5 Tips for Times of Transition

by Abby Lombardo, LMFT

When I think about the last several months, weeks, days, one word comes to mind: flux. Everything is in flux: the season, the weather (hello heat wave!), my moods, the mandates, navigating spaces old and new. We are (and have been) in a time of transition. While change naturally happens as an ongoing process in our lives, there are some moments that significantly stand out as being marked by capital c Change. So is this time.

We are coming out of a pandemic, of lockdowns, of fear and death on a massive and personal scale. We are coming out of threat mode, unsafe mode. And depending on your expectations of what that means, it can look a lot different! And it will look a lot different for everyone. It’s important to remember there is no one way, no right way to come out of this season. We all must go through it in our own ways, guided by the decisions and values we each hold dear. With this said, I’ve put together a smattering of ideas to help you find your way through this time or any time of transition. This is part 1, with 5 tips for a time of transition. Part 2 coming soon. Take what you want, leave what you don’t.

1.      Grace

Sometimes the simplest yet most complicated act we can offer ourselves is some grace. We are experiencing a lot, something that only a few generations experience every so often throughout the course of recorded human history: a pandemic. This is new. Yes, it has been since last March… but you haven’t been here before, figuring out how to transition from pandemic to post-pandemic you, to a post-pandemic world. Ease up on yourself for having to get it right, do it the best, be the best version of yourself for everyone else, do all the (newly) socially acceptable things to do.

Grace can sound like:

Hey, I’m doing the best I can.

I don’t have answers right now, and that’s okay.

This is a lot.

These are tough decisions.

I am having a lot of feelings about this decision/etc.

I feel torn between what I want and what I need /or what I think I want or need.

This is hard.

This is new.

I don’t know how to navigate this.

Grace can look like:

Giving yourself a hug/asking for a hug.

Putting your hand on your chest/heart and saying one of the above statements.

A deep breath.

Letting go of what is not in your control.

Easing up on yourself regarding what is in your control.

Finding support in a friend/partner/person/therapist.

Letting your feelings just be.

Validating your feelings.

Doing a kind act towards yourself (i.e., self care).

2.      Moments of Stillness

The world keeps on turning, lives keep moving forward, everything is changing. Sometimes, a helpful thing to do is to purposefully stand still. Creating moments of stillness in times of change can be a way to re-ground, re-orient and find your center before plunging through the unknowns before you. In our fast-paced culture of productivity and “time as money”, moments of stillness are rare and counter-cultural. I encourage you to leave behind the all or nothing approach and seek just a few moments/minutes of stillness in this season of transition.

What moments of stillness could look like:

Drinking tea while looking out a window/being outside or by an open window/door.

Reading quietly.

Muting your phone/notifications for a limited amount of time per day to focus on 1 thing.

Mindfully cooking a meal.

Listening to a song with all of your attention.

Meditation

Sitting with or petting an animal.

Silence

Visualizations of a safe, quiet, enjoyable space/place.

Stillness of your body for only a few moments.

A deep breath or many deep breaths

A guided meditation/breathing practice

Gentle yoga

Doing a task you normally do, but slooooooowly.

Take a mindful walk around noticing things with your 5 senses.

Put your feet in sand/grass/dirt/on the earth.

The idea is that the moment of stillness can be figurative/symbolic or literal. Experiment with some ideas and see what resonates most for you. Finding a few rituals that allows you to re-ground, re-connect, and re-center can be so important in times when we are being pulled in all different and new directions.

3.      Basic Needs

In seasons of transition, it is easy to forget that we are humans: fragile, vulnerable humans in physical bodies that have very physical needs. Our minds and emotions can take us so far away from ourselves as we try to plan for the future, navigate unending challenges, or wade into the unknown. It is important to come back to the fact that we need sleep, food, water, and rest. (I purposefully separate sleep from rest because not all rest is sleep and sleep is not the only kind of rest we need.) Take a moment (or several) to see how you’ve been caring for yourself in terms of basic needs or even hygiene needs.

Sometimes these things feel very small and doable, we just forget to do them routinely throughout our day. Other times it feels like the most of gargantuan tasks, to care for ourselves. Wherever you’re at, you still have these needs. Drinking a glass of water can be a good start in a chain of other helpful behaviors that get you going in the direction you’d like to be headed towards during your day. Taking 5 seconds to stretch when you get up from your desk to go the bathroom can be a good start in the chain of helpful behaviors and rituals that reminds you to care for your body today.

