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Recent Breakup? First Aid for Your Heart

October 15, 2018 by Robert Hammel, Registered Psychologist 6 Comments

We’ve all gone through a tough relationship breakup at some point or another, and many of us have gone through a divorce. Most of the time, they just aren’t an easy thing to go through. They’re painful and they hurt. We may feel rejected and broken, or we may feel terrible about having hurt someone we truly care about but just can’t be with. They can shake us to our very foundations.

Unfortunately, some people are much more affected than others by a breakup. Human brains are wired by evolution to “see” an intimate relationships as super important. They are our primary human mammal method for “mating” and procreating. We are hard-wired to value our intimate relationships and make them a priority. If they end, especially unexpectedly, we’re left reeling with a void in our lives and our minds.

Love and Addiction

Evolutionary Psychology and FMRI Brain Research even shows that being in love is really very much like having an addiction. When we’re in love the same brain circuitry is activated (and lights up on an FMRI!) as when we use cocaine! We actually get addicted to love, to being with our partner — and when they leave — it leaves us much like an addict without their drug. We actually go through love withdrawals! This also may explain why some people lose their appetites, lose large amounts of weight, get physically ill, feel exhausted and even develop anxiety disorders or clinical depression from a relationship loss.

Some people end up suffering a great deal after a breakup. A sudden or unexpected divorce or a high conflict breakup can even end up giving a person symptoms that are much like what happens after a trauma. People who experience a traumatic event in their lives will quite often react with feelings of shock, anger, nervousness, fear, grief, sadness and even guilt/shame. For most people, these common reactions will go away over time, but for someone experiencing severe post breakup distress, the feelings and negative emotions can continue to be present and maybe even escalate until the person has difficulty living their normal life.

The Symptoms of Breakup Distress

The symptoms of break up distress are many. Feeling like you’ve been kicked in the stomach and you can’t catch your breath, or feeling like you’ve been knocked down and can’t get up. There can be feelings of being rejected. Feelings of self doubt and shame are common. You may feel like you’re not good enough or feel less than others, or that maybe something is wrong with you. We may feel stuck and unable to let go or move on. We may have high feelings of arousal, an over awareness of our thoughts, emotions and even bodily sensations. There may be high anxiety levels, insomnia, a cognitive fog/trouble focusing and maybe even feeling hyper-vigilant (a feeling of being always on guard). This can also be feeling like you’re continuously stressed and edgy and every little thing gets to you.

People going through a breakup or divorce may remove themselves from the people or situations that are similar in some way to the traumatic break up event. People often feel or become detached from their loved ones and lose interest in their previous interests and passions. They may also avoid social situations or other stressful things.

People who have recently been rejected may also develop develop an obsessive anxiety kind of thinking. They may ruminate endlessly (think about over and over again) about their ex, about how badly and empty they are feeling, and how much they’ve lost and how will they ever go on?!?!

It’s also really hard because when we go through a break up, we’re left in a place where our entire future has now changed. We have to picture ourselves single and without the supportive person who has been super important and a daily constant in our life. This can bring up lots of fear and anxiety thoughts. We can feel like we have to make up a whole new life!

Triggers

These thoughts and feelings of loss may be triggered by places you used to go to with your ex, people you used to hang out together with, weekends and holidays can be particularly hard, and even simple everyday rituals that you shared can create emotional pain. If your ex is the person who made coffee every morning, making coffee for yourself is a constant reminder of your loss every morning! Experiencing a hard breakup is really quite a bit like dealing with any other kind of life trauma. You try to get on with life, you try to avoid the negative thoughts that cause you emotional pain and really try to find ways to keep yourself busy. And then sometimes you’ll also feel like you’re flooded by intense, sad, painful thoughts and memories and feelings. You may even find yourself in fearful or anxious obsessive feelings and thoughts. It can be a real emotional roller coaster!

Is it Affecting Your Life? A Lot?

In extreme situations some people may even feel like they are reliving/feeling the traumatic experience over and over again in their minds. This may include nightmares or flashbacks of the break up. This might also be constant unwanted thinking about the details of the breakup, sometimes even in an obsessive way. It can be like having unwanted feelings and thoughts in our head that just keep spinning and looping without any relief.

If you feel like you’re experiencing a number of these kinds of these symptoms or they are very severe and really affecting your life; or if you’re experiencing super high anxiety, obsessive thoughts, or you’re feeling really down and depressed — if you’re really suffering? First of all, I’m sorry that’s happening to you, secondly, it may be really important and helpful to speak to a mental health professional like a psychologist to help you process this experience and be able to get through this crappy painful experience as best you can.

