What you're doing to get better might be making things worse.
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
When people walk into my counseling office, they often want to get rid of a problem. Perhaps it's a feeling of sadness, or an addiction, or a difficult relationship.
They are often surprised when I start out by showing appreciation for their problem. The thing is, we develop patterns of emotion and addiction and conflict because we are trying to survive. Somewhere, at some point, that emotion or that substance or that person helped us, or we wouldn't have turned to it in the first place. Those problems started out as solutions.
And now, the problems have become solutions by drawing our attention to unhealthy behaviors, thoughts, and relationships. Problems show us that our old ways aren't working, and give us opportunities to grow and change.
So here's the less-comfortable part:
If problems are solutions, it just might follow that some SOLUTIONS are PROBLEMS.
Let's imagine that you are really, really good at coping with stress by detaching from the present moment. In any stressful situation, you are able to regulate your breathing and take your mind to a quiet, soothing place. This has done wonders for your anxiety and has made the quality of your life skyrocket. Your brain notices this, and slowly, detachment becomes your go-to tool.
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So the brain begins to apply this solution to every stressful situation. Over time, calm detachment becomes the water you swim in. You might even fuse with this skill and decide it is a part of your personality.
Then, one day, you are called to your boss's office. She's been considering you for a promotion that you desperately want, and tells you that her decision has come down to you and one other co-worker. You feel slightly stressed at this pronouncement, so you do what you do best: you detach. You regulate your breathing and go to a calm place.
You get through the moment with wonderful calm---but you lose the promotion. Your boss decides to give it to your co-worker, because she seemed much more enthusiastic.
Let me make one thing very clear: it is AMAZING to have the skill of self-regulation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it as a tool.
The solution becomes a problem when we apply it willy-nilly, without the mental space to understand that it might work better in some situations than others.
The worst part about solutions that have become problems is that often, we are blind to them. We keep plugging away, applying our strength diligently to the problem at hand, unaware that we are actually making things worse.
Why? Because it hurts to admit that there are things we aren't good at. It feels much better to show our strengths.
So, when we are under stress, what do we do? We go to our strengths. We try to push through with that thing we are really, really good at.
But chances are, you wouldn't be in a stressful situation in the first place if the thing you are really, really, good at was the answer.
Chances are, the stress is coming from the fact that life wants you to do the thing that is harder for you.
Ouch.
Here's the good news: there are many, many ways to turn problems back into solutions again. All it takes is some willingness to
a) get curious about yourself and
b) accept feedback.
Start to notice what your go-to methods of dealing with stress are. Ask around: what am I really good at? What do you think I could stand to do more of? And listen to the feedback.
Write down the major areas of stress and suffering in your life and take some time to consider if your go-to methods of handling them are contributing to the problem, or to the solution.
The next step, of course, is to figure out what skill life is asking you to develop. Then, practice that skill, with self-compassion, until it becomes easier for you.
So if you're great at organizing every little detail? Practice the skill of enjoying the chaos. If you're really good at listening to friends? Practice the skill of asserting yourself. If you're great at putting your nose to the grindstone and getting things done? Practice slowing down and being present in the moment.
Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to stop organizing and listening and kicking butt! They are all wonderful qualities. What I am asking you to do is simply to notice whether your problems are responding to these skills, or not. If they are, keep at it! If they aren't, your solution may be part of the problem.
We will be learning many skills for gathering feedback and information about our blind spots, as well as the skill of internal witnessing, in our upcoming group Permaculture and the Psyche. Learn more about it here.
And as always, I love to hear from you! Feel free to comment below or email me at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.
5 ways to press "pause" on a bad mood
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
As a counselor, I am constantly urging my clients to express their feelings. Anger, hurt, sorrow; difficult as they are to feel, they are all there for a reason. They are messengers, and they have wisdom for us.
As a human being, I know that there are times when we simply can't express our feelings. There are situations when expressing our emotions might mean losing a job or an important friendship. On these occasions, it can better serve our long-term goals to press "pause" on our feelings and get through the moment. Then, later, when we are in a safe place, we can let the emotions out.
The danger here, of course, is that we often forget to do part two! We press "pause", but never "play". We would rather stay numb than bear the inconvenience and discomfort of emotional expression. Over time, as our unexpressed emotions pile up, it can seem as though to let ourselves feel would be dangerous; that the rage or grief or loneliness would swallow us whole if we gave it even the smallest opening.
Over the long term, repressing our emotions has terrible consequences for our mental and physical health. So how can we balance these two truths: one, that we must express our emotions, and two, that there are situations in which it is not safe to do so?