The hardest part is often starting. Creating routines, rituals, and intentions is a great way to incorporate these needs into your day. Adding pleasure -- activities you enjoy or look forward to – in addition to these needs can be a good way to make it not feel like a burden or chore.

What caring for basic needs can look like:

Setting a sleep schedule with enough time to wind down and wake up.

Planning meals and chores for the week ahead of time.

Filling up a water bottle first thing in the morning.

Eating consistently throughout the day in a way that nourishes your body and gives you energy, focus, and enjoyment.

Checking in with yourself: What do I need right now?

Participating in a playful, relaxing, or pleasurable activity.

Stretching for 10 minutes at the beginning, middle, or end of day.

Taking a limited social media break to do something that is more actively caring for yourself.

Showering, brushing your teeth, washing your face, hydrating your skin/lips, etc.

Taking naps.

4.      Change your standard of success and expectations of yourself.

This is all new. You are changing. Everything is changing around you. When this is the case, we must choose to adapt. And that especially means we must choose to adapt our own expectations of ourselves. Change has a way of making us beginners again; it throws us right back into the awkward stage of figuring things out all over again. When things are shifting this much, you cannot hold yourself to a standard of when things were different. (I mean you can, but it will most often lead to a mismatch of reality, which usually adds on some more pain.) Because really, what’s happening when we hold ourselves to an old standard, we are not actually adapting to what the moment of change calls for, which is often lots and lots of flexibility and grace. Holding ourselves to rigid expectations is a surefire way to make enemies of ourselves in times of change. When we allow ourselves to lower the bar of our own expectations there is more room for celebrating the small accomplishments, giving ourselves a break, rest, etc. And these are the things that make transitions easier, not harder.

What changing your standards for yourself can look like:

Gentle, positive self talk: We did it, we made it through this day. / That was tiring, I’m going to allow myself to rest now. / Change is hard, I’m going to give myself some comfort now.

Letting go of some things on the to do list.

Focusing on 1-2 goal s or tasks per day vs. 20.

Taking breaks from hard things and then coming back to them.

Re-evaluating why you think/feel you “should” do something.

Ask yourself how you would respond if a friend were in the same situation as you with the same feelings.

Validate your feelings, just let them be. Let them be true and valid.

Stop comparing yourself to other people and what they are doing.

Celebrate the small things!

5.      Talk about it. Reach out!

We aren’t meant to do it alone all the time. Know when to ask for help. Know when to loop in a trusted person who can offer a listening ear, a sounding board, a comforting hug, or soothing words. Change is hard. When we go through change a large part of the process is re-orienting ourselves and making sense of what’s happening, sometimes again and again and again. This means, many of us need to hear ourselves out loud, talking about the same thing over and over and over again. Ever wonder why some people sound like a broken record after a breakup or a loss or a significant change happens in their life? It’s their brain’s way of trying to make sense of what just happened to them and their world. You might need this to! You might need a space to just hear yourself out. Friends, family, and therapy, along with safe online spaces can be great places to take up space and give yourself a chance to form your new narrative.

What reaching out can look like:

Asking a friend to listen without giving advice.

Asking someone if they are in a place where they can give you their full attention while you talk about something that is difficult for you to talk about.

Texting a friend.

Spending time with people who know you well.

Asking for hugs.

Letting others in on what you might be needing.

Being vulnerable and sharing how you’re truly feeling with others.

Asking for what you need directly.

Setting up regular get-togethers with different people in your social support network.

Reminding yourself you are not alone/don’t have to be alone.

Joining a therapy support groups with others experiencing similar struggles in transition: loss, grief, illness, COVID-19 support, depression, anxiety, etc.

Work with a therapist.

These lists of suggestions are not intended as more to-dos, more things to possibly fail at or not do for yourself. Instead, I encourage you to pick 1-2 items from the lists that speak to you that you are willing to experiment with and try out in your own life. Sometimes, less is more. Especially when we are already at full capacity in a shifting environment. Be intentional. Be kind. Be gentle. Be forgiving. And remember, this is new, you’ve never been here before, at this point in your life. We’re all trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got. You included.

Check out part 2 of this post here.

So You’ve Had An Existential Crisis…Now What?

by Abby Lombardo, LMFT

I’ve heard it jokingly (and sincerely) said…if you haven’t had an existential breakdown during this pandemic…are you even doing it right?

Existential crises usually involve life’s big questions: Who am I? What matters in life? What is a good life? What is worth living for? What is happiness? What makes me happy? What can I do to live a life well-lived? What do I believe in? What do I do with my time? Etc. Etc.

