And I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing…

And I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing…

Oct 31, 2023 | Anxiety, Control

I met my oldest son on Oahu for a mother-son vacation. I looked forward to quality time with him, relaxing, and getting out of my usual work routine. I forgot that vacations can be stressful!

We both love to snorkel, and I wanted to take him to a world-class snorkeling spot at Hanauma Bay that required making a reservation two days in advance for specific times of the day. I logged onto the online reservation service exactly when it opened at 7 A.M. and picked an available time, but when I tried to pay, all the spots were already sold out! I started over and went through all the steps with the same result. After multiple tries, sweaty palms, and heart beating hard, we finally got a slot! Whew!

We were warned that we would only be allowed in if we were on time for our reservation, so we made sure to get there early when the day arrived. But the parking lot was full, and there was nowhere else to park. So, we drove to a nearby shopping mall and called a Lyft. It seemed to my son was taking his sweet time as we walked to the ride-share pickup spot. The clock was ticking! Would we miss our reservation?

Fortunately, I had made an intention at the beginning of the vacation to practice ‘sweating the small stuff’ whenever things got difficult. What I mean by this is minor stressors happen constantly, and they are opportunities to practice our skills. Working with or ‘sweating’ the small stuff is where significant transformation happens.  One of the ways I ‘sweat it out’ is to ask myself what is within my control and what is not.

Not in my control:
     The reservations system
     Parking availability

Within my control:
My attitude and behavior. I could:

  • Breathe
  • Ask myself, “How important is this?”
  • Be willing to let go of the outcome of snorkeling in Hanauma Bay

After doing what was within my control, while I wasn’t in a deep chill vacation mode of relaxation, I was fully present. I gave myself a pat on the back. I am a work in progress, and whether at home, work, or on vacation, I know that life will always provide me with more opportunities to practice sweating the small stuff. Then, hopefully, when the big stuff comes along, I’ll be ready!

Do you have examples of using stress as an opportunity? If so, post them in the comments. We can all learn from each other.

From Controlling to Caring

Aug 19, 2022 | Anxiety, Control, Easygoing, Meditation, Over Responsibility

What is the Difference Between Caring for and Controlling our Loved Ones?

My client, whom I will call Trish, has an adult daughter, Dawn, who is overweight and at risk of developing diabetes. As a loving mother, Trish is naturally worried. She knows that if Dawn had a better diet, she would be healthier and happier, which is what Dawn says she wants. Watching Dawn eat fast food and empty-calorie snacks is upsetting, and Trish shows her displeasure with subtle comments like, “I wonder how many grams of sugar are in that?” When Trish has Dawn for dinner and her daughter asks for a second serving of dessert, Trish will ask, “Why don’t you wait a few minutes and see if you’re still hungry?” She does other things like sending Dawn articles on healthy diets and diabetes prevention. She cares deeply about her daughter and wants her to be healthy and happy. But what she’s doing isn’t helping.

Caring Versus Control

Imagine that your hand is an open heart. It reaches out to the other person, palm open.  This is caring, open, tenderhearted, and compassionate. You can offer help, but your hand is open, so you let go of the outcomes. They may take in what you say, they may ignore it, or they may reject it. Caring is trusting that the person you love is in charge of their own life and their happiness and health are based on the choices they make for themselves. When we care for someone, they usually feel loved and supported.

When we care for someone, they usually feel loved and supported. 

Now imagine your hand is a tight fist, your reach out to the other person, grasping on to them, trying to fix them, attaching to what they do or don’t do. Your fist represents you trying to protect your heart just as you are trying to protect them. This is controlling. When we control someone, they usually feel judged and defensive.

When we control someone, they usually feel judged and defensive. 

The Courage to Care

When we care deeply for someone, we will feel fear; this is inevitable. We want them to be happy and free from suffering. We become frightened when we see them do something that may cause pain. This fear presents a fork in the road; we can go down the path of caring or the path of control. If we choose the path of caring, we keep our hearts open. To care, we must be willing to allow our hearts to break, which takes tremendous courage.