Extreme reactions to a breakup are probably more common than we think, but really splitting up sucks for everyone. It’s probably on a continuum like most other human things; some people have a little grief and trauma and some people have a lot.

Regardless of where you are, let’s take a look at some ways to start taking your life back and begin feeling better, even if its only a little bit to start.

Allow Yourself The Time for Grief/Sadness

It’s totally okay to be sad, to feel down. It’s okay and maybe even a good idea to grieve the loss and feel all the feelings you’re feeling. If you’re in a safe place, (so probably not at your desk at work or on the bus) go ahead and allow yourself to feel the waves of sadness and loss you’re feeling. Cry or scream into a pillow if you have to. The important thing is to go ahead and feel the feelings. Again, if this is happening 2 weeks after the breakup, go with it, if it’s still happening and not improving one or two months down the road? Maybe see a professional for some help in your healing journey.

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light. ~Brené Brown

Go “No Contact” If You Have To

You might have a huge urge to call or text your ex. Of course you do, they were a big part of your life and now they are aren’t. You’re used to having them around. If the relationship is truly over and it’s painful to speak or be in contact with them, its perfectly okay to politely end contact with them for your own sense of well being and peace of mind.
Even though in today’s society it’s the trend to stay friends with all of your exes, you simply don’t have to if you don’t want to! It’s okay to do what’s right for you.

A really bad, old joke goes:

Patient lifts their arm and says:

“Hi Doctor, it hurts when I do this”.

The Doctor pauses, and says:

“Well then… don’t do that”.

It’s okay to cut ties with someone if they make you feel really badly and cause you to hurt.

Especially in today’s social media world, it may be best to cut back, unfollow or even block your ex if it’s too painful to watch them moving on. It hurts to watch someone moving on without us and especially since social media only shows the absolute best cherry-picked pics and moments of their life. If it’s too much and it hurts? Turn it off or surf somewhere else.

Don’t Date or Marry the Next Person You Trip Over

Some people jump right into new relationships right away after a breakup. They jump in without looking and without a life preserver. And hey, it’s an ego boost to have someone interested in you right away, it can be a rush that may even make you feel better temporarily. But unfortunately, if you’re really emotional and grieving, you really can’t be present and able to invest energy into a new person and relationship. You really do a disservice to the other person and to yourself if you jump in before you’re ready to swim. Rebound relationships probably have a bad reputation for a good reason.

Avoid the Bad Ways to Feel Good

Step away from the chocolate covered potato chips! Although things like junk food, alcohol, drugs or even sex with a stranger after the club can all make us feel better; it’s almost always just a temporary “feel better” and there is usually always a downside to the bad ways to feel good. There is always the risk of STD’s, hurting our health, gaining weight or the the risk of developing addictions. The reality is that many people develop addictions during a rough period in their lives. Instead, find healthy practices like physical exercise, or mindfulness meditation.

Take the Time For Gratitude & Mindfulness Practice

Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.

~ Kahlil Gibran

Feel gratitude for what you do have in your life; maybe it’s your house, or your your kids, or your job, or your friends and family, or even for your warm and cozy new sweater on a cold fall day. Making a gratitude list regularly can help with improving our mood and mental health and helps us get perspective on what’s truly important. 60 Things to Be Grateful For In Life

Make the time for mindful self awareness, start to believe that your feelings are just feelings, they are not who you are. Step back and observe them rather than getting stuck in them. Here are is a great article on using mindfulness to help you through a breakup. How to Have a Mindful Breakup—the Buddhist Way.

Validate Yourself! Get Involved With Life!

Do things that make you feel good about yourself. Volunteer, take a class, start a new hobby, play a new team sport, start working out again. Be creative and finish the painting that’s been collecting dust, write a short story, take up woodwork or knitting. Whatever it is, find things that make you feel good, activities that have goals you can accomplish and feel good about yourself.

The point is get involved with your life Even if you just go for a long drive or a long walk, get out of the house. Maybe sit in your local coffee shop and people watch or read a book. Find some music you like, and enjoy it, if it makes you feel better. But if you constantly end up listening to country breakup songs when you’d rather be feeling better? Stop it! Step away from the country!

Be Kind to Yourself

Cut yourself some slack, breakups happen to everyone. It’s not because you’re flawed or not good enough! It wasn’t “all your fault”. You were only 100% responsible for your 50% of the relationship — not all of it! Breakups can cause us to have lots of negative feelings and emotions and sometimes the anxiety, anger and pain can be turned inwards on our self. Instead, try to be kinder to yourself and treat yourself with some compassion.