Basically, what I mean to convey is… if thoughts of your own mortality, the mortality of those you love, what in your life has purpose or meaning, what matters, or what to do with your life have crossed your mind in the last year – you’re in good company. It’s important to normalize a good existential crisis. They’re actually deeply important for what it means to be human and to find out how to live our best lives.

It was just this past weekend, I was feeling this ugly, unsettled feeling. Kept me restless during the day, feeling over- and under-stimulated at the same time. Bored, but not really… I was definitely uneasy. I couldn’t quite name how I was feeling. Everything in my life seemed great…nothing stood out as a “cause” for this niggling feeling. I wanted to cry and curl up in a ball for the rest of the evening. I didn’t know what to do about it or what would make it go away.

This is just one experience of an existential crisis. Yours might look completely different from this or you might resonate with this description. The point is, most of us (if not all) have ‘em. It’s a part of being human… of existing. In this post, I seek to normalize and utilize our existential crises to bring about more wellbeing and flourishing in our lives.

There’s power in naming an experience.

Once I named this experience, categorized it, gave it meaning, I was able to make a bit more sense of it. It takes awareness to name something: you first have to acknowledge it. This can be difficult when our instinct is to push away, avoid, deny, or drown these feelings. Familiarize yourself with what your own experience of existential unease looks like. It could be obvious, or not at all. Pay attention. Look for patterns. Listen to your body’s sensations. In reality, this can be a lot harder than it sounds. While this is the first step, it isn’t always so easy or simple. Really spend time with yourself and your body to familiarize yourself with how you experience existential issues popping up in your life.

Why it’s important…

Existential crises are our psyche and body’s way to tell us to pay attention! Often times, there’s an unmet need, a neglected part of ourselves that is screaming for attention. A lot of crises happen during points of transition, change, loss, or upon entering a new life stage. There’s a reason for this. As you go through life, you change. Your needs, wants, goals, dreams, abilities…etc. In order to adapt well through life’s sometimes predictable (sometimes not) changes, you need to be able to flex and grow. Having checkpoints where we engage with these bigger questions and answer them anew for ourselves (even if our answers don’t change) is a powerful way to approach the inevitable change that life demands of us. There’s a reason “midlife crisis” has become so ubiquitous in America… middle life is a time of reckoning with what life is left before you. It can be a time of drastic change, from family life (empty nesters, divorce, caretaking or death/loss of parents, etc.) to personal life (questions of retirement, reckoning with physical health, abilities, ailments, etc., questions of did I spend my time well…). The list goes on. Our ability to face ourselves and take the time to ask and answer life’s big questions can be the difference of aging well with grace or living in denial or despair. (A note here that existential crises can happen at any age, not just during mid-life.)

What you can do…

So let’s say you’ve spent some time with yourself, you’ve noticed the unique constellation of sensations, symptoms, and feelings that mean you, too, are experiencing some existential anxiety. What now?

The next step is to lean in.

Lean into the discomfort.

Be curious about it.

When do you feel it most? Is it before work? After work? When you’re all alone? When you aren’t being entertained by TV, social media, or others?

In the discomfort, lies the key to further understanding.

To lean in requires us to be brutally honest with ourselves and our own penchants to avoid, distract, numb, or deny. We need to call ourselves out and our many ways of coping. As a species, human beings generally avoid discomfort and seek comfort. We must go opposite this innate tendency to find any type of answer.

Once you lean in, be curious, and be honest you can finally start to listen and interpret what you’re hearing.

How to listen:

Well, so far you’ve been doing a great job increasing awareness, acknowledging feelings as they come, identifying/naming the pattern of sensation and emotion. You’ve been leaning in with curiosity and honesty, challenging your innate and learned response patterns to discomfort.

Now what?

This is the time to ask yourself: What is my psyche/body trying to tell me? What is it trying to communicate? What do I need or want? Is there something I’m neglecting (a need/ a part of myself)? Am I unhappy with some aspect of my life that I’m not addressing? Am I internalizing something I need to externalize (anger, pain, grief, shame, guilt “negative” feelings)? What could I do to address this need/want? What can I learn about myself from this experience?

These can be powerful questions to unlocking the answers you need to move forward and through your existential crises. While this list is helpful, it is far from exhaustive. You will need to reckon with questions of your own that aren’t included in this compilation, but this can be a good start.

