November 2021 - Kate Gegg, AM, LCSW

November 24, 2021March 27, 2023

Meditation

For us to be happy in our lives, we need to be able to be alone and at peace with our inner world. There are many roads to this place, including the following path.
First, I recommend you master grounding. This helps us learn that we can recenter ourselves when we’ve gotten to an emotional edge.
When we’re confident in our ability to ground, we become confident that we can bring ourselves back from a place of intensity. This makes our thoughts, feelings, and inner world less scary because we know how to reset.
Next, I recommend foundational (sensory based) meditation for 30 seconds to two minutes a day.
The goal with this type of meditation is to begin watching your inner world without reacting to it, or it controlling your attention or behavior.
When we get skilled at this we can better tolerate our feelings, reduce our impulsivity, and more easily think and process before acting and responding.
The final step, which is outlined in today’s post, is to begin meditation without a sensory anchor. Instead, our anchor is our internal world.
Unlike foundational meditation where we come back to noticing a sensory anchor, in this type of meditation your centering point is yourself. You come back to noticing what is in your body, what feelings you feel, what urges you have, what sensations you can notice, and what thoughts flow in and out.
Just like foundational meditation, the goal is to notice what’s there, notice if you’ve drifted off into a thought chain or if you’ve tried to “clear” your mind, and to reset to a state of curiosity and attentiveness to all that is happening in your inner world.
See further explanation about this next stage of meditation, and the benefits of it, in today’s post.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with grounding and foundational meditation (and there is no right about of time for that), you can start experimenting with free form meditation. This is when we try and be present in our inner world without an identified “anchor” other than ourselves.

In my previous post on meditation I encouraged you to pick a sensory based focal point (like noticing your fingers touching, or a beverage in your mouth), and then set a timer while actively watching your internal world to “see what comes up”. The goal of that exercise is to be present with your mind and body as it goes through each moment, neither trying to “clear” your mind nor holding on to any given internal experience that comes up.

The process for this next stage is nearly identical. Set a timer (so you don’t give in to urges to stop), but instead of picking a sensory anchor to return to, the anchor is simply your internal world itself. Your mind will drift, you may hear a noise, or have a thought or feeling that preoccupies you. That’s ok. Your job, during this exercise, is to notice that you’ve drifted or started engaging with a distraction, and then to return to what you have intentionally chosen to focus on, which is what you notice in your body, and what’s happening with your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and urges moment to moment.

Meditation gives us the ability to insert intentionality into our choices by helping us learn to observe and collect information before acting. Although we “notice” rather than “act” in meditation, we are practicing tolerating the intensity of how inaction feels. The better we get at tolerating that experience in our inner world, the more skilled we become at not feeling pulled to act (before it makes sense to) in our lives.

With time, meditation enables us to better control our attention. Instead of our attention and focus dictated by what’s “loud” (be it a feeling, thought, person, event etc), we notice “what’s happening” and how it effects us. Then, we can choose when to engage with it based on a host of factors including our emotional availability, the true urgency of the issue, and our commitments, values, priorities, and readiness.

Notes:

Want to start the journey? First, see my post on grounding. In it there are lots of tips for skills you can use when you are outside your window of tolerance to help you return. Once you’ve gotten skilled at grounding (and this can take a very long time, so be patient with yourself) move on to foundational meditation .
When I’m teaching this to my clients I tell them the only reason I want them stopping the meditation is if their body is in danger (like a fire alarm goes off, then yes, listen and react to that!). Otherwise, if you realize all of sudden you need to go to the bathroom, ok. Cool. Keep noticing what that feels like while looking out for what else is happening in your internal world. Maybe your leg starts to fall asleep. I don’t want anyone to hurt themselves, so use your judgment, but this exercise would encourage you to notice what that feels like without reacting to it. Maybe you realize you missed an important call. Notice the feeling of panic, and wait the until the timer goes off to handle it. In your real life, of COURSE we want you responding to cues of distress from your body and your world, but we want you to do so in a thoughtful rather than a reactive way. Meditation helps you become skilled at noticing without quickly reacting, and should help you eliminate those hair trigger responses and insert more intentionality into your day to day decisions.
I often share this story when I’m teaching clients how to meditate, because I think it helps illustrate how this is both a simple and yet simultaneously hard skill to build. I took a class in graduate school that provided concrete training on many of the skills in this account, including meditation. Every class my professor would have us do a sensory based meditation. Inevitably, someone would show up late, slam a door, bang a chair around – etc. I would then stop refocusing myself in the meditation and instead think something like: “ugh, they are ruining it! How am I supposed to focus on what I’m thinking or feeling while they are being so disruptive”. I felt annoyed, frustrated, disrespected, angry, and distracted. It took me weeks to get it – that it’s my job to learn how to refocus myself, rather than their job not to distract me. It’s my job to notice what that stirs up in me, and to try and learn from it by reflecting on it after the meditation, rather than to look to them to live their lives in such a way that they don’t create noise in mine. What I experienced was a “thought and feeling” train (outlined more in the foundational meditation post) and it’s my job to notice when I’ve hopped on that, and to return to what I choose to focus on until the time is right for me to understand how and why that train was a tempting distraction for me to engage with.
When we meditate anything that is not what we intend to focus on is considered a distraction for that moment, even if at a later time it will be a focal point of our attention.
What about mindfulness based programs like headspace? My answer would be, it depends on what you are looking for and how you use them. Programs of that nature can be great for relaxation, and, I would imagine (I don’t know the platform inside and out) that there are non guided meditations accessible within it. A guided meditation can be a GREAT starting point as something to do to help quiet an active mind, even before you try the foundational meditation exercise I suggested in my post from July 19th. That being said, focusing your attention on listening to words, and following the direction of those words is ultimately an outside “distraction” that takes you away from being present with your inner world. When you are busy following directions to notice your breath, to count backwards, etc you are not alone with your inner world; you are following a guide through it. Again, this is a GREAT entry point to being present with your inner world, but I’d encourage you to go beyond a guided meditation to work on being with yourself and going at your own pace though your inner world.
Sometimes I think of this exercise like snorkeling or scuba diving. Above the surface of the water you can’t even imagine (without spending some time looking) at how much is happening underneath. While you are in the exercise it is not your job to “touch” the fish (i.e. engage with the thought), it is simply your job to observe this world, and see what crosses the path of your attention without trying to change or alter it. You are just there as an observer to take it all in. Your thoughts, feelings, urges, impulses, and sensations are each individual components of the world for you to observe with detachment and curiosity.
The goal of this particular exercise is not to relax you, instead it is to help you tolerate all of the intensity of your inner world without trying to control it. I’d encourage you to start at moments when you feel more calm, but over time try it out (even for 30 seconds) at a time when you feel something more intensely.
The beauty of meditation is that we gain control over what we pay attention to. Have an intense thought or feeling come up, but need to focus on that project? Did you have an upsetting conversation, but feel like this isn’t the right time to really think or process through it? Meditation helps us gain control over where we place our attention so that we can spend our time and our energy on our chosen focal points, and return to the intrusions at another time. This is how people learn how to walk on coals (I am NOT suggesting this!!), or manage chronic pain, they have a strong ability to move their attention away from that particular stimulus onto a chosen stimulus. Even though we practice for a short amount of time, that “muscle” builds. The strength and skill in meditation is NOT in controlling your thoughts, or never having them drift away, it’s in noticing what’s happening in your internal world and then being able to redirect your attention to your chosen focal point. Sometimes we have to do this many times over the course of a minute, this is successful meditation. The ability to redirect back to the chosen focal point is the skill.
I want to be clear: sometimes the distractions we “refocus away from” in our lives are important for us to act on at some point, rather than continue to refocus away from. Meditation can teach you to disengage, but we want to think of that as “disengage until the right time” for some topics. You will be avoiding or denying in you life if you constantly refocus away from something that needs to be addressed.
I’ve written a handful of other posts that explain the value of meditation. The first explains the value of meditation in further detail, and the second helps us understand more about how our inner world works and how to “control” it.

