encouragement

Preventing Burnout

December 20, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

We live in a burnout culture. How many people in your life talk about running out of energy, losing motivation, and being “out of gas”? This might even be your own situation as well. Burnout is a very real problem, and it can be serious. People lose job growth, relationship success, emotional health and physical wellness with burnout. Let’s look at some ways to nip burnout in the bud and to have a healthy balanced life.

Take a realistic look at how you are doing. Just ask yourself if you tend to have problems getting up in the morning, dragging in the day or having a positive attitude. If you are great in all of these, God bless you! But if you experience these, you could be at risk for early-stage burnout. So many of us have to almost be in ICU to do something about burnout, so respect these little signs before they become big signs.

Add the “vital” and prune back the “not vital.” And before you’re into burnout territory, get out that calendar and figure out what a 5 day week with nights off will look like (with a few exceptions that must be justified). Most of the time, that means adding rest, time with people who are gains and not drains, fun and meaningful activities. And to make time for that, then “not vital” activities need to be lessened, for example, too much time with the draining folks, social media, tv, and gaming. This creates a good balance in the schedule.

Take the attitude that “healthy selfish” is OK. It’s, unfortunately, true that no one is having a “protect you from burnout” meeting for your benefit right now. You have to own and value this. But healthy selfishness isn’t about being self-centered or narcissistic or not being concerned with others. It’s about understanding that you can’t have a full life, give to others and make a difference in the world for a long, long time if you don’t keep burnout at bay. So say “no” to demands on your time and energy that you just don’t have the bandwidth for. The right people will support you, and the wrong ones will just go away and make someone else feel guilty.

There’s something you can today about burnout, and this works! Best to you.

John Townsend, Ph.D.

Handling Anxiety When You Actually Don’t Want to Admit It!

November 29, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

OK, so we know from the research and statistics that all humans get scared and anxious sometimes. 100% of us. It’s a fact. Fear is just part of life (except for those who are in toxic massive denial, which is a recipe for life misery). Lots of us would rather pretend we are secure, confident and have it together. But at a deep level, we know that we do feel insecure and scared at times. So what do we do when we know we feel this, but we don’t want to know we feel this? Here are some solutions and tips for this:

Understand the disconnect.

There is a disconnect, or what are called incompatible realities. In the psychological world, we call this a “fear of the fear.” We are afraid of being afraid. But unfortunately, our brains crave reality. Reality, whether it is positive or negative, is good for our minds. So when we act like we are OK when we are scared, our brains go into overload: How do I function and make decisions, when a lot of my energy and bandwidth is being used to pretend I’m not anxious, when I actually am? That costs us a lot, and isn’t good for us.

Get to the “why.”

There is a reason you aren’t comfortable admitting you have anxiety in a situation. It can be about relationships, work, mistakes, challenges, your past or a number of things. But your “fear of fear” didn’t arrive in your head in a vacuum. Here are a few common “why’s”:

Shame: When we feel that our behavior or feelings will cause us to be embarrassed, or that people might think less of us, we are vulnerable to the fear of the fear and we hide it all.
Control: Fear and anxiety are, at their core, about not feeling in control. It might be that you have a relationship you can’t fix, or a job situation that’s out of your hands, or a health issue with no known solution.
Isolation: We are more afraid when we are alone. Humans are social beings. We feel safer in a tribe of a few good people, and more afraid and vulnerable when we are without that.

Take action.

Not doing anything will just increase the fear of the fear. But if you take a risk with a safe person and tell them that you are anxious about something, their warmth and compassion will reduce a large percentage of the feeling, and you will feel relief. Another great action step is to simply admit to yourself, and write down in a journal, that you had an anxious day. This is called normalization, and you won’t feel so strange. And finally, pick a few good friends who are comfortable saying when they become fearful and ask them how they do it. Healthy people aren’t afraid of being afraid.

It’s OK to say when you’re anxious. In fact, it’s just healthy.

John Townsend, Ph.D.

Overcoming Fear and Anxiety

November 9, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

There are three kinds of people in the world:

(1) those who have fear and anxiety and admit it;

(2) those who have fear and anxiety and don’t admit it

(3) those who truly don’t have fear and anxiety, but cause it in others!

And often, a (1) and a (2) will end up marrying a (3), but that’s another blog for another day.

So this blog is for the (1)’s. If you do struggle with anxiety and are courageous enough to admit it, you know how difficult it can be. Fearful thoughts popping in your head in the middle of the night, difficulty making decisions, second-guessing yourself, and then severe issues such as anxiety disorders and panic disorders can make life miserable. Here are some practical tips to help lessen and even resolve fear and anxiety.

Set the bar at “manageable anxiety” and not “zero anxiety.”

A life with zero fear and anxiety is not a healthy life. Would you want to be married to someone who doesn’t care enough about you to worry about your relationship, your health and how your job is going? Sometimes anxiety just means that you care about yourself or someone else.

See the value in some anxiety.