Now that you’re asking, you can use what you’ve learned from the past steps of identifying, leaning in, being curious and honest to listen to your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual responses to these questions. Our bodies don’t often respond to us with words. Our bodies talk with sensations, emotions, pain, ailments, tension, energy, color, memories, images, temperature, vibration, movement, etc. Try to listen from these different modalities. And if this is something that does not feel accessible to your or feels like a foreign language – that’s okay! Just like any other language, the language of our bodies is something we learn and practice. It is never perfectly understood, we just get a bit better at it. A therapist can help you learn your body’s language and connect you deeper with yourself by learning how to listen and respond to what your body is telling you.

Great! You’ve come so far already! Next are the last steps of interpreting and responding!

Let’s say you’ve realized that you feel tension in your shoulders every time you get off work. Your energy level sinks once you transition from work-time to non-work time. You feel rushed and like no amount of time is enough time to relax and attend to all the other things (or people) that need your attention. You’re spent. You get sick often. Your body doesn’t know how to relax. You get headaches or stomachaches, too. You feel irritable all of the time. Your sleep quality is miserable and not satisfying. You feel exhausted, depressed, and anxious most of the time.

This vignette presents the myriad ways your body tries to let you know something needs attending to. Now, there’s no one right way to attend to these sensations/feelings/signs. This same person can try getting massages 1x/month, going to therapy, quitting their job, balancing work and life with improved boundaries, learning how to care for their needs outside of work, learning relaxation and stress management skills, finding a better support system, etc. For every one need, there’s many, many ways to try and respond to trying to meet that need. Interpreting what the need is and what response fits the best can be tricky. It is often a case of trial and error. Remember, the language of our bodies is more of an art than a science. It will never be perfectly clear all of the time. We must guess. We must experiment. Try and try again. The great part is our bodies often respond well simply to us just responding at all! Even if we get it wrong. You acknowledging, naming, leaning in, asking, listening, interpreting, and trying to respond builds trust with yourself – which communicates: When something needs attention – you will attend to it. You will not be neglected or abandoned in your need.

It is this self-trust that we build out of this process that gives us the confidence and resilience to flexibly navigate life’s curve balls, it’s sufferings and joys. When we learn the language of our own psyche and body (yes, existential crises is our psyche and body speaking to us), we learn everything we need to make it through. You have a navigational system already internally-wired. Consider this a truncated, generic version of an owner’s manual.

When talking about existential questions, I must reserve some space for leaving room for the Unknown. The Unknown represents the things we cannot answer, the things we cannot control, the change that inevitably awaits us. Sometimes, you won’t have an answer to how you’re feeling, you won’t know what to call it, it won’t have a name or a sensation that makes sense, you won’t know what you need, you won’t know how to meet that need that you don’t know about, you won’t know the best way through this…that is utterly and deeply normal and okay! Part of the process is trusting the process and interfacing with discomfort--and for a large majority of humans, not knowing makes us wildly uncomfortable.

And so, the next time you have an existential crisis (‘cause there is most likely going to be another one)…I hope these words can be a guide for you to start learning the language of your own psyche and body, so that you can grow and find the flourishing and wellbeing that comes from attending to all parts of what it means to be human.

How Therapy and Politics Are Related

(by Toni Aswegan, LMHC)

THERAPY IS POLITICAL.

We can and should and must talk about politics, as therapists. Not in every single individual therapy session, but as therapists we have an ethical duty to be engaged politically, and address barriers that impact our clients’ well-being. Its part of our ethics code (ACA code section A.7.a).

One of many reasons I say therapy is political is that there are 3 different realms where trauma healing happens:

1) Auto-regulation, or self-regulation. This is stuff you do on your own to care for yourself. This is deep breathing, going on a run, listening to music, eating a snack, laying on the ground, practicing self-compassion, meditation, journaling, dancing. Really anything you do on your own that helps soothe your stress response is considered “self-regulation”.

2) Co-regulation. This is stuff you do with other people to care for and with each other. Getting a hug, having a good conversation, laughing, playing with your dog, looking at someone else’s eyes, being told you are loved. These moments of connection in safe relationships regulates your nervous system differently than when you are on your own.

3) JUSTICE. Some call it social justice, but Rev angel kyodo williams has said that all justice is social, so let's just call it justice. We can build safety through self- and co-regulation, BUT IF OUR BODIES ARE NOT OBJECTIVELY SAFE IN THE WORLD, healing is so much more difficult. I don't want you to regulate your nervous system to adapt to oppressive systems and circumstances. Those circumstances need to change. Until black and brown bodies, womxn bodies, trans bodies, queer bodies, Jewish bodies, larger bodies and disabled bodies are safe in the world, we cannot focus only on self and co-regulation as a path to healing. We have to actively work to make the world 1) a place where less injury and trauma happen in the first place, and 2) a place where people can heal and feel safe.