On the other hand, control is an attempt to keep our hearts from breaking. We try to get the other person to make the right choice, so we don’t have to feel the pain of their suffering.  But the truth is, we are not in control of others. It is hard enough to make choices that support our own health and happiness and impossible to do so for others. Either way, we will experience heartbreak in the end, and in the process, we often alienate the ones we love.

3-Steps to keep your heart open.

Trish chose the path of caring for her daughter.
The first step was identifying her values and what she was aiming at. She chose Peace, Connection, and Acceptance.

Second, I had her identify the mindsets that would support a caring stance. She came up with:

“It is more important to enjoy my precious time with my daughter than trying to control what she eats; this gets in the way of my relationship.”

“She already knows what I think, this might influence her choices at some point, but I can’t control what will happen.”

 Third, she needed to accept that anxiety she felt as something to be allowed rather than acted out on.

I made Trish a meditation to help her allow her anxiety. If this is something you struggle with, click on either the video below or this link to listen to a 5-minute meditation that will help you keep an open heart with the ones you love.

Why Mistakes Are Good For You, (And You Are Not Making Enough of Them)

May 6, 2022 | Anxiety, Control, Decisions, Forgiveness, Perfectionism

Last week, reading the entertainment section of the newspaper, I noticed a grass roots band that looked interesting was playing this weekend at the Green Center. Since the pandemic, my husband Doug and I haven’t been to a live music venue and we were overdue, so I asked him to get tickets. It felt like a risky thing to do. Doug can be over-frugal, and I didn’t want to end up in the cheap seats, using my binoculars to see the musicians. But I framed it as an exposure, welcoming the uncertainty of what he’d decide.

As it happened, he surprised me by getting premium seats. He’d stretched himself and let go of a few more bucks than felt comfortable to him. Alas, in life, you don’t always get what you pay for. The view from the seats Doug picked out on the seating chart was partially blocked by the seats in front of us. Both our monkey minds howled in unison. A mistake! We made a mistake!

It took a minute to remember that this was actually a golden opportunity. Here are three ways mistakes are good for us.

  1. When we make a mistake, it is an opportunity to practice self-compassion, a chance to choose forgiveness rather than blame. The more compassion we have for our own failings, the more we’ll have for others.
  2. With every mistake we have an opportunity to practice accepting loss. While losing can be painful and disappointing, since it’s part of being human, we need to be willing to feel what it brings. That’s the only way we recover from loss.
  3. Mistakes are how we learn and grow. When we try something new, or not good at, we’re not going to get it right the first time. We can measure how much we’re growing by the mistakes we make.

Once Doug and I forgave ourselves for our mistake (1) and accepted that we didn’t get the view we hoped for (2), we thoroughly enjoyed the concert. And when another concert comes along, we want to see, we will have learned a little more about picking good seats, as well as how to enjoy ourselves should they turn out to be not what we hoped for (3).

The next time you make a mistake, whether tripping on the stairs, forgetting someone’s name, or something more serious, practice self-compassion and pat yourself on the back. Remind yourself that since we’re all inherently fallible, losses are acceptable. Of course, you could have stayed in bed, and avoided the mistake, but what would you have learned from that? Plan to make some more mistakes tomorrow. You just can’t make enough of them!

 

 

 

The Monkey Mind Workout for Perfectionism

Sep 4, 2021 | Anxiety, Control, Monkey Mind, Perfectionism

A 30-day cognitive workout to help you cultivate self-acceptance, resilience, and the “mental muscle” needed to thrive in an imperfect world!

Do you hold yourself—and others—to unrealistically high standards? Are you afraid of making mistakes? Do you live for to-do lists and deadlines, and yearn for flawlessness? You aren’t alone. In our competitive, high-pressure world, it’s natural to strive for excellence. But over time, these perfectionistic tendencies can feed the internal anxious “chatter” known as your “monkey mind.” So, how can you quiet the monkey and stop feeling like you need to be perfect all the time?