But this is all really part of being a flawed human — we all make mistakes with others and we may not always act in the best ways we could. But to put it frankly? We can’t change it! The past is the past and we can only learn from it. You did the best you could with what you had at the time!

You can have compassion for yourself-which is not self-pity. You’re simply recognizing that ‘this is tough, this hurts,’ and bringing the same warmhearted wish for suffering to lessen or end that you would bring to any dear friend grappling with the same pain, upset, or challenges as you. ~Rick Hanson

Science Is On Your Side

Epidemiology researcher Dr. Brian Boutwell, from Saint Louis University, analyzed numerous studies about breakups and love from an evolutionary psychology perspective. According to Dr. Boutwell,

Our review of the literature suggests we have a mechanism in our brains designed by natural selection to pull us through a very tumultuous time in our lives…it suggests people will recover; the pain will go away with time.

So there is actually a mechanism in our brain that pushes us to heal and get better! A mechanism that helps us move forward and get on with our lives! So even your brain is pulling for your to get through this!

Get Support

Find some ways to feel supported. Friends, family, spiritual involvement in your church, temple, mosque, ashram or other spiritual place. Maybe find a support group or make an appointment with a psychologist to get some support. Get some hugs! Getting hugged by someone who cares about us can really be a salve that helps us heal. Don’t isolate yourself! Don’t be afraid to reach out to your family and friends for help and support and maybe even a hug.

And finally here’s another blog with some more ideas on how to start to feel better: Start the Healing After an Emotional Trauma

Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck – Dalai Lama

This blog is not intended as medical advice, treatment or diagnosis and should in no way replace consultation with a mental health or medical professional.

References

Boutwell, Brian B.; Barnes, J. C.; & Beaver, Kevin M. When love dies: Further elucidating the existence of a mate ejection module. Review of General Psychology, Vol 19(1), Mar 2015, 30-38 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000022

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Filed Under: Divorce, General, Relationships, Trauma

Why Don’t People With Depression Just Get Over It?

March 12, 2018 by Robert Hammel, Registered Psychologist Leave a Comment

When we consider depression in our society, a lot of people seem to overlook that it is is really and truly an illness that is a lot more complicated than just a temporary bad feeling, it’s really an illness or disease that often requires proper and ongoing medical or psychological treatment.

If you’re someone who’s depressed, it can be incredibly disheartening and frustrating to continuously hear things like:

“Why can’t you just get over it?”

“Just cheer up already”

“Can’t you just smile more?”

“Maybe you just need to be stronger and tougher?”

“It’s just life. Learn to deal with it”

“You can choose to be happy if you really want to”

Here’s a great article on some better things to say:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-shrink/201507/6-things-you-can-say-support-someone-whos-depressed

Sometimes people really seem to have the view that being depressed is really just about making a bad personal choice — that people suffering from the illness, really just choose to be sad and “down”. You might feel and think things to yourself like:

“Why me?”

“Why am I the only one?”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Why does only my life suck?”

“Why can’t I… just get over it?”

Why is everyone else so happy?

But for many people, when it comes to the illness of depression, it’s just very, very difficult, if not impossible, to just stop being depressed; to just paste on a happy smile and feel better.

But why can’t people with depression just “get over it?” Interesting enough, some people actually do — some people can take the bull by the horns and tackle their depression, often with the help of medication, therapy, or physical exercise. But for many people, and especially those with more severe depression, it’s really just not that easy.

So let’s look at a number of important reasons why people just don’t “get over” depression:

It’s a tangible & substantial physical illness

Depression isn’t just in the sufferers head! Make no mistake, depression is an illness, one that a person often has very little control over, just like any other illness. Nobody tells people with diabetes or cancer or broken bones to just get over it and get better already! So why should people with depression feel pressured by confused helpers to ‘just get over’ their illness? Unfortunately, misguided friends and families often do not realize that the illness is a real, substantial physical “thing”. Really, one of the best ways to help someone suffering is to first really and truly educate themselves about the disease! If people with depression feel understood and supported by their loved ones, it can often truly help their healing.

Here are some great links to educate yourself and family members about depression:

1. CMHA Depression 2. NIMH: Depression 3. themighty.com/depression/

In fact, people uneducated about mental health often think that depression is just about feeling sad or bad or about having a few negative thoughts — but for many people, depression presents as having many distinct symptoms that actually affect their physical bodies.

In fact, physical symptoms are thought to occur in about 50 to 90% of depressed patients!

