Feb 1, 2019 | Anxiety
I was on a beautiful walk on a lovely fall afternoon. I felt happy, my senses being fed by the beauty around me, the black birds swooping in and out of the trees, the lush green grass contrasting with the bare brown branches, the smell of the earth, the sound of the wind whipping at the last remaining leaves. I was open, completely surrendered to my surroundings.
Then I reached the parking lot and saw my car trunk was open. I was startled by the sight, it wasn’t right. When I got closer I saw my window on the driver’s side was smashed, glass scattered on the seat and the ground next to the car. Valuables that were in the trunk were gone. My chest tightened. My heart pounded. I felt a sinking feeling. It was as if a dark cloud had come over the scene, and the day seemed dimmer and ominous.
When I got home I spent an hour cleaning up the glass in the car. Then there was calling the glass repair shop, filing a police report and an insurance claim—more to-do’s in my busy life. But the worst part was the new mistrust I felt every time I drove by that parking lot. My beautiful sanctuary did not feel so safe anymore.
When bad things happen, our natural tendency is to constrict and close down. This is a protective impulse triggered by our survival-oriented monkey mind, which is only doing its job of course, keeping us safe. But while safety is our most fundamental value, and we are wise to take reasonable precautions, staying safe is not our only value. For myself, being open to the natural beauty in the world is important. Avoiding that parking lot and the respite that my nature walk provided would be a big price to pay for a small margin of safety.
Bad things happen all the time, every day. They can be little, like being disappointed by someone, spilling your coffee on yourself, or getting caught in traffic and arriving late to an appointment. They can also be big, like suffering an injury or losing a job. When we react to any bad thing that happens to us by constricting, defending and protecting—as we are prone to do— we can’t be open to the beauty and goodness in life, which are what heal and nurture us.
How do we get back to open when we feel closed down? Here are 3 steps:
1. Identify the monkey mindset that would lead to constriction and contrast it with an expansive mindset. Here is mine for this situation.
2. Expose yourself to the triggering situation. For me this meant, instead of avoiding the scene of the break-in, to go there, park my car and go for a walk. The reasonable precaution I took was to not leave anything of value in the car.
3. Welcome the anxiety and discomfort. For me this meant expecting and accepting the anxiety I felt when I parked and walked away from the car. I even took an opening physical stance; instead of crossing my hands in front of my chest and looking back over my shoulder at my car, I opened my arms and breathed into my anxiety. This welcoming negative emotion step is essential. In order to heal from the pain of bad things happening, we must metabolize the emotion.
Whether you are dealing with a little bad thing happening like my car break-in, or a bigger trauma that has closed you down, the way to opening up is the same. In many cases, all three of these steps will need to be repeated numerous times before the nervous system calms down, so don’t give up. When we consistently choose an expansive mindset, expose ourselves to what triggers us, and welcome what we’re feeling, healing happens. In time you’ll be able once again to relax and enjoy the beauty in the world!
Dec 21, 2018 | Holidays, Social Anxiety, Time Management
Four more days, and It’s not too late….
…to take something off your list!
This morning my client came into our session exhausted. She hadn’t slept well, and she is going through some health issues. Her grown children are arriving later today from out of state and she had a plan to make their favorite holiday cake and cookies, but she simply didn’t have the energy for it. With much regret, she bought scones and cookies at her local market instead. She sounded so defeated.
I, on the other hand was cheering for her! I told her this was so skillful, given her energy level, to do less instead of more. If she burned herself out making cake and cookies, by the time her children arrived she would have no energy to connect with them.
The holidays are supposed to be a time of reflection, when we can attune to what is most important to us. This might be family, or self-compassion, better self-care, or a spiritual connection. Hard things to do, when we are running around trying to get everything that we think we need to get done.
So I challenge you to do one less thing. By consciously doing less, we are making room for things that cannot be checked off a list like connection, fun, pleasure and peace.