In this illustrated guide, psychologist and anxiety expert Jennifer Shannon will show you how to break free from the monkey mindset that drives your perfectionism and set realistic goals; unleash creativity, joy, and productivity; and foster self-compassion and compassion for others. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to give yourself permission to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, leading to a fuller and more meaningful life.

Our monkey minds are hardwired for survival. They depend on the approval of others and the need to fit in and be accepted by the “tribe.” But monkey minds can also get in the way of reaching our full potential. If you’re ready to welcome imperfection and start taking risks, give this workout a try!

Available on Amazon.com!

 

Thoughts Anonymous Philosophy

Aug 13, 2020 | Control, Decisions

A CBT colleague of mine wrote a powerful piece called Thoughts Anonymous Philosophy, applying a 12 Step model that address our inability to control our thoughts. I found it inspiring and I hope you do too. ~  Jennifer

 

“What is Thoughts Anonymous?

“Thoughts Anonymous” is a philosophical movement that is both psychological and spiritual, emerging from the simultaneous principles of evidence-based Psychology and 12 Step Recovery Programs.1

Like alcohol (AA); food (OA); and people (CoDa), thoughts are prevalent and something we must navigate around. Are thoughts, therefore, to be regarded as a substance? Perhaps. Just as the addict can’t completely “control” their addiction, the thinker can’t completely “control” their thoughts. And when thoughts yield more influence than our hopes or intentions, our lives become unmanageable. For those who have experienced difficulty with our thoughts, we turned to the guiding principles of Thoughts Anonymous. We admitted we were powerless over thoughts, and that our minds had become unmanageable. We then came to choose Reality as a power greater than our thoughts – a power that could restore us to sanity.”   Continue Reading…

My Tiny House Adventures

Jan 16, 2020 | Control, Decisions, Uncertainty


I have always been intrigued by the Tiny House movement, fantasizing about what it would be like to live with less, embracing simplicity. Well, now I get to live my fantasy, at least for a couple of months. My husband and I are renting a very small cottage—less than three hundred square feet—while we wait for the condo we lost to the Tubbs wildfire to be finished, and I am excited! The home we are moving into, though tiny, has a simple elegance and its surrounded by gardens and oaks. I place a high value on living with less and creating more simplicity, but actually doing it is a challenge in our materialistic society. Here’s my chance!

This past week we have been packing up what we’ve accumulated in the past two years, and despite our intention toward mindful purchasing, damn, we have a lot of stuff! Recently I read about Project 333, where you whittle down your wardrobe to 33 items of clothing, including shoes, (excluding underwear), to wear for three months, after which you can swap out. Since there is only a very tiny closet for both my husband and I to share, I’ve signed on to Project 333. Going through my closet, I filled two large plastic garbage bags with clothes to store away and still was twenty items over! I had to fill one more smaller bag to get under the limit of 33.

I am also scared! The refrigerator is dorm size, there is no washer or dryer, and there are no doors to shut other than to the one bathroom. I love my own privacy and personal space but I’m determined to be open to the frustrations, loss, and disruption I expect to encounter, just as open as I am to the simplicity, beauty and unexpected joys I expect to encounter. This is the stance I want to cultivate in my life. By intentionally choosing this challenge I hope to develop a sense of peace and presence that doesn’t depend on the size roof I have over my head.

Do you care to join me? Not living in the tiny house of course! I mean to join me in choosing to live with less this month. Here are a few tiny adventure ideas you could try for 30 days:

You could join me in Project 333
Clear out your fridge and only use ½ of the space.
Put away half of the gadgets on your kitchen counter, or work desk.
Put away a dozen decorations that you have around your house.
Put away the kitchen utensils you rarely use.
If you have children, you might include them in this experiment and have them pick out 30% of their toys to store away for one month.

If you choose a tiny adventure of living with less, please post your comments!

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