I love to write the list down because it helps me get it out of my head instead of dwelling on it.

Then I announce, sometimes out loud, that I am afraid but I don’t care I am going to do this thing anyway. Then I remind myself that I have survived every panic attack I have had and this time will not be different. I may not like the way it feels but I can survive it so bring it on. Then I get busy. I do something to distract my brain, especially, if what I had been worrying about was a made up stress scenario.

I am not very good at feeling the fear yet. I have been stress eating to distract myself from the fear. But I have been trying. Will join me in feeling the fear?

Practice with a Purpose

Last week at my piano lesson my teacher was explaining how I should practice. She said that I should not just play through a song hoping I would figure out the parts I was struggling with. Instead, I should practice with a purpose. Meaning that I should find the parts I’m struggling with and work on those either until I get them or I get too frustrated. Then move on to the next part I need to work on.

She said that when you practice with a purpose you progress faster and you more easily learn to play a song. I have been thinking about this advice for the last few days. I know that there are times in life where I just coast through life hoping that I figure it all out. I keep thinking I will work on that tomorrow. I will understand this better latter. The problem is I never really work on that thing I want to figure out.

When I take the time to “practice with a purpose” I more quickly figure out what I have been struggling with. As I have explained before I have struggled with anxiety throughout my life. The last few years I have learned tricks and solutions that have helped my overcome most of the anxiety. However, the last few weeks the anxiety has been flaring up again. The tricks and tips I have been using in the past weren’t working.

Today as I was working to calm myself down I realized I needed to think about the anxiety in a different way. I have always thought of the anxiety as something to control or get over. Instead, I decided that it was something I would need to get comfortable with for the next few months. I am choosing to make changes and try new things in my life and this will trigger the anxiety. Instead of stepping back from my goals I am going to live with the anxiety and use it as a sign that I am moving in the direction I choose.

I stopped just moving through my day and decided to “practice with a purpose” by understanding what was causing the anxiety to flare. Then choosing to live with the anxiety and not to let it control me. How can you use the “practice with a purpose” idea in your own life? I would love to hear your ideas. Please share them with me here.

Minimalism and Thoughts

People are getting rid of stuff! There are more books coming out about the minimalist lifestyle. (Which I think is kind of ironic.) Less is more seems to be the mantra.

As I have been thinking about this it of course leads me to the idea of getting rid of beliefs that don’t serve you. The belief that you aren’t good enough. The belief that you have to be perfect. The belief that no one would like the “real” you. You know the one that you don’t show to people because it is too scary. Any negative belief that isn’t helping you to live a positive life.

I was reading “Bouncing Back from Rejection” last night. The author of the preface mentioned that our brains are not wired for positive thoughts. Our brains are wired to find the negative because that is what kept us alive. We had to find what might kill us quickly. We had to be able to identify what may get us kicked out of the tribe before we got kicked out.

We don’t have to be so focused on the negative anymore. So how do we change the way we think? First off, we have to know what we are thinking about. If we don’t pay attention to our thoughts we can’t change them. Our brains are always working to make sense of the world. It is interpreting data as we go about our day, that is how we can drive to work without remembering how we got there.

If we let our brain drive us it will seek out all of the negative. When we start paying attention to our thoughts we are able to better control them. Once you start paying attention to what you are thinking about you can then tell your thoughts where to go.

I remember a saying from Brigham Young, “If you have a negative thought about yourself tell it to go to hell, because that is exactly where it came from.” Although this is funny it is true. When we have those negative thoughts they need to be kicked out. Challenge the thought; is it true? Does it describe what really happened? How do I know that it is true?

Once you have challenged the thought it is time to re-frame it. If it is completely false you toss out the thought. If part of the thought is true you rewrite it in your mind. I did say something rude to my mom but I apologized and we worked through it. I am not going to worry about it anymore.

After you rewrite the thought or you are ready to toss it out, you need to replace it by focusing on something else. If you simply rewrite the thought and don’t replace it with something else you will continue to focus on that thought. You can use a saying, a mantra, song lyrics or a scripture to distract yourself from the negative thought. This way it has less power over you and you can move on.

As you continue through these steps each day it gets easier. You will more quickly focus on the positive. And you will be able to accomplish the goals you have set in your life. If you would like more focused help on changing your thoughts please contact me here. I would love to work with you.