Over the years I have learned a few small exercises that allow me to press the "pause" button on my emotions so that I can continue to function. I share them here with this caveat:
DON'T FORGET TO EXPRESS YOUR EMOTIONS LATER! When you are in a safe place, make sure that you give yourself the time to feel your feelings and listen to the messages they have for you about your work, your relationships, and your well-being.
5 WAYS TO PRESS PAUSE ON A BAD MOOD
1. Get your feet on the ground.
Excuse yourself for a restroom break; then find the nearest patch of grass or bare ground and make some skin-to-earth contact. Breathe deeply; visualize your stress, sadness, or anger flowing out from the soles of your feet into the earth. Breathe in strength and feel yourself cradled by gravity. Three deep breaths, then back into the breach! (In a pinch, when I am in a situation in which it doesn't feel acceptable to take off my shoes, I pretend I am tying them and place the palms of my hands on the ground instead. Any port in a storm!)
2. The 5-minute shake.
I may or may not have done this exercise in a bathroom stall in the middle of my GRE exams.
Make yourself a foolproof playlist, all of the songs that you simply cannot help but move to. When the moment comes and you are shaking with anger or sadness or frustration, find a corner where you can be alone, pop the headphones in, and start shaking. Shake your feet from the ankles, your hands from the wrist. Shake your hips, your shoulders, shake your head 'no' and 'yes'. Lay down on your back and shake your legs vigorously overhead like a dying bug. Just shake. Let all of the tremors of your muscles work off those stress hormones and move them through your body. When the song ends, stand still for a moment and take a few deep breaths, noticing any shifts in your state of mind.
3. Square Breathing.
This is a good one for those times when you cannot get a moment alone; this can be done without anyone knowing even in the midst of a conversation.
Inhale for a count of four, hold the breath for a count of 4, exhale for a count of four, hold the breath out for a count of four. Nod and smile as though you are listening and not seething with emotion. Repeat. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. If the 4-count doesn't work for you, find the count that does. Finish with a few breaths in which your exhale is twice as long as your inhale.
Taking the time to focus on your breathing forces the mind to concentrate on something besides the overwhelming feelings.
4. Shift the focus.
Practice this one ahead of time. Wherever you are, take a moment and extend your arms out to the side, parallel with your shoulders, so you look like that Leonardo da Vinci sketch. Wiggle the tips of your fingers and see if you can unfocus your gaze enough to see the fingers of both hands wiggling simultaneously in your peripheral vision.
This soft-focus gaze is the opposite of the gaze we use to focus on our computers, on the written word, on any detail work required of us. This is a gaze that was taught to me when I was studying wilderness survival skills and again when I was studying kung fu, and recently it turned up in my yoga practice! Any technique that has made the rounds of that many cultures has my vote!
In the moment when you are feeling overwhelmed by emotion, shift your focus into this soft gaze and breathe that way for a few moments. There is a rather amazing metaphorical shift in perspective that happens with the literal shift in perspective.
5. Take a mental step back.
Whatever you are feeling, take a step back and witness it. Notice yourself, the thoughts you are thinking, the emotions you are feeling. Thinking about it in the third person can be useful too: "Lissa is having a hard time talking because she is feeling a very intense sorrow." "Lissa is so angry that I can hear her voice shaking and she has squeezed her hands into fists." You can also take a mental step back by reframing your thoughts from "I am going to explode if she keeps talking!" to "I am having the thought that I am going to explode if she keeps talking".
Taking this mental step back reminds us that we are larger than our emotions and thoughts, and gives us a sense of perspective when those emotions and thoughts feel overwhelming.
~~~
I hope these techniques are useful to you, and please remember (all together now!):
DON'T FORGET TO EXPRESS YOUR EMOTIONS LATER! Put on a dramatic playlist and dance and shriek. Write down all of your worries and then rip them up. Hit pillows with a baseball bat. Curl up in fetal position and cry. Whatever you need to feel, let it work its way through you until it is finished. And if the emotions feel bottomless or stuck, please don't be afraid to ask for help. That's what we're here for!
Key #6: Leveraging Pleasure
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
Is there one habit you can’t seem to break, one lesson that you just can’t seem to learn? Is there a theme to your suffering?
Chances are, your problems started out as solutions. Something happened in your life that did not feel good, and you developed coping strategies to survive. These strategies served you for a while, but life changed and the strategies didn’t!
