Category: Anxiety

Turning Off and Tuning In to Another Mass Shooting

Posted on by Dana Goldman

black ribbonI found out the horrific mass shooting yesterday in Florida this morning, not because of the TV or the radio or the internet but because someone I happened to be with mentioned it.

Word of mouth is how I’ve learned almost all of my news for the past two months. It’s been part of an experiment that has involved purposely turning off and tuning out the barrage of news and infotainment that I had eagerly welcomed for so long.

Before these last two months, my radio was on constantly. I was constantly reloading the New York Times website. I could sound informed and knew a little bit about a lot.

But I was also getting numb to it all. Information overload can increase stress and make it hard to absorb anything at all. And so while it’s important to me to be engaged in the world beyond my nose and take action where I can, it’s also been important to see what happens when I turn everything off for awhile. If I’m not distracting myself with the news or really entertaining podcasts, where does my mind go? If I’m not hearing about everything that’s truly terrible in the world, what does that do for my ability to feel and act calm?

We need to notice the impact that news has on our spirits and sense of well-being. We need to try to be mindful as we figure out the right ways and times to be present with the world around us. That’s what I’m working on.

Please join me in adding your name to the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence’s petition for stronger gun control.

 

 

 

 

One Game-Changing Question for More Effective Therapy

Posted on by Dana Goldman

visual-complexity-by-casey-hussein-bisson-creative-commons-by-nc-saIt was as bizarre and shocking and smart of a question as I’d ever heard. “Can you help this be more complicated?” the therapist asked. She was giving guidance to another therapist, a fellow workshop participant, about a client.

At the time I had never considered the idea that sometimes what is called for is creating room for complexity. The task of making something more complicated for clients seemed antithetical to why most people come to counseling in the first place. Clients come to therapy seeking safe guidance through the deepest, hardest, most private parts of their lives–and that’s usually complicated enough.

But as I’ve sat with this question over the last six years, my understanding of its value has grown. Because often clients come in wanting to transform a part of their life that’s grey or rainbow-colored into something black and white. Should I stay or go? Is he good or bad? Am I right or wrong?  

We seek simple answers when we’re overwhelmed and anxious. Uncertainty and ambiguity can be terrible to tolerate.

But settling for false dichotomies (like good/bad and right/wrong) rarely help us answer big questions in meaningful, heart-felt ways. And so I’ve come to see the gifts of that question from years ago. Here is what I know for sure: It’s only when we acknowledge complexity that we can move through it. It’s only when we name the messiness and complications of life that we can begin to sort through it all to see what to keep, and what to release, and what’s beneath, and what’s within.

Reversing the Stress Response — New Relevant Research on Relaxation

Posted on by Dana Goldman

CureThe research continues to come out that mindfulness meditation can be useful to calm us down and, over time, rewire the brain for more relaxation and less of a hair trigger toward anger and stress. I loved listening to this interview on the NPR show Fresh Air with science writer Jo Marchant. Marchant’s just published a book called “Cure” and the interview gets into the mind-body connection and connects it to meditation, placebos, virtual reality, and other fascinating topics.

So often we think that living with anxiety is “just the way I am” — but neuroscience is showing that the brain is capable of change throughout our lifetime. If you can get better at driving, cooking, or riding a bicycle, then you can get better at recognizing stress, combating it, and reversing anxiety and depression. My belief in mindfulness meditation – guided by personal experience and the research – is why I continue to offer it to clients as a crucial part of talk therapy.

Five Ways to Feel Better Right Now

Posted on by Dana Goldman

I often tell new clients that I wish I could offer a magic pill that would completely take away anxiety, depression and suffering, even if that means I’d be out of a job I love. While there’s no quick cure-all for the challenges and messiness that come with being human, there are quick right-here-right-now ways to increase your sense of inner calm and stability no matter whThere ain't no magic pillat’s going on around you.

  1. Take a walk, ideally outside. More and more research is showing the benefits of physical activity for reducing stress – especially when you’re outside, not on a treadmill. This doesn’t need to be a long walk in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park, or a fast walk in midtown, or the sort of walk you’d consider “exercise” and therefore never want to do again. Just a walk. Outside.
  1. Turn off the news. Studies show that lots of exposure to news – especially negative news – makes us feel more negative about ourselves and the world around us.
  1. Call someone who cares about you and have a real conversation. One big antidote to the isolation that comes with depression and anxiety is connection.
  1. Do something interesting that will get your mind off of, well, your mind. In other words, do something that’s not about you. This can be as simple as working on a crossword puzzle or listening to an interesting podcast (I recommend RadioLab, StartUp, and Intelligence Squared among others).
  1. Practice guided breathing for ten minutes. There’s massive amounts of research about how intentional breathing can reduce our reactivity and increase our sense of well-being.