Nov 15, 2018 | Fire
We are hearing a lot about how to stay physically healthy with our skies covered with dangerous levels of smoke in the air. Stay indoors as much as possible, Outside, wear a N95 rated face mask and avoid strenuous exercise. Set your car cooling and heating system to recirculate. But how do we take care of our mental health when we are faced with real danger?
HINT: Do not leave this job up to your monkey mind!
To the survival-oriented security guard residing in our unconscious, nothing less than 100% safety will do. Left unchecked, the monkey mind will continue to barrage us with negative emotion until the threat posed by air pollution is completely eliminated. In our highly emotional state we feel compelled to act.
We monitor news feeds about fire containment now.
We check to see what the air quality is now.
We research air purifiers, compare masks vs. respirators, and study long term health risks.
We worry about what the air may be doing to our health and the health of our loved ones.
We look at real estate outside of California.
The 90/10 Rule
If we leave ourselves unchecked, we will be spending 90% of our time attempting to eliminate the risk of breathing tainted air—allowing the monkey mind to run the show—and 10% of our time doing restful and restorative activities that foster mental health.
When under physical stress, we need to do just the opposite. That means spending 10% of our time taking reasonable precautions, and 90% of our time learning to relax in the face of danger and uncertainty. Here are three suggestions how to tame the monkey and manage that reversal.
1. Limit time on checking and researching. This might mean checking news feeds just once in the morning and once in the evening. If you are researching air purifiers, set the timer for 30 minutes and once it goes off, either make the decision then, or put off more research until tomorrow.
2. Notice when you are acting with the monkey mindset: I cannot rest or relax until I have eliminated the threat posed by air pollution. Remind yourself of the new “expansive” mindset you want to cultivate instead: I can take reasonable precautions that can limit risk, but it is just as important to learn to relax into uncertainty, which fosters resilience to whatever happens in life.
3. Listen to a welcoming anxiety practice I made specifically for this air quality crisis. Learning to welcome anxiety, rather than reacting to it, not only fosters a more peaceful state of mind, it calms down the nervous system, a key to emotional health.
My last suggestion is to try to have some fun. What restful or restorative activity can you do, given the restrictions of the situation? My daughter calls it taking a “smoky snow day”. Share your ideas and/or experience by posting a comment!
Nov 5, 2018 | Anxiety, Fear, Tribe
A good friend and I planned to bike to a nearby town this morning and go out to breakfast. She is the same friend who took us in after our home burned down a year ago. I will always be grateful for her amazing hospitality, helping us to heal that first month while we recovered from the shock. We’d agreed to meet at my place at 9. At 8:15 I received a text from her that said, “Good morning, “J” is coming with us, he brought his bike, see you soon.”
“J” is her delightful boyfriend. But I did not want to go out to breakfast with her boyfriend too, I just wanted it to be the two of us. My first reaction was anger. My anger felt justified because she just stated he was coming without asking me. But that was not what angered me. I did not want him to come, and I was afraid to say so. I was angry that she was making me state my preference. 
Arggggggh!, I exclaimed. Doug heard me and poked his head in the room, so I told him about the text. “Why not just tell her what you want?” he said. He made it sound so simple. I knew he was right, but I did not want to do it. In that moment being angry and resentful felt more appealing to me. Crazy, huh?
Not crazy, just human. Look at my alternative. If I state my preference, my friend may feel angry and resentful. Maybe she will judge me for being selfish and rude, and ungrateful for all she did for me. My fear of upsetting her triggered one of the core fears I talk about in Don’t Feed The Monkey Mind, the fear of losing connection and belonging, or as I like to call it, getting kicked out of the tribe. According to this part of my brain, it was better to be angry and resentful, because I would not risk my friend’s being disappointed and judging me. If I kept quiet I wouldn’t risk losing my friendship.
But I would lose something, I would lose honesty, authenticity, and the quality of my connection with my friend. If I could not honor these values in myself, then I was not really honoring our friendship.
So, I took a deep breath and texted her back, “My preference is just some time with you.”