The physical symptoms of depression can include:

chronic joint and limb pain
headaches and neck pain
back pain
gastrointestinal problems (diarrhoea, upset, nausea, cramps, etc.)
tiredness, exhaustion/severe fatigue
significant sleep disturbances (either too much or too little)
psychomotor activity changes (slowed speech, thinking, responding and body movements)
degrees of physical agitation and restlessness
significant appetite and weight changes

Many people ask, how can there be physical symptoms if depression is something that supposedly takes place in our brains?

The best answer is that depression is a disease that takes place in our brains, of course, with distorted thinking and strong negative emotional feelings — but it is also located in other body systems as well. Depression is really a very complicated disorder that involves physical (genetic/biological), environmental, social and psychological components. Without a doubt, it’s really much more complicated than just feeling the blues!

The reality is that it is a disease that is both mental AND physical in nature, a real and substantial medical disorder — it’s not just about feeling sad — and the existence and prevalence of the physical symptoms really prove this to be true.

Here’s a link to more information about the physical symptoms of depression: https://roberthammel.com/physical-depression/

Depression really and truly feels like it’s out of the sufferer’s control

People experiencing depression often describe it as struggling with an “unconscious” emotional process that is happening “to them” and feels largely outside of their control. Remember that depression is an especially complex disease involving a combination of biological/genetic, psychological and social factors. People with depression really feel like their symptoms are out of their control and there is very little they can do about it. Feeling desperately hopeless and helpless are truly two of the most difficult symptoms of having depression. Is it truly out of their control though? The answer is possibly and maybe. Often the hardest part of helping yourself with depression is making and attending that first therapy appointment or starting an exercise program or starting that self-help book. Although many may feel their depression is totally out of their control, many people also feel they do have some degree of control and by doing things like proper self-care and going to therapy they can actually gain some purchase over their disease. Going to therapy may not always cure the disease, but it can almost always help lessen the suffering.

For some sufferers, the symptoms can be truly debilitating

As mentioned earlier people with depression display both physical and mental/emotional symptoms. For some people with more severe depression, their particular combination of symptoms can really pack a punch!

Imagine a scenario where:

you feel extremely hopeless and helpless
you feel sad and lonely most of the day
you don’t feel that you’re good enough
you can’t sleep more than 4 or 5 hours a night
you have strong out of control feelings of worry and anxiety
you have regular nausea or even diarrhoea
you have frequent headaches and lower back pain

How easy would it be to get through your workday with that long list of symptoms tormenting you? For some people, depression can be legitimately debilitating. This is the reason that insurance companies follow the medical science, recognize depression as a legitimate disorder and will allow a medical leave from work. The reality is that for many people depression is a significant life-changing experience.

You can’t just choose to make it stop

Nobody likes feeling depressed for weeks or months on end. But just because you want to feel better doesn’t mean you can just flip a switch in your brain and feel better. Depression is really an insidious and enduring illness. You can want to feel better all you want, but until the illness has run its course, or you have the energy to make an effort to explore appropriate self-help strategies; improve your self-care; or even start to work with a therapist — there is no really any fast or magical route to getting better. Maybe the most important thing, though, is to start doing the small things to take care of yourself which are then often the first steps to start feeling better. In my many years of private practice with people with depression is that those who manage their depression better are the people who can start to be even a little proactive. The people who can “dig deep” and try, even a little, are often the ones who can lessen their symptoms or even conquer their depression sooner. In fact, every time we work on managing our depression, we can help ourselves build a sense of resiliency that will help us the next time depression rears its ugly head.

You can only “pretend to be okay” so much

People always seem to expect depressed people to just paste a huge, happy smile on their face and pretend like everything is perfectly okay and peachy. They’re told you should just fake it to make it!

A great idea in theory, but when it comes to being depressed, you just can’t pretend that your strong negative emotions and feelings don’t exist. Unfortunately, the depressed mind often just keeps replaying the same negative thoughts and emotions like a repeating film reel being viewed over and over again.

In a way, the depressed brain can be seen as being “miswired” and because of this miswiring, it can get stuck in a loop of bringing up our sad and negative emotions, reminding us of our past errors/mistakes and constantly thinking about and worrying about our future. Because of this miswiring problem, you can get stuck in repeating cycles of self-loathing, fearfulness, worry and despair that can really interfere with your ability to experience your life in meaningful and fulfilling ways.