Got a great tip? Feel free to email me about what relaxation techniques work best for you to feel happy and peaceful.

Surviving Our Families Over the Holidays

Posted on by Dana Goldman

 

“If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.”

-Ram Dass

It’s that busy few weeks right now between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when many of us have barely had time to recover from one family gathering before the next one looms. We don’t need to have deep, dark family histories in order to find extended time with family challenging. Stick us in a house with anyone, add in lots of expectations for how Thanksgiving or Hanukah or Christmas or Kwanzaa “should” be, and we’re bound to feel challenged.

Holiday survival with familyToo often, these holidays are also a reminder of loss – who isn’t here with us, how these holidays used to be, and what may be missing right now from our lives. Underneath the cheer is often a layer of sadness or worry or regret tinged with some self-recrimination. Shouldn’t we be enjoying ourselves right now?

My wonderful colleague Tara Lozano reminds me that sometimes the only thing to say in these moments is “This too.” It’s the exciting holiday season – and we feel sad. We love our extended families – and they drive us crazy. Saying “This too” makes room for the fact that our lives often have elements of wonder and despair at the exact same point. Saying “This too” makes space for the facts we can want to hug and kill our relatives, sometimes at the exact same time. This is normal. It doesn’t make us bad people that we hold such a wide range of emotions – it just makes us human.

 

Don’t Believe Facebook! Comparison, Judgment and What’s Not to Like

Posted on by Dana Goldman

Facebook contributes to comparisonY’all, it’s time to talk about Facebook, that addictive, terrible-wonderful black-hole of photos and words from friends and “friends” that makes about 90% of us feel like our lives are crap, at least occasionally. How do I know this? I was on Facebook for ten minutes up until about 10 seconds ago, and in that time I came to believe that all of my friends and “friends” are all unambivalently happy about everything in their own lives — kids and jobs and partners and the like — and all having a terrific ball in their abundant free time. Just like all of our lives really are, right?

Facebook comes up in my counseling office fairly regularly, since in addition to connecting friends and “friends” it also provides constant opportunities for us to compare ourselves and our lives to all the people we know. Since Facebook has us comparing our own inner experiences with curated external experiences, we’re usually doomed to feel bad. There is research to back this up.

Here is what I want to tell friends and clients: What people post on Facebook does not reflect the entirety of their inner and outer experiences. Since people rarely post, “Oh, hey, I feel really depressed today” it can be easy to think that nobody else ever feels depressed. Since people rarely post, “Oh, hey, I spent Friday night alone eating marshmallows and binge-watching American Ninja Warrior” it can be easy to think that everyone except you is always out having ridiculous amounts of fun with their amazing, hilarious friends.

But it’s important to remember that people only post on Facebook what they want you to know about their lives. And it’s the rare person who wants all our friends and “friends” to know about our deep sorrows, big regrets, chronic worries, or loneliness. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t all have deep sorrows, big regrets, chronic worries, or occasional loneliness. We are all human; we all feel all the human emotions, even the difficult ones. We just don’t always share them with others.

Most of my clients do have Facebook accounts. And if you met most of them, you would never think that they struggle in the way that almost all of us do at some point in our lives. My clients are good at putting on happy faces, just like most of the rest of us, and my guess is that they only post positive things on Facebook.  And until the Facebook Revolution or Be Honest On Facebook Day, it’s up to us to remember that what’s visible on the surface is rarely the full truth of what exists deeper down.

Serving as Our Own Judge and Jury

Posted on by Dana Goldman

figure-with-a-gavel-7523“I know you’ll judge me for this, but…” my client starts. She tells me what’s happened the previous week, and I keep waiting for the moment in which I will feel like condemning her to the ends of the earth. But… that moment never comes.

Oftentimes the depressed or anxious people who show up in counseling believe that I, or any other therapist, will judge them as much as they judge themselves. They feel so embarrassed or humiliated, so they assume we will laugh or humiliate them further. They look critically at themselves and their choices, and fear that I and others will too. This is why people dealing with depression and anxiety often isolate themselves and shut down. It can be terrifying to spend time with people if we believe that if they really know us they will judge us.

A big part of the work I do is helping clients look clearly at their own judgments of themselves, instead of simply staying immersed in the judgements themselves. Sometimes self-criticism can be a useful tool, but sometimes we can use it as a weapon against ourselves. Here are the sorts of questions I invite you ask yourself right now:

  • How would my life be different if I was less self-critical?
  • What stops me from being as critical or judgmental of my friends?
  • How self-critical would I want any children in my life to be? 