A couple of uncomfortable minutes went by, and then my phone chimed. I was scared to look. But when I did, it simply said, “Ok that will work”
I couldn’t be sure from the message how my friend actually felt, but I did feel relieved. She appeared to still want to be my friend. Again, this sounds crazy to type, but of course she would still want to be my friend! But as is always the case, my monkey mind was still on the job, looking for 100% certainty. Thank you monkey!
I originally intended to write this post on the theme of taking care of ourselves around the holidays, but this interaction this morning inspired me. Stating our personal preferences clearly is a great way to take care of ourselves around the holidays, and actually every day of the year. It takes courage, and it does involve risk, but tuning into ourselves and being honest and authentic with our friends and family will ultimately foster the deepest connections. Scary, yes. But worth it!
Oct 1, 2018 | Anxiety, Children
It doesn’t sound right, does it? We’re supposed to care about the people we love; the more the better. Caring too much, however, can actually get in the way of loving, especially when it comes to my children! 
Right now, all three of my 20-somethings have recently entered new relationships, all begun on online dating apps like Tinder, something that feels foreign and a little scary to me. Naturally, I am curious and interested in getting to know my kids’ new love interests. As I listen and ask questions, I feel open-hearted and happy and excited for them. But I also feel fear. Will this relationship bring them joy or sorrow? Will it be long-term or temporary? My kids are all at the age that they are thinking about becoming more seriously committed. What are the mental health, family and dating histories of these potential new members of our family? Acting on these fears is likely to undermine our relationships.
I learned about caring less from my mother, who raised me with what one might call a benign neglect. I never had the sense that my mom worried much about me growing up. While she was always interested in my life, she was interested in herself as well. She seemed to trust that whatever it was I needed to learn, I was capable of figuring it out without her help. This gave me a sense of independence and self-confidence. Because of this I always felt I could go to her with both the good, bad and ugly in my life. She always listened with compassion, and rarely any judgement.
My mother wasn’t perfect, but her example taught me that the greatest gift I can give me kids is to trust them, that whatever they need to do in life, they will be able to do. From very early on, when they were still young children, I started to practice caring less and loving more. As with every other family, there were plenty of times when I felt the urge to take over. One of them developed OCD at the age of 8, another social anxiety at 13, another substance abuse in adolescence. In each of those situations, I didn’t know how things would turn out. I could give my children support and resources, but I had to remind myself that each child had a personal trajectory, with challenges they would need to master themselves.
As my fears arose, rather than resisting them, I acclimated myself to them by imagining the worst case scenerios—that they might end up with chronic mental health issues, isolated, depressed, even homeless. However painful it was, I knew that ultimately I did not have control of their lives or how things would turn out. With practice, I became more acclimated to my fear about my children’s futures, allowing me to be more present for them when they share their lives with me. Listening to them talk about their new love interests, when I feel that pull of attaching to the outcome, I remind myself again that
I can’t control their futures, and I don’t need to try. All I need to do is be supportive, open-hearted, and genuinely trust that my children will make the best of their lives. That trust, I have found, is the lifeblood of my relationship with my children. By caring a little less, I can love a little more. And the more I love, the more love I get back!
Sep 25, 2018 | Children, Social Anxiety
By Jennifer Shannon, LMFT, author of The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook for Teens, The Anxiety Survival Guide for Teens, and Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind
I will never forget the morning I pulled the covers off my daughter, telling her in my firmest voice that she had to get out of bed NOW. From the beginning of sixth grade it had been a struggle, but with a firm hand, I was able to get Rose out of bed and off to school. But this morning we’d hit a wall. She looked at me with genuine dread. “Mom,” she said, “I would rather die than go to school.”
My beautiful daughter had developed severe social anxiety disorder. On her “good” days at school, she survived by avoiding social interactions, often hiding in the bathroom during recess and lunch breaks. On her worst days, she had full-blown panic attacks and went to the office complaining of stomach aches and asking to be sent home. While there was nothing physically wrong with her, I knew her distress was real. And as a parent, I was suffering too. Read More…
Sep 3, 2018 | Anxiety
Being a teenager is hard, and, for some, high school can feel like a psychological war zone. Demands to perform academically and on the field, complex social relationships, first-time romances, and the ever-growing list of extracurricular activities young people are supposed to engage in combined with the raging emotions most teenagers experience can overcome even the most well-balanced young person leading to anxiety, depression, and more.