This is not the job of those who experience a lack of safety through oppression and discrimination. This is on those of us with privilege and power.

Healing work is justice work. Therapy is political.

When I say "therapy is political", I do NOT mean:

-we talk about politics all the time in therapy (unless it's a goal of yours);

-we talk about politics if my clients don't want to;

-we try to convince clients to vote in a particular way.

When I say "therapy is political", I mean:

-your mental health is impacted by the systems you live within, and healing is not an entirely individual process;

-we will acknowledge the impact of those oppressive systems in your therapy process;

-if appropriate and agreed upon between therapist and client, we will discuss ways to challenge those systems and ways to continue to live as safely as possible within them;

-as a therapist, we fight, outside the therapy room, to create social change and justice (because it is the right thing to do, and also because that supports change inside the therapy room).

This shows up differently in every therapy session, for every therapist and every client. It shows up differently for every therapist even outside of the therapy room. But, therapy and politics are certainly intertwined.

10 Tips for Soothing Anxiety With a Mask On

Wearing a mask is mandatory in Washington state as of last Friday. Most of us have been wearing them before this anyway, and if you haven't, get on that now. While you're at it, make a few calls to demand the arrest of the officers that killed Breonna Taylor.

Masks reduce the possibility of the spread of COVID massively. They are also hard to breathe in.

I often use my breath as a primary tool to soothe myself when I get anxious. And anxiety abounds these days. You know, anxiety, like...when you walk into a grocery store trying to get through it as fast as you can and a bunch of other people with masks reminding you that you live in 2020 and you're trying not to touch anything or touch your face or get too close or wonder is that box going to give me the virus and also systemic oppression and murder of Black people by police and am I doing enough and my personal mental health concerns and...you know. There's ANXIETY.

Anyway. What I'm trying to say is that a deep breath would usually help, but not right now. (Taking action about the things we care about helps) and also you may need to use other skills to soothe the anxiety that you're holding in your body.

Other skills that might help soothe anxiety with a mask on:

• Feel the movement of your legs

• Notice the crinkles of a smile at the edges of people's eyes

• Hug yourself

• Tap your fingers in a rhythm

• Squeeze and release your hands

• Press your feet into the ground

• Roll your neck and/or shoulders

• Place your hand on your chest and feel your heartbeat

• Hold something cold in your hands

• Alternate tapping your feet

What helps you soothe when the breath doesn't?

Protecting Your Mental Health During Trauma

We are in the middle of a worldwide trauma.

COVID-19 is scary. It's a trauma we're all going through. (Not to mention all the other global traumas that are happening right now…)

I certainly don't want to amplify this fear...but I do want to acknowledge that reality is scary right now. It is downright traumatizing. Whether you name it as trauma for yourself or not. We are all impacted.

I see more "existential anxiety" showing up in my office. I'm spending more sessions talking about politics, climate change, & generalized FEAR. More of us are feeling unsafe & afraid.*

[*Much of this is not new to BIPOC, LGBTQ+ folx, & those in marginalized communities. That fear has been present for a long time, & it should have been named & changed a long-ass time ago. What I'm noticing, I think, is that those with privilege, myself included, are finally waking up to fear as well.]

Effects you may notice:
-overconsumption or avoidance of the news
-feeling unsafe in public
-trouble sleeping
-fear/dread about the future
-hopelessness
-suicidal thoughts
-rage
-distrust of other people
-helplessness

You are not alone.

Trauma leaves us feeling hopeless, powerless & overwhelmed.

Actions that might help:
-seeking safety & connection with those you love
-move your body, drink water, & try to get good sleep
-setting boundaries with the news
-having important conversations about the issues we're facing as a species
-BUILD COMMUNITY AND CONNECTION
-voting, donating, protesting, advocating, using your voice--whatever you can to do ACT about the issues you care about.

These actions help build hope and help you feel that you have some power (by focusing on what you can do to impact the future), as well as help regulate your nervous system. Not only are these ways that we can keep trauma from having massive lasting effects, they are also ways we can make the world a better, less scary place.

I don't have all (or really any) answers. I'm afraid, too, and trying to figure out how to navigate this. What I'm focusing on is staying connected to other people however I can; listening to fear &regulating my nervous system.

I am here with you. I don't know. How are you dealing with things?