Dealing with our worst moments

Posted on by Dana Goldman

“Whsecrets lead to depression and anxietyat would happen,” the attorney asked, “if everyone around you judged you for the worst moments of your life?”

The room fell silent. I was with a group at Atlanta’s Southern Center for Human Rights listening to a lawyer speak about his work against the death penalty. And while I haven’t ended up in prison for any of my worst moments, the attorney’s words have stayed with me.

At some point in our lives all of us act in ways that go against our values, principles and beliefs. We lie, or cheat, or cut someone off in traffic when we’re really mad at our boss or child. As kids, and then as teens and adults, we behave in ways we later want to forget because these moments stir up such guilt and embarrassment and shame. We get nervous someone will find out, and this anxiety can pave the way for depression or panic attacks.

So many of my counseling clients worry terribly about what I and others will think of them when one of their worst moments is revealed. They worry they will be judged as harshly as they have judged themselves. They worry that others won’t forgive them, especially since it has been so difficult to find forgiveness in themselves. They worry that others will write them off as bad, since they see themselves as bad.

I know these truths for two reasons: One is because I’ve listened to many of these worst moments in my therapy sessions with clients. Second is because I’m a human with my own worst moments.

Coming to therapy is a brave act. It takes courage to begin to speak about these worst moments and what we fear they say about us. When we speak them out loud, we often fear being judged as harshly as we have judged ourselves.

But there is more to us than our worst moments — much, much more. In counseling, we look at our worst moments and best moments from a place of compassion and curiosity, because we can learn from them both. It’s important to put both in a larger context, trying to make sense of them so we can let go of debilitating shame, depression and anxiety, and truly move on.

So please remember: There is more to all of us than our worst moments. There is more to you than your worst moments.

 

Overthinking and “Analysis Paralysis”

Posted on by Dana Goldman

Overthinking anxiety and depression“I think too much,” someone with depression will say. “How can I stop?”
“I overthink things,” someone with anxiety will say. “How can I stop?”

We’re taught that thinking is a good thing — right? Thinking is how we avoid danger, make decisions about our priorities, decide who to spend time and figure out what to eat, along with a million other daily choices.

But there’s a difference between thinking that helps move us to someplace new and thinking that keeps us stuck in the same place. I’ve come to know that when a teen or adult client says, “I’m thinking too much,” it’s usually their way of saying “I’m thinking in circles right now and it’s driving me crazy.”

At some point in our lives, we all get stuck thinking about big choices, what others may think of us, past regrets, and future possibilities. Usually this isn’t fun thinking, like fantasizing about a much-needed vacation. Instead it sounds more like this: “But if this happens…” or “If only I had done this…” or “I can’t believe I …” or “I want this but I don’t know if I want this thing that goes with it …” Oftentimes it’s this crazy-making kind of thinking — along with the anxiety that usually goes with it — that brings people into therapy for the first time.

There are a few ways out of this analysis paralysis. Sometimes speaking thoughts out loud to someone without a stake in the outcome — like a therapist — can help see us see situations with more clarity. Sometimes making small decisions regardless of thoughts can help break us free of the mind’s spin-cycle. And, of course, dealing with underlying anxiety or depression can help change the quality and nature of our thoughts. Reflection is useful. Round and round rumination is not.

When isolating becomes the norm

Posted on by Dana Goldman

unnamedDepression and anxiety are bad enough, but sometimes their side effects can feel like the poison-filled icing on top of what’s already a pretty terrible-tasting cake. If you’re depressed — and not sleeping, or can’t motivate yourself, or are pretty convinced you’re the worst person who’s ever lived — than my heart goes out to you. If you’re anxious — and can’t concentrate, or can’t slow down your racing mind — than I am so, so sorry. Depression and anxiety are bad enough, and the symptoms that often come along with them are enough to make us feel crazy, even though we’re not.

One of my least favorite things about depression and anxiety (because I keep a list, right?) is how scarily isolated people can feel and become. When we don’t feel good, the impulse is usually to hole up by ourselves. It’s not a bad thing for a night or two or three, but when those consecutive nights watching Atlanta forecasts on the Weather Channel tick up in the double-digits then it may be a sign things aren’t headed in a good direction.

And yet, if you feel bad, then hanging out with people can feel fake. On the outside you might be all smiles, but on the inside you may be feeling like you’re one minute away from breaking out in tears or a panic attack. It can take a huge amount of energy to fake that everything’s okay when everything really feels like it’s crumbling around and inside you.

So if you’re reading this right now and this description of anxiety and depression resonates, then please consider the possibility of finding some support. Not the kind of support that tells you “it’s going to be alright” but the kind of support that helps you figure out how to make things be alright. Your mind can slow down. You are capable of feeling well-rested. You can feel better. You don’t need to go through this alone.