I know what it is like as a parent to have a teen with anxiety. When my beautiful, talented daughter entered middle school 13 years ago she developed severe social anxiety. As a therapist, I knew that adolescence is the age of onset for many types of anxiety and that there were powerful tools that could help her. I wanted her to know she was not alone and looked for a book on teen social anxiety. There were none! This is what led me to write my first book, The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook for Teens. With the right tools, this painful time can be a time of growth. Here is Rose’s story in her own words.
My publisher, New Harbinger Publications, has created this free guide, teens will learn six key research-based psychological skills that will help teens:
- Let go of anxiety and self-doubt
- Feel calm in the face of everyday problems
- Develop a positive self-image
- Calm intense emotions (including anger)
- Resolve conflicts and get along with others
- Deal with the daily drama without getting wrapped up in it
Learning these skills and practicing them in their daily lives will not only help teens better navigate the often-treacherous terrain of high school but will also provide them practical tools they can use throughout their lives. You can download the free guide here: https://www.newharbinger.com/teen-skills
Aug 1, 2018 | Anxiety
A recently retired professional came into treatment to get rid of this feeling of dread that he felt in the pit of his stomach every morning that sometimes lingered throughout the day. “I never felt this way when I had a job to go to,” he told me. He couldn’t point to what was wrong, the feeling was not linked to a specific thought or worry. It just lay in wait for him every morning. His psychiatrist prescribed medication to take as needed, so sometimes he took a pill and went back to bed, hoping to sleep it off. What was happening and why?
If you suspect the monkey mind at work, you’re correct! While it is true that feelings of anxiety are usually accompanied by a thought, this is not always the case. The monkey mind can sound the alarm for no apparent reason. Woo-woo-woo! Something is wrong! Not sure what, but it’s not good, so do something! 
Long-term pain
Even when we know that we are not in imminent threat, feelings of anxiety and dread are so uncomfortable that we want to get rid of them. We might take a pill, go to sleep or distract ourselves by watching TV. While it is totally understandable that we try to avoid or distract ourselves from the feeling, this guarantees us more feelings of anxiety and dread in the long run. Our monkey mind is like a child. When it throws a fit we’d best not react to it. Any attention we give to a tantrum acts a reward.
By taking a pill or returning to bed, my client was answering the monkey’s alarm, confirming that something was indeed wrong. Even if he were able to quell the dread that day, he had pre-ordered another serving of dread for delivery the next morning. Avoidance and distraction give us short term gain but long-term pain.
Long-term gain
The trick to easing the grip negative feelings have on us is to not resist or avoid them, and simply allow them to be here. Like other emotions and physical sensations, they don’t last. And just like a tantruming child, when ignored, the monkey mind gets tired and moves on to something else. And when we don’t react, it gets the message. I can handle this. In my client’s case, instead of resisting this feeling, I taught him to welcome it, even ask for more at times. After a few weeks of regular practice, the feelings began to weaken.
This welcoming practice recording is designed to help you to practice welcoming, instead of resisting these feelings. Like anything else, the more you practice, the better you will become at this, and these dreadful feelings will loose their grip on you.
Jul 2, 2018 | Anxiety
My 50 year-old client said she felt “less than” for as long as she can remember. She berated herself for being overweight, for having curly hair, for not getting better grades in school. She constantly compared herself to her beautiful, smart funny cousin. If only she could be more like her, she would finally feel good about herself.
Why are we so critical of ourselves? Why do we compare ourselves to others when all it does is make us feel worse about ourselves, lead to depression, stress and anxiety? It makes no sense, until we take in account the survival agenda that is embedded in us all.
Homo sapiens are pack animals. The reason we’ve outlasted other predators over the past few thousand years is that we hunt, eat, sleep and travel together in groups. Every one of us has a powerful, unconscious need to be respected, to be loved and to belong. That need is enforced by regions of our brain that are primal and simple— hard-wired to be beyond our direct control. This “monkey mind” is what keeps us connected to each other, keeping us in line, so we don’t get kicked out of our tribe.