November 11, 2021March 29, 2023

How to Fight Fair

We want you getting through your disagreements with as little pain as possible. Avoiding these 8 “don’ts” is the first step to getting there.
Avoid disrespectful communication. This means: no name calling, derogatory language, hostility (i.e trying to intimidate the other party or yelling), expressing your negative feelings in a physical manner (i.e. hitting, breaking, throwing etc). If it’s not “OK” to do at work, it’s not “OK” to do at home.
Avoid a dismissive stance. You’re not going to get through to someone if you are judging them, using sarcasm, interrupting them, rolling your eyes, or engaging in other behaviors or gestures that indicate you’re not taking the perspective of the other person seriously. Even if you think someone is not being reasonable you can communicate that without these tactics.
Avoid counter-complaining. Don’t bring up your own complaint in response to someone else’s. This means you don’t respond to “you never do the dishes” with “you never do the laundry”. This deflects the conversation from the concern being addressed. If you have a related concern think of that as a separate issue for a separate conversation.
Avoid dumping. Don’t bring up numerous and unrelated concerns at a time. If you’re bringing up the problem, bring up one problem. You will overwhelm the other party if you bring up too much at once. All topics of concern are important, and so to address them effectively you need to pace them.
Avoid rehashing. Leave problems you have previously resolved in the past. Sometimes old problems are related to current ones, and while that can be acknowledged respectfully, you will run the conversation in circles until a point of exhaustion if you have to re-resolve old issues whenever a new one comes up.
No character assassination. This means talking about the entirety of someone’s personality, rather than a specific problem you have with them or what is happening. This means no “you’re lazy”, but instead, “I’m upset at how often you don’t participate at times when we have a lot to do”.
Be careful about words like “always” and “never”, very few things actually ALWAYS or NEVER happen, and it’s a quick way to shut the other party off if you overgeneralize about the frequency of an issue. We often do this as a way of trying to make our point when we feel dismissed, but even if the other party is taking a dismissive stance, this tactic is often an exaggeration and often leaves other party to feeling even more entitled to dismiss us.
Don’t force resolution. Do not put pressure on yourself or the other party to resolve issues prematurely, or only on one person’s timeline. This means: no chasing someone around and continuing to talk if the other person has asked for a break, no putting off the conversation indefinitely because one party doesn’t want to deal with it, and no “resolving” the issue if you’re not ok with the resolution but just want to “make up” and make it go away. These are recipes for disconnection and rehashing.

Conflict is inevitable in relationships, especially close ones, given no two people bring to their relationships the exact same values, priorities, concerns, and needs at any given point in time. Even the most compatible people will have conflict at some point, which is a clash in what one party needs or wants with what the other party is willing to authentically offer, provide, or agree to. Conflict can mean fighting, but doesn’t have to; it may help to think of “conflict” more like a conflict of interest between the involved parties.

For most of us, when we hit a point of disagreement between ourselves and those we are close with we communicate in ways that are familiar and intuitive for us, often shaped by what was modeled for us, and what we have done in the past. What is intuitive or familiar may not, however, be effective.

For our relationships to go well, we need to deal with conflict in a manner that helps us resolve the issue while still holding respect for our relationship and the other party; both parties need to feel considered and as though their needs, priorities, concerns, and desires are taken seriously. This means when one person has a problem, both people have a problem. Taking on this attitude of acceptance will help strengthen the relationship and keep your connection strong.

As a couples therapist, one thing I pay attention to is how couples communicate with each other when they have a disagreement. If they don’t have the tools to work through conflict productively important topics don’t get adequately addressed. Over time, relationships can erode because of the hurt created by the conflict itself, in addition to the inability of the couple to resolve issues between them.