If you have fought hard without success to break your habits and change your behaviors, you are not alone. These behaviors and habits brought us pleasure once upon a time, and I have learned in my years as an addictions counselor that our brain’s pleasure center is an extremely powerful enemy!
But here’s the good news: it’s an even more powerful friend.
You can use pleasure to burn through your old habits and self-sabotaging behaviors, and to teach your brain that it no longer needs those old strategies to access joy.
Key #6, leveraging pleasure, may seem counterintuitive. Doesn’t change take hard work?
We tend to fight our bad habits and sabotaging behaviors with discipline, self-control, and stress. We mean well, but these conditions of self-denial just prime the brain to reach out for a source of pleasure in order to cope, and the nearest source of familiar pleasure is probably the very bad habit we were trying to change!
What if, instead of trying to change yourself through self-deprivation, you were to approach change from a sense of pleasure and delight? What if you showed your body, mind, and spirit that change can be deeply satisfying and pleasurable?
When you get your brain on your side and start building new pathways of pleasure, old habits are easily discarded because they are NO LONGER NECESSARY.
We will be learning how to do this one step at a time in our upcoming group, Sweet Relief. This series of six Monday evening gatherings will be a guided deep dive into uncovering how your old habits served you, creating a map forward to the life you want, and building new pleasure pathways to ensure that your brain is onboard with your transformation. If you know it’s time, and you are committed to ending the self-sabotage, you can sign up here.
I believe in this work, because I have watched it change my life and the lives of so many of my clients and friends.
If you are feeling called to do this work, and something is stopping you--financial considerations, fear, self-doubt, scheduling problems--please reach out to me at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.
In the meantime, here is one of my favorite exercises for tapping into the power of pleasure.
Get out a journal and a pen, light a candle, and give yourself 10 minutes alone.
TRANSFORMING COMPLAINTS TO DESIRES
Activate your awareness. What have you been complaining about? What or who is bothering you? Take a few minutes, eyes closed, breathing deeply, to notice any stressful thoughts or emotions. Breathe deeply into any parts of your body that feel tight, clenched, or painful, and notice with a sense of curiosity what thoughts and feelings come up when you allow yourself to pay attention to these sensations. Open your eyes and take a few moments to write down what you’ve noticed. What are your complaints? What’s not working?
Figure out the feelings behind your complaints. For example, if I’ve noticed that the stressful thought “I’m overscheduled, there’s just never enough time” emerges when I pay attention, then my complaint is “I don’t have enough time”. Notice what feelings emerge in your body when you speak your complaint aloud. Then write down what those feelings are. Complaint: I don’t have enough time. Feelings: Tightness, stress, a sense of harriedness or rush.
Find the opposite feeling. Take a moment and notice these feelings in your body. Allow yourself to wonder what the opposite of these feelings would be. How would it feel if I believed I have enough time? Speak out the opposite of your complaint and notice the feelings that emerge. When I do this exercise, I notice that I have feelings of calm, spaciousness, and ease. Opposite feeling: calm, spaciousness, and ease.
State your opposite feeling as a desire. (I desire to feel spacious and calm.)
Find ways to meet your desire. Read your desire or speak it aloud. Settle into your body again and allow yourself to become curious. Where is this desire already met in your life? What are some healthy actions you could take in your life that would meet or nourish this desire?
Savor the good feelings. Any time throughout the day when you notice you are having the desired feelings or meeting your desire in any way, consciously notice this. Press pause for a moment and breathe in the good feelings, alerting your brain to the pleasure that you are feeling. Taking 15 to 20 seconds to savor pleasurable feelings increases our brain’s dopamine response, ensuring that it will take note of this source of pleasure next time.
You can repeat this process as necessary, for as many complaints as you wish. Every time you notice a new complaint surfacing into consciousness, jot it down!
Our complaints are fuel for transformation, once we learn and practice this process.
Feel free to read over the past blogs and learn about the other 5 keys to transforming suffering. In review, the six keys are:
1) Make portals to the sacred
2) Upsource
3) Define your desires
4) Engage in creative digestion
5) Find your sweet spot
6) Leverage pleasure
Don't be afraid to reach out if you would like support and guidance in this process.
The counselors of this collective, and many other counselors around the world, offer free consultation so that you can see if counseling is a good fit for you.
I always love to hear from you! If you have any questions about this exercise, or want to share your results, feel free to comment below or email me at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.
6 KEYS FOR TRANSFORMING SUFFERING, #5: THE SWEET SPOT
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
I am SO EXCITED about this week's topic. It's very close to my heart because, as with most of us, the work I do emerged from my past suffering. This is the key that got me through some of the darkest times of my life.