You need your anxiety. When you wake up on the morning of the first of the month, you need to be concerned that you pay your rent or mortgage. Your anxiety keeps you from saying, “I had a long day yesterday, I’ll call in sick and go to a matinee.” Fear can be your friend, at decent levels.

Get to the “why.”

Instead of trying to stop feeling anxious, move toward the feeling and not away from it. Ask yourself why you are feeling it at this particular time. Often, when you understand the root, you are halfway to getting it resolved. For example, you are anxious about keeping your job because your boss told you that your performance was lacking. However, if it’s a long-term job and you have a good history, and your boss said nothing more than that, that anxiety is probably irrational. So why would you have that fear? For many people, it’s because they aren’t able to feel secure about their talents, their competencies and their value in the workplace. So when there is a glitch like a negative performance review, they forget who they are and what they can do. If that is the “why”, you will feel some relief almost immediately.

Never, never, never suck it up and isolate. Fear is like a cyst. It metastasizes in the darkness, and it shrinks in the laser beam. Use the laser beam of the right people in your life to tell them your fears. Let them be “People Fuel” for you, and that will calm you down.

Manageable fear doesn’t get in the way of a great life. Keep the balance.

John Townsend, Ph.D.

Funerals Are Important – Here’s Why

October 19, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

Recently, our family was involved in the memorial services for Bobbi Braff, who was my wife Barbi’s mom. The funeral and reception were a very sad and yet a meaningful time, made more poignant by the fact that I also lost both of my parents last year.

With Barbi’s dad having passed on many years ago, she and I have now become the older generation for our family. We are starting to figure out how that plays out for us, and for those we love.

Having these recent firsthand experiences with deaths, I have learned a few things that have helped us a great deal, about not only the grief process but specifically the tradition of funerals. I hope they help when you are faced with these situations, too.

Funerals provide a structure for an ending.

Our brains don’t naturally gravitate toward losses of any kind, especially the death of someone we care about. Losses are painful and negative. So, we tend to avoid thinking about them or feeling what we need to feel. We would instead engage in something more positive. But neuroscience research shows us that when we don’t say a real goodbye, both intellectually and especially emotionally with our tears, it’s not good for us.

People who disengage from loss and avoid funerals often find that they don’t have closure with the relationship. They usually have trigger reactions down the line to something that reminds them of that person. They might also have conflicts with people who remind them of that person and struggle with energy, concentration, and mood issues. The clinical term for this is delayed bereavement. Funerals are an organized way to help you get through the loss and avoid delayed bereavement.

Funerals bring people together in a new way.

A memorial service combines friends, family, and colleagues to honor the person who is gone. It is meant to be a source of healthy and supportive relationships to support each others’ loss. More often than not, the service also reconnects people who haven’t been in touch for some time and renews the friendship. We had so many meaningful, sad, and funny conversations with so many people during Bobbi’s reception afterward. We are thankful that her passing brought so many of us together.

Funerals mix the sadness and the joy.

Grief requires that we honor and respect the good that the person brought to the world. But we are also to express how much we miss them. You need both emotions to get through the grieving process fully.

Stay away from the thinking, “We’re not having a funeral or a memorial service. It’s going to be a celebration service.” That is undoubtedly part of the purpose, but it prohibits people from feeling OK about saying authentically that they are sad and miss someone they care about deeply. Then they have nowhere to go with these emotions. So keep both elements in place whenever possible. It’s okay to celebrate and mourn at the same time!

Funerals are something we can do.

People feel helpless when there is a death, especially if that loss is unexpected. You can’t bring the person back. You can’t fix it or undo it, and helplessness is not a pleasant feeling. But you can attend a funeral, and go through the memories, songs, anecdotes by the family, video presentations, and prayers. You can go to the reception and reconnect. You can serve the family members, either by comforting them or by just saying “How are you doing?” or talking about sports if that is what they need for that time. But having something to do helps us all.

Funerals are not entertainment. But they are good, important, and necessary. You will be better off in engaging, whether it’s to help someone, or when you have lost someone yourself.

School Shootings: How You Can Think and Act About Them

July 13, 2018 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

Some of the most heartbreaking and disturbing feelings you can experience are in the aftermath of the tragedy of a school shooting.

It is something we were not designed to handle, as the depth of the loss is intense. The feelings we have tend to be a combination of horror, sadness, anger and being overwhelmed.

We are horrified by knowing kids, our most vulnerable population, are being killed. Our sadness is a reflection of our compassion for these children and their families, in which life has been marked forever. Anger comes against the murderer, creating a desire for justice. And the overwhelmed part is because there is so much division in our country about what can solve this.

There are some ways to think about this controversial issue, and some things we can do, that will help. Here are some tips:

Get clear.

Neuroscience teaches us that our minds do not do well in an overwhelmed state. When we see a video of a shooting and then feel the emotions I described, our brains go into the amygdala mode, which is our reactive, fight-or-flight mode. The strength of these strong and conflicting emotions can, over time, keep us upset, feeling paralyzed, and not being able to let this go and deal with our normal lives.