The first step to taking care of your relationship while you address a concern is getting the communication “don’ts” from this post out of the conversation. Getting rid of these tactics can help you move through conflict and may help improve your relationship and feelings of closeness and connection.

A future post will cover the “dos” for resolving conflict. For now, see what ways you can come up with to eliminate these “don’ts” from your conversation and your mindset.

Notes:

A helpful tip – removing the “don’ts verbally may not be enough. Truly try and challenge yourself to remove the “don’ts” from your mindset and perspective as well. In relationships, even if someone isn’t saying it, we can feel it when someone isn’t taking us seriously.
Some conflict can be resolved in a single conversation or two. Some conflict is about fundamental differences between the parties involved, and will be revisted again and again. This does not necessarily mean that the involved parties are incompatible, and getting the “don’ts” out of the conversation can help us better live with our differences.
Further notes on disrespectful conversation: If you don’t communicate with respect, you will create a problem while you are trying to resolve a disagreement. When we communicate disrespectfully it is usually a way of expressing anger, which, while valid to feel, needs to be handled respectfully so as not to derail an otherwise productive conversation. Sometimes, when we’ve grown up around conflict that includes disrespectful communication we can have trouble recognizing it – calling someone “stupid” or their thoughts or beliefs “ridiculous” is a version of disrespectful communication.
We often counter-complain when we are in a defensive state of mind, meaning we use the counter complaint as a way to rationalize, deflect, and justify our perspective and actions at the detriment of understanding, connection, receiving feedback, or accepting the impact of our actions. Often times we are more prone to defensiveness when we are focused on how we are “right” or when we are focused on our intentions (rather than our impact).
Want some more tips on “fair fighting” for couples? See this post about how the way we fight can effect the stability of our relationship.
Do you find you have trouble accepting the validity of other’s concerns? See this post to help you understand the power of validation (even when we disagree), and this post to help you accept even if you dislike or disagree.
Do you generally find you have trouble balancing taking care of yourself, others, and what you want or need in relationships? It is a tough balancing act. See this post for tips.
Judgments can be tough to identify, but I’ve got prior posts covering how to identify a judgment and how to reshape them.
Does the idea of not resolving conflict quickly leave you feeling uneasy? See this post for more information.
Do you want help with addressing conflict or connection in your relationship, but are on the fence about whether it’s “too soon” for couples therapy? See this post to help you decide whether it’s time.

November 1, 2021March 27, 2023

What is an Emotion?

If you want to manage and cope with your emotions, a helpful starting point is understanding what they are, how they work, and how (beyond feeling them) they effect us.
What emotions we feel, and how intensely we feel them, is simply a combination of chemical processes in our brain and sensations in our body working as a feedback loop in response to signals from one another and our environment.
An example: You feel scared. Your brain sends that fear signal to your body. Your heart may start racing, you you may start sweating, you may instinctively raise your shoulders up by your ears. You may think to yourself, “this isn’t safe, I’m in danger”. Your brain then detects all that activity which continues prompting the emotion of fear.
Feeling emotions for extended periods of time is simply this feedback loop restarting again and again as we experience the emotion, thoughts, and associated body changes.
Each emotion has a series of specific body changes and sensations associated with it. Those body sensations are unique to each person, but there is often overlap between people in how they feel each particular emotion.
The more we can learn to notice and observe our emotions and their impact on us, the less controlled we are by them. An entry point to this (and there are others) is noticing and identifying what is happening in your body as you are feeling your emotions.
It can be a helpful exercise to think of something that made you feel a particular emotion, reconnect with that feeling, and then do a scan throughout your body to notice how the emotion effects you.
You can build up a personal catalog of identifiers for each emotion (i.e. anger makes me feel heat in my chest and tension in my jaw, guilt makes me feel a pit in my stomach and a knot in my throat etc).
There will be more to come on this topic, including why we have emotions and tips and skills for managing them.
See today’s post for a further explanation of why we need to pay attention to our bodies if we want to better manage our minds

If you’ve studied philosophy you know there is an age old question about the differences between mind and body. In this day an age, those of us familiar with neuroscience know that mind and body are actually part of the same intricate system of circuitry, feedback loops, and signals. Emotions are a complex part of this system, but simply put they consist of (neurochemical) changes in the brain that go on to have an effect on our bodies, thoughts, behavior, and even our interpretations of the environment around us.