Tonight, my dear friend Briana and I are offering a free workshop over at Homegrown Babies to honor the personhood of mothers. (If you read this in time, come on over and join us!)
The workshop will last one-and-a-half hours, and for many mamas, that will be the most time they have spent dedicated to their own pleasure in YEARS.
Because honestly, who has the time for delicately nibbling a strawberry; who has the luxury of a full hour and a half to focus on herself, to be supported as she discerns her way forward?
It is my sincere and heartfelt desire that every single soul reading this can say "of course I have the time!" But it is my belief that most of us are nodding our heads in agreement.
That's where this key comes in. The circumstances of our lives have conspired to put many of us in a place of overwhelm, scrambling every day just to meet basic obligations, feeling stretched thin and overcommitted. Let me tell you a story.
Seven years ago, I was a single mother with a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old. I biked 14 miles to work every day after spending close to 3 hours on the bus system getting my children to school and to daycare. The money I made at my job paid for the roof over our head and the daycare program, but in order to put food on the table and take care of all the other expenses of life I took on two other side-jobs. I fell into bed every night exhausted, covered in whatever we'd had for dinner, and woke three hours later to start the same cycle over again.
I decided to go back to school for an advanced degree because even I, obstinate and thick-skulled as I can be at times, could see that this was just not a sustainable life. The problem was, I had NO IDEA how to proceed. I had so many interests, so many ways branching out in front of me. And I had NO TIME and NO ENERGY for decision making.
So many things have changed in seven years. Counseling is exactly the right fit for me. I have found the job I was meant for, that makes my heart sing, that allows me to make a difference in the lives of people who want to be their best selves. But one thing hasn't changed: I still feel as though there is never enough time to pursue all of my interests, to dive deeply into the many ways that branch out in front of me.
So I use the same tool now that I discovered all those years ago, the tool that got me here:
Key #5, the sweet spot.
I'll keep this one short and sweet.
You have close to infinite potential. You have extraordinarily nuanced dreams and desires. And you have limited time.
Finding your sweet spot is a tool that allows you to make the most of your limited time and energy, investing it in exactly what comes most effortlessly to you.
When you figure out your sweet spot, you are putting the full force of your talent, skill, and passion into alignment. This exponentially increases the impact of the time and energy you invest.
So how do you find your sweet spot?
Below is an elegant diagram that was distilled from the Japanese concept of Ikigai, or life purpose. This is a wonderful way to get started.
Make four lists. Stream of consciousness, don't overthink it.
List one: all the things you can do that you know you can get paid for.
List two: all the things you are really good at.
List three: all the things you love to do.
List four: all of the things that you believe this world needs.
Slot these lists into their corresponding circles, and start to notice the overlap. For example, if I love to garden, and the world needs food for the hungry, there's an overlap between those circles of growing food for the hungry.
If I am really good at listening to people, and I can get paid for counseling, person-centered counseling goes in the overlap between those two circles.
Now take a look at the very center of your diagram. That's the sweet spot. That's the small space where your passion, your skill, your training, and the world's needs intersect.
There may be only one thing here in the center---it can be hard to find the overlap of all four circles.
But there is something, and when you find it, you will know where to invest the 5 minutes or 5 dollars available to you.
Write out the center of your diagram---your ikigai---into a 10-second pitch. Put it somewhere you can see it. Practice saying it out loud when a new friend asks you what you're all about.
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And if you ARE one of the magical people who has set aside time to explore and develop your own talents in a deep and nourishing way, SWEET RELIEF starts Monday, May 15th. If it's alignment with your sweet spot, I hope you will join us!
Let me know any questions you have about this process in the comments below...and if you're feeling brave, post your Ikigai!
6 Key Practices for Transforming Suffering, #4: Creative Digestion
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
We all have that one block, the lie we continue to tell ourselves, the bad habit we can't break, the life lesson that keeps throwing us to our knees.
Over time, we learn that this block leads to suffering. So we avoid it, we push it down, we deny it, and when it inevitably confronts us, we face it from a place of anger, defeat, and despair.
Not surprisingly, considering that we are not at our best when we are in anger, defeat, and despair, nothing changes!
So we suffer. That's bad, right?
This week’s key takes that assumption and turns it on its head.
Suffering, despite the pain we feel when we are going through it, is an incredibly potent and powerful fuel. Suffering drives much of our creativity. Necessity is the mother of invention because when something hurts, we are motivated to stop it!
But we have to consciously choose to engage with our suffering this way, or instead of motivating us, it will paralyze us.
How do we turn suffering into fuel?
Think about eating a tremendous feast. The table is groaning under the weight of fresh fruit, an array of roasted vegetables and salads, aromatic breads and sweets. There comes a point, despite all of the delicious offerings, at which you have to stop eating because your stomach is full. There is no more room; to eat more would cause pain rather than pleasure.
Life works on a similar principle. When we have experienced an overload, even if it is an overload of pleasure, we need time to pause and digest.
When you have experienced suffering that has overwhelmed your capacity to cope, that’s called trauma. Trauma can keep us in a state of frozenness, an inability to take anything further in—even pleasurable experiences.
That’s where creative digestion comes in. Creative digestion allows you to metabolize your experience, to work through it. This then creates room for new information and new experience.
In creative digestion, the focus isn’t on WHAT you create. Some tremendous works of art, music, and poetry have been alchemized through suffering, but that is a byproduct of the process. The focus in creative digestion is owning your suffering and actively working with it.
This may mean writing everything out and then burning it. It may mean writing a song or a poem about what happened to you, or simply getting up to your elbows in paint or yarn or bread dough, using your emotions as a catalyst to create something that wasn’t there before.
This can be a terrifying process. Suffering hurts, and for many of us, we cope with that pain by ignoring it or pushing it down. Coming into contact with our experience is the very last thing we feel like doing!
Or you may not want to address your suffering because to do so would bring the unkind actions of another person into the light. Perhaps you feel that it is dangerous or unfair to make these stories tangible in any way.
In her book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott wrote:
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
Don’t let anything stop you from owning your stories or your suffering. Use your feelings and memories as creative fuel to metabolize all of the thoughts and fears that keep you frozen.
Create wildly.
If you do not feel safe enough to engage in creative digestion, please reach out to someone who can help. Whatever you are going through, chances are that someone else has gone through it-- and perhaps they have used their suffering as fuel to create beautiful resources that address the problem!
Consultation with us, and with many counselors around the world, is always free for the first session, and counselors in your area will know of multiple other resources that can get your journey started. Transformation begins the moment you request help.
Creativity is your birthright!
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
1) Settle into a quiet, comfortable position and begin to focus on your breath. Use your attention to scan your body, noticing any areas that feel tense, where you are gripping or experiencing pain. Breathe into this part of your body and simply notice it for a while. Notice any colors, words, images, or thoughts that come up. Notice the temperature, texture, and weight of the sensation in this part of your body. When you have spent several minutes breathing and noticing, take a paper and some colored pencils or oil pastels and begin to draw a portrait of the sensation. This is only for you, so turn off any inclination to judge your work and simply create. Use line, pattern, color, and symbol to get this feeling in your body down on paper. Then look at what you’ve created and simply observe it. What messages does it have for you? What does it tell you about where this feeling comes from?
2) First thing in the morning, find a place where you can be completely alone and make it as dark as possible---closing any blinds and doors, perhaps throwing a blanket over any mirrors or reflective surfaces. The object is to feel totally unobserved. Put on a song that has meaning for you, sit on the floor, and close your eyes. As you listen to the music, simply breathe and let your body lead in any movements that it wishes to make. Keep your eyes closed, and allow any thoughts that come up to simply drift through. Let your body lead, and continue to check in with the body to see how it wants to move next. Again, try and refrain from any judging thoughts that might arise. This movement is just for you and is not about technique or attractiveness. It’s about metabolizing your experience in a way that feels good to your body. When the song ends, take a moment in whatever posture you have created and simply breathe, noticing what you are feeling and thinking. Thank yourself for this time before you leave the space.
Everything that happens to us offers us a choice: where will we go from here? I hope fervently that, wherever you are, whatever your story, you will be able to use your suffering as fuel to create something that is completely yours.
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If you’d like to experience the magic of creative digestion firsthand, I invite you to join Sweet Relief.
Sweet relief happens the moment you ask for the guidance and support you need to transform your life.
This group is co-led by an Expressive Arts Therapist and a Pleasure Coach. Expect to be amazed by the power that art, movement, poetry, and pleasure create within you. You will learn new skills in each session, along with home practices to speed up your healing and transformation. From this place of expansiveness and power, you will meet your blocks head-on. We will be with you every step of the way.
Together, we will create your plan for the life you want and teach you the skills you need to get there. And we will pamper you like crazy in the process with guest speakers, herbal delicacies, support, art, and laughter.
For more details or to register, follow the link here:
As always, I love to hear from you. Feel free to comment below or write to me directly at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.