In fact, there is actually some research that has found that if a person who is depressed actively suppresses the negative thoughts, they may paradoxically make those negative thoughts even stronger and more likely to reoccur! Sometimes sufferers experience whats called rumination, where they have negative and obsessive thoughts that repeat over and over again in a loop and they can’t just push those thoughts and feelings away. If they try to push them away it can actually make them feel worse! Depression of this kind pushes out any feelings of contentment and joy in life. It’s really hard to pretend everything is fine when your miswired brain is telling you over and over and over again, in no uncertain terms, that things are the diametric opposite of okay! So really, a depressed person can’t just push away those negative thoughts, as their brain deeply believes that is their current reality!

Like any other illness, it can vary by person

Like we’ve discussed above, because the illness is just so very complicated, people often experience it in different ways and exhibit different combinations of the symptoms. Just because one certain person can go about most of their daily activities with depression, does not mean that everyone with depression can. We simply can’t judge all people as the being the same! Some people are mildly affected, while some are affected a great deal and are debilitated to the point of not being able to leave their home or even their bed!

Some people feel that depression is only just a bout with the blues — but the reality is that depression is a substantial, tangible, physical illness that can be very severe and even incapacitating for some people. Regardless of how you’re affected though, accessing therapy can probably be a great start to help you or a family member deal with whatever form your depression takes.

This blog is not intended as medical advice, treatment or diagnosis and should in no way replace consultation with a mental health or medical professional.

References

Wenzlaff, R.M. & Luxton, D.D. The Role of Thought Suppression in Depressive Rumination Cognitive Therapy and Research (2003) 27: 293. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023966400540

Filed Under: Anxiety/Depression, Depression, Trauma, Uncategorized

7 Important Steps to Liking Yourself

February 20, 2018 by RBRTHMMEL376 4 Comments

So, what is self-esteem?

Here’s an interesting question we seldom ask ourselves:

Do you actually like yourself?

Take a few seconds to think about it. When asked this question, most people either don’t know how to respond or they respond with a pat, canned answer like, “Like myself? Of course, I like myself”, or they maybe even react defensively and say, “What kind of a dumb question is that?!?”

Regardless, if you ask enough people (which I have actually done in my therapy practice), you will quickly discover that people who haven’t thought about this question much, either have a high sense of natural self-esteem or they are on the opposite end of the spectrum, and they don’t seem to like themselves all that much.

Are you someone who’s truly happy in their own skin? Are you happy with your appearance, how much money you make, your education or job, your intelligence, your abilities, or the past life decisions you’ve made; or are you continually comparing yourself to other people, really wishing you could be more like them and less like yourself? Does it feel like everyone else is smarter, richer, better looking, more educated? When you look in the mirror, who do you see looking back? Do you see someone you like or someone who just doesn’t quite live up to your own high expectations?

Our own judgment of our self-worth, or in other words, our self-esteem, is largely based on how we feel about ourselves, right now at this moment and secondly, how we see and judge ourselves through looking back at our past.

What exactly is self-esteem? Self-esteem is about how we value ourselves; how we perceive our value in the world and how we perceive how valuable we think we are to others. Self-esteem affects our confidence, motivation and resilience and our ability to trust in others. It affects our relationships, our abilities and skills at work — really every part of our lives. Self-esteem gives us the inner strength and adaptability to take measured gambles in our lives and drive forward through difficult circumstances. Self-esteem gives us the super useful ability to make blunders and mistakes, yet still be able to forgive ourselves and actually grow from those mistakes into fuller, stronger more resilient people.

What about low self-esteem? Low self-esteem can be both a socially and emotionally troubling condition that keeps many people from living their lives fully or from realizing their full potential. A person with low self-esteem can feel unworthy, shameful, inadequate, and incompetent.

Often because the person with low self-esteem feels so poorly about themselves, it becomes a vicious cycle where their thoughts and feelings of low self-esteem may actually be part of what’s maintaining the person’s continued low self-esteem.

In other words, low self-esteem can become a viciously self-perpetuating habit of thinking.

So, self-esteem is actually quite crucial to us if we want to “feel good”, in fact, for many people experiencing anxiety, depression and other mental illness low self-esteem is often both a symptom and a cause.

If you’re someone who is overly critical of yourself and you feel down about who you are as a person, here are 7 ways you can start to learn to like yourself better:

1. Accomplishments, Successes and Achievements

Sometimes we focus really hard on everything that might be wrong with us, rather than on what’s right. When you’ve done something well, it’s important that you acknowledge this victory, no matter how small it is and maybe even relish it?