Understanding how to manage our emotions becomes easier once we understand that they exist in a feedback loop with our bodies. We can enter that loop and begin the process of taming, settling, regulating, and managing our emotions by becoming familiar with how each emotion effects our body.

Try and bring curiosity to your body when you realize you are feeling an emotion. What do you notice? Pay attention to temperature, tension, pressure, tightness, etc. You may need to scan around to different parts of your body to gather all the information about what’s happening. As a bonus, the process of stepping back and observing yourself will likely help lower the intensity of the emotion you are experiencing.

If you’re not used to directing your attention to your body you may be surprised at how much is happening in it. If you find you feel numb and can’t feel your body that’s a cue you’re out of your window of tolerance and need to ground (see comments). You may also find you don’t feel some emotions even though you know they exist. Try accessing a lower intensity version of those emotions, for example if you are someone that can’t connect with feelings of anger, try connecting with frustration, or irritability – and notice how that effects your body.

Over time, that increased awareness of our body can help us detect emotions before they get too big (increasing our odds of wrangling them back in), and offers us the opportunity to intervene in the feedback loop with strategies to manage our emotions. More on those strategies in a future post, but for now work paying attention to your personal feedback loop and its effect on your body.

Comments:

This post contains a fusion of information from (1) Marsha Linehan’s Skills training manual for DBT, and her theory of emotions (pages 87, 88, and 137 of the manual), (2) Bessel Van Der Kolk’s “The body keeps the score”, (3) Daniel Siegel’s “Mindsight” and (4) David Wallin’s “Attachment in Psychotherapy”.
As David Wallin explains, “Asking our patients to label what they feel…invites them to observe that experience rather than simply identify with it and feel overwhelmed. Enhanced bodily awareness and the growing sense that feelings can be painful without being intolerable sets the stage” for healing. This quote is from page 81 of David Wallin’s Attachment and Psychotherapy, a book meant for therapists but readable for not-therapists who are interested in learning more. Full citation: Wallin, D. J. (2007). Attachment in psychotherapy. New York: Guilford Press.
Scientists rely on this fact, that our emotions are neural processes, to make advances in medicine and to better understand human behavior and functioning. They’ll use scans /testing devices in research studies to help them determine what emotion a person is feeling based on which part of the brain shows the most activity. “In the early 1990s novel brain-imaging techniques opened up undreamed-of capacities to gain a sophisticated understanding about the way the brain processes information…PET and later… fMRI scans enabled scientists to visualize how different parts of the brain are activated when people are engaged in certain tasks or when they remember events from the past. For the first time we could watch the brain as it processed memories, sensations , and emotions and begin to map the circuits of mind and consciousness” – Page 39 of Bessel Van Der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps the Score”. Full citation: van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.4
Want to know more about the connections between how your brain, your emotions, and your thoughts work? See my previous post Your Brain as an Association Machine for more information.
I mention the feedback loop between our brains and our body in this post. Did you know most emotions last only a few seconds to minutes? If you’re feeling something for an extended period of time the feedback loop is restarting, which means there is an opportunity for you to intervene. Learn more about the brevity of emotions here.
Not sure you buy into the idea that you want to feel all your emotions? Or maybe you only want to feel some of them? Check out this post that explains the value in negative emotions.
Think you’re not someone who is effected by your emotions? Think again – we’ve all got them, and they can effect us even when we push them away or don’t feel them.
I mention Grounding and The Window of Tolerance in this post. If you find you need to ground a lot while trying to be in your body it’s a cue that you would benefit from therapy. It will help you widen your window of tolerance.