The monkey mind is highly sensitive to external criticism, whether it is from our parents, teachers or peers. When we are
criticized or disrespected, it alerts us with negative emotion and sensations like shame and anxiety. To avoid this painful experience in the future, we learn to anticipate and internalize criticism. When we consciously believe that the only way we can stay safe in this world is with the approval of others, we’ve been hijacked by the monkey. This is what leads to negative self-talk and unnecessary suffering.
From Suffering To Self-Acceptance
The good news is that we can free ourselves from this suffering. Here are two basic steps to turn negative self-talk into positive encouragement.
- Don’t accept negative self-talk at face value. When you hear it in your head, imagine it as the chatter of a scared little monkey that is afraid of getting kicked out of the tribe. Recognizing where these thoughts come does not stop them, but it helps us to gain a little distance from them by shifting our perspective.
- Accept yourself at face value instead. That’s right, give yourself a break. Instead of kicking yourself in the pants for what you aren’t, try patting yourself on the back for what you already are. Practicing self-acceptance is how we create lasting feelings of being respected, loved and belonging.
Self-Acceptance Exercise: Put five rubber bands on your left wrist each morning. Give yourself five encouraging statements throughout the day, each time transferring the rubber band from left to right wrist. The visual and tactile elements of this exercise can help you make self-acceptance a habit, and begin to free you from negative self-talk.
Jun 1, 2018 | Anxiety, Overwhelm, Perfectionism
Do you, or someone you know, have trouble making decisions? It could be as small as deciding what to wear in the morning, or big, like whether to buy a house or continue to rent. You may spend countless hours going through pros and cons in your mind, asking others for advice, or simply putting off thinking about it.
Difficulty making decisions is associated with two of the three Monkey Mindsets, intolerance of uncertainty, (thinking you need to be 100% certain of your decision), and perfectionism, (the belief that making the wrong decision would be catastrophic). Both of these mindsets are impossible standards to meet and create unnecessary agony, anxiety and avoidance when making decisions.
By contrast, those who have an easy time deciding can tolerate the uncertainty and are comfortable with less-than-perfect outcomes. You can learn to do this. Here are three simple steps to follow when you are stuck with a difficult decision.
- Make a pros and cons list on a piece of paper and set a timer for 5-15 minutes. By using a timer, you are restricting the endless looping of pros and cons that you have likely been doing in your head.
- When the timer goes off, set it again for five minutes, the maximum amount of time you have to make the decision. Spending more than five minutes means you are falling back into the trap of attempting to be certain that you are making the right decision.
- If you have not made a decision when the 5-minute timer goes off, flip a coin. Yes, I am 100% serious! Flip a coin and whatever it says, stick with this as your decision. Maybe it sounds crazy to do this, but it is not as crazy as avoiding making a decision because you are operating out of two flawed monkey mindsets.
Once your decision is made, you are no longer stuck, and you can move forward. If your decision brings the results you hoped for, good. If the decision did not work out, also good! You’ll have an opportunity to practice coping with the outcome. Flexibility and resilience are two of the most important commodities in life!
May 1, 2018 | Procrastination
Everybody procrastinates. Whether we put off emptying the dishwasher, unpacking from our last vacation, starting an exercise program or writing that novel, nobody’s to-do list is ever completely done. In our busy lives, new tasks and obligations show up faster than we can check them off. Yet we usually think of procrastination as a character weakness with a one-size-fits-all solution: more will power.
Moral judgments about our behavior usually diminish our understanding of—and our compassion for —ourselves, and the case of procrastination is no exception. If our postponing tasks or commitments is a problem for us, the first step to seeing a solution is to ask ourselves, what is it about my procrastination that is working for me? The answer can provide a valuable clue to our own unconscious needs and behavior. When it comes to procrastination, we are not all the same.