It doesn’t have to be something super huge, either. It could even be that you make a really delicious gourmet meal or that you’re a really good friend. It can be that you’re really making an effort to be physically fit or even that you’ve finally started reading The Complete Works of Shakespeare, or maybe even just reading your first book in a long time. Allow yourself the pleasure of enjoying every little thing you do right rather than focusing on what you do wrong. Change your perspective about yourself and really make an effort to look for all the good things about you! Look accurately at yourself and the long list of achievements you’ve already made in your life — learn how to feel good about who you are and what you’ve done.

2. Really, Who’s Perfect?

If you’ve been relentlessly comparing yourself to other people all your life, it’s time for you to stop this terrible habit and realize that no one, absolutely no one is perfect. Not the talking heads on breakfast TV, not the models you see online or on the cover of magazines, nor all the actors you see on Netflix. They all have on-call makeup artists and even plastic surgeons — not to mention the magic of photoshop and their powerful marketing teams promoting their “brand”.

Intellectually, there’s always, always, someone smarter than you. Or financially, always someone that makes more money or has a bigger house. Comparing ourselves to others is truly folly. No one is perfect, no one.

3. Looking at Values

Maybe it’s really and truly okay to just be an average person? Maybe it’s actually okay to work an average job, live in a small, rented place and drive a 5-year-old fuel-efficient Hyundai? Maybe instead of buying into the idea that we can purchase the right clothes, car, cookware, home and lifestyle that will make us “fit in” — we should maybe instead decide to pride ourselves on being a truly good person, honest, compassionate and caring? Rather than comparing ourselves to others and their bank accounts and achievements, we should instead really look to our own deepest held values? Perhaps holding the values of kindness, caring and compassion for others will actually help us build our self-esteem from the inside out!

4. Creating Successes

One of the best ways to really increase our self-esteem is to really make an effort to fight our fears and anxieties and start creating more positive accomplishments in our life. Perhaps there are many things about yourself that you would like to change. Do you want to lose weight, work out and have a better body, maybe it’s about getting a university degree, or getting a better more fulfilling job?

Oftentimes we will resent ourselves for not reaching the highly impossible goals we have set for ourselves. If there are big goals you would like to reach, try to be realistic in setting the timelines and be patient with yourself. Break the goal down into smaller parts and really celebrate any achievement no matter how small it might seem. If the goal is to lose weight, start small and start tracking and reducing what you eat. And maybe going to the gym 5 days a week is too much and we should start with 2 or 3 times instead? If we want to pursue a uni degree maybe taking the first step is to contact a counsellor at a university and really explore how to start the process and then maybe start with just the first class? It all starts with goal setting and then practising how to be more determined!

Here’s a great link on how to set goals using the SMART Goals strategy:

http://hrweb.mit.edu/performance-development/goal-setting-developmental-planning/smart-goals

5. Use Affirmations

One great way to start growing our sense of self-esteem is to use affirmations to actually “reprogram our brain” to see ourselves differently. Low self-esteem is created over a lifetime of experience and letting go of those deeply established feelings and actions is not easy. It may take some time and effort, and for some people, it may even require professional therapy. But there a simple, positive thinking technique called affirmations can often effectively be used to help improve our self-esteem.

Using affirmations is a way to stop using our negative self-trash-talk and replace it with affirmations, which are encouraging simple messages we can give ourselves every day, in effect reprogramming our brain. These positive messages will eventually become part of our feelings and beliefs. We can also use positive messages to replace the negative ones.

For example, replace the message “I made a boneheaded mistake, and I am no good at this job,” with “Okay, I made a mistake but I will learn from it, and now I do can a better job.”

You can even begin each day by looking at yourself squarely in the eye in the mirror and giving yourself an affirmation or even a series of them. We can also keep them as a list in our pocket or on your phone and if we sense we’re feeling kind of down on ourselves, we can grab them and immediately fight back against the negative self-defeating thoughts we might be having. The following simple affirmations can help you to work towards better self-esteem:

• I am likeable

• I have lots of skills and abilities

• I can be strong, confident and able when I need to

• Mistakes are just a necessary prelude to achievement

• I am competent, smart and able

• I accept myself just as I am

• Life is what it is and a lot of it is pretty darn good

• I am growing and changing for the better

• My life is about me, not other people

6. See Yesterday with a Kinder Eye

Sometimes we may not like ourselves because of our past actions and behaviours. It’s super important though to maybe cut yourself some slack about long past history. Hindsight is always 20/20 and perhaps it’s not fair to judge our past based on what we know now. In your past, you may not have always acted kindly toward others. Perhaps you acted selfishly, maybe in defensive or even hostile ways more often than you really care to admit. But this is all really part of being human — we all make mistakes with others and we may not always act in the best ways we could. But to put it bluntly? We can’t change it! The past is the past and we can only learn from it. Repeat this message to yourself when you feel bad about the past:

You did the best you could with what you had at the time!

