Stress – Page 4 – Stone Cottage Counseling

Are Technology and Peace At Odds?

Posted on October 6, 2016 by Dana Goldman

My meditation teacher sent me this article I Used To Be A Human Being and I’m passing it along to you today. It’s all about how to live in an age of constant distraction and, fittingly, it took me three days and three sittings to actually finish it because of the distractions that bombard me.

I’m sharing this article because its author, Andrew Sullivan, speaks to the wrestling that so many of us do figuring out how to live with technology in a way that serves us. It speaks to the ways that technology often keeps us hooked into distraction and compulsive online searching rather than the more important (and often more difficult and painful) internal searching to find and explore the core of ourselves and our purpose.

I hope this article is thought-provoking in all the right ways for you today.

Reconsidering The Cult of Productivity

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Dana Goldman

I work with a lot of therapy clients struggling to find their place in a culture that values productivity above almost everything else. These clients feel guilty when they aren’t maximizing their time. Lounging can be seen as sinful. There is a constant push for more and more and more efficiency. And while the constant pushing can lead to isolation and loneliness, they are not alone: in mainstream Western culture, we value doing more than being, action more than reflection, and self-improvement over self-acceptance.

There are lots of reasons for our culture’s focus on productivity. But in my office, there are two main reasons people stay so busy and driven:

We fear slowing down. What happens when we spend time being quiet? It often means confronting parts of reality we’d rather push away. Many of us live with an inner critic, and that critic can be hard to tolerate at first when we spend time intentionally practicing reflection and self-acceptance.

Our self-worth has become deeply linked to our productivity. If we only feel okay when we judge ourselves on our productivity, of course we don’t want to slow down. (When our self-worth is linked to productivity like this, it leaves us vulnerable to internal crises if we get sick or have a change in life roles at home or work.)

In counseling, I work with clients to help them recognize other options for self-worth that go beyond productivity. We build bridges to reconcile self-improvement and self-acceptance. We rediscover the pleasure of leisure time well spent – without the guilt.

Turning Off and Tuning In to Another Mass Shooting

Posted on June 12, 2016June 13, 2016 by Dana Goldman

I 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.

Reversing the Stress Response — New Relevant Research on Relaxation

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Dana Goldman

The 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 January 5, 2016 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 wh There ain't no magic pill at’s going on around you.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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 December 8, 2015 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 family Too 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.

Learning from Bad Therapy

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Dana Goldman

I keep an informal list of the sorts of terrible things that clients have told me about past therapy experiences. Here are some that are so bad that they make me cringe.

“My old therapist left in the middle of a session to talk to a workman about some repairs.”

“This one counselor fell asleep while I was talking.”

“This therapist I went to once said that I was fine and that I’d be okay and not to worry… and that was all.”

Yikes. Counseling experiences like this give therapy a bad name. Making the important decision to seek out counseling is hard enough — but going to one therapist after another trying to find a good fit can add huge amounts of stress (not to mention cost) during what’s usually already a stressful time. Many people just decide that counseling isn’t for them and they try to find other ways to cope with what’s difficult in their lives.

I’ve made lots of mistakes as a therapist, but I can promise you that I will never leave a session, never fall asleep, and never tell you to just stop worrying. I subscribe to a national code of ethics and take it seriously. I work hard to give the folks who walk through my door the kind of experience I would want for myself or a loved one — the kind of experience that includes being professional, acting respectfully and doing my best to understand you and the series of events that have led to this difficult moment in your life.

So, that’s my promise to you. I hope for and work toward the day when all therapy is quality therapy. Our lives are important and we deserve nothing less.