Blog - Kate Gegg, AM, LCSW

April 13, 2021November 4, 2021

Introduction

Hi! I’m Kate (she/her), a Therapist in Chicago. I have been in private practice for more than 5 years, and practicing therapy for more than 10. I see adults, adolescents, couples, and I used to work with kids. I got my master’s degree in Social Work from University of Chicago and my undergraduate degree in Psychology from Colby College. Prior to graduate school I worked in Psychiatric Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and I have provided treatment in inpatient, outpatient, group practice, and community mental health settings.

In my work over the years I have come to see common patterns in why and how people struggle, and have found myself feeling disheartened that therapeutic tools, approaches, and techniques are not more broadly accessible. Having access to these tools and approaches deepens quality of life; improves relationships, well being and overall Mental Health; all while reducing conflict, anxiety, and depression. I found my own personal therapy accelerated and deepened after my training, and for years I’ve looked for an approachable way to make this information more accessible to my clients and the community at large. I’ve created an instagram account (@copingwithkate) in the hopes of helping more people than I could reach through providing individual therapy alone. I will share posts here, though some formatting may be strange because it is intended for instagram.

A few things about me: I have studied these tools and approaches, received formal training in them, and seen them help hundreds of people, myself included. While I am most certainly not a perfect person nor do I lead a flawless life, I think these tools and concepts can help nearly everyone find greater happiness and fulfillment. I also think these tools and concepts can help insulate all of us from difficult times, and give us ways to cope that might not be intuitive in the moment. I personally believe that there is too large of a gap between “popular” psychology, and what is known and studied by therapists. The concepts I learned in my training and in graduate school are useful and you don’t need to be in therapy or go to graduate school to learn them (though therapy most certainly helps you apply them).

I do not believe there is a such a thing as a life without pain – but – I do believe we can all strengthen our ability to endure pain, learn from it, and grow as a result and my hope is these tools and this account will help you do just that. I also believe we all have the ability to learn and grow, and that being “stuck” is often about not having the right tools or resources – or repeating patterns that may not work in times when we’re not sure what else to do. So, I will share what I can through this medium in the hopes that it will help, though – this is not a substitute for therapy itself (said with the knowledge that one-on-one therapy is not accessible for all).

May 2, 2024May 2, 2024

Rethinking Grief

We lose people, not our relationships with them.
Whether it’s to death, relocation, changes in life circumstances – we all lose people, and with any loss comes a version of grief.
It can bring profound comfort to hold on to the awareness that even though we lose future interactions with a person once they are no longer in our lives, the relationship can and does go on to live inside of us.
One of the most beautiful things about our ability to hold on to a relationship internally, even after its external presence has ended, is that we can continue to learn, grow, and be comforted by it.
With our internally driven relationship we can come to reflect on past experiences with the person in a new way, and at times see a person and their past choices differently.
For example, if you lost a parent, you may come to a have a different sense of what could have motivated them if / when you become a parent yourself.
Once someone is no longer in our lives, the relationship shifts from being externally driven to being internally driven. We have to learn to carry the person and relationship differently when someone no longer has an external presence in our lives.
Thinking of a relationship and a person as “internally” existing in you is often much more comforting than thinking of them as being “gone”.
Grief is loss and sadness, but it is also learning; learning how to live without someone’s external presence, learning to remember that they will no longer be there around the corner, and adjusting to that new reality.

Grief is incredibly wrenching, painful, and (somewhat) unpredictable for us all. One of the most uniformly difficult parts of tolerating grief is how chaotic it can feel; one minute you’re “fine”, the next minute you’ve had a reminder of your loss that feels like a gut punch. Those “reminders” are our indication that we are still in the process of learning to live without someone’s external presence in our lives.

We can find additional comfort when grieving by focusing on growing an internal relationship with the person we’ve lost. For example, ask yourself how the person would have responded to a situation you’re in, what advice they would have given you, or what they would have thought about a situation in your life or community. Give yourself permission to be honest; we are most comforted when we can bring back our genuine sense of who the person was to us.

For many of us, the loss of important people is complicated by their intermittent presence in our lives. When we’re not always with someone (like if they lived in a different house), it can be natural to “forget” they are no longer with us, only to “remember” when we’ve been reminded. Sensory reminders (like a smell or a sound that reminds you of them) can hit especially hard. This “forgetting” doesn’t mean the person wasn’t important, it means that our intermittent exposure to them prior to our loss of them makes the “adjusting” and learning more complex and difficult; even when they’re gone it doesn’t necessarily feel like it, because they weren’t always around to begin with.

Grief, like all learning, takes time. Maria Popova wrote a wonderful summary of the book “The Grieving Brain” by Mary Frances O’Connor, PhD, in which both writers talk about grief as a two part process that involves loss and learning (link in comments). There is, inevitably, a powerlessness that comes with grief. That powerlessness can be painful to tolerate because it reminds us of the limits of our control, our mortality (etc). These authors provide an explanation of grief can that can be hugely comforting because it diminishes our sense of chaos and powerlessness by helping us understand the complexity of the grieving process.

Comments:

The more respect we can have for the process of learning, and the more acceptance we can bring to our grief, the less it will sting us. See posts on learning and acceptance for more help with this.

November 8, 2023May 2, 2024

Challenging without Invalidating

Denying someone’s experience does not have to be a part of challenging their perspective. Challenging – without invalidating – is a skill that (often) needs to be learned so we can express our disagreement while respecting our relationships.
Too often, challenging includes invalidating (and is met with defensiveness) by the receiving party and / or is avoided (due to fears of conflict) by the observing party.
Learning how to give and receive feedback is an essential life skill. Differences of opinion and disagreements are a natural part of any relationship, and are often a precondition for learning and growth.
We cannot learn or broaden our perspective if we do not receive challenges to our way of thinking or being. We are more able to receive challenges when they don’t threaten our sense of self worth, or the relational safety between us and others.
To give feedback in a manner that maximizes someone’s ability to hear you, try to find the relatable component between you and the other party, even if you fundamentally disagree with their conclusion. Often, that relatable component is a feeling.
The key is to find and communicate some shared truth, or some element of their stance you can validate, before jumping in to tell them how you see it, or how you think what they’re seeing isn’t accurate.
When you share your take on the situation, do so non-judgmentally (i.e. own it as your take, based on your interpretation of the facts / lived experiences, rather than as an “obvious” fact (even if that’s how it feels)).
For example: “I know you’re angry about this, and you care, I can see that in how passionately you speak about it. I am angry and I care too. The challenge is I don’t agree with your take on what’s happening, or why it’s happening. I think…”
It can be unintuitive to lean into connection given that disagreements are inherently disconnects between ourselves and others, and yet it is this very approach that enables both parties to listen with respect, openness, curiosity, and kindness.
When we approach with connection and without judgment, we create safety between ourselves and others. That sense of relational safety creates an environment where a willing party can receive (and hopefully integrate) an alternate perspective.

Invalidation is important to distinguish from disagreeing. Invalidating is denying the presence and validity of another’s experience. Disagreeing is acknowledging that another perspective exists (and perhaps has the right to exist), while owning our alternate perspective (and potentially trying to influence someone else to accept it). We can disagree, challenge, and discuss without invalidating, but too often invalidation is used (at times unconsciously or unintentionally) as a tactic to try and influence the outcome of a situation by trying to cause someone to doubt themselves and what they feel or believe.

There are all kinds of problematic consequences with using invalidation as a tactic in relationships (or with ourselves), which will be discussed in another post, but in short invalidation is a harmful and ineffective tactic in the long-term, even if it gets the outcome we’re looking for in the short-term.

Instead, if we are trying to engage in healthy, kind, compassionate, thoughtful, and open dialogue where we learn from and influence others, we have to start with a stance of validity ourselves. We have to work to find what is valid in what the other party is saying, even if we disagree with their conclusions. We want to try and find areas of connection, even when we feel disconnected through our disagreement. We also need to approach without judgment, and with as much curiosity as possible, to create a safe space for differences to be discussed. Ideally, we too are open to being influenced in our manner of thinking, even it we are confident our conclusions about a topic won’t change. Working to take a curious stance about how someone got to their conclusion, even if it won’t change your conclusion, is a helpful tactic in working through differing perspectives.

On the receiving end, we want to work on welcoming differences of perspective and trying to learn from them (without getting defensive towards others, or shaming ourselves). We want to remember that more than one perspective can be drawn from the same facts, and that those differing perspectives are opportunities to learn and grow. More in today’s comments to help increase effective communication.

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Comments:

Learning to how engage in topics without invalidating can be an incredibly valuable tool to help someone deepen (and maybe even change) their perspective about all kinds of topics, from a news event, to their interpretation of an interpersonal event. These tips work on a micro level (giving feedback to an individual in your life) and on a macro level (how we talk about political differences).
I mention, briefly, that the importance of this stance applies to internal and external relationships. It’s true. Invalidating ourselves makes it more difficult to regulate our emotions. Try and work on taking this same stance with yourself when you don’t like how you are feeling or thinking about something. Tips for help with this can be found on my post that covers reconciling your relationship with anger , on the post that covers what validation is and why it is important, and my post about how to make use of negative (and positive) emotions.
I talk about the need to avoid judgments for effective communication – it will hugely impact your ability to be effective in disagreements. The following links include tips on how to recognize judgments, the problems with them, and how to communicate without relying on them.
This is an important tip for you therapists out there following along on this account. Last week I guest lectured in a graduate school class on how to incorporate DBT skills (like these) into insight oriented psychotherapy, and a very astute student asked a question about how to challenge without invalidating. These methods are a useful way to help our clients feel heard and respected, while also working on helping them broaden their perspective on a topic.
In addition to avoiding judgments, try and use as much respectful curiosity as possible. This means trying to understand where someone is coming from (and why) rather than asking questions as a tactic to poke holes in someone’s argument or perspective.
Invalidating is a lot like the modern day term gas-lighting. I’m not particularly wedded to differentiating the two, because they are both psychologically damaging, but it may be helpful to recognize that invalidating is denying someone’s experience (which can cause them to doubt in their ability to accurately process the world around them), whereas gas-lighting is not only denying their experience, but trying to convince them (and perhaps others) that they had a different experience from the one they expressed. This is easier to understand with examples. Invalidating: (After Mary says “I hate my sister”): “No you don’t”; Gaslighting, “No you don’t, you love her”. To challenge without relying on either tactic, “Ok Mary, I get it, you’re upset with your sister and you’re saying you hate her, though I know in other moments you feel differently, and at other times you seem to have fun with her” (and then perhaps you move on to help Mary figure out how to handle her feelings about struggling with her sister. The key is for the adult to recognize that Mary might have intense feelings of dislike (who knows, maybe even hatred) in that moment. Those feelings need to be acknowledged rather than dismissed, in a way that will help Mary broaden her understanding of her own internal world. Mary is then challenged, rather than invalidated or gaslit by the adult, and can come to learn that she has complex and nuanced feelings about her sister (after all, we all sometimes feel strong negative feelings towards others, even people we love).
This, like all new skills, is most challenging to do when we are activated and outside our window of tolerance. You may want to brush up on the window of tolerance to gain tips on timing for difficult conversations. It may also be helpful to revisit other communication skills, like the importance of knowing our limits in communication, not relying on other harmful communication tactics, and this post on the 8 “don’ts of disagreeing” .
I mention “A willing party”, in the post when I talk about the person who we are challenging. For us to receive a challenge, even if the party challenging us does so in the most skillful manner possible, there has to be some level of willingness and openness from us to receive. More on this in another post, but the key is to recognize it isn’t just on the giver of the feedback to frame it well (though that matters), it’s also on the receiver to tolerate and be willing to receive it.
Some more examples of how to challenge without invalidating, dismissing, gaslighting, judging, or denying : “I understand you believe_____ , I have to say, I’m not sure I agree. From what I understand ____ is what’s happening.”; “I recognize she didn’t call you back, and you’re angry, and I get it. And I know this is not the first time this has happened, so there is significance to that. But, I’m not convinced this means she doesn’t care. I’m not sure what’s going on with her, I mean it’s possible she doesn’t care, but does that really otherwise seem consistent with how things are with her?”.

May 22, 2023November 8, 2023

Social Media

Assumptions, envy, mindlessness, comparisons, isolation, inadequacy, guilt, and obligation are at the root of so many of our struggles with social media.
Many of us spend hours every week on these platforms, and for that reason it’s important that we create a relationship with our social media that we feel benefits and serves us.
It may seem silly to think about spending time managing your social media, but the fact is you give your time and your attention to these platforms, and they can effect how you feel about yourself and your relationships. What we view on social media impacts us as we go throughout our lives off social media.
A peaceful relationship with social media is one where you are intentional about which accounts you follow, and one where you give yourself permission to interface with these platforms in a way that works for you, rather than in a way that heightens the problematic dynamics listed in the first bullet point.
While I’ll get into more specifics in today’s post, the answer to addressing many of these problematic dynamics starts with creating a more mindful and intentional relationship with your social media consumption, and a more accepting relationship with yourself and your limits.
First, consider why you use social media. When you log in, is it to take a break? Keep in touch with friends? Celebrity gossip? To learn something? Then look at your actual patterns of usage and the accounts you follow to see if they are in line with your intentions for the platform. If not, you’ll need to reconcile the disconnect.
Next, work to get curious about how social media (and the accounts you follow) impact your mood, energy, feelings about yourself and others, and concentration. For this exercise (and the prior one) to be useful, you will have to accept the conclusions you draw, even if they’re not the conclusions you want.
Ambivalence – i.e. your conflicting but co-occuring feelings about a topic – is a common factor in a struggle with social media. You can love someone and really dislike how they use these platforms. You can want to learn about a topic and feel overwhelmed with information about it from the account(s) you follow.
Ultimately, you have to make a decision about which accounts serve you, and how you want to consume them (if at all). For personal relationships, you’ll need to do this in a way that holds respect for the relationships you have with those people off social media as well. This could mean muting rather than unfollowing, or having a kind conversation.
In this day and age there are many tools to help you moderate your social media consumption including muting accounts you want to keep following (but don’t want to see content from without you deciding when it’s a good time for you to see it) and favoriting accounts that you really value and never want to miss content from.

Social media makes it easy to “fill in the gaps” between what we see and what we don’t with our imagination. Not all of us do this, but when we do, we’re making assumptions, and we can get stuck in traps of envy, comparisons and feelings of inadequacy. We’re more at risk of making assumptions about people or relationships we don’t have direct access to (like celebrities or that high school classmate you don’t actually talk to anymore) because we don’t have actual information (often gathered off social media) about their real lived experiences beyond the picture (aka the positive and negative stuff going on in their life).

Envy, like an assumption, is often more activated when we don’t have a “full sense” of what’s going on in someone’s life. Combine that with how curated social media is, and our envy can run rampant. Envy isn’t necessarily bad (it can help us get in touch with what we want), but it becomes a problem when we’re so fixated on what someone else has that it diminishes our sense of appreciation for what we have. Problematic envy can have a competitive or aggressive element to it (where we want to dominate or take something from someone else).

For many of us, social media is filled with “rules” about when we should post (someone’s birthday? An event?), what the content should be (only happy stuff!), who we should follow (causes you care about? “follow back” / keep following someone?). The challenge with these “rules” is they fill our relationships with social media with obligation and guilt, both of which pull us away from what actually works for us, our limits, and how we want to spend our time.

Even when we follow accounts we “want” to spent our time and attention on, sometimes we’re inundated with information, which can leave us overwhelmed and out of touch with what we actually have capacity for.

There’s not a single solution to managing social media, but any positive relationship with it has to involve being honest with yourself about how it effects you, and setting up your access to it in a way that honors and accepts your limits and priorities.

Comments:

Today’s post tries and help you think beyond the options of “signing off for good” or just living with social media as is, even though you kind of hate it. For many people, staying away and signing off for good is the right path for them, and that’s great. Today’s post is not meant to discourage leaving social media, it’s meant to help you think through the right path for you.
I know I am not the first person to tell you that you can unfollow or mute people, many of us hear this all the time, but still struggle in our relationships with social media nonetheless. I think this happens because we aren’t necessarily giving ourselves permission to accept what works for us, and because we feel limited in what our options are (i.e. “it’s awkward if I unfollow, but I don’t want to see this”). Today’s post is aimed to get you thinking about what works for you, and then get you wondering how you can set up your social media to optimize that.
Managing your social media is not a one-time-event. It’s an ongoing mindfulness exercise where we reflect on what we need, what’s working for us, what’s not working for us, and we make changes accordingly.
Acceptance (of yourself, of your limits, of what works for you, of your actual usage of social media, of the differences between your actual self and your ideal self etc) is a key part to having a successful relationship with social media.
I could (and may) do a whole post on assumptions and how they create problems for us. The entire list of issues assumptions create wouldn’t fit in one post, though there is another notable one to consider if you struggle with social media, and that’s that our assumptions can be a sign to us that we’re feeling disconnected from a person we used to feel closer to. When this happens, we can feel isolated.
James Densley of The Violence Project has a great 10 minute free lecture about social media and how it can effect us. He gave the talk with reference to the links between mass shootings and social media, but much of the content of the talk is applicable beyond violence prevention, and it’s a great sociological perspective on social media and its impact on us.
If you’re not sure how to “mute” or “favorite” in instagram, do a search online for how to do so on your device. Muting silences an account without unfollowing it, meaning it offers a private way to set a boundary therein limiting what you see (without another person knowing).
I will likely do a post about curiosity in the future, but in short – curiosity is another one that gets folks in trouble on social media. We can look “it” up, so we do look “it” up, which doesn’t mean it’s in our best interest (or leaves us feeling good) to look “it” up. This can apply to people currently or formerly in our personal lives, celebrities – etc. If you fall into social media rabbit holes you may need to work on challenging / resisting your curiosity.
If you’re following more accounts than you can keep up with, and that’s stressing you out, you may want to consider the balance between your “Shoulds” and your “Wants”. What you feel pressure to keep up with might be different than what you can keep up with.
I talk about how envy isn’t necessarily bad. It’s true! We have all of our emotions for a reason.

May 9, 2023May 22, 2023

Stages in Change

Sometimes we can’t see “change” because we aren’t trained to recognize how it happens. Change happens in stages we don’t necessarily perceive as the process of growing.
We can get frustrated with ourselves or others, and come to believe change isn’t possible, when really we just don’t know how to appreciate evidence that change is underway.
Because many of us are outcomes focused, we can get discouraged and give up in the process of making changes without awareness that we’ve actually made progress and are well on our way.
If we can shift our expectations for how change happens, we can be more patient with ourselves, others, and the process. That patience becomes a necessary ingredient for change because it prevents us from giving up.
We can think of changing as a multi-stage process that includes awareness, intentionality, and action. Building momentum and consistency for each of these stages takes time and repetition.
One of the major reasons people don’t start therapy (or drop out of it), is because they are stuck somewhere in these stages of change – or – because they aren’t seeing their own progress.
My entire job is centered around the belief that people *can* change. Part of what makes it possible for me to help people grow is understanding these stages of change and how they present themselves.
Stage 1: Was in situation, disliked the outcome, felt the outcome was completely unrelated to me and moved on. In stage one we can think of ourselves as externalized – perhaps without insight. We are unmotivated to participate in change, because we are unaware we are part of the problematic dynamic.
Stage 2: Was in a situation, disliked the outcome, and wondered if I was somehow different if that would have effected things. May have had my own ideas (or suggestions from others that I buy into) for how I could have been different. Here, we have more insight and more of an internalized stance, but no sense of motivation or responsibility.
See the rest of the post for a breakdown of the stages of change, and comments and embedded links for troubleshooting tips. Know these stages aren’t linear – we can bounce around in these stages, be in different stages for different areas in our life, and skip and/or combine stages. How “challenging” a stage is will depend on our particular personality and history.

Stage 3: Was in a situation, disliked what was happening, and felt aware (either because of my own reflection or a tip from someone else) that I could try something different, but didn’t feel motivated to. In stage three we have built enough insight to accept something about us could change, but we aren’t yet feeling able to / willing to / capable of change.

Stage 4: Was in a situation, realized I could have done something differently, and felt motivated to participate in creating a different outcome moving forward. This is when most of us think change starts. It’s that energetic drive to “do something”. We may not yet know what “to do”.

Stage 5: Was in a situation, disliked what was happening, realized this was the moment (!) and decided to try something different. It didn’t change the outcome. This is our moment of vulnerability. The “new” way can feel clunky or awkward (potentially leaving us embarrassed or afraid to try again). This is a time many of us want to give up.

Stage 6: Was in a situation, disliked what was happening, and decided to try the new way. It helped, but not as much as I had hoped. This stage can feel defeating, “I tried but it didn’t work”.

Stage 7: Was in a situation, disliked what was happening, and decided to try the new way. It worked*! But it was a lot of effort and I’m wiped out. I might not feel like it’s “worth the work” to keep at this, and I may not be aware that it will feel like less “work” the more I practice.

*By “it worked” I mean I handled myself in a way I felt good about, but that may not mean I got the outcome I wanted. Outcomes in situations (especially relational situations) are contingent upon the other party, so even if we do all the “right” things, we may not get the outcome we want.

Stage 8: Was in a situation, disliked what was happening, and handled it in this new way. It worked* and came more intuitively to me with less effort.

Stage 9: Was in a situation, disliked what was happening, and intuitively knew how to respond. With reflection, I realize this is now a habit. Change has happened.

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Comments:

The goal of this post is not to send you into a frenzied sense of tracking which stage you (and everyone you know in your life) are in. The goal is to help you recognize all the complexities that go into growth and making changes, and to get yourself resources for places you are stuck – or – to work towards seeing the progress you’ve already made (in the spirit of further motivating your growth). Many of us may have different “stuck” points, but the idea here is to get yourself thinking about what may be tripping you up and troubleshooting it so you don’t stay stuck.
Stage 1, further thoughts: A lot of people spend huge portions of their lives in stage 1, and there are many reasons we can be stuck there. The key issues in stage 1 are lack of insight, lack of motivation, potential lack of hope for the future, potential lack of belief in change, potential belief you “shouldn’t” be “the one” to change. Not to go into the “diagnosis rabbit hole”, but many people end up diagnosed with a personality disorder who spend prolonged periods about numerous issues in stage 1. Also, some situations are stage 1 situations because we really aren’t involved, and don’t have influence over them – i.e. – they are situations in which us changing would have absolutely no impact (or minimal impact and it may not be worth it to us to change). At those times we work towards acceptance.
Stage 1, resources to help you move out of it: (1) The links embedded – and this post on barriers to insight , (2) this post on secondary gains, and (3) this post on understanding and accepting our limits, which, not respecting, can impede an ability to make changes. Getting out of stage one requires a level of vulnerability, a willingness and ability to see how we may be contributing to a situation we don’t like. There are many other posts on this account that will help you increase that capacity for vulnerability in a healthy way.
Stage 2, resources to help you move out of it: motivation and responsibility can be tied to so many things (see embedded links in text). You can work to increase motivation by improving how you feel about yourself through building Mastery.
Stage 3: so much could be happening in stage 3, including willfulness (more on that another day, but in short it’s an unwillingness to make a change even if you know it’s in your best interest). Many of the posts from stage 1 and stage 2 troubleshooting also apply here. You may be feeling overwhelmed by how much “change” is required of you, in which case you’d want to work on breaking it down into bite sized pieces. You may need to work on grounding, or staying within your window of tolerance.
Stage 4: We may need coping skills building – for example, “how to say something” or how to approach something. If it’s a relational problem you’re stuck in, my post on finding balance in relationships may help. You may need concrete tips on how to have conflict constructively or the “don’ts” of fighting fair . Advice from (trusted) others can help here too.
Stages 5 – 7: All require a respect for the process of learning and the time it takes to really master something. Visiting my post on realistic expectations for change will help. We also may be struggling in these stages if we don’t have realistic expectations or beliefs around what’s within our sphere of influence or control. If we are feeling we “should” be able to control or influence something, or we “need” to control or influence something – and we can’t – we can get really stuck and really unmotivated. This is where acceptance comes in in a big way.
These are not “official” stages of changes, but instead these are adapted from a DBT diary card, which aims to help people learning new coping skills track their progress. The diary card has 8 (different) stages. I have adapted the concept and flushed it out much further.

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023

Attunement

Attunement is the silent “glue” of relationships.
When someone is attuned to us, they can hear our words, read our body language, and combine that with their knowledge of our historical preferences and needs to be present and plugged in with us in any given moment.
When someone is attuned to us we feel like we’re on the same wavelength, like they can read us well, and they just “get” us.
A highly attuned relationship often creates emotional safety and openness; we feel seen by the person tuning into us. When we’re attuned to another, our responses often feel intuitive – we’re moved by the moment to respond to meet its needs.
Attunement can sound a bit like “mind reading” to folks who aren’t familiar with it, but at it’s core, attunement is about paying attention and connecting history, words, behaviors, and non-verbal signals (like tone of voice, posture, and gestures) into a cohesive sense of what’s happening for a person at a discreet moment in time.
A lack of attunement can be challenging to discuss in concrete terms to the lesser-attuned party; it may feel like someone is insensitive or clueless in ways that are not easy to describe. Regardless, attunement is hugely impactful on the closeness of the relationship. A lack of attunement can leave us feeling unseen, dismissed, or unimportant.
Some of us struggle with being highly attuned to others, to the point where signals from our self are drowned out – or vice versa – our own internal signals overwhelm our ability to tune in to others.
Others of us struggle with being attuned to all these different domains simultaneously (i.e. we’re skilled at paying attention to words, but not behavior; or we’re great with words but terrible with non-verbals; or we’re heavily influenced by the past, but less so by the present etc).
Those of us that aren’t used to plugging into these different domains (the words, non-verbals, behavior, and contextual information from the past) may feel overwhelmed at first. It’s a lot to pay attention to. In time (and with practice), I promise it becomes more accessible and intuitive.
Relationships (those with ourselves and others), go best when our attunement can be straddled between others and ourselves, and we can work to pay attention to all domains of relational communication (words, behavior, and non-verbals). We can plug in and notice what’s happening for us, and do the same with the those around us.

Attunement – we don’t often talk about it, but we all feel it. It’s those people in our lives that “get” us and know when to step in (and when to take a back seat). They recognize the right moment for a joke, and the wrong one. It’s the opposite of being a “bull in a china shop”, instead its more like a spontaneous harmony between two people.

Daniel Siegel, in “The Mindful Therapist” writes: “Attunement is how we focus our attention on others and take their essence into our own inner world…the ways we take in the internal worlds of other people and allow them to shape who we are in that moment…attunement involves the perception of signals from others that reveal their internal world: noticing not just their words, but also their nonverbal patterns of energy and information…eye contact, facial expression, and tone of voice, posture, gesture, and the timing and intensity of response.” (P. 34).

A lack of attunement in a relationship makes it difficult for closeness, safety, and open communication to occur. This is because being open requires the courage to be vulnerable, and we’re less likely to do that when we’re feeling – on an instinctual level – that someone doesn’t get us or how we operate.

If you’re someone who has a hard time maintaining closeness in relationships ask yourself (and try to be kind, but honest with yourself) how attuned you are to others, and how much you genuinely pay attention to the domains I’ve discussed today.

A key ingredient to being attuned to others starts with attunement to yourself. As Don Catherall writes in his book, Emotional Safety: “Anyone who is emotionally blocked is going to have problems tuning in the emotions of others. A rule of thumb is that people who are emotionally blocked will have the most difficulty tuning in to other people who are experiencing those specific emotions the blocked individual cannot access in himself” (P. 202). We can’t plug into others sending off signals of an emotion (like anger) when we don’t allow ourselves to tolerate experiencing that emotion (in this case anger) ourselves.

Attunement relates to mindfulness, relationships, and emotional regulation. Links to more posts about all of those below.

Comments:

I try and stay away from labels too much here, but when I write “Some of us struggle with being highly attuned to others, to the point where signals from our self are drowned out” we could think of this as a version of co-dependence, a label that I know many folks find useful, and that there are numerous resources (books / podcasts) on. Similarly, those of us that struggle with non-verbals and attunement may identify as being on the autism spectrum. Though, to be clear, struggling with non-verbals does not mean you’re autistic, and heavily plugging into others (and struggling to plug into yourself) does not mean you’re co-dependent.
Don Catherall, who wrote emotional safety (which I quote in this post) was my couples therapy professor at the University of Chicago and is a retired couples therapist in Chicago. He is cream of the crop excellent, as is his book. Though it was a text book, it’s incredibly accessible to therapists (and non-therapists) alike. If you’re looking to strengthen your romantic relationship this is a great book to read as a couple, and I’ve encouraged clients of mine to read it (with their partners or on their own) and have gotten feedback from non-therapists that it is truly accessible and useful. Full Citation: Catherall, D. R. (2007). Emotional Safety: viewing coupes through the lens of affect. New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Be aware, individuals with trauma histories may be harder to attune to (this is true of their relationships with themselves, others, and even their therapists). Trauma effects how our emotions are expressed in our bodies. For more on trauma see my posts that cover an introduction to trauma and relational trauma.
Attunement increases the security of an attachment. Learn more about “attachment” (as a technical term) in my post.
This idea of straddling between attunement to ourselves and attunement to others relates to a concept from Dialectical Behavior Therapy about the linkage between ourselves, our goals, and our consideration of others. The DBT skill is around keeping a sense of balance between these three connecting considerations, and taking care of ourselves (and our relationships) by maintaining an investment in all three of these considerations.
Attunement requires a degree of mindfulness – we have to be able to be present enough to hear, see, and read what’s happening.
Don writes about how our inability to access an emotion interferes with our ability to detect it in others. For more on this see my post on emotional blocking.
Full citation to Dan Siegel’s Book (The Mindful Therapist) which I quote in the post: Siegel, D. J. (2010). The mindful therapist: a clinician’s guide to mindsight and neural integration. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. This book is reader friendly to non-clinicians too, though he does have a non-clinician version of the book called mindsight.

April 13, 2023April 20, 2023

Umbrella Emotions

When we have an “umbrella emotion” (as we therapists call it) we have one dominant emotional reaction (lets say anger), that preoccupies us, but under the umbrella of anger may exist other emotions (like shame, guilt, fear – etc) that need to be addressed and resolved for us to feel at peace with a situation.
The reason it’s called an umbrella emotion is because the emotion we are most intensely in touch with is “hiding” other emotions under it, often ones we have difficulty accessing and feeling our way through – much in the same way we hide under an umbrella to shield ourselves from the rain.
When this emotional nesting happens we are not able to be in touch (consciously) with all that we are feeling, and as such we are less able to work through it. We can get trapped in our emotional experiences for extended periods of time, or we can’t make sense of them, or perhaps we avoid thinking about them because they feel like “too much”.
If you’re feeling “stuck” around releasing an emotion or situation, a helpful coping strategy is to go on an investigative mission within yourself to see what other emotions you may be feeling in addition to the dominant one you notice most. We usually don’t know what’s hiding under our umbrella until we go searching for it.
To do this scan well, we first need to have developed a personal lexicon of our emotions. This means knowing how each emotion feels to us when it’s present within our bodies, the types of events that often trigger each emotion, and the kinds of thoughts that often accompany it.
At a time when you’re feeling relatively even, take a moment to identify how Anger, Disgust, Envy, Fear, Happiness, Jealousy, Love, Sadness, Shame, and Guilt present themselves in you. Spend 30-60 seconds working to churn up each emotion in yourself and notice what you feel in your body and the kinds of thoughts (or memories) that arise.
You’ll likely find as you do an internal inventory that some emotions are easy for you to “map”, and others feel much more distant. It’s likely those “easy” ones are – at times – serving as umbrella emotions to those feelings that are harder to access (and may be hiding).
Once you’ve built your lexicon, you’re ready to use the coping skill at a time when you feel stuck. First, work to disengage (as much as you can) from the dominant emotion (you may need to ground or distract to do this). Then scan internally for evidence (AKA the thoughts and sensations you notice) that other emotions may be present within you.
When we’ve found our umbrella emotion and whatever’s under it, it can be a huge relief (i.e. I had no idea I was feeling so guilty because I was so preoccupied with my anger, but now that I’ve found my guilt I feel like I can let go of the situation much more easily). It’s not uncommon to have an intense release when we find what’s been hiding.
The more we can be in touch with our emotions, the more we can learn from them, regulate them, and be in control of our behavior when we feel them. More in today’s post and comments.

It’s not uncommon for our emotions to cluster and hide within one another, making them difficult to identify, sort through, process, and manage. Today’s skill is a form of emotion regulation, managing our emotions through identifying them. It helps to hold awareness that sometimes emotions hide, and so we have to search for and identify them before we are truly able to regulate them.

Why would our emotions hide? Our ability to feel and manage our emotions is hugely informed by prior experiences. Emotions that were welcomed when we developed will be easier for us to access, tolerate, and regulate. Emotions that were not welcome may get twisted and we may have to work to learn how to feel them, so they don’t come out exclusively on overdrive or jumbled up with other feelings.

That doesn’t sound like you? Sometimes we have beliefs about our feelings (fear is weakness, anger is destructive, etc). If we hold beliefs that some emotions are superior to others, we’ll have an easier time accessing those preferred emotions, and a harder time accessing those we’ve evaluated as problematic. Perhaps anger is easy for you to access because it helps you feel strong, protected, and tough – but guilt is less easy to access because it makes you feel vulnerable and weak. Getting in touch with all of these beliefs will help you build your personal internal lexicon, and help you better recognize and cope with your emotions.

Our emotions are most likely to get us into trouble when we aren’t fully in touch with them in our day to day life because they’re at risk of building up and exploding out of us, or we’re at risk of impulsively (and at times dangerously) responding to them.

IMPORTANT: When you are building your lexicon and getting in touch with different emotions you may get deeply overwhelmed or triggered if you tap into an emotion you have a highly negative relationship (or history) with. If this happens, you’ll likely need to self-soothe, ground, and distract to get back into your window of tolerance. Links to those skills are in the comments below, and if you’re concerned this will happen to you, wait to do this exercise with a trained professional (therapist /psychiatrist).

Comments:

Safety first: some folks (Especially folks who have a trauma history) may get overwhelmed (or leave their window of tolerance) working to build their lexicon. If you are concerned this might be you, then START with working on learning how to ground, distract, soothe yourself, and identify when you’re out of your window of tolerance. Please know, if this is you, you are demonstrating a sign that you may need professional help tolerating the process of getting in touch with your feelings, which is essential for your well-being and mental health.
The 10 emotions I listed are not the only ten emotions we are able to feel, however, they cover a lot of the bases. Feel free to add additional emotions to the list for your personal lexicon.
This skill is an extension of skills taught in Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy Emotion Regulation Module in her DBT curriculum. Within her skills training workbook there is a lot of information about each of these emotions and how they often present.
A lot of folks have a hard time telling envy and jealousy apart. A client actually gave me this incredibly simple framework that I will share with you all: Envy is related to something we don’t have but we want to have, Jealousy is related to having something we are concerned with losing.
A lot of folks have a hard time with the difference between guilt and shame. Shame is a feeling we feel that’s a reflection of our core sense of our self (I am bad). It may or may not be related to an event, but it’s a sense of our character. Guilt is a feeling that’s arises as a reflection of our belief that we did something wrong (but not that we holistically are bad).
I state in the post ” Emotions that were welcomed when we developed will be easier for us to access, tolerate, and regulate.” Please note that emotions can be “unwelcome” by others or by ourselves (For example: I’m afraid of my anger so I don’t want to feel it, but my parents didn’t have an issue with it – or – whenever I got angry I got in trouble so I learned it’s best not to feel or express it etc).
Not buying into the idea that feeling our emotions is useful? I have a post for you to help you accept the need for your emotions.
If you are saying to yourself (like many of my clients have previously said to me) “well I don’t ever feel that emotion”, then I am telling you (kindly) that you are cut off from it, because we all experience all of these emotions, it’s just a matter of how in touch we are with the fact that we’re feeling them. This doesn’t mean we all feel all of these all the time, or we should feel them in equal amounts, it just means that we all have the ability to feel them and do feel them when the situation calls for it. What I am suspect of is when someone says, “that doesn’t apply to me, I don’t feel _____”, I am not suspect of, “I rarely feel it, but yeah, I can map it in my body and get that I’m vulnerable to feeling it, even if do only rarely”. For example, we may not often feel envy which is different from “that doesn’t apply to me”.
Are you having trouble staying present in yourself for the scan of your body and thoughts? If so, you may need to work on building up your capacity to tolerate being mindful with yourself. I have a whole series of posts that can help. Start with this post, on foundational meditation and then move on to this post which will help you build your tolerance for directly observing your internal world Not sure you buy into the idea of meditation? Start here.
Struggle with beliefs around anger being “bad” or inherently problematic? I have a whole post on why we need it.
See my post on the basics of emotions (like what they are, and how they show up in us) if you’re feeling confused about emotions in general. This will be especially helpful for anyone struggling to develop their personal lexicon. I have an additional post on how to understand the process of feeling and releasing an emotion. I also have a post about how emotions that we struggle to tolerate experiencing can impact us.
Sometimes emotions under our umbrella are “secondary” emotions, or emotions we’ve had in response to an initial emotion. For more on what this is and how it works see my post from 10/3/21, first photo “Our emotions, when they are heightened, can feel like a freight train, plowing through and interrupting everything in their tracks”.
There is an excellent book, for children, that helps them build their emotional lexicon from the very start. Color Monster comes as a popup and as a board book.
If you’re wanting more for yourself (or for kids) about understand the function of emotions and how they work, Disney / Pixar’s “Inside Out” is a phenomenal resource.

March 29, 2023April 13, 2023

Process Vs. Content

Relationships often go best when the involved parties can pay attention to “process” in addition to “content”.
Content is what happens in a relationship – for example: what we talk about, where we go, which decision we make, what someone’s interests are. Most of us focus a lot on content when we think about selecting a friend or partner.
Process is how the relationship happens – for example: how we make decisions, how heard and respected each party feels, the tone we take with one another when communicating. Most of us pay very little attention to process because we’re so focused on content.
When our emotions are heightened we can lose sight of process (i.e. take a nasty tone when we’re angry, overlook someone dismissing us when we have romantic feelings for them, insist on it being “our way” and not taking input from others when we’re anxious, etc).
Process often repeats itself (i.e someone has a hard time being collaborative in numerous interactions and relationships). As such, the “content” of our lives then become a repeated opportunity for that same process to play out again and again.
Over time, process can have a significant impact on the health of a relationship. Even if we agree with the content of shared decision (i.e. which house we buy), if the process around making that decision leaves anyone feeling uncomfortable, that discomfort reactivates in future decision making and can wear down at the foundation of a relationship.
Think about it: it’s hard to trust, feel connected, and share ourselves if the dynamic between ourselves and others is one where our way of thinking or our perspective isn’t respected – even if we often end up at the same outcome (i.e. we can agree on content, but with a problematic process). Alls not (necessarily) well that ends well.
Developing a solid process in your relationships is an incredible armor and resilience builder against hard times, because it enables you to take on (nearly) any content, regardless of how intense the topic is.
There is no one “right” process for our relationships, but the key is to develop patterns of being together and communicating that meet everyone’s needs enough (not perfectly, but enough). See more in today’s post.

Most of us go through relationships (with ourselves and with others) highly focused on content; She’s so smart, he’s so funny, they’ve got a great job, etc. Many of us pay very little attention to process: how respected you feel in the relationship; how your boundaries are tolerated; how thoughtful, conscientious and considerate another person is towards you; how repair happens when there’s been a disconnect and if accountability is taken, etc.

One of the challenges with life is how little control we have over content. We can’t control if we get sick, when and how those around us die, or whether or not we get the things we want most in life (could be a kid, a promotion, a home, etc). Because hard times often involve communicating (like asking for what we want or need, setting boundaries, developing a plan to tackle a situation), having a solid process, (one where we all parties are comfortable with how we interact with one another), becomes the foundation with which we address challenges, unexpected changes, and hurdles in life. A good process builds resilience, a problematic process can deepen ruptures and pain at an otherwise difficult time.

Healthy relationships, with willing and invested parties, can work to improve process and develop one that works for everyone. That often involves being honest with yourself and others about your needs and limits, and being accepting of others needs and limits (even if they’re not where you want them to be).

In some relationships, we can’t improve process either because we don’t have influence over the other person (i.e. you can’t necessarily get through to your boss, but maybe you can) or willingness from all parties to work on the relationship (i.e. sometimes we’re more invested in changing the relationship than the other party). At times like that we may need to set boundaries to protect ourselves (or distance ourselves) from relationships where the process doesn’t work for us. We may also need to process our feelings of loss around a relationship that won’t be what we want it to be.

Paying attention to process is useful of friendships, romantic relationships, professional relationships, family relationships – and our relationship with ourselves (more on that in the Notes).