The best thing to do is to maybe actually embrace your past, even with all of our faults and mistakes. Look at your past without judgement, with the intention of learning from your actions and behaviours. No one is perfect and we’ve all made mistakes in some way shape or form.

7. Like Most of Yourself

Is it really reasonable to expect to like all 100% of yourself, all of the time? Probably not, because, we’re all human, we’re all flawed and we’re all imperfect. Let’s say that again. We’re all human, flawed and imperfect. So really, maybe its OK to only like 75 or 80% of ourselves on any particular day? You can still live a really good and maybe even great life when you think ‘only’ 80% of you is awesome. 80% is a pretty good place to be. It also gives us some room to improve and grow. Growing and changing and adapting is really the very nature of being human. Being imperfect gives us something to shoot for!

Having a good level of self-esteem is really super important to our overall well-being. Getting there can be difficult for some people though; especially if you’ve endured having low self-esteem for a long time, maybe even all of your life. Working with a therapist can really make the journey to self-improvement less bumpy. A therapist can help by listening, clarifying and strategizing with you to help improve your self-esteem and your life.

If you or a loved one is interested in exploring therapy to improve your self-esteem, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.

And here’s another blog with some quick tips to reduce self-doubt https://roberthammel.com/3-ways-to-overcome-self-doubt/

Filed Under: Addiction, Anxiety, Anxiety/Depression, Depression, General, Self-Esteem, Trauma

Start the Healing After an Emotional Trauma

February 20, 2018 by RBRTHMMEL376 1 Comment

We are never really prepared when something bad happens in our life. Really, most of us go through our lives in a kind of denial — believing that disasters, tragedies and misfortune really only happen to other people. Car crashes, physical and sexual assaults of all types and degrees, witnessing violence firsthand, are all obvious things that our society sees as a “trauma”.

But us humans can also be significantly emotionally affected by other kinds of negative things too, ones that we may not think of as trauma. A difficult long-term relationship ending, being verbally or emotionally abused or bullied, high levels of conflict with a spouse or child, losing a job or even a career, failing at or being “kicked out” of a school or college, becoming very physically ill or discovering that you have a chronic illness, or even being separated from or losing a loved one to death can all be seen as forms of trauma. When people do experience an emotionally overloading, distressing event it can affect them in many deep, emotional and even physical ways.

Initially, the trauma, regardless of the type, may cause the person to feel strong emotions of all kinds including fear, anxiety, sadness, or a sense of helplessness or weakness — or combinations of these strong emotions. Trauma results from experiencing an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds a person’s emotional ability to cope. What seriously affects one person may be water off a duck’s back to another. So really, it’s important not to judge others reaction to a traumatic event, as we really don’t know what its like to live in their skin.

Some people (probably many), experience what’s known as “Psychological Shock” or what doctors would call an “Acute Stress Reaction” after a trauma happens.

Psychological Shock/Acute Stress Reaction can emerge anywhere from immediately after, up to a month after the traumatic event happens. People will often feel high levels of anxiety and/or depression/sadness, and sometimes what are called “dissociative symptoms”, which is feeling very “numb” or “empty” or “disconnected” from their surroundings and a sense of being disconnected from their own self. People sometimes describe it as feeling like they are underwater and everything they take in is kind of muffled.

We may also feel like we can’t “think clearly” like we are experiencing a “brain fog”. Maybe that our memory isn’t working or that we feel that it’s all a “jumble” and we can’t sort through the complicated mess of our thoughts and emotions. We may also lose interest in the things in our life that we would normally be interested in. We may find ourselves bowing out of opportunities to go out or no longer be interested in our favourite TV show or reading.

Probably the reason for the dissociative and cognitive symptoms is that our mind is trying to protect itself from the perceived trauma-threat and effectively and affectively ‘disconnects” itself from the world to “calm itself” and get some relief. Think of it like a computer becoming overloaded and slowing down or even crashing.

