Monday, September 4, 2017

Another (Sad?) School Year

While some of us have been counting down the days to the start of another school year ("get these kids to school, please!"), others are feeling more melancholy.

There are many things about the start of school that can trigger feelings of sadness, even grief: graduation, kids going to college, young children starting school for the first time - all of these are changes, more importantly they are losses of what was.

Typically, we are expected to celebrate our children growing up and moving on, certainly graduations are a big accomplishment; and while we are joyful for their growth and achievements, it is normal to have a sense of loss too. These feelings can catch us off guard or be disregarded by others (see my post on Invisible Grief to learn more).

Additionally, the beginning of the school year can trigger anxiety and dread for adults who had trouble going to school when they were kids. If you struggled with school yourself as a child, either because you were bullied or because you had anxiety about being away from home, it's normal to feel uncomfortable with this time of year.

For those of you finding yourselves feeling sad about the start of a new school year, know that you are not alone.  It may not be the most popular topic on social media, but it is certainly shared by many. Reach out to others who feel the same, or who can lend a compassionate shoulder and a willing ear to listen. Perhaps seek out a friend who has children slightly older and ask them how they coped through these phases. Most importantly, respect your feelings and allow time to work through the big changes that are very real to you.


Thursday, March 16, 2017

Can't We Just Get Along?

Opinions are running very strong these days, which can make having a civil discussion with someone who disagrees with you feel impossible. However, this is one of the most important skills mature adults need to cultivate in order to lead healthy lives, not just about politics, but about any issue.

Despite how crucial it is to be able to disagree without destroying relationships, most people have no idea how to do this effectively. 

While many of us are required to take classes in high school that teach basic health, hygiene and reproductive information; and some of us even learn basics about cooking, cleaning and childcare, there are no classes in school that teach how to interact with others, how to be a good friend or partner and certainly no formal education on how to handle conflict. When it comes to our most important relationships we have to wing-it, and when there is a disagreement or opposing view point we have to do our best to figure out how to handle that, often with negative results. 

Towson University professor Andrew Reiner offers a seminar called "Mister Rogers 101: Why Civility and Community Still Matter". In it, students learn the basics on how to connect with others civilly, respect opposing view points and appreciate why others see things the way they do.

Reiner encourages his students to have conversations with people they disagree with and he gives specific rules to follow.

When discussing opposing view points:
  • No interrupting
  • No raising of the voice
  • No eye-rolling
  • No smirking
  • No waiting for the other person to finish so you can jump to disagree
  • When the other person finishes, ask questions about what led them to come to their opinion, theory or conclusion.

While this is great advice for discussing politics (if you must), it is equally important advice for any sort of relationship.  We are all bound to disagree at some point, probably with the people who matter most to us. It's important that we have a way to approach disagreements that don't leave one another feeling hurt, dismissed or worse. 

As Reiner explains, if we have no ability to tolerate opinions different from our own, we will keep removing people from our lives one by one until there is no one left.  While that might work on social media, it is a very poor way to live. 

I suggest each of us take on these guidelines for all discussions, especially in our most important relationships.


Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Thriving Emotionally

At the beginning of a new year we often focus on self-improvement - better health, more success, etc; however we overlook one extremely important factor for happiness and good health: emotional well-being.

In his TED talk "The Importance of Practicing Emotional Hygiene", Guy Winch, Ph.D. explains that we learn from a very early age how to take care of ourselves physically, but we have no idea how to take care of ourselves emotionally. Ironically, we sustain emotional and psychological injuries (such as loneliness, failure or rejection) far more often than physical injuries.

Left unaddressed, these emotional and psychological injuries can have as strong a negative impact on our life expectancy as physical diseases. The effect of long-term loneliness can shorten one's life by 14% and is as dangerous to one's life expectancy as cigarette smoking (Winch).

The areas most vulnerable to emotional pain are loneliness, failure and rejection. When wounded in these areas, not only do we feel pain, but we inaccurately perceive life and the people around us to be harsher and more painful than they actually are. Winch explains how to heal these types of injuries:

Loneliness is defined as feeling emotionally or socially disconnected from people and can occur even when surrounded by others.
Loneliness won't just make you miserable, it will kill you. Chronic loneliness causes high blood pressure, high cholesterol, negatively impacts your immune system and shortens life expectancy by 14 years (Winch).
It's essential to build connections and create a sense of community for yourself.

Failure
It's important to be very aware of how you handle failure. If your mind tries to convince you that you're incapable of something, you will begin to feel helpless and will give up - thus proving to yourself that your mind was right and you are incapable. This is clearly nonsense, but it becomes truth if we allow it to and is the reason why so many people function below their potential. Einstein said "it's not that I'm smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer."
It's critical to fight feelings of helplessness, gain control over the situation and break the negative cycle of feeling incapable before it begins. 

Rejection
Rejection is extremely painful. When our self-esteem is lower, we are more vulnerable to stress and anxiety, failures and rejections hurt more and take longer to recover from; however, instead of soothing and nurturing ourselves after rejection, we tend to criticize and demean ourselves in ways much worse than we would ever do to someone else. We damage our self-esteem while it's already hurting. This is very poor emotional hygiene.
When you experience rejection, the most important thing to do is rebuild your self esteem and treat yourself as kindly and gently as you would your most cherished friend.
Protect your self-esteem.

Just like your physical health, your emotional health is your responsibility and the attention you give to it will have a tremendous impact on the quality and length of your life. While you cannot control all variables in life, just like with physical health, there are basic things you can do to maintain a baseline of good health, and steps to take to recover when feeling poorly: by building connections when you're lonely, changing your negative responses to failure and protecting your self esteem you will be following the basic components of good mental hygiene. You will quickly see a drastic improvement in your well-being, build emotional resilience and begin to thrive.