Notes:

Additional examples of process: let’s agree to take a break if either party feels like we’re running in circles or is burning out in this conversation, let’s agree to not interrupt each other moving forward, let’s try and give equal weight to both perspectives and work towards being invested in finding something that works for both of us.
When I say “process” also applies to our relationship with our self, what I mean is many people who struggle come to find, in therapy (or in their own reflections), that their process for interacting with themselves (in their head) is far harsher and crueler than they would ever use interact with another person. As such, when things aren’t going well, they hit deep lows because their internal process involves a pretty intense inner bully who leaves them feeling terrible and defeated. Developing a more compassionate and understanding inner dialogue is a great step towards improving your relationship with yourself.
Generally speaking, when couples go to couples therapy, the therapist is working with them on improving their process by using the topics (content) in their lives at this moment as subject matter to work through creating a different / more workable / more functional process. This enables couples to leave couples therapy with the tools to (eventually) sort through problems and situations independently. More on process for couples in my post “rethinking never go to bed angry” ), and more on couples therapy and how to know if it’s “time” in my post on couples treatment.
The Gottman Institute has spent decades conducting research on couples, communication and connection. They’ve identified four problematic processes in couples that, left unchanged, often lead to the demise of the relationship. For more on those four dynamics (and more information on the research) see my post about “The Four Horsemen“.
Ok so what are other signs of a problematic process? More on that from my post on on fair fighting.
I talk about the need to be honest with ourselves (and others) about our limits in this post. This is easier said than done. More here on how to recognize your limits.
A good process requires a degree of acceptance – acceptance of yourself, your limits, and your needs, and acceptance of the other parties limits and needs. If you struggle with things not going as you think they “should”, see my post on how to accept.

March 16, 2023March 29, 2023

Pessimism

Pessimism is a coping strategy that protects us against the vulnerability of having hope.
Feeling hopeful leaves us open to potential disappointment or rejection. If we are fearful or avoidant of these experiences we are more inclined to rely on pessimism to protect us from experiencing them.
Our pessimism can blind us; it can limit our sense of the possibilities for ourselves and our future.
Many of us get stuck in a pessimistic stance without realizing it. To work towards recognizing pessimism in yourself, look out for rigidity; if it feels like you can’t imagine something would work, or something could change, or if it doesn’t feel worth trying, you may be approaching with pessimism.
While it’s okay to “start” with pessimism (if we are so inclined), it’s not recommended to end there. Instead, work towards integrating the counterbalance to pessimism, which is being realistic.
When we work towards being realistic we can see the possibility that the pessimistic outlook has some merit to it, but we can also hold hope and awareness that other outcomes are possible.
You’ll notice I’m not naming “optimism” as the counterbalance to pessimism. Optimism too is a strategy, one that can keep us hopeful, but can also limit our ability to see realistic barriers that might encroach on any given situation.
In its extreme, optimism can be a form of denial, while pessimism can be a state of hopelessness. It is helpful to try and step into you “optimistic” self to think through a scenario, as well as your “pessimistic” self. This can counter-balance rigidity and help pull you closer to a realistic stance.
It’s helpful to identify if a pessimistic stance comes intuitively to you as a first line response to an idea or potential pursuit so you can work on making use of it, and then counterbalancing it with a more realistic approach.
Ultimately, having a more realistic approach will not shield you from the vulnerability that comes with feeling hopeful or taking a chance, but it will enable you to make choices about when you are willing to enter a situation that involves risks (including the emotional risks of feeling rejected or disappointed).

For many of us, we have a pessimistic outlook as a way of insulating ourselves from the vulnerability we’d to feel if we allowed ourselves to hope. This is a tempting strategy to employ if we’ve been hurt, rejected, or disappointed in the past, and we can come to lean on our pessimism as a protective barrier between us and (potentially) feeling those feelings again.

Pessimism can be helpful because it enables us to think to through barriers to achieving a desired goal or outcome. It limits us when it interferes with our ability to assess an individual scenario based around its unique likelihood of coming to fruition. Pessimism also creates problems when it interferes with our ability to identify how valuable (and risk worthy) a pursuit is to us as individuals. When we rely on pessimism, our priority is often to shut down an idea or pursuit, often because we want to avoid a negative outcome (including feeling negative feelings).

An overly pessimistic stance can lead to feeling helpless and un-empowered. Pessimism can stop us in our tracks before we get started, and it can interfere with our ability to see genuine possibilities for ourselves and our future. It’s hard to act on your dreams (even ones that may be possible) if you’re a pessimist.

The antidote to pessimism is holding a realistic stance, one that holds awareness of why a situation might not work out *and* that there are other possible outcomes. When we’re realistic we can weigh the likelihood of success against our personal priorities and risk thresholds. To be clear, you can have a negative outlook on a situation and not be taking a pessimistic stance. Sometimes a situation is a long shot, or won’t work out, and you are realistically assessing the factors at play when you decide not to pursue it.

If you inclined towards pessimism, use it as a starting point and allow yourself to get in touch with the reasons why something may not work. Then, work to explore the potential for alternate possibilities and outcomes. At that point you can decide, based on your own personal thresholds, whether it’s worth it to you to take the emotional, social, financial, relational (etc) risk.

Comments:

If you are someone who relates to the notion that you want to protect yourself from negative emotions, I’d encourage you to read my prior posts on how all emotions (including negative ones) are useful and essential. The first covers how negative feelings are actually incredibly important tools to help us find long term happiness, and the second helps us better understand (and accept the need for) our anger.
The idea that pessimism serves a purpose is very linked to the concept of secondary gains, which are the positive aspects of something that is otherwise problematic in our lives.

November 9, 2022March 27, 2023

“It’s easier for everyone else”

This kind of of thinking, that life is easier for others and more difficult for us, is tempting at a time when we are hopeless or struggling to manage. The thought is often unhelpful, un-motivating, and channels our inner sense of helplessness. Here are a few counter-thoughts to hold onto that may help you approach these moments differently:
(1) Often times when we think “it’s easier” for others what we actually mean is “it’s intuitive” for others. Intuition develops with practice, modeling, and training (over time). Seen through this lens, over time and with practice, something new (and perhaps more helpful) could become intuitive to you too.
(2) Just because someone knows how to take care of themselves doesn’t mean they’ve had an “easy” journey to that point. Instead, it simply means they’ve found what works for them. Often times people who have the ability to cope have taken a path of learning and growth from prior struggles.
- This learning often means reflecting on whether or not our chosen (or perhaps automatic) coping methods truly help us, and holding a willingness to try new ways that may not be intuitive or comfortable to us (until we practice them again and again). The more we can learn and accept what serves us (and avoid what doesn’t) the “easier” coping becomes
(3) Sometimes when we get stuck on “it’s easier for them” what we’re really stuck on is a struggle with fairness; it isn’t that they are “coping better” its that they’ve got less to cope with. When we get preoccupied with “fairness” we are often fixated on factors outside of us, and we cannot resolve our personal pain from that orientation.
- Though we can always work to make to world more fair, we have to take care of ourselves in the interim. When we can take our experiences with unfairness head on, and can focus on what a lack of fairness has meant for us on a personal level (including our losses and pain) we can work to resolve pain around “unfairness” and its impact on us.
(4) Not everyone has the same triggers and sensitivities. What floors one person may feel manageable (i.e. “easy to cope with”) to another. Remember that what we struggle with is often a reflection of our prior experiences, with unresolved experiences tending to cause more pain than ones we have been able to work through and come to terms with.
(5) We don’t all feel our feelings with the same range and intensity. Some of us have much stronger and more intense experiences of all our emotions based on how our bodies process them. This means some of us may find ourselves in deeper emotional states than those around us; this is a more intense experience in life with positives and drawbacks.
(6) We can only see what people show us. Even if we’re highly skilled at reading people, we still can’t see it all. It may look “easier” because someone is invested in it “looking” easier, which doesn’t mean it is.

Regardless of how “easy” or “hard” life is, the truth is, coping comes more intuitively to some of us than others, and life does not evenly distribute objectively difficult times. Put simply, when we think about how “hard” or “easy” life is for us (or others), we are thinking in judgmental terms (i.e. we are using statements to evaluate rather than describe what we notice and observe). I have a whole series on how judgments limit us (see comments for how to find those prior posts), but big picture, today’s post illustrates just how much information we lose about what’s actually effecting us on a personal level when we rely on judgments instead of working towards describing, owning, and understanding a topic at hand.

In today’s post I offer six different ways to challenge how we can think more descriptively through how “hard” or “easy” our lives feel, and there are infinite other ways to deconstruct the judgment of “it’s easier for others”. The less we rely on judgmental statements (which often include easy, hard, right, wrong, good, bad, should, shouldn’t) the closer we can get to understanding, working through, and addressing what’s really upsetting for us.

If you found today’s deconstructions didn’t quite fit for you, think about how else you might say “they have it easier” without using the evaluative statements listed above. Once you can get to the heart of what you’re *really* upset about, you can then address whatever that is.

Next, your job becomes to resist to the temptation to rely on that familiar stance of “it’s easier for them” at a moment when you are struggling. This means challenging ourselves to be present in a different way and pointing your thoughts and energy in the direction that helps you deconstruct the judgment rather than burrow into it.

What may be tempting (or intuitive) to you, is to stay in the familiar “it’s easier for them” mindset, but we have to be responsible for turning our focus and attention elsewhere if we want to build new ways of coping. Eventually, pulling away from the judgement and going into our experiences may become intuitive, but it takes work, practice, intentionality, and time.

Comments:

Are you realizing you might lean on judgmental thinking? Learn more about how to recognize judgmental thoughts, dive deeper into understanding how they limit us, and get guidance on deconstructing a judgment from these linked prior posts.
One of the hangups I list (about fairness) is actually a different kind of hangup all on it’s own, called a “cognitive distortion” that will someday have its own post. If you related strongly to struggling around issues of “fairness” you may find it helpful to review this article that explains what a cognitive distortion is, and how to recognize and challenge it. You may also benefit from working to challenge “shoulds” (Like it should be just as easy for me as it is for her, life should be more fair etc). Big picture, issues of fairness are incredibly complex, and, if fairness is a value we hold, we are often best served to make our decisions through the lens of that value rather than to expect the world to abide by fairness as a “rule” or “law”. This relates somewhat to another post I have on how “fairness” can effect us, which may also be helpful to dive into.
Today’s post, in addition to include the “non-judgmentally” mindfulness still, also includes applications of the “effectively” mindfulness skill and the “willing” and “Turning the Mind” distress tolerance skill from Marsha Linehans DBT Skill’s training manual (Full Citation: Linehan, M. M. (2014). DBT (R) skills training handouts and worksheets, second edition (2nd ed.). Guilford Publications.).

October 26, 2022March 27, 2023

Distraction

Many of us know of the concept of distraction, not all of us know how to do it properly. Distraction, (when used carefully, judiciously and intentionally) is an essential coping skill in times of duress.
Many of us feel uneasy about distraction, because we aren’t solving “the problem”, when we use it. Instead, when we distract, we are giving our brains another focal point, for a period of time, that will enable us to take a break from the intensity of whatever we are distracting from.
If we can truly distract, i.e. truly sink in with our whole thinking and feeling world to something aside from what is distressing us, we often come back to that same thing at a later point (even hours later) feeling more refreshed and able to handle it.
Think about how you feel when you wake up after you’ve been upset. Often times you feel more distance, or are able to to have “new” thoughts or feelings about the same topic, even though you haven’t “done anything” directly to solve the problem.
We want distraction to be intentional: really sink in with your whole self, if, in the corners of your mind you’re still thinking about “it” (whatever you’re trying to distract from), you’re not distracted.
Properly distracting often includes refocusing yourself (again and again) on your distraction, or (if that doesn’t work) accepting your distraction is not stimulating enough and finding a higher intensity distraction to keep your mind off an activating topic.
To stay distracted: “leave” the situation. You may have to do this repeatedly. This can be done physically (literally leave an activating location), cognitively (when you notice yourself drifting into thoughts about “it” re-direct your attention), and through imagery (imagine the topic separate from you – in a box, on the other side of a wall etc).
We want distraction to be judicious: Use it only for brief periods of time (hours, maybe days depending on the urgency of the situation at hand). If we stay distracted from our problems we have actually shifted into avoiding them.
We have to police ourselves when we distract, only we know if we’ve drifted back and only we can refocus our attention. A major key to using distraction effectively is remaining invested in the need for distraction when we’ve chosen to use it as our coping skill.
Distraction can be anything as long as it (1) engages your whole self in a direction different than the topic you are distracting from and (2) doesn’t become a covert way of keeping yourself in the experience you are trying to distract from. More in today’s post about how to effectively distract.

Distraction is one of the key Distress Tolerance skills Marsha Linehan lays out in her Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Training manual. There are many ways to distract:

Activities: i.e. “doing” something else. Ideas: watch TV or a movie (be careful on the topic so it meets the criteria above), talk to a friend about something other than the topic at hand, read a book (it may be too hard to focus for some, if so, try something more stimulating), go out for a walk or run (but don’t think about the topic).

Emotions: Create different emotional experiences for yourself beyond the one that you are distracting from. To do this, you need to first identify how you are feeling and then dive into a different emotional state (perhaps through TV, conversation with others, music, books etc).

Thoughts : Try something that challenges your brain, like a crossword, mystery, or puzzle.

Contributing and Comparisons: The idea with these two is to extend our focus to people and situations beyond us and the issue troubling us at the moment. With contributing, you do an activity that is nice for someone outside of you, to help you feel like you’ve made a positive impact on another person or situation.

With comparisons, we are reminding ourselves of the full spectrum of human experience as a way to help ground ourselves in our awareness of where we fall on that spectrum. The key with comparisons is to leave the comparison with an awareness that that things have been different for us, and could be worse (which doesn’t mean they aren’t bad now). This means you can think about others coping worse than you in that moment, others in worse situations, or compare how you feel now to a time when you felt different (to remind yourself that you too will feel different some day). We need to resist the temptation to compare to someone in an enviable situation, that will not help.

When we use comparisons properly we often find we feel more grateful for our lives, communities, resources and strengths. We have to be very careful not to go to a shaming, judgmental or envious place, otherwise we can invalidate ourselves (it’s worse for him, that means I shouldn’t be so upset).