Other symptoms may be physical, like a weak appetite for food and/or sex, insomnia, an upset stomach or loose stools, muscle tension or a sore neck/back or headaches or other aches and pains. Our body responds to trauma in many different ways that we may not even be aware of! Here is a great book that looks exactly at that issue: The Body Keeps the Score

Everyone deals with trauma in their own unique way. There is really no “right” or “wrong” way to respond to an emotionally overloading or terrifying event. Don’t let anyone, not even yourself, tell you that you should respond in a certain way or on a certain timeline. We all experience trauma and heal differently. Having said that, here are some initial steps you can take to start to heal and regain control of your life:

Be Gentle With and Don’t Judge Yourself Too Harshly

One of the things that may happen when we are suffering the after-effects of a trauma, regardless of the kind, is that we may be feeling overwhelmed with strong and painful emotions — sometimes when we’re feeling strong emotions like depression or worry or fear, we may look inside ourselves for the answer to our suffering and unfortunately some people are then actually overly critical of themselves and they may start to blame themselves for the trauma that happened:

“If only I hadn’t been there, done, that thing or acted in that way… the bad thing probably wouldn’t have happened”

Sometimes an emotional trauma will cause us to self-blame up the wazoo! Realize though, that bad things can happen to anyone and blaming ourselves really just tears us down even more emotionally and may make healing even harder! Even if we are partly responsible for the trauma, like perhaps we were driving a bit too carelessly and crashed, it still doesn’t help to put all the blame on ourselves — you have to tell yourself…. we’re all human and sometimes we make mistakes or bad decisions! Stopping the self-blame and trying to explore self-forgiveness are crucial to beginning the recovery and healing process.

Try to Accept That You Are Having Negative Feelings

You may be feeling super strong and overwhelming feelings of worry, shock, anger, sadness, panic or frustration. In the moment, you may feel that you must totally avoid all your strong emotions and hide! But, whether you accept or push them down, your feelings are real, and for now, at least recognizing that they are there is probably necessary for starting the healing process. Of course, you don’t have to explore them too deeply if it’s just too painful right now — but perhaps it’s a good start to just begin to recognize that we are having these strong emotional feelings for a reason. It’s important to realize that “they are what they are” and that maybe most importantly, they are telling us that we need to take care of ourselves better during this stressful time.

Although recognizing them for what they are is important, you probably also shouldn’t dwell on your negative emotions — if you find yourself deeply stuck in your negative emotions and you find yourself repeating negative thoughts over and over again in your mind, you may want to seek the help of a professional like a psychologist who can help you through sorting through your emotions and feelings at this difficult time.

Start to Challenge the Helplessness… Even a Little Bit

A traumatic event may cause you to feel quite hopeless, helpless and maybe even some days, emotionally out of control. To start recovering from the event though, it is super important that you try to start to challenge these feelings of helplessness on some level. You can do this by taking some kind of action. Being proactive – even in small ways – will help you start on the healing journey.

Start by doing something, anything — maybe start to see a therapist, go out for a bit with your friends, maybe concentrate on getting fresh air and exercise or make sure you are eating regularly with good food. Consider volunteering for a cause that’s important to you or if that’s too much… even on helping a friend or neighbour in your life that could use a hand. Doing these kinds of things will really help you feel stronger and more in control of your environment. The important thing is to challenge the helplessness on some level and start to re-engage with your life and the world around you.

Connect with Others

Often after a trauma, it is really common for people to feel like they want to withdraw from the people around them. They may also avoid social activities and prefer to “stay safe at home”. They may feel a need to isolate themselves and pull away from their friends and loved ones — right when it actually may be more important for them to try and keep connected.

Connecting with others is really essential for starting your recovery. Though you may not feel up to going to a huge gathering or a loud concert or a nightclub like you once did, perhaps a simple connection and dialogue with a close friend or relative. Science has even shown us that making human connections will actually trigger hormones that relieve symptoms of trauma, stress, anxiety and depression!

You don’t even have to talk about the traumatic event with your friends and loved ones — instead simply spending time with them can help you feel some sense of human connection and even provide a sense of “normalcy”. Of course though, if you feel like you need to talk about what happened and about your overwhelming feelings, it may be essential to reach out to those closest to you, those who love and support you — to be brave and ask for their support. You may also want to explore and see if there are trauma-related support groups near you, so you can be around others who know what you are going through and can provide support.

Professional Help

And lastly, and especially if you are feeling really overwhelming emotional symptoms that are really affecting your daily life — you may want to consider seeking help from a psychologist who is equipped to help and support people who have experienced a traumatic event. They can help you manage your emotions and provide you with the support and tools to get your life back on track. You don’t have to suffer from the painful after-effects of your trauma all alone.

This blog is not intended as medical advice, treatment or diagnosis and should in no way replace consultation with a mental health or medical professional.

Filed Under: Trauma