To help us along, I’ve divided us into four basic types of procrastinators, each with its own kind of tasks to put off, and its own reasons for doing so. By recognizing our procrastination type, we can gain some understanding and compassion for ourselves. Only then can we begin to break the vicious cycle of failing to get things done and feeling guilty and unproductive much of the time.
The Perfectionist – Perfectionists see every task as a performance to be judged by others. Any mistake, however small, could be cause for criticism or rejection. Tasks the perfectionist isn’t 100% certain can be mastered are postponed. The perfectionist’s core fear is losing status or being kicked out of the tribe.
The Warrior – Warriors are drawn to action and love to pit them self against a problem or foe—as long as it is interesting or exciting, that is. When faced with a task that is tedious, the warrior retreats. Warriors have an uncanny ability to put boring tasks completely out of their minds; there will always be plenty of time later. The warrior’s very survival depends on moving away from tedium toward stimulation. They are convinced boredom is too much for them to handle and that they will be missing out if they aren’t completely engaged.
The Pleaser – Pleasers are more in tune to what others want of them than they are to what they want for themselves. They will often say yes to things that people ask of them—tasks that if they checked in with themselves, they wouldn’t want to commit to. Then, since their hearts aren’t into fulfilling these commitments, they put them off.
The Rebel – To the rebel, the personal attribute that must not be compromised by any task is independence. They want to be valued for their own unique character and contributions; their core fear is being anonymous. When rebels find themselves in a position where they must follow others’ orders, they feel they will lose their identity. They will put off cooperating even when it doesn’t help them meet their own personal goals.
Fortunately, each type of procrastinator also has a unique motivation that can be leveraged into a real superpower to get their trigger tasks done. Take this Quiz to discover your type or combination of types. Once you do, you can discover the powerful tools to help you to not only overcome your procrastination, but how to live a more engaging and fulfilling life.
*Note: While this material comes from my book “A Teen’s Guide to Getting Stuff Done,” The quiz and the material in the book is relevant to people of any age who find that procrastination may be more of a habit than they would like!
Apr 4, 2018 | Control
I just got off the phone with someone who most of us would envy. She’s beautiful, athletic, artistic and smart. Unfortunately, she is also a perfectionist. She’d tried out for a solo singing role and she didn’t get the part, which for her meant she was a failure, a lazy underachiever. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but her perfectionism, like a silent serpent, was constricting her potential to be all that she can be.
Perfectionism, along with over-responsibility and intolerance of uncertainty, make up the three facets of what I call the monkey mindset. For the perfectionist, everything we do is judged by one primordial criteria, the judgement of others. We must maintain our status in the tribe. Perfectionist thinking sounds something like this:
“If others are better than me at something it means I am not good enough.”
“If I make a mistake, it means I am a failure”
This mindset leads to behaviors such as procrastination—putting off what we are afraid we cannot do well enough—or over-working, which causes burnout. These behaviors not only reduce our chances of reaching our goals but they feed the perfectionistic assumptions of monkey mindset. Judging an experience a “failure” teaches us that we shouldn’t try for things unless we are certain we can do them well, and that we must work at tasks until we are perfect. Any success we achieve with these affirmations is bound to be joyless and temporary at best.
To cultivate a mindset of success that will sustain us despite the inevitable setbacks in store for us, we must not focus on external outcomes —for my friend, in this case, being rewarded a vocal solo. Instead the focus must be on the process— to be fully engaged, take risks, and tap into your creativity—in short, to be inspired. This expansive mindset sounds like this:
“It is more important to do my personal best, than to compare myself to others”
“If I make a mistake, it means I took a risk and I deserve a pat on the back for this, not a kick in the pants.”
This is the mindset that frees the perfectionist from the judgements of others and the shame of failure. Setbacks become opportunities to remind ourselves what success means to us. If our singer gave herself fully to her singing practice, then she was successful. If she opened herself completely to her coaching, then she was successful. If she expressed herself with passion and vulnerability, then she was successful. If she gave her all she was a success. This is the mindset that will sustain us as we work toward our goals. Unlike “perfect”, which depends on the judgment of others, real success is found within each of us, in ever abundant supply.
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