This is no solution for how to solve the issue, nor is it one what is good for your personal life either. So get clear: make sure you are talking to safe people in your life who can really hear how much emotion you feel. You don’t want to be alone with those feelings.

Also, study the issue, don’t ignore it. Ignorance adds to the confusion, and information clarifies. Figure out which of the experts and solutions make sense to you. Take a stance, even though it isn’t perfect. You will simplify your mind’s clarity and be able to handle what you think about the situation.

Think in terms of balance.

We need to deal with the symptom of the problem, which is that, in the current environment, our schools need systems for protection and security. And we need to deal with the causes as well. There are several causes that are being investigated, with mental illness, gun control, and criminal behavior being some of the most discussed ones.

An approach that only addresses the symptoms is bound to ultimately fail, as is the cause-focused approach as well. If a doctor has a patient with a raging fever, she will certainly give him something for his discomfort, but she will also examine him for a bacterial, viral, or other cause, to solve the underlying problem.

Don’t be the hand-wringer. Be a solver.

Unfortunately, we tend to move into “it’s all going to hell in a handbasket” conversations when we see the horror and devastation of these school shooting tragedies. We certainly all need time and conversations to process this, in order to digest the data in our brains.

But, once you have done that, stay away from those conversations that don’t go anywhere after a while, except into helplessness and bitterness. They aren’t good for you or the schools.

I was at a dinner of friends recently where a few people got into the topic, and it was going nowhere except into more unproductive, helpless and angry feelings. Then, one of the people in the group said, “We’ve talked about this a lot, and it’s important. Can we either come up with our ideas for solutions or change the subject?” The result was that several people had some good ideas, and it became a more helpful conversation.

Our kids and our schools deserve the most thoughtful solutions possible. We need to all look for answers.

3 Ways to Keep Anxiety From Taking Control of Your Life

June 26, 2018 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

Everyone feels anxious every now and again. Anxiety is just a fact of life and a perfectly normal emotion. Unfortunately, though, certain life events can lead us to feel a little more than just normal anxiety. These events might include your children getting married and starting families, the death of a loved one, job loss or transition.

All of these life events can cause an overwhelming sense of dread, which is not a healthy way to go through life.

What Does Anxiety Feel Like?

Anxiety, as an emotion, can stem from anything that is stressful or disconcerting. These days, some people experience this emotion simply by watching the news for a few minutes!

So, what happens when you experience anxiety physically?

First, you enter a heightened state of consciousness. You’re more alert.
Second, you feel some kind of fear about the future or the situation. There’s a dread, like something bad is coming.
Third, you have a fear and must be ready for action. That’s where the body gets involved. Your heart beats faster and you’re breathing faster because you’re preparing to get out of danger. Think of it like the “fight or flight” methodology.

Before I talk about the right way to approach feelings of anxiety, I want to first tell you about a few wrong ways approaches to anxiety.

Don’t ignore your anxiety! Despite what you may think, “I gotta just push through” mentality is not healthy. It’s a really bad idea to ignore your anxiety because the emotion is trying to tell you something. Ignoring anxiety can potentially lead to bad decisions, poor choices, and even health problems.

Similarly, stop shaming yourself about anxiety. Don’t make yourself feel bad for experiencing this very normal emotion. Don’t shame yourself and say, “I shouldn’t be feeling like this, I’m being a wimp, I’m being a kid.” No more shaming! Your anxiety is a valid emotion!

3 Healthy Ways to Overcome Anxiety

So far, we’ve agreed to stop ignoring and shaming our anxiety. Now, let me share some healthy ways to deal with anxiety.

Be in a relationship. This can be any relationship with someone who knows you deal with anxiety. Find three or four friends who you can reach out to and say, “From time to time, I deal with anxiety and I need to know I can call you and just say, ‘Can we talk, can you kind of get me off the ledge?'” This must be a relationship where you can comfortably express your feelings. Part of this relationship will require them to give you advice or guidance like, “Why don’t you go jog or go pray?” or something like that. Whatever they suggest should help get your emotions out of the cycle of anxiety by suggesting other activities.
Give yourself a pep talk. I am a huge advocate of taking a moment and reciting the Serenity Prayer to yourself. Say to yourself, “God help me to know the difference between the things I can change, and can’t change, and wisdom to know the difference.” This may seem like a small thing, but it can help change your mindset and start moving forward out of your anxious emotion.
See a therapist. If your anxiety reaches a point where it becomes unmanageable, including impacting your work or home life, it’s time to seek professional help. They can help you sort through what’s going on and what’s driving your anxiety. You can also consider seeing a psychiatrist for medication.

Hard times and anxiety come and go. When you start to feel those anxious emotions, it’s very important to take steps to overcome anxiety before it gets the best of you and disrupts your life in a way that can’t be fixed. I believe you have the faith, hope, and love to overcome anxiety and any other